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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16553-8.txt b/16553-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e6969b --- /dev/null +++ b/16553-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9094 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Burned Bridges, by Bertrand W. Sinclair, +Illustrated by Ralph P. Coleman + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Burned Bridges + + +Author: Bertrand W. Sinclair + + + +Release Date: August 19, 2005 [eBook #16553] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURNED BRIDGES*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Graeme Mackreth, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +BURNED BRIDGES + +by + +BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR + +Author of North of Fifty-Three, etc. + +Frontispiece by Ralph P. Coleman + +Grosset & Dunlap +Publishers New York +Published, August, 1919 +Reprinted, September, 1919 +Reprinted, October, 1919 +Reprinted, November, 1919 +Reprinted, February, 1920 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: He felt with an odd exaltation the quick hammer of her +heart against his breast. Frontispiece. _See page 95._] + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I The First Problem 1 + + II The Man and His Mission 14 + + III The Deserted Cabin 24 + + IV In Which Mr. Thompson Begins to Wonder Painfully 37 + + V Further Acquaintance 46 + + VI Certain Perplexities 60 + + VII A Slip of the Axe 80 + + VIII --And the Fruits Thereof 86 + + IX Universal Attributes 93 + + X The Way of a Maid with a Man 102 + + XI A Man's Job for a Minister 111 + + XII A Fortune and a Flitting 123 + + XIII Partners 139 + + XIV The Restless Foot 150 + + XV The World Is Small 158 + + XVI A Meeting by the Way 168 + + XVII The Reproof Courteous (?) 183 + +XVIII Mr. Henderson's Proposition 191 + + XIX A Widening Horizon 203 + + XX The Shadow 210 + + XXI The Renewed Triangle 218 + + XXII Sundry Reflections 227 + +XXIII The Fuse-- 235 + + XXIV --And the Match That Lit the Fuse-- 244 + + XXV --And the Bomb the Fuse Fired 252 + + XXVI The Last Bridge 267 + +XXVII Thompson's Return 273 + +XXVIII Fair Winds 282 + + XXIX Two Men and a Woman 291 + + XXX A Mark to Shoot at 298 + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE FIRST PROBLEM + + +Lone Moose snaked its way through levels of woodland and open stretches +of meadow, looping sinuously as a sluggish python--a python that rested +its mouth upon the shore of Lake Athabasca while its tail was lost in a +great area of spruce forest and poplar groves, of reedy sloughs and +hushed lakes far northward. + +The waterways of the North are its highways. There are no others. No +wheeled vehicles traverse that silent region which lies just over the +fringe of the prairies and the great Canadian wheat belt. The canoe is +lord of those watery roads; when a man would diverge therefrom he must +carry his goods upon his back. There are paths, to be sure, very faint +in places, padded down by the feet of generations of Athabascan +tribesmen long before the Ancient and Honorable Company of Adventurers +laid the foundation of the first post at Hudson's Bay, long before the +_Half Moon's_ prow first cleft those desolate waters. They have been +trodden, these dim trails, by Scotch and French and English since that +historic event, and by a numerous progeny in whose veins the blood of +all three races mingles with that of the native tribes. But these paths +lead only from stream to stream and from lake to lake. No man familiar +with the North seeks along those faint trails for camp or fur posts or +villages. Wherever in that region red men or white set up a permanent +abode it must of necessity be on the bank of a stream or the shore of a +lake, from whence by canoe and paddle access is gained to the network of +water routes that radiate over the fur country. + +Lone Moose Creek was, so to speak, a trunk line. The ninety miles of its +main channel, its many diverging branches, tapped a region where mink +and marten and beaver, fox and wolf and lesser furs were still fairly +plentiful. Along Lone Moose a dozen Cree and half-breed families +disappeared into the back country during the hazy softness of Indian +summer and came gliding down in the spring with their winter's catch, a +birch-bark flotilla laden indiscriminately with mongrel dogs and +chattering women and children and baled furs and impassive-faced men, +bound for Port Pachugan to the annual barter. + +Up Lone Moose some twenty-odd miles from the lake the social instinct +had drawn a few families, pure-blooded Cree, and Scotch and French +half-breeds, to settle in a permanent location. There was a +crescent-shaped area of grassy turf fronting upon the eastern bank of +Lone Moose, totaling perhaps twenty acres. Its outer edge was ringed +with a dense growth of spruce timber. In the fringe of these dusky +woods, at various intervals of distance, could be seen the outline of +each cabin. They were much of a sort--two or three rooms, log-walled, +brush laid upon poles, and sod on top of that for a roof, with +fireplaces built partly of mud, partly of rough stones. Folk in such +circumstances waste no labor in ornamentation. Each family's abiding +place was purely utilitarian. They cultivated no land, and the meadow +during the brief season supplied them with a profusion of delicate +flowers a southern garden could scarcely excel. Aside from a few trees +felled about each home site, their common effort had cleared away the +willows and birch which bordered the creek bank, so that an open landing +was afforded the canoes. + +There was but one exception to the monotonous similitude of these +several habitations. A few paces back from the stream and standing +boldly in the open rose a log house double the size of any other there. +It contained at least four rooms. Its windows were of ample size, the +doors neatly carpentered. A wide porch ran on three sides. It bore about +itself an air of homely comfort, heightened by muslin at the windows, a +fringe of poppies and forget-me-nots blooming in an orderly row before +it, and a sturdy vine laden with morning-glories twining up each +supporting column of the porch roof. + +Between the house and the woods an acre square was enclosed by a tall +picket fence. Within the fence, which was designed as a barricade +against foraging deer, there grew a variety of vegetables. The produce +of that garden had grown famous far beyond Lone Moose village. But the +spirit and customs and traditions of the gardener's neighbors were all +against any attempt to duplicate it. They were hunters and trappers and +fishermen. The woods and waters supplied their every need. + +Upon a blistering day in July, a little past noon, a man stepped out on +the porch, and drawing into the shadiest part a great, rude homemade +chair upholstered with moosehide, sat down. He had a green-bound book in +his hand. While he stuffed a clay pipe full of tobacco he laid the +volume across his knees. Every movement was as deliberate as the flow of +the deep stream near by. When he had stoked up his pipe he leaned back +and opened the book. The smoke from his pipe kept off what few +mosquitoes were abroad in the scorching heat of midday. + +A casual glance would at once have differentiated him from a native, +held him guiltless of any trace of native blood. His age might have been +anywhere between forty and fifty. His hair, now plentifully shot with +gray, had been a light, wavy brown. His eyes were a clear gray, and his +features were the antithesis of his high-cheekboned neighbors. Only the +weather-beaten hue of his skin, and the scores of fine seams radiating +from his eyes told of many seasons squinting against hot sunlight and +harsh winds. + +Whatever his vocation and manner of living may have been he was now +deeply absorbed in the volume he held. A small child appeared on the +porch, a youngster of three or thereabouts, with swarthy skin, very dark +eyes, and inky-black hair. He went on all fours across Sam Carr's +extended feet several times. Carr remained oblivious, or at least +undisturbed, until the child stood up, laid hold of his knee and shook +it with playful persistence. Then Carr looked over his book, spoke to +the boy casually, shaking his head as he did so. The boy persisted after +the juvenile habit. Carr raised his voice. An Indian woman, not yet of +middle age but already inclining to the stoutness which overtakes women +of her race early in life, appeared in the doorway. She spoke sharply to +the boy in the deep, throaty language of her people. The boy, with a +last impish grin, gave the man's leg a final shake and scuttled indoors. +Carr impassively resumed his reading. + +An hour or so later he lifted his eyes from the printed page at a +distant boom of thunder. The advanced edge of a black cloudbank rolling +swiftly up from the east was already dimming the brassy glare of the +sun. He watched the swift oncoming of the storm. With astonishing +rapidity the dark mass resolved itself into a gray, obscuring streak of +rain riven by vivid flashes of lightning. Carr laid down his book and +refilled his pipe while he gazed on this common phenomenon of the +dog-days. It swept up and passed over the village of Lone Moose as a +sprinkling wagon passes over a city street. The downpour was accompanied +by crashing detonations that sent the village dogs howling to cover. +With the same uncanny swiftness of gathering so it passed, leaving +behind a pleasant coolness in the air, clean smells of the washed earth +arising. The sun blazed out again. A million rain-pearls hung glistening +on the blades of grass in the meadow before Sam Carr's house. + +With the passing of the thunder shower, before Carr left off his +contemplation of the freshened beauty of meadow and woods, a man and a +woman emerged from the spruce forest on the farther side of the meadow. + +They walked a little way in the open, stopped for a minute, facing each +other. Their conversation ended with a sudden quick gesture by the man. +Turning, they came on again toward Carr's house. Sam Carr's clear gray +eyes lit up. The ghost of a smile hovered about his bearded lips. He +watched them approach with that same quizzical expression, a mixture, if +one gauged his look aright, of pleasure and pride and expectation. + +They were young as years go, the pair that walked slowly up to the +cabin. The man was certainly still in his twenties, of medium height, +compactly muscular, a good-looking specimen of pure Anglo-Saxon manhood. +The girl was a flower in perfect bloom, fresh-colored, slender and +pliant as a willow, with all of the willow's grace in every movement. +For all the twenty-odd years between them, and the gulf of sex +differentiation, there was in her glance and bearing much of the +middle-aged man who sat on the porch with a book across his knees and a +clay pipe in his mouth. It did not lie in facial resemblance. It was +more subtle than likeness of feature. Perhaps it was because of their +eyes, alike deep gray, wide and expressive, lifted always to meet +another's in level unembarrassed frankness. + +They halted at the edge of the porch. The girl sat down. The young man +nodded to Carr. Though they had but lately been fair in the path of the +thunderstorm they had escaped a wetting. The girl's eyes followed her +father's glance, seemed to read his thought. + +"We happened to find a spruce thick enough to shed the rain," she +smiled. "Or I suppose we'd have been soaked properly." + +The young fellow tarried only till she was seated. He had no more than +greeted Carr before he lifted his old felt hat to her. + +"I'll be paddling back while the coolness lasts," said he. "Good-by." + +"Good-by, Tommy," the girl answered. + +"So long," Carr followed suit. "Don't give us the go-by too long." + +"Oh, no danger." + +He walked to the creek bank, stepped into a red canoe that lay nose on +to the landing, and backed it free with his paddle. Ten strokes of the +blade drove him out of sight around the first brushy bend upstream. + +The girl looked thoughtfully after him. Her face was flushed, and her +eyes glowed with some queer repressed feeling. Carr sat gazing silently +at her while she continued to look after the vanished canoe whose +passing left tiny swirls on the dark, sluggish current of Lone Moose. +Presently Carr gave the faintest shrug of his lean shoulders and resumed +the reading of his book. + +When he looked up from the page again after a considerable interval the +girl's eyes were fixed intently upon his face, with a queer questioning +expression in them, a mute appeal. He closed his book with a forefinger +inserted to mark the place, and leaned forward a trifle. + +"What is it, Sophie?" he asked gently. "Eh?" + +The girl, like her father, and for that matter the majority of those +who dwelt in that region, wore moccasins. She sat now, rubbing the damp, +bead-decorated toe of one on top of the other, her hands resting idle in +the lap of her cotton dress. She seemed scarcely to hear, but Carr +waited patiently. She continued to look at him with that peculiar, +puzzled quality in her eyes. + +"Tommy Ashe wants me to marry him," she said at last. + +The faint flush on her smooth cheeks deepened. The glow in her eyes gave +way altogether to that vaguely troubled expression. + +Carr stroked his short beard reflectively. + +"Well," he said at length, "seeing that human nature's what it is, I +can't say I'm surprised any more than I would be surprised at the trees +leafing out in spring. And, as it happens, Tommy observed the +conventions of his class in this matter. He asked me about it a few days +ago. I referred him to you. Are you going to?" + +"I don't know, Dad," she murmured. + +"Do you want to?" he pursued the inquiry in a detached, impersonal tone. + +"I don't know," she repeated soberly. "I like Tommy a lot. When I'm with +him I feel sure I'd be perfectly happy to be always with him. When I'm +away from him, I'm not so sure." + +"In other words," Carr observed slowly, "your reason and your emotions +are not in harmony on that subject. Eh? So far as Tommy Ashe goes, your +mind and your body pull you two different ways." + +She looked at him a little more keenly. + +"Perhaps," she said. "I know what you mean. But I don't clearly see why +it should be so. Either I love Tommy Ashe, or I don't, and I should know +which, shouldn't I? The first and most violent manifestation of love is +mostly physical, isn't it? I've always understood that. You've pointed +it out. I do like Tommy. Why should my mind act as a brake on my +feelings?" + +"Because you happen to be made the way you are," Carr returned +thoughtfully. "As I've told you a good many times, you've grown up a +good deal different from the common run of girls. We've been isolated. +Lacking the time-occupying distractions and pleasures of youth in a more +liberal environment, Sophie, you've been thrown back on yourself and me +and books, and as a result you've cultivated a natural tendency to +_think_. Most young women don't. They're seldom taught any rational +process of arriving at conclusions. You have developed that faculty. It +has been my pride and pleasure to cultivate in you what I believed to be +a decided mentality. I've tried to show you how to get down to +fundamentals, to work out a philosophy of life that's really workable. +Knowledge is worth having for its own sake. Once you find yourself in +contact with the world--and for you that time is bound to come--you'll +apply all the knowledge you've absorbed to problems as they arise. If +there's a rational solution to any situation that faces you, you'll make +an effort to find that solution. You'll do it almost instinctively. You +can't help it. Your brain is too alert ever to let you act blindly. At +the present your lack of experience probably handicaps you a little. In +human relations you have nothing much but theory, got from the books +you've digested and the way we've always discussed every possible angle +of life. Take Tommy Ashe. He's practically the first young, attractive +white man you've ever met, the very first possibility as a lover. +Tommy's a nice boy, a pleasant, sunny-natured young fellow. Personally +he's just the sort of fellow that would sweep a simple country girl +clean off her feet. With you, your mind, as you just put it, acts as a +brake on your feelings. Can't you guess why?" + +"No," she said quietly. "I can't. I don't understand myself and my +shifts of feeling. It makes me miserable." + +"Look here, Sophie girl," Carr reached over and taking her by the hand +drew her up on the low arm of his chair, "you're asking yourself a more +or less important question directly, and you're asking it of me +indirectly. Maybe I can help you. At least I can tell how I see it. You +have all your life before you. You want to be happy. That's a universal +human attribute. Sometime or other you're going to mate with a man. That +too is a universal experience. Ordinary mating is based on sex instinct. +Love is mostly an emotional disturbance generated by natural causes for +profoundly natural and important ends. But marriage and the intimate +associations of married life require something more substantial than a +mere flare-up of animal instinct. Lots of men and women aren't capable +of anything else, and consequently they make the best of what's in +them. But there are natures far more complex. You, Sophie, are one of +those complex natures. With you, a union based on sex alone wouldn't +survive six months. Now, in this particular case, leaving out the fact +that you can't compare Tommy Ashe with any other man, because you don't +know any other man, can you conceive yourself living in a tolerable +state of contentment with Tommy if, say, you didn't feel any more +passion for him than you feel for, say, old Standing Wolf over there?" + +"But that's absurd," the girl declared. "Because I have got that feeling +for Tommy Ashe, and therefore I can't imagine myself in any other state. +I can't look at it the cold-blooded way you do, Daddy dear." + +"I'm stating a hypothetical case," Carr went on patiently. "You do now. +We'll take that for granted. Would you still have anything fundamental +in common with Tommy with that part left out? Suppose you got so you +didn't care whether he kissed you or not? Suppose it were no longer a +physical pleasure just to be near him. Would you enjoy his daily and +hourly presence then, in the most intimate relation a man and a woman +can hold to each other?" + +"Why, I wouldn't live with him at all," the girl said positively. "I +simply couldn't. I know." + +"You might have to," Carr answered gently. "You have never yet run foul +of circumstances over which you have no more power than man has over the +run of the tides. But we'll let that pass. I'm trying to help you, +Sophie, not to discourage you. There are some situations in which, and +some natures to whom, half a loaf is worse than no bread. Do you feel, +have you ever for an hour felt that you simply couldn't face an +existence in which Tommy Ashe had no part?" + +Sophie put her arm around his neck, and her fingers played a tattoo on +his shoulder. + +"No," she said at last. "I can't honestly say that I've ever been +overwhelmed with a feeling like that." + +"Well, there you are," Carr observed dryly. "Between the propositions I +think you've answered your own question." + +The girl's breast heaved a little and her breath went out in a +fluttering sigh. + +"Yes," she said gravely. "I suppose that is so." + +They sat silent for an interval. Then something wet and warm dropped on +Carr's hand. He looked up quickly. + +"Does it hurt?" he said softly. "I'm sorry." + +"So am I," she whispered. "But chiefly, I think, I am sorry for Tommy. +_He'd_ be perfectly happy with me." + +"Yes, I suppose so," Carr replied. "But you wouldn't be happy with him, +only for a brief time, Sophie. Tommy's a good boy, but it will take a +good deal of a man to fill your life. You'd outgrow Tommy. And you'd +hurt him worse in the end." + +She ran her soft hand over Carr's grizzled hair with a caressing touch. +Then she got up and walked away into the house. Carr turned his gaze +again to the meadow and the green woods beyond. For ten minutes he sat, +his posture one of peculiar tensity, his eyes on the distance +unseeingly--or as if he saw something vague and far-off that troubled +him. Then he gave his shoulders a quick impatient twitch, and taking up +his book began once more to read. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MAN AND HIS MISSION + + +At almost the same hour in which Sam Carr and his daughter held that +intimate conversation on the porch of their home a twenty-foot +Peterborough freight canoe was sliding down the left-hand bank of the +Athabasca like some gray river-beast seeking the shade of the birch and +willow growth that overhung the shore. The current beneath and the +thrust of the blades sent it swiftly along the last mile of the river +and shot the gray canoe suddenly beyond the sharp nose of a jutting +point fairly into the bosom of a great, still body of water that spread +away northeastward in a widening stretch, its farthest boundary a watery +junction with the horizon. + +There were three men in the canoe. One squatted forward, another rested +his body on his heels in the after end. These two were swarthy, stockily +built men, scantily clad, moccasins on their feet, and worn felt hats +crowning lank, black hair long innocent of a barber's touch. + +The third man sat amidships in a little space left among goods that were +piled to the top of the deep-sided craft. He was no more like his +companions than the North that surrounded them with its silent waterways +and hushed forests is like the tropical jungle. He was a fairly big +man, taller, wider-bodied than the other two. His hair was a +reddish-brown, his eyes as blue as the arched dome from which the hot +sun shed its glare. + +He had on a straight-brimmed straw hat which in the various shifts of +the long water route and many camps had suffered disaster, so that a +part of the brim drooped forlornly over his left ear. This headgear had +preserved upon his brow the pallid fairness of his skin. From the +eyebrows down his face was in the last stages of sunburn, reddened, +minute shreds of skin flaking away much as a snake's skin sheds in +August. Otherwise he was dressed, like a countless multitude of other +men who walk the streets of every city in North America, in a +conventional sack suit, and shoes that still bore traces of blacking. +The paddlers were stripped to thin cotton shirts and worn overalls. The +only concession their passenger had made to the heat was the removal of +his laundered collar. Apparently his dignity did not permit him to lay +aside his coat and vest. As they cleared the point a faint breeze +wavered off the open water. He lifted his hat and let it play about his +moist hair. + +"This is Lake Athabasca?" he asked. + +"Oui, M'sieu Thompson," Mike Breyette answered from the bow, without +turning his head. "Dees de lak." + +"How much longer will it take us to reach Port Pachugan?" Thompson made +further inquiry. + +"Bout two-three hour, maybeso," Breyette responded. + +He said something further, a few quick sentences in the French patois +of the northern half-breeds, at which both he and his fellow-voyageur in +the stern laughed. Their gayety stirred no response from the midship +passenger. If anything, he frowned. He was a serious-minded young man, +and he did not understand French. He had a faint suspicion that his +convoy did not take him as seriously as he wished. Whether their talk +was badinage or profanity or purely casual, he could not say. In the +first stages of their journey together, on the upper reaches of the +river, Mike Breyette and Donald MacDonald had, after the normal habit of +their kind, greeted the several contingencies and minor mishaps such a +journey involved with plaintive oaths in broken English. Mr. Wesley +Thompson, projected into an unfamiliar environment and among a--to +him--strange manner of men, took up his evangelistic cudgel and +administered shocked reproof. It was, in a way, practice for the tasks +the Methodist Board of Home Missions had appointed him to perform. But +if he failed to convict these two of sin, he convinced them of +discourtesy. Even a rude voyageur has his code of manners. Thereafter +they invariably swore in French. + +They bore on in a northerly direction, keeping not too far from the lake +shore, lest the combination of a sudden squall and a heavy-loaded canoe +should bring disaster. When Mike Breyette's "two-tree" hour was run Mr. +Thompson stepped from the canoe to the sloping, sun-blistered beach +before Fort Pachugan, and if he did not openly offer thanks to his Maker +that he stood once more upon solid ground he at least experienced +profound relief. + +For many days he had occupied that midship position with ill-concealed +misgivings. The largest bodies of water he had been on intimate terms +with heretofore had been contained within the dimensions of a bathtub. +He could not swim. No matter that his faith in an all-wise Providence +was strong he could not forbear inward tremors at the certain knowledge +that only a scant quarter-inch of frail wood and canvas stood between +him and a watery grave. He regarded a canoe with distrust. Nor could he +understand the careless confidence with which his guides embarked in so +captious a craft upon the swirling bosom of that wide, swift stream they +had followed from Athabasca Landing down to the lake of the same name. +To Thompson--if he had been capable of analyzing his sensations and +transmuting them into words--the river seemed inexplicably sinister, a +turbid monster writhing over polished boulders, fuming here and there +over rapids, snarling a constant menace under the canoe's prow. + +It did not comfort him to know that he was in the hands of two capable +rivermen, tried and proven in bad water, proud of their skill with the +paddle. Could he have done so the reverend young man would gladly have +walked after the first day in their company. But since that was out of +the question, he took his seat in the canoe each morning and faced each +stretch of troubled water with an inward prayer. + +The last stretch and this last day had tried his soul to its utmost. +Pachugan lay near the end of the water route. What few miles he had to +travel beyond the post would lie along the lake shore, and the lake +reassured him with its smiling calm. Having never seen it harried by +fierce winds, pounding the beaches with curling waves, he could not +visualize it as other than it was now, glassy smooth, languid, inviting. +Over the last twenty miles of the river his guides had strained a point +now and then, just to see their passenger gasp. They would never have +another chance and it was rare sport, just as it is rare sport for +spirited youths to snowball a passer-by who does not take kindly to +their pastime. + +In addition to these nerve-disturbing factors Thompson suffered from the +heat. A perverted dignity, nurtured in a hard-shell, middle-class +environment, prevented him from stripping to his undershirt. The sun's +rays, diffusing abnormal heat through the atmosphere, reflected +piercingly upward from the water, had played havoc with him. His first +act upon landing was to seat himself upon a flat-topped boulder and dab +tenderly at his smarting face while his men hauled up the canoe. That in +itself was a measure of his inefficiency, as inefficiency is measured in +the North. The Chief Factor of a district large enough to embrace a +European kingdom, traveling in state from post to post, would not have +been above lending a hand to haul the canoe clear. Thompson had come to +this _terra incognita_ to preach and pray, to save men's souls. So far +it had not occurred to him that aught else might be required of a man +before he could command a respectful hearing. + +Back from the beach, in a clearing hacked out of the woods, stood a +score or more of low cabins flanking a building more ambitious in scope +and structure. More than a century had passed since the first foundation +logs were laid in the name of the Hudson's Bay Company, to the Company's +glory and profit. It had been a fort then, in all that the name implies +throughout the fur country. It had boasted a stockade, a brass cannon +which commanded the great gates that swung open to friendly strangers +and were closed sharply to potential foes. But the last remnant of +Pachugan's glory had gone glimmering down the corridors of time. The +Company was still as strong, stronger even in power more sure and subtle +than ever lay in armed retainers and absolute monopoly. But Fort +Pachugan had become a mere collecting station for the lesser furs, a +distributing center for trade goods to native trappers. There were no +more hostile tribes. The Company no longer dealt out the high justice, +the middle, and the low. The stockade and the brass cannon were +traditions. Pachugan sprawled on the bank of the lake, open to all +comers, a dimming landmark of the old days. + +What folk were out of doors bent their eyes upon the canoe. The factor +himself rose from his seat on the porch and came down to have speech +with them. Thompson, recognizing authority, made known his name and his +mission. The burly Scot shook hands with him. They walked away together, +up to the factor's house. On the threshold the Reverend Wesley paused +for a backward look, drew the crumpled linen of his handkerchief across +his moist brow, and then disappeared within. Mike Breyette and Donald +MacDonald looked at each other expressively. Their swarthy faces slowly +expanded in a broad grin. + +In the North, what with the crisp autumn, the long winter, and that +bleak, uncertain period which is neither winter nor spring, summer--as +we know it in softer lands--has but a brief span to endure. But Nature +there as elsewhere works out a balance, adheres to a certain law of +proportion. What Northern summers lack in length is compensated by +intensity. When the spring floods have passed and the warm rains follow +through lengthening days of sun, grass and flowers arise with magic +swiftness from a wonderfully fertile soil. Trees bud and leaf; berries +form hard on the blossoming. Overnight, as it were, the woods and +meadows, the river flats and the higher rolling country, become +transformed. And when August passes in a welter of flies and heat and +thunderstorms, the North is ready once more for the frosty segment of +its seasonal round. July and August are hot months in the high +latitudes. For six weeks or thereabouts the bottom-lands of the Peace +and the Athabasca can hold their own with the steaming tropics. After +that--well, this has to do in part with "after that." For it was in late +July when Wesley Thompson touched at Fort Pachugan, a Bible in his +pocket, a few hundred pounds of supplies in Mike Breyette's canoe, +certain aspirations of spiritual labor in his head, and little other +equipment to guide and succor him in that huge, scantily peopled +territory which his superiors had chosen as the field for his labors. + +When Breyette and MacDonald had so bestowed the canoe that the +diligently foraging dogs of the post could not take toll of their +supplies they also hied them up to the cluster of log cabins ranging +about the Company store and factor's quarters. They were on tolerably +familiar ground. First they made for the cabin of Dougal MacPhee, an +ancient servitor of the Company and a distant relative of Breyette's, +for whom they had a gift of tobacco. Old Dougal welcomed them +laconically, without stirring from his seat in the shade. He sucked at +an old clay pipe. His half-breed woman, as wrinkled and time worn as +himself, squatted on the earth sewing moccasins. Old Dougal turned his +thumb toward a bench and bade them be seated. + +"It's a bit war-rm," MacDonald opined, by way of opening the +conversation. + +"What else wad it be this time o' year?" Dougal rumbled. "Tell us +somethin' we dinna ken. Wha's yon cam' wi' ye?" + +"Man, but the heat makes ye crabbed," MacDonald returned with naïve +candor. "Yon's a meenister." + +"Bagosh, yes," Breyette chuckled. "Dat ees de man of God w'at you see. +He's com' for save soul hon' de Eenjun hon' Lone Moose. Bagosh, we're +have som' fon weet heem dees treep." + +"He's a loon," MacDonald paused with a forefinger in the bowl of his +pipe. "He doesna know a moccasin from a snowshoe, scarce. I'd like tae +be aboot when 'tis forty below--an' gettin' colder. I'm thinkin' he'd +relish a taste o' hell-fire then, for a change--eh, Mike?" + +The two of them went off into a fit of silent laughter, for the abysmal +ignorance of Wesley Thompson concerning practical things, his awkward +length of body, his student's pallor that the Athabasca sun had played +such havoc with, his blue eyes that looked so often with trepidation or +amazement on the commonplaces of their world, his general incapacity and +blind belief that an all-wise Providence would personally intervene to +make things go right when they went wrong, had not struck these two +hardy children of the solitudes as other than a side-splitting joke. + +"He rises i' the mornin'," MacDonald continued, "win' a word frae the +Book aboot the Lord providin', an' he'd starve if nabody was by t' cook +his meal. He canna build a fire wi'oot scorchin' his fingers. He lays +hold o' a paddle like a three months' babby. He bids ye pit yer trust i' +the Lord, an' himself rises up wi' a start every time a wolf raises the +long howl at nicht. I didna believe there was ever sae helpless a +creature. An' for a' that he's the laddie that's here tae show the +heathen--thae puir, sinfu' heathen, mind ye--how tae find grace. No that +he's any doot aboot bein' equal tae the job. For a' that he's nigh +helpless i' the woods he was forever ying-yangin' at me an' Mike for +what he ca's sinfu' pride in oor ain' persons. I've a notion that if yon +had a bit o' that same sinfu' pride he'd be the better able tae make his +way." + +Old MacPhee took the blackened clay pipe from his mouth and puffed a +blue spiral into the dead, sultry air. A sour expression gathered about +his withered lips. + +"Dinna gibe at yon puir mortal," he rebuked. "Ye canna keep fools frae +wanderin'. I've seen manny's the man like him. It's likely that once +he's had a fair taste o' the North he'll be less a saint an' more a +man." + +The afternoon was far spent when they landed. Breyette and MacDonald +made themselves comfortable with their backs against the wall. Supper +came and was eaten. Evening closed in. The bold, scorching stare of the +sun faded. Little cooling breezes fluttered along the lake shore, +banishing the last trace of that brassy heat. Men who had lounged +indoors, or against shaded walls roamed about, and half-breed women +chattered in voluble gutturals back and forth between the cabins. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE DESERTED CABIN + + +In the factor's comfortable quarters Mr. Thompson sat down to the first +meal he had thoroughly relished in two weeks. A corner of the verandah +was screened off with wire netting. Outside that barrier mosquitoes and +sandflies buzzed and swarmed in futile activity. Within stood an easy +chair or two and a small table which was presently spread with a linen +cloth, set with porcelain dishes, and garnished with silverware. All the +way down the Athabasca Thompson had found every meal beset with +exasperating difficulties, fruitful of things that offended both his +stomach and his sense of fitness. He had not been able to accommodate +himself to the necessity of juggling a tin plate beside a campfire, of +eating with one hand and fending off flies with the other. Also he +objected to grains of sand and particles of ash and charred wood being +incorporated with bread and meat. Neither Breyette nor MacDonald seemed +to mind. But Thompson had never learned to adapt himself to conditions +that were unavoidable. Pitchforked into a comparatively primitive mode +of existence and transportation his first reaction to it took the form +of offended resentment. There were times when he forgot why he was +there, enduring these things. After such a lapse he prayed for guidance +and a patient heart. + +These creature comforts now at hand were in a measure what he had been +accustomed to, what he had, with no thought on the matter, taken as the +accepted and usual order of things, save that his needs had been +administered by two prim and elderly spinster aunts instead of a +black-browed Scotchman and a half-breed servant girl. + +Thompson sat back after his supper, fanning himself with an ancient +newspaper, for the day's heat still lingered. Across the table on which +he rested an elbow MacLeod, bearded, aggressive, capable, regarded his +guest with half-contemptuous pity under cover of the gathering dusk. +MacLeod smoked a pipe. Thompson chewed the cud of reflection. + +"And so," the factor began suddenly, "ye are a missionary to the Lone +Moose Crees. It will be a thankless task; a tougher one nor I'd care to +tackle. I ha' seen the job undertaken before by folk who--beggin' your +pardon--ha' little conception of the country, the people in it, or the +needs of either. Ye'll find the Cree has more concern for meat an' +clothes, for traps an' powder, than he has for his soul. Ye'll +understand this better when ye ha' more experience in the North. Indeed, +it's no impossible ye might come to the same way of thinkin' in time." + +The dusk hid the shocked expression that gathered on Thompson's face. + +"'What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world if he knoweth not +God?'" he quoted gravely. "The priests of the Catholic church have long +carried on missionary work among these tribes. We of the Protestant +faith would be lacking if we did not try to extend our field, if we made +no effort to bear light into the dark places. Man's spiritual need is +always greater than any material need can ever be. I hardly expect to +accomplish a great deal at first. But the work will grow." + +"I see, I see," MacLeod chuckled dryly. "It's partly a matter of the +Methodist Church tryin' to compete with the fathers, eh? Well, I am no +what ye'd call devout. I ha' had much experience wi' these red folk, an' +them that's both red an' white. An' I dinna agree with ye aboot their +speeritual needs. I think ye sky-pilots would do better to leave them to +their ain gods, such as they are. Man, do ye know that it's better than +a century since the fathers began their missionary labors? A hundred +years of teachin' an' preachin'. The sum of it a' is next to +nothin'--an' naebody knows that better than the same fathers. They're +wise, keen-sighted men, too. What good they do they do in a material +way. If men like ye came here wi' any certitude of lightenin' the +struggle for existence--but ye canna do that; or at least ye dinna do +that. Ye'll find that neither red men nor white ha' time or inclination +to praise the Lord an' his grace an' bounty when their life's one long +struggle wi' hardships an' adversity. The God ye offer them disna +mitigate these things. Forbye that, the Indian disna want to be +Christianized. When ye come to a determination of abstract qualities, +his pagan beliefs are as good for him as the God of the Bible. What +right ha' we to cram oor speeritual dogmas doon his gullet?" + +MacLeod applied himself to relighting his pipe. Thompson gathered +himself together. He was momentarily stricken with speechless amazement. +He knew there were such things as critical unbelievers, but he had never +encountered one in the flesh. His life had been too excellently +supervised and directed in youth by the spinster aunts. Nor does +materialistic philosophy flourish in a theological seminary. Young men +in training for the ministry are taught to strangle doubt whenever it +rears its horrid head, to see only with the single eye of faith. + +Neither the bitterness of experience nor a natural gentleness of spirit +had ever permitted Thompson to know the beauty and wisdom of tolerance. +Whosoever disputed his creed and his consecrated purpose must be in +error. The evangelical spirit glowed within him when he faced the factor +across the little table. Figuratively speaking he cleared for action. +His host, being a hard-headed son of a disputatious race, met him more +than half-way. As a result midnight found them still wordily engaged, +one maintaining with emotional fervor that man's spiritual welfare was +the end and aim of human existence; the other as outspoken--if more +calmly and critically so--in his assertion that a tooth-and-toenail +struggle for existence left no room in any rational man's life for the +manner of religion set forth in general by churches and churchmen. The +edge of acrimony crept into the argument. + +"The Lord said, 'Leave all thou hast and follow me,'" Thompson declared. +"My dear sir, you cannot dispute--" + +"Ay, but yon word was said eighteen hundred years past," MacLeod +interrupted. "Since which day there's been a fair rate o' progress in +man's knowledge of himself an' his needs. The Biblical meeracles in the +way o' provender dinna happen nowadays--although some ither modern +commonplaces would partake o' the meeraculous if we didna have a +rational knowledge of their process. Men are no fed wi' loaves and +fishes until they themselves ha' first gotten the loaves an' the fish. +At least, it disna so happen i' the Pachugan deestreect. It's much the +same the world over, but up here especially ye'll find that the problem +o' subsistence is first an' foremost, an' excludes a' else till it's +solved." + +With this MacLeod, weary of an unprofitable controversy, arose, took up +a candle and showed his scandalized guest the way to bed. + +Thompson was full of a willingness to revive the argument when he was +roused for breakfast at sunrise. But MacLeod had said his say. He +abhorred vain repetition. Since it takes two to keep an argument going, +Thompson's beginning was but the beginning of a monologue which +presently died weakly of inattention. When he gave over trying to inject +a theological motif into the conversation, he found MacLeod responsive +enough. The factor touched upon native customs, upon the fur trade, upon +the vast and unexploited resources of the North, all of which was more +or less hazy to Thompson. + +His men had intimated an early start. Their journey down the Athabasca +had impressed Thompson with the wisdom of that. Only so could they +escape the brazen heat of the sun, and still accomplish a fair day's +travel. So he rose immediately from the breakfast table, when he saw +Breyette and MacDonald standing by the canoe waiting for him. MacLeod +halted him on the verandah steps to give a brusque last word of counsel. + +"Look ye, Mr. Thompson," he said. "An honest bit of advice will do ye no +harm. Ye're startin' out wi' a brave vision o' doin' a great good; of +lettin' a flood o' light into dark places. Speakin' out my ain +first-hand experience ye'll be fairly disappointed, because ye'll +accomplish nought that's in yer mind. Ye'll have no trouble wi' the +Crees. If ye remain among them long enough to mak' them understand yer +talk an' objects they'll listen or not as they feel inclined. They're a +simple, law-abidin' folk. But there's a white man at Lone Moose that +ye'll do well to cultivate wi' discretion. He's a man o' positive +character, and scholarly beyond what ye'd imagine. When ye meet him, +dinna be sanctimonious. His philosophy'll no gibe wi' your religion, an' +if ye attempt to impose a meenesterial attitude on him, it's no beyond +possibility he'd flare up an' do ye bodily damage. I know him. If ye +meet him man to man, ye'll find he'll meet ye half-way in everything but +theology. He'll be the sort of friend ye'll need at Lone Moose. But +dinna wave the Cloth in his face. For some reason that's to him like the +proverbial red rag tae a bull. The last missionary tae Long Moose cam' +awa wi' a lovely pair o' black eyes Sam Carr bestowed on him. I'm +forewarnin' ye for yer ain good. Ye can decry material benefits a' ye +like, but it'll be a decided benefit if ye ha' Sam Carr for a friendly +neighbor at Lone Moose." + +"I don't deliberately seek religious controversy with any one," Thompson +replied rather stiffly. "I have been sent by the Church to do what good +I am able. That should not offend Mr. Carr, or any man." + +"Nor will it," MacLeod returned. Then he added dryly, "It a' depends, as +ye may discover, on the interpretation others put on your method o' +doin' good. However, I wish ye luck. Stop in whenever ye happen along +this way." + +"I thank you, sir," Thompson smiled, "both for your hospitality, and +your advice." + +They shook hands. Thompson strode to the beach. Mike Breyette and Donald +MacDonald stood bare-footed in the shallow water. When Thompson had +stepped awkwardly aboard and seated himself amidships, they lifted on +the canoe and slid it gently off the shingle, leaped to their places +fore and aft and gave way. A hundred yards off shore they lifted the +dripping paddles in mute adieu to old Donald McPhee, smoking his pipe at +the gable end of his cabin. MacLeod watched the gray canoe slip past the +first point. When it vanished beyond that he turned back into his +quarters with a shrug of his burly shoulders, and a few unintelligible +phrases muttered under his breath. + +Lone Moose Creek emptied into Lake Athabasca some forty miles east of +Fort Pachugan. The village of Lone Moose lay another twenty-five miles +or so up the stream. Thompson's canoemen carried with them a rag of a +sail. This they hoisted to a fair wind that held through the morning +hours. Between that and steady paddling they made the creek mouth by +sundown. There they lay overnight on a jutting sandbar where the +mosquitoes plagued them less than on the brushy shore. + +At dawn they pushed into the sinuous channel of Lone Moose, breasting +its slow current with steady strokes, startling flocks of waterfowl at +every bend, gliding hour after hour along this shadowy waterway that +split the hushed reaches of the woods. It was very still and very somber +and a little uncanny. The creek was but a thread in that illimitable +forest which pressed so close on either hand. The sun at high noon could +not dissipate the shadows that lurked among the close-ranked trees; it +touched the earth and the creek with patches and streaks of yellow at +rare intervals and left untouched the obscurity where the rabbits and +the fur-bearing animals and all the wild life of the forest went +furtively about its business. Once they startled a cow moose and her +calf knee-deep in a shallow. The crash of their hurried retreat rose +like a blare of brass horns cutting discordantly into the piping of a +flute. But it died as quickly as it had risen. Even the beasts bowed +before the invisible altars of silence. + +About four in the afternoon Mike Breyette turned the nose of the canoe +sharply into the bank. + +The level of the forest floor lifted ten feet above Thompson's head so +that he could see nothing beyond the earthy rim save the tops of trees. +He kept his seat while Mike tied the bow to a birch trunk with a bit of +rope. He knew that they expected to land him at his destination before +evening fell. This did not impress him as a destination. He did not know +what Lone Moose would be like. The immensity of the North had left him +rather incredulous. Nothing in the North, animate or inanimate, +corresponded ever so little to his preconceived notions of what it would +be like. His ideas of the natives had been tinctured with the flavor of +Hiawatha and certain Leatherstocking tales which he had read with a +sense of guilt when a youngster. He had really started out with the +impression that Lone Moose was a collection of huts and tents about a +log church and a missionary house. The people would be simple and +high-minded, tillers of the soil in summer, trappers of fur in winter, +humble seekers after the Light he was bringing. But he was not a fool, +and he had been compelled to forego that illusion. Then he had surmised +that Lone Moose might be a replica of Fort Pachugan. MacLeod had partly +disabused his mind of that. + +But he still could not keep out of his mind's eye a somewhat hazy +picture of Lone Moose as a group of houses on the bank of a stream, with +Indians and breeds--no matter how dirty and unkempt--going impassively +about their business, an organized community, however rude. Here he saw +nothing save the enfolding forest he had been passing through since +dawn. He scarcely troubled to ask himself why they had stopped. Breyette +and MacDonald were given to casual haltings. He sat in irritable +discomfort brushing aside the hordes of mosquitoes that rose up from the +weedy brink and the shore thickets to assail his tender skin. He did +not notice that MacDonald was waiting for him to move. Mike Breyette +looked down on him from the top of the bank. + +"Well, we here, M'sieu Thompson," he said. + +"What?" Thompson roused himself. "Here? Where is the village?" + +Breyette waved a hand upstream. + +"She's 'roun' de nex' bend," said he. "Two-three hundred yard. Dees +w'ere de meeshonaire have hees cabanne." + +Thompson could not doubt Breyette's statement. He recalled now that Mike +had once told him the mission quarters were built a little apart from +the village. But he peered up through the screen of birch and willow +with a swift wave of misgiving. The forest enclosed him like the blank +walls of a cell. He shrank from it as a sensitive nature shrinks from +the melancholy suggestiveness of an open grave, and he could not have +told why he felt that strange form of depression. He was wholly +unfamiliar with any form of introspective inquiry, any analysis of a +mental state. He had never held sad intellectual inquest over a dead +hope, nor groped blindly for a ray of light in the inky blackness of a +soul's despair. + +Nevertheless, he was conscious that he felt very much as he might have +felt if, for instance, his guides had stopped anywhere in those somber +woods and without rhyme or reason set him and his goods ashore and +abandoned him forthwith. And when he crawled over the bow of the canoe +and ascended the short, steep bank to a place beside Mike Breyette, this +peculiar sense of being forsaken grew, if anything, more acute, more +appalling. + +They stood on the edge of the bank, taking a reconnaissance, so to +speak. The forest flowed about them like a sea. On Thompson's left hand +it seemed to thin a trifle, giving a faint suggestion of open areas +beyond. Beginning where they stood, some time in past years a square +place had been slashed out of the timber, trees felled and partly +burned, the stumps still standing and the charred trunks lying all askew +as they fell. The unlovely confusion of the uncompleted task was +somewhat concealed by a rank growth of weeds and grass. This +half-hearted attack upon the forest had let the sunlight in. It blazed +full upon a cabin in the center of the clearing, a square, squat +structure of logs with a roof of poles and dirt. A door and a window +faced the creek, a window of tiny panes, a door that stood partly open, +sagging forlornly upon its hinges. + +"Is _that_ the house?" Thompson asked. It seemed to him scarcely +credible. He suspected his guides, as he had before suspected them, of +some rude jest at his expense. + +"Dat's heem," Breyette answered. "Let's tak' leetle more close look on +heem." + +Thompson did not miss the faint note of commiseration in the +half-breed's voice. It stung him a little, nearly made him disregard the +spirit of abnegation he had been taught was a Christian's duty in his +Master's service. He closed his lips on an impulsive protest against +that barren unlovely spot, and stiffened his shoulders. + +"I understand it has not been occupied for some time," he said as they +moved toward the cabin. + +But even forewarned as he was his heart sank a few degrees nearer to his +square-toed shoes when he stepped over the threshold and looked about. +Little, forgotten things recurred to him, matters touched upon lightly, +airily, by the deacons and elders of the Board of Missions when his +appointment was made. He recalled hearing of a letter in which his +predecessor had renounced that particular field and the ministry +together, with what to Thompson had seemed the blasphemous statement +that the North was no place for either God or man. + +The place was foul with dirt and cobwebs, full of a musty odor. The +swallows had nested along the ridge-pole. They fluttered out of the +door, chattering protest against the invasion. Rat nests littered the +corners and the brown rodents scuttled out with alarmed squeaks. The +floor was of logs roughly hewn to flatness. Upon four blocks stood a +rusty cookstove. A few battered, smoke-blackened pots and pans stood on +a shelf and hung upon nails driven in the walls. A rough bedstead of +peeled spruce poles stood in a corner. The remains of a bedtick moldered +on the slats, its grass stuffing given over to the nests of the birds +and rodents. + +It was so utterly and dishearteningly foreign to the orderly +arrangement, the meticulous neatness of the home wherein Thompson had +grown to young manhood under the tutelage of the prim spinsters that he +could scarcely accept as a reality that this, henceforth, was to be his +abode. + +He could only stand, with a feeling in his throat that was new in his +experience of emotions, staring in dismay at this forlorn habitation +abandoned to wind and weather, to the rats and the birds. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN WHICH MR. THOMPSON BEGINS TO WONDER PAINFULLY + + +To Breyette and MacDonald that forlorn cabin was after all nothing new +or disheartening in their experience. They knew how a deserted house +goes to rack and ruin. They knew also how to restore such an abandoned +place to a measure of its original homeliness. And neither the spectacle +of the one nor the labor of the other gave them any qualms. They were +practical-minded men to whom musty, forsaken cabins, isolation, the +hollow emptiness of the North, the sultry heat of the brief summer, the +flies, the deep snows and iron frosts of the long winter, were a part of +their life, the only life they knew. + +But they were not wholly devoid of sentiment and perception. They +recognized in Thompson a lively susceptibility to certain disagreeable +things which they accepted as a matter of course. They saw that he was +rather less capable of coping with such a situation than a ten-year-old +native boy, that a dirty cabin in a lonely clearing made him stand +aghast. And so--although their bargain with him was closed when they +deposited him and his goods on the bank of Lone Moose--they set to work +with energy to renovate his forlorn-looking abode. + +They made short work of the rats' and the swallows' nests. Breyette +quickly fashioned a broom of fine willow twigs, brought up a shovel from +the canoe, and swept and shovelled the place out. MacDonald meanwhile +cleared the weeds and grass from a space before the cabin and burned up +the unseemly refuse. The stove fulfilled its functions perfectly despite +the red rust of disuse. With buckets of boiling water they flooded and +drenched the floor and walls till the interior was as fresh and clean as +if new erected. + +The place was habitable by sundown. While the long northern twilight +held the three of them carried up the freight that burdened the canoe, +and piled it in one corner, sacks of flour, sides of bacon and salt +pork, boxes of dried fruit, the miscellaneous articles with which a man +must supply himself when he goes into the wilderness. + +That night they slept upon a meager thickness of blanket spread on the +hard floor. + +In the morning Mike went to work again. He showed Thompson how to +arrange a mattress of hemlock boughs on the bed frame. It was a simple +enough makeshift, soft and springy when Thompson spread his bedding over +it. Then Mike superintended the final disposition of his supplies so +that there would be some semblance of order instead of an +indiscriminately mixed pile in which the article wanted was always at +the bottom. Incidentally he strove to impart to Thompson certain +rudimentary principles in the cooking of simple food. He illustrated the +method of mixing a batch of baking-powder bread, and how to parboil salt +pork before cooking, explained to him the otherwise mysterious +expansion of rice and beans and dried apples in boiling water, all of +which Breyette was shrewd enough to realize that Thompson knew nothing +about. He had a ready ear for instructions but a poor understanding of +these matters. So Mike reiterated out of his experience of camp cooking, +and Thompson tried to remember. + +Meanwhile, MacDonald, who had vanished into the woods with a rifle in +his hand at daybreak, came back about noon with a deer's carcass slung +on his sturdy back. This, after it was skinned, the two breeds cut into +pieces the thickness of a man's wrist and as long as they could make +them, rubbed well with salt and hung on a stretched line in the sun. The +purpose and preparation of "jerky" was duly elucidated to Thompson; +rather profitless explanation, for he had no rifle, nor any knowledge +whatever in the use of firearms. + +"Bagosh, dat man Ah'm wonder w'ere hees raise," Mike said to his partner +once when Thompson was out of earshot. "Hees ask more damfool question +een ten minute dan a man hees answer een t'ree day. W'at hees gon' do +all by heemself here Ah don' know 'tall, Mac. Bagosh, no!" + +By midafternoon all that was possible in the way of settling their man +had been accomplished, even to a pile of firewood sufficient to last him +two weeks. MacDonald contributed that after one brief exhibition of +Thompson's axemanship. Short of remaining on the spot like a pair of +swarthy guardian angels there was no further help they could give him, +and their solicitude did not run to that beneficent extreme. And so +about three o'clock Mike Breyette surveyed the orderly cabin, the pile +of chopped wood, and the venison drying in the sun, and said briskly: + +"Well, M'sieu Thompson, Ah theenk we go show you hon Lone Moose village +now. Dere's one w'ite man Ah don' know 'tall. But der's breed familee +call Lachlan, eef she's not move 'way somew'ere. Dat familee she's talk +Henglish, and ver' fond of preacher. S'pose we go mak leetle veesit hon +dem Lachlan, eh? Ah theenk us two feller we're gon' beet dat water weeth +de paddle een de morneeng." + +A man does not easily forego habits that have become second nature. +Breyette and MacDonald put on their dilapidated hats, filled their +pipes, and were ready for anything from a social call to a bear hunt. +Thompson had to shave, wash up, brush his hair, put on a tie and collar, +which article of dress he donned without a thought that the North was +utterly devoid of laundries, that he would soon be reduced to flannel +shirts which he must wash himself. His preparations gave the breeds +another trick of his to grin slyly over. But Thompson was preparing +himself to face the units of his future congregation, and he went about +it precisely as he would have gone about getting ready for a Conference, +or a cup of tea with a meeting of the Ladies' Aid. Eventually, however, +the three set out across the trunk-littered clearing. + +The thin place in the belt of timber to the northward proved barely a +hundred yards deep. On the farther side the brushy edge of the woods +gave on the open meadow around which the Lone Moose villagers had built +their cabins. Thompson swept the crescent with a glance, taking in the +dozen or so dwellings huddling as it were under the protecting wings of +the forest, and his gaze came to rest on the more impressive habitation +of Sam Carr. + +"Dat's white man married hon Enjun woman," Breyette responded to +Thompson's inquiry. "Ah don' never see heem maself. Lachlan she's leev +over there." + +Left to himself Thompson would probably have gravitated first to a man +of his own blood, even though he had been warned to approach Carr with +diplomacy. But there was no sign of life about the Carr place, and his +men were headed straight for their objective, walking hurriedly to get +away from the hungry swarms of mosquitoes that rose out of the grass. +Thompson followed them. Two weeks in their company, with a steadily +growing consciousness of his dependence upon them, had inclined him to +follow their lead. + +They found Lachlan at home, a middle-aged Scotch half-breed with a house +full of sons and daughters ranging from the age of four to twenty. How +could they all be housed in three small rooms was almost the first +dubious query which presented itself to Thompson. His mind, to his great +perplexity, seemed to turn more upon incongruities than upon his real +mission there. That is, to Thompson they seemed incongruities. The +little things that go to make up a whole were each impinging upon him +with a force he could not understand. He could not, for instance, tell +why he thought only with difficulty, with extreme haziness, of the +great good he desired to accomplish at Lone Moose, and found his +attention focussing sharply upon the people, their manner of speech, +their surroundings, even upon so minor a detail as a smudge of flour +upon the hand that Mrs. Lachlan extended to him. She was a fat, +dusky-skinned woman, apparently regarding Thompson with a feeling akin +to awe. The entire family, which numbered at least nine souls, spoke in +the broad dialect of their paternal ancestors from the heather country +overseas. + +Thompson spent an hour there, an hour which was far from conducive to a +cheerful survey of the field wherein his spiritual labors would lie. +Aside from Sam Carr, who appeared to be looked upon as the Nestor of the +village, the Lachlans were the only persons who either spoke or +understood a word of English. And Thompson found himself more or less +tongue-tied with them, unable to find any common ground of intercourse. +They were wholly illiterate. As a natural consequence the world beyond +the Athabasca region was as much of an unknown quantity to them as the +North had been to Thompson before he set foot in it--as much of its +needs and customs were yet, for that matter. The Lachlan virtues of +simplicity and kindliness were overcast by obvious dirt and a general +slackness. In so far as religion went if they were--as Breyette had +stated--fond of preachers, it was manifestly because they looked upon a +preacher as a very superior sort of person, and not because of his +gospel message. + +For when Mrs. Lachlan hospitably brewed a cup of tea and Thompson took +the opportunity of making his customary prayer before food an appeal +for divine essence to be showered upon these poor sinful creatures of +earth, the Lachlan family rose from its several knees with an air of +some embarrassing matter well past. And they hastened to converse +volubly upon the weather and the mosquitoes and Sam Carr's garden and a +new canoe that Lachlan's boys were building, and such homely interests. +As to church and service they were utterly dumb, patently unable to +follow Thompson's drift when he spoke of those things. If they had souls +that required salvation they were blissfully unconscious of the fact. + +But they urged him to come again, when he rose to leave. They seemed to +regard him as a very great man, whose presence among them was an honor, +even if his purposes were but dimly apprehended. + +The three walked back across the meadow, Breyette and MacDonald +chattering lightly, Thompson rather preoccupied. It was turning out so +different from what he had fondly imagined it would be. He had envisaged +a mode of living and a manner of people, a fertile field for his labors, +which he began to perceive resentfully could never have existed save in +his imagination. He had been full of the impression, and the advice and +information bestowed upon him by the Board of Missions had served to +heighten the impression, that in Lone Moose he would fill a crying want. +And he was not so obtuse as to fail of perceiving that no want of him or +his message existed. It was discouraging to know that he must strive +mightily to awaken a sense of need before he could begin to fulfill his +appointed function of showing these people how to satisfy that need. + +Apart from these spiritual perplexities he found himself troubled over +practical matters. His creed of blind trust in Providence did not seem +so sound and true. He found himself dreading the hour when his swarthy +guides would leave him to his lonely quarters. He beheld terrible vistas +of loneliness, a state of feeling to which he had always been a +stranger. He foresaw a series of vain struggles over that rusty +cookstove. It did him no good to recall that he had been told in the +beginning that he would occupy the mission quarters, that he must +provide himself with ample supplies of food, that he might have to +prepare that food himself. + +His mind had simply been unable to envisage the sordid reality of these +things until he faced them. Now that he did face them they seemed more +terrible than they really were. + +Lying wakeful on his bed that night, listening to the snoring of the +half-breeds on the floor, to the faint murmur of a wind that stirred the +drooping boughs of the spruce, he reviewed his enthusiasms and his +tenuous plans--and slipped so far into the slough of despond as to call +himself a misguided fool for rearing so fine a structure of dreams upon +so slender a foundation as this appointment to a mission in the outlying +places. He blamed the Board of Missions. Obviously that august circle of +middle-aged and worthy gentlemen were sadly ignorant of the North. + +Whereupon, recognizing the trend of his thought, the Reverend Wesley +Thompson turned upon himself with a bitter accusation of self-seeking, +and besought earnestly the gift of an humble spirit from Above. + +But the deadly pin-points of discontent and discouragement were still +pricking him when he fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE + + +Mike Breyette took a last look over his shoulder as the current and the +thrust of two paddles carried the canoe around the first bend. Thompson +stood on the bank, watching them go. + +"Bagosh, dat man hees gon' have dam toff time, Ah theenk," Breyette +voiced his conviction. "Feller lak heem got no beesness for be here +'tall." + +"He didna have tae come here," MacDonald answered carelessly. "An' he +disna have tae stay." + +"Oh, sure, Ah know dat, me," Mike agreed. "All same hees feel bad." + +Which was a correct, if brief, estimate of Mr. Thompson's emotions as he +stood on the bank watching the gray canoe slip silently out of his ken. +That gave him a keener pang, a more complete sense of loss, than he had +ever suffered at parting with any one or anything. It was to him like +taking a last look before a leap in the dark. Thrown entirely upon his +own resources he felt wholly inadequate, found his breast filled with +incomprehensible misgivings. The work he had come there to do seemed to +have lost much of its force as a motive, as an inspiration. He felt +himself--so far as his mission to Lone Moose was concerned--in the +anomalous position of one compelled to make bricks without straw. + +He was, in a word, suffering an acute attack of loneliness. + +That was why the empty space of the clearing affected him with a +physical shrinking, why the neatly arranged interior of his cabin seemed +hollow, abandoned, terribly dispiriting. He longed for the sound of a +human voice, found himself listening for such a sound. The stillness was +not like the stillness of a park, nor an empty street, nor any of the +stillnesses he had ever experienced. It was not a kindly, restful +stillness,--not to him. It was the hollow hush of huge spaces emptied of +all life. Life was at his elbow almost but he could not make himself +aware of that. The forested wilderness affected him much as a small +child is affected by the dark. He was not afraid of this depressing +sense of emptiness, but it troubled him. + +Before nine o'clock in the forenoon had rolled around he set off with +the express purpose of making himself acquainted with Sam Carr. Carr was +a white man, a scholar, MacLeod had said. Passing over the other things +MacLeod had mentioned for his benefit Thompson, in his dimly realized +need of some mental stimulus, could not think of a white man and a +scholar being aught but a special blessing in that primeval solitude. +Thompson had run across that phrase in books--primeval solitude. He was +just beginning to understand what it meant. + +He set out upon his quest of Sam Carr with a good deal of unfounded +hope. In his own world, beginning with the churchly leanings of the +spinster aunts, through the successive steps of education and his +ultimate training for the ministry as a profession, the theological note +had been the note in which he reasoned and thought and felt. His +environment had grounded him in the belief that all the world vibrated +in unison with the theological harmonies. He had never had any doubts or +equivocations. Faith was everything, and he had abundance of faith. As a +matter of fact, until he encountered MacLeod, the factor of Fort +Pachugan, he had never crossed swords with a man open and sincere in +disbelief based on rational grounds. He had found those who evaded and +some who were indifferent, many who compromised, never before a sweeping +denial. He could not picture an atheist as other than a perverted +monster, a moral degenerate, the personification of all evil. This was +his conception of such as denied his God. Blasphemers. Foredoomed to +hell. Yet he had found MacLeod hospitable, ready with kindly advice, +occupying a position of trust in the service of a great company. Was it +after all possible that the essence of Christianity might not be the +exclusive possession of Christians? + +Insensibly he had to modify certain sweeping convictions. He was not +conscious of this inner compulsion when he concluded to try and meet Sam +Carr without making theology an issue. Somehow this man Carr began to +loom in the background of his thought as a commanding figure. At least, +Thompson said to himself as he passed through the fringe of timber, Sam +Carr by all accounts was a person to whom an educated man could speak +in words of more than two syllables without meeting the blank stare of +incomprehension. + +The Lachlans were worthy people enough, but--He shook his head +despondently. As for the Crees--well, he had been at Lone Moose less +than forty-eight hours and he was wondering if the Board of Home +Missions always shot as blindly at a distant mark. It would take him a +year to learn the first smatterings of their tongue. A year! He had +understood that the Lone Moose Crees were partly under civilized +influences. Certainly he had believed that his predecessors in the field +had laid some sort of foundation for the work he was to carry on. It was +considered a matter of course that the mission quarters were livable, +that some sort of meeting place had been provided. + +There was a monetary basis for that belief. Some two thousand dollars +had been expended, or perhaps the better word would be appropriated, for +that purpose. Mr. Thompson could not quite understand what had become of +this sum. There was nothing but a rat-ridden shack on a half-cleared +acre in the edge of the forest. There had never been anything else. +Nothing had been accomplished. Thompson shook his head again. His first +report would be a shock to the Board of Home Missions. + +He bore straight for Sam Carr's house. While still some distance away he +made out two men seated on the porch. As he drew nearer a couple of +nondescript dogs rushed noisily to meet him. Thompson's general +unfamiliarity with the outdoor world extended to dogs. But he had heard +sometime, somewhere, that it was well to put on a bold front with +barking curs. He acted upon this theory, and the dogs kept their teeth +out of his person, though their clamor rose unabated until one of the +men harshly commanded them to be quiet. Thompson came up to the steps. +The two men nodded. Their eyes rested upon him in frank curiosity. + +"My name is Thompson." His diffidence, verging upon forthright +embarrassment, precipitated him into abruptness. He was addressing the +older man, a spare-built man with a trim gray beard and a disconcerting +direct gaze. "I am a newcomer to this place. The factor of Fort Pachugan +spoke of a Mr. Carr here. Have I--er--the--ah--pleasure of addressing +that gentleman?" + +Carr's gray eyes twinkled, the myriad of fine creases radiating from +their outer corners deepened. + +"MacLeod mentioned me, eh? Did he intimate that meeting me might prove a +doubtful pleasure for a gentleman of your calling?" + +That momentarily served to heighten Mr. Thompson's embarrassment--like a +flank attack while he was in the act of waving a flag of truce. But he +perceived that there was no malice in the words, only a flash of ironic +humor. Carr chuckled dryly. + +"Meet Mr. Tommy Ashe, Mr. Thompson," he said. "Mr. Ashe is, like +yourself, a newcomer to Lone Moose. You may be able to exchange mutual +curses on the country. People usually do at first." + +"I've been hereabouts six months," Ashe smiled as he rose to shake +hands. (Carr's friendliness seemed a trifle negative, reserved; he had +not offered his hand.) + +"That means newly come, as time is reckoned here," Carr remarked. "It +takes at least a generation to make one permanent. Have a seat, Mr. +Thompson. What do you think, so far, of the country you have selected +for the scene of your operations?" + +The slightly ironic inflection was not lost upon Thompson. It nettled +him a little, but it was too intangible to be resented, and in any case +he had no ready defence against that sort of thing. He took a third +chair between the two of them and occupied himself a moment +exterminating a few mosquitoes which had followed him from the grassy +floor of the meadow and now slyly sought to find painful lodgment upon +his face and neck. + +"To tell the truth," he said at last, "everything is so different from +my expectations that I find myself a bit uncertain. One +finds--well--certain drawbacks." + +"Material or spiritual?" Carr inquired gravely. + +The Reverend Thompson considered. + +"Both," he answered briefly. + +This was the most candid admission he had ever permitted himself. Carr +laughed quietly. + +"Well," said he, "we are a primitive folk in a primitive region. But I +daresay you hope to accomplish a vast change for the better in us, if +not in the country?" + +Again there was that suggestion of mockery, veiled, scarcely +perceptible, a matter of inflection. Mr. Thompson found himself uttering +an entirely unpremeditated reply. + +"Which I daresay you doubt, Mr. Carr. You seem to be fully aware of my +mission here, and rather dubious as to its merit." + +Carr smiled. + +"News travels fast in a country where even a passing stranger is a +notable event," he remarked. "Naturally one draws certain conclusions +when one hears that a minister has arrived in one's vicinity. As to my +doubts--first and last I've seen three different men sent here by your +Board of Home Missions. They have made no more of an impression than a +pebble chucked into the lake. Your Board of Missions must be a visionary +lot. They should come here in a body. This country would destroy some of +their cherished illusions." + +"A desire to serve is not an illusion," Thompson said defensively. + +"One would have to define service before one could dispute that," Carr +returned casually. "What I mean is that the people who send you here +have not the slightest conception of what they send you to. When you get +here you find yourself rather at sea. Isn't it so?" + +"In a sense, yes," Thompson reluctantly admitted. + +"Oh, well," Carr said, with a gesture of dismissing the subject, "that +is your private business in any case. We won't get on at all if we begin +by discussing theology, and dissecting the theological motive and +activities. Do you hunt or fish at all, Mr. Thompson?" + +Mr. Thompson did not, and expressed no hankering for such pursuits. +There came a lapse in the talk. Carr got out his pipe and began stuffing +the bowl of it with tobacco. Tommy Ashe sat gazing impassively over the +meadow, slapping at an occasional mosquito. + +"Tommy might give you a few pointers on game," Carr remarked at last. +"He has the sporting instinct. It hasn't become a commonplace routine +with him yet, a matter of getting meat, as it has to the rest of us up +here." + +Ashe made his first vocal contribution. + +"If you're going to be about here for awhile," said he pleasantly, +"you'll find it interesting to dodge about after things in the woods +with a gun. Keeps you fit, for one thing. Lots of company in a dog and a +gun. Is it a permanent undertaking, this missionary work of yours, Mr. +Thompson?" + +"We hope to make it so," Mr. Thompson responded. + +"I should say you've taken on the deuce of a job," Tommy commented +frankly. + +Thompson had no inclination to dispute that. He had periods of thinking +so himself. + +The conversation languished again. + +Without ever having been aware of it Thompson's circle of friends and +acquaintances had been people of wordy inclination. Their thoughts +dripped unceasingly from their tongue's end like water from a leaky +faucet. He had never come in contact with a type of men who keep silent +unless they have something to say, who think more than they speak. The +spinster aunts had been voluble persons, full of small chatter, women of +no mental reservations whatever. The young men of his group had not been +much different. The reflective attitude as opposed to the discursive was +new to him. New and embarrassing. He felt impelled to talk, and while he +groped uncertainly for some congenial subject he grew more and more +acutely self-conscious. He felt that these men were calmly taking his +measure. Especially Sam Carr. + +He wanted to go on talking. He protested against their intercourse +congealing in that fashion. But he could find no opening. His +conversational stock-in-trade, he had the sense to realize, was totally +unlike theirs. He could do nothing but sit still, remain physically +inert while he was mentally in a state of extreme unrest. He ventured a +banality about the weather. Carr smiled faintly. Tommy Ashe observed +offhand that the heat was beastly, but not a patch to blizzards and +frost. Then they were silent again. + +Thompson had effected a sort of compromise with his principles when he +sought Carr. He had more or less consciously resolved to keep his +calling in the background, to suppress the evangelical tendency which +his training had made nearly second nature. This for the sake of +intelligent companionship. He was like a man sentenced to solitary +confinement. Even the temporary presence of a jailer is a boon to such, +a break in the ghastly solitude. But he was fast succumbing to a despair +of reaching across the barrier of this critical silence and he was about +to rise and leave when he happened to look about and see Sophie Carr +standing within arm's length, gazing at him with a peculiar intentness, +a mild look of surprise upon her vivid young face, a trace of +puzzlement. + +A most amazing thing happened to Mr. Thompson. His heart leaped. + +Perhaps it rarely happens that a normal, healthy man reaches a +comparative degree of maturity without experiencing a quickening of his +blood in the presence of a woman. Yet it cannot be gainsaid that it does +happen. It was so in Thompson's case. Staring into the clear pools of +Sophie Carr's gray eyes some strange quality of attraction in a woman +first dawned on him. Something that made him feel a passionate sense of +incompleteness. + +He did not think this. The singular longing had flamed up like a beacon +within him. It had nothing to do with his mental processes. It was +purely an instinctive revelation. A blind man whose sight has been +restored, upon whose eager vision bursts suddenly all the bright beauty +of sun and sky and colorful landscape, could have been no more +bewildered than he. It was as if indeed he had been blind. + +All the women he had ever known seemed pale and colorless beside this +girl standing near, her head a little aside as she looked at him. There +was not a detail of her that escaped him, that failed to make its +appeal, from the perfect oval of her face down to the small feet in +bead-ornamented moccasins. A woman's eyes, her hair, her hands, her +bearing--these things had never obtruded upon his notice before. Yet he +saw now that a shaft of sunlight on her hair made it shimmer like ripe +wheat straw, that her breast was full and rounded, her lips red and +sweetly curved. But it was not alone that swift revelation of seductive +beauty, or warm human desirableness, that stirred him so deeply, that +afflicted him with those queer uncomfortable sensations. He found +himself struggling with a sense of guilt, of shame. The world, the +flesh, and the devil seemed leagued against his peace of mind. + +He was filled with an incredulous wonder as to what manner of thing this +was which had blown through the inner recesses of his being like a gusty +wind through an open door. He had grown to manhood with nothing but a +cold, passionless tolerance in his attitude toward women. Technically he +was aware of sex, advised as to its pitfalls and temptations; actually +he could grasp nothing of the sort. A very small child is incapable of +associating pain with a hot iron until the hot iron has burned him. Even +then he can scarcely correlate cause and effect. Neither could Thompson. +No woman had ever before stirred his pulse to an added beat. + +But this--this subtle, mysterious emanation from a smiling girl at his +elbow singed him like a flame. If he had been asleep he was now in a +moment breathlessly, confusedly awake. + +The commotion was all inward, mental. Outwardly he kept his composure, +and the only sign of that turmoil was a tinge of color that rose in his +face. And as if there was some mysterious mode of communication +established between them a faint blush deepened the delicate tint of +Sophie Carr's cheeks. Thompson rose. So did Tommy Ashe with some haste +when he perceived her there. + +"No, no," she protested. "Keep your chairs, please." + +"Mr. Thompson," Carr's keen old eyes flickered between the two men and +the girl. "My daughter. Mr. Thompson is the latest leader of the +forlorn hope at Lone Moose, Sophie." + +Mr. Thompson murmured some conventional phrase. He was mightily +disturbed without knowing why he was so disturbed, and rather fearful of +showing this incomprehensible state. The girl's manner put him a little +at his ease. She gave him her hand, soft warm fingers that he had a mad +impulse to press. He wondered why he felt like that. He wondered why +even the tones of her voice gave him a thrill of pleasure. + +"So you are the newest missionary to Lone Moose?" she said. "I wish you +luck." + +Although her voice was full, throaty like a meadow lark's, her tone +carried the same sardonic inflection he had noticed in her father's +comment on his mission. It pained Thompson. He had no available weapon +against that sort of attack. But the girl did not pursue the matter. She +said to her father: + +"Crooked Tree's oldest son is in the kitchen and wants to speak to you, +Dad." + +Carr rose. So did Thompson. He wanted to get away, to think, to fortify +himself somehow against this siren call in his blood. He was sadly +perplexed. Measured by his own standards, even to harbor such thoughts +as welled up in his mind was a sinful weakness of the flesh. He was in +as much anxiety to get away from Carr's as he had been to find a welcome +there. + +"I think I shall be moving along," he said to Carr. "I'll say good-day, +sir." + +Carr thrust out a brown sinewy hand with the first trace of heartiness +he had shown. + +"Come again when you feel like it," he invited. "When you have time and +inclination we'll match our theories of the human problem, maybe. Of +course we'll disagree. But my bark is worse than my bite, no matter what +you've heard." + +He strode off. Sophie bowed to Thompson, nodded to Tommy Ashe, and +followed her father. Ashe got up, stretched his sturdy young arms above +his fair, curly head. He was perhaps a year or two older than Thompson, +a little thicker through the chest, and not quite so tall. One imagined +rightly that he was very strong, that he could be swift and purposeful +in his movements, despite an apparent deliberation. His face was +boyishly expressive. He had a way of smiling at trifles. And one did not +have to puzzle over his nationality. He was English. His accent and +certain intonations established that. + +He picked up a gun now from where it stood against the wall, whistled +shrilly, and a brown dog appeared hastily from somewhere in the grass, +wagging his tail in anticipation. + +"Mind if I poke along with you," he said to Thompson. "There's a slough +over beyond your diggin's where I go now and then to pick up a duck or +two." + +They fell into step across the meadow. + +"Our host," Thompson observed, "is not quite the type one expects to +find here--permanently. I understand he has been here a long time." + +"Fifteen years," Tommy supplied cheerfully. "Deuce of a time to be +buried alive, eh? Carr hasn't got rusty, though. No. Mind like a steel +trap, that man. Curious sort of individual. You ought to see the books +he's got. Amazing. Science, philosophy, the poets--all sorts. Don't try +arguing theology with him unless you're quite advanced. Of course, I +know the church is adapting itself to modern thought, in a way. But +he'll tie you in a bowknot if you hold to the old theological doctrines. +Fact. Carr's scholarly sort, but awfully radical. Awfully." + +"It's queer," said Thompson, "why a man like that should bury himself +here so long. Is it a fact that he is married to a native woman? His +daughter now--one wouldn't imagine her--" + +"No fear," Tommy Ashe interrupted. "Carr's got an Indian woman, right +enough. They've got three mixed-blood youngsters. But his daughter--" + +He gave Thompson a quick sidelong glance. + +"Sophie's pure blood," said he. "She's a thorough-bred." + +He said it almost challengingly. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +CERTAIN PERPLEXITIES + + +From the direction of the slough two shots sounded, presently followed +by two more. Then the gleeful yipping of Tommy's Ashe's retriever, and +Tommy's stentorian encouragement: + +"That's the boy. Fetch him." + +Close upon this Mr. Thompson's up-pricked ear detected another voice, +one that immediately set up in him an involuntary eagerness of +listening, a clear, liquid voice that called: + +"Oh, Tommy, there's another wounded one, swimming away. Quick!" + +Pow! Tommy's twelve-gauge cracked again. The two voices called +laughingly back and forth across the slough, mingled with the excited +barking of the brown dog as he retrieved the slaughtered ducks. After a +time silence fell. Thompson's nose detected an odor. He turned hastily +to his stove. But he had listened too long. The biscuits in his oven +were smoking. + +That did not matter greatly in itself. It was merely one of a long +procession of culinary disasters. He could not, somehow, contrive to +prepare food in the simple manner of Mike Breyette's instructions. If +the biscuits had not scorched probably they would have been hopelessly +soggy, dismal things compared to the brown discs Mike had turned out of +the same oven. One was as bad as the other. Nothing seemed to work out +right. Nothing ever tasted right. Only a healthy hunger enabled him to +swallow the unsavory messes he concocted in the name of food. + +He had been at Lone Moose two weeks now. His real work, his essential +labor in that untilled field, was no farther advanced. He made about the +same progress as a missionary that he made as a cook. In so far as Lone +Moose was concerned he accomplished nothing because, like Archimedes, he +lacked a foothold from which to apply his leverage. He had the +intelligence to perceive that these people had no pressing wants which +they looked to him to supply, that they were apparently impervious to +any message he could deliver. His power to deliver a message was +vitiated by this utter absence of receptivity. He was, and realized that +he was, as superfluous in Lone Moose as sterling silver and cut glass in +a house where there is neither food nor drink. + +Also he was no longer so secure in the comfortable belief that all +things work for an ultimate good. He was not so sure that a sparrow, or +even an ordained servant of God, might not fall and the Almighty be none +the wiser. The material considerations which he had always scorned +pressed upon him in an unescapable manner. There was no getting away +from them. Thrown at last upon his own resources he began to take stock +of his needs, his instincts, his impulses, and to compare them with the +needs and instincts and impulses of a more Godless humanity,--and he +could not escape certain conclusions. Faith may move mountains, but +chiefly through the medium of a shovel. When a man is hungry his need is +for food. When he is lonely he craves companionship. When he grieves he +desires sympathy. And the Providence Mr. Thompson had been taught to +lean so hard upon did not chop his wood, cook his meals, furnish him +with congenial society, comfort him when he was sad. + +"Religion or nonreligion, belief in a personal, immanent God or a rank +materialism that holds to a purely mechanical theory of the universe, it +doesn't make much difference which you hold to if you do not set +yourself up as the supreme authority and insist that the other fellow +must believe as you do. + +"Because, my dear sir, you cannot escape material factors. The human +organism can't exist without food, clothing, and shelter. Society cannot +attain to a culture which tends to soften the harshnesses of existence, +without leisure in which to develop that culture. Machinery and science +and art weren't handed to humanity done up in a package. Man only +attained to these things through a long process of evolution, and he +only attained them by the use of his muscle and the exercise of his +intellect. Strength and skill--plus application. Nothing else gets +either an individual or a race forward. Don't you see the force of that? +Here is man with his fundamental, undeniable needs. Here is the earth +with the fullness thereof. There's nothing mysterious or supernatural +about it. Brain and brawn applied to the problems of living. That's all. +And you can't dodge it. The first, pressing requirements of any man can +only be filled in two ways. First by working and planning and getting +for himself. Second by being able to compel the strength and skill of +others to function for him so that his needs will be supplied; in other +words, by some turn of circumstances, or some dominant quality in +himself, to get something for nothing." + +Sam Carr had delivered himself of this as a wind-up to a conversation +with Thompson the evening before. Now, while his forgotten biscuits +scorched and he listened to Tommy Ashe and Sophie Carr taking their toll +of meat from the flocks of waterfowl, he was thinking over what Carr had +said. He dissented. Oh, he dissented with a vigor that was almost +bitterness, because the smiling quirk of Sam Carr's lips when he uttered +the last sentence gave it something of a personal edge. However it was +meant, Thompson could not help taking it that way. And Mr. Thompson's +desire was to give--to give lavishly. Only here in this forsaken corner +of the world he seemed to have nothing to give that was of any value. + +He was, at the same time, discovering in himself personal needs to which +he had never given a thought, sordid everyday necessities the +satisfaction of which had always been at hand, unquestioned, taken for +granted much as one takes the sun and the air for granted. His meals had +been provided. His bed had been provided. The funds which had clothed +and educated him and trained him for the ministry had been provided, and +likewise his transportation to the scene of his endeavors. How, he had +not known except in the vaguest way, he had not particularly inquired, +any more than the child inquires the whence and the why of luscious +berries he finds growing upon a bush in the garden. + +Not until he was torn by the roots out of the old, ordered environment +and flung headlong into an environment where cause and effect are linked +close did he consider these things. Materially he was getting a +first-hand lesson in economics--and domestic science of a sort! +Spiritually he was a little bit aghast, amazed that the Almighty did not +personally intervene to save a man from his own inefficiency. He began +to grasp the hitherto unnoted fact that meals and a bed and fires and +clothes and all the other stark necessities involved labor of the hands, +skilful exercise of the thought-function. + +If this was so, he, Wesley Thompson, twenty-five years of age and a +minister of the gospel, was deeply in debt--unless he denied the justice +of giving value for value received. He had received much; he had +returned nothing except perfunctory thanks. And what had he to give? +Even to him, transcendent as was his faith that the glory of man was but +the reflected glory of God, that faith was not a commodity to be +bartered. + +He did not think these things in these terms. He found himself becoming +involved in a maze of speculation, in which he could only grope feebly +for words to define the unrest that was in him. + +While he sat at his small table of rough-hewn boards with his scorched, +unappetizing biscuits, ill-cooked potatoes and bacon, and a pot of tea +that he could never brew to his liking (and Mr. Thompson, from a +considerable amount of juggling afternoon teacups, had acquired a nice +taste in that beverage) he saw Tommy Ashe and Sophie Carr pass along one +edge of his clearing, a cluster of bright-winged ducks slung over +Tommy's shoulder, their voices floating across to him as if they came +down a long corridor. They disappeared toward Lone Moose through the +timber, and Mr. Thompson sat brooding over his lonely meal until he +realized with a start that his mind was concentrating upon Sophie Carr +with a disturbing insistence. + +The plague of mosquitoes had somewhat abated. In the early morning and +for a time in the evening, and also when rain dampened the atmosphere, +these pests still kept a man's hands busy warding them off. But through +the dry heat of the day he could go abroad in reasonable comfort. + +So now Mr. Thompson washed up his dishes in a fashion to make the lips +of a careful housekeeper pucker in disdain, clapped on his broken-rimmed +straw hat and sallied forth. + +He was full of an earnest desire to do good, as he defined doing good. +He had come here for that purpose, backed by an organization for just +such good work. This evangelical fire burned strong in him despite the +crude shifts he was put to, the loneliness, the perplexities and trials +of the spirit. Just as an educated humanitarian coming upon an +illiterate people would gladly banish their illiteracy, so Thompson was +resolved to banish what he deemed the spiritual darkness of these +primitive folk. Holding as he did to the orthodoxy of sin and salvation, +of a literal heaven and a nebulous sort of hell, he deemed it his +business to show them with certainty the paths that led to each. + +But he could not reach them unless he could speak their tongue, he could +not gather them about him in the open meadow as the Man of Galilee +gathered his disciples about him. The climate was against that simple +procedure. Therefore he postulated two things as necessary to make a +beginning--to learn the tribal language and to build a church. + +He was making an attempt at both, and making little more progress than +he made in the culinary art. Only a naturally vigorous stomach enabled +him to assimilate the messes he cooked without suffering acute +indigestion. Likewise only a naïve turn of mind enabled him to ward off +mental indigestion in his struggles with the language. Whatever the +defects of his training for what he considered his life work, he had +considerable power of application. He might get discouraged, but he was +not a quitter. He kept trying. This took the form of studying the +Athabascan gutturals with the aid of Lachlan's second son, a boy of +eighteen. For an hour in the forenoon and the same in the evening he +struggled with pronunciations and meanings like a child learning the +alphabet, forgetting, like the child, a good deal of it between lessons. +And he had begun work on a log building twenty by thirty feet, that was +to be a meeting-house. + +He did not get on with this very fast. He laid his foundation in the +edge of the timber to lessen the distance his material must be moved. +He had to fell trees, to lop off the branches, and cut the trunks to +proper length, then roll them with infinite effort to their proper place +in the structure. He could only gather how a log building could be +erected by asking Lachlan, and by taking the Lone Moose cabins for his +model. And he was a fearful and wonderful axeman. His log ends looked as +if chewed by a beaver, except that they lacked the beaver's neatness of +finish. His feet suffered manifold hairbreadth escapes from the sharp +blade. He could never guess which way a tree would fall. For a week's +work he had got two courses of logs laid in position. + +He did not allow his mind to dwell on the ultimate outcome of this task, +because he was uneasily aware that Lone Moose was smiling slyly behind +its brown hand at him and his works. In his mind there was nothing for +it but a church. He had tried one Sunday service at Lachlan's house, +with Lachlan senior to interpret his words. The Indians had come. +Indeed, they had come en masse. They packed the room he spoke in, big +and little, short, chunky natives, and tall, thin-faced ones, and the +overflow spilled into the kitchen beyond. The day was very hot, the roof +low, the windows closed. There was a vitiation of the atmosphere that +was not helped by a strong bodily odor, a stout and sturdy smell that +came near to sickening Mr. Thompson. He was extraordinarily glad when he +got outside. That closeness--to speak mildly--coupled with the heavy, +copper-red faces, impassive as masks, impersonally listening with +scarcely a flicker of the eye-lids, made Thompson forswear another +attempt to preach until he could speak to them in their own tongue and +speak to them in a goodly place of worship where a man's thoughts would +not be imperiously distracted by a pressing need of ventilation. + +Coming now to the site he had chosen, he stood for a moment casting an +eye over the scene of his undertaking. The longer he looked at it the +more of an undertaking it seemed. He had heard Lachlan speak of two men +felling trees and putting up a sixteen-foot cabin complete from +foundation to ridgelog in three days. He did not see how it could be +done. He was thoroughly incredulous of that statement. But he did expect +to roof in that church before the snow fell. Its walls would be +consecrated with sweat and straining muscles. It would be a concrete +accomplishment. The instinct to create, the will to fashion and mold, to +see something take form under his hands, had begun to stir in him. + +Axe in hand, he set to work. He had learned the first lesson of manual +labor--that a man cannot swing his arms and breathe deeply if his body +is swaddled in clothes. His coat came off and his vest and his hat, all +slung across a fallen tree. Presently, as he warmed up, his outer shirt +joined the discarded garments. + +Stripped for action in a literal sense he did not in the least conform +to the clerical figure. He was the antithesis of asceticism, of +gentleness, of spiritual and scholarly repose. He was simply a big man +lustily chopping, red in the face from his exertions, beads of sweat +standing out on brow and cheek, his sturdy neck all a-glisten with +moisture. Under his thin, short-sleeved undershirt his biceps rippled +and played. The flat muscle-bands across his broad chest slackened and +tightened as his arms swung. For Mr. Thompson had been fashioned by +Nature in a generous mood. He was not a heroic figure, but he was big +and built as a man should be, deep in the chest, flat-backed, very +straight when he stood erect. He had escaped the scholarly stoop. If his +muscles were soft they were in a fair way to become hardened. + +He was more or less unconscious of all this. He had never thought of his +body as being strong or well-shaped, because he had never used it, never +pitted his strength against the strength of other men, never worked, +never striven. It had never been necessary for him to do so. He had been +taught that pride of that sort was sinful, and he had accepted the +teaching rather too literally. + +Already a curious sort of change was manifesting in him. His blue eyes +had a different expression than one would have observed in them +during--well, during the period of his theological studies, shall we +say, when the state of his soul and the state of other people's souls +was the only consideration. One would have been troubled to make out any +pronounced personality then. He was simply a studious young man with a +sanctimonious air. But now that the wind and the sun had somewhat turned +his fair skin and brought out a goodly crop of freckles, now that the +vigor of his movements and the healthy perspiration had rumpled up his +reddish-brown hair and put a wave in it, he could--standing up on his +log--easily have passed for a husky woodsman; until some experienced eye +observed him make such sorry work of a woodsman's task. He had acquired +no skill with the axe. That takes time. But he made vigorous endeavor, +and he was beginning to feel strength flow through him, to realize it as +a potential blessing. Now that the soreness was working out of his +sinews it gave him a peculiar elation to lay hold of a log-end, to heave +until his arms and back grew rigid, and to feel the heavy weight move. +That exultant sense of physical power was quite new and rather puzzling +to him. He could not understand why he enjoyed chopping logs and moving +them about, and yet was prone to grow moody, to be full of disquieting +perplexities when he sat down to think. + +He had been at work for perhaps two hours. He was resting. To be +explicit, he was standing on a fallen tree. Between his feet there was a +notch cut half-way through the wood. In this white gash the blade of his +axe was driven solidly, and he rested his hands on the rigid haft while +he stood drawing gulps of forest-scented air into his lungs. + +Mr. Thompson was not gifted with eyes in the back of his head. His +hearing was keen enough, but the soft, turfy earth absorbed footfalls, +especially when that foot was shod with a buckskin moccasin. So he did +not see Sophie Carr, nor hear her until a thought that was running in +his mind slipped off the end of his tongue. + +"This is going to make a terrible amount of labor." + +He said this aloud, in a matter-of-fact tone. + +"And a terrible waste of labor," Sophie answered him. + +He looked quickly over one shoulder, saw her standing there, got down +off his log--blushing a little at his comparative nakedness. It seemed +to him that he must appear shockingly nude, since the upper part of his +body was but thinly covered by a garment that opened wide over his +breast. He felt a good deal like a shy girl first appearing on the beach +in an abbreviated bathing suit. But Sophie seemed unconscious of his +embarrassment, or the cause of it. However, Mr. Thompson picked up his +coat, and felt more at ease when he had slipped it on. He sat down, +still breathing heavily from his recent exertions. + +"Why do you say that?" he asked. + +"Oh, well," she said--and left the sentence unfinished, save by an +outward motion of her hands that might have meant anything. But she +smiled, and Mr. Thompson observed that she had fine, white, even teeth. +Each time he saw her some salient personal feature seemed to claim his +attention. To be sure he had seen other girls with good teeth and red +lips and other physical charms perhaps as great as Sophie Carr's. But +these things had never riveted his attention. There was something about +this girl that quickened every fiber of his being. And even while she +made him always acutely conscious of her bodily presence, he was a +little bit afraid of her. He had swift, discomforting visions of her +standing afar beckoning to him, and of himself unable to resist, no +matter what the penalty. She stirred up things in his mind that made him +blush. He was conscious of a desire to touch her hand, to kiss her. He +found himself totally unable to close the gates of his mind against such +thoughts when she was near him. And it was self-generated within him. +Sophie Carr was never more than impersonally pleasant to him. Sometimes +she was utterly indifferent. Often she said things about his calling +that made him wince. + +"Tell me," Thompson said abruptly, after a momentary silence, "how it +happens that the men who have been here before me left no trace of +any--any--well, anything? There have been other missionaries. They had +funds. They were stationed here. What did they do? I have been going to +ask your father. I daresay you can tell me yourself." + +The girl laughed, whether at the question or at his earnestness he could +not say. + +"They did nothing," she answered in an amused tone. "What could they do? +You haven't begun to realize yet what a difficult job you've tackled. +The others came here, stayed awhile, threw up their hands and went away. +Their idea of doing good seemed to consist of having a ready-made church +and a ready-made congregation, and to preach nice little, ready-made +religiosities on a Sunday. You can't preach anything to a people who +don't understand a word you say, and who are mostly too busy with more +pressing affairs to listen if they did understand. And you see for +yourself there's no church." + +"But what did these fellows do?" he persisted. That had been puzzling +him. + +"Nothing," she said scornfully "nothing but sit around and complain +about the loneliness and the coarse food and the discouraging outlook. +Then they'd finally go away--go back to where they came from, I +suppose." + +"The last man," Thompson ventured doubtfully. "The factor at Pachugan +told me Mr. Carr assaulted him. That seems rather odd to me, after what +I've seen of your father. Was it so?" + +"The last missionary wasn't what you'd call a good man, in any sense," +Sophie answered frankly. "He was here most of one summer, and toward the +last he showed himself up pretty badly. He developed a nasty trick of +annoying little native girls. Dad thrashed him properly. Dad took it as +a sort of reflection on us. Even the Indians don't approve of that sort +of thing. He left in a hurry, after that." + +Thompson felt his face burn. + +"Things like that made a bad impression," he returned diffidently. "I +suppose in all walks of life there are wolves in sheep's clothing. I +hope it hasn't prejudiced you against churchmen in general." + +"One single incident?" she smiled. "That wouldn't be very logical, would +it? No. We're not so intolerant. I don't suppose dad would actually have +gone the length of thrashing him, if the preacher hadn't taken a high +and mighty tone as a sort of bluff. That particular preacher happened to +be a local nuisance. I suppose in a settled, well-organized community, +public opinion and convention is a check on such men. They keep within +bounds because there's a heavy penalty if they don't. Up here where law +and conventions and so on practically don't exist, men of a certain +stamp aren't long in reverting to pure animalism. It's natural enough, I +dare say. Dad would be the last one to set himself up as a critic of any +one's personal morality. But it isn't very nice, especially for +preachers, who come here posing as the representatives of all that is +good and pure and holy." + +"You get terribly sarcastic at times, Miss Carr," Thompson complained. +"A man can preach the Gospel without losing his manhood." + +"If he had any clear conception of manhood I don't see how he could +devote himself to preaching as a profession," she said composedly. "Of +course, it's perhaps an excellent means of livelihood, but rather a +parasitic means, don't you think?" + +"When Christ came among men He was reviled and despised," Mr. Thompson +declared impressively. + +"Do you consider yourself the prototype of Christ?" the girl inquired +mockingly. "Why, if the man of Galilee could be reincarnated the first +thing He would attack would be the official expounders of Christianity, +with their creeds and formalisms, their temples and their self-seeking. +The Nazarene was a radical. The average preacher is an out-and-out +reactionary." + +"How do you know?" he challenged boldly. "According to your own account +of your life so far, you have never had opportunity to find the truth or +falsity of such a sweeping statement. You've always lived--" he looked +about the enfolding woods--"how can one know what the world outside of +Lake Athabasca is, if one has never been there?" + +She laughed. + +"One can't know positively," she said. "Not from personal experience. +But one can read eagerly, and one can think about what one reads, and +one can draw pretty fair conclusions from history, from what wise men, +real thinkers, have written about this big world one has never seen. And +the official exponents of theology show up rather poorly as helpful +social factors, so far as my study of sociology has gone." + +"You seem to have a grudge against the cloth," Thompson hazarded a +shrewd guess. "I wonder why?" + +"I'll tell you why," the girl said--and she laughed a little +self-consciously. "My reason tells me it's a silly way to feel. I can +never quite consider theology and the preachers from the same +dispassionate plane that dad can. There's a foolish sense of personal +grievance. Dad had it once, too, but he got over it long ago. I never +have. Perhaps you'll understand if I tell you. My mother was a vain, +silly, emotional sort of person, it seems, with some wonderful capacity +for attracting men. Dad was passionately fond of her. When I was about +three years old my foolish mother ran away with a young minister. After +living with him about six months, wandering about from place to place, +she drowned herself." + +Thompson listened to this recital of human frailty in wonder at the calm +way in which Sophie Carr could speak to him, a stranger, of a tragedy so +intimate. She stopped a second. + +"Dad was all broken up about it," she continued. "He loved my mother +with all her weaknesses--and he's a man with a profound knowledge of and +tolerance for human weaknesses. I daresay he would have been quite +willing to consider the past a blank if she had found out she cared most +for him, and had come back. But, as I said, she drowned herself. We +lived in the eastern States. It simply unrooted dad. He took me and came +away up here and buried himself. Incidentally he buried me too. And I +don't want to be buried. I resent being buried. I hope I shall not +always be a prisoner in these woods. And I grow more and more resentful +against that preacher for giving my father a jolt that made a recluse of +him. Don't you see? That one thing has colored my personal attitude +toward preachers as a class. I can never meet a minister without +thinking of that episode which has kept me here where I never see +another white woman, and very seldom a man. It's really a weak spot in +me, holding a grudge like that. One wouldn't condemn carpenters as a +body because one carpenter botched a house. And still--" + +She made the queer little gesture with her hands that he had noticed +before. And she smiled quite pleasantly at Mr. Thompson in womanly +inconsistency with the attitude she had just been explaining she held +toward ministers. + +"One gets such silly notions," she remarked. "Just like your idea that +you can come here and do good. You can't, you know--not for others--not +by your method. It's absurd. One can help others most, I really believe, +by helping oneself. I've noticed in reading of the phenomena of human +relations that the most pronounced idealists are frequently a sad burden +to others." + +Mr. Thompson found himself at a loss for instant reply. It was a trifle +less direct, more subtle than he liked. It opened hazily paths of +speculation he had never explored because generalizations of that sort +had never been propounded to him--certainly never by a young woman whose +very physical presence disturbed him sadly. + +And while he was turning that last sentence over uncomfortably in his +mind a hail sounded across the meadow. Sophie stood up and waved the tin +bucket she had in her hand. Tommy Ashe came striding toward them. He, +too, carried a tin bucket. + +"We're going to a blackberry patch down the creek," Sophie answered +Thompson's involuntary look of inquiry. "Get a pail and come along." + +"I must work," Thompson shook his head. + +"Berry-picking's work, if work is what you want," she retorted. "You'd +think so by the time you'd picked a hundred quarts or more and preserved +them for winter use. But then I suppose _your_ winter supply will +emanate from some mysterious, beneficent source, without any effort on +your part. How fortunate that will be." + +She tempered this sally with a laugh, and being presently joined by +Tommy Ashe, set off toward the bank of Lone Moose, leaving Mr. Thompson +sitting on his log, indulging in some very mixed reflections. + +The task he was engaged upon seemed suddenly to have lost its savor. +Whether this arose from a depressing sense of inability to deny the +truth of much that Sophie Carr had just said, or from the fact that as +he sat there looking after them he found himself envying Tommy Ashe's +pleasant intimacy with the girl, he could not say. Indeed, he did not +inquire too closely of himself. Some of the conclusions he was latterly +arriving at were so radically different from what he was accustomed to +accepting that he was a little bit afraid of them. + +It took him a considerable time to get back into a proper working frame +of mind. The progress of his wooden edifice suffered by that much. When +he went trudging home at last, sweaty and tired, with his axe over one +shoulder, he was wondering frankly if, after all, it was either wise or +necessary to establish a mission at Lone Moose. What good could he or +any other man possibly do there? The logical and proper answer to that +did not spring as readily to his lips as it would have done at the time +of his appointment by the Board of Home Missions. + +Along with that he was troubled by a constant recurrence of his thoughts +to Sophie Carr. Nor was it a matter of wonder at her bookish knowledge, +her astonishing vocabulary, her ability to think and to express her +thoughts concisely. He conceded that she was a remarkable young woman in +that respect. It was not her intellectual capacity which concerned him +greatly, but the sunny aureole of her hair, the smiling curve of her +lips, the willowy pliancy of her well-developed body. Just to think of +her meant a colorful picture, a vision that filled him with uneasy +restlessness, with vague dissatisfaction, with certain indefinable +longings. + +He was quite unable to define to himself the purport of these remarkable +symptoms. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A SLIP OF THE AXE + + +Mr. Thompson gradually became aware of a change in the season. The +calendar lost a good deal of its significance up there, partly because +he had no calendar and partly because one day was so much a duplicate of +another that the flitting of time escaped his notice. But he became +conscious that the days grew shorter, the nights a shade more cool, and +that the atmosphere was taking on that hazy, mellow stillness which +makes Indian Summer a period of rare beauty in the North. He took +serious stock of elapsed time then, and found to his surprise that it +was September the fifteenth. + +He had not accomplished much. The walls of his church stood about the +level of his head. It grew increasingly difficult for him alone to hoist +the logs into place. The door and window spaces were out of square. +Without help he did not see how he was going to rectify these small +errors and get the roof on. Even after it should be roofed, the cracks +chinked and daubed with mud, the doors and windows in place--what then? + +He would still lack hearers for the message which he daily grew a little +more doubtful of his ability to deliver. A native streak of stubbornness +kept him studying the language along with his daily tussle with the axe +and saw. But the rate of his progress was such that he pessimistically +calculated that it would take him at least two years before he could +preach with any degree of understanding in the Athabascan tongue. + +So far he had never gone the length of candidly asking himself whether +by then it would be a task he could put his heart into, if he were even +fitted for such a work, or if it were a useful and worthy task if he +were gifted with a fitness for it. He had been taught that preaching the +gospel was a divinely appointed function. He had not questioned that. +But he had now a lively sense of difficulties hitherto unreckoned, and +an ill-stifled doubt of the good that might accrue. His blank ignorance +of the salient points of human contact, of why men work and play, why +they love and fight and marry and bend all their energies along certain +given lines until they grow old and gray and in the end cease to be, +only served to bewilder him. His association with Tommy Ashe and with +Carr and Carr's daughter--especially with Carr's daughter--further +accentuated the questioning uncertainty of his mind. + +But that was all--merely an uncertainty which he tried to dissipate by +prayer and stern repression of smoldering doubts. At the same time while +he decried and resented their outspoken valuation of material +considerations he found himself constantly subject to those material +factors of daily living. + +The first of these was food. When Mr. Thompson outfitted himself for +that spiritual invasion of Lone Moose he brought in four months' +supplies. He discovered now that his supply of certain articles was not +so adequate as he had been told it would be. Also he had learned from +Carr and Lachlan that if a man wintered at Lone Moose it was well to +bring in a winter's grub before the freeze-up--the canoe being a far +easier mode of transport than a dog-team and sled. + +So Thompson stopped his building activities long enough to make a trip +to Pachugan. He got Lachlan's oldest son to go with him. His quarterly +salary was due, and he had a rather reluctant report of his work to +make. With the money he would be able to replenish his stock of sugar +and tea and dried fruit and flour. He decided too that he would have to +buy a gun and learn to use it as the source of his meat supply. + +His sublime confidence in the organization which had sent him there +suffered a decided shock when he reached Fort Pachugan, and found no +remittance awaiting him. There was a letter from the Board secretary +breathing exhortations which sounded rather hollow in conjunction with +the absence of funds. Mr. Thompson, for the first time in his career, +found himself badly in need of money, irritated beyond measure by its +lack, painfully cognizant of its value. But he was too diffident to +suggest a credit on the strength of the cheque which, upon reflection, +he decided was merely delayed in the more or less uncertain mails. He +could make shift with what he had for another month. Nor did he mention +this slight difficulty to MacLeod. + +That gentleman had greeted him heartily enough. + +"Man, but ye look as if the country agreed wi' you," he observed, after +an appraising glance. "How goes the good work at Lone Moose?" + +"There are difficulties," Thompson responded with an unintentional +touch of ambiguity. "But I daresay I'll manage in time to overcome +them." + +He discovered in himself a disinclination to talk about his labors in +that field. + +MacLeod smiled and forbore to press the subject. There were sundry +parcels for Sam Carr, a letter or two, and a varied assortment of +magazines. Thompson took these, after tarrying overnight at the post, +and started home, refusing MacLeod's cordial invitation to stay over a +day or two. He would be back again when the next mail was due, a matter +of four or five weeks. And late that same evening, by dint of a +favorable breeze that kept the canoe flying, and some hard pulling up +Lone Moose Creek, Thompson and the breed boy reached home. + +Young Lachlan went off to his cabin. Mr. Thompson conscientiously lugged +the assortment of parcels and magazines over to Sam Carr's house, duly +delivered the three letters to Carr himself, and--for reasons that he +could not define as anything but an unwarrantable access of +shyness--declining the first invitation he had ever received to break +bread at Carr's table, hurried back to his own primitive quarters. +Perhaps the fact that Sophie Carr, curled up in a big chair, smiled at +him in a way that made his pulses quicken had something to do with his +hasty retreat. He was wary of the impulses and emotions she never failed +to stir in him when he was near her. There were times when he suspected +that she was aware of this power--which in his naïve conception of women +he believed almost uncanny in her--and that she amused herself by +exercising it upon him. And he resented that. + +So he did not stay long enough to observe Carr lay two of his letters on +the table after a brief glance, and sit looking fixedly at the third, +which by the length of envelope and thickness of enclosure might +conceivably have contained some document of a legal or official nature. + +Carr looked at this letter a long time before he tore it open. He took a +still longer time to peruse its contents. He sat for several minutes +thereafter turning the sheets over and over in his lean fingers, until +in fact he became aware that his daughter's eyes were fixed on him with +a lively curiosity in their gray depths. + +"What is it, Dad?" she asked, as he tucked envelope and foolscap pages +into the inside pocket of his coat. + +"Oh, nothing much," he said shortly. + +But he leaned back in his chair and immediately became absorbed in +thought that accentuated the multitude of fine lines about his eyes and +drew his lips together in a narrow line. Sophie sat regarding him with a +look of wonder. + +This trifling incident, naturally, did not come under the notice of Mr. +Thompson. Conceivably he would not have noticed had he been present, nor +have been in any degree interested. + +He was, as a matter of fact, fully occupied at that precise moment with +the painful and disagreeable consequences of attempting to split +kindling by lantern light. To be specific the axe had glanced and cut a +deep gash in one side of his foot. + +At about the particular moment in which Sam Carr leaned back in his +chair and fell into that brown study of a matter that was to have a +far-reaching effect, Mr. Thompson was seated on his haunches on his +cabin floor, his hands stained with blood and a considerable trail of +red marking his progress from woodpile to cabin. His face was white, and +his hands rather shaky by the time he finished binding up the wound. The +cut stung and burned. When he essayed to move he found himself quite +effectually crippled. + +For the first time in his twenty-five years of carefully directed +existence Mr. Thompson swore a loud, round, Anglo-Saxon oath. Whether +this relieved his pent-up feelings or not he appeared to suffer no +remorse for the burst of profanity. Instead, he rose and limped +painfully about the building of a fire and the preparation of his +supper. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +--AND THE FRUITS THEREOF + + +Mr. Thompson slept fitfully that night. A hard day's paddling had left +him tired and sleepy, but the swarm of pain-devils in his slashed foot +destroyed his rest. When he got up at daylight and examined the wound +again he found himself afflicted with a badly swollen foot and ankle, +and a steady dull ache that extended upward past the knee. He was next +to helpless since every movement produced the most acute sort of +pain--sufficiently so that when he had made shift to get some breakfast +he could scarcely eat. In the course of his experiments in self-aid he +discovered that to lie flat on his back with the slashed foot raised +higher than his body gave a measure of ease. So he adopted this position +and stoically set out to endure the hurt. He lay in that position the +better part of the day--until, in fact, four in the afternoon brought +Sam Carr, shotgun in hand, to his door. + +Carr had seldom been in the cabin. This evening, for some reason, he put +his head in the door, and whistled softly at sight of Thompson's +bandaged foot cocked up on a folded overcoat. + +"Well, well," he said, standing his gun against the door casing and +coming in. "What have you done to yourself now?" + +"Oh, I cut my foot with the axe last night, worse luck," Thompson +responded petulantly. + +"Bad?" Carr inquired. + +"Bad enough." + +"Let me see it," Carr suggested. "It's a long way to a sawbones, and +Providence never seems quite able to cope with germs of infection. Have +you any sort of antiseptic dressing on it?" + +Thompson shook his head. He would not confess that the pain and swelling +had caused him certain misgivings, brought to his mind uneasily a good +deal that he had read and heard of blood-poisoning from cuts and +scratches. He was secretly glad to let Carr undo the rude bandage and +examine the wound. A man who had spent fifteen years in the wilderness +must have had to cope with similar cases. + +"You did give yourself a nasty nick and no mistake," Carr observed. "You +won't walk on that foot comfortably for two or three weeks. Just grazed +a bone. No carbolic, no peroxide, or anything like that, I suppose?" + +Thompson shook his head. He had not reckoned on cuts and bruises. Carr +put back the wrapping and sat whittling shavings of tobacco off a brown +plug, while Thompson got up, hopped on one foot across to the stove and +began to lay a fire. He had eaten nothing since morning, and was +correspondingly hungry. In addition, a certain unministerial pride +stirred him to action. He was ashamed to lie supinely enduring, to seem +helpless before another man's eyes. But the effort showed in his face. + +Carr lit his pipe and watched silently. His gaze took in every detail +of the cabin's interior, of Thompson's painful movements, of the poorly +cooked remains of breakfast that he was warming up. + +"You'll put that foot in a bad way if you try to use it much," he said +at last. "The best thing you can do is to come home with me and lie +around till you can walk again. I've got stuff to dress it properly. +Think you can hobble across the clearing if I make you a temporary +crutch?" + +Thompson at first declined to be such a source of trouble. He was +grateful enough, but reluctant. Carr, however, went about it in a way +that permitted nothing short of a boorish refusal, and presently Mr. +Thompson found himself, with a crutch made of a forked willow, crossing +the meadow to Sam Carr's house. + +His instincts had more or less subconsciously warned him that it would +not be well for his peace of mind or the good of his soul to be in +intimate daily contact with Sophie Carr. But his general inability to +cope with emergencies--which was patent enough to a practical man if not +wholly so to himself--culminating in this misadventure with a sharp axe, +had brought about that very circumstance. + +He had not looked for such a kindly office on the part of Sam Carr. That +individual's caustic utterances and critical attitude toward theology +had not forewarned Thompson that sympathy and kindliness were +fundamental attributes with Sam Carr. If he had an acid tongue his heart +was tender enough. But Carr was no sentimentalist. When he had bestowed +Thompson in a comfortable room and painstakingly dressed the injured +foot he left his patient much to his own devices--and to the +ministrations of his daughter. + +As a consequence, while the wound in his foot healed rapidly, Mr. +Thompson suffered a more grievous injury to his heart. Sophie Carr +affected him much as strong drink affects men with weak heads. The more +he saw of her the more he desired to see, to feast his eyes on her +loveliness--and invariably, when alone, to berate himself for such a +weakness. He had never dreamed that a man could feel that way about a +woman. He did not see why he, of all men, should succumb to the +fascination of a girl like Sophie Carr. + +But the emotion was undeniable. Perhaps Sophie would have been surprised +if she could have known the amount of repression Mr. Thompson gradually +became compelled to practice when she was with him. + +That was frequently enough. They were all good to him. From Carr's +Indian woman--who could, he now learned, speak passable English--down to +the sloe-eyed youngest Carr of mixed blood, they accepted him as one of +themselves. However, it happened to be Sophie who waited on him most, +who impishly took the greatest liberties with him, who was never averse +to an argument on any subject Thompson cared to touch. He had never +supposed there was a normal being with views on religion and economics, +upon any manifestation of human problems, with views so contrary to his +own. The maddening part of it was her ability to cite facts and +authorities whose existence he was not aware of, to confute him with +logic and compel him to admit that he did not know, that much of what he +asserted so emphatically was based on mere belief rather than +demonstrable fact or rational processes of arriving at a conclusion. +Sometimes both Sam Carr and Tommy Ashe were present at these oral tilts, +sitting back in silent amusement at Mr. Thompson's intellectual +floundering. + +A clean cut in the flesh of a healthy man heals quickly. In two weeks +Thompson could put his full weight on the injured member without pain or +any tendency to reopening the wound. Whereupon he repaired to his cabin +again, in a state of mind that was very disturbing. Without accepting +any of the Carr dictums upon theology and theological activities, he was +fast growing doubtful of his fitness for the job of herding other people +into the fold. He found himself with a growing disinclination for such a +task as his life work. Since that was the only thing he had any aptitude +for or training in, when he thought of cutting loose and facing the +world at large without the least idea of what he should do or how he +should do it, he perceived himself in a good deal of a dilemma. + +He was growing sure of one thing. Over and above the good of his soul +and other people's souls, a man must eat--to put it baldly. He should +earn his keep. He must indeed calculate upon provision for two. Mr. +Thompson had made the common mistake of believing himself +self-sufficient, and Sophie Carr had unwittingly taught him that a male +celibate was an anomaly in nature's reckoning. He had thought himself +immune from the ordinary passions of humanity. The strangest part of it +was a saddened gladness that he was not. Somehow, he did not want to be +a spiritual superman. He would rather love and struggle and suffer than +stand aloof, thanking God that he was not, like the Pharisees, as other +men. Sitting moodily by his rusty stove he confessed to himself that a +man who would gladly give up his hopes of eternal salvation for the +privilege of folding Sophie Carr close in his arms had no business in +the ministry--unless he simply wanted to hold down an easy, salaried +job. + +Whatever other sorts of a fool he might have been Thompson was no +hypocrite. He had never consciously looked upon the ministry as a man +looks upon a business career--a succession of steps to success, to an +assured social and financial position. Yet when he turned the +searchlight of analysis upon his motives he could not help seeing that +this was the very thing he had unwittingly been doing--that he had +expected and hoped for his progress through missionary work and small +churches eventually to bestow upon him a call to a wider field--a call +which Sam Carr had callously suggested meant neither more nor less than +a bigger church, a wider social circle, a bigger salary. And Thompson +could see that he had been looking forward to these things as a just +reward, and he could see too how the material benefits in them were the +lure. He had been coached and primed for that. His inclination had been +sedulously directed into that channel. His enthusiasm had been the +enthusiasm of one who seeks to serve and feels wholly competent. + +But he doubted both his fitness and his inclination now. He said to +himself that when a man loses heart in his work he should abandon that +work. He tried to muster up a resentful feeling against Sophie Carr for +the emotional havoc she had wrought, and the best he could do was a +despairing pang of loneliness. He wanted her. Above all he wanted her. +And she was a rank infidel--a crass materialist--an intellectual Circe. +Why, in the name of God, he asked himself passionately, must _he_ lose +his heart so fully to a woman with whom he could have nothing more in +common save the common factor that she was a woman and he a man. + +Mr. Thompson had not as yet discovered what a highly important factor +that last was. + +He managed to get a partial insight into that some three days later, and +the vision was vouchsafed him in a simple and natural manner, although +to him at the time it seemed the most wonderful and unaccountable thing +in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +UNIVERSAL ATTRIBUTES + + +Afterward Thompson could never quite determine what prompted him to +follow Sophie Carr when he saw her go down toward the creek bank. He was +on his way to Carr's house, driven thither by pure pressure of +loneliness, born of three days' solitary communion within the limits of +his own shack. He wanted to hear a human voice again. And it was a +vagrant, unaccountable impulse that sent him after Sophie instead of +directing him straight to Carr's living room, where her father would +probably be sitting, pipe in mouth, book in hand. + +He hurried with long strides after Sophie. She dipped below the sloping +bank before he came up, and when he came noiselessly down to the grassy +bank she stood leaning against a tree, gazing at the sluggish flow of +Lone Moose. + +He had seen her in moods that varied from feminine pettishness to the +teasingly mischievous. But he had never seen her in quite the same pitch +of spirits that caught his attention as soon as he reached her side. + +There was something bubbling within her, some repressed excitement that +kindled a glow in her gray eyes, kept a curiously happy smile playing +about her lips. + +And that magnetic something that drew the heart out of Thompson, +afflicting him with a maddening surge of impulses, had never functioned +so strongly. + +"What is it?" he asked abruptly. "You seem--you look--" + +He stopped short. It was not what he meant to say. He tried to avoid the +intimately personal when he was with her. He knew the danger of those +sweet familiarities--to himself. But he had blurted out the question +before he was aware. He was standing so close to her that a little +whirling breeze blew a strand of her yellow hair across his face. That +tenuous contact made him quiver, gave him a queer intoxicating thrill. + +"Does it show so plainly as that?" she smiled. "It's a secret. A really +wonderful secret. I'm just bursting to talk about it, but I mustn't. +Talking might break the spell. Do you--along with your other naïve +beliefs--believe in spells, Mr. Thompson?" + +"Yes," he answered simply. "In yours." + +Her eyes danced. She laughed softly, deep in her throat, like a meadow +lark in spring. + +"That's the first time I ever knew you to indulge in irony," she said. + +"It isn't irony," he answered moodily. "It's the honest truth." + +"Poor man," she said gaily. "I'd be flattered to death to think a simple +backwoods maiden could make such a profound impression on a young man +from the city--but it isn't so." + +She turned her head sidewise, like a saucy bird, regarding him with mock +gravity, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. Mr. Thompson had a long arm +and he stood close to her, tantalizingly close. She was smiling. Her +lips parted redly over white, even teeth, and as Thompson bent that +moody somber gaze on her, her breath seemed to come suddenly a little +faster, making her round breast flutter--and a faint tinge of pink stole +up to color the soft whiteness of her neck, up into the smooth round of +her cheeks. + +Thompson's arm closed about her, his lips grazed her cheek as she +twisted her head to evade him. That minor show of resistance stirred all +the primitive instincts that active or dormant lurk in every strong man. +He twisted her head roughly, and as naturally as water flows down hill +their lips met. He felt the girl's body nestle with a little tremor +closer to his, felt with an odd exaltation the quick hammer of her heart +against his breast. He held her tight, and her face slowly drew away +from him, and turned shyly against his shoulder. + +"It is so, and you know it's so," he whispered hoarsely. "Sophie, I +wish--" + +She freed herself from his embrace with a sudden twist. Her breath went +out in a little gasp. She looked over her shoulder once, and up at +Thompson, and a wave of red swept up over her fresh young face and dyed +it to the roots of her sunny hair. For a brief instant her hand lingered +in Thompson's, bestowing a quick and tender pressure. Then she was gone +up the bank with a bound like a startled deer. + +Thompson turned. Ten yards out in the stream Tommy Ashe's red canoe +drifted, and Tommy sat in the stern, his wet paddle poised as if he had +halted it midway of a stroke, his body bent forward, tense as that of a +beast crouched to spring. + +The bow of the canoe grounded. Ashe laid down his paddle, stepped +forward and ashore, hauling the craft's nose high with one hand. His +gaze never left Thompson's face. He came slowly up, his round, boyish +countenance white and hard and ugly, his eyes smoldering. Thompson felt +his own face hardening into the same ugly lines. He felt himself +threatened. Without being fully aware of his act he had dropped into a +belligerent pose, head and shoulders thrust forward, one foot drawn +back, hands clenched. This was purely instinctive. That Tommy Ashe had +seen him kiss Sophie Carr and was advancing upon him in jealous fury did +not occur to Thompson at all. + +"You beggar," Ashe gritted, "is it part of your system of saving souls +to kiss a girl as if--" + +The quality of his tone would have stung a less sensitive man. With +Sophie Carr's lip-pressure fresh and warm upon his own Thompson was in +that exalted mood wherein a man is like an open powder keg. And Tommy +Ashe had supplied the spark. A most unchristian flash of anger shot +through him. His reply was an earnest, if ill-directed blow. This Tommy +dodged by the simplest expedient of twisting his head sidewise without +moving his body, and launched at the same time a return jab which neatly +smacked against Thompson's jaw. + +Tommy Ashe was wonderfully quick on his feet and a powerful man to boot. +Moreover he had a certain dexterity with his fists. He was in deadly +earnest, as a man is when matters of sex lead him to a personal clash. +But he found pitted against him a man equally powerful, a man whose +extra reach and weight offset the advantage in skill, a man who gave and +took blows with silent ferocity. + +Thompson, in all his carefully ordered life, had never fought. He fought +now as if his life depended upon it. Each blow he gave and took brought +to the surface a furious determination. He was not conscious of real +pain, although he knew that his lips were cut and bleeding, that his +cheeks were bruised and cut where Tommy Ashe's hard-knuckled fists +landed with impressive force, that his heart pounded sickeningly against +his ribs, and that every breath was a rasping gasp. Nor was he conscious +of pity when he saw that Tommy Ashe was in no better case. It seemed fit +and proper that they should struggle like that. There was a strange sort +of pleasure in it. It seemed natural, as natural an act as he had ever +performed. The shock of his clenched fist driven with all his force +against the other man's body thrilled him, gave him a curious +satisfaction. And that satisfaction took on a keener edge when Ashe +clinched and they fell to the earth a struggling, squirming heap--for +Thompson felt a tremendous power in his arms, in those arms covered with +flat elastic bands of muscle hardened by weeks of axe-slinging, of +heaving on heavy logs. He wrapped his arms about Ashe and tried to crush +him. + +One trial of that fierce grip enlightened Tommy Ashe. He broke loose +from Thompson by a trick known to every man who has ever wrestled, and +clawed away to his feet. Thereafter he kept clear of grips. Quick, with +some skill at boxing, he could get home two blows to Thompson's one. But +he could not down his man. Nor could Thompson. They struck and parried, +circling and dodging, till their lungs were on fire, and neither had +strength enough left to strike a telling blow. + +The rage had gone out of them by then. It had become a dogged struggle +for mastery. And failing that, there came a moment when they staggered +apart and stood glaring at each other, choking for breath. As they +stood, Tommy Ashe spoke first. + +"You're a tough bird--for a parson." + +He gasped the words. + +With the dying out of that senseless fury a peculiar feeling of elation +came to Thompson, as if he had proved himself upon a doubtful matter. He +was ready to go on. But why? That question urged itself upon him. He +recalled that he had struck the first blow. + +"I think--I started this, didn't I?" he said. "I'm willing to finish it, +if you want to--but isn't it--isn't it rather foolish?" + +"No end foolish. Don't think we'd ever finish," Ashe said with a gleam +of his old humor. "Let's call it a draw. I feel a bit ashamed of myself +by now." + +Somewhere, sometime, Mr. Thompson had heard that men who fought shook +hands when the struggle was ended--a little ceremony that served to +restore the _status quo_. He had not the least rancor against Tommy +Ashe. It had all seeped away in the blind fury of that clash. He thrust +out a hand upon which the knuckles were cut and bloody. And the man upon +whose countenance he had bruised those knuckles took it with a wry +self-conscious smile. + +Then they drew a little apart and squatted on the bank of the creek to +lave their battered faces in the cold water. + +For a period of possibly five minutes they sat dabbling water-soaked +handkerchiefs upon their faces. The blood ceased to ooze from Thompson's +nostrils. Tommy Ashe looked over at his late antagonist and remarked +casually. + +"We're a pair of capital idiots, eh, Thompson?" + +Mr. Thompson tried to smile. But his countenance was swelling rapidly +and was in no condition for smiling. He mustered up a grimace, nodding +assent. + +"I hope Sophie didn't see us making such asses of ourselves," Tommy +continued ruefully. + +"I hardly think she would," Thompson returned. "It couldn't have been +the sort of spectacle a woman would care to watch." + +"You never can tell about a woman," Ashe observed thoughtfully. "Nor," +he added, "a man. I could never have imagined myself going off +half-cocked like that. I suppose the primitive brute in us is never +really far from the surface. Especially in this country. There's +something," he looked up at the surrounding depths of forest, down along +the dusky channel of Lone Moose, curving away among the spruce, "there's +something about this infernal solitude that brings out the savage. I've +noticed it in little things. We're loosed, in a way, from all restraint, +except what we put upon ourselves. Funny world, eh? You couldn't +imagine two chaps like us mauling each other like a pair of bruisers in +Mrs. Grundy's drawing-room, could you? Over a girl--oh, well, it'll be +all the same a hundred years from now." + +There was nothing apologetic in either Tommy's tone or words. Thompson +understood. Tommy Ashe was thinking out loud, that was all. And +presently, after another silent interval, he stood up. + +"I think I'll be getting back to my own diggings," he said. "So long, +old man." + +He nodded, pushed off his canoe and stepped aboard. In a minute he was +gone around the bend, driving the red canoe with slow, deliberate +strokes. + +Mr. Thompson gave over musing upon Tommy Ashe and Tommy's words and +attitude, and began to take stock of himself. It seemed to him that +Tommy Ashe felt ashamed of himself, whereas by all the precepts of his +earlier life and the code he had assimilated during that formative +period he, Wesley Thompson, was the one who should suffer a sense of +shame. And he felt no shame. On the contrary he experienced nothing more +than an astonishing feeling of exhilaration. Why, he could not +determine. It was un-Christian, undignified, brutal, to give and take +blows, to feel that vicious determination to smash another man with his +bare fists, to know the unholy joy of getting a blow home with all the +weight of his body behind it. Mr. Thompson was a trifle dazed, a trifle +uncertain. His face was puffed out of its natural contours, and very +tender in spots to touch. He knew that he must be a sight. There was a +grievous stiffness creeping over his arms and shoulders, an ache in his +ribs, as his heated body began to cool. But he was not sorry for +anything. He experienced no regrets. Only a heady feeling that for once +in his life he had met an emergency and had been equal to the demand. + +Perhaps the sweet memory of Sophie Carr's warm lips on his had something +to do with this. + +At any rate he rose after a little and followed the creek bank to a +point well down stream, whence he crossed through the fringe of timber +to his cabin. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN + + +Between the queer mixture of emotions which beset him and the discomfort +of his bruised face and over-strained body Thompson turned and twisted, +and sleep withheld its restful oblivion until far in the night. As a +consequence he slept late. Dawn had grown old before he wakened. + +When he opened his cabin door he was confronted by the dourest aspect of +the north that he had yet seen. The sky was banked full of slate-gray +clouds scudding low before a northeast wind that droned its melancholy +song in the swaying spruce tops, a song older than the sorrows of men, +the essence of all things forlorn in its minor cadences. A gray, clammy +day, tinged with the chill breath of coming snow. Thompson missed the +sun that had cheered and warmed those hushed solitudes. Just to look at +that dull sky and to hear the wind that was fast stripping the last sere +leaves from willow and maple and birch, and to feel that indefinable +touch of harshness, the first frigid fingerings of the frost-gods in the +air, gave him a swift touch of depression. He shivered a little. Turning +to his wood box he hastened to build a fire in the stove. + +He stoked that rusty firebox until by the time he had cooked and eaten +breakfast it was glowing red. When he sat with his feet cocked up on the +stove front and gave himself up to the sober business of thought, it +seemed to him that he was passing a portentous milestone. To his +unsophisticated mind the simple fact that Sophie Carr had permitted him +to kiss her, that for a moment her head with its fluffy aureole of +yellow hair had rested willingly upon his shoulder, created a bond +between them, an understanding, a tentative promise, a cleaving together +that could have but one conclusion. He found himself reflecting upon +that--to him--most natural conclusion with a peculiar mixture of +gladness and doubt. For even in his exaltation he could not visualize +Sophie Carr as an ideal minister's helpmate. He simply could not. He +could hear too plainly the scorn of her tone as she spoke of +"parasitical parsons", of "unthinking acceptance of priestly myths", of +the Church, his Church, as "an organization essentially materialistic in +its aims and activities", and many more such phrases which were new and +startling to Thompson, even if they had been current among radical +thinkers long enough to become incorporated in a great deal that has +been written upon philosophy and theology. + +Sophie didn't believe in his God, nor his work; he stopped short of +asking if he himself any longer had full and implicit belief in these +things, or if he had simply accepted them without question as he had +accepted so many other things in his brief career. But she believed in +_him_ and cared for him. He took that for granted too. And love covers +a multitude of sins. He had often had occasion to discourse upon various +sorts of love--fatherly love and brotherly love and maternal affection +and so on. But this flare of passionate tenderness focussing upon one +slender bit of a girl was something he could not quite fathom. He would +have contradicted with swift anger any suggestion that perhaps it was +merely wise old Nature's ancient method efficiently at work for an +appointed end. He had been so thoroughly grounded in the convention of +decrying physical impulses, of putting everything upon a pure and +spiritual plane, that in this first emotional crisis of his life he +could no more help dodging first principles than a spaniel pup can help +swimming when he is first tossed into deep water. + +Still--he was not a fool. He knew that his concern was not for Sophie +Carr's immortal soul, nor for the beauty and sweetness of her spirit, +when he was near her, when he touched her hand, nor even in that supreme +moment when he crushed her close to his unquiet heart and pressed that +hot kiss on her lips. It was the sheer flesh and blood womanliness of +her that made his heart beat faster, the sweet curve of her lips, the +willowy grace of her body, the odd little gestures of her hands, the +melody of her voice and the gray pools of her eyes, eyes full of queer +gleams and curious twinkles--all these things were indescribably +beautiful to him. He loved her--just the girl herself. He wanted her, +craved her presence; not the pleasant memory of her, but the forthright +physical nearness of her he desired with an intensity that was like a +fever. + +Just the excitement of feeling--as according to his lights he had a +right to feel--that they stood pledged, made it hard for him to get down +to fundamentals and consider rationally the question of marriage, of +their future, of how his appointed work could be made to dovetail with +the union of two such diverse personalities as himself and Sophie Carr. + +A hodge podge of this sort was turning over in his mind as he sat there, +now and then absently feeling the dusky puffiness under one eye and the +tender spot on the bridge of his nose where Tommy Ashe's hard knuckles +had peeled away the skin. He still had a most un-Christian satisfaction +in the belief that he had given as good as he had got. He was not +ashamed of having fought. He would fight again, any time, anywhere, for +Sophie Carr. He did not ask himself whether the combative instinct once +aroused might not function for lesser cause. + +He came out of this reverie at the faint rustle of footsteps beyond his +door--which was open because of the hot fire he had built. + +He did not suspect that the source of those footsteps might be Sophie +Carr until she stood unmistakably framed in the doorway. He rose to his +feet with a glad cry of welcome, albeit haltingly articulated. He was +suddenly reluctant to face her with the marks of conflict upon his face. + +"May I come in?" she asked coolly--and suited her action to the request +before he made reply. + +She sat down on a box just within the door and looked soberly at him, +scanning his face. Her hands lay quietly in her lap and she did not +seem to see Thompson's involuntarily extended arms. There was about her +none of the glowing witchery of yesterday. She lifted to him a face +thoughtful, even a little sad. And Thompson's hands fell, his heart +keeping them company. It was as if the somberness of those wind-swept +woods had crept into his cabin. It stilled the rush of words that +quivered on his lips. Sophie, indeed, found utterance first. + +"I'm sorry that you and Tommy fought," she said constrainedly. "I didn't +know until this morning. It was cowardly of me to run away. But it was +foolish to fight. It didn't occur to me that you two would. I suppose +you wonder what brought me here. I was worried for fear you had been +hurt. I saw Tommy, but he wouldn't talk." + +"I daresay I'm not a pretty object to look at," Thompson admitted. "But +I'm really not much the worse." + +"No. I can see that," she said. "Tommy is very quick and very strong--I +was a little afraid." + +The contrition, the hint of pity in her voice stirred up the queer +personal pride he had lately acquired. + +"I don't suppose Ashe has any monopoly of strength and quickness," he +remarked. "That--but there, I don't want to talk about that." + +He came over close beside her and looked down with all his troubled +heart in his clear blue eyes--so that the girl turned her gaze away and +her fingers wove nervously together. + +"My dear," the unaccustomed phrase broke abruptly, with a fierce +tenderness, from his lips. "I love you--which I think you know without +my saying so. I want you. Will you marry me? I--" + +Sophie warded off the impetuous outstretching of his arms and sprang to +her feet, facing him with all the delicate color gone out of her cheeks, +a sudden heave to her breast. She shook her head. "No," she said. "I +won't penalize myself to that extent--nor you. I won't bind myself by +any such promise. I won't even admit that I might." + +He caught her by the shoulders and shook her roughly. + +"Yesterday," he said hoarsely, "you let me kiss you--your lips burned +me--you rested your head against me as if it belonged there. What sort +of a woman are you? Sophie! Sophie!" + +"I know," she returned. "But yesterday was yesterday. This is another +day. Yesterday--oh, you wouldn't understand if I told you. Yesterday I +was bursting with happiness, like a bird in the spring. I like you, big +man with the freckled face. You came down here and stood beside me and +smiled at me. And--and that's all--a minute's madness. We can't marry on +_that_. I can't. I _won't_." + +His fingers tightened on the rounded arms. He shook her again with a +restrained savagery. If he hurt her she did not flinch, nor did her gray +eyes, cloudy now and wistful, waver before the passionate fire in his. + +"Sophie," he went on, "you don't know what this means to me. Don't you +care a little?" + +"Yes," she answered slowly. "Perhaps more than a little. I'm made that +way, I suppose. It isn't hard for me to love. But one doesn't--" + +"Then why," he demanded, "why refuse to give me a hope? Why, if you care +in the least, is there no chance for me? It isn't just a sudden fancy. +I've been feeling it grow and struggling to repress it, ever since I +first saw you. You say you care--yet you won't even think of marrying +me. I can't understand that at all. Why?" + +"Do you want to know? Can't you see good grounds why we two, of all +people, should _not_ marry?" she asked evenly. "Can you see anything to +make it desirable except a--a welling up of natural passion? Don't hold +my arms so tight. You hurt." + +He released his unthinking grip and stepped back a pace, his expression +one of hurt bewilderment at the paradox of Sophie's admission and +refusal. + +"We're at opposite poles in everything," she went on. "I don't believe +in the things you believe in. I don't see life with your vision at all. +I never shall. We'd be in a continual clash. I like you but I couldn't +possibly live with you--you couldn't live with me. I rebel at the future +I can see for us. Apart from yourself, the things you'd want to share +with me I despise. If I had to live in an atmosphere of sermons and +shams, of ministerial sanctimoniousness and material striving for a +bigger church and a bigger salary, I'd suffocate--I'd hate myself--and +in the end I'd hate you too." + +A little note of scorn crept into her voice, and she stopped. When she +spoke again her tone had changed, deepened into uncertainty, freighted +with wistfulness. + +"I'm not good--not in your sense of the word," she said. "I don't even +want to be. It would take all the joy out of living. I want to sing and +dance and be vibrantly alive. I want to see far countries and big +cities, to go about among people whose outlook isn't bounded by a forest +and a lake shore, nor by the things you set store by. And I'll be a +discontented pendulum until I do. + +"Why," she burst out passionately, "I'd be the biggest little fool on +earth to marry you just because--just because I like you, because you +kissed me and for a minute made me feel that life could be bounded by +you and kisses. You're only the second possible man I've ever seen. You +and Tommy Ashe. And before you came I could easily have persuaded myself +that I loved Tommy." + +"Now you think perhaps you love me, but that you might perhaps care in +the same way for the next attractive man who comes along? Is that it?" +Thompson asked with a touch of bitterness. + +"I might _think_ so--how can one tell?" she sighed. "But I'm very sure +my impulses will never plunge me into anything headlong, as you would +have me plunge. Don't you see," she made an impatient gesture, "we're +just like a couple of fledgling birds trying our wings. And you want to +proceed on the assumption that we're equal to anything, sure of +everything. I _know_ I'm not. You--" + +She made again that quick, expressive gesture with her hands. Something +about it made Thompson suddenly feel hopeless and forlorn, the airy +castles reared overnight out of the stuff of dreams a tumbled heap +about him. He sat down on one of the rude chairs, and turned his face to +look out the window, a lump slowly gathering in his throat. + +"All right," he said. "Good-by." + +If his tone was harsh and curt he could not help that. It was all he +could say and the only possible fashion of saying it. He wanted to cry +aloud his pain, the yearning ache that filled him, and he could not, +would not--no more than he would have whined under pure physical hurt. +But when he heard the faint rustle of her cotton dress and her step +outside he put his face on his hands and took his breath with a +shuddering sigh. + +At that, he was mistaken. Sophie had not gone. There was the quick, +light pad of her feet on the floor, her soft warm hands closed suddenly +about his neck, and he looked up into eyes bright and wet. Her face +dropped to a level with his own. + +"I'm so sorry, big man," she whispered, in a small, choked voice. "It +hurts me too." + +He felt the warm moist touch of her lips on his cheek, the faint +exhalation of her breath, and while his arms reached swiftly, +instinctively to grasp and hold her close, she was gone. And this time +she did not come back. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A MAN'S JOB FOR A MINISTER + + +Having thus received a sad jolt through the medium of his affections, +Mr. Thompson, like countless numbers of human beings before him, set +about gathering himself together. He did a tremendous lot of thinking +about things in general, about himself and Sophie Carr in particular. +Moping in that isolated cabin his mind took on a sort of abnormal +activity. He could not even stop thinking when he wanted to stop. He +would lie awake in the silent darkness long after he should have been +asleep, going over his narrow and uneventful existence, the unwelcome +and anguished present, the future that was nothing but a series of blank +pages which he had yet to turn in God only knew what bitterness and +sorrow. That was the way he gloomily put it to himself. He had still to +learn what an adaptable, resilient organism man is. This, his first +tentative brush with life, with the realities of pain and passion, had +left him exceedingly cast down, more than a little inclined to +pessimism. + +He experienced gusts of unreasoning anger at Sophie Carr, forgetting, as +a man wounded in his egotism and disappointed in his first passionate +yearning for a mate is likely to forget, that he had brought it on +himself, that Sophie had not encouraged him, nor lured him to his +undoing, nor given him aught to nourish the illusion that she was his +for the asking. + +Sometimes he would have a vivid flash of jealousy when he thought about +her and Tommy Ashe, when he recalled her admissions. And he would soften +from that mood, twisting his lips wryly, when he remembered the pitying +tenderness of her good-by. + +He could not in the least understand the girl nor her motives, any more +than he could understand the transformation that he felt vaguely was +taking place in himself. She was too wise for her years and her +experience. There was a stinging truth in some of the things she said. +And it was his fault, not hers, that they were unpalatable truths. What +did a man like himself have to offer a girl like her? Nothing. She had +his measure in everything but sheer brute strength, most of all in the +stoutness of her resolution. For Mr. Thompson, pondering soberly, +realized that if he gave free play to the feelings Sophie Carr had +stirred up in him, there was no folly he was not capable of committing. +He, whose official creed it was to expound self-denial, would have +followed his impulses blindly. He would have married out of hand. + +And after that, what? + +He could not see clearly, when he tried to see. He was no longer filled +with the sublime faith that a beneficent Providence kept watch and ward +over him, and all men. He was in fact now almost of the opinion that +both sparrows and preachers might fall and the Great Intelligence +remain unperturbed. It seemed necessary that a man should do more than +have faith. He must imperatively make some conscious, intelligent effort +on his own behalf. He was especially of this opinion since the Board of +Home Missions had overlooked the matter of forwarding his quarterly +salary on time. The faith that moveth mountains was powerless to conjure +flour and sugar and tea out of those dusky woods and silent +waterways--at least not without a canoe and labor and a certain +requisite medium of exchange. + +No, he did not blame Sophie Carr for refusing to allow her judgment to +be fogged with sentiment. He only marvelled that she could do it where +he had failed. He could not blame her--not if his speech and activities +since he came to Lone Moose were the measure of his possible +achievement. + +He was taking grim, unsparing stock of himself, of what he had, of what +he had accomplished altogether, by this time. It was not much. It was +not even promising. A theological education, which, compared to the sort +of culture Sam Carr and his daughter had managed to acquire, seemed +rather inadequate and one-sided. They knew more about the principles he +was supposed to teach than he knew himself. And their knowledge extended +to fields where he could not follow. When he compared himself with Tommy +Ashe--well, Tommy was an Oxford man, and although Oxford had not +indelibly stamped him, still it had left its mark. + +These people had covered all his ground--and they had gone exploring +further in fields of general knowledge while he sat gazing smugly at +his own reflection in a theological mirror. Upon that score certainly +the count was badly against him. + +As for his worldly possessions, when Mr. Thompson sardonically +considered them as a means of supporting a wife he was forced to admit +that the provision would be intolerably meager. His prospects included a +salary that barely sufficed for one. It was apparent, he concluded, that +the Board of Home Missions, like the Army and Navy, calculated its rank +and file to remain in single blessedness and subsist frugally to boot. + +As to his late accomplishments in the field of labor, Mr. Thompson +looked out of his cabin door to where he could see dimly through the +trees the uncompleted bulk of his church--and he set down a mental +cipher against that account. It was waste effort. He felt in his heart +that he would never finish it. What was the use? + +He tried to whip up the old sense of duty to his calling, to the Church, +to the great good which he had been taught he should accomplish. And he +could muster up nothing but an irritating sense of hollow wordiness in +many of his former dictums and utterances, a vast futility of effort. + +Whereupon he at once found himself face to face with a fresh problem, in +which the question of squaring his material needs and queer half-formed +desires with his actions loomed paramount. In other words Mr. Thompson +began, in a fashion scarcely apprehended, upon the painful process of +formulating a philosophy of life that would apply to life as it was +forcing itself upon his consciousness--not as he had hitherto conceived +life to be. + +But he was unable to pin himself down to any definite plan. He could not +evolve a clear idea of what to do, nor even of what he wanted to do. And +in the interim he did little save sit about his cabin, deep in +introspection, chop firewood as needed and cook his plain fare--that was +gradually growing plainer, more restricted. Sometimes he varied this by +long solitary tramps through the woods along the brushy bank of Lone +Moose Creek. + +This hermit existence he kept up for over a fortnight. He had fought +with Tommy Ashe and he felt diffident about inflicting his company on +Tommy, considering the _casus belli_. Nor could he bring himself to a +casual dropping in on Sam Carr. He shrank from meeting Sophie, from +hearing the sound of her voice, from feeling the tumult of desire her +nearness always stirred up in him. And there was nowhere else to go, no +one with whom he could talk. He could not hold converse with the Crees. +The Lachlan family relapsed into painful stiffness when he entered their +house. There was no common ground between him and them. + +He was really marking time until the next mail should arrive at Fort +Pachugan. The days were growing shorter, the nights edged with sharp +frosts. There came a flurry of snow that lay a day and faded slowly in +the eye of the weakening sun. + +Mr. Thompson, watching his daily diminishing food supply with sedulous +consideration, knew that the winter was drawing near, a season merciless +in its rigor. He knew that one of these days the northerly wind would +bring down a storm which would blanket the land with snow that only the +sun of the next May would banish. He was ill-prepared to face such an +iron-jawed season. + +If he stayed there it would just about take his quarterly salary to +supply him with plain food and the heavier clothing he needed. But--he +drew a long breath and asked himself one day why he should stay there. +Why should he? He could not forbear a wry grimace when he tried to see +himself carrying out his appointed task faithfully to the end--preaching +vainly to uncomprehending ears month after month, year after year, +stagnating mentally and suffocating spiritually in those silent forests +where God and godly living was not a factor at all; where food, +clothing, and shelter loomed bigger than anything else, because until +these primary needs were satisfied a man could not rise above the status +of a hungry animal. + +Yet he shrank from giving up the ministry. He had been bred to it, his +destiny sedulously shaped toward that end by the maiden aunts and the +theological schools. It was, in effect, his trade. He could scarcely +look equably upon a future apart from prayer meetings, from Bible +classes, from carefully thought out and eloquently delivered sermons. He +felt like a renegade when he considered quitting that chosen field. But +he felt also that it was a field in which he had no business now. + +He was still in this uncertain frame of mind a few days later when he +borrowed a canoe from Lachlan and set out for the Fort. He had kept +away from Carr's for nearly five weeks. Neither Sophie nor her father +had come to his cabin again. Once or twice he had hailed Carr from a +distance. In the height of his loneliness he had traversed the half-mile +to Tommy Ashe's shack up Lone Moose, only to find it deserted. He +learned later that Lachlan's oldest son and Ashe had gone partners to +run a line of traps away to the north of the village. It occurred to +Thompson that he might do the same--if--well, he would see about that +when he got home from Pachugan. + +The birch bark Lachlan let him have occasioned him many a rare tussle +before he finally beached it at the Fort. The fall winds were roughening +the lake. It was his first single-handed essay with the paddle. But he +derived a certain satisfaction from winning alone against wind and +water, and also gained food for thought in the odd circumstance of his +growing tendency to get a glow out of purely physical achievements. It +did not irk nor worry him now to sweat and strain for hours on end. +Instead, he found in that continued, concentrated muscular effort a +happy release from troublesome reflection. + +His cheque was waiting. As he fingered the green slip whose face value +was one hundred and twenty dollars, one fourth of his yearly stipend, he +felt relieved, and at the same time oddly reluctant. Not until late in +the evening did he get at the root of that reluctance. MacLeod had +hospitably insisted on putting him up. They sat in the factor's living +room before a great roaring fireplace. Their talk had lapsed into +silence. MacLeod leaned back in his chair, pipe in hand, frowning +abstractedly. + +"Man," he said at length, his bearded face wrinkled with a smile, "I +wish ye were no a preacher wi' labors i' the vineyard of the Lord tae +occupy yer time. I'd have ye do a job for me." + +"A job?" Thompson came out of his preoccupation. + +"Aye," MacLeod grunted. "A job. A reg'lar man's job. There'd be a +reasonable compensation in't. It's a pity," he continued dryly, "that a +parson has a mind sae far above purely mateerial conseederation." + +"It may surprise you," Mr. Thompson returned almost as dryly, "to know +that I have--to a certain extent--modified my views upon what you term +material considerations. They are, I have found, more important than I +realized." + +The factor took his pipe out of his mouth and regarded Thompson with +frank curiosity. + +"Well," he remarked finally. "Yer a young man. It's no surprisin'." He +paused a second. + +"Would it interest ye--would ye consider givin' a month or two of yer +time to a legitimate enterprise if it was made worth yer while?" he +asked bluntly. + +"Yes," Thompson answered with equal directness. "If I knew what it +was--if it's something I can do." + +"I'm just marking time at Lone Moose," he went on after a pause. There +was a note of discouragement in his voice. "I'm--well, completely +superfluous there. I'd be tempted--" + +He did not go farther. Nor did MacLeod inquire into the nature of the +suggested temptation. He merely nodded understandingly at the first +part of Thompson's reply. + +"Ye could do it fine, I think," he said thoughtfully, "wi' the use of +yer head an' the bit coachin' and help I'd provide. It's like this. +Pachugan's no so good a deestrict as it used tae be. The fur trade's +slowin' down, an' the Company's no so keen as it was in the old days +when it was lord o' the North. I mind when a factor was a power--but +that time's past. The Company's got ither fish tae fry. Consequently +there's times when we're i' the pickle of them that had tae make bricks +wi'oot straw. I mean there's times when they dinna gie us the support +needful to make the best of what trade there is. Difficulties of +transportation for one thing, an' a dyin' interest in a decayin' branch +of Company business. Forbye a' that they expect results, just the same. + +"Now, I'm short of three verra necessary things, flour, tea, and steel +traps. I canna get them frae Edmonton. They didna fully honor my fall +requisitions, an' it's too late i' the season now. Yet they'll ask why I +dinna get the skins next spring, ye understand. If the Indians dinna get +fully supplied here, they'll go elsewhere; they can do that since +there's a French firm strung a line o' posts to compete i' the region, +ye see. + +"Now I havena got the goods I need an' I canna get them frae Company +sources. But there's a free trader set himsel' up tae the north o' here +last season. The North's no a monopoly for the Company these days, ye +ken. They canna run a free trader out i' the old high-handed fashion. +But there's a bit of the old spirit left--an' this laddie's met wi' +difficulties, in a way o' speakin'. He's discouraged tae the point where +he'll sell cheap; an' he's a fair stock o' the verra goods I want. I'd +tak' over his stock to-morrow--but he's ninety-odd miles away. I canna +leave here i' the height o' the outfittin' season. I ha' naebody I can +leave in charge. + +"The job for ye wad be tae go up there, inventory his stock, take it +over, an' stay there tae distribute it tae such folk as I'd send tae be +supplied in that section. Wi' that completed, transfer the tag-ends doon +here. I'd furnish ye a breed tae guide ye there an' interpret for ye, +an' tae pass on the quality o' such furs as might offer. He'd grade +them, an' ye'd purchase accordin'. Do ye see? It's no a job I can put on +anny half-breed. There's none here can write and figure." + +"As it sounds," Thompson replied, "I daresay I could manage. You said it +would be worth my while. What do I gather from that?" + +"Ye'd gather two dollars a day an' everything supplied," MacLeod +returned dryly. "Will ye tak' it on?" + +Thompson stared into the fire for a minute. Then he looked up at the +Factor of Fort Pachugan. + +"I'm your man," he said briefly. + +"Good," MacLeod grunted. "An' when ye go back tae the preachin' ye'll +find the experience has done ye no harm. Now, we'll go over the +seetuation in detail to-morrow, an' the next day ye'll start north, wi' +Joe Lamont. The freeze-up's due, an' it's quicker an' easier travelin' +by canoe than wi' dogs." + +They talked desultorily for half an hour, until MacLeod, growing drowsy +before the big fire, yawned and went off to bed, after pointing out a +room for his guest and employee-to-be. + +Thompson shut the door of his bedroom and sat down on a stool. He was +warm, comfortable, well-fed. But he was not happy, unless the look of +him belied his real feelings. He raised his eyes and stared curiously at +his reflection in a small mirror on the wall. The scars of Tommy Ashe's +fists had long since faded. His skin was a ruddy, healthy hue, the +freckles across the bridge of his nose almost wholly absorbed in a coat +of tan. But the change that marked him most was a change of expression. +His eyes had lost the old, mild look. They were hard and alert, blue +mirrors of an unquiet spirit. There was a different set to his lips. + +"I don't look like a minister," he muttered. "I look like a man who has +been drunk. I feel like that. There must be a devil in me." + +He had brought with him from Lone Moose a small bag. Out of this he now +took paper, envelopes, a fountain pen, changed his seat to the edge of +the bed, and using the stool for a desk began to write. When he had +covered two sheets he folded them over the green slip he had that day +received, and slid the whole into an envelope which he addressed: + + Mr. A.H. Markham, + Sec. M.E. Board of Home Missions, + 412 Echo St., + Toronto, Ont. + +He laid the letter on the bed and regarded it with an expression in +which regret and relief were equally mingled. + +"They'll say--they'll think," he muttered disconnectedly. + +He got up, paced across the small room, swung about to look at the +letter again. + +"I've got to do it," he said aloud defiantly. "It's the only thing I can +do. Burn all my bridges behind me. If I can't honestly be a minister, I +can at least be a man." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A FORTUNE AND A FLITTING + + +Christmas had come and gone before Thompson finished his job at +Porcupine Lake, some ninety-odd miles, as the crow flies, north of Fort +Pachugan. The Porcupine was a marshy stretch of water, the home of +muskrat and beaver, a paradise for waterfowl when the heavy hand of +winter was lifted, a sheet of ice now, a white oval in the dusky green +of the forest. Here the free trader had built a fair-sized structure of +logs with goods piled in the front and the rearward end given over to a +stove, a table, and two bunks. In this place Thompson and Joe Lamont +plied their traffic. MacLeod sent them Indian and half-breed trappers +bearing orders for so much flour, so much tea, so many traps, so much +powder and ball and percussion caps for their nigh obsolete guns. They +took their "debt" and departed into the wilderness, to repay in the +spring with furs. + +So, by degrees, the free-trader's stock approached depletion, until +there remained no more than two good dog teams could haul. With that on +sleds, and a few bundles of furs traded in by trappers whose lines +radiated from the Porcupine, Thompson and Joe Lamont came back to Fort +Pachugan. + +The factor seemed well pleased with the undertaking. He checked up the +goods and opined that the deal would show a rare profit for the Company. + +"Ye have a hundred an' twenty-six dollars due, over an' above a charge +or two against ye," he said to Thompson when they went over the +accounts. "How will ye have it? In cash? If ye purpose to winter at Lone +Moose a credit maybe'll serve as well. Or, if ye go out, ye can have a +cheque on the Company at Edmonton." + +"Give me the hundred in cash," Thompson decided. "I'll take the twenty +odd in grub. I'm going to Lone Moose, but I don't know how long I'll +stay there. There's some stuff of mine there that I want to get. After +that--I'm a bit undecided." + +In those long nights at the Porcupine he had done a good deal of +pondering over his next move. He had not yet come to a fixed decision. +In a general way he knew that he was going out into the world from +whence he had come, with an altogether different point of view, to work +out his future along altogether different lines. But he had not made up +his mind to do this at once. He was clearly conscious of one imperative +craving. That was for a sight of Sophie Carr and a chance to talk to her +again. His heart quickened when he thought of their parting. He knew she +was anything but indifferent. He was not an egotist, but he knew she +harbored a feeling akin to his own, and he built hopes on that, despite +her blunt refusal, the logical reasons she had set forth. He hoped +again. He saw himself in the way of becoming competent--as the North, +which is a keen judge, appraises competence. He had chucked some of his +illusions about relative values. He conceived that in time he might +approximate to Sophie Carr's idea of a man. + +He wanted to see her, to talk with her, to make her define her attitude +a little more clearly. Looking back with his mind a great deal less +confused by emotion, he wondered why he had been so dumb, why he had not +managed to convey to her that the things she foresaw as denying them +happiness or even toleration for each other were not a final state in +him, that his ideas and habits and pursuits were in a state of flux that +might lead him anywhere. She had thrown cold water on the flame of his +passion. But he remembered with a glow of happiness that she had kissed +him. + +He pondered deeply upon this, wondering much at the singular attraction +this girl held for him, the mystery of that strange quality that drew +him so. He lacked knowledge of the way and power of women. It had never +touched him before. It was indeed as if he had been asleep and had +wakened with a start. He was intensely curious about that, curious to +know why he, who had met nice girls and attractive women by the score, +had come into the North woods to be stirred out of all reason by a slip +of a girl with yellow hair and expressive gray eyes and a precocious +manner of thinking. + +He looked forward eagerly to seeing her again. He somehow felt a little +more sure of himself now. He could think of a number of things he wished +to ask her, of ideas he wanted to expand into speech. The hurt of her +blank refusal had dulled a little. He could anticipate a keen pleasure +just in seeing her. + +In the morning he set about outfitting. He had come down from Porcupine +with dogs. He had seen dog teams bearing the goods and chattels of +innumerable natives. He perceived the essential usefulness of dogs and +snowshoes and toboggans in that boundless region of snow. Canoes when +the ice went out, dogs and toboggans when winter came again to lock +tight the waterways. So during his stay at Porcupine he had accepted the +gift of a dog from a Cree, traded tobacco for another, and he and Lamont +had whiled away the long evenings in making two sets of harness and a +small toboggan. A four-dog team will haul a sizable load. Two would move +all the burden of food and gear that he had in his possession. He had +learned painfully to walk upon snowshoes--enough so that he was over the +poignant ache in the calf of the leg which the North calls _mal de +racquette_. Altogether he felt himself fully equal to fare into the +wilderness alone. Moreover he had none of that intangible dread of the +wilderness which had troubled him when he first came to Lone Moose. + +Then it seemed lonely beyond expression, brooding, sinister. It was +lonely still--but that was all. He was beginning to grasp the motif of +the wilderness, to understand in a measure that to those who adapted +themselves thereto it was a sanctuary. The sailor to his sea, the +woodsman to his woods, and the _boulevardier_ to his beloved avenues! +Thompson did not cleave to the North as a woodsman might. But the +natural phenomena of unbroken silences, of vast soundlessness, of miles +upon miles of somber forest aisles did not oppress him now. What a man +understands he does not fear. The unknown, the potentially terrible +which spurs the imagination to horrifying vision, is what bears heavy on +a man's soul. + +Thompson's preparation for the trail was simple. That lesson he had +learned from two months' close association with Joe Lamont. He had +acquired a sleeping bag of moosehide, soft tanned. This, his gun and +axe, the grub he got from the Pachugan store, he had lashed on the +toboggan and put his dogs in harness at daybreak. There would be little +enough day to light his steps. Dusk came at midafternoon. + +When he had tied the last lashing he shook hands with MacLeod and set +out. + +He traversed the sixty miles between Pachugan and Lone Moose in two +days, by traveling late the first night, under a brilliant moon. It gave +him a far vision of the lake shore, black point after black point +thrusting out into the immense white level of the lake. Upon that hard +smooth surface he could tuck the snowshoes under his lashings and trot +over the ice, his dogs at his heels, the frost-bound hush broken by the +tinkle of a little bell Joe Lamont had fastened on the lead dog's +collar. It rang sweetly, a gay note in that chill void. + +That night he drew into a spruce grove, cleared a space for his fire and +bed, fed himself hot tea and a bannock, and the hindquarters of a rabbit +potted by his rifle on the way. He went to sleep with drowsy eyes +peeping at the cold stars from under the flap of his sleeping bag, at +the jagged silhouette of spruce tops cut sharp against the sky. + +He drew up before the mission quarters in the gray of the next dusk, and +stood again after nigh three months at his own door. The clearing was a +white square, all its unlovely litter of fallen trees and half-burned +stumps hidden under the virgin snow. The cabin sat squat and +brown-walled amid this. On all sides the spruce stood dusky-green. +Beyond, over in Lone Moose meadow, Thompson, standing a moment before he +opened the door, heard voices faintly, the ringing blows of an axe. Some +one laughed. + +The frost stirred him out of this momentary inaction. In a few minutes +he had a fire glowing in the stove, a lamp lighted, the chill driven +from that long deserted room. Except for that chill and a slight +closeness, the cabin was as he had left it. Outside, his two dogs +snarled and growled over their evening ration of dried fish, and when +they had consumed the last scrap curled hardily in the snow bank near +the cabin wall. + +Thompson had achieved a hair-cut at Pachugan. Now he got out his razor +and painstakingly scraped away the accumulated beard. He had allowed it +to grow upon Joe Lamont's assertion that "de wheesker, she's help keep +hout de fros', Bagosh." Thompson doubted the efficiency of whiskers as a +protection, and he wanted to appear like himself. He made that +concession consciously to his vanity. + +He did not waste much time. While he shaved and washed, his supper +cooked. He ate, drew the parka over his head, hooked his toes into the +loops of his snowshoes and strode off toward Carr's house. The timidity +that made him avoid the place after his fight with Tommy Ashe and +subsequent encounter with Sophie had vanished. The very eagerness of his +heart bred a profound self-confidence. He crossed the meadow as +hurriedly as an accepted lover. + +For a few seconds there was no answer to his knock. Then a faint +foot-shuffle sounded, and Carr's Indian woman opened the door. She +blinked a moment in the dazzle of lamp glare on the snow until, +recognizing him, her brown face lit up with a smile. + +"You come back Lone Moose, eh?" she said. "Come in." + +Thompson put back the hood of his parka and laid off his mitts. The room +was hot by comparison with outdoors. He looked about. Carr's woman +motioned him to a chair. Opposite him the youngest Carr squatted like a +brown Billiken on a wolfskin. Every detail of that room was familiar. +There was the heavy, homemade chair wherein Sam Carr was wont to sit and +read. Close by it stood Sophie's favorite seat. A nickel-plated oil lamp +gave forth a mellow light under a pale birch-bark shade. But he missed +the old man with a pipe in his mouth and a book on his knee, the +gray-eyed girl with the slow smile and the sunny hair. + +"Mr. Carr and Sophie--are they home?" he asked at length. + +The Indian woman shook her head. + +"Sam and Sophie go 'way," she said placidly. "No come back Lone Moose +long time--maybe no more. Sophie leave sumpin' you. I get." + +She crossed the room to a shelf above the serried volumes of Sam Carr's +library, lifted the cover of a tin tobacco box and took out a letter. +This she gave to Thompson. Then she sat down cross-legged on the +wolfskin beside her youngster, looking up at her visitor impassively, +her moon face void of expression, except perhaps the mildest trace of +curiosity. + +Thompson fingered the envelope for a second, scarcely crediting his +ears. The letter in his hands conveyed nothing. He did not recognize the +writing. He was acutely conscious of a dreadful heartsinking. There was +a finality about the Indian woman's statement that chilled him. + +"They have gone away?" he said. "Where? When did they go?" + +"Long time. Two moon," she replied matter-of-factly. "Dunno where go. +Sam say he go--don't know when come back. Leave me house, plenty +blanket, plenty grub. Next spring he say he send more grub. That all. +Sophie go too." + +Thompson stared at her. Perhaps he was not alone in facing something +that numbed him. + +"Your man go away. Not come back. You sorry? You feel bad?" he asked. + +Her lips parted in a wide smile. + +"Sam he good man," she said evenly. "Leave good place for me. I plenty +warm, plenty to eat. I no care he go. Sam, pretty soon he get old. I +want ketchum man, I ketchum. No feel bad. No." + +She shook her head, as if the idea amused her. And Mr. Thompson, +perceiving that a potential desertion which moved him to sympathy did +not trouble her at all, turned his attention to the letter in his hand. +He opened the envelope. There were half a dozen closely written sheets +within. + + Dear freckle-faced man: there is such a lot I want to say that I + don't know where to begin. Perhaps you'll think it queer I should + write instead of telling you, but I have found it hard to talk to + you, hard to say what I mean in any clear sort of way. Speech is + a tricky thing when half of one's mind is dwelling on the person + one is trying to talk to and only the other half alive to what + one is trying to express. The last time we were together it was + hard for me to talk. I knew what I was going to do, and I didn't + like to tell you. I wanted to talk and when I tried I blundered. + Too much feeling--a sort of inward choking. And the last few + days, when I have become accustomed to the idea of going away and + familiar with the details of the astonishing change which has + taken place in my life, you have been gone. I dare not trust to a + casual meeting between here and Pachugan. I do not even know for + sure that you have gone to Pachugan, or that you will come + back--of course I think you will or I should not write. + + But unless you come back to-night you will not see me at Lone + Moose. So I'm going to write and leave it with Cloudy Moon to + give you when you do come. + + Perhaps I'd better explain a little. Dad had an old bachelor + brother who--it seems--knew me when I was an infant. Somehow he + and dad have kept in some sort of touch. This uncle, whom I do + not remember at all, grew moderately wealthy. When he died some + six months ago his money was willed equally to dad and myself. It + was not wholly unexpected. Dad has often reminded me of that + ultimate loophole when I would grow discontented with being + penned up in these dumb forests. I suppose it may sound callous + to be pleased with a dead man's gift, but regardless of the ways + and means provided it seems very wonderful to me that at last I + am going out into the big world that I have spent so many hours + dreaming of, going out to where there are pictures and music and + beautiful things of all sorts--and men. + + You see, I am trying to be brutally frank. I am trying to empty + my mind out to you, and a bit of my heart. I like you a lot, big + man. I don't mind making that confession. If you were not a + preacher--if you did not see life through such narrow eyes, if + you were more tolerant, if you had the kindly faculty of putting + yourself in the other fellow's shoes now and then, if only your + creeds and doctrines and formulas meant anything vital--I--but + those cursed ifs cannot be gainsaid. + + It's no use, preacher man. That day you kissed me on the creek + bank and the morning I came to your cabin, I was conscious of + loving you--but it was under protest--under pretty much the same + protest with which you care for me. You were both times carried + away so by your own passion that for the moment your mental + reservations were in abeyance. And although perhaps a breath of + that same passion stirred me--I can admit it now when the + distance between us will not make that admission a weapon in your + hands--yet there was somewhere in me a little voice whispering: + "Sophie, it won't do. You can't mix oil and water." + + There is a streak of my poor weak and passionate mother in me. + But there is also a counterbalancing streak of my father's + deliberate judgment. He has schooled me for my ultimate + protection--as he has often made plain--to think, to know why I + do a thing, to look, even if ever so briefly, before I leap. And + I cannot help it, if when I felt tempted to say the word that + would have given me the right to feel the ecstasy of your arms + drawing me close and your lips pressed on mine, if in the same + breath I was looking ahead and getting a disillusioning glimpse + of what life together would mean for you and me, you with your + deeply implanted prejudices, your hard and fast conceptions of + good and evil, of right and wrong--I what I am, a creature + craving pleasure, joy, luxury, if possible, happiness wherever + and whenever I can assure myself I have really found it. I + wouldn't make a preacher's wife at all, I know. I'd stifle in + that sort of atmosphere. + + Even if you were not a minister--if you were just plain man--and + I wish you were--I don't know. I have to try my wings, now that I + have the opportunity. How do I know what turn my vagrant impulses + may take? I may be one of those queer, perverted creatures + (_vide_ Havelock Ellis. You'll find two volumes of his psychology + of sex among dad's books) whose instincts incline toward many men + in turn. I don't believe I am. A woman's destiny, in so far as I + have been able to grasp the feminine function by what I've read + and observed in a limited way, is to mate and to rear children. I + don't think I'm a variation from the normal type, except in my + habit of thinking deeply about these things rather than being + moved by purely instinctive reactions. I could be happy ever so + simply, I think. Mismated, I should be tigerishly miserable. I + know myself, within certain limits--but men I do not know at all, + except in theory. I have never had a chance to know men. You and + Tommy Ashe have been the only two possibilities. I've liked you + both. You, dear freckle-face, with the serious look and muddled + ideas, far the better of the two. I don't know why. Tommy Ashe + attracted me physically. I recognized that ultimately--and that + alone isn't enough, although it is probably the basis of many + matings. So do you likewise attract me, but with a tenderer, more + protective passion. I'd like to mother you, to tease you--and + mend your socks! Oh, my dear, I can't marry you, and I wish I + could. I shrink from submerging my own individuality in yours, + and without that sacrifice our life would be one continual clash, + until we should hate each other. + + And still I know that I am going to be very lonely, to feel for + awhile as if I'd lost something. I have felt that way these weeks + that you kept to your cabin, avoiding me. I have felt it more + keenly since your cabin is empty, and I don't know where you may + have gone, nor if you will ever come back. I find myself + wondering how you will fare in this grim country. You're such a + visionary. You're so impractical. And neither nature nor society + is kind to visionaries, to those who will not be adaptable. + + Do you understand what I've been trying to tell you? I wonder if + you will? Or if I am too incoherent. I feel that perhaps I am. I + started out to say things that were bubbling within me, and I am + oddly reluctant to say them. I am like a butterfly emerging from + its cocoon. I am an explorer setting out upon a momentous + journey. I am making an experiment that fascinates me. Yet I have + regrets. I am uncertain. I am doing the thing which my nature and + my intelligence impel me to do, now that I have the opportunity. + I am satisfying a yearning, and stifling a desire that could grow + very strong if I let myself go. + + I can see you scowl. You will say to yourself--looking at it from + your own peculiar angle--you will say: "She is not worth thinking + about." And unless I have been mistaken in you you will say it + very bitterly, and you will be thinking long and hard when you + say it. Just as I, knowing that I am wise in going away from you, + just as my reason points clearly to the fact that for me living + with you would become a daily protest, a limitation of thought + and act that I could not endure, still--knowing all this--I feel + a strange reluctance to accepting the road I have chosen, I feel + a disconcerting tug at my heart when I think of you--and that is + often. + + I shall change, of course. So will you. Psychologically, love + doesn't endure to death--unless it is nurtured by association, + unless it has its foundation in community of interest and effort, + a mutual affection that can survive hard knocks. + + Good-by, dear freckled man. You have taught me something. I hope + I have done as much for you. I'm sorry it couldn't be different. + But--a man must be able to stand on his own feet, eh? I leave you + to puzzle out what "standing on his own feet" means. Good-by. + + Sophie. + + P.S. Dad says that if you winter at Lone Moose and care to kill a + few of the long days you are welcome to help yourself to the + books he left. He will tell Cloudy Moon you are to have them all + if you want them, or any of them, any time. + +Mr. Thompson folded up the sheets with deliberate precision, replaced +them in the envelope and tucked the envelope in his pocket. He rose to +go. He had a feeling of wanting to escape from that room which those +penned pages and swiftly acute memories had filled with a presence it +hurt him terribly to recall. His eye fell upon the rows of Carr's books, +orderly upon their shelves. The postscript, fresh in his +sense-impressions because it came last, and the sight of the books, +roused him to a swelling fury of anger. + +The heresies of Huxley and Darwin! The blasphemies of Tom Paine! The +economic diatribes which began with Adam Smith and continued in +multiplying volumes down to the latest emanation from professorial +intellects in every civilized corner of the earth. The bulky, bitter +tomes of Marx and Engels! The Lorias and Leacocks, the tribe of +Gumplowicz, and Haeckel, the Lubbocks and Burtons, all that vast array +of minds which calmly dissect man and his manifold activities, that draw +deeply upon every branch of human knowledge to make clear the age-old +evolution and revolution in both the physical and intellectual +realm--and which generally leave gods and religions out of account +except to analyze them as manifestations of social phenomena. Those +damnable documents which he had never read, but which he had been taught +to shun as the product of perverted intellects, blasts of scientific +artillery, unkindly trained upon sacred concepts! + +He put on his parka hood, gave an abrupt "good evening" to Cloudy Moon, +and went out into the night which had deepened its shadows while he sat +within. + +The North lay hushed and hard under a wan moon. The teeth of the frost +nipped at him. A wolf lifted a dismal howl as he crossed the meadow. And +his anger died. That flare of resentment was, he recognized, but a burst +of wrath against Sophie, a passionate protest at her desertion. She had +loved him and she had left him, deliberately, calculatingly, left him +and love, for the world, the flesh and the devil--tempted by a fortune +untimely directed to her hands. + +He did not mind about the books. Doubtless they were well enough in +their way, a source of practical knowledge. But he did not care a curse +about books or knowledge or faith as he walked through the snow across +that gleaming white patch in the dusky forest. His heart cried aloud in +forlorn protest against the surging emotions that beset him. His eyes +stung. And he fought against that inarticulate misery, against the +melancholy that settled upon him like a dank mist. + +A man must stand upon his own feet! That stabbed at him, cut across his +mood like a slap in the face. Wasn't that what he was learning to do? He +lifted his head with a sudden spirit of defiance, a bitter resolution. A +man must stand on his own feet. Well, he would. If he could no longer +pray and be comforted, he could grit his teeth and struggle and endure. +He had begun to perceive that a man must do that physically--set his +teeth and endure. In the less concrete matter of the spirit it was much +the same. + +He turned for a look at the yellow windows of Sam Carr's house. It was a +hollow, empty place now, one that he never wanted to see again, like a +room in which a beloved person has died and from which the body has been +carried away. His eyes lingered on the dim bulk of the house, dusky +black and white like a sketch in charcoal. + +"Another bridge burned," he said wistfully to himself. + +He faced about, crossed the dividing fringe of timber, passing near the +walls of his unfinished church. A wry smile twisted his lips. That would +remain, the uncompleted monument of his good intentions, the substance +of an unrealizable, impractical dream. + +Beyond that, as he came out into his own clearing, he saw a light in +his cabin, where he had left no light. When he came to the door another +toboggan lay beside his own. Strange dogs shifted furtively about at his +approach. Warned by these signs he opened the door full of a curiosity +as to who, in the accustomed fashion of the North, had stopped and made +himself at home. + +When the man sitting before the stove with his feet on the rusty front +turned his head at Thompson's entrance, he saw, with a mild turn of +surprise, that his visitor was Tommy Ashe. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +PARTNERS + + +"Hello, old man," Tommy greeted cheerfully. "How goes it?" + +If it occurred to either of them that the last time they faced each +other it had been in hot anger and in earnest endeavor to inflict bodily +damage, they were not embarrassed by that recollection, nor did either +man hold rancor. Their hands gripped sturdily. It seemed to Thompson, +indeed, that a face had never been so welcome. He did not want to sit +alone and think. Even apart from that he was uncommonly glad to see +Tommy Ashe. + +"It doesn't go much at all," he said. "As a matter of fact, I just got +back to Lone Moose to-night after being away for weeks." + +"Same here," Tommy responded. "I've been trapping. Heard you'd gone to +Pachugan, but thought it was only for supplies. I got in to my own +diggings to-night, and the shack was so infernally cold and dismal I +mushed on down here on the off chance that you'd have a fire and +wouldn't mind chinning awhile. Lord, but a fellow surely gets fed up +with his own company, back here. At least I do." + +Thompson awoke to hospitable formalities. + +"Have you had supper?" he asked. + +"Stopped and made tea about sundown," Tommy replied. "Thanks just the +same. Gad, but it was cold this afternoon. The air fairly crackled." + +"Yes," Thompson agreed. "It was very cold." + +He drew a stool up to the stove and sat down. Tommy got out his pipe and +began whittling shavings of tobacco off a plug. + +"Did you know that Carr and his daughter have gone away?" Thompson asked +abruptly. + +Tommy nodded. + +"Donald Lachlan--I've been trapping partners with him, y'know--Donald +was home a month or so since. Told me when he came back that the Carrs +were gone. I wasn't surprised." + +"No?" Thompson could not forbear an inquiring inflection on the +monosyllable. + +"No," Tommy continued a bit wistfully. "I was talking to Carr a few days +after you and I had that--that little argument of ours." He smiled. "He +told me then that after fifteen years up here he was inclined to try +civilization again. Mostly to give Sophie a chance to see what the world +was like, I imagine. I gathered from his talk that some sort of windfall +was coming his way. But I daresay you know more about it than I do." + +"No," Thompson replied. "I've been away--a hundred miles north of +Pachugan--for two months. I didn't know anything about it till +to-night." + +Tommy looked at him keenly. + +"Jolted you, eh, old man?" There was a quiet sympathy in his tone. + +"A little," Thompson admitted grimly. "But I'm getting used to jolts. I +had no claim on--on them." + +"We both lost out," Tommy Ashe said thoughtfully. "Sophie Carr is one +woman in ten thousand. I think she's the most remarkable girl I ever +came across anywhere. She knows what she wants, and neither of us quite +measured up. She liked me too--but she wouldn't marry me. Before you +came she tried to convince me of that. And I wasn't slow to see that you +interested her, that as a man she gave you a good deal of thought, +although your--er--your profession's one she rather makes light of. +Women are queer. I didn't know but you might have taken her by storm. +And then again, I rather imagined she'd back off when you got serious." + +"I was a fool," Thompson muttered. + +"I wouldn't say that," Tommy responded gently. "A man couldn't resist +her. I've known a lot of women one way and another. I never knew one +could hold a candle to her. She has a mind like a steel trap, that girl. +She understood things in a flash, moods and all that. She'd make a real +chum, as well as a wife. Most women aren't, y'know. They're generally +just one or the other. No, I'd never call myself a fool for liking +Sophie too well. In fact a man would be a fool if he didn't. + +"She likes men too," Tommy went on musingly. "She knew it. I suppose +she'll be friendly and curious and chummy, and hurt men without meaning +to until she finds the particular sort of chap she wants. Oh, well." + +"How's the trapping?" + +Thompson changed the subject abruptly. He could not bear to talk about +that, even to Tommy Ashe who understood out of his own experience, who +had exhibited a rare and kindly understanding. + +"I've been wondering if I could make a try at that. I've got to do +something. I've quit the ministry." + +Tommy looked at him for a second. + +"Why did you get out?" he asked bluntly. + +"I'm not fitted for it," Thompson returned. "I've been through hell for +four months, and I've lost something--some of that sublime faith that a +man must have. I'm not certain about a lot of things I have always taken +for granted. I'm not certain I have an immortal soul which is worth +saving, let alone considering myself peculiarly fitted to save other +people's souls. I'd be like a blind man leading people with good eyes. +It has come to seem to me that I've been trained for the ministry as a +carpenter is trained for his trade. I can't go on feeling like that. I'm +too much interested in my own personal salvation. I'm too keenly +conscious of a tremendous ignorance about tremendously important things +to continue setting myself up as a finger post for other men's spiritual +guidance. If I stay with the church now it seems to me it will only be +because I lack courage to get out and make my living along lines that +won't be so easy. I'd despise myself if I did that. So I've +resigned--quite a while ago, to be exact. I've been working for the H.B. +two months. That's why I asked about the trapping. I've been casting +about for what I'd best try next." + +Tommy sat silent. When he did speak he touched very briefly on +Thompson's confession of faith--or rather the lack of it. + +"When a man's heart isn't in a thing," said he, "it's better for him to +drop it. About the trapping, now--I don't think you'd do much at that +with the season so far along. This district is pretty well covered by +the natives. You'd get into difficulties right off the bat over setting +traps on their territory. They have a rude sort of understanding about +where their several trap lines shall run. And for some reason or other +furs are getting scarce. Up where young Lachlan and I were it was pretty +fair for awhile. We took some good skins. Lately we did a lot of +trap-tending for nothing much. I got fed up with it. Fact is, I'm about +fed up with this region. I think I'll pull out." + +"I've been thinking the same thing," Thompson observed. "There isn't +much here for a man." + +"Not now," Tommy amended. "I'd have been gone long ago only for Sophie +Carr. That was the magnet that held me. It happens that I've come to +something of your pass, right now. I can't afford to loaf any longer, +living off the wilderness. I had a bit of an income to keep me in loose +change when I wanted a taste of towns. But that's been chopped +off--probably for good. I'm strictly on my own henceforth. Every penny I +spend will first have to be earned. And so," he hesitated briefly, "I've +considered a move to the Coast, the Pacific, y'know. Going over the +continental divide while the snow makes a dog team useful. Then I'd go +down the western streams by boat--dugout canoe or bateaux, or whatever +simple craft a man could make himself in the woods. Probably be the last +big trip I'll get a chance at. I'll have roughed it clear across North +America then, and I rather fancy winding up that way. But it's a big +undertaking single-handed. I'm not so partial to an Indian for company; +besides the fact that I'd have to pay him wages and dollars count with +me now. A fellow likes some one he can talk to. If you've cut the cloth +and are at loose ends, why not come along?" + +Thompson looked at him a second. + +"Do you mean it?" he asked. "I'm not what you'd call a good hand on the +trail. You might find me a handicap." + +Tommy grinned. + +"I've got the impression you're a chap that can hold his end up," he +drawled. "I've an idea we'd make a go of it, all right." + +"I believe we would," Thompson asserted impulsively. "Hanged if I +haven't a mind to take you at your word." + +"Do," Tommy urged earnestly. "The Pacific coast has this part of the +interior frazzled when it comes to opportunities. That's what we're both +after, isn't it? An opportunity to get on--in plain English, to make +some money? It's really simple to get up the Peace and through the +mountains and on down to southeastern Alaska or somewhere in northern +B.C. It merely means some hard mushing. And neither of us is very soft. +You've begun to cut your eyeteeth on the wilderness. I can see that." + +"Yes, I believe I have," Thompson assented, "I'm learning to take as a +matter of course a good many things that I used to rather dread. I find +I have a hankering to be on the move. Maybe I'll end up as a tramp. If +you want a partner for that journey I'm your man." + +"Shake," Tommy thrust out his hand with a boyish sort of enthusiasm. +"We'll have no end of a time." + +They sat up till a most unseemly hour talking over the details of that +long trek. Tommy Ashe was warmed with the prospect, and some of his +enthusiasm fired Thompson, proved strangely infectious. The wanderlust, +which Wesley Thompson was only beginning to feel in vague stirrings, had +long since become the chief motif in Tommy's life. He did not unburden +himself at length. It was simply through stray references, offhand bits +of talk, as they checked up resources and distances, that Thompson +pieced out the four years of Ashe's wanderings across Canada--four years +of careless, happy-go-lucky drifting along streams and through virgin +forest, sometimes alone, sometimes with a partner; four years of +hunting, fishing, and camping all the way from Labrador to Lone Moose. +Tommy had worked hard at this fascinating game. He confessed that with +revenue enough to keep him going, to vary the wilderness with an +occasional month in some city, he could go on doing that sort of thing +with an infinite amount of pleasure. + +But something had gone wrong with the source of the funds that came +quarterly. Tommy did not appear to regret that. But he realized its +significance. He would have to work. Having to work he meant to work as +he had played, with all his heart and to some purpose. He had an +ambitious idea of pressing Fortune to her lair. He was young and very +sanguine. His cheerful optimism was the best possible antidote for the +state of mind in which he found Thompson. + +They went to bed at last. With breakfast behind them they went up to +Ashe's cabin and brought down to Thompson's a miscellaneous collection +of articles that Tommy had left behind when he went trapping. Tommy had +four good dogs in addition to the brown retriever. By adding Thompson's +pair and putting all their goods on one capacious toboggan they achieved +a first-class outfit. + +In the North when a man sets out on a winter journey, or any sort of +journey, in fact, his preparations are speedily made. He loads his sled, +hitches his dogs, takes his rifle in hand, hooks his toes in his +snowshoes and goes his way. + +This is precisely the course Tommy Ashe and Thompson followed. Having +decided to go, they went, and neither of them took it as a serious +matter that they were on the first leg of a twelve-hundred-mile jaunt in +the deep of winter across a primitive land. + +To be exact in dates it was February the first when they touched at +Pachugan, where Tommy traded in his furs, and where they took on a +capacity load of grub. West of the lake head they bore across a low, +wooded delta and debouched upon Peace River's frozen surface. + +After that it was plod-plod-plod, one day very much like another, cold +with coldness of the sub-Arctic, the river a white band through heavy +woods, nights that were crisp and still as death, the sky a vast dome +sprinkled with flickering stars, brilliant at times with the Northern +Lights, that strange glow that flashes and shimmers above the Pole, now +a banner of flame, again only a misty sheen. Sometimes it seemed an +unreality, that silence, that immensity of hushed forest, those vast +areas in which life was not a factor. When a blizzard whooped out of the +northern quarter, holding them close to the little tent and the tiny +sheet-iron stove, when they sat for hours with their hands clasped over +their knees, listening to the voice of the wilderness whispering +sibilantly in the swaying boughs, it seemed utterly impossible that +these frigid solitudes could ever know the kindliness of summer, that +those cold white spaces could ever be warm and sunny and bright with +flowers. + +But there were compensations. Two men cannot eat out of the same +pot--figuratively speaking--sleep huddled close together for the warmth +that is in their bodies, hear no voices but their own, exert a common +effort to a common end day after day, until the days become weeks and +the weeks marshal themselves into calendar months--no two men born of +woman can sustain this enforced intimacy over a long period without +acquiring a positive attitude toward each other. They achieve a +contemptuous tolerance, or they achieve a rare and lasting friendship. +It was the fortune of Tommy Ashe and Wesley Thompson to cultivate the +latter. They arrived at it by degrees, in many forty-below-zero camps +along the Peace, in the shadow of those towering mountains where the +Peace cuts through the backbone of North America. It grew out of mutual +respect, a wordless sense of understanding, a conviction that each did +his best to play the game fair and square. + +So that, as they worked westward and gave over their toboggan on the +waters of a stream far beyond the Rockies, when Spring began to touch +the North with her magic wand they grew merry, galvanized by the spirit +of adventure. They could laugh, and sometimes they could sing. And they +planned largely, with the sanguine air of youth. On the edges--not in +the depths--of that wild and rugged land where manifold natural +resources lay untouched, it seemed as if a man had but to try hard +enough in order to succeed. They had conquered an ominous stretch of +wilderness. They would conquer with equal facility whatever barriers +they found between them and fortune. + +The sweep of Spring's progress across the land found them west of the +Coast Range by May, in a wild and forbidding region where three major +streams--the Skeena, the Stikine, and the Naas--take their rise. For +many days their advance was through grim canyons, over precipitous +slopes, across glaciers, bearing always westward, until the maps with +which Tommy Ashe was equipped showed them they were descending the +Stikine. Here they rested in a country full of game animals and birds +and fish, until the height of the spring torrents had passed. During +this time they fashioned a canoe out of a cedar tree, big enough to +carry them and the dogs which had served so faithfully as pack animals +over that last mountainous stretch. The Stikine was swift and +forbidding, but navigable. Thus at last, in the first days of the salmon +run, they came out upon tidewater, down to Wrangel by the sea. + +There was in Thompson's mind no more thought of burned bridges, no +heartache and empty longing, only an eagerness of anticipation. He had +come a long way, in a double sense. He had learned something of the +essential satisfaction of striving. A tough trail had served to toughen +the mental and moral as well as the physical fiber of him. He did not +know what lay ahead, but whatever did so lie would never dismay him +again as things had done in the past, in that too-recent vivid past. + +He was quite sure of this. His mood was tinctured with recklessness when +he summed it up in words. A man must stand on his own feet! + +He would never forget that sentence. It was burned into his memory. He +was beginning to understand what Sophie Carr meant by it. Looking +backward he could see that he never had stood on his own feet like a +man. Always he had required props. And they had been forthcoming from +the time the prim spinster aunts took his training in hand until he came +to Lone Moose self-consciously, rather flauntingly, waving the banner of +righteousness. Thompson could smile wryly at himself now. He could see +the unreckonable element of chance functioning largely in a man's life. + +And in the meantime he went about Wrangel looking for a job! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE RESTLESS FOOT + + +Being in a town that was at once a frontier camp and a minor seaport, +and being there at a season when the major industry of salmon-packing +was at its height, the search of Tommy Ashe and Thompson for a job was +soon ended. They were taken on as cannery hands--a "hand" being the term +for unskilled laborers as distinguished from fishermen, can machine +experts, engineers and the like. As such they were put to all sorts of +tasks, work that usually found them at the day's end weary, dirty with +fish scales and gurry, and more than a little disgusted. But they were +getting three dollars and a half a day, and it was practically clear, +which furnished a strong incentive to stick it out as long as the season +lasted--a matter of two more months. + +"By that time," said Tommy Ashe, "we'll have enough coin to venture into +fresh fields. My word, but we do earn this money. It's the nastiness I +object to, not the work. I shan't forget this first hundred dollars I've +earned by the sweat of my manly brow." + +In the fullness of time the salmon run came to an end. The pack being +finished the hands were paid off. In company with half a hundred others, +Ashe and Thompson were shipped from the Suchoi Bay Canneries back to +Wrangel again. + +In Wrangel, before they had been there four hours, Thompson got the +offer of work in a pile camp. He took his prospective job under +advisement and hunted up Tommy Ashe. Tommy dangled his legs over the +edge of the bed in their room, and considered the matter. + +"No," he said finally. "I don't believe I'll take it on. I think I'll go +down to Vancouver. I'm about two hundred dollars strong, and I don't +really see anything but a poor sort of living in this laboring-man +stuff. I'm going to try some business proposition. I've got a pretty +fair acquaintance with motor cars. I might be able to get in on the +selling end of the game, and there is good money in that in the way of +commissions. I know some people there who should be able to show me the +ropes. In a big live seaport like that there must be chances. Yes, I +think I'll try Vancouver. You'd better come too, Wes." + +Thompson shook his head. He knew nothing of business. He had no trade. +For a time--until he came face to face with an opportunity he could +recognize as such--he shrank from tackling a city. He had not quite +Tommy's confidence in himself. + +"No," he said. "I'd like to--but I don't believe I'd make good. And I +don't want to get in a position where I'd have to be looking for +somebody to throw me a life line. I don't seem to mind common hard work +so much. I don't imagine I could jump right into a town and be any +better off than I would be here. When I get a little more money ahead +I'll be tempted to take a chance on a city. But not yet." + +From this position Tommy's persuasion failed to move him. Tommy was +earnest enough, and perfectly sincere in promising to see him through. +But that was not what Thompson wanted. He was determined that in so far +as he was able he would make his own way unaided. He wanted to be +through with props forever. That had become a matter of pride with him. +He went back and told the pile-camp boss that he would report in two +days. + +A southbound steamer sailed forty-eight hours later. She backed away +from the Wrangel wharf with Tommy waving his hand to his partner on the +pierhead. Thompson went back to their room feeling a trifle blue, as one +does at parting from a friend. But it was not the moodiness of +uncertainty. He knew what he was going to do. He had simply got used to +Tommy being at his elbow, to chatting with him, to knowing that some one +was near with whom he could try to unravel a knotty problem or hold his +peace as he chose. He missed Tommy. But he knew that although they had +been partners over a hard country, had bucked a hard trail like men and +grown nearer to each other in the stress of it, they could not be +Siamese twins. His road and Tommy's road was bound to fork. A man had to +follow his individual inclination, to live his own life according to his +lights. And Tommy's was for town and the business world, while his--as +yet--was not. + +So for the next four months Thompson lived and worked on a wooded +promontory a few miles north of Wrangel, very near the mouth of the +river down which he and Tommy Ashe had come to the sea. He was housed +with thirty other men in a bunkhouse of hand-split cedar; he labored +every day felling and trimming tall slender poles for piling that would +ultimately hold up bridges and wharves. The crew was a cosmopolitan lot +so far as nationality went. In addition they were a tougher lot than +Thompson had ever encountered. He never quite fitted in. They knew him +for something of a tenderfoot, and they had not the least respect for +his size--until he took on and soundly whipped two of them in turn +before the bunkhouse door, with the rest of the thirty, the boss and the +cook for spectators. Thompson did not come off scathless, but he did +come off victor, although he was a bloody sight at the finish. But he +fought in sheer desperation, because otherwise he could not live in the +camp. And he smiled to himself more than once after that fracas, when he +noted the different attitude they took toward him. Might was perhaps not +right, but unless a man was both willing and able to fight for his +rights in the workaday world that was opening up to him, he could never +be very sure that his rights would be respected. + +Along with this incidental light upon the ways of his fellow working-men +he learned properly how to swing an axe; he grew accustomed to dragging +all day on the end of a seven-foot crosscut saw, to lift and strain with +a cant hook. The hardening process, begun at Lone Moose, continued +unceasingly. If mere physical hardihood had been his end, he could +easily have passed for a finished product. He could hold his own with +those broad-shouldered Swedes and Michigan loggers at any turn of the +road. And that was a long way for a man like Thompson to come in the +course of twelve months. If he could have been as sure of a sound, +working philosophy of life as he was of the fitness of his muscles he +would have been well satisfied. Sometimes it was a puzzle to him why men +existed, why the will to live was such a profound force, when living was +a struggle, a vexation, an aimless eating and sleeping and working like +a carthorse. Where was there any plan, any universal purpose at all? + +Having never learned dissipation as a form of amusement, nor having yet +been driven to it by the sheer deadliness of incessant, monotonous +labor, Thompson was able to save his money. When he went to Wrangel once +a month he got a bath, a hair-cut, and some magazines to read, perhaps +an article or two of necessary clothing. That was all his financial +outlay. He came back as clear-eyed as when he left, with the bulk of his +wages in his pocket, where some of his fellows returned with empty +pockets and aching heads. + +Wherefore, when the winter snows at last closed down the pile camp +Thompson had accumulated four hundred dollars. Also he had made an +impression on the contractor by his steadiness, to such an extent that +the man offered him a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month to come +back and take charge of a similar camp in the spring. But Thompson, like +Tommy Ashe, had grown troubled with the wandering foot. The money in +hand gave him security against want in strange places. He would not +promise to be on hand in the spring. Like Tommy, he had a notion to try +town, to see for himself what opportunity town afforded. And he pitched +on Vancouver, not alone because Tommy Ashe was there, but because it was +the biggest port on Canada's western coast. He had heard once from +Tommy. He was a motor-car salesman now, and he was doing well. But +Tommy's letter was neither long nor graphic in its descriptions. It left +a good deal of Vancouver to Thompson's imagination. However, like the +bear that went over the mountain, Thompson thought he would go and see +what he could see. + +Wrangel lies well within the Inside Passage, that great waterway which +is formed between the mainland and a chain of islands that sweeps from +Cape Flattery in the south to the landward end of the Aleutians. All the +steamers that ply between Puget Sound and Skagway take that route. +Seldom do the vessels plying between southern ports and the far beaches +of Nome come inside. They are deep-sea craft, built for offshore work. +So that one taking a steamer at Wrangel can travel in two directions +only, north to Skagway, south to Puget Sound. + +The booking facilities at Wrangel are primitive, to say the least. When +Thompson inquired about southbound passage, he was told to go down and +board the first steamer at the pierhead, and that it would leave at +eleven that night. So he took all his meager belongings, which he could +easily carry in a blanket roll and a sailor's ditty-bag, and went down +half an hour before sailing time. There seemed no one to bar his +passage, and he passed up the gangplank aboard a two-funnelled, +clean-decked steamer, and made his way to a smoking room aft. + +There were a few men lounging about, men of the type he was accustomed +to seeing in Wrangel, miners, prospectors and the like, clad in +mackinaws and heavy laced boots. Thompson, habitually diffident, asked +no questions, struck up no conversations after the free and easy manner +of the North. He laid down his bag and roll, sat awhile listening to the +shift of feet and the clatter of cargo winches on deck and pierhead. +Then, growing drowsy, he stretched himself on a cushioned seat with his +bag for a pillow and fell asleep. + +He woke with an odd sensation of his bed dropping out from under him. +Coming out of a sound slumber he was at first a trifle bewildered, but +instinctively he grasped a stanchion to keep himself from sliding across +the floor as the vessel took another deep roll. The smoking room was +deserted. He gained his feet and peered out of a window. All about him +ran the uneasy heave of the sea. Try as he would his eyes could pick up +no dim shore line. And it was not particularly dark, only a dusky gloom +spotted with white patches where a comber reared up and broke in foam. +He wondered at the ship's position. It did not conform to what he had +been told of the Inside Passage. + +And while he was wondering a ship's officer in uniform walked through +the saloon. He cast a quick glance at Thompson and smiled slightly. + +"This outside roll bother you?" he inquired pleasantly. + +"Outside?" Thompson grasped at the word's significance. "Are we going +down outside?" + +"Sure," the man responded. "We always do." + +"I wonder," Thompson began to sense what he had done, "I say--isn't this +the _Roanoke_ for Seattle?" + +The mate's smile deepened. "Uh-uh," he grinned. "This is the _Simoon_, +last boat of the season from outside northern points. We had to put into +Wrangel, which we rarely do. The _Roanoke_ berthed right across the +wharf from us. Got aboard us by mistake, did you?" + +Thompson nodded. + +"Well," the officer continued, "sometimes the longest way round is the +shortest way home. We don't touch this side the Golden Gate. So you may +as well see the purser when he gets up and have him assign you a berth. +It's pretty near daylight now." + +He nodded and went on. Thompson, holding fast, getting his first +uncomfortable experience of the roll and recovery of a ship in a beam +sea, made his way out on the after deck. Holding on the rail he peered +over the troubled water that was running in the open mouth of Dixon +Entrance, beyond which lay the vast breadth of the Pacific, an unbroken +stretch to the coast of Japan. + +Again Chance was playing the deuce with his calculations. For a few +minutes he felt uncommonly irritated. He had not started for San +Francisco. He did not want to go to San Francisco. Still--what was the +odds? San Francisco was as good as any other town. He shrugged his +shoulders, and feeling his way to a coiled hawser sat down in the bight +of it to contend with the first, faint touch of seasickness. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE WORLD IS SMALL + + +For reasons of economy Thompson put himself up at a cheap rooming-house +well out Market Street. His window looked out upon that thoroughfare +which is to San Francisco what the aorta is to the arterial system. +Gazing down from a height of four stories he could see a never-ending +stir, hear the roar of vehicular traffic which swelled from a midnight +murmur to a deep-mouthed roar in the daylight hours. And on either side +the traffic lane there swept a stream of people like the current of the +Stikine River. + +He was not a stranger to cities, no rustic gazing open-mouthed at +throngs and tall buildings. His native city of Toronto was a fair-sized +place as American and Canadian cities go. But it was not a seaport. It +was insular rather than cosmopolitan; it took its character from its +locale rather than from a population gathered from the four quarters of +the globe. San Francisco--is San Francisco--a melting-pot of peoples, +blown through with airs from far countries, not wholly rid of the aura +of Drake and the conquistadores of Spain even in these latter days of +commercial expansion. And all of San Francisco's greatness and color and +wealth is crowded upon a peninsula, built upon rolling hills. What the +city lacks of spaciousness is compensated by action. Life goes at a +great pace. + +It made a profound impression on Thompson, since he had reached the +stage where he was keenly susceptible to external impressions from any +source whatever. Those hurrying multitudes, that unending stir, the +kaleidoscopic shifts of this human antheap made him at first profoundly +lonely, immeasurably insignificant, just as the North had made him feel +when he was new to it. But just as he had shaped himself to that +environment, so he felt--as he had not at first felt in the North--that +in time, with effort, he would become an integral part of this. Here the +big game was played. It was the antithesis of the North inasmuch as all +this activity had a purely human source and was therefore in some +measure akin to himself. The barriers to be overcome and the problems to +be solved were social and monetary. It was less a case of adapting +himself by painful degrees to a hostile primitive environment than a +forthright competitive struggle to make himself a master in this sort of +environment. + +How he should go about it he had no definite idea. He would have to be +an opportunist, he foresaw. He had no illusions about his funds in hand +being a prime lever to success. That four hundred dollars would not last +forever, nor would it be replenished by any effort save his own. It +afforded him a breathing spell, a chance to look about, to discover +where and how he should begin at the task of proving himself upon the +world. + +He had no misgivings about making a living. He could always fall back +on common labor. But a common laborer is socially of little worth, +financially of still less value. Thompson had to make money--using the +phrase in its commonly accepted sense. He subscribed to that doctrine, +because he was beginning to see that in a world where purchasing power +is the prime requisite a man without money is the slave of every +untoward circumstance. Money loomed before Thompson as the key to +freedom, decent surroundings, a chance to pursue knowledge, to so shape +his life that he could lend a hand or a dollar to the less fortunate. + +He still had those stirrings of altruism, a ready sympathy, an instinct +to help. Only he saw very clearly that he could not be of any benefit to +even a limited circle of his fellow men when at every turn of his hand +economic pressure bore so hard upon him as an individual. He began to +see that getting on in the world called for complete concentration of +his efforts upon his own well-being. A pauper cannot be a +philanthropist. One cannot take nothing from nothing and make something. +To be of use to others he must first grasp what he required for himself. + +Once he was settled and familiar enough with San Francisco to get from +the Ferry Building to the Mission and from the Marina to China Basin +without the use of a map he began to cast about for an opening. To make +an apprentice beginning in any of the professions required education. He +had that, he considered. It did not occur to him by what devious routes +men arrived at distinction in the professions. He thought of studying +for the law until the reception he got in various offices where he went +seeking for information discouraged him in that field. Law students were +a drug on the market. + +"My dear young man," one kindly, gray-haired attorney told him, "you'd +be wasting your time. The law means a tremendous amount of intellectual +drudgery, and a slim chance of any great success unless you are gifted +with a special aptitude for certain branches of it. All the great +opportunities for a young man nowadays lie in business and +salesmanship." + +Business and salesmanship being two things of which Thompson knew +himself to be profoundly ignorant, he made little headway. A successful +business operation, so far as he could observe, called for capital which +he did not possess. Salesmanship, when he delved into the method of +getting his foot on that rung of the ladder, required special training, +knowledge of a technical sort. That is, really successful salesmanship. +The other kind consisted of selling goods over a counter for ten dollars +per--with an excellent chance of continuing in that unenviable situation +until old age overtook him. This was an age of specialists--and he had +no specialty. Moreover, every avenue that he investigated seemed to be +jammed full of young men clamoring for a chance. The skilled trades had +their unions, their fixed hours of labor, fixed rates of pay. The big +men, the industrial managers, the men who stood out in the professions, +they had their own orbit into which he could not come until he had made +good. There were the two forces, the top and the bottom of the workaday +world. And he was in between, like a fish out of water. + +Wherefore Thompson continued looking about for a number of weeks. He +looked for work, without finding it save in street gangs and at labor +that was mostly done by Greeks and Italians fresh from Europe. A man had +to begin at the bottom, he realized, but he did not desire to begin at +the bottom of a ditch. He did not seek for such small clerical jobs as +he knew himself able to fill. He did not mean to sit on a high stool and +ruin his eyes over interminable rows of figures. That much at least the +North had done for him--fixed him firmly in the resolve that if he had +to sweat for a pittance it would not be within four walls, behind dusty +windows. He could always go back to the woods. Sometimes he thought he +would better do that out of hand, instead of wasting his time and money +seeking in a city for the goose that was to lay him golden eggs. + +When he was not hard on the trail of some definite opening sheer +loneliness drove him out on the streets. His room was a cheerless place, +a shelter for him when he slept and nothing more. Many a time, lacking +any real objective, he covered miles of San Francisco's streets. He +sought out parks, beaches, public buildings. At night he would drift, a +silent, lonely spirit, among the crowds that ebbed and flowed in the +downtown district that was a blaze of light. + +That restless wandering brought him by chance one evening along a +certain avenue which shall be nameless, because it is no longer the +haunt of the soap-boxer. This curious thoroughfare lay upon the +borderline between the smart shopping district and San Francisco's +Chinatown. For a matter of two or three blocks the street was given +over to an impromptu form of public assembly, a poor man's debating +ground, an open forum where any citizen with a grievance, a theory, or +even merely the gift of gab might air his views and be reasonably sure +of an audience. In the evening there was always a crowd. Street fakirs +plied their traffic under sputtering gas torches, dispensing, along with +a ready flow of glib chatter, marvellous ointments, cure-alls, soap, +suspenders, cheap safety razors, anything that would coax stray dimes +and quarters from the crowd. + +But the street fakirs were in the minority. The percentage of gullible +ones was small. Mostly it was a place of oratory, the haunt of +propagandists. Thompson listened to Social Democrats, Social Laborites, +syndicalists, radicals, revolutionaries, philosophical anarchists, men +with social and economic theories of the extremist type. But they talked +well. They had a grasp of their subject. They had on tap tremendous +quantities of all sorts of knowledge. The very extent of their +vocabulary amazed Thompson. He heard scientific and historical +authorities quoted and disputed, listened to arguments waged on every +sort of ground--from biological complexities which he could not +understand to agricultural statistics which he understood still less. A +lot of it perplexed and irritated him, because the terminology was over +his head. And the fact that he could not follow these men in full +intellectual flight spurred him to find the truth or falsity of those +things for himself. He got an inkling of the economic problems that +afflict society. He found himself assenting offhand to the reasonable +theorem that a man who produced wealth was entitled to what he +produced. He listened to many a wordy debate in which the theory of +evolution was opposed to the seven-day creation. There was thus revived +in him some of those troublesome perplexities which Sam and Sophie Carr +had first aroused. + +In the end, lacking profitable employment and growing dubious of +obtaining it during the slack industrial season which then hovered over +California, he turned to the serried shelves of the city library. Once +started along this road he became an habitué, spending in a particular +chair at a certain table anywhere from three to six hours a day, deep in +a book, not to be deterred therefrom by the usual series of mental +shocks which a man, full-fed all his life on conventions and dogmas and +superficial thinking, gets when he first goes seriously and critically +into the fields of scientific conclusions. + +He was seated at a reading table one afternoon, nursing his chin in one +hand, deep in a volume of Huxley's "Lectures and Essays" which was +making a profound impression upon him through its twin merits of simple, +concise language and breadth of vision. There was in it a rational +explanation of certain elementary processes which to Thompson had never +been accounted for save by means of the supernatural, the mysterious, +the inexplicable. Huxley was merely sharpening a function of his mind +which had been dormant until he ran amuck among the books. He began to +perceive order in the universe and all that it contained, that natural +phenomena could be interpreted by a study of nature, that there was +something more than a name in geology. And he was so immersed in what +he read, in the printed page and the inevitable speculations that arose +in his mind as he conned it, that he was only subconsciously aware of a +woman passing his seat. + +Slowly, as a man roused from deep sleep looks about him for the cause of +dimly heard noises, so now Thompson's eyes lifted from his book, and, +with his mind still half upon the last sentence read, his gaze followed +the girl now some forty feet distant in the long, quiet room. + +There was no valid reason why the rustle of a woman's skirt in passing, +the faint suggestion of some delicate perfume, should have focussed his +attention. He saw scores of women and girls in the library every day. He +passed thousands on the streets. This one, now, upon whom he gazed with +a detached interest, was like many others, a girl of medium height, +slender, well-dressed. + +That was all--until she paused at a desk to have speech with a library +assistant. She turned then so that her face was in profile, so that a +gleam of hair showed under a wide leghorn hat. And Thompson thought +there could scarcely be two women in the world with quite so marvellous +a similarity of face and figure and coloring, nor with quite the same +contour of chin and cheek, nor the same thick hair, yellow like the +husks of ripe corn or a willow leaf in the autumn. He was just as sure +that by some strange chance Sophie Carr stood at that desk as he was +sure of himself sitting in an oak chair at a reading table. And he rose +impulsively to go to her. + +She turned away in the same instant and walked quickly down a passage +between the rows of shelved books. Thompson could not drive himself to +hurry, nor to call. He was sure--yet not too sure. He hated to make +himself appear ridiculous. Nor was he overconfident that if it were +indeed Sophie Carr she would be either pleased or willing to renew their +old intimacy. And so, lagging faint-heartedly, he lost her in the maze +of books. + +But he did not quite give up. He was on the second floor. The windows on +a certain side overlooked the main entrance. He surmised that she would +be leaving. So he crossed to a window that gave on the library entrance +and waited for an eternity it seemed, but in reality a scant five +minutes, before he caught sight of a mauve suit on the broad steps. +Looking from above he could be less sure than when she stood at the +desk. But the girl halted at the foot of the steps and standing by a red +roadster turned to look up at the library building. The sun fell full +upon her upturned face. The distance was one easily to be spanned by +eyes as keen as his. Thompson was no longer uncertain. He was suddenly, +acutely unhappy. The old ghosts which he had thought well laid were +walking, rattling their dry bones forlornly in his ears. + +Sophie got into the machine. The red roadster slid off with gears +singing their metallic song as she shifted through to high. Thompson +watched it turn a corner, and went back to his table with a mind past +all possibility of concentrating upon anything between the covers of a +book. He put the volume back on its shelf at last and went out to walk +the streets in aimless, restless fashion, full of vivid, painful +memories, troubled by a sudden flaring up of emotions which had lain so +long dormant he had supposed them dead. + +Here in San Francisco he had not expected to behold Sophie in the +enjoyment of her good fortune. Yet there was no reason why she should +not be here. Thompson damned under his breath the blind chance which had +set him aboard the wrong steamer at Wrangel. + +But, he said to himself after a time, what did it matter? In a city of +half a million they were as far apart as if he were still at Lone Moose +and she God only knew where. That powerful roadster, the sort of clothes +she wore, the general air of well-being which he had begun to recognize +as a characteristic of people whose social and financial position is +impregnable--these things served to intensify the gulf between them +which their radical differences of outlook had originally opened. No, +Sophie Carr's presence in San Francisco could not possibly make any +difference to him. He repeated this emphatically--with rather more +emphasis than seemed necessary. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A MEETING BY THE WAY + + +But he found it did make a difference, a profoundly disturbing +difference. He had grown insulated against the memory of Sophie Carr +tugging at his heartstrings as the magnetic north pulls on the compass +needle. He had grown free of both thought and hope of her. There had +been too many other vital things pressing upon him these months of +adventure in toil, too many undeniable, everyday factors of living +present at every turn, hourly insistent upon being coped with, for him +to nurse old sad dreams and longings. So he had come at last to think of +that passionate yearning as a disease which had run its course. + +Now, to his dismay, it recurred in all its old virulence, at a mere +glimpse of Sophie. The floodgates of memory loosed bitter waters upon +him, to make his heart heavy and spoil his days of passive content. It +angered him to be so hopelessly troubled. But he could not gainsay the +fact. + +It made San Francisco a dreary waste. Try as he would he could not keep +Sophie Carr from being the sun around which the lesser nebulæ of his +thought continually revolved. He could no more help a wistful lookout +for her upon San Francisco's streets than he could help breathing. Upon +the rolling phalanxes of motor cars his gaze would turn with watchful +expectation, and he took to scanning the faces of the passing thousands, +a lonely, shy man with a queer glow in his eyes. That, of course, was +only in moments of forgetfulness. Then he would pull himself together +with a resentful irritation and tax himself with being a weak fool and +stalk along about his business. + +But his business had lost its savor, just as his soul had lost its +slowly-won serenity. His business had no importance to any save himself. +It had been merely to winter decently and economically with an eye +cocked for such opportunities of self-betterment as came his way, and +failing material opportunity in this Bagdad of the Pacific coast to make +the most of his enforced idleness. + +And now the magic of the colorful city had departed along with the magic +of the books. The downtown streets ceased to be a wonderful human +panorama which he loved to watch. The hushed reading room where he had +passed so many contented hours was haunted by a presence that obscured +the printed page. He would find himself staring absently at an open +book, the words blurred and overlaid with mental pictures of Lone Moose, +of Sophie sitting on the creek bank, of his unfinished church, forlorn +and gaunt in the winter snows and the summer silences, of Tommy Ashe +trudging across the meadow, gun in hand, of old Sam Carr in his +moosehide chair, of the Indians, the forest, of all that goes to make +the northern wilderness--and of himself moving through it all, an +unheroic figure, a man who had failed in his work, in his love, in +everything. + +That, chiefly, was what stirred him anew to action, a suddenly acute +sense of failure, of a consciousness that he was drifting instead of +doing. He found himself jarred out of the even tenor of his way. San +Francisco filled him with dissatisfaction now, knowing that she was +there. If the mere knowledge that Sophie Carr dwelt somewhere within the +city boundaries had power to make a mooning idiot of him, he said to +himself testily, then he had better get out, go somewhere, get down to +work, be at his fixed purpose of proving his mettle upon an obdurate +world, and get her out of his mind in the process. He couldn't tune his +whole existence to a sentimental craving for any woman--even such a +woman as Sophie. He would, in the moment of such emotional genuflexions, +have dissented with cynical bitterness from the poetic dictum that it +was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. + +Spurred by this mood he acted instinctively rather than with reasoned +purpose. He gave up his room, packed his clothes and betook himself upon +a work-seeking pilgrimage among the small, interior towns. + +He left San Francisco in March. By May he had circulated all through the +lower San Joaquin and farther abroad to the San Juan, and had turned his +face again toward San Francisco Bay. At various jobs he had tried his +hand, making a living such as it was, acquiring in addition thereto a +store of first-hand experience in the social and monetary values of +itinerant labor. He conceded that such experience might somehow be of +use to a man. But he had had enough of it. He had a feeling of having +tested California for his purposes--and of finding it wanting. + +He had made up his mind to double on his tracks, to go north again, +specifically to British Columbia, partly because Tommy was there, +chiefly because Vancouver was a growing place on the edge of a vast, +newly opened interior. He knew that if no greater thing offered, from +that center there was always the avenue of the woods. He could qualify +in that line. And in the woods even a common axeman exacted and received +more democratic treatment than in this older region where industry ran +in fixed channels, where class lines were more rigidly drawn, where +common labor was cheap and unprivileged. + +He hadn't been getting on in those three months. He had less money than +when he started out--about enough now to get him up North and leave a +hundred dollars or so for emergencies. No, decidedly he wasn't getting +on--he was going down, he told himself. It dismayed him a little. It +wasn't enough to be big and strong and willing. A mule could be that. +The race was not to the swift or the strong. Not in modern industry, +with its bewildering complexities. No, it fell to the trained, the +specialist in knowledge, the man who could do something more +efficiently, with greater precision than his fellows. + +He could not do that--not yet. And so there was nothing in California +for him, he decided. A man could no longer go West and grow up with the +country--but he could go North. + +Thompson was sitting on the border of a road that runs between San +Mateo and the city when he definitely committed himself to doubling on +his tracks, to counteracting the trick of fate which had sent him to a +place where he did not wish to go. He was looking between the trees and +out over an undulating valley floored with emerald fields, studded with +oaks, backed by the bare Hamiltons to the east, and westward by the +redwood-clad ruggedness of the Santa Cruz range. And he was not seeing +this loveliness of landscape at all. He was looking far beyond and his +eyes were full of miles upon miles of untrodden forest, the sanctuary of +silence and furtive living things, of mountains that lifted snowy spires +to heaven high over the glaciers that scarred their sides. And the +smells that for a moment rose strongly in his nostrils were not the +smells of palm and gum and poppy-dotted fields, but odors of pine and +spruce and the smell of birchwood burning in campfires. He came out of +that queer projection of mind into great distance with a slight shake of +his head and a feeling of wonder. It had been very vivid. And it dawned +upon him that for a minute he had grown sentimentally lonely for that +grim, unconquered region where he had first learned the pangs of +loneliness, where he had suffered in body and spirit until he had +learned a lesson he would never forget while he lived. + +The road itself, abutting upon stately homes and modest bungalows behind +a leafy screen of Australian gums, ran straight as an arrow down the +peninsula toward the city and the bay, a broad, smoothly asphalted +highway upon that road where the feet of the Franciscan priests had +traced the _Camino Real_. And down this highway both north and south +there passed many motor cars swiftly and silently or with less speed and +more noise, according to their quality and each driver's mood. + +Thompson rested, watching them from the grassy level beneath a tree. He +rather regretted now the impulse which had made him ship his bag and +blanket roll from the last town, and undertake this solitary hike. He +had merely humored a whim to walk through orchards and green fields in a +leisurely fashion, to be a careless trudger for a day. True, he was +saving carfare, but he observed dryly that he was expending many +dollars' worth of energy--to say nothing of shoe leather. The pleasure +of walking, paradoxically, was best achieved by sitting still in the +shade. A midday sun was softening the asphalt with its fierce blaze. He +looked idly at passing machines and wondered what the occupants thereof +would say if he halted one and demanded a ride. He smiled. + +He stared after a passing sedan driven by a uniformed chauffeur, one +half the rear seat occupied by a fat, complacent woman, the other half +of the ten-inch upholstery given over to an equally fat and complacent +bulldog. And while he reflected in some little amusement at the +circumstance which gave a pampered animal the seat of honor in a +six-thousand-dollar car and sent an able-bodied young man trudging down +the road in the heat and the dust, another machine came humming up from +the south. + +It was a red car, crowding the state limit for speed, and it swept down +on Thompson with a subdued purr like a great cat before a fire. When it +was almost abreast of him there burst from it a crack like the report of +a shotgun. There was just a perceptible wabble of the machine. Its hot +pace slackened abruptly. It rolled past and came to a stop beside the +road fifty yards along--a massive brute of a red roadster driven by a +slim girl in a pongee suit, a girl whose bare head was bound about with +heavy braids of corn-yellow hair. + +Thompson half rose--then sank back in momentary indecision. Perhaps it +were wiser to let sleeping dogs lie. Then he smiled at the incongruity +of that proverb applied to Sophie Carr. + +He sat watching the machine for a minute. The halting of its burst of +speed was no mystery to Thompson. Miss Carr proceeded with calm +deliberation. She first resurrected a Panama hat from somewhere in the +seat beside her and pinned it atop of her head. Then she got out, walked +around to the front wheel, poked it tentatively once or twice, and +proceeded about the business of getting out a jack and a toolkit. + +By the time Thompson decided that in common decency he should offer to +lend a hand and thus was moved to rise and approach the disabled car she +had the jack under the front axle and was applying a brace wrench to the +rim bolts. But the rim bolts that hold on a five-inch tire are not +designed to unscrew too easily. Sophie had started one with an earnest +tug and was twisting stoutly at the second when he reached her. He knew +by the impersonal glance she gave him that he was to her merely a casual +stranger. + +"May I help you?" he said politely. "A big tire is rather hard to +handle." + +Sophie bestowed another level look upon him as she straightened up from +her task. A puzzled expression showed briefly in her gray eyes. But she +handed him the wrench without parley. + +"Thanks, if you will," she said. "These rim bolts are fearfully stiff. I +daresay I could manage it though. I've done it on a lighter car. But +it's a man's job, really." + +Thompson laid off his coat and set to work silently, withholding speech +for a double reason. He could not trust his tongue, and he was not given +to inconsequential chatter. If she did not recognize him--well, there +was no good reason why she should remember, if she chose not to +remember. He could lend a hand and go his way, just as he would have +been moved to lend a hand to any one in like difficulty. + +He twisted out the bolt-heads, turned the lugs, pulled the rim clear of +the wheel. He stood up to get the spare tire from its place behind. And +he caught Sophie staring at him, astonishment, surprise, inquiry all +blended in one frank stare. But still she did not speak. + +He trundled the blow-out casing to the rear, took off the one ready +inflated, and speedily had it fast in its appointed position on the +wheel. + +And still Sophie Carr did not speak. She leaned against the car body. He +felt her eyes upon him, questioning, appraising, critical, while he +released the jack, gathered up the tools, and tied them up in the roll +on the running board. + +"There you are," he found himself facing her, his tongue giving off +commonplace statements, while his heart thumped heavily in his breast. +"Ready for the road again." + +"Do you remember what Donald Lachlan used to say?" Sophie answered +irrelevantly. "Long time I see you no. Eh, Mr. Thompson?" + +She held out one gloved hand with just the faintest suggestion of a +smile hovering about her mouth. Thompson's work-roughened fingers closed +over her small soft hand. He towered over her, looking down wistfully. + +"I didn't think you knew me," he muttered. + +Sophie laughed. The smile expanded roguishly. The old, quizzical twinkle +flickered in her eyes. + +"You must think my memory poor," she replied. "You're not one of the +peas in a pod, you know. I knew you, and still I wasn't sure. It seemed +scarcely possible. It's a long, long way from the Santa Clara Valley to +Lone Moose." + +"Yes," he answered calmly. "A long way--the way I came." + +"In a purely geographical sense?" + +Her voice was tinged with gentle raillery. + +"Perhaps," he answered noncommittally. + +It dawned upon him that for all his gladness to see her--and he was +glad--he nursed a tiny flame of resentment. He had come a long way +measured on the map, and a far greater distance measured in human +experience, in spiritual reckoning. If the old narrow faith had failed +him he felt that slowly and surely he was acquiring a faith that would +not fail him, because it was based on a common need of mankind. But he +was still sure there must be a wide divergence in their outlook. He was +getting his worldly experience, his knowledge of material factors, of +men's souls and faiths and follies and ideals and weaknesses in a rude +school at first hand--and Sophie had got hers out of books and logical +deductions from critically assembled fact. There was a difference in the +two processes. He knew, because he had tried both. And where the world +at large faced him, and must continue to face him, like an enemy +position, something to be stormed, very likely with fierce fighting, for +Sophie Carr it had all been made easy. + +So he did not follow up that conversational lead. He was not going to +bare his soul offhand to gratify any woman's curiosity. It would be very +easy to make a blithering ass of himself again--with her--because of +her. Already he was on his guard against that. His pride was alert. + +Sophie stowed the canvas tool roll under the seat cushion. She climbed +to her seat behind the steering column and turned to Thompson. + +"Which way are you bound?" she asked. "I'll give you a lift, and we can +talk." + +"I'm on my way to San Francisco," he said. "But time is no object in my +young life right now, or I'd take the Interurban instead of walking. It +would be demoralizing to me, I'm afraid, to whiz down these roads in a +machine like this." + +Sophie shoved the opposite door open. + +"Get in," she let a flavor of reproof creep into her tone. "Don't talk +that sort of nonsense." + +Thompson hesitated. He was suddenly uncomfortable, conscious of his +dusty clothes somewhat the worse for wear, his shoes from which the +pristine freshness had long vanished, the day-old stubble on his chin. +There was a depressing contrast between his outward condition and that +of the smartly dressed girl whose gray eyes were resting curiously on +him now. + +"Do you make a practice of picking up tramps along the road?" he parried +with an effort at lightness. He wanted to refuse outright, yet could not +utter the words. "I'm not very presentable." + +"Get in. Don't be silly," she said impatiently. "You don't think I've +become a snob just because chance has pitchforked me into the ranks of +the idle rich, do you?" + +Thompson laughed awkwardly. There was real feeling in her tone, as if +she had read correctly his hesitation and resented it. After all, why +not? It would merely be an incident to Sophie Carr, and it would save +him some hot and dusty miles. He got in. + +"I'm quite curious to know where you've been and what you've been doing +for the last year," she said, when the red car was once more rolling +toward the city at a sedate pace. "And by the way, where did you learn +to change a tire so smartly?" + +"My last job," Thompson told her truthfully, "was washing cars, +greasing up, and changing tires in a country garage down in the San +Juan." He paused for a moment. "Before that I was chaperon to a stable +full of horses on a Salinas ranch. I've tried being a carpenter's +helper, an assistant gardener, understudy to a suburban plumber--and +other things too numerous to mention--in the last three months. I think +the most satisfactory thing I've tackled was the woods up north, last +fall." + +"You must have acquired experience, at least, even if none of those +things proved an efficient method of making money," she returned +lightly. + +"A man like me," he remarked, "has first to learn how to make a living +before he can set about making money." + +"Making money is relative. Quite often it merely means making a living +with an extended horizon," she observed. "I know a man with a +ten-thousand-dollar salary who finds it a living, no more." + +"Poor devil," he drawled sardonically. "When I get into the +ten-thousand-a-year class I rather think it will afford me a few trifles +beyond bare subsistence." + +She smiled. + +"Have you set that for a mark to shoot at?" + +"I haven't set any limit," he replied. "I haven't got my sights adjusted +yet." + +"I can scarcely assure myself that you are really you," she said after a +momentary silence. "I can't seem to disassociate you with Lone Moose and +a blundering optimism, a mystical faith that the Lord would make things +come out right if you only leaned on Him hard enough. Now your talk is +flavored with both egotism and the bitterness of the cynic." + +"How should a man talk?" he demanded. "Like a worm if he chance to be +trodden on a few times? Does a man necessarily become cynical when he +realizes that plugging from the bottom up is no child's play? As for +egotism--Heaven knows you knocked that out of me pretty effectually when +you left Lone Moose. You made me feel like a whipped puppy for months. I +chucked myself out of the church because of that--that abased, +disheartened feeling. For a year and a half I've been learning and +discovering that life isn't a parlor game. Do you remember that letter +you left with Cloudy Moon for me? I need only to recall a phrase here +and there in that as a cure for incipient egotism. What do you think I +should have become?" he flung at her, unconscious of the passion in his +voice, "A poor thing glad of a ride in your car? Or a confirmed optimist +in overalls?" + +Sophie gave him a queer sidelong glance. + +"Can't you let the dead past bury its dead?" she asked quietly. + +Thompson kept his eyes on the smooth, green-bordered road for a minute. +The quick wave of feeling passed. He stifled it--indeed, felt ashamed +for letting it briefly master him. + +"Of course," he answered at last, and turned to her with a friendly +quirk of his lips. "It is buried pretty deep one way and another, isn't +it? And it would hardly be decent to exhume the remains. Shall we talk +about the weather?" + +"Don't be sarcastic," she reproved gently. "Save that to cope with dad. +He'll relish it coming from you." + +"I don't know," Thompson said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't mind a chat with +your father. We wouldn't agree on many things, by a good way, although +I've discovered that some of his philosophy is sound enough. But I've +got to make a move, and I'm so situated that I must make it quickly or +not at all. I'm going to take the first north-bound steamer out of San +Francisco. So I don't imagine Mr. Carr will have a chance at me soon." + +"Oh, yes, he will," Sophie asserted confidently. "In about twenty +minutes." + +Thompson looked at her, startled a little by this bland assertion. + +"We'll be home in about twenty minutes," she explained. + +"But I'm--why take the trouble?" he asked bluntly. "I'm out of your +orbit entirely. Or do you want to exhibit me as a horrible example?" + +"You're downright rude," she laughed. "Or you would be if you were +serious. Do you mind coming to see dad? And I'd like to hear more about +your trip across the mountains with Tommy Ashe." + +Thompson pricked up his ears. + +"Oh, you know about that, eh?" he remarked. "How--" + +"Not as much as I'd like to," she interrupted. "Will you come?" + +"Yes," he agreed. "But give a fellow a chance. Don't drag me into your +home looking like this. I'm not vain, but I'd feel more comfortable in +clean clothes. I shipped all my things into town. They should be in the +express office now. I'll come this afternoon or this evening, whichever +you say. Drop me off at the first carline." + +"I'll do better than that," she declared. "I'll drive you downtown +myself." + +"But it isn't necessary," he persisted. "I don't want to take up all +your time, and--" + +"For the rest of this day," Sophie murmured, "I have absolutely nothing +to do but kill time. I get restless, and being out in the car cures that +feeling. Do you mind if I chauff you a few miles more or less? Don't be +ungallant. I love to drive." + +"Oh, well." + +Thompson mentally threw up his hands. In that gracious mood Sophie was +irresistible. He sank back in the thick, resilient upholstery and +resolved to take what the gods provided--to dance as it were, and reckon +with the piper when he presented his bill. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE REPROOF COURTEOUS(?) + + +For the few minutes it took the red roadster to slip under the green +summits of Twin Peaks and by a maze of boulevards debouch at length upon +Valencia and so into the busy length of Market Street their talk ran to +commonplaces. Thompson placed himself unreservedly in Sophie's hands. He +had to reach an express office on lower Market, get his things, and +proceed thence to the house where he had roomed all winter. Since it +suited Miss Carr's book to convey him to the first point, he accepted +the gift of her company gladly. So in the fullness of time they came +into the downtown press of traffic, among which, he observed, Sophie +steered her machine like a veteran. + +At Third and Market the traffic whistle blocked them with the front +wheels over the safety line that guided the flow of cross-street +pedestrians, and the point man, crabbed perhaps from a long trick amidst +that roaring maze of vehicles, motioned autocratically for her to back +up. + +Sophie muttered impatiently under her breath and went into reverse. +Behind her the traffic was piling up, each machine stealing every inch +of vantage for the go-ahead signal, crowding up wheel to wheel, the nose +of one thrusting at the rear fender of the other. On one side of Sophie +rose the base of a safety station for street-car boarders. Between her +car and the curb a long-snouted gray touring-car was edging in. And as +she backed under the imperative command of the traffic officer, one rear +hub clinked against the hind fender of the other, jarring both cars a +little, dinting the gray one's fender, marring the glossy finish. + +A chauffeur in a peaked cap drove the gray machine. He looked across at +Sophie, scowling. He was young and red-faced, a pugnacious-looking +individual. + +"Back to the country, Jane, an' practice on the farm wagon," he snarled +out of one corner of his mouth. "Yuh drive like a hick, yuh do." + +"Talk civil to a woman," Thompson snapped back at him, "or keep your +mouth shut." + +The chauffeur bestowed upon him a rancorous glare. His sharp, ferret +eyes gleamed. Then he deliberately spat upon the impeccably shining red +hood of Sophie's roadster. + +A scant arm's length separated him from Thompson. Thompson bridged that +gap with his feet still on the running-board of the roadster. He moved +so quickly that the chauffeur had no chance. He did try to slide out +from behind the wheel and his fist doubled and drew back, but Thompson's +work-hardened fingers closed about his neck, and the powerful arms back +of those clutching hands twisted the man out of all position to strike +any sort of blow. He yanked the chauffeur's head out over the side of +the car, struck him one open-handed slap that was like an earnest cluff +from a sizable bear, lifted again and banged the man's face down on the +controls on his wheels, then pushed him back into his seat, limp and +disheveled, all the insolent defiance knocked out of him. + +Thompson stood on the running board, panting a little, the blaze of a +quick anger bright in his blue eyes, and he became aware of two men in +the rear seat of the gray car, gazing at him in open-mouthed +astonishment. One was fat and long past forty, well fed, well dressed, a +prosperous citizen. The other was a slim youngster in the early +twenties, astonishingly like his older companion as to feature. + +Thompson looked at them, and back at the cowed driver who was feeling +his neck and face with shaky fingers. Just then three things +happened--simultaneously. The traffic whistle blew. The younger man +opened his mouth and uttered, "I say--" Sophie plucked at Thompson's +arm, crying "Sit down, sit down." + +Thompson was still fumbling the catch on the door when they swept over +the cross street and raced down the next block. He looked back. The gray +car was hidden somewhere in a rolling phalanx of other motors. The +traffic had split and flowed about and past it, stalled there doubtless +while the red-faced chauffeur wiped the blood out of his eyes and +wondered if a street car had struck him. + +"Do you habitually reprove ill-bred persons in that vigorous manner?" + +He became aware of Sophie speaking. He looked at her. So far as he could +gather from her profile she was quite unperturbed, making her way among +the traffic that is always like a troubled sea between Third and the +Ferry Building. + +"No," he replied diffidently. "I daresay I'd be in jail or the hospital +most of the time if I did. Still, that was rather a rank case. I'm not +sorry I bumped him. He'll be civil to the next woman he meets." + +What he did not attempt to explain to Sophie, a matter he scarcely +fathomed himself, was his precipitancy, this going off "half-cocked", as +he put it. He wasn't given to quick bursts of temper. It was as if he +had been holding himself in and the self-contained pressure had grown +acute when the insolent chauffeur presented himself as a relief valve. +He felt a little ashamed now. + +Sophie swung the roadster in to the curb before the express office. +Thompson got out. + +"Good-by till this evening, then," he said. "I'll be there if the police +don't get me." + +"If they do," she smiled, "telephone and dad will come down and bail you +out. Good-by, Mr. Thompson." + +Ten minutes or so later he emerged from the express office with a +suitcase, a canvas bag, and a roll of blankets. He had no false pride +about people seeing him with his worldly goods upon his back, so to +speak, wherefore he crossed the street and trudged half a block to a +corner where he could catch a car that would carry him out Market to his +old rooming place. + +And, since this was a day in which events trod upon each other's heels +to reach him, it befell that as he loitered on the curb a gray touring +car rolled up, stopped, and a short, stout man emerging therefrom +disappeared hurriedly within the portals of an office building. +Thompson's gaze rested speculatively on the machine. Gray cars were +common enough. But without a doubt this was the same vehicle. The +chauffeur in the peaked cap was not among those present--but Thompson +could take oath on the other two. The young man sat behind the steering +wheel. + +He, too, it presently transpired, was spurred by recognition. His roving +eyes alighted upon Thompson with a reminiscent gleam. He edged over in +his seat. Thompson stood almost at the front fender. + +"I say," the man in the car addressed him bluntly, "weren't you in a red +roadster back at Third and Market about fifteen or twenty minutes ago?" + +"I was," Thompson admitted. + +Was he to be arrested forthwith on a charge of assault and battery? +Policemen were plentiful enough in that quarter. All one had to do was +crook his finger. People could not be expected to take kindly to having +their chauffeur mauled and disabled like that. But Thompson stood his +ground indifferently. + +"Well, I must say," the young man drawled, producing a cigarette case as +he spoke, "you squashed Pebbles with neatness and despatch, and Pebbles +was supposed to be some scrapper, too. What do you weigh?" + +Thompson laughed outright. He had expected a complaint, perhaps +prosecution. He was handed a compliment. + +"I don't know," he smiled. "About a hundred and eighty-five, I think." + +"You must be pretty fit to handle a man like that," the other observed. +"The beggar had it coming, all right. He gets an overnight jag, and is +surly all the next day. I was going to apologize to the lady, but you +were too quick for me. By the way, are you a working-man--or a +capitalist in disguise?" + +Before Thompson quite decided how he should answer this astonishingly +personal inquiry, the young man's companion strode out of the lobby and +entered the car. At least he had his hand on the open door and one foot +on the running board. And there he halted and turned about at something +his son said--Thompson assumed they were father and son. The likeness of +feature was too well-defined to permit of any lesser relation. + +The older man took his foot off the running board, and made a deliberate +survey of Thompson. + +"Just a second, Fred," he muttered, and took a step toward Thompson. His +eyes traveled swiftly from Thompson's face down over the suitcase and +blanket roll, and came back to that deliberate matching of glances. + +"Do you happen to be looking for a position that requires energy, +ability, and a fair command of the English language?" he demanded +abruptly. + +"Yes," Thompson answered briefly. + +He wondered what was coming. Were they going to offer him the +chauffeur's job? Did they require a bruiser to drive the gray car? + +"Know anything about motors?" + +"Not the first principles, even." Thompson declared himself frankly. He +did possess a little such knowledge, but held a little knowledge to be a +dangerous admission. + +"So much the better," the stout man commented. + +He fished out a cardcase, and handed his card to Thompson. + +"Call on me at ten o'clock to-morrow morning," he said briskly. "I'll +make you a proposition." + +He did not permit inquiry into his motive or anything else, in fact, for +he got quickly into the car and it started off instantly, leaving Mr. +Wesley Thompson, a little bewildered by the rapidity of these +proceedings, staring at the card, which read: + + John P. Henderson, Inc. + + Van Ness at Potter Groya Motors + +A westbound street car bore down on the corner. Thompson gave over +reflecting upon this latest turn of affairs, gathered up his things, +boarded the car, and was set off a few minutes later near the Globe +Rooms. + +At precisely 8 p.m. he arrived at the address Sophie had given +him and found it to be an apartment house covering half a block, an +enormous structure clinging upon the slope which dips from Nob Hill down +to the heart of the city. An elevator shot him silently aloft to the +fifth floor. As silently the elevator man indicated the location of +Apartment 509. The whole place seemed pitched to that subdued note, as +if it were a sanctuary from the clash and clamor without its walls. +Thompson walked down a hushed corridor over a velvet carpet that +muffled his footfalls and so came at last to the proper door, where he +pressed a black button in the center of a brass plate. The door opened +almost upon the instant. A maid eyed him interrogatively. He mentioned +his name. + +"Oh yes," the maid answered. "This way, please." + +She relieved him of his hat and led him down a short, dusky hall into a +bright-windowed room, in which, from the depths of two capacious leather +chairs, Sophie and her father rose to greet him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MR. HENDERSON'S PROPOSITION + + +Late that evening Thompson walked into his room at the Globe. He seated +himself in a rickety chair under a fly-specked incandescent lamp, beside +a bed that was clean and comfortable if neither stylish nor massive. +Over against the opposite wall stood a dresser which had suffered at the +hands of many lodgers. Altogether it was a cheap and cheerless abode, a +place where a man was protected from the weather, where he could lie +down and sleep. That was all. + +Thompson smiled sardonically. With hands clasped behind his head he +surveyed the room deliberately, and the survey failed to please him. + +"Hell," he exploded suddenly. "I'd ten times rather be out in the woods +with a tent than have to live like this--always." + +He had spent a pleasant three hours in surroundings that approximated +luxury. He had been graciously received and entertained. However, it was +easy to be gracious and entertaining when one had the proper setting. A +seven-room suite and two servants were highly desirable from certain +angles. Oh, well--what the devil was the difference! + +Thompson threw off his clothes and got into bed. But he could not escape +insistent thought. Against his dull walls, on which the street light +cast queer patterns through an open window, he could see, through drowsy +eyes, Sophie half-buried in a great chair, listening attentively while +he and her father talked. Of course they had fallen into argument, +sometimes triangular, more often solely confined to himself and Carr. +Thompson was glad that the Grant Street orators had driven him to the +city library that winter. A man needed all the weapons he could command +against that sharp-tongued old student who precipitated himself joyfully +into controversy. + +But of course they did not spend three hours discussing abstract +theories. There was a good deal of the personal. Thompson had learned +that they were in San Francisco for the winter only. Their home was in +Vancouver. And Tommy Ashe was still in Vancouver, graduated from an +automobile salesman to an agency of his own, and doing well in the +venture. Tommy, Carr said, had the modern business instinct. He did not +specify what that meant. Carr did not dwell much on Tommy. He appeared +to be much more interested in Thompson's wanderings, his experiences, +the shifts he had been put to, how the world impressed him, viewed from +the angle of the ordinary man instead of the ministerial. + +"If you wish to achieve success as modern society defines success, +you've been going at it all wrong," he remarked sagely. "The big rewards +do not lie in producing and creating, but in handling the results of +creation and production--at least so it seems to me. Get hold of +something the public wants, Thompson, and sell it to them. Or evolve a +sure method of making big business bigger. They'll fall on your neck and +fill your pockets with money if you can do that. Profitable +undertakings--that's the ticket. Anybody can work at a job." + +That sounded rather cynical and Thompson said so. Carr laughed genially. +One couldn't escape obvious conclusions, he declared. Perhaps youth and +enthusiasm saw it differently. + +Thompson, through sleep-heavy eyes, saw Carr hold a glass of port wine, +glowing like a ruby, up between himself and the light and sip it slowly. +Carr was partial to that wine. Wonder if the old chap didn't get +properly lit up sometimes? He looked as if--well, as if he enjoyed easy +living--easy drinking. There was brandy and soda and a bottle of Scotch +on the sideboard too.--And Sophie _was_ beautiful. All the little +feminine artifices of civilization accentuated the charm that had been +potent enough in the woods. Silk instead of gingham. Dainty shoes +instead of buckskin moccasins.--What an Aladdin's lamp money was, +anyway. Funny that they had settled upon Vancouver for a home. Tommy was +there too. Of course. Should a fellow stick to his hunch? Vancouver +might give birth to an opportunity. Profitable undertakings.--At any +rate he would see her now and then. But would he--working? Did he want +to? Would a cat continue to stare at a king if the king's crown rather +dazzled the cat's eyes? Suppose--just suppose-- + +Thompson sat up in bed with a start. It seemed to him that he had just +lain down, that the train of his thought was still racing. But it was +broad day, a dull morning, gloomy with that high fog which in spring +often rides over the city and the bay till near noon. + +He stretched his arms, yawning. All at once he recollected that he had +something to do, a call to make upon Mr. John P. Henderson at ten +o'clock. Groya Motors--he wondered what significance that held. At any +rate he proposed to see. + +It lacked just forty minutes of the appointed time. Thompson bounced out +of bed. Within twenty minutes he had swallowed a cup of coffee at a +near-by lunch counter and was on his way up Van Ness. + +The corner of Van Ness and Potter revealed a six-story concrete +building, its plate-glass frontage upon the sidewalk displaying three or +four beautifully finished automobiles upon a polished oak floor. The +sign across the front bore the heraldry of the card. He walked in, +accosted the first man he saw, and was waved to a flight of stairs +reaching a mezzanine floor. Gaining that he discovered in a short +corridor a door bearing upon its name-plate the legend: + +Mr. John P. Henderson. + +Private. + +Thompson looked at his watch. It lacked but two minutes of ten. He +knocked, and a voice bade him enter. He found himself face to face with +the master of the gray car. Mr. John P. Henderson looked more imposing +behind a mahogany desk than he did on the street. He had a heavy jaw and +a forehead-crinkling way of looking at a man. And--although Thompson +knew nothing of the fact and at the moment would not have cared a +whoop--John P. was just about the biggest toad in San Francisco's +automobile puddle. He had started in business on little but his nerve +and made himself a fortune. It was being whispered along the Row that +John P. was organizing to manufacture cars as well as sell them--and +that was a long look ahead for the Pacific coast. + +He nodded to Thompson, bade him be seated. And Thompson sank into a +chair, facing John P. across the desk. He wanted nothing, expected +nothing. He was simply smitten with a human curiosity to know what this +stout, successful man of affairs had to propose to him. + +"My name is Thompson," he stated cheerfully. "It is ten o'clock. I have +called--as you suggested." + +Henderson smiled. + +"I have been accused of hastiness in my judgment of men, but it is +admitted that I seldom make mistakes," he said complacently. "In this +organization there is always a place for able, aggressive young men. +Some men have ability without any force. Some men are aggressive with no +ability whatever. How about you? Think you could sell motor-cars?" + +"How the deuce do I know?" Thompson replied frankly. "I have never +tried. I'm handicapped to begin. I know nothing about either cars or +salesmanship." + +"Would you like to try?" + +Thompson considered a minute. + +"Yes," he declared. "I've tried several things. I'm willing to try +anything once. Only I do not see how I can qualify." + +"We'll see about that," John P.'s eyes kept boring into him. "D'ye mind +a personal question or two?" + +Thompson shook his head. + +He did not quite know how it came about, but he passed under Henderson's +deft touch from reply to narration, and within twenty minutes had +sketched briefly his whole career. + +Henderson sat tapping the blotter on his desk with a pencil for a silent +minute. + +"You have nothing to unlearn," he announced abruptly. "All big +commercial organizations must to a certain extent train their own men. A +man who appears to possess fundamental qualifications is worth his +training. I have done it repeatedly. I am going to proceed on the +assumption that you will become a useful member of my staff, ultimately +with much profit to yourself. I propose that you apply yourself +diligently to mastering the sale of motor cars to individual purchasers. +I shall pay you twenty-five dollars a week to begin. That's a mechanic's +wages. If you make good on sales--there's no limit to your earning +power." + +"But, look here," Thompson made honest objection. "I appreciate the +opportunity. At the same time I wonder if you realize what a lot I have +to learn. I don't know a thing about cars beyond how to change a tire +and fill grease cups. I've never driven, never even started a motor. +How can I sell cars unless I know cars?" + +"You overestimate your handicap," John P. smiled. "Knowing how to build +and repair cars and knowing how to sell cars are two entirely different +propositions. The first requires a high degree of technical knowledge +and a lot of practical experience. Selling is a matter of +personality--of the power to convince. You can learn to drive in two or +three days. In a month you will handle a machine as well as the other +fellow, and you will learn enough about the principal parts and their +functions--not only of our line, but of other standard machines--to +enable you to discuss and compare them intelligently. The rest will +depend upon a quality within yourself that has nothing to do with the +mechanical end." + +"You should know." Thompson could not help a shade of doubt in his tone. +"But I must say I could approach a man with a proposition to sell him an +article with more confidence if I knew that article inside and out, top +and bottom. If I really knew a thing was good, and _why_, I could sell +it, I believe." + +"He has the right hunch, Dad." + +Thompson had not heard young Henderson come in. He saw him now a step +behind his chair, garbed in overalls that bore every sign of intimate +contact with machinery. + +He nodded to Thompson and continued to address his father. + +"It's true. Take two men of equal selling force. On the year's business +the one who can drive mechanical superiority home because he knows +wherein it lies will show the biggest sales, and the most satisfied +customers. I believe six months' shop work would just about double the +efficiency of half our sales staff." + +John P. gazed good-naturedly at his son. + +"I know, Fred," he drawled. "I've heard those sentiments before. There's +some truth in it, of course. But Simons and Sam Eppel and Monk White are +products of _my_ method. You cannot deny their efficiency in sales. +What's the idea, anyway?" + +Young Henderson grinned. + +"The fact is," he said, "since I listened in on this conversation I have +come to the conclusion that you've good material here. I need a helper. +He'll get a thorough grounding. Whenever you and he decide that he has +absorbed sufficient mechanics he can join the sales end. I'd like to +train one man for you, properly." + +"Well," John P. remarked judicially, "I can't waste the whole morning +discussing methods of training salesmen in the way they should go. I've +made Mr. Thompson a proposition. What do you say?" + +He turned abruptly on Thompson. + +"Or," young Henderson cut in. "You have the counter proposition of an +indefinite mechanical grind in my department--which is largely +experimental. If you take to it at all I guarantee that in six months +you will know more about the internal combustion motor and automobile +design in general than any two salesmen on my father's staff. And that," +he added, with a boyish grimace at his father, "is saying a lot." + +It seemed to Thompson that both men regarded him with a considerable +expectancy. It perplexed him, that embarrassment of opportunity. He was +a little dazed at the double chance. Here was Opportunity clutching him +by the coat collar. He had nothing but impulse, and perhaps a natural +craving for positive knowledge, to guide his choice. He wasted few +seconds, however, in deciding. Among other things, he had outgrown +vacillation. + +"It is just as I said," he addressed Henderson senior. "I'd feel more +competent to sell cars if I knew them. I'd rather start in the shop." + +"All right," Henderson grunted. "You're the doctor. Be giving Fred a +chance to prove one of his theories. Personally I believe you'd make a +go of selling right off the bat, and a good salesman is wasted in the +mechanical line. When you feel that you've saturated your system with +valve clearances and compression formulas and gear ratios and all the +rest of the shop dope, come and see me. I'll give you a try-out on the +selling end. For the present, report to Fred." + +He reached for some papers on the desk. His manner, no less than his +words, ended the interview. Thompson rose. + +"When can you start in?" young Henderson inquired. + +"Any time," Thompson responded quickly. He was, in truth, a trifle eager +to see what made the wheels go round in that establishment. "I only have +to change my clothes." + +"Come after lunch then," young Henderson suggested. "Take the elevator +to the top floor. Ask one of the men where you'll find me. Bring your +overalls with you. We have a dressing room and lockers on each floor." + +He nodded good-by and turned to his father. Thompson made his exit. + +Half a block away he turned to look back at the house of Henderson. It +was massive, imposing, the visible sign of a prosperous concern, the +manifestation of business on a big scale. Groya Motors, Inc. It was +lettered in neat gilt across the front. It stood forth in four-foot +skeleton characters atop of the flat roof--an electric sign to burn like +a beacon by night. And he was about to become a part of that +establishment, a humble beginner, true, but a beginner with uncommon +prospects. He wondered if Henderson senior was right, if there resided +in him that elusive essence which leads some men to success in dealings +with other men. He was not sure about it himself. Still, the matter was +untried. Henderson might be right. + +But it was all a fluke. It seemed to him he was getting an entirely +disproportionate reward for mauling an insolent chauffeur. That moved +him to wonder what became of Pebbles. He felt sorry for Pebbles. The man +had probably lost his job for good measure. Poor devil! + +As he walked his thought short-circuited to Sophie Carr. Whereat he +turned into a drugstore containing a telephone booth and rang her up. + +Sophie herself answered. + +"I guess my saying good-by last night was a little premature," he told +her. "I'm not going north after all. In fact, if things go on all right +I may be in San Francisco indefinitely. I've got a job." + +"What sort of a job?" Sophie inquired. + +He hadn't told her about the ten o'clock appointment with Henderson. Nor +did he go into that now. + +"I've been taken on in an automobile plant on Van Ness," he said. "A +streak of real luck. I'm to have a chance to learn the business. So I +won't see you in Vancouver. Remember me to Tommy. I suppose you'll be +busy getting ready to go, so I'll wish you a pleasant voyage." + +"Thanks," she answered. "Wouldn't it be more appropriate if you wished +that on us in person before we sail?" + +"I don't know," he mumbled. "I--" + +A perfectly mad impulse seized him. + +"Sophie," he said sharply into the receiver. + +"Yes." + +He heard the quick intake of her breath at the other end, almost a gasp. +And the single word was slightly uncertain. + +"What did you mean by a man standing on his own feet?" + +She did not apparently have a ready answer. He pictured her, receiver in +hand, and he did not know if she were startled, or surprised--or merely +amused. That last was intolerable. And suddenly he felt like a fool. +Before that soft, sweet voice could lead him into further masculine +folly he hung up and walked out of the booth. For the next twenty +minutes his opinion of John P. Henderson's judgment of men was rather +low. He did not feel himself to be an individual with any force of +character. In homely language he said to himself that he, Wesley +Thompson, was nothing but a pot of mush. + +However, there in the offing loomed the job. He turned into the first +clothing store he found, and purchased one of those all-covering duck +garments affected by motor-car workers. By that time he had recovered +sufficiently to note that an emotional disturbance does not always +destroy a man's appetite for food. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A WIDENING HORIZON + + +This is not a history of the motor car business, nor even of the +successive steps Wes Thompson took to win competent knowledge of that +Beanstalk among modern industries. If it were there might be sound +reasons for recounting the details of his tutelage under Fred Henderson. +No man ever won success without knowing pretty well what he was about. +No one is born with a workable fund of knowledge. It must be acquired. + +That, precisely, is what Thompson set out to do in the Groya shop. In +which purpose he was aided, abetted, and diligently coached by Fred +Henderson. The measure of Thompson's success in this endeavor may be +gauged by what young Henderson said casually to his father on a day some +six months later. + +"Thompson soaks up mechanical theory and practice as a dry sponge soaks +up water." + +"Wasted talent," John P. rumbled. "I suppose you'll have him a wild-eyed +designer before you're through." + +"No," Henderson junior observed thoughtfully. "He'll never design. But +he will know design when he sees it. Thompson is learning for a definite +purpose--to sell cars--to make money. Knowing motor cars thoroughly is +incidental to his main object." + +John P. cocked his ears. + +"Yes," he said. "That so? Better send that young man up to me, Fred." + +"I've been expecting that," young Henderson replied. "He's ripe. I wish +you hadn't put that sales bug in his ear to start with. He'd make just +the man I need for an understudy when we get that Oakland plant going." + +"Tush," Henderson snorted inelegantly. "Salesmen are born, not made--the +real high-grade ones. And the factories are turning out mechanical +experts by the gross." + +"I know that," his son grinned. "But I like Thompson. He gives you the +feeling that you can absolutely rely on him." + +"Send him up to me," John P. repeated--and when John P. issued a fiat +like that, even his son did not dispute it. + +And Thompson was duly sent up. He did not go back to the shop on the top +floor where for six months he had been an eager student, where he had +learned something of the labor of creation--for Fred Henderson was +evolving a new car, a model that should have embodied in it power and +looks and comfort at the minimum of cost. And in pursuance of that ideal +he built and discarded, redesigned and rebuilt, putting his motors to +the acid test on the block and his assembled chassis on the road. +Indeed, many a wild ride he and Thompson had taken together on quiet +highways outside of San Francisco during that testing process. + +No, Thompson never went back to that after his interview with John P. +Henderson. He was sorry, in a way. He liked the work. It was fascinating +to put shafting and gears and a motor and a set of insentient wheels +together and make the assembled whole a thing of pulsing power that +leaped under the touch of a finger. But--a good salesman made thousands +where a good mechanic made hundreds. And money was the indispensable +factor--to such as he, who had none. + +Fred Henderson had the satisfaction of seeing his theory verified. +Thompson made good from the start. In three months his sales were second +in volume only to Monk White, who was John P.'s one best bet in the +selling line. Henderson chuckled afresh over this verification of his +original estimate of a man, and Fred Henderson smiled and said nothing. +From either man's standpoint Wes Thompson was a credit to the house. An +asset, besides, of reckonable value in cold cash. + +"New blood counts," John P. rumbled in confidence to his son. "Keeps us +from going stale, Fred." + +When a twelvemonth had elapsed from the day Sophie Carr's red roadster +blew a tire on the San Mateo road and set up that sequence of events +which had landed him where he was, Thompson had left his hall bedroom at +the Globe for quarters in a decent bachelor apartment. He had a +well-stocked wardrobe, a dozen shelves of miscellaneous books, and three +thousand dollars in the bank. Considering his prospects he should have +been a fairly sanguine and well-contented young man. + +As a matter of fact he had become so, within certain limits. A man whose +time is continuously and profitably occupied does not brood. Thompson +had found a personal satisfaction in living up to John P. Henderson's +first judgment of him. Through Fred Henderson and through his business +activities he had formed a little group of pleasant acquaintances. +Sophie Carr was growing shadowy--a shadow that sometimes laid upon him +certain regrets, it is true, but the mere memory of her no longer +produced the old overpowering reactions, the sense of sorry failure, of +a dear treasure lost because he lacked a man's full stature in all but +physical bulk. + +It could easily have happened that Thompson would have embraced with +enthusiasm a future bounded by San Francisco, a future in which he would +successfully sell Groya cars until his amassed funds enabled him to +expand still further his material success. If that future embraced a +comfortable home, if a mate and affection suggested themselves as +possibilities well within his reach, the basis of those tentative +yearnings rested upon the need that dwells within every normal human +being, and upon what he saw happening now and then to other young +men--and young women--within the immediate radius of his observation. + +But upon this particular May morning his mind was questing far afield. +The prime cause of that mental projection was a letter in his hand, a +letter from Tommy Ashe. Thompson had a lively imagination, tempered by +the sort of worldly experience no moderately successful man can escape. And +Tommy's letter--the latest in a series of renewed correspondence--opened +up certain desirable eventualities. The first page of Tommy's screed was +devoted to personal matters. The rest ran thus: + + Candidly, old man, your description of the contemplated Henderson + car makes a hit with me. The line I handle now is a fair seller. + But fair isn't good enough for me. I really need--in addition--to + have a smaller machine, to supply a pretty numerous class of + prospects. I should like to get hold of just such a car as you + describe. I am feeling around for the agency of a small, _good_ + car. Send me all the dope on this one, and when it will be on the + market. There is a tremendous market here for something like that. + I'd prefer to take up a line with an established reputation behind + it. But the main thing is to have a car that will sell when you + push it. And this listens good. + + Aren't you about due for a vacation? Why don't you take a run up + here? I'd enjoy a chin-fest. The fishing's good, too--and we are + long on rather striking scenery. Do come up for a week, when you + can get off. Meantime, by-by. + + Tommy + +Thompson laid down the letter and stared out over the roof-tops. He +couldn't afford to be a philanthropist. A rather sweeping idea had +flashed into his mind as he read that missive. His horizon was +continually expanding. Money, beyond cavil, was the key to many doors, a +necessity if a man's eyes were fixed upon much that was desirable. If he +could make money selling machines for Groya Motors Inc., why not for +himself? Why not? + +The answer seemed too obvious for argument. The new car which had taken +final form in Fred Henderson's drafting room and in the Groya shop was +long past the experimental stage. All it required was financing and John +P. Henderson had attended efficiently to that. There was a plant rising +swiftly across the bay, a modern plant with railway service, big yards, +and a testing track, in which six months hence would begin an estimated +annual production of ten thousand cars a year. John P. had remarked once +to his son that for the Henderson family to design, produce, manufacture +and market successfully a car they could be proud of would be the summit +of his ambition. And the new car was named the Summit. + +It was a good car, a quality car in everything but sheer bulk. Thompson +knew that. He knew, too, that people were buying motor cars on +performance, not poundage, now. He knew too that he could sell +Summits--if he could get territory in which to make sales. + +He had thought about this before. He knew that in the Groya files lay +dealers' contracts covering the cream of California, Oregon and +Washington. These dealers would handle Summits. There had not seemed an +opening wide enough to justify plans. But now Tommy's letter focused his +vision upon a specific point. + +If he could get that Vancouver territory! Vancouver housed a hundred +thousand people. A Vancouver agency for the Summit, with a live man at +the helm, would run to big figures. + +No, he decided, he would not hastily grasp his fountain pen and say to +Tommy Ashe, "Jump in and contract for territory and allotment, old boy. +The Summit is the goods." Not until he had looked over the ground +himself. + +He had two weeks' vacation due when it pleased him. And it pleased him +to ask John P. as soon as he reached the office that very morning if it +was convenient to the firm to do without him for the ensuing fortnight. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE SHADOW + + +Thompson went to Vancouver to spy out the land. He made no confidants. +He went about the Terminal City with his mouth shut and his ears and +eyes open. What he saw and heard soon convinced him that like the +Israelites of old he stood upon the border of a land which--for his +business purpose--flowed with milk and honey. It was easy to weave air +castles. He could visualize a future for himself in Vancouver that +loomed big--if he could but make the proper arrangements at the other +end; that is to say, with Mr. John P. Henderson, President of the Summit +Motors Corporation. Thompson had faith enough in himself to believe he +could make such an arrangement, daring as it seemed when he got down to +actual figures. + +It gave him a curious sense of relief to find Tommy Ashe flirting with +the Petit Six people, apparently forgetful of the Summit specifications. +Thompson hadn't quite taken as his gospel the sound business ethic that +you must look out for number one first, last and always. If Tommy had +broached the subject personally, if he had shown anxiety to acquire +selling rights in the Summit, Thompson would have felt impelled by sheer +loyalty of friendship to help Tommy secure the agency. That would have +been quixotic, of course. Nevertheless, he would have done it, because +not to do it would have seemed like taking a mean advantage. As it was-- + +For the rest he warmed to the sheer beauty of the spot. Vancouver +spreads largely over rolling hills and little peninsular juttings into +the sea. From its eminences there sweep unequalled views over the Gulf +of Georgia and northwestward along towering mountain ranges upon whose +lower slopes the firs and cedars marshal themselves in green battalions. +From his hotel window he would gaze in contented abstraction over the +tidal surges through the First Narrows and the tall masts of shipping in +a spacious harbor, landlocked and secure, stretching away like a great +blue lagoon with motor craft and ferries and squat tugs for waterfowl. +Thompson loved the forest as a man loves pleasant, familiar things, and +next to the woods his affection turned to the sea. Here, at his hand, +were both in all their primal grandeur. He was very sure he would like +Vancouver. + +Whether the fact that he encountered the Carrs before he was three days +in town, had dinner at their home, and took Sophie once to luncheon at +the Granada Grill, had anything to do with this conclusion deponent +sayeth not. To be sure he learned with the first frank gleam in Sophie's +gray eyes that she still held for him that mysterious pulse-quickening +lure, that for him her presence was sufficient to stir a glow no other +woman had ever succeeded in kindling ever so briefly. But he had +acquired poise, confidence, a self-mastery not to be disputed. He said +to himself that he could stand the gaff now. He could face facts. And +he said to himself further, a little wistfully, that Sophie Carr was +worth all the pangs she had ever given him--more. + +He could detect no change in her. That was one of the queer, personal +characteristics she possessed--that she could pass beyond his ken for +months, for years he almost believed, and when he met her again she +would be the same, voice, manner, little tricks of speech and gesture +unchanged. Meeting Sophie after that year was like meeting her after a +week. Barring the clothes and the surroundings that spoke of ample means +tastefully expended, the general background of her home and associates, +she seemed to him unchanged. Yet when he reflected, he was not so sure +of this. Sophie was gracious, friendly, frankly interested when he +talked of himself. When their talk ran upon impersonal things the old +nimbleness of mind functioned. But under these superficialities he could +only guess, after all, what the essential woman of her was now. He could +not say if she were still the queer, self-disciplined mixture of cold +logic and primitive passion the Sophie Carr of Lone Moose had revealed +to him. He was not sure if he desired to explore in that direction. The +old scars remained. He shrank from acquiring new ones, yet perforce let +his thought dwell upon her with reviving concentration. After all, he +said to himself, it was on the knees of the gods. + +At any rate he was not to be deterred from his project. He had served +his apprenticeship in the game. He was eager to try his own wings in a +flight of his own choosing. + +Since he had evolved a definite plan of going about that, he entered +decisively upon the first step. Upon reaching San Francisco he bearded +John P. Henderson in his mahogany den and outlined a scheme which made +that worthy gentleman's eyes widen. He heard Thompson to an end, +however, with a growing twinkle in those same, shrewd, worldly-wise +orbs, and at the finish thumped a plump fist on his desk with a force +that made the pen-rack jingle. + +"Damned if I don't go you," he exclaimed. "I said in the beginning you'd +make a salesman, and you've made good. You'll make good in this. If you +don't it isn't for lack of vision--and nerve." + +"Nerve," he chuckled over the word. "You know it isn't good business for +me. I'll be losing a valuable man off my staff, and I'll be taking +longer chances than it has ever been my policy to take. Your only real +asset is--yourself. That isn't a negotiable security." + +"Not exactly," Thompson returned. "Still in your business you are +compelled--every big business is compelled--to place implicit trust in +certain men. From a commercial point of view this move of mine should +prove even more profitable to you than if I remain on your staff as a +salesman--provided your estimate of me, and my own estimate of myself, +is approximately correct. You must have an outlet for your product. I +will still be making money for you. In addition I shall be developing a +market that will, perhaps before so very long, absorb a tremendous +number of cars." + +"Oh, there's no argument. I'm committed to the enterprise," Henderson +declared. "I believe in _you_, Thompson. Otherwise I couldn't see your +proposition with a microscope. Well, I'll embody the various points in a +contract. Come in this afternoon and sign up." + +As easily as that. Thompson went down the half-flight of stairs still a +trifle incredible over the ease with which he had accomplished a stroke +that meant--oh, well, to his sanguine vision there was no limit. + +He felt pretty much as he had felt when he sold his first Groya to an +apparently hopeless prospect, elated, a little astonished at his +success, brimful of confidence to cope with the next problem. + +The ego in him clamored to be about this bigger business. But that was +not possible. He came back to earth presently with the recollection that +the Summits would not be ready for distribution before late October--and +for the next five months the more Groyas he sold the better position he +would be in when he went on his own. + +So when he finally had in his hands a dealer's contract covering the +Province of British Columbia he put the matter out of his mind--except +for occasional day-dreamings upon it in idle moments--and gave himself +whole-heartedly to serving the house of Henderson. + +Time passed uneventfully enough. June went its way with its brides and +flowers. July drove folk upon vacations to the seaside resorts. + +And in August there burst upon an incredulous world the jagged +lightnings and cannon-thunder of war. + +It would be waste words to describe here the varying fortunes of the +grappling armies during the next few months. The newspapers and current +periodicals and countless self-appointed historians have attended to +that. It is all recorded, so that one must run to read it all. It is as +terribly vivid to us now as it was distant and shadowy then--a madness +of slaughter and destruction that raged on the other side of the earth, +a terror from which we stood comfortably aloof. + +There was something in the war unseen by Thompson and the Hendersons and +a countless host of intelligent, well-dressed, comfortable people who +bought extras wet from the press to read of that merciless thrust +through Belgium, the shock and recoil and counter-shock of armies, of +death dealt wholesale with scientific precision, of 42-centimeter guns +and poison gas and all the rest of that bloody nightmare--they did not +see the dread shadow that hung over Europe lengthening and spreading +until its murky pall should span the Atlantic. + +Thompson was a Canadian. He knew by the papers that Canada was at war, a +voluntary participant. But it did not strike him that he was at war. He +felt no call to arms. In San Francisco there was no common ferment in +the public mind, no marching troops, no military bands making a man's +feet tingle to follow as they passed by. Men discussed the war in much +the same tone as they discussed the stock market. If there was any +definite feeling in the matter it was that the European outbreak was +strictly a European affair. When the German spearhead blunted its point +against the Franco-British legions and the gray hosts recoiled upon the +Marne, the Amateur Board of Strategy said it would be over in six +months. + +In any case, American tradition explicitly postulated that what +occurred in Europe was not, could not, be vital to Americans. But in the +last test blood proves thicker than water. Sentimentally, the men +Thompson knew were pro-Ally. Only, in practice there was no apparent +reason why they should do otherwise than as they had been doing. And in +effect San Francisco only emulated her sister cities when she proceeded +about "business as usual"--just as in those early days, before the war +had bitten deep into their flesh and blood, British merchants flung that +slogan in the face of the enemy. + +So that to Wes Thompson, concentrated upon his personal affairs, the war +never became more than something akin to a bad dream recalled at midday, +an unreal sort of thing. Something that indubitably existed without +making half the impression upon him that seeing a pedestrian mangled +under a street car made upon him during that summer. The war aroused his +interest, but left his emotions unstirred. There was nothing martial +about him. He dreamed no dreams of glory on the battlefield. He had +never thought of the British Empire as something to die for. The issue +was not clear to him, just as it failed to clarify itself to a great +many people in those days. The maiden aunts and all his early +environment had shut off the bigger vision that was sending a steady +stream of Canadian battalions overseas. + +When the Battle of the Marne was past history and the opposing armies +had dug themselves in and the ghastly business of the trenches had +begun, Thompson was more than ever immersed in pursuit of the main +chance, for he was then engaged in organizing Summit Motors in +Vancouver. There had been a period when his optimism about his prospects +had suffered a relapse. He had half-expected that Canada's participation +in that devil's dance across the sea would spoil things commercially. +There had been a sort of temporary demoralization on both sides of the +line, at first. But that was presently adjusted. Through Tommy Ashe and +other sources he learned that business in Vancouver was actually looking +up because of the war. + +He was a little surprised that Tommy was not off to the war. Tommy loved +his England. He was forever singing England's praises. England was +"home" to Tommy Ashe always. It was only a name to Thompson. And he +thought, when he thought about it at all, that if England's need was not +great enough to call her native-born, that the Allies must have the +situation well in hand; as the papers had a way of stating. + +He had other fish to fry, himself, without rushing off to the front. As +a matter of fact he never consciously considered the question of going +to the front. That never occurred to him. When he did think of the war +he thought of it impersonally, as a busy man invariably does think of +matters which do not directly concern him. + +What did concern him most vitally was the project he had in hand. And +next to those ambitions, material considerations, his fancy touched +shyly now and then upon Sophie Carr. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE RENEWED TRIANGLE + + +Even after Thompson reached Vancouver and the visible signs of a nation +at war confronted him he experienced no patriotic thrill. After all, +there was no great difference, on the surface, between San Francisco and +Vancouver, save that Vancouver accepted as a matter of course the +principle that when the mother country was at war Canada was also a +belligerent and committed to support. Barring the recruiting offices +draped in the Allied colors, squads of men drilling on certain public +squares, successive tag days for the Red Cross, the Patriotic fund and +such organizations, the war did not flaunt itself in men's faces. The +first hot wave of feeling had passed. The thing had become a grim +business to be gone about in grim determination. And side by side with +those unostensible preparations that kept a stream of armed men passing +quietly overseas, the normal business of a city waxed and throve in the +old accustomed way. Thompson's most vivid impression was of accelerating +business activity, and that was his chief concern. The other thing, +which convulsed a far-off continent, was too distant to be a +reality--like an earthquake in Japan, a reported famine in India. + +He went about his business circumspectly, without loss of time. He +leased a good location, wired the factory to ship at once, began a +modest advertising campaign in the local papers, and as a business coup +collared--at a fat salary and liberal commission--the best salesman on +the staff of the concern doing the biggest motor-car business in town. +Thompson had learned certain business lessons well. He had perceived +long since that it was a cutthroat game when competition grew keen. And +this matter of the salesman was his first blood in that line. The man +brought with him a list of prospects as long as his arm, and a wide +acquaintance in the town, both assets of exceeding value. Altogether +Thompson got off to a flying start. The arrangement whereby Henderson +consigned cars to him enabled him to concentrate all his small capital +on a sales campaign. He paid freight and duty. His cars he paid for when +they were sold--and the discount was his profit. + +When his salesroom was formally opened to the public, with five Summits +on the floor and twice as many en route, when his undertaking and his +car models had received the unqualified approval of a surprising number +of callers, Thompson left the place to his salesman and went to see +Sophie Carr. + +That was a visit born of sudden impulse, a desire to talk about +something besides automobiles and making money. But Sophie was out. Her +father, however, made him welcome, supplementing his welcome with red +wine that carried a kick. Thompson sat down before a fireplace, glass in +hand, stretched his feet to the fire, and listened to his host talk. + +"Considering your early handicaps you have certainly shown some speed +in adapting yourself to conditions," Carr observed facetiously. "There +was a time when I didn't believe you could. Which shows that even wise +men err. Material factors loom bigger and bigger on your horizon, don't +they? Don't let 'em obscure everything though, Thompson. That's a +blunder plenty of smart men make. Well, we've progressed since Lone +Moose days, haven't we--the four of us that foregathered there that last +summer?" + +Thompson smiled. He liked to hear Carr in a philosophic vein. And their +talk ran thence for an hour. At the end of which time Sophie came home. + +She walked into the room, shook hands with Thompson, flung her coat, +hat, and furs across a chair, and drew another up to the crackling fire. +Outside, the long Northern twilight was deepening. Carr rose and +switched on a cluster of lights in frosted globes. In the mellow glow he +resumed his seat, and his glance came to rest upon his daughter with a +curious fixity, as if he subtly divined something that troubled her. + +"What is it?" he asked, after a minute of unbroken silence. "You look--" + +"Out of sorts?" she interrupted. "Showing up poorly as a hostess?" + +Her look included Thompson with a faint, impersonal smile, and her gaze +went back to the fire. Sam Carr held his peace, toying with the +long-stemmed glass in his hand. + +"I went to a Belgian Relief Fund lecture in the Granada ballroom this +afternoon," she said at last. "A Belgian woman--a refugee--spoke in +broken English. The things she told. It was horrible. I wonder if they +could be true?" + +"Atrocities?" Carr questioned. + +Sophie nodded. + +"That's propaganda," her father declared judicially. "We're being +systematically stimulated to ardent support of the war in men and money +through the press and public speaking, through every available avenue +that clever minds can devise. We are not a martial nation, so we have to +be spurred, our emotions aroused. Of course there are atrocities. Is +there an instance in history where an invading army did not commit all +sorts of excesses on enemy soil?" + +"I know," Sophie said absently. "But this woman's story--she wasn't one +of your glib platform spouters, flag-waving and calling the Germans +names. She just talked, groping now and then for the right word. And if +a tithe of what she told is true--well, she made me wish I were a man." + +One small, soft hand, outstretched over the chair-arm toward the fire, +shut suddenly into a hard little fist. And for a moment Thompson felt +acutely uncomfortable, without knowing why. + +Carr eyed his daughter impassively. In a few seconds she went on. + +"Of course I know that in any large army there is bound to be a certain +percentage of abnormals who will be up to all sorts of deviltry whenever +they find themselves free of direct restraint," she said. "The history +of warfare shows that. But this Belgian woman's account puts a +different face on things. These unmentionable brutalities weren't +isolated cases. Her story gave me the impression of ordered barbarity, +of systematic terrorizing by the foulest means imaginable. The sort of +thing the papers have been publishing--and worse." + +"Discount that, Sophie," Carr remarked calmly. "The Germans are reckoned +in the civilized scale the same as ourselves. I'm not ready to damn +sixty-five million human beings outright because certain members of the +group act like brutes. The chances are that a German soldier would be +shot by his own command, for robbery or rape or any of these +brutalities, as promptly as one of our own offenders. The fact of the +matter is that there are a lot of hysterical people loose among us who +seem to think they can kill German soldiers by calling them bad names. +The Allies will win this war with cannon and bayonets, but up to the +present we seem to think we must supplement our bullets with epithets. +Doubtless the Germans do the same at home. It's part of the game." + +"Oh, I suppose so," Sophie admitted. "But what a horror this war must be +for those helpless people who are caught in its sweep." + +"If it affects you like that, be thankful it isn't over here," Carr said +lightly. "War is all that Sherman said it was. As a matter of fact +modern warfare with every scientific and chemical means of destruction +at its hand can't result in anything but horror piled on horror. I look +for some startling--" + +The faint whirr of a buzzer and the patter of a maid's feet along the +hall, checked Carr's speech. He did not resume. Instead he reached for a +box of cigars, and lighted one. By that time Tommy Ashe was being +ushered in. + +Tommy exuded geniality from every pore of his ruddy countenance. He +accepted the drink Carr rose to offer. He lifted the glass and smiled at +Thompson. + +"Here's to success," he toasted. "I believe," he went on between sips of +wine, "that things are going to look up finely for us. I sold a truck +and two touring cars this afternoon. People seem to be loosening up for +some reason. You ought to get your share with the Summit, Wes. Snappy +little machine, that." + +"You rising business men," Carr drawled, "want to learn to leave your +business at the office when you come to my house. Now, we were just +discussing the war. What sort of a prophet are you, Tommy? How long will +it last? Sophie was wondering if it would be over before all the +eligible young men depart across the sea." + +"Well," Tommy grinned cheerfully, "I'm no prophet. Not being in the +confidence of the Allied command, I can't say. I'd hazard a guess, +though, that there'll be plenty of good men left for Sophie to make a +choice among. I can pass on another man's prophecy, though. Had a letter +from one of my brothers yesterday. He was at Mons, got pinked in the +leg, and is now training Territorials. He is sure the grand finale will +come about midsummer next. The way he put it sounds logical. Neither +side can make headway this winter. Germany has made her maximum effort. +If she couldn't beat us when she took the field equipped to the last +button she never can. By spring we'll be organized. France and England +on the west front. The Russian steam roller on the east. The fleet +maintaining the blockade. They can't stand the pressure. It isn't +possible. The Hun--confound him--will blow up with a loud bang about +next July. That's Ned's say-so, and these line officers are pretty +conservative as a rule. War's their business, and they don't nurse +illusions about it." + +"In the meantime, let's talk about selling automobiles, or the weather, +anything but the war," Sophie said suddenly. She pressed a button on the +wall. "We're going to drink tea and forget the war," she continued +almost defiantly. "I won't ask either of you to stay for dinner, because +I'm going out." + +Carr's house sat on a slope that dipped down to a long narrow park, and +beyond that to a beach on which slow rollers from the outside broke with +a sound like the snore of a distant giant. Along that slope and away to +the eastward the city was speckled with lights, although it was barely +five o'clock, so early does dark close in in that latitude when the year +is far spent. And when the maid trundled in a tea-wagon, that vista of +twinkling specks, and the more distant flash of Point Atkinson light +intermittently stabbing the murky Gulf, was shut away by drawn blinds, +and the four of them sat in the cosy room eating little cakes and +drinking tea and chatting lightly of things that bulked smaller than the +war. + +Presently Sam Carr drew Tommy away to the library to look up some legal +technicality over which they had fallen into dispute. Sophie lay back +in her chair, eyes fixed on the red glow of the embers as if she saw +through them and into vast distances beyond. + +And Thompson sat covertly looking at her profile, the dull gold of her +coiled hair, the red-lipped mouth that was made for kisses and +laughter--and he was glad just to look at her, to be near. For he was +beginning to say to himself that it was no good fighting against fate, +that this girl had put some spell on him from which he would never be +wholly free. Nor did he, in that mood, desire to be free. He wanted that +spell to grow so strong that in the end it would weave itself about her +too, make love beget love. There was quickening in him again that desire +to pursue, to conquer, to possess. The ego in him whispered that once +for a moment Sophie had rested like a homing bird in his arms, and +would, again. But he was not to be betrayed by headlong impulse. The +time was not yet. Instinct warned him that in some fashion, vague, +unrevealed, he had still to prove himself to Sophie Carr. He was aware +intuitively that she weighed him in the balance of cold, critical +reason, against any emotional appeal--just as he, himself, was learning +to weigh things and men. He did not know this. He only felt it. But he +felt sure of his instinct where she was concerned. + +And so he was content, for the time, with the privilege of being near +her. Some day-- + +Sophie looked at him. For the moment his own gaze had wandered from her +to the fire, his mind yielding tentatively to rose-tinted visions. + +"A penny for your thoughts," she said lightly. + +"I was thinking of you," he answered truthfully. + +He looked up as he spoke and his heart leaped at the faint flush that +rose slowly over Sophie's face. Indeed all the high resolve that had +been shaping in his soul for the past ten minutes came near going by the +board. It would have been so easy to imprison the hand that lay along +the chair-arm next his own, to utter words that trembled on his tongue, +to break through the ice that Sophie used as a shield--for the instant +he felt sure of that--and dare what fires burned beneath. + +While he stood, poised as it were, upon the tip-toe of indecision, Carr +and Tommy Ashe came back. + +Afterward, on his way home, Thompson wondered at the swift challenging +glance Tommy shot at Sophie in that moment. As if Tommy detected some +tensity of feeling that he resented. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +SUNDRY REFLECTIONS + + +That winter and the summer which followed, and the period which carried +him into the spring of 1916, was materially a triumphal procession for +Wes Thompson. Tommy's forecast of the war's ending had fallen short as +so many other forecasts did. The war went on, developing its own +particular horrors as it spread. But the varying tides of war, and the +manifold demands of war, bestowed upon Vancouver a heaping measure of +prosperity, and Vancouver, in the person of its business men, was rather +too far from the sweat and blood of the struggle to be distracted by the +issues of that struggle from its own immediate purposes. Business men +were in business to make money. They supported the war effort. Every one +could not go to the trenches. Workers were as necessary to victory as +fighters. People had to be fed and clothed. The army had to be fed and +clothed, transported and munitioned. And the fact that the supplying and +equipping and transporting was highly profitable to those engaged in +such pursuits did not detract from the essentially patriotic and +necessary performance of these tasks. + +The effect on Vancouver was an industrial rejuvenation. Money flowed in +all sorts of channels hitherto nearly dry. A lot of it flowed to Wesley +Thompson in exchange for Summit cars. Thompson was like many other men +in Vancouver. He was very busy. The business stood on its feet by virtue +of his direction. If he dropped it and rushed off to the war--well there +was no lack of men, men who had no particular standing, men who could +not subscribe to war charities, to Dominion war-bond issues. There was +plenty of man-power. There was never a surplus of brain-power. Business +was necessary. So a man with a live, thriving business was fighting in +his own way--doing his bit to keep the wheels turning--standing stoutly +behind the fellow with a bayonet. And a lot of them let it go at that. A +lot of them saw no pressing need to don khaki and let everything else go +to pot. A lot of them were so intent upon making the most of their +opportunities that they never brought their innermost thoughts out on +the table and asked themselves point-blank: "Should I go? Why shouldn't +I?" And there were some who saw dimly--as the months slid by with air +raids and submarine sinkings and all the new, terrible devices of death +and destruction which transgressed the old usages of war--there were +some who were troubled without knowing why. There were men who hated +bloodshed, who hated violence, who wished to live and love and go their +ways in peace, but who began uneasily to question whether these things +they valued were of such high value after all. + +And Wes Thompson was one of these. Deep in him his emotions were +stirring. The old tribal instinct--which sent a man forth to fight for +the tribe no matter the cause--was functioning under the layer of stuff +that civilization imposes on every man. His reason gainsaid these +stirrings, those instinctive urgings, but there was a stirring and it +troubled him. He did not desire to die in a trench, nor vanish in +fragments before a bursting shell, nor lie face to the stars in No Man's +Land with a bayonet hole in his middle. He would not risk these +fatalities for any such academic idea as saving the world for democracy. + +Always when that queer, semi-dormant tribe instinct suggested that he go +fight with the tribe against the tribal enemy his reason swiftly choked +the impulse. He would not fight for a political abstraction. He had read +history. It is littered with broken treaties. If he fought it would be +because he felt there was need to strike a blow for something righteous. +And his faith in the righteousness of the Allied cause was still +unfired. He saw no mission to compel justice, to exact retribution, only +a clash of Great Powers, in which the common man was fed to the roaring +guns. + +But he was not so obtuse as to fail of seeing the near future. The +Germans were proving a right hard nut to crack. It might +be--remotely--that a man would have no choice in the matter of fighting. +He saw that cloud on the horizon. Sometimes he wished that he could +muster up a genuine enthusiasm for this business of war. He saw men who +had it and wondered privately how they came by it. + +If he could have felt it an imperative duty laid upon him, that would +have settled certain matters out of hand. Chief among these would have +been the problem of Sophie Carr. + +Sophie eluded and mystified him. Not wholly in a physical +sense--although, to be exact, she did become less accessible in a purely +physical sense. But it went deeper than that. During the eighteen months +following Thompson's motor-sales début he never succeeded in +establishing between them the same sense of spiritual communion that he +had briefly glimpsed those few minutes in Carr's home on the way he +opened his salesroom. + +There was Tommy, for instance. Tommy was far closer to Sophie Carr than +he, Thompson, could manage to come, no matter how he tried. He and Tommy +were friends. They had apartments in the same house. They saw each other +constantly. The matter of competition in business was purely nominal. +They were both too successful in business to be envious of each other in +that respect. But where Sophie Carr was concerned it was a conflict, no +less existent because neither man ever betrayed his consciousness of +such a conflict. Indeed Thompson sometimes wondered uneasily if Ashe's +serenity came from an understanding with her. But he doubted that. Tommy +had not won--yet. That intangible yet impenetrable wall which was rising +about Sophie was built of other, sterner stuff. + +She seldom touched on the war, never more than a casual sentence or two. +Perhaps a phrase would flash like a sword, and then her lips would +close. Carr would discuss the war from any angle whatsoever, at any +time. It became an engrossing topic with him, as if there were phases +that puzzled him, upon which he desired light. He ceased to be +positive. But his daughter shunned war talk. + +Yet the war levied high toll on her waking hours, and for that reason +Thompson seldom saw her save in company. His vision of little dinners, +of drives together, of impromptu luncheons, of a steady siege in which +the sheer warmth of that passion in him should force capitulation to his +love--all those pleasant dreams went a-glimmering. Sophie was always on +some committee, directing some activity growing out of the war, Red +Cross work, Patriotic Fund, all those manifold avenues through which the +women fought their share of Canada's fight. For a pleasure-loving +creature Sophie Carr seemed to have undergone an astonishing +metamorphosis. She spent on these things, quietly, without parade or +press-agenting, all the energy in her, and she had no reserve left for +play. War work seemed to mean something to Sophie besides write-ups in +the society column and pictures of her in sundry poses. These things +besides, surrounded her with all sorts of fussy people, both male and +female, and through this cordon Thompson seldom broke for confidential +talk with her. When he did Sophie baffled him with her calm detachment, +a profound and ever-increasing reserve--as if she had ceased to be a +woman and become a mere, coldly beautiful mechanism for seeing about +shipments of bandage stuff, for collecting funds, and devising practical +methods of raising more funds and creating more supplies. + +Thompson said as much to her one day. She looked at him unmoved, +unsmiling. And something that lurked in her clear gray eyes made him +uncomfortable, sent him away wondering. It was as if somehow she +disapproved. A shadowy impression at best. He wondered if Tommy fared +any better, and he was constrained to think Tommy did because Tommy went +in for patriotic work a good deal, activities that threw him in pretty +close contact with Sophie. + +"I can spare the time," he confided to Thompson one day. "And it's good +business. I meet some pretty influential people. Why don't you spread +yourself a little more, Wes? They'll be saying you're a slacker if you +don't make a noise." + +"I don't fight the Germans with my mouth," Thompson responded shortly. +And Tommy laughed. + +"That's a popular weapon these days," he returned lightly. "It does no +harm to go armed with it." + +Thompson refrained from further speech. That very morning in the lobby +of the Granada Thompson had heard one man sneer at another for a +slacker--and get knocked down for his pains. He did not want to inflict +that indignity on Tommy, and he felt that he would if Tommy made any +more cynical reflections. + +Of course, that was a mere flaring-up of resentment at the fact that, to +save his soul, he could not get off the fence. He could not view the war +as a matter vital to himself; nor could he do like Tommy Ashe, play +patriotic tunes with one hand while the other reached slyly forth to +grasp power and privilege of whatever degree came within reach. + +And in the meantime both men, and other men likewise, went about their +daily affairs. Vancouver grew and prospered, and the growth of Summit +sales left an increasing balance on the profit side of Thompson's +ledger. Moreover the rapid and steady growth of his business kept his +mind on the business. It worked out--his business preoccupation--much in +the manner of the old story of fleas and dogs, to wit: a certain number +of fleas is good for a dog. They keep him from brooding over the fact +that he _is_ a dog. + +So, save for the fact that he continued to make money and was busy and +realized now and then that he had come to a disheartening impasse with +Sophie, the late spring of 1916 found Thompson mentally, morally and +spiritually holding fast by certain props. + +He had come a long way, and he had yet a long way to go. He had come to +Lone Moose very much after the fashion of St. Simeon Stylites all +prepared to mount a spiritual pillar and make a bid for sainthood. But +pillar hermits, he discovered, when harsh, material facts tore the +evangelistic blinkers off his eyes, were neither useful in the world nor +acceptable on high. He had been in a very bad way for awhile. When a man +loses his own self-respect and the faith of his fathers at one stroke he +is apt to suffer intensely. Thompson had not quite reached that pass, +when he came down to Wrangel by the sea, but he was not far off. When he +looked back, he could scarcely trace by what successive steps he had +traveled. But he had got up out of that puddle into which a harsh +environment and wounded egotism had cast him. He was in a way to be what +the world called a success. + +He was not so sure of that himself. But he stayed himself with certain +props, as before mentioned. The base of more than one of these useful +supports had been undermined some time before by a sequence of events +which presented the paradox of being familiar to him and still beyond +his comprehension. + +He was a long way from being aware, in those early summer days of 1916, +that before long some of the aforementioned props were to buckle under +him with strange and disturbing circumstance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE FUSE-- + + +It was in this period that certain phases of the war began to shake the +foundation of things. I do not recall who said that an army marches on +its stomach, but it is true, and it is no less a verity that nations +function primarily on food. The submarine was waxing to its zenith now, +and Europe saw the gaunt wolf at its door. Men cried for more ships. +Cost became secondary. A vessel paid for herself if she landed but two +cargoes in an Allied port. + +Every demand in the economic field produces a supply. On this side of +the Atlantic great shipbuilding plants arose by some superior magic of +construction in ports where the building of ships had been a minor +industry. In this Vancouver did not lag. Wooden ships could be built +quickly. Virgin forests of fir and cedar stood at Vancouver's very door. +Wherefore yards, capable of turning out a three-thousand-ton wooden +steamer in ninety days, rose on tidewater, and an army of labor sawed +and hammered and shaped to the ultimate confusion of the Hun. + +Thompson had seen these yards in the distance. He read newspapers and he +knew that local shipbuilding was playing the dual purpose of +confounding the enemy and adding a huge pay-roll to Vancouver's other +material advantages. Both of which were highly desirable. + +But few details of this came personally to his attention until an +evening when he happened to foregather with Tommy Ashe and two or three +others at Carr's home--upon one of those rare evenings when Sophie was +free of her self-imposed duties and in a mood to play the hostess. + +They had dined, and were gathered upon a wide verandah watching the sun +sink behind the rampart of Vancouver Island in a futurist riot of yellow +and red that died at last to an afterglow which lingered on the mountain +tops like a benediction. A bit of the Gulf opened to them, steel-gray, +mirror-smooth, more like a placid, hill-ringed lake than the troubled +sea. + +But there was more in the eye's cast than beauty of sea and sky and +setting sun. From their seats they could look down on the curious jumble +of long sheds and giant scaffolding that was the great Coughlan steel +shipyard in False Creek. Farther distant, on the North Shore, there was +the yellowish smudge of what a keen vision discerned to be six wooden +schooners in a row, sister ships in varying stages of construction. + +Some one said something about wooden shipbuilding. + +"There's another big yard starting on the North Shore," Sophie said. +"One of our committee was telling me to-day. Her husband has something +to do with it." + +"Yes. I can verify that," Tommy Ashe smiled. "That's my +contribution--the Vancouver Construction Company. I organized it. We +have contracted to supply the Imperial Munitions Board with ten +auxiliary schooners, three thousand tons burden each." + +The fourth man of the party, the lean, suave, enterprising head of a +local trust company, nodded approval, eyeing Tommy with new interest. + +"Good business," he commented. "We've got to beat those U-boats." + +"Yes," Tommy agreed, "and until the Admiralty devises some effectual +method of coping with them, the only way we can beat the subs is to +build ships faster than they can sink them. It's quite some undertaking, +but it has to be done. If we fail to keep supplies pouring into England +and France. Well--" + +He spread his hands in an expressive gesture. Tommy was that type of +Englishman in which rugged health and some generations of breeding and +education have combined to produce what Europe calls a "gentleman." He +was above middle height, very stoutly and squarely built, ruddy +faced--the sort of man one may safely prophesy will acquire a paunch and +double chin with middle age. But Tommy was young and vigorous yet. He +looked very capable, almost aggressive, as he sat there speaking with +the surety of patriotic conviction. + +"We're all in it now," he said simply. "It's no longer our army and navy +against their army and navy and the rest of us looking on from the side +lines. It's our complete material resources and man power against their +complete resources and man power. If _they_ win, the world won't be +worth living in, for the Anglo-Saxon. So we've got to beat them. Every +man's job from now on is going to be either fighting or working. We've +got to have ships. I'm organizing that yard to work top-speed. I'm +trying to set a pace. Watch us on the North Shore. The man in the +trenches won't say we didn't back him up." + +It sounded well. To Thompson it gave a feeling of dissatisfaction which +was nowise lessened by the momentary gleam in Sophie's eyes as they +rested briefly on Tommy and passed casually to him--and beyond. + +He was growing slowly to understand that the war had somehow--in a +fashion beyond his comprehension--bitten deep into Sophie Carr's soul. +She thought about it, if she seldom talked. What was perhaps more vital, +she _felt_ about it with an intensity Thompson could not fathom, because +he had not experienced such feeling himself. He only divined this. +Sophie never paraded either her thoughts or her feelings. And divining +this uneasily he foresaw a shortening of his stature in her eyes by +comparison with Tommy Ashe--who had become a doer, a creator in the +common need, while _he_ remained a gleaner in the field of +self-interest. Thompson rather resented that imputation. Privately he +considered Tommy's speech a trifle grandiloquent. He began to think he +had underestimated Tommy, in more ways than one. + +Nor did he fail to wonder at the dry smile that hovered about Sam Carr's +lips until that worthy old gentleman put his hand over his mouth to hide +it, while his shrewd old eyes twinkled with inner amusement. There was +something more than amusement, too. If Wes Thompson had not known that +Sam Carr liked Tommy, rather admired his push and ability to hold his +own in the general scramble, he would have said Carr's smile and eyes +tinged the amusement with something like contempt. + +That puzzled Thompson. The Dominion, as well as the Empire, was slowly +formulating the war-doctrine that men must either fight or work. Tommy, +with his executive ability, his enthusiasm, was plunging into a needed +work. Tommy had a right to feel that he was doing a big thing. Thompson +granted him that. Why, then, should Carr look at him like that? + +He was still recurring to that when he drove down town with Tommy later +in the evening. He was not surprised that Tommy sauntered into his rooms +after putting up his machine. He had been in the habit of doing that +until lately, and Thompson knew now that Tommy must have been very busy +on that shipyard organization. It had been easy for them to drop into +the old intimacy which had grown up between them on that hard, long +trail between Lone Moose and the Stikine. They had a lot of common +ground to meet on besides that. + +This night Tommy had something on his mind besides casual conversation. +He wasted little time in preliminaries. + +"Would you be interested in taking over my car agencies on a percentage +basis, Wes?" he asked point-blank, when he had settled himself in a +chair with a cigar in his mouth. "I have worked up a good business with +the Standard and the Petit Six. I don't like to let it go altogether. I +shall have to devote all my time to the ship plant. That looms biggest +on the horizon. But I want to hold these agencies as an anchor to +windward. You could run both places without either suffering, I'm +confident. Ill make you a good proposition." + +Thompson reflected a minute. + +"What is your proposition?" he asked at length. "I daresay I could +handle it. But I can't commit myself offhand." + +"Of course not," Tommy agreed. "You can go over my books from the +beginning, and see for yourself what the business amounts to. I'd be +willing to allow you seventy-five per cent. of the net. Based on last +year's business you should clear twelve thousand per annum. Sales are on +the up. You might double that. I would hold an option of taking over the +business on ninety days' notice." + +"It sounds all right," Thompson admitted. "I'll look into it." + +"I want quick action," Tommy declared. "Say, to-morrow you arrange for +some certified accountant to go over my books and make out a balance +sheet. I'll pay his fee. I'm anxious to be free to work on the ship +end." + +"All right. I'll do that. We can arrange the details later if I decide +to take you up," Thompson said. + +Tommy stretched his arms and yawned. + +"By jove," said he, "I'm going to be the busiest thing on wheels for +awhile. It's no joke running a big show." + +"I didn't know you were a shipbuilder," Thompson commented. + +"I'm not," Tommy admitted, stifling another yawn. "But I can hire +'em--both brains and labor. The main thing is I've got the contracts. +That's the chief item in this war business. The rest is chiefly a matter +of business judgment. It's something of a jump, I'll admit, but I can +negotiate it, all right." + +"As a matter of fact," he continued presently, and with a highly +self-satisfied note in his voice, "apart from the executive work it's +what the Americans call a lead-pipe cinch. We can't lose. I've been +fishing for this quite a while, and I put it over by getting in touch +with the right people. It's wonderful what you can do in the proper +quarter. The Vancouver Construction Company consists of Joe Hedley and +myself. Joe is a very clever chap. Has influential people, too. We have +contracts with the I.M.B. calling for ten schooners estimated to cost +three hundred thousand dollars per. We finance the construction, but we +don't really risk a penny. The contracts are on a basis of cost, plus +ten per cent. You see? If we go above or under the estimate it doesn't +matter much. Our profit is fixed. The main consideration is speed. The +only thing we can be penalized for is failure to launch and deliver +within specified dates." + +Thompson did a rough bit of mental figuring. + +"I should say it was a cinch," he said dryly. "Nobody can accuse you of +profiteering. Yet your undertaking is both patriotic and profitable. I +suppose you had no trouble financing a thing like that?" + +"I should say not. The banks," Tommy replied with cynical emphasis, +"would fall over themselves to get their finger in our pie. But they +won't. Hedley and I have some money. Sam Carr is letting us have fifty +thousand dollars at seven per cent. No bank is going to charge like the +Old Guard at Waterloo on overdrafts and advances--and dictate to us +besides. I'm too wise for that. I'm not in the game for my health. I see +a big lump of money, and I'm after it." + +"I suppose we all are," Thompson reflected absently. + +"Certainly," Tommy responded promptly. "And we'd be suckers if we +weren't." + +He took a puff or two at his cigar and rose. + +"Run over to the plant on the North Shore with me to-morrow if you have +the time. We'll give it the once over, and take a look at the Wallace +yard too. They're starting on steel tramps there now. I'm going over +about two o'clock. Will you?" + +"Sure. I'll take time," Thompson agreed. + +"Come down to MacFee's wharf and go over with me on the _Alert_," Tommy +went on. "That's the quickest and easiest way to cross the Inlet. Two +o'clock. Well, I'm off to bed. Good night, old man." + +"Good night." + +The hall door clicked behind Ashe. Thompson sat deep in thought for a +long time. Then he fished a note pad out of a drawer and began +pencilling figures. + +Ten times three hundred thousand was three million. Ten per cent. on +three million was three hundred thousand dollars. And no chance to lose. +The ten per cent. on construction cost was guaranteed by the Imperial +Munitions Board, behind which stood the British Empire. + +Didn't Tommy say the ten schooners were to be completed in eight months? +Then in eight months Tommy Ashe was going to be approximately one +hundred and fifty thousand dollars richer. + +Thompson wondered if that was why Sam Carr looked at Tommy with that +ambiguous expression when Tommy was chanting his work or fight +philosophy. Carr knew the ins and outs of the deal if he were loaning +money on it. + +And Thompson did not like to think he had read Carr's look aright, +because he was uncomfortably aware that he, Wes Thompson, was following +pretty much in Ashe's footsteps, only on a smaller scale. + +He tore the figured sheet into little strips, and went to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +--AND THE MATCH THAT LIT THE FUSE-- + + +At a minute or two of ten the next morning Thompson stopped his car +before the Canadian Bank of Commerce. The bolt-studded doors were still +closed, and so he kept his seat behind the steering column, glancing +idly along Hastings at the traffic that flowed about the gray stone pile +of the post-office, while he waited the bank's opening for business. + +A tall young man, a bit paler-faced perhaps than a normal young fellow +should be, but otherwise a fine-looking specimen of manhood, sauntered +slowly around the corner of the bank, and came to a stop on the curb +just abreast the fore end of Thompson's motor. He took out a cigarette +and lighted it with slow, deliberate motions. And as he stood there, +gazing with a detached impersonal air at the front of the Summit +roadster, there approached him a recruiting sergeant. + +"How about joining up this morning?" he inquired briskly. + +"Oh, I don't know," the young man responded casually. "I hadn't thought +about it." + +"Every man should be thinking about it," the sergeant declared. "The +army needs men. Now a well-set-up young fellow like you would get on +capitally at soldiering. It's a great life. When we get the Germans +whipped every man will be proud to say he had a hand in it. If a man +struck you you wouldn't stand back and let some other fellow do your +fighting for you, now would you? More than that, between you and me, it +won't be long before an able-bodied man can't walk these streets in +civvies, without the girls hooting him. It's a man's duty to get into +this war. Better walk along with me to headquarters and sign on." + +The young man gazed across the street with the same immobility of +expression. + +"What's the inducement?" he asked presently. + +The sergeant, taking his cue from this, launched forth upon a glowing +description of army life, the pay, the glory, the manifold advantages +that would certainly accrue. He painted a rosy picture, a gallant +picture. One gathered from his talk that a private in khaki was greater +than a captain of industry in civilian clothes. He dwelt upon the +brotherhood, the democracy of arms. He spilled forth a lot of the +buncombe that is swallowed by those who do not know from bitter +experience that war, at best, is a ghastly job in its modern phases, a +thing that the common man may be constrained to undertake if need +arises, but which brings him little pleasure and less glory--beyond the +consciousness that he has played his part as a man should. + +The young man heard the recruiting sergeant to an end. And when that +worthy had finished he found fixed steadily upon him a pair of coldly +speculative gray-green eyes. + +"How long have you been in the army?" he asked. + +"About eighteen months," the sergeant stated. + +"Have you been over there?" + +"No," the sergeant admitted. "I expect to go soon, but for the present +I'm detailed to recruiting." + +The young man had a flower in the lapel of his coat. He removed it, the +flower, and thrust the lapel in the sergeant's face. The flower had +concealed a bronze button. + +"I've been over there," the young man said calmly. "There's my button, +and my discharge is in my pocket--with the names of places on it that +you'll likely never see. I was in the Princess Pats--you know what +happened to the Pats. You have hinted I was a slacker, that every man +not in uniform is a slacker. Let me tell you something. I know your +gabby kind. The country's full of such as you. So's England. The war's +gone two years and you're still here, going around telling other men to +go to the front. Go there yourself, and get a taste of it. When you've +put in fourteen months in hell like I did, you won't go around peddling +the brand of hot air you've shot into me, just now." + +"I didn't know you were a returned man," the sergeant said placatingly. +A pointed barb of resentment had crept into the other's tone as he +spoke. + +"Well, I am," the other snapped. "And I'd advise you to get a new line +of talk. Don't talk to me, anyway. Beat it. I've done my bit." + +The sergeant moved on without another word, and the other man likewise +went his way, with just the merest suggestion of a limp. And +simultaneously the great doors of the bank swung open. Thompson looked +first after one man then after the other, and passed into the bank with +a thoughtful look on his face. + +He finished his business there. Other things occupied his attention +until noon. He lunched. After that he drove to Coal Harbor where the +yachts lie and motor boats find mooring, and having a little time to +spare before Tommy's arrival, walked about the slips looking over the +pleasure craft berthed thereat. Boats appealed to Thompson. He had taken +some pleasant cruises with friends along the coast. Some day he intended +to have a cruising launch. Tommy had already attained that distinction. +He owned a trim forty-footer, the _Alert_. Thompson's wanderings +presently brought him to this packet. + +A man sat under the awning over the after deck. Thompson recognized in +him the same individual upon whom the recruiting sergeant's eloquence +had been wasted that morning. He was in clean overalls, a seaman's +peaked cap on his head. Thompson had felt an impulse to speak to the man +that morning. If any legitimate excuse had offered he would have done +so. To find the man apparently at home on the boat in which he himself +was taking brief passage was a coincidence of which Thompson proceeded +to take immediate advantage. He climbed into the cockpit. The man looked +at him questioningly. + +"I'm going across the Inlet with Mr. Ashe," Thompson explained. "Are you +on the _Alert_?" + +"Engineer, skipper, and bo'sun too," the man responded whimsically. +"Cook, captain, and the whole damn crew." + +They fell into talk. The man was intelligent, but there was a queer +abstraction sometimes in his manner. Once the motor of a near-by craft +fired with a staccato roar, and he jumped violently. He looked at +Thompson unsmiling. + +"I'm pretty jumpy yet," he said--but he did not explain why. He did not +say he had been overseas. He did not mention the war. He talked of the +coast, and timber, and fishing, and the adjacent islands, with all of +which he seemed to be fairly familiar. + +"I heard that recruiting sergeant tackle you this morning," Thompson +said at last. "You were standing almost beside my machine. What was it +like over there?" + +"What was it like?" the man repeated. He shook his head. "That's a big +order. I couldn't tell you in six months. It wasn't nice." + +He seemed to reflect a second or two. + +"I suppose some one has to do it. It has to be done. But it's a tough +game. You don't know where you're going nor what you're up against most +of the time. The racket gets a man, as well as seeing fellows you know +getting bumped off now and then. Some of the boys get hardened to it. I +never did. I try to forget it now, mostly. But I dream things sometimes, +and any sudden noise makes me jump. A fellow had better finish over +there than come home crippled. I'm lucky to hold down a job like this, +lucky that I happen to know gas engines and boats. I look all right, but +I'm not much good. All chewed up with shrapnel. And my nerve's gone. I +wouldn't have got my discharge if they could have used me any more. Aw, +hell, if you haven't been in it you can't imagine what it's like. I +couldn't tell you." + +"Tell me one thing," Thompson asked quickly, spurred by an impulse for +light upon certain matters which had troubled him. He wanted the word of +an eye-witness. "Did you ever see, personally, any of those atrocities +that have been laid to the Germans in Belgium?" + +"Well, I don't know," the man replied. "The papers have printed a lot of +stuff. Mind you, over there you hear about a lot of things you never +see. The only thing _I_ saw was children with their hands hacked off at +the wrist." + +"Good God," Thompson uttered. "You actually saw that with your own +eyes." + +"Sure," the man responded. "Nine of 'em in one village. + +"Why, in the name of God, would men do such a thing?" Thompson demanded. +"Was any reason ever given?" + +"No. I suppose they were drunk or something. Fritz was pretty bad in +spots, all right. Maybe they just wanted to put the fear of God in their +hearts. A pal of mine in Flanders told me of a woman--in a place they +took by a night raid--she had her breast slashed open. She said a Boche +officer did it with his sword." + +The man spoke of these things in a detached, impersonal manner, as one +who states commonplace facts. He had not particularly desired to speak +of them. For him those gruesome incidents of war and invasion held no +special horror. They might have rested heavily enough on his mind once. +But he had come apparently to accept them as the grim collateral of war, +without reacting emotionally to their terrible significance. And when +Thompson ceased to question him he ceased to talk. + +But in Thompson these calmly recounted horrors worked profound distress. +His imagination became immediately shot with sinister pictures. All +these things which he had read and doubted, which had left him unmoved, +now took on a terrible reality. He could see these things about which +the returned soldier spoke, and seeing them believed. Believing, there +rose within him a protest that choked him with its force as he sat in +the cockpit beside this veteran of Flanders. + +The man had fallen silent, staring into the green depths overside. +Thompson sat silent beside him. But there was in Thompson none of the +other's passivity. Unlike the returned soldier, who had seen blood and +death until he was surfeited with it, until he wanted nothing but peace +and quietness, and a chance to rest his shrapnel-torn body and +shell-shocked nerves, Thompson quivered with a swift, hot desire to kill +and destroy, to inflict vengeance. He burned for reprisal. For a +passionate moment he felt as if he could rend with his bare hands a man +or men who could wantonly mutilate women and children. He could find no +fit name for such deeds. + +And, responding so surely to that unexpected stimulus, he had no +stomach for crossing the Inlet as Tommy's guest, to view the scene of +Tommy's industrial triumph-to-be. He wasn't interested in that now. + +Sitting under the awning, brooding over these things, he remembered how +Sophie Carr had reacted to the story of the Belgian refugee that +afternoon a year and a half ago. He understood at last. He divined how +Sophie felt that day. And he had blandly discounted those things. He had +gone about his individual concerns insulated against any call to right +wrongs, to fight oppression, to abolish that terror which loomed over +Europe--and which might very well lay its sinister hand on America, if +the Germans were capable of these things, and if the German's military +power prevailed over France and England. When he envisaged Canada as +another Belgium his teeth came together with a little click. + +He clambered out of the _Alert's_ cockpit to the float. + +"Tell Mr. Ashe I changed my mind about going over with him," he said +abruptly, and walked off the float, up the sloping bank to the street, +got in his car and drove away. + +As he drove he felt that he had failed to keep faith with something or +other. He felt bewildered. Those little children, shorn of their +hands--so that they could never lift a sword against Germany--cried +aloud to him. They held up their bloody stumps for him to see. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +--AND THE BOMB THE FUSE FIRED + + +It took Thompson approximately forty-eight hours to arrange his affairs. +He managed things with a precipitancy that would have shocked a sound, +practical business man, for he put out no anchors to windward nor +troubled himself about the future. He paid his bills, transferred the +Summit agency to his head salesman--who had amassed sufficient capital +to purchase the stock of cars and parts at cost. Thus, having +deliberately sacrificed a number of sound assets for the sake of being +free of them without delay, Thompson found himself upon the morning of +the third day without a tie to bind him to Vancouver, and a cash balance +of twenty thousand dollars to his credit in the bank. + +He did not know how, or in what capacity he was going to the front, but +he was going, and the manner of his going did not concern him greatly. +It mattered little how he went, so long as he went in the service of his +country. A little of his haste was born of the sudden realization that +he had a country which needed his services--and that he desired to +serve. It had passed an emotional phase with him. He saw it very clearly +as a duty. He did not foresee or anticipate either pleasure or glory in +the undertaking. He had no illusions about war. It was quite on the +cards that he might never come back. But he had to go. + +So then he had only to determine how he should go. + +That problem, which was less a problem than a matter of making choice, +was solved that very day at luncheon. As he sat at a table in a downtown +café there came to him a figure in khaki, wearing a short, close-fitting +jacket with an odd emblem on the left sleeve--a young fellow who hailed +Thompson with a hearty grip and a friendly grin. He sat himself in a +chair vis-à-vis, laying his funny, wedge-shaped cap on the table. + +"I've been wondering what had become of you, Jimmie," Thompson said. "I +see now. Where have you been keeping yourself?" + +"East," the other returned tersely. "Training. Got my wings. Off to +England day after to-morrow. How's everything with you, these days?" + +Thompson looked his man over thoroughly. Jimmie Wells was the youngest +of the four sons of a wealthy man. The other three were at the front, +one of them already taking his long rest under a white, wooden cross +somewhere in France. Jimmie looked brown and fit. A momentary pang of +regret stung Thompson. He wished he too were standing in uniform, ready +for overseas. + +"I've just wound up my business," he said. "I'm going to the front +myself, Jimmie." + +"Good," Wells approved. "What branch?" + +"I don't know yet," Thompson replied. "I made up my mind in a hurry. I'm +just setting out to find where I'll fit in best." + +"Why don't you try aviation?" Jimmie Wells suggested. "You ought to +make good in that. There are a lot of good fellows flying. If you want +action, the R.F.C. is the sportiest lot of all." + +"I might. I didn't think of that," Thompson returned slowly. "Yes, I +believe I could fly." + +"If you can fly like you drive, you'll be the goods," Jimmie asserted +cheerfully. "Tell you what, Thompson. Come on around to the Flying Corps +headquarters with me. I know a fellow there rather well, and I'll +introduce you. Not that that will get you anything, only Holmes will +give you a lot of unofficial information." + +Thompson rose from the table. + +"Lead me to it," said he. "I'm your man." + +Getting accepted as a cadet in the Royal Flying Corps was not so simple +a matter as enlisting in the infantry. The requirements were infinitely +more rigid. The R.F.C. took only the cream of the country's manhood. +They told Thompson his age was against him--and he was only +twenty-eight. It was true. Ninety per cent. of the winged men were five +years younger. But he passed all their tests by grace of a magnificent +body that housed an active brain and steady nerves. + +All this did not transpire overnight. It took days. He told no one of +his plans in the meantime, no one but Tommy Ashe, who was a trifle +disappointed when Thompson declined to handle Tommy's exceedingly +profitable motor business. Tommy seemed hurt. To make it clear that he +had a vital reason, Thompson explained tersely. + +"I can't do it because I'm going to the front." + +"Eh? What the devil!" + +Tommy looked all the astonishment his tone expressed. + +"Well, _what_ the devil?" Thompson returned tartly. "Is there anything +strange about that? A good many men have gone. A good many more will +have to go before this thing is settled. Why not?" + +"Oh, if a man feels that he _should_," Tommy began. He seemed at a loss +for words, and ended lamely: "There's plenty of cannon-fodder in the +country without men of your caliber wasting themselves in the trenches. +You haven't the military training nor the pull to get a commission." + +Thompson's lips opened to retort with a sentence he knew would sting +like a whiplash. But he thought better of it. He would not try plucking +the mote out of another man's eye, when he had so recently got clear of +the beam in his own. + +Tommy did not tarry long after that. He wished Thompson good luck, but +he left behind him the impression that he privately considered it a poor +move. Thompson was willing to concede that from a purely material +standpoint it was a poor move. But he could no longer adopt the purely +materialistic view. It had suddenly become clear to him that he must +go--and _why_ he must go. Just as the citizen whose house gets on fire +knows beyond peradventure that he must quench the flames if it lies in +his power. + +The Royal Flying Corps arrives at its ends slowly. Perhaps not too +slowly for the niceness of choice that must be made. Presently there +came to Wesley Thompson a brief order to report at a training camp in +Eastern Canada. + +When he held this paper in his hand and knew himself committed +irrevocably to the greatest game of all, he felt a queer, inner glow, a +quiet satisfaction such as must come to a man who succeeds in some high +enterprise. Thompson felt this in spite of desperate facts. He had no +illusions as to what he had set about. He knew very well that in the +R.F.C. it was a short life and not always a merry one. Of course a man +might be lucky. He might survive by superior skill. In any case it had +to be done. + +But he was moved likewise by a strange loneliness, and with his orders +in his hand he understood at last the source of that peculiar regret +which latterly had assailed him in stray moments. There were a few +friends to bid good-by. And chief, if she came last on his round of +calls that last day, was Sophie Carr. + +He found Sophie at home about four in the afternoon, sitting in the big +living room, making Red Cross bandages. She did not stop her work when +he was ushered in. Beside her on a table stood a flat box and in this +from time to time she put a finished roll. It occurred to Thompson that +sometime one of those white bandages fabricated by her hands might be +used on him. + +He smiled a bit sardonically, for the thought arose also that in the +Flying Corps the man who lost in aërial combat needed little besides a +coffin--and sometimes not even that. + +Sophie looked at him almost somberly. + +"I'm working, don't you see?" she said curtly. + +He had never seen her in quite that unapproachable mood. He wanted her +to forget the Red Cross and the war for a little while, to look and +speak with the old lightness. He wasn't a sentimental man, but he did +want to go away with a picture of her smiling. He had not told her he +was going. He did not mean to tell her till he was leaving, and then +only to say casually: "Well, good-by. I'm off for a training-camp +to-night." He had always suspected there was something of the Spartan in +Sophie Carr's make-up. Even if he had not divined that, he had no +intention of making a fuss about his going, of trying to pose as a hero. +But he was a normal man, and he wanted his last recollection of her--if +it _should_ be his last--to be a pleasant one. + +And Sophie was looking at him now, fixedly, a frosty gleam in her gray +eyes. She looked a moment, and her breast heaved. She swept the work off +her lap with a sudden, swift gesture. + +"What is the matter with you--and dozens of men like you that I know?" +she demanded in a choked voice. "You stay at home living easy and +getting rich in the security that other men are buying with their blood +and their lives, over there. Fighting against odds and dying like dogs +in a ditch so that we can live here in peace and comfort. You don't even +do anything useful here. There doesn't seem to be anything that can make +you work or fight. They can sink passenger ships and bomb undefended +towns and shell hospitals, and you don't seem to resent it. I've heard +you prate about service--when you thought you walked with God and had a +mission from God to show other men the way. Why don't you serve now? +What is the matter with you? Is your skin so precious? If you can't +fight, can't you make ammunition or help to build ships? Are you a man, +or just a rabbit? I wish to God _I_ were a man." + +Thompson rose to his feet. The lash of her tongue had not lost its power +to sting since those far-off Lone Moose days. Yet, though it stabbed +like a spear, he was more conscious of a passionate craving to gather +her into his arms than of anger and resentment. There were tears in +Sophie's eyes--but there was no softness in her tone. Her red lips +curled as Thompson looked at her in dazed silence. There did not seem to +be anything he could say--not with Sophie looking at him like that. + +"If you feel that way about it--" + +He broke off in the middle of the muttered sentence, turned on his heel, +walked out of the room. And he went down the street suffering from a +species of shock, saying desperately to himself that it did not matter, +nothing mattered. + +But he knew that was a lie, a lie he told himself to keep his soul from +growing sick. + +He went back to his rooms for the last time, and tried with pen and +paper to set down some justification of himself for Sophie's eyes. But +he could not satisfy himself with that. His pride revolted against it. +Why should he plead? Or rather, what was the use of pleading? Why +should he explain? He had a case for the defence, but defence avails +nothing after sentence has been pronounced. He had waited too long. He +had been tried and found wanting. + +He tore the letter into strips, and having sent his things to the +station long before, put on his hat now and walked slowly there himself, +for it lacked but an hour of train-time. + +At the corner of Pender and Hastings he met Sam Carr. + +"Welcome, youthful stranger," Carr greeted heartily. "I haven't seen you +for a long time. Walk down to the Strand with me and have a drink. I've +been looking over the Vancouver Construction Company's yard, and it's a +very dry place." + +Thompson assented. He had time and it was on his way. He reacted +willingly to the suggestion. He needed something to revive his spirit, +but he had not thought of the stimulus of John Barleycorn until Carr +spoke. + +In the Strand bar he poured himself half a glass of Scotch whisky. Carr +regarded him meditatively over port wine. + +"That's the first time I ever saw you touch the hard stuff," he +observed. + +"It will probably be the last," Thompson replied. + +"Why?" + +"I'm off," Thompson explained. "I have sold out my business and have +been accepted for the Royal Flying Corps. I'm taking the train at six to +report at Eastern headquarters." + +Carr fingered the stem of his empty glass a second. "I hate to see you +go, and still I'm glad you're going," he said with an odd, wistful note +in his voice. "I'd go too, Thompson, if I weren't too old to be any use +over there." + +"Eh?" Thompson looked at him keenly. "Have you been revising your +philosophy of life?" + +"No. Merely bringing it up to date," Carr replied soberly. "We have what +we have in the way of government, economic practice, principles of +justice, morality--so forth and so on. I'm opposed to a lot of it. Too +much that's obsolete. A lot that's downright bad. But bad as it is in +spots, it is not a circumstance to what we should have to endure if the +Germans win this war. I believe in my people and my country. I don't +believe in the German system of dominating by sheer force and planned +terror. The militarists and the market hunters have brought us to this. +But we have to destroy the bogey they have raised before we can deal +with them. And a man can't escape nationalism. It's bred in us. What the +tribe thinks, the individual thinks. This thing is in the air. We are +getting unanimous. Whether or not we approve the cause, we are too proud +to consider getting whipped in a war that was forced on us. One way and +another, no matter what we privately think of our politicians and +industrial barons and our institutions generally, it is becoming +unthinkable to the Anglo-Saxon that the German shall stalk rough-shod +over us. We are beginning--we common people--to hate him and his works. +Look at you and me. We were aloof at first. We are intelligent. We have +learned to saddle feeling with logic. We have not been stampeded by +military bands and oratory. Yet there is something in the air. I wish I +could fight. You are going to fight. Not because you like fighting, but +because you see something to fight for. And before long those who cannot +see will be very few. Isn't that about right?" + +"I think so," Thompson replied. + +"There you are," Carr went on. "Myself, I have put philosophic +consideration in abeyance for the time. I've got primitive again. Damn +the Central Powers! If I had seven sons I'd send them all to the front." + +They had another drink. + +"Did you go and say good-by to Sophie?" Carr demanded suddenly. + +"I saw her, but I don't think I said good-by," Thompson said absently. +He was thinking about Carr's surprising outburst. He agreed precisely +with what the old man said. But he had not suspected the old radical of +such intensity. "I didn't tell her I was going." + +"You didn't tell her," Carr persisted. "Why not?" + +"For a variety of reasons." He found it hard to assume lightness with +those shrewd old eyes searchingly upon him. "You can tell her good-by +for me. Well, let's have a last one. It'll be a good many moons before +you and I look over a glass at each other again. If I don't come back +I'll be in honorable company. And I'll give them hell while I last." + +Carr walked with him down to the train. + +"When the war broke out," he said to Thompson at the coach steps, "if +you had proposed to go I should privately have considered you a damned +idealistic fool. Now I envy you. You will never have to make apologies +to yourself for yourself, nor to your fellows. If I strike a blow that a +free people may remain free to work out their destiny in their own +fashion, I must do it by proxy. I wish you all the luck there is, Wes +Thompson. I hope you come back safe to us again." + +They shook hands. A voice warned all and sundry that the train was about +to leave, and over the voice rose the strident notes of a gong. Thompson +climbed the steps, passed within, thrust his head through an open window +as the Imperial Limited gathered way. His last glimpse of a familiar +face was of Carr standing bareheaded, looking wistfully after the +gliding coaches. + + * * * * * + +The grandfather clock in the hall was striking nine when Sam Carr came +home. He hung his hat on the hall-tree and passed with rather unsteady +steps into the living room. He moved circumspectly, with the peculiar +caution of the man who knows that he is intoxicated and governs his +movements accordingly. Carr's legs were very drunk and he was aware of +this, but his head was perfectly clear. He managed to negotiate passage +to a seat near his daughter. + +Sophie was sitting in a big chair, engulfed therein, one might say. A +reading lamp stood on the table at her elbow. A book lay in her lap. But +she was staring at the wall absently, and beyond a casual glance at her +father she neither moved nor spoke, nor gave any sign of being stirred +out of this profound abstraction. + +Carr sank into his chair with a sigh of relief. + +"I am just about pickled, I do believe," he observed to the room at +large. + +"So I see," Sophie commented impersonally. "Is there anything uncommon +about that? I am beginning to think prohibition will be rather a +blessing to you, Dad, when it comes." + +"Huh!" Carr grunted. "I suppose one drink does lead to another. But I +don't need to be legally safe-guarded yet, thank you. My bibulosity is +occasional. When it becomes chronic I shall take to the woods." + +"Sometimes I find myself wishing we had never come out of the woods," +Sophie murmured. + +"What?" Carr exclaimed. Then: "That's rich. You with a sure income +beyond your needs, in your own right, with youth and health and beauty, +with all your life before you, wishing to revert to what you used to say +was a living burial? That's equivalent to holding that the ostrich +philosophy is the true one--what you cannot see does not exist. That +ignorance is better than knowledge--that--that--Hang it, my dear, are +you going to turn reactionary? But that's a woman. Now why should--" + +"Oh, don't begin one of your interminable, hair-splitting elucidations," +Sophie protested. "I know it's showing weakness to desire to run away +from trouble. I don't know that I have any trouble to run from. I'm not +sure I should dodge trouble if I could. I was just voicing a stray +thought. We _were_ happy at Lone Moose, weren't we, Dad?" + +"After a fashion," Carr replied promptly. "As the animal is happy with +a full belly and a comfortable place to sleep. But we both craved a +great deal more than that of life." + +"And we are not getting more," Sophie retorted. "When you come right +down to fundamentals we eat a greater variety of food, wear better +clothes, live on a scale that by our former standards is the height of +luxury. But not one of my dreams has come true. And you find solace in a +wine glass where you used to find it in books. Over in Europe men are +destroying each other like mad beasts. At home, while part of the nation +plays the game square, there's another part that grafts and corrupts and +profiteers and slacks to no end. It's a rotten world." + +"By gad, you have got the blue glasses on to-night, and no mistake," +Carr mused. "That's unmitigated pessimism, Sophie. What you need is a +vacation. Let somebody else run this women's win-the-war show for +awhile, and you take a rest. That's nerves." + +"I can't. There is too much to do," Sophie said shortly. "I don't want +to. If I sat down and folded my hands these days I'd go crazy." + +Carr grunted. For a minute neither spoke. Sophie lay back in her chair, +eyes half closed, fingers beating a slow rat-a-tat on the chair-arm. + +"Have you seen Wes Thompson lately?" Carr inquired at last. + +"I saw him this afternoon," Sophie replied. + +"Did he tell you he was going overseas?" + +"No." Sophie's interest seemed languid, judged by her tone. + +"You saw him this afternoon, eh?" Carr drawled. "That's queer." + +"What's queer?" Sophie demanded. + +"That he would see you and not tell you where he was off to," Carr went +on. "I saw him away on the Limited at six-o'clock. He told me to tell +you good-by. He's gone to the front." + +Sophie sat upright. + +"How could he do that?" she said impatiently. "A man can't get into +uniform and leave for France on two hours' notice. He called here about +four. Don't be absurd." + +"I don't see anything absurd except your incredulous way of taking it," +Carr defended stoutly. "I tell you he's gone. I saw him take the train. +Who said anything about two hours' notice? I should imagine he has been +getting ready for some time. You know Wes Thompson well enough to know +that he doesn't chatter about what he's going to do. He sold out his +business two weeks ago, and has been waiting to be passed in his tests. +He has finally been accepted and ordered to report East for training in +aviation. He joined the Royal Flying Corps." + +Carr did not know that in the circle of war workers where Sophie moved +so much the R.F.C. was spoken of as the "Legion of Death." No one knew +the percentage of casualties in that gallant service. Such figures were +never published. All that these women knew was that their sons and +brothers and lovers, clean-limbed children of the well-to-do, joined the +Flying Corps, and that their lives, if glorious, were all too brief +once they reached the Western front. Only the supermen, the favored of +God, survived a dozen aërial combats. To have a son or a brother flying +in France meant mourning soon or late. So they spoke sometimes, in +bitter pride, of their birdmen as the "Legion of Death", a gruesome +phrase and apt. + +Carr knew the heavy casualties of aërial fighting. But he had never seen +a proud woman break down before the ominous cablegram, he had never seen +a girl sit dry-eyed and ashy-white, staring dumbly at a slip of yellow +paper. And Sophie had--many a time. To her, a commission in the Royal +Flying Corps had come to mean little short of a death warrant. + +She sat now staring blankly at her father. + +"He closed up his business and joined the Flying Corps two weeks ago." + +She repeated this stupidly, as if she found it almost impossible to +comprehend. + +"That's what I said," Carr replied testily. "What the devil did you do +to him that he didn't tell you, if he was here only two hours before he +left? Why, he must have come to say good-by." + +"What did I do?" Sophie whispered. "My God, how was I to know what I was +doing?" + +She sat staring at her father. But she was not seeing him, and Carr knew +she did not see him. Some other vision filled those wide-pupiled eyes. +Something that she saw or felt sent a shudder through her. Her mouth +quivered. And suddenly she gave a little, stifled gasp, and covered her +face with her hands. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE LAST BRIDGE + + +Thompson received his preliminary training in a camp not greatly distant +from his birthplace and the suburban Toronto home where the spinster +aunts still lived. He did not go to see them at first, for two reasons. +Primarily, because he had written them a full and frank account of +himself when he got out of the ruck and achieved success in San +Francisco. Their reply had breathed an open disappointment, almost +hostility, at his departure from the chosen path. They made it clear +that in their eyes he was a prodigal son for whom there would never be +any fatted calf. Secondly, he did not go because there was seldom +anything but short leave for a promising aviator. + +Thompson speedily proved himself to belong in that category. There +resided in him those peculiar, indefinable qualities imperative for +mastery of the air. Under able instruction he got on fast, just as he +had got on fast in the Henderson shops. And by the time the first fall +snows whitened the ground, he was ready for England and the finishing +stages of aërial work antecedent to piloting a fighting plane. He had +practically won his official wings. + +With his orders to report overseas he received ten days' final leave. +And a sense of duty spurred him to look up the maiden aunts, to brave +their displeasure for the sake of knowing how they fared. There was +little other use to make of his time. The Pacific Coast was too far +away. The only person he cared to see there had no wish to see him, he +was bitterly aware. And nearer at hand circumstances had shot him clear +out of the orbit of all those he had known as he grew to manhood. +Recalling them, he had no more in common with them now than any +forthright man of action has in common with narrow visionaries. It was +not their fault, he knew. They were creatures of their environment, just +as he had been. But he had outgrown all faith in creeds and forms before +a quickening sympathy with man, a clearer understanding of human +complexities. And as he recalled them his associates had been slaves to +creed and form, worshippers of the letter of Christianity while +unconsciously they violated the spirit of Christ. Thompson had no wish +to renew those old friendships, not even any curiosity about them. So he +passed them by and went to see his aunts, who had fed and clothed him, +to whom he felt a vague sort of allegiance if no particular affection. + +It seemed to Thompson like reliving a very vivid sort of dream to get +off a street car at a certain corner, to walk four blocks south and turn +into the yard before a small brick cottage with a leafless birch rising +out of the tiny grass plot and the bleached vines of sweet peas draping +the fence palings. + +The woman who opened the door at his knock stood before him a living +link with that dreamlike past, unchanged except in minor details, a +little more spare perhaps and grayer for the years he had been gone, but +dressed in the same dull black, with the same spotless apron, the same +bit of a white lace cap over her thin hair, the same pince-nez astride a +high bony nose. + +Aunt Lavina did not know him in his uniform. He made himself known. The +old lady gazed at him searchingly. Her lips worked. She threw her arms +about his neck, laughing and sobbing in the same breath. + +"Surely, it's myself," Thompson patted her shoulder. "I'm off to the +front in a few days and I thought I'd better look you up. How's Aunt +Hattie?" + +Aunt Lavina disengaged herself from his arms, her glasses askew, her +faded old eyes wet, yet smiling as Thompson could not recall ever seeing +her smile. + +"What a spectacle for the neighbors," she said breathlessly. "Me, at my +time of life, hugging and kissing a soldier on the front step. Do come +in, Wesley. Harriet will be so pleased. My dear boy, you don't know how +we have worried about you. How well you look." + +She drew him into the parlor. A minute later Aunt Harriet, with less +fervor than her sister perhaps, made it clear that she was unequivocally +glad to see him, that any past rancor for his departure from grace was +dead and buried. + +They were beyond the sweeping current of everyday life, living their +days in a back eddy, so to speak. But they were aware of events, of the +common enemy, of the straining effort of war, and they were proud of +their nephew in the King's uniform. They twittered over him like fond +birds. He must stay his leave out with them. + +At this pronunciamento of Aunt Lavina's a swift glance passed between +the two old women. Thompson caught it, measured the doubt and uneasiness +of the mutual look, and was puzzled thereby. + +But he did not fathom its source for a day or two, and only then by a +process of deduction. They treated him handsomely, they demonstrated an +affection which moved him deeply because he had never suspected its +existence. (They had always been so precise, almost harsh with him as a +youngster.) But their living was intolerably meager. Disguise it with +every artifice, a paucity of resource--or plain niggardliness--betrayed +itself at every meal. Thompson discarded the theory of niggardliness. +And proceeding thence on the first conclusion stood his two aunts in a +corner--figuratively, of course--and wrung from them a statement of +their financial status. + +They were proud and reluctant. But Thompson had not moved among and +dealt with men of the world to be baffled by two old women, so presently +he was in possession of certain facts. + +They had not been able to support themselves, to rear and educate him, +on their income alone, and gradually their small capital had been +consumed. They were about to negotiate the sale of their home, the +proceeds of which would keep them from want--if they did not live too +long. They tried to make light of it, but Thompson grasped the tragedy. +They had been born in that brick cottage with the silver birch before +the door. + +"Well," he said at length, "I don't want to preëmpt the Lord's +prerogative of providing. But I can't permit this state of affairs. I +wish you had taken me into your confidence, aunties, when I was a +youngster. However, that doesn't matter now. Can you live comfortably on +eleven hundred dollars a year?" + +Aunt Harriet held up her hands. + +"My dear boy," she said, "such a sum would give us luxuries, us two old +women. But that is out of the question. If we get five thousand for the +place we shall have to live on a great deal less than that." + +"Forget that nonsense about selling this place," Thompson said roughly. +That grated on him. He felt a sense of guilt, of responsibility too long +neglected. "Where I'm going I shall be supplied by the government with +all I need. I've made some money. I own war-bonds sufficient to give you +eleven hundred a year in interest. I'll turn them over to you. If I come +back with a whole skin when the war's over, I'll be able to use the +capital in a way to provide for all of us. If I don't come back, you'll +be secure against want as long as you live." + +He made good his word before his leave was up. He had very nearly lost +faith in the value of money, of any material thing. He had struggled for +money and power for a purpose, to demonstrate that he was a man equal to +any man's struggle. He had signally failed in his purpose, for reasons +that were still a little obscure to him. Failure had made him a little +bitter, bred a pessimism it took the plight of his aunts to cure. Even +if he had failed to achieve his heart's desire he had acquired power to +make two lives content. Save that it ministered to his self-respect to +know that he could win in that fierce struggle of the marketplace, money +had lost its high value for him. Money was only a means, not an end. But +to have it, to be able to bestow it where it was sadly needed, was worth +while, after all. If he "crashed" over there, it was something to have +banished the grim spectre of want from these two who were old and +helpless. + +He was thinking of this along with a jumble of other thoughts as he +leaned on the rail of a transport slipping with lights doused out of the +port of Halifax. There was a lump in his throat because of those two old +women who had cried over him and clung to him when he left them. There +was another woman on the other side of the continent to whom his going +meant nothing, he supposed, save a duty laggardly performed. And he +would have sold his soul to feel _her_ arms around his neck and her lips +on his before he went. + +"Oh, well," he muttered to himself as he watched the few harbor lights +falling astern, yellow pin-points on the velvety black of the shore," +this is likely to be the finish of _that_. I think I've burned my last +bridge. And I have learned to stand on my own feet, whether she believes +so or not." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THOMPSON'S RETURN + + +"Anon we return, being gathered again +Across the sad valleys all drabbled with rain." + +On an evening near the first of September, 1918, a Canadian Pacific +train rumbled into Vancouver over tracks flanked on one side by wharves +and on the other by rows of drab warehouses. It rolled, bell clanging +imperiously, with decreasing momentum until it came to a shuddering halt +beside the depot that rises like a great, brown mausoleum at the foot of +a hill on which the city sits looking on the harbor waters below. + +Upon the long, shed-roofed platform were gathered the fortunate few +whose men were on that train. Behind these waited committees of welcome +for stray dogs of war who had no kin. The environs of the depot proper +and a great overhead bridge, which led traffic of foot and wheel from +the streets to the docks, high over the railway yards, were cluttered +with humanity that cheered loudly at the first dribble of khaki from the +train below. + +It was not a troop train, merely the regular express from the East. But +it bore a hundred returned men, and news of their coming had been widely +heralded. So the wives and sweethearts, the committees, and the curious, +facile-minded crowd, were there to greet these veterans who were mostly +the unfortunates of war, armless, legless men, halt and lame, gassed and +shrapnel-scarred--and some who bore no visible sign only the white face +and burning eyes of men who had met horror and walked with it and +suffered yet from the sight. All the wounds of the war are not solely of +the flesh, as many a man can testify. + +From one coach there alighted a youngish man in the uniform of the Royal +Flying Corps. He carried a black bag. He walked a little stiffly. Beyond +that he bore no outward trace of disablement. His step and manner +suggested no weakness. One had to look close to discern pallor and a +peculiar roving habit of the eyes, a queer tensity of the body. A +neurologist, versed in the by-products of war, could have made a fair +guess at this man's medical-history sheet. But the folk on the platform +that night were not specialists in subtle diagnosis of the nervous +system. Nor were the committees. They were male and female of those who +had done their bit at home, were doing it now, welcoming their broken +heroes. The sight of a man with a scarred face, a mutilated limb, +elicited their superficial sympathy, while the hidden sickness of racked +nerves in an unmaimed body they simply could not grasp. + +So this man with the black bag and the wings on his left arm walked the +length of the platform, gained the steel stairway which led to the main +floor of the depot, and when he had climbed half-way stopped to rest and +to look down over the rail. + +Below, the mass of humanity was gravitating into little groups here and +there about a khaki center. There was laughter, and shrill voices, with +an occasional hysterical note. There were men surrounded by women and +children, and there were others by twos and threes and singly who looked +enviously at these little groups of the reunited, men who moved +haltingly on their way to the city above, perfunctorily greeted, +perfunctorily handshaken, and perfunctorily smiled upon by the official +welcomers. + +He looked at this awhile, with a speculative, pitying air, and continued +his climb, passing at last through great doors into a waiting-room, a +place of high, vaulted ceilings, marble pillars, beautiful tiled floors. +He evaded welcoming matrons on the watch for unattached officers, to +hale them into an anteroom reserved for such, to feed them sandwiches +and doubtful coffee, and to elicit tales of their part in the grim +business overseas. This man avoided the cordial clutches of the socially +elect by the simple expedient of saying that his people expected him. He +uttered this polite fiction in self-defense. He did not want to talk or +be fed. He was sick of noise, weary of voices, irritated by raucous +sounds. All he desired was a quiet place away from the confusion of +which he had been a part for many days, to get speedily beyond range of +the medley of voices and people that reminded him of nothing so much as +a great flock of seagulls swooping and crying over a school of herring. + +He passed on to the outer door which gave on the street where taxi +drivers and hotel runners bawled their wares, and here in the entrance +met the first face he knew. A man about his own age, somewhat shorter, a +great deal thicker through the waist, impeccably dressed, shouldered +his way through a group at the exit. + +Their eyes met. Into the faces of both leaped instant recognition. The +soldier pressed forward eagerly. The other stood his ground. There was a +look which approached unbelief on his round, rather florid features. But +he grasped the extended hand readily enough. + +"By jove, it _is_ you, Wes," he said. "I couldn't believe my eyes. So +you're back alive, eh? You were reported killed, you know. Shot down +behind the German lines. You made quite a record, didn't you? How's +everything over there?" + +There was a peculiar quality in Tommy Ashe's tone, a something that was +neither aloofness nor friendliness, nor anything that Wes Thompson could +immediately classify. But it was there, a something Tommy tried to +suppress and still failed to suppress. His words were hearty, but his +manner was not. And this he confirmed by his actions. Thompson said that +things over there were going well, and let it go at that. He was more +vitally concerned just then with over here. But before he could fairly +ask a question Tommy seized his hand and wrung it in farewell. + +"Pardon my rush, old man," he said. "I've got an appointment I can't +afford to pass up, and I'm late already. Look me up to-morrow, will +you?" + +Two years is long for some things, over-brief for others. In Thompson +those twenty-four months had softened certain perspectives. He had +quickened at sight of Tommy's familiar face, albeit that face was a +trifle grosser, more smugly complacent than he had ever expected to +behold it. He could mark the change more surely for the gap in time. But +Tommy had not been glad to see him. Thompson felt that under the outward +cordiality. + +He took up his bag and went out on the street, hailed the least +vociferous of the taxi pirates and had himself driven to the Granada +Hotel. His brows were still knitting in abstracted thought when a +bell-boy had transported the black bag and himself to a room on the +sixth floor, received his gratuity and departed. Thompson was high above +the rumble of street cars, facing a thoroughfare given largely to motor +traffic, with a window which overlooked the lower town and harbor, and +the great hills across the Inlet looming duskily massive against the +paler sky. + +He stood by the window looking over roofs and traffic and the glow-worm +light of shipping in the stream. He could smell the sea, the brown kelp +bared on rocky beaches by a falling tide. And he fancied that even at +that distance he could get a whiff of the fir and cedar that clothed the +mountain flank. + +"By God," he whispered. "It's good to be back." + +He said it much as a man might breathe a prayer. All this that he saw +now had lingered in his memory, had risen up to confront him as +something beautiful and desirable, many times when he never expected to +see it again. For it was not logical, he held, that he should survive +where so many others had perished. It was just a whimsey of Fate. And he +was duly and honestly grateful that it had been permitted him to +outlive many gallant comrades in the perilous service of the air. + +Three days and nights on a train close upon long months in hospital had +left him very tired. Rest both his body and uneasy nerves craved +insistently. Although it lacked some minutes of eight, he threw off his +clothes and went to bed. + +In the morning he rose refreshed, eager to be about, to look up men he +knew, to talk of things beyond the scope of war. + +But when he went out into Vancouver's highways and met people, his +uniform gave them a conversational cue. And he found that here, six +thousand miles from the guns, even less than among his fellows in the +hangars behind the fighting line could he escape that topic. He did not +want to talk about fighting and killing. He had lived those things and +that was enough. So he came back to the Granada and read the papers and +had his lunch and decided to look up Tommy Ashe. + +He had learned casually that morning that Tommy's company had more than +made good Tommy's prophecy of swift work. Tommy Ashe and Joe Hedley were +rising young men. + +"Oh, yes, they've got a mint," a broker he knew said to Thompson, with +an unconcealed note of envy. "By gad, it's a marvel how a pair of young +cubs like that can start on a shoestring and make half a million apiece +in two years." + +"How did they both manage to escape the draft?" Thompson asked. "I'm +sure Ashe is a Class A man." + +"Huh!" the broker snorted. "Necessary government undertakings. +Necessary hell! All they had to do with the shipbuilding was to bank +their rake-off. I tell you, Thompson, this country has supported the war +in great style--but there's been a lot of raw stuff in places where you +wouldn't suspect it. I'm not knocking, y' understand. This is no time to +knock. But when the war's over, we've got to do some house-cleaning." + +Thompson called the shipyard first. In the glow of a sunny September +morning he felt that he must have imagined Tommy's attitude. He was a +fair-minded man, and he gave Tommy the benefit of the doubt. + +But he failed to get in touch with Tommy. A voice informed him politely +that Mr. Ashe had left town that morning and would be gone several days. + +Thompson hung up the receiver. For at least five minutes he sat debating +with himself. Then he took it down again. + +"Give me Seymour 365L," he said to Central. + +"Hello." + +"Is Mr. Carr at home?" + +"You have the wrong number," he was answered, and he heard the +connection break. + +He tried again, and once more the same voice, this time impatiently, +said, "Wrong number." + +"Wait," Thompson said quickly. "Is this Seymour 365L, corner of Larch +and First?" + +"Yes." + +"I beg pardon for bothering you. I'm just back from overseas and I'm +rather anxious to locate Mr. Carr--Samuel A. Carr. This was his home +two years ago." + +"Just a minute," the feminine voice had recovered its original +sweetness. "Perhaps I can help you. Hold the line." + +Thompson waited. Presently he was being addressed again. + +"My husband believes Mr. Carr still owns this place. We lease through an +agent, however, Lyng and Salmon, Credit Foncier Building. Probably they +will be able to give you the required information." + +"Thanks," Thompson said. + +He found Lyng and Salmon's number in the telephone book. But the lady +was mistaken. Carr had sold the place. Nor did Lyng and Salmon know his +whereabouts. + +Tommy would know. But Tommy was out of town. Still there were other +sources of information. A man like Carr could not make his home in a +place no larger than Vancouver and drop out of sight without a ripple. +Thompson stuck doggedly to the telephone, sought out numbers and called +them up. In the course of an hour he was in possession of several facts. +Sam Carr was up the coast, operating a timber and land undertaking for +returned soldiers. The precise location he could not discover, beyond +the general one of Toba Inlet. + +They still maintained a residence in town, an apartment suite. From the +caretaker of that he learned that Sophie spent most of her time with her +father, and that their coming and going was uncertain and unheralded. + +The latter facts were purely incidental, save one. Tommy Ashe had that +morning cleared the _Alert_ for a coastwise voyage. + +Sam Carr and Sophie were up the coast. Tommy was up the coast. Thompson +sat for a time in deep study. Very well, then. He, too, would journey up +the coast. He had not come six thousand miles to loaf in a hotel lobby +and wear out shoe leather on concrete walks. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +FAIR WINDS + + +Within a gunshot of the heart of Vancouver lies a snug tidal basin where +yachts swing to their moorings, where a mosquito fleet of motor craft +lies along narrow slips, with the green woods of Stanley Park for a +background. Thompson knew Coal Harbor well. He knew the slips and the +boats and many of the men who owned them. He had gone on many a week-end +cruise out of that basin with young fellows who looked their last on the +sea when they crossed the English Channel. So he had picked up a working +fund of nautical practice, a first-hand knowledge of the sea and the +manner of handling small sail. + +From the Granada he went straight to Coal Harbor. While the afternoon +was yet young he had chartered a yawl, a true one-man craft, carrying +plenty of canvas for her inches, but not too much. She had a small, snug +cabin, was well-found as to gear, and was equipped with a sturdy +single-cylinder gas engine to kick her along through calm and tideway. + +Before six he had her ready for sea, his dunnage bag aboard, grub in the +lockers, gas in the tanks, clearance from the customhouse. He slept +aboard in a bunk softer than many a sleeping place that had fallen to +his lot in France. And at sunrise the outgoing tide bore him swiftly +through the Narrows and spewed him out on the broad bosom of the Gulf of +Georgia, all ruffled by a stiff breeze that heeled the little yawl and +sent her scudding like a gray gull when Thompson laid her west, a half +north, to clear Roger Curtis Point. + +He blew through Welcome Pass at noon on the forefront of a rising gale, +with the sun peeping furtively through cracks in a gathering cloudbank. +As the wind freshened, the manes of the white horses curled higher and +whiter. Thompson tied in his last reef in the lee of a point midway of +the Pass. Once clear of it the marching surges lifted the yawl and bore +her racing forward, and when the crest passed she would drop into a +green hollow like a bird to its nest, to lift and race and sink deep in +the trough again. + +But she made merry weather of it. And Thompson rode the tiller, an eye +to his sheets, glorying in his mastery of the sea. It was good to be +there with a clean wind whistling through taut stays, no sound but the +ripple of water streaming under his lee, and the swoosh of breaking seas +that had no power to harm him. Peace rode with him. His body rested, and +the tension left his nerves which for months had been strung like the +gut on a violin. + +Between Welcome Pass and Cape Coburn the southeaster loosed its full +fury on him. The seas rose steeper at the turn of the tide, broke with a +wicked curl. He put the Cape on his lee after a wild fifteen minutes +among dangerous tiderips, and then prudence drove him to shelter. + +He put into a bottle-necked cove gained by a passage scarce twenty feet +wide which opened to a quiet lagoon where no wind could come and where +the swell was broken into a foamy jumble at the narrow entrance. + +He cooked his supper, ate, watched the sun drop behind the encircling +rim of firs. Then he lay on a cushion in the cockpit until dark came and +the green shore of the little bay grew dim and then black and the dusky +water under the yawl's counter was split with the phosphorescent flashes +of darting fish. + +Across a peninsula, on the weather side of the Cape, he could hear the +seas thud and the surf growl like the distant booming of heavy +batteries. Over his head the wind whistled and whined in the firs with a +whistle and a whine like machine-gun bullets that have missed their +mark. But neither of these sounds held the menace of the sounds of which +they reminded him. He listened to those diapasons and thin trebles and +was strangely soothed. And at last he grew sleepy and turned in to his +bunk. + +Some time in the night he had a weird sort of dream. He was falling, +falling swiftly from a great height in the air. On the tail of his plane +rode a German, with a face like those newspaper caricatures of the +Kaiser, who shot at him with a trench mortar--boom--boom--boom--boom! + +Thompson found himself sitting up in his bunk. The queer dream had given +place to reality, in which the staccato explosions continued. As he put +his face to an open porthole a narrow, searching ray of uncommon +brilliance flashed over his yawl and picked up the shore beyond. Back +of the searchlight lifted the red, green, and white triangle of running +lights laid dead for him. It sheered a little. The brilliant ray blinked +out. He saw a dim bulk, a pale glimmer through cabin windows, heard the +murmur of voices and the rattle of anchor chain running through hawse +pipe. Then he closed his eyes and slept again. + +He rose with the sun. Beside him lay a sturdily built motor tug. A man +leaned on the towing bitts aft, smoking a pipe, gazing at the yawl. +Twenty feet would have spanned the distance between them. + +Thompson emerged into the cockpit. The air was cool and he was fully +dressed. At sight of the uniform with the insignia on sleeve and collar +the man straightened up, came to attention, lifted his hand smartly in +the military salute--the formality tempered by a friendly grin. Thompson +saw then that the man had a steel hook where his left hand should have +been. Also a livid scar across his cheek where a bullet or shrapnel had +plowed. + +"It's a fine morning after a wild night," Thompson broke the +conversational ice. + +"It was a wild night outside and no mistake," the man replied. "We took +cover about midnight--got tired of plowing into it, and wasn't too keen +for wallowing through them rips off the Cape. Say, are you back long +from over there?" + +"Not long," Thompson replied. "I left England two weeks ago." + +"How's it going?" + +"We're over the hump," Thompson told him. "They're outgunned now. The +Americans are there in force. And we have them beaten in the air at +last. You know what that means if you've been across." + +"Don't I know it," the man responded feelingly. "By the Lord, it's me +that does know it. I was there when the shoe was on the other foot. I +was a gunner in the Sixty-eighth Battery, and you can believe me there +was times when it made us sick to see German planes overhead. Well, I +hope they give Fritz hell. He gave it to us." + +"They will," Thompson answered simply, and on that word their talk of +the war ended. They spoke of Vancouver, and of the coast generally. + +"By the way, do you happen to know whereabouts in Toba Inlet a man named +Carr is located?" Thompson bethought him of his quest. "Sam Carr. He is +operating some sort of settlement for returned men, I've been told." + +"Sam Carr? Sure. The _Squalla_ here belongs to him--or to the +Company--and Carr is just about the Company himself." + +A voice from the interior abaft the wheelhouse bellowed "Grub-pi-l-e." + +"That's breakfast," the man said. "I see you ain't lighted your fire +yet. Come and have a bite with us. Here, make this line fast and lay +alongside." + +The wind had died with the dawn, and the sea was abating. The _Squalla_ +went her way within the hour, and so did Thompson. There was still a +small air out of the southeast, sufficient to give him steerageway in +the swell that ran for hours after the storm. Between sail and power he +made the Redonda Islands and passed between them far up the narrow gut +of Waddington Channel, lying in a nook near the northern end of that +deep pass when night came on. And by late afternoon the following day he +had traversed the mountain-walled length of Toba Inlet and moored his +yawl beside a great boom of new-cut logs at the mouth of Toba River. + +Thanks to meeting the _Squalla_ he knew his ground. Also he knew +something of Sam Carr's undertaking. The main camp was four miles up the +stream. The deep fin-keel of the yawl barred him from crossing the +shoals at the river mouth except on a twelve-foot tide. So he lay at the +boom, planning to go up the river next morning in the canoe he towed +astern in lieu of a dinghy. + +He sat on his cushions in the cockpit that evening looking up at a calm, +star-speckled sky. On either side of him mountain ranges lifted like +quiescent saurians, heads resting on the summit of the Coast Range, +tails sweeping away in a fifty-mile curve to a lesser elevation and the +open waters of the Gulf. The watery floor of Toba Inlet lay hushed +between, silvered by a moon-path, shimmering under the same pale rays +that struck bluish-white reflections from a glacier high on the northern +side. It was ghostly still at the mouth of the valley whence the Toba +River stole down to salt water, with somber forests lining the beach and +clinging darkly on the steep slopes. A lone light peeped from the window +of a cabin on shore. The silence was thick, uncanny. But it was a +comforting silence to Thompson. He felt no loneliness, he whom the +lonely places had once appalled. But that was a long time ago. Sitting +there thinking of that, he smiled. + +No man lives by, for, or because of love alone. Nor does a woman, +although the poets and romancers have very nearly led us to believe a +woman does. Yet it is a vital factor upon some occasions, in many +natures. There had been times in Thompson's life when the passion Sophie +Carr kindled in him seemed a conflagration that must either transfigure +or destroy him. It was like a volcano that slept, and woke betimes. + +The last two years had rather blotted out those periods of eruption. He +had given her up, and in giving up all hope of her, Sophie and +everything that linked her with him from Lone Moose to the last time he +saw her had grown dim, like a book read long ago and put by on the +shelf. In the fierce usages of aërial warfare distracted thought, any +relaxing from an eagle-like alertness upon the business in hand, meant +death swift and certain. And no man, even a man whose heart is sore, +wishes to die. The will-to-live is too strong in him. Pride spurs him. +To come off victorious over a concrete enemy, to uphold the traditions +of his race, to be of service--these things will carry any man over +desperate places without faltering, if he feels them. + +And Wes Thompson had experienced that sort of vision rather keenly. It +had driven him, a man of peaceful tendency, to blood-drenched fields. +For two years he had been in another world, in a service that demanded +of a man all that was in him. He was just beginning to be conscious +that for so long he had been detached from life that flowed in natural, +normal channels. + +He was conscious too, of a queer, impersonal manner of thinking about +things and people, now that he was back. He wondered about himself. What +particular motive, for instance, had driven him up here? To be sure +there was the very plausible one of obeying a physician's order about +living in the open, of keeping decent hours, of avoiding crowds and +excitement until he was quite himself again. But he could have done that +without coming to Toba Inlet. + +Of course he wanted to see Sam Carr again. Also he wanted to see Sophie. +_Why_ he wished to see her was not so readily answered. He wanted to see +her again, that was all--just as he had wanted to see Canada and his +aunts, and the green slopes of the Pacific again. Because all these +things and people were links with a past that was good and kindly by +comparison with the too-vivid recent days. Yes, surely, he would be glad +to see Sam Carr--and Sophie. When he recalled the last time he spoke +with her he could smile a little wryly. It had been almost a tragedy +then. It did not seem much now. The man who had piloted a battle-plane +over swaying armies in France could smile reminiscently at being called +a rabbit by an angry girl. + +It was queer Sophie had never married. His thought took that turn +presently. She was--he checked the years on his fingers--oh, well, she +was only twenty-four. Still, she was no frail, bloodless creature, but a +woman destined by nature for mating, a beautiful woman well fit to +mother beautiful daughters and strong sons, to fill a lover with joy and +a husband with pride. + +A queer warmth flushed Thompson's cheek when he thought of Sophie this +wise. A jealous feeling stabbed at him. The virus was still in his +blood, he became suddenly aware. And then he laughed out loud, at his +own camouflaging. He had known it all the time. And this trip it would +be kill or cure, he said to himself whimsically. + +Still it _was_ odd, now he came to think of it, that Sophie had never in +those years found a man quite to her liking. She had had choice enough, +Thompson knew. But it was no more strange, after all, than for himself +never to have looked with tender eyes on any one of the women he had +known. He had liked them, but he hadn't ever got past the stage of +comparing them with Sophie Carr. She had always been the standard he set +to judge the others. Thompson realized that he was quite a hopeless case +in this respect. + +"I must be a sort of a freak," he muttered to himself when he was stowed +away in his blankets. "I wonder if I _could_ like another woman, as +well, if I tried? Well, we'll see, we'll see." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +TWO MEN AND A WOMAN + + +Thompson drove his canoe around a jutting point and came upon a white +cruiser swinging at anchor in an eddy. Her lines were familiar though he +had not seen her in two years. In any case the name _Alert_ in gold leaf +on her bows would have enlightened him. He was not particularly +surprised to find Tommy's motor boat there. He had half-expected to find +Tommy Ashe hereabouts. + +A man's head rose above the after companion-hatch as the canoe glided +abreast. + +"Is Mr. Ashe aboard?" Thompson asked. + +The man shook his head. + +"Went up to Carr's camp a while ago." + +"When did you get in?" Thompson inquired further. + +"Last night. Lost a day laying up at Blind Bay for a southeaster. Gee, +she did blow." + +Thompson smiled and passed on. Blind Bay was only two miles from Cape +Coburn. Just a narrow neck of land had separated them that blustery +night. It was almost like a race. Tommy would not be pleased to see him +treading so close on his heels. Thompson felt that intuitively. All was +fair in love and war. Still, even in aërial warfare, ruthless and +desperate as it was, there were certain courtesies, a certain element +of punctilio. Thompson had an intuition that Ashe would not subscribe to +even that simple code. In fact he began to have a premonition of +impending conflict as he thrust stoutly on his paddle blade. Tommy had +changed. He was no longer the simple, straightforward soul with whom +Thompson had fought man-fashion on the bank of Lone Moose, and with whom +he had afterward achieved friendship on a long and bitter trail. + +Three hundred yards past the _Alert_ he came to a landing stage which +fitted the description given by the skipper of the _Squalla_. Thompson +hauled his canoe out on the float, gained the shore, and found a path +bordering the bank. He followed this. Not greatly distant he could hear +the blows of chopping, the shrill blasts of a donkey-engine whistle and +the whirr of the engine itself as it shuddered and strained on its +anchored skids, reeling up half a mile, more or less, of inch and a +quarter steel cable, snaking a forty-foot log out of the woods as a +child would haul a toothpick on the end of a string. + +Before long the brush-floored forest opened on a small area of parked +wood. In this pleasant place stood a square block of a house. From a +tall staff fluttered the Union Jack. As Thompson came near this the door +opened and a group of youngsters tumbled out pell-mell and began to +frolic. Thompson looked at his watch. He had stumbled on a school in the +hour of morning recess. + +"Where does Mr. Carr live?" he asked one of these urchins when he got +near enough to have speech with him. + +The youngster pointed upstream. + +"First house you come to," he said. "White house with shingles painted +green. Say, mister, have you just come from the war? My dad was over +there. Do you know my dad, mister?" + +The boy stood gazing at him, apparently hopeful of paternal +acquaintance, until he discovered that Thompson did not know his "dad." +Then he darted back to join his fellows at their game. + +Thompson walked on. The white house with green shingles loomed up near +at hand, with a clump of flaming maples beside it. Past that stood other +houses in an orderly row facing the river, and back of them were sheds +and barns, and beyond the group of buildings spread a wide area of +cleared land with charred stumps still dotting many an acre. + +He had to enter the place he took to be Sam Carr's by the back yard, so +to speak. That is, he came up from the rear, passed alongside the +house--and halted abruptly, with his foot on the first of three steps +rising to a roomy verandah. + +He had not meant to eavesdrop, to listen to words not meant for his +hearing. But he had worn the common footgear of yachtsmen, a pair of +rubber-soled canvas shoes, and so had come to the verandah end unseen +and noiselessly. He was arrested there by the sight of two people and +the mention of his own name by one of them. + +Sophie was sitting on the rail, looking soberly down on the glacial +gray of Toba River. There was a queer expression on her face, a mixture +of protest and resignation. Tommy Ashe stood beside her. He had +imprisoned one of her hands between his own and he was speaking rapidly, +eagerly, passionately. + +Thompson had heard without meaning to hear. And what he heard, just a +detached sentence or two, shot him through with a sudden blaze of anger. +He stepped up on the floor, took quickly the three strides that +separated him from Tommy. + +"You are nothing but a common liar," he challenged bluntly. "You know +you are, when you speak of me as being dead. Is that why you scuttled +out of Vancouver and hurried on here, as soon as you saw me back?" + +Ashe shrank back a step. His naturally florid face grew purple. Thompson +matched him glance for glance, wondering as the moments ticked off why +Tommy glared and did not strike. + +"Your heart has grown as flabby as your principles," he said at last +contemptuously. + +For the instant, in anger at a lie, in that fighting mood which puts +other considerations into abeyance when it grips a man, Thompson gave no +heed to Sophie--until he felt her hand on his arm and looked down into +her upturned face, white and troubled, into gray eyes that glowed with +some peculiar fire. + +"It is really, truly you?" she said in a choked voice. + +"Of course," he answered--and he could not help a little fling. "You see +I am no longer a rabbit. I don't like your friend here. He has tried to +sneak a march on me, and I suspect it is not the first. I feel like +hurting him." + +She paid not the least heed to that. + +"You were officially reported dead," she went on. "Reported shot down +behind the German lines a year ago." + +"I know I was reported dead, and so have many other men who still live," +he said gently. "I was shot down, but I escaped and flew again, and was +shot down a second time and still am here not so much the worse." + +Sophie slipped her hand into his and turned on Tommy Ashe. + +"And you knew this?" she said slowly. "Yet you came here to me this +morning--and--and--" + +She stopped with a break in her voice. + +"I didn't believe you were capable of a thing like that, Tommy," she +continued sadly. "I'm ashamed of you. You'd better go away at once." + +Ashe looked at her and then at Thompson, and his face fell. Thompson, +watching him as a man watches his antagonist, saw Tommy's lips tremble, +a suspicious blur creep into his eyes. Even in his anger he felt sorry +for Tommy. + +The next instant the two of them stood alone, Sophie's hand caught fast +in his. She tried to withdraw it. The red leaped into her cheeks. But +there was still that queer glow in her eyes. + +Thompson looked down at the imprisoned hand. + +"You'll never get that away from me again," he said whimsically. "You +see, I am not a rabbit, but a man, no matter what you thought once. And +when a man really wants a thing, he takes it if he can. And I want +you--so--you see?" + +For answer Sophie hid her hot face against his breast. + +"Ah, I'm ashamed of myself too," he heard a muffled whisper. "I sent you +away into that hell over there with a sneer instead of a blessing. And I +was too ashamed, and a little afraid, to write and tell you what a fool +I was, that I'd made a mistake and was sorry. I couldn't do anything +only wait, and hope you'd come back. Didn't you hate me for my miserable +holier-than-thou preachment that day, Wes?" + +"Why, no," he said honestly. "It hurt like the devil, of course. You see +it was partly true. I _was_ going along, making money, playing my own +little hand for all it was worth. I couldn't rush off to the front just +to demonstrate to all and sundry--even to you--that I was a brave man +and a patriot. You understand, don't you? It took me quite a while to +feel, to really and truly feel, that I _ought_ to go--which I suppose +you felt right at the beginning. When I did see it that way--well, I +didn't advertise. I just got ready and went. If you had not been out of +sorts that day, I might have gone away with a kiss instead of your +contempt. But I didn't blame you. Besides, that's neither here nor +there, now. You're a prisoner. You can only be paroled on condition." + +Sophie smiled up at him, and was kissed for her pains. + +"Name the condition." + +"That you love me. I've waited a long time for it." + +"I've always loved you," she said gravely. "Sometimes more, sometimes +less. I haven't always believed we could be happy together. Sometimes I +have been positive we couldn't. But I've always measured other men by +you, and none of them quite measured up. That was why it stung me so to +see you so indifferent about the war. Probably if you had talked about +it to me, if I had known you were thinking of going, I should have been +afraid you would go, I should have been afraid for you. But you seemed +always so unconcerned. It maddened me to think I cared so much for a man +who cared nothing about wrongs and injustices, who could sit contentedly +at home while other men sacrificed themselves. My dear, I'm afraid I'm +an erratic person, a woman whose heart and head are nearly always at +odds." + +Thompson laughed, looking down at her with an air of pride. + +"That is to say you would always rather be sure than sorry," he +remarked. "Well, you can be sure of one thing, Sophie. You can't admit +that you really do care for me and then run away, as you did at Lone +Moose. I have managed to stand on my own feet at last, and your penalty +for liking me and managing to conceal the fact these many moons is that +you must stand with me." + +She drew his face down to her and kissed it. Thompson held her fast. + +"I can stand a lot of that," he said happily. + +"You may have to," she murmured. "I am a woman, not a bisque doll. And +I've waited a long time for the right man." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +A MARK TO SHOOT AT + + +An hour or so later Sam Carr came trudging home with a rod in his hand +and a creel slung from his shoulder, in which creel reposed a half dozen +silver-sided trout on a bed of grass. + +"Well, well, well," he said, at sight of Thompson, and looked earnestly +at the two of them, until at last a slow smile began to play about his +thin lips. "Now, like the ancient Roman, I can wrap my toga about me and +die in peace." + +"Oh, Dad, what a thing to say," Sophie protested. + +"Figuratively, my dear, figuratively," he assured her. "Merely my way of +saying that I am glad your man has come home from the war, and that you +can smile again." + +He tweaked her ear playfully, when Sophie blushed. They went into the +house, and the trout disappeared kitchenward in charge of a bland +Chinaman, to reappear later on the luncheon table in a state of +delicious brown crispness. After that Carr smoked a cigar and Thompson a +cigarette, and Sophie sat between them with the old, quizzical twinkle +in her eyes and a smile hovering about the corners of her mouth. + +"Come out and let's make the round of the works, you two," Carr +suggested at last. + +"You go, Wes," Sophie said. "I have promised to help a struggling young +housewife with some sewing this afternoon." + +So they set forth, Carr and Thompson, on a path through the woods toward +where the donkey engines filled the valley with their shrill tootings +and the shudder of their mighty labor. And as they went, Carr talked. + +"All this was virgin forest when you went away," said he. "The first axe +was laid to the timber a year ago last spring. I want you to take +particular notice of this timber. Isn't it magnificent stuff? We are +sending out a little aëroplane spruce, too. Not a great deal, but every +little helps." + +It was a splendid forest that they traversed, a level area clothed with +cedar and spruce and fir, lifting brown trunks of six and seven-foot +girth to a great height. And in a few minutes they came upon a falling +gang at work. Two men on their springboards, six feet above the ground, +plying an eight-foot saw. They stood to watch. Presently the saw ate +through to the undercut, a deep notch on the leaning side, and the top +swayed, moved slowly earthward. The sawyers leaped from their narrow +footing. One cried "Tim-b-r-r-r." And the tree swept in a great arc, +smiting the earth with a crash of breaking boughs and the thud of an +arrested landslide. + +Beyond that there was a logged space, littered with broken branches, +stumps, tops, cut with troughs plowed deep in the soil, where the +donkey had skidded out the logs. And there was the engine puffing and +straining, and the steel cables running away among the trees, spooling +up on the drums, whining and whistling in the iron sheaves. It was like +war, Thompson thought, that purposeful activity, the tremendous forces +harnessed and obedient to man--only these were forces yoked to man's +needs, not to his destruction. + +They lingered awhile watching the crew work, chatted with them in spare +moments. Then Carr led Thompson away through the woods again, and +presently took him across another stretch of stumps where men were +drilling and blasting out the roots of the ravished trees, on to fields +where grain and grass and root crops were ripening in the September sun, +and at last by another cluster of houses to the bank of the river again. +Here Carr sat down on a log, and began to fill a pipe. + +"Well," he said, "what do you think of it?" + +"For eighteen months' work you have made an astonishing amount of +headway," Thompson observed. "This is hard land to clear." + +"Yes," Carr admitted. "But it's rich land--all alluvial, this whole +valley. Anything that can be grown in this latitude will grow like a +village scandal here." + +He lighted his pipe. + +"I tried high living and it didn't agree with me," Carr said abruptly. +"I have tried a variety of things since I left the North, and none of +them has seemed worth while. I'm not a philanthropist. I hate +charitable projects. They're so damned unscientific--don't you think +so?" + +Thompson nodded. + +"You know that about the time you left, discharged soldiers were +beginning to drift back," Carr continued. "Drift is about the word. The +cripples of war will be taken care of. Their case is obvious, too +obvious to be overlooked or evaded. But there are returned men who are +not cripples, and still are unfit for military duty. They came back to +civilian existence, and a lot of them didn't fit in. The jobs they could +get were not the jobs they could do. As more and more of them came home +the problem grew more and more acute. It is still acute, and I rather +think it will grow more acute until the crisis comes with the end of the +war and God knows how many thousands of men will be chucked into civil +life, which cannot possibly absorb them again as things are going at +present. It's a problem. Public-spirited men have taken it up. The +government took the problem of the returned soldier into consideration. +So far as I know they are still considering it. The Provincial +Legislature talked--and has done nothing. The Dominion Government has +talked a lot, but nothing more than temporary measures has come out of +it. Nothing practical. You can't feed men with promises of after-the-war +reconstruction. + +"All this was apparent to me. So I talked it over with Sophie and one or +two other men who wanted to do something, and we talked to returned +soldiers. We couldn't do what it's the business of the country to +do--and may perhaps do when the red tape is finally untangled. But we +could do something, with a little brains and money and initiative. So we +went at it. + +"I formed a joint stock company. We secured all the timber limits in +this valley. We got together a little group for a start. They were +returned men, some physically handicapped, but eager to do something for +themselves. A man with that spirit always makes good if he gets a +chance. We put in machinery and gear, put up a small sawmill for +ourselves, tore into the logging business, cleared land, built houses. +You see we are quite a community. And we are a self-supporting +community. Some of these men own stock in the company. Any returned men +can find a place for himself here. There is room and work and security +and ultimate independence here for any man willing to cooperate for the +common welfare. This valley runs for miles. As fast as the land is +logged off it is open for soldier entry. There is room here for five +hundred families. So you see there is a lot of scope. + +"It was in the nature of an experiment. There were people who sneered. +And it is working out well. There is not the slightest taint of charity +in it. If I used a lot of money that may be a long time coming back to +me that is my own business. Everybody here pays his own way. All these +men needed was backing and direction." + +Carr looked away across the clearing. His glance swept the houses, and +fields, and the distant woods where the logging crews labored. + +"And there are valleys and valleys," he said thoughtfully; "when they +are cleared and cultivated there is endless room in them for people who +want elbow-room, who want to live without riding on the other fellow's +back. + +"Better get in with us, Wes," he said abruptly. "I'm getting old. It +won't be long before I have to quit. This thing will need a pilot for a +long time yet. Men will always have to have a leader. You can do good +here. Big oaks, you know, from little acorns. I mean, if this project +continues to achieve success, it might blaze the way for a national +undertaking. We said that a country that was worth living in was worth +fighting for. We are liars and cheats if we do not make it so for those +who did our fighting." + +"I wouldn't mind taking a hand in this game," Thompson said. "But the +war is still on. If that were over--well, yes, Toba Valley looks good to +me." + +"You aren't out of it for good, then?" + +Thompson shook his head. + +Carr put his hand on Thompson's shoulder. "Ah, well," he said. "It won't +be long now. You'll be back. You can put on an aërial mail service for +us, as your first undertaking." + +He chuckled, and they left their log and strolled back toward the house. + + * * * * * + +"Come and I'll show you what the valley looks like, Wes," Sophie said to +him, when they had finished dinner, and Carr had his nose buried in mail +just that evening arrived. + +She led him a hundred yards upstream to where a footbridge slung upon +steel cables spanned the Toba, crossed that and a little flat on the +north side, and climbed up the flank of a slide-scarred hill until she +came out on a little plateau. + +"Look," she waved her hand, panting a little from the steepness of the +climb. + +Five hundred feet below, the valley of the Toba spread its timbered +greenness, through which looped in sweeping curves the steel-gray of the +river. In a great bend immediately beneath them lay the houses of the +settlement, facing upon the stream. Farther along were isolated +homesteads which he had not seen. Back of these spread little gardens, +and the green square of cultivated fields, and beyond in greater expanse +the stump-dotted land that was still in the making. + +The smoke of the donkey-engines was vanished, fires grown cold with the +end of the day's work. But upriver and down the spoil of axe and saw lay +in red booms along the bunk. He could mark the place where he had stood +that afternoon and watched a puffing yarder bunt a string of forty-foot +logs into the booming-ground. He could see figures about in the gardens, +and the shrill voices and laughter of children echoed up to them on the +hill. + +"It is a great view, and there is more in it than meets the eye," +Thompson said. "Eh, little woman? The greatest war of all, the biggest +struggle. One that never ends. Man struggling to subdue his environment +to his needs." + +Sophie smiled understandingly. She looked over the valley with a wistful +air. + +"Did you ever read 'The Sons of Martha'?" she asked. Do you remember +these lines: + +"'Not as a ladder to reach high Heaven, + Not as an altar to any creed, +But simple service simply given + To his own kind in their common need.'" + +"It is a noble mark to shoot at," Thompson said. + +He fell silent. Sophie went on after a minute. + +"Dad said he was going back to first principles when he began this. +There are men here who have found economic salvation and self-respect, +who think he is greater than any general. I'm proud of dad. He wanted to +do something. What he has accomplished makes all my puttering about at +what, after all, was pure charity, a puerile sort of service. I gave +that up after you went away." She snuggled one hand into his. "It didn't +seem worth while--nothing seemed worth while until dad evolved this." + +She waved her hand again over the valley. Thompson's eyes gleamed. It +was good to look at, good to think of. It was good to be there. He +remembered, with uncanny, disturbing clearness of vision, things he had +looked down upon from a greater height over bloody stretches in France. +And he shuddered a little. + +Sophie felt the small tremor run through him. + +"What is it?" she whispered anxiously. + +"It is beautiful, and I can appreciate its beauty all the more from +seeing it with you. I'd like to take a hand in this," he said quietly. +"I was just comparing it with other things--and wondering." + +"Wondering what?" + +"If I'll get back to this--and you," he said, with his arms around her. +"Oh, well, I've got three months' leave. That's a lot." + +Sophie looked at him out of troubled eyes. Her voice shook. + +"You will be ordered to the front again?" + +He nodded. "Very likely." + +"I don't want you to go," she broke out passionately. "You mustn't. Oh, +Wes, Wes!" + +"Do you think I like the prospect any better?" he said tenderly. "But I +am an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, and the war is not over yet. +Buck up, sweetheart. I had six months' training, a year in fighting +planes, six months in hospital, and barring an occasional spell of +uncertain nerves, I am still as good as ever. Don't worry. I was silly +to say what I thought, I suppose." + +"Nevertheless, it is true," she said. "You may go again and never come +back. But I suppose one must face that. Thousands of women have had to +face it. Why should I be exempt?" + +She wiped her eyes and smiled uncertainly. + +"We shall simply have to keep that in the background. I want to forget +everything but that you are here and that I'm happy," she whispered, +with her arms about his neck. "I want to forget everything else--until +it's time for you to go." + +"Amen," Thompson replied, and kissed her, and then they went silently, +hand in hand down to the swinging bridge with the sun gone to rest below +the western sky-line, and dusk creeping softly up over the valley +floor. + + * * * * * + +There will be those who, having followed so far, will desire further +light. They will ask naïvely: Did Wes Thompson go back to the front and +get killed? Did they marry and find lasting happiness? + +To these curious folk who seek explicit detail, I can only point out +that Wes Thompson had three months' leave which ran into November, and +that to Sophie that ninety days loomed like a stay of execution. I would +ask them further to recall the eleventh of November, 1918--and so the +first question is duly answered. + +As for the second--I am no soothsayer. I cannot foretell the future. +Most certainly they married. At once--with a haste prudery and lovers of +formalism might term indecent. + +Whether they live happily who can say? Somewhere between the day he +first looked on Sophie Carr at Lone Moose and the day he fell five +thousand feet to earth in a flaming battle-plane, keeping his life by +one of war's miracles, Wes Thompson lived and loved and suffered perhaps +a little more than falls to the common lot. He sloughed off prejudices +and cant and ignorance and narrowness in those six years as a tree sheds +its foliage in autumn. + +A man may come to doubt the omnipotence of God without denying his +Maker. He may scorn churchly creeds and cleave to the Golden Rule. He +may hate greed and oppression, and injustice and intolerance, and +ruthless exploitation of man by man--and still hold firm faith in +humanity, still yearn to love his neighbor as himself. + +To do good, to fight hard and play fair, to love faithfully and to +desire love, to go out of the world when his time should come with the +knowledge of having at least tried to make it a little better for those +who were in it, and for those who should come after. That was Wes +Thompson's working philosophy of life--if he might be said to have a +philosophy--although he certainly never formulated it in words. + +He married a woman whom he loved dearly, who loved him, was proud of +him, who saw life as he did--through tolerant, comprehending eyes. So if +you ask whether they found real and lasting happiness I can only cite +you bald facts. I cannot prophesy. But I wish my chances were as good. + +THE END + + + * * * * * * + + + +THE NOVELS OF TEMPLE BAILEY + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +THE BLUE WINDOW + +The heroine, Hildegarde, finds herself transplanted from the middle +western farm to the gay social whirl of the East. She is almost swept +off her feet, but in the end she proves true blue. + + +PEACOCK FEATHERS + +The eternal conflict between wealth and love. Jerry, the idealist who is +poor, loves Mimi, a beautiful, spoiled society girl. + + +THE DIM LANTERN + +The romance of little Jane Barnes who is loved by two men. + + +THE GAY COCKADE + +Unusual short stories where Miss Bailey shows her keen knowledge of +character and environment, and how romance comes to different people. + + +THE TRUMPETER SWAN + +Randy Paine comes back from France to the monotony of everyday affairs. +But the girl he loves shows him the beauty in the common place. + + +THE TIN SOLDIER + +A man who wishes to serve his country, but is bound by a tie he cannot +in honor break--that's Derry. A girl who loves him, shares his +humiliation and helps him to win--that's Jean. Their love is the story. + + +MISTRESS ANNE + +A girl in Maryland teaches school, and believes that work is worthy +service. Two men come to the little community; one is weak, the other +strong, and both need Anne. + + +CONTRARY MARY + +An old-fashioned love story that is nevertheless modern. + + +GLORY OF YOUTH + +A novel that deals with a question, old and yet ever new--how far should +an engagement of marriage bind two persons who discover they no longer +love. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK + +MARGARET PEDLER'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +TO-MORROW'S TANGLE + +The game of love is fraught with danger. To win in the finest sense, it +must be played fairly. + + +RED ASHES + +A gripping story of a doctor who failed in a crucial operation--and had +only himself to blame. Could the woman he loved forgive him? + + +THE BARBARIAN LOVER + +A love story based on the creed that the only important things between +birth and death are the courage to face life and the love to sweeten it. + + +THE MOON OUT OF REACH + +Nan Davenant's problem is one that many a girl has faced--her own +happiness or her father's bond. + + +THE HOUSE OF DREAMS-COME-TRUE + +How a man and a woman fulfilled a Gypsy's strange prophecy. + + +THE HERMIT OF FAR END + +How love made its way into a walled-in house and a walled-in heart. + + +THE LAMP OF FATE + +The story of a woman who tried to take all and give nothing. + + +THE SPLENDID FOLLY + +Do you believe that husbands and wives should have no secrets from each +other? + + +THE VISION OF DESIRE + +An absorbing romance written with all that sense of feminine tenderness +that has given the novels of Margaret Pedler their universal appeal. + + +WAVES OF DESTINY + +Each of these stories has the sharp impact of an emotional crisis--the +compressed quality of one of Margaret Pedler's widely popular novels. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK. + +THE NOVELS OF + +GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +A NEW NAME + +ARIEL CUSTER + +BEST MAN, THE + +CITY OF FIRE, THE + +CLOUDY JEWEL + +DAWN OF THE MORNING + +ENCHANTED BARN, THE + +EXIT BETTY + +FINDING OF JASPER HOLT, THE + +GIRL FROM MONTANA, THE + +LO, MICHAEL! + +MAN OF THE DESERT, THE + +MARCIA SCHUYLER + +MIRANDA + +MYSTERY OF MARY, THE + +NOT UNDER THE LAW + +PHOEBE DEANE + +RE-CREATIONS + +RED SIGNAL, THE + +SEARCH, THE + +STORY OF A WHIM, THE + +TOMORROW ABOUT THIS TIME + +TRYST, THE + +VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS, A + +WITNESS, THE + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURNED BRIDGES*** + + +******* This file should be named 16553-8.txt or 16553-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/5/5/16553 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/16553-8.zip b/16553-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f87e52 --- /dev/null +++ b/16553-8.zip diff --git a/16553-h.zip b/16553-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b26d57 --- /dev/null +++ b/16553-h.zip diff --git a/16553-h/16553-h.htm b/16553-h/16553-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0bc16d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/16553-h/16553-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9130 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Burned Bridges, by Bertrand W. Sinclair</title> + <style type="text/css"> + +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + .ctr {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em;} + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + ol {list-style-type: upper-roman;; + margin-left: 3em; + text-align: left; + line-height: 150%} + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i2 {margin-left: 2em;} + .poem p.i4 {margin-left: 4em;} + .poem .caesura {vertical-align: -200%;} + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + pre {font-size: 8pt;} + // --> + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Burned Bridges, by Bertrand W. Sinclair, +Illustrated by Ralph P. Coleman</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Burned Bridges</p> +<p>Author: Bertrand W. Sinclair</p> +<p>Release Date: August 19, 2005 [eBook #16553]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURNED BRIDGES***</p> +<br><br><center><h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Graeme Mackreth, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)</h3></center><br><br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<center><img src="images/illus01.gif"alt="Frontispiece"></center> + +<h4> He felt with an odd exaltation the quick hammer<br> +of her heart against his breast. Frontispiece. </h4> +<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> +<h2>BURNED BRIDGES</h2> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR</h3> + +<h5>AUTHOR OF<br> +NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE, Etc.</h5> +<br> +<h4>FRONTISPIECE BY RALPH P. COLEMAN</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<h6>GROSSET & DUNLAP<br> +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK<br> +<br> +Published, August, 1919<br> +Reprinted, September, 1919<br> +Reprinted, October, 1919<br> +Reprinted, November, 1919<br> +Reprinted, February, 1920</h6> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CONTENTS"></a><h3>CONTENTS</h3> + + + + +<br> +<ol type="I"> + +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>The First Problem</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>The Man and His Mission</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>The Deserted Cabin</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>In Which Mr. Thompson Begins to Wonder Painfully</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>Further Acquaintance</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>Certain Perplexities</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>A Slip of the Axe</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>--And the Fruits Thereof</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>Universal Attributes</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>The Way of a Maid with a Man</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>A Man's Job for a Minister</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>A Fortune and a Flitting</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>Partners</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>The Restless Foot</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>The World Is Small</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>A Meeting by the Way</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>The Reproof Courteous (?)</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>Mr. Henderson's Proposition</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>A Widening Horizon</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>The Shadow</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>The Renewed Triangle</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>Sundry Reflections</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>The Fuse—</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>—And the Match That Lit the Fuse—</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>—And the Bomb the Fuse Fired</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>The Last Bridge</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>Thompson's Return</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>Fair Winds</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>Two Men and a Woman</b></a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>A Mark to Shoot at</b></a></li> +</ol><br> + +<h4>BURNED BRIDGES</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_I"></a><h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>THE FIRST PROBLEM</h3> +<br> + +<p>Lone Moose snaked its way through levels of woodland and open stretches +of meadow, looping sinuously as a sluggish python—a python that rested +its mouth upon the shore of Lake Athabasca while its tail was lost in a +great area of spruce forest and poplar groves, of reedy sloughs and +hushed lakes far northward.</p> + +<p>The waterways of the North are its highways. There are no others. No +wheeled vehicles traverse that silent region which lies just over the +fringe of the prairies and the great Canadian wheat belt. The canoe is +lord of those watery roads; when a man would diverge therefrom he must +carry his goods upon his back. There are paths, to be sure, very faint +in places, padded down by the feet of generations of Athabascan +tribesmen long before the Ancient and Honorable Company of Adventurers +laid the foundation of the first post at Hudson's Bay, long before the +<i>Half Moon's</i> prow first cleft those desolate waters. They have been +trodden, these dim trails, by Scotch and French and English since that +historic event, and by a numerous progeny in whose veins the blood of +all three races mingles with that of the native tribes. But these paths +lead only from stream to stream and from lake to lake. No man familiar +with the North seeks along those faint trails for camp or fur posts or +villages. Wherever in that region red men or white set up a permanent +abode it must of necessity be on the bank of a stream or the shore of a +lake, from whence by canoe and paddle access is gained to the network of +water routes that radiate over the fur country.</p> + +<p>Lone Moose Creek was, so to speak, a trunk line. The ninety miles of its +main channel, its many diverging branches, tapped a region where mink +and marten and beaver, fox and wolf and lesser furs were still fairly +plentiful. Along Lone Moose a dozen Cree and half-breed families +disappeared into the back country during the hazy softness of Indian +summer and came gliding down in the spring with their winter's catch, a +birch-bark flotilla laden indiscriminately with mongrel dogs and +chattering women and children and baled furs and impassive-faced men, +bound for Port Pachugan to the annual barter.</p> + +<p>Up Lone Moose some twenty-odd miles from the lake the social instinct +had drawn a few families, pure-blooded Cree, and Scotch and French +half-breeds, to settle in a permanent location. There was a +crescent-shaped area of grassy turf fronting upon the eastern bank of +Lone Moose, totaling perhaps twenty acres. Its outer edge was ringed +with a dense growth of spruce timber. In the fringe of these dusky +woods, at various intervals of distance, could be seen the outline of +each cabin. They were much of a sort—two or three rooms, log-walled, +brush laid upon poles, and sod on top of that for a roof, with +fireplaces built partly of mud, partly of rough stones. Folk in such +circumstances waste no labor in ornamentation. Each family's abiding +place was purely utilitarian. They cultivated no land, and the meadow +during the brief season supplied them with a profusion of delicate +flowers a southern garden could scarcely excel. Aside from a few trees +felled about each home site, their common effort had cleared away the +willows and birch which bordered the creek bank, so that an open landing +was afforded the canoes.</p> + +<p>There was but one exception to the monotonous similitude of these +several habitations. A few paces back from the stream and standing +boldly in the open rose a log house double the size of any other there. +It contained at least four rooms. Its windows were of ample size, the +doors neatly carpentered. A wide porch ran on three sides. It bore about +itself an air of homely comfort, heightened by muslin at the windows, a +fringe of poppies and forget-me-nots blooming in an orderly row before +it, and a sturdy vine laden with morning-glories twining up each +supporting column of the porch roof.</p> + +<p>Between the house and the woods an acre square was enclosed by a tall +picket fence. Within the fence, which was designed as a barricade +against foraging deer, there grew a variety of vegetables. The produce +of that garden had grown famous far beyond Lone Moose village. But the +spirit and customs and traditions of the gardener's neighbors were all +against any attempt to duplicate it. They were hunters and trappers and +fishermen. The woods and waters supplied their every need.</p> + +<p>Upon a blistering day in July, a little past noon, a man stepped out on +the porch, and drawing into the shadiest part a great, rude homemade +chair upholstered with moosehide, sat down. He had a green-bound book in +his hand. While he stuffed a clay pipe full of tobacco he laid the +volume across his knees. Every movement was as deliberate as the flow of +the deep stream near by. When he had stoked up his pipe he leaned back +and opened the book. The smoke from his pipe kept off what few +mosquitoes were abroad in the scorching heat of midday.</p> + +<p>A casual glance would at once have differentiated him from a native, +held him guiltless of any trace of native blood. His age might have been +anywhere between forty and fifty. His hair, now plentifully shot with +gray, had been a light, wavy brown. His eyes were a clear gray, and his +features were the antithesis of his high-cheekboned neighbors. Only the +weather-beaten hue of his skin, and the scores of fine seams radiating +from his eyes told of many seasons squinting against hot sunlight and +harsh winds.</p> + +<p>Whatever his vocation and manner of living may have been he was now +deeply absorbed in the volume he held. A small child appeared on the +porch, a youngster of three or thereabouts, with swarthy skin, very dark +eyes, and inky-black hair. He went on all fours across Sam Carr's +extended feet several times. Carr remained oblivious, or at least +undisturbed, until the child stood up, laid hold of his knee and shook +it with playful persistence. Then Carr looked over his book, spoke to +the boy casually, shaking his head as he did so. The boy persisted after +the juvenile habit. Carr raised his voice. An Indian woman, not yet of +middle age but already inclining to the stoutness which overtakes women +of her race early in life, appeared in the doorway. She spoke sharply to +the boy in the deep, throaty language of her people. The boy, with a +last impish grin, gave the man's leg a final shake and scuttled indoors. +Carr impassively resumed his reading.</p> + +<p>An hour or so later he lifted his eyes from the printed page at a +distant boom of thunder. The advanced edge of a black cloudbank rolling +swiftly up from the east was already dimming the brassy glare of the +sun. He watched the swift oncoming of the storm. With astonishing +rapidity the dark mass resolved itself into a gray, obscuring streak of +rain riven by vivid flashes of lightning. Carr laid down his book and +refilled his pipe while he gazed on this common phenomenon of the +dog-days. It swept up and passed over the village of Lone Moose as a +sprinkling wagon passes over a city street. The downpour was accompanied +by crashing detonations that sent the village dogs howling to cover. +With the same uncanny swiftness of gathering so it passed, leaving +behind a pleasant coolness in the air, clean smells of the washed earth +arising. The sun blazed out again. A million rain-pearls hung glistening +on the blades of grass in the meadow before Sam Carr's house.</p> + +<p>With the passing of the thunder shower, before Carr left off his +contemplation of the freshened beauty of meadow and woods, a man and a +woman emerged from the spruce forest on the farther side of the meadow.</p> + +<p>They walked a little way in the open, stopped for a minute, facing each +other. Their conversation ended with a sudden quick gesture by the man. +Turning, they came on again toward Carr's house. Sam Carr's clear gray +eyes lit up. The ghost of a smile hovered about his bearded lips. He +watched them approach with that same quizzical expression, a mixture, if +one gauged his look aright, of pleasure and pride and expectation.</p> + +<p>They were young as years go, the pair that walked slowly up to the +cabin. The man was certainly still in his twenties, of medium height, +compactly muscular, a good-looking specimen of pure Anglo-Saxon manhood. +The girl was a flower in perfect bloom, fresh-colored, slender and +pliant as a willow, with all of the willow's grace in every movement. +For all the twenty-odd years between them, and the gulf of sex +differentiation, there was in her glance and bearing much of the +middle-aged man who sat on the porch with a book across his knees and a +clay pipe in his mouth. It did not lie in facial resemblance. It was +more subtle than likeness of feature. Perhaps it was because of their +eyes, alike deep gray, wide and expressive, lifted always to meet +another's in level unembarrassed frankness.</p> + +<p>They halted at the edge of the porch. The girl sat down. The young man +nodded to Carr. Though they had but lately been fair in the path of the +thunderstorm they had escaped a wetting. The girl's eyes followed her +father's glance, seemed to read his thought.</p> + +<p>"We happened to find a spruce thick enough to shed the rain," she +smiled. "Or I suppose we'd have been soaked properly."</p> + +<p>The young fellow tarried only till she was seated. He had no more than +greeted Carr before he lifted his old felt hat to her.</p> + +<p>"I'll be paddling back while the coolness lasts," said he. "Good-by."</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Tommy," the girl answered.</p> + +<p>"So long," Carr followed suit. "Don't give us the go-by too long."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no danger."</p> + +<p>He walked to the creek bank, stepped into a red canoe that lay nose on +to the landing, and backed it free with his paddle. Ten strokes of the +blade drove him out of sight around the first brushy bend upstream.</p> + +<p>The girl looked thoughtfully after him. Her face was flushed, and her +eyes glowed with some queer repressed feeling. Carr sat gazing silently +at her while she continued to look after the vanished canoe whose +passing left tiny swirls on the dark, sluggish current of Lone Moose. +Presently Carr gave the faintest shrug of his lean shoulders and resumed +the reading of his book.</p> + +<p>When he looked up from the page again after a considerable interval the +girl's eyes were fixed intently upon his face, with a queer questioning +expression in them, a mute appeal. He closed his book with a forefinger +inserted to mark the place, and leaned forward a trifle.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Sophie?" he asked gently. "Eh?"</p> + +<p>The girl, like her father, and for that matter the majority of those +who dwelt in that region, wore moccasins. She sat now, rubbing the damp, +bead-decorated toe of one on top of the other, her hands resting idle in +the lap of her cotton dress. She seemed scarcely to hear, but Carr +waited patiently. She continued to look at him with that peculiar, +puzzled quality in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Tommy Ashe wants me to marry him," she said at last.</p> + +<p>The faint flush on her smooth cheeks deepened. The glow in her eyes gave +way altogether to that vaguely troubled expression.</p> + +<p>Carr stroked his short beard reflectively.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said at length, "seeing that human nature's what it is, I +can't say I'm surprised any more than I would be surprised at the trees +leafing out in spring. And, as it happens, Tommy observed the +conventions of his class in this matter. He asked me about it a few days +ago. I referred him to you. Are you going to?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Dad," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Do you want to?" he pursued the inquiry in a detached, impersonal tone.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she repeated soberly. "I like Tommy a lot. When I'm with +him I feel sure I'd be perfectly happy to be always with him. When I'm +away from him, I'm not so sure."</p> + +<p>"In other words," Carr observed slowly, "your reason and your emotions +are not in harmony on that subject. Eh? So far as Tommy Ashe goes, your +mind and your body pull you two different ways."</p> + +<p>She looked at him a little more keenly.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," she said. "I know what you mean. But I don't clearly see why +it should be so. Either I love Tommy Ashe, or I don't, and I should know +which, shouldn't I? The first and most violent manifestation of love is +mostly physical, isn't it? I've always understood that. You've pointed +it out. I do like Tommy. Why should my mind act as a brake on my +feelings?"</p> + +<p>"Because you happen to be made the way you are," Carr returned +thoughtfully. "As I've told you a good many times, you've grown up a +good deal different from the common run of girls. We've been isolated. +Lacking the time-occupying distractions and pleasures of youth in a more +liberal environment, Sophie, you've been thrown back on yourself and me +and books, and as a result you've cultivated a natural tendency to +<i>think</i>. Most young women don't. They're seldom taught any rational +process of arriving at conclusions. You have developed that faculty. It +has been my pride and pleasure to cultivate in you what I believed to be +a decided mentality. I've tried to show you how to get down to +fundamentals, to work out a philosophy of life that's really workable. +Knowledge is worth having for its own sake. Once you find yourself in +contact with the world—and for you that time is bound to come—you'll +apply all the knowledge you've absorbed to problems as they arise. If +there's a rational solution to any situation that faces you, you'll make +an effort to find that solution. You'll do it almost instinctively. You +can't help it. Your brain is too alert ever to let you act blindly. At +the present your lack of experience probably handicaps you a little. In +human relations you have nothing much but theory, got from the books +you've digested and the way we've always discussed every possible angle +of life. Take Tommy Ashe. He's practically the first young, attractive +white man you've ever met, the very first possibility as a lover. +Tommy's a nice boy, a pleasant, sunny-natured young fellow. Personally +he's just the sort of fellow that would sweep a simple country girl +clean off her feet. With you, your mind, as you just put it, acts as a +brake on your feelings. Can't you guess why?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said quietly. "I can't. I don't understand myself and my +shifts of feeling. It makes me miserable."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Sophie girl," Carr reached over and taking her by the hand +drew her up on the low arm of his chair, "you're asking yourself a more +or less important question directly, and you're asking it of me +indirectly. Maybe I can help you. At least I can tell how I see it. You +have all your life before you. You want to be happy. That's a universal +human attribute. Sometime or other you're going to mate with a man. That +too is a universal experience. Ordinary mating is based on sex instinct. +Love is mostly an emotional disturbance generated by natural causes for +profoundly natural and important ends. But marriage and the intimate +associations of married life require something more substantial than a +mere flare-up of animal instinct. Lots of men and women aren't capable +of anything else, and consequently they make the best of what's in +them. But there are natures far more complex. You, Sophie, are one of +those complex natures. With you, a union based on sex alone wouldn't +survive six months. Now, in this particular case, leaving out the fact +that you can't compare Tommy Ashe with any other man, because you don't +know any other man, can you conceive yourself living in a tolerable +state of contentment with Tommy if, say, you didn't feel any more +passion for him than you feel for, say, old Standing Wolf over there?"</p> + +<p>"But that's absurd," the girl declared. "Because I have got that feeling +for Tommy Ashe, and therefore I can't imagine myself in any other state. +I can't look at it the cold-blooded way you do, Daddy dear."</p> + +<p>"I'm stating a hypothetical case," Carr went on patiently. "You do now. +We'll take that for granted. Would you still have anything fundamental +in common with Tommy with that part left out? Suppose you got so you +didn't care whether he kissed you or not? Suppose it were no longer a +physical pleasure just to be near him. Would you enjoy his daily and +hourly presence then, in the most intimate relation a man and a woman +can hold to each other?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I wouldn't live with him at all," the girl said positively. "I +simply couldn't. I know."</p> + +<p>"You might have to," Carr answered gently. "You have never yet run foul +of circumstances over which you have no more power than man has over the +run of the tides. But we'll let that pass. I'm trying to help you, +Sophie, not to discourage you. There are some situations in which, and +some natures to whom, half a loaf is worse than no bread. Do you feel, +have you ever for an hour felt that you simply couldn't face an +existence in which Tommy Ashe had no part?"</p> + +<p>Sophie put her arm around his neck, and her fingers played a tattoo on +his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"No," she said at last. "I can't honestly say that I've ever been +overwhelmed with a feeling like that."</p> + +<p>"Well, there you are," Carr observed dryly. "Between the propositions I +think you've answered your own question."</p> + +<p>The girl's breast heaved a little and her breath went out in a +fluttering sigh.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said gravely. "I suppose that is so."</p> + +<p>They sat silent for an interval. Then something wet and warm dropped on +Carr's hand. He looked up quickly.</p> + +<p>"Does it hurt?" he said softly. "I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"So am I," she whispered. "But chiefly, I think, I am sorry for Tommy. +<i>He'd</i> be perfectly happy with me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so," Carr replied. "But you wouldn't be happy with him, +only for a brief time, Sophie. Tommy's a good boy, but it will take a +good deal of a man to fill your life. You'd outgrow Tommy. And you'd +hurt him worse in the end."</p> + +<p>She ran her soft hand over Carr's grizzled hair with a caressing touch. +Then she got up and walked away into the house. Carr turned his gaze +again to the meadow and the green woods beyond. For ten minutes he sat, +his posture one of peculiar tensity, his eyes on the distance +unseeingly—or as if he saw something vague and far-off that troubled +him. Then he gave his shoulders a quick impatient twitch, and taking up +his book began once more to read.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_II"></a><h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE MAN AND HIS MISSION</h3> +<br> + +<p>At almost the same hour in which Sam Carr and his daughter held that +intimate conversation on the porch of their home a twenty-foot +Peterborough freight canoe was sliding down the left-hand bank of the +Athabasca like some gray river-beast seeking the shade of the birch and +willow growth that overhung the shore. The current beneath and the +thrust of the blades sent it swiftly along the last mile of the river +and shot the gray canoe suddenly beyond the sharp nose of a jutting +point fairly into the bosom of a great, still body of water that spread +away northeastward in a widening stretch, its farthest boundary a watery +junction with the horizon.</p> + +<p>There were three men in the canoe. One squatted forward, another rested +his body on his heels in the after end. These two were swarthy, stockily +built men, scantily clad, moccasins on their feet, and worn felt hats +crowning lank, black hair long innocent of a barber's touch.</p> + +<p>The third man sat amidships in a little space left among goods that were +piled to the top of the deep-sided craft. He was no more like his +companions than the North that surrounded them with its silent waterways +and hushed forests is like the tropical jungle. He was a fairly big +man, taller, wider-bodied than the other two. His hair was a +reddish-brown, his eyes as blue as the arched dome from which the hot +sun shed its glare.</p> + +<p>He had on a straight-brimmed straw hat which in the various shifts of +the long water route and many camps had suffered disaster, so that a +part of the brim drooped forlornly over his left ear. This headgear had +preserved upon his brow the pallid fairness of his skin. From the +eyebrows down his face was in the last stages of sunburn, reddened, +minute shreds of skin flaking away much as a snake's skin sheds in +August. Otherwise he was dressed, like a countless multitude of other +men who walk the streets of every city in North America, in a +conventional sack suit, and shoes that still bore traces of blacking. +The paddlers were stripped to thin cotton shirts and worn overalls. The +only concession their passenger had made to the heat was the removal of +his laundered collar. Apparently his dignity did not permit him to lay +aside his coat and vest. As they cleared the point a faint breeze +wavered off the open water. He lifted his hat and let it play about his +moist hair.</p> + +<p>"This is Lake Athabasca?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oui, M'sieu Thompson," Mike Breyette answered from the bow, without +turning his head. "Dees de lak."</p> + +<p>"How much longer will it take us to reach Port Pachugan?" Thompson made +further inquiry.</p> + +<p>"Bout two-three hour, maybeso," Breyette responded.</p> + +<p>He said something further, a few quick sentences in the French patois +of the northern half-breeds, at which both he and his fellow-voyageur in +the stern laughed. Their gayety stirred no response from the midship +passenger. If anything, he frowned. He was a serious-minded young man, +and he did not understand French. He had a faint suspicion that his +convoy did not take him as seriously as he wished. Whether their talk +was badinage or profanity or purely casual, he could not say. In the +first stages of their journey together, on the upper reaches of the +river, Mike Breyette and Donald MacDonald had, after the normal habit of +their kind, greeted the several contingencies and minor mishaps such a +journey involved with plaintive oaths in broken English. Mr. Wesley +Thompson, projected into an unfamiliar environment and among a—to +him—strange manner of men, took up his evangelistic cudgel and +administered shocked reproof. It was, in a way, practice for the tasks +the Methodist Board of Home Missions had appointed him to perform. But +if he failed to convict these two of sin, he convinced them of +discourtesy. Even a rude voyageur has his code of manners. Thereafter +they invariably swore in French.</p> + +<p>They bore on in a northerly direction, keeping not too far from the lake +shore, lest the combination of a sudden squall and a heavy-loaded canoe +should bring disaster. When Mike Breyette's "two-tree" hour was run Mr. +Thompson stepped from the canoe to the sloping, sun-blistered beach +before Fort Pachugan, and if he did not openly offer thanks to his Maker +that he stood once more upon solid ground he at least experienced +profound relief.</p> + +<p>For many days he had occupied that midship position with ill-concealed +misgivings. The largest bodies of water he had been on intimate terms +with heretofore had been contained within the dimensions of a bathtub. +He could not swim. No matter that his faith in an all-wise Providence +was strong he could not forbear inward tremors at the certain knowledge +that only a scant quarter-inch of frail wood and canvas stood between +him and a watery grave. He regarded a canoe with distrust. Nor could he +understand the careless confidence with which his guides embarked in so +captious a craft upon the swirling bosom of that wide, swift stream they +had followed from Athabasca Landing down to the lake of the same name. +To Thompson—if he had been capable of analyzing his sensations and +transmuting them into words—the river seemed inexplicably sinister, a +turbid monster writhing over polished boulders, fuming here and there +over rapids, snarling a constant menace under the canoe's prow.</p> + +<p>It did not comfort him to know that he was in the hands of two capable +rivermen, tried and proven in bad water, proud of their skill with the +paddle. Could he have done so the reverend young man would gladly have +walked after the first day in their company. But since that was out of +the question, he took his seat in the canoe each morning and faced each +stretch of troubled water with an inward prayer.</p> + +<p>The last stretch and this last day had tried his soul to its utmost. +Pachugan lay near the end of the water route. What few miles he had to +travel beyond the post would lie along the lake shore, and the lake +reassured him with its smiling calm. Having never seen it harried by +fierce winds, pounding the beaches with curling waves, he could not +visualize it as other than it was now, glassy smooth, languid, inviting. +Over the last twenty miles of the river his guides had strained a point +now and then, just to see their passenger gasp. They would never have +another chance and it was rare sport, just as it is rare sport for +spirited youths to snowball a passer-by who does not take kindly to +their pastime.</p> + +<p>In addition to these nerve-disturbing factors Thompson suffered from the +heat. A perverted dignity, nurtured in a hard-shell, middle-class +environment, prevented him from stripping to his undershirt. The sun's +rays, diffusing abnormal heat through the atmosphere, reflected +piercingly upward from the water, had played havoc with him. His first +act upon landing was to seat himself upon a flat-topped boulder and dab +tenderly at his smarting face while his men hauled up the canoe. That in +itself was a measure of his inefficiency, as inefficiency is measured in +the North. The Chief Factor of a district large enough to embrace a +European kingdom, traveling in state from post to post, would not have +been above lending a hand to haul the canoe clear. Thompson had come to +this <i>terra incognita</i> to preach and pray, to save men's souls. So far +it had not occurred to him that aught else might be required of a man +before he could command a respectful hearing.</p> + +<p>Back from the beach, in a clearing hacked out of the woods, stood a +score or more of low cabins flanking a building more ambitious in scope +and structure. More than a century had passed since the first foundation +logs were laid in the name of the Hudson's Bay Company, to the Company's +glory and profit. It had been a fort then, in all that the name implies +throughout the fur country. It had boasted a stockade, a brass cannon +which commanded the great gates that swung open to friendly strangers +and were closed sharply to potential foes. But the last remnant of +Pachugan's glory had gone glimmering down the corridors of time. The +Company was still as strong, stronger even in power more sure and subtle +than ever lay in armed retainers and absolute monopoly. But Fort +Pachugan had become a mere collecting station for the lesser furs, a +distributing center for trade goods to native trappers. There were no +more hostile tribes. The Company no longer dealt out the high justice, +the middle, and the low. The stockade and the brass cannon were +traditions. Pachugan sprawled on the bank of the lake, open to all +comers, a dimming landmark of the old days.</p> + +<p>What folk were out of doors bent their eyes upon the canoe. The factor +himself rose from his seat on the porch and came down to have speech +with them. Thompson, recognizing authority, made known his name and his +mission. The burly Scot shook hands with him. They walked away together, +up to the factor's house. On the threshold the Reverend Wesley paused +for a backward look, drew the crumpled linen of his handkerchief across +his moist brow, and then disappeared within. Mike Breyette and Donald +MacDonald looked at each other expressively. Their swarthy faces slowly +expanded in a broad grin.</p> + +<p>In the North, what with the crisp autumn, the long winter, and that +bleak, uncertain period which is neither winter nor spring, summer—as +we know it in softer lands—has but a brief span to endure. But Nature +there as elsewhere works out a balance, adheres to a certain law of +proportion. What Northern summers lack in length is compensated by +intensity. When the spring floods have passed and the warm rains follow +through lengthening days of sun, grass and flowers arise with magic +swiftness from a wonderfully fertile soil. Trees bud and leaf; berries +form hard on the blossoming. Overnight, as it were, the woods and +meadows, the river flats and the higher rolling country, become +transformed. And when August passes in a welter of flies and heat and +thunderstorms, the North is ready once more for the frosty segment of +its seasonal round. July and August are hot months in the high +latitudes. For six weeks or thereabouts the bottom-lands of the Peace +and the Athabasca can hold their own with the steaming tropics. After +that—well, this has to do in part with "after that." For it was in late +July when Wesley Thompson touched at Fort Pachugan, a Bible in his +pocket, a few hundred pounds of supplies in Mike Breyette's canoe, +certain aspirations of spiritual labor in his head, and little other +equipment to guide and succor him in that huge, scantily peopled +territory which his superiors had chosen as the field for his labors.</p> + +<p>When Breyette and MacDonald had so bestowed the canoe that the +diligently foraging dogs of the post could not take toll of their +supplies they also hied them up to the cluster of log cabins ranging +about the Company store and factor's quarters. They were on tolerably +familiar ground. First they made for the cabin of Dougal MacPhee, an +ancient servitor of the Company and a distant relative of Breyette's, +for whom they had a gift of tobacco. Old Dougal welcomed them +laconically, without stirring from his seat in the shade. He sucked at +an old clay pipe. His half-breed woman, as wrinkled and time worn as +himself, squatted on the earth sewing moccasins. Old Dougal turned his +thumb toward a bench and bade them be seated.</p> + +<p>"It's a bit war-rm," MacDonald opined, by way of opening the +conversation.</p> + +<p>"What else wad it be this time o' year?" Dougal rumbled. "Tell us +somethin' we dinna ken. Wha's yon cam' wi' ye?"</p> + +<p>"Man, but the heat makes ye crabbed," MacDonald returned with naïve +candor. "Yon's a meenister."</p> + +<p>"Bagosh, yes," Breyette chuckled. "Dat ees de man of God w'at you see. +He's com' for save soul hon' de Eenjun hon' Lone Moose. Bagosh, we're +have som' fon weet heem dees treep."</p> + +<p>"He's a loon," MacDonald paused with a forefinger in the bowl of his +pipe. "He doesna know a moccasin from a snowshoe, scarce. I'd like tae +be aboot when 'tis forty below—an' gettin' colder. I'm thinkin' he'd +relish a taste o' hell-fire then, for a change—eh, Mike?"</p> + +<p>The two of them went off into a fit of silent laughter, for the abysmal +ignorance of Wesley Thompson concerning practical things, his awkward +length of body, his student's pallor that the Athabasca sun had played +such havoc with, his blue eyes that looked so often with trepidation or +amazement on the commonplaces of their world, his general incapacity and +blind belief that an all-wise Providence would personally intervene to +make things go right when they went wrong, had not struck these two +hardy children of the solitudes as other than a side-splitting joke.</p> + +<p>"He rises i' the mornin'," MacDonald continued, "win' a word frae the +Book aboot the Lord providin', an' he'd starve if nabody was by t' cook +his meal. He canna build a fire wi'oot scorchin' his fingers. He lays +hold o' a paddle like a three months' babby. He bids ye pit yer trust i' +the Lord, an' himself rises up wi' a start every time a wolf raises the +long howl at nicht. I didna believe there was ever sae helpless a +creature. An' for a' that he's the laddie that's here tae show the +heathen—thae puir, sinfu' heathen, mind ye—how tae find grace. No that +he's any doot aboot bein' equal tae the job. For a' that he's nigh +helpless i' the woods he was forever ying-yangin' at me an' Mike for +what he ca's sinfu' pride in oor ain' persons. I've a notion that if yon +had a bit o' that same sinfu' pride he'd be the better able tae make his +way."</p> + +<p>Old MacPhee took the blackened clay pipe from his mouth and puffed a +blue spiral into the dead, sultry air. A sour expression gathered about +his withered lips.</p> + +<p>"Dinna gibe at yon puir mortal," he rebuked. "Ye canna keep fools frae +wanderin'. I've seen manny's the man like him. It's likely that once +he's had a fair taste o' the North he'll be less a saint an' more a +man."</p> + +<p>The afternoon was far spent when they landed. Breyette and MacDonald +made themselves comfortable with their backs against the wall. Supper +came and was eaten. Evening closed in. The bold, scorching stare of the +sun faded. Little cooling breezes fluttered along the lake shore, +banishing the last trace of that brassy heat. Men who had lounged +indoors, or against shaded walls roamed about, and half-breed women +chattered in voluble gutturals back and forth between the cabins.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_III"></a><h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE DESERTED CABIN</h3> +<br> + +<p>In the factor's comfortable quarters Mr. Thompson sat down to the first +meal he had thoroughly relished in two weeks. A corner of the verandah +was screened off with wire netting. Outside that barrier mosquitoes and +sandflies buzzed and swarmed in futile activity. Within stood an easy +chair or two and a small table which was presently spread with a linen +cloth, set with porcelain dishes, and garnished with silverware. All the +way down the Athabasca Thompson had found every meal beset with +exasperating difficulties, fruitful of things that offended both his +stomach and his sense of fitness. He had not been able to accommodate +himself to the necessity of juggling a tin plate beside a campfire, of +eating with one hand and fending off flies with the other. Also he +objected to grains of sand and particles of ash and charred wood being +incorporated with bread and meat. Neither Breyette nor MacDonald seemed +to mind. But Thompson had never learned to adapt himself to conditions +that were unavoidable. Pitchforked into a comparatively primitive mode +of existence and transportation his first reaction to it took the form +of offended resentment. There were times when he forgot why he was +there, enduring these things. After such a lapse he prayed for guidance +and a patient heart.</p> + +<p>These creature comforts now at hand were in a measure what he had been +accustomed to, what he had, with no thought on the matter, taken as the +accepted and usual order of things, save that his needs had been +administered by two prim and elderly spinster aunts instead of a +black-browed Scotchman and a half-breed servant girl.</p> + +<p>Thompson sat back after his supper, fanning himself with an ancient +newspaper, for the day's heat still lingered. Across the table on which +he rested an elbow MacLeod, bearded, aggressive, capable, regarded his +guest with half-contemptuous pity under cover of the gathering dusk. +MacLeod smoked a pipe. Thompson chewed the cud of reflection.</p> + +<p>"And so," the factor began suddenly, "ye are a missionary to the Lone +Moose Crees. It will be a thankless task; a tougher one nor I'd care to +tackle. I ha' seen the job undertaken before by folk who—beggin' your +pardon—ha' little conception of the country, the people in it, or the +needs of either. Ye'll find the Cree has more concern for meat an' +clothes, for traps an' powder, than he has for his soul. Ye'll +understand this better when ye ha' more experience in the North. Indeed, +it's no impossible ye might come to the same way of thinkin' in time."</p> + +<p>The dusk hid the shocked expression that gathered on Thompson's face.</p> + +<p>"'What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world if he knoweth not +God?'" he quoted gravely. "The priests of the Catholic church have long +carried on missionary work among these tribes. We of the Protestant +faith would be lacking if we did not try to extend our field, if we made +no effort to bear light into the dark places. Man's spiritual need is +always greater than any material need can ever be. I hardly expect to +accomplish a great deal at first. But the work will grow."</p> + +<p>"I see, I see," MacLeod chuckled dryly. "It's partly a matter of the +Methodist Church tryin' to compete with the fathers, eh? Well, I am no +what ye'd call devout. I ha' had much experience wi' these red folk, an' +them that's both red an' white. An' I dinna agree with ye aboot their +speeritual needs. I think ye sky-pilots would do better to leave them to +their ain gods, such as they are. Man, do ye know that it's better than +a century since the fathers began their missionary labors? A hundred +years of teachin' an' preachin'. The sum of it a' is next to +nothin'—an' naebody knows that better than the same fathers. They're +wise, keen-sighted men, too. What good they do they do in a material +way. If men like ye came here wi' any certitude of lightenin' the +struggle for existence—but ye canna do that; or at least ye dinna do +that. Ye'll find that neither red men nor white ha' time or inclination +to praise the Lord an' his grace an' bounty when their life's one long +struggle wi' hardships an' adversity. The God ye offer them disna +mitigate these things. Forbye that, the Indian disna want to be +Christianized. When ye come to a determination of abstract qualities, +his pagan beliefs are as good for him as the God of the Bible. What +right ha' we to cram oor speeritual dogmas doon his gullet?"</p> + +<p>MacLeod applied himself to relighting his pipe. Thompson gathered +himself together. He was momentarily stricken with speechless amazement. +He knew there were such things as critical unbelievers, but he had never +encountered one in the flesh. His life had been too excellently +supervised and directed in youth by the spinster aunts. Nor does +materialistic philosophy flourish in a theological seminary. Young men +in training for the ministry are taught to strangle doubt whenever it +rears its horrid head, to see only with the single eye of faith.</p> + +<p>Neither the bitterness of experience nor a natural gentleness of spirit +had ever permitted Thompson to know the beauty and wisdom of tolerance. +Whosoever disputed his creed and his consecrated purpose must be in +error. The evangelical spirit glowed within him when he faced the factor +across the little table. Figuratively speaking he cleared for action. +His host, being a hard-headed son of a disputatious race, met him more +than half-way. As a result midnight found them still wordily engaged, +one maintaining with emotional fervor that man's spiritual welfare was +the end and aim of human existence; the other as outspoken—if more +calmly and critically so—in his assertion that a tooth-and-toenail +struggle for existence left no room in any rational man's life for the +manner of religion set forth in general by churches and churchmen. The +edge of acrimony crept into the argument.</p> + +<p>"The Lord said, 'Leave all thou hast and follow me,'" Thompson declared. +"My dear sir, you cannot dispute—"</p> + +<p>"Ay, but yon word was said eighteen hundred years past," MacLeod +interrupted. "Since which day there's been a fair rate o' progress in +man's knowledge of himself an' his needs. The Biblical meeracles in the +way o' provender dinna happen nowadays—although some ither modern +commonplaces would partake o' the meeraculous if we didna have a +rational knowledge of their process. Men are no fed wi' loaves and +fishes until they themselves ha' first gotten the loaves an' the fish. +At least, it disna so happen i' the Pachugan deestreect. It's much the +same the world over, but up here especially ye'll find that the problem +o' subsistence is first an' foremost, an' excludes a' else till it's +solved."</p> + +<p>With this MacLeod, weary of an unprofitable controversy, arose, took up +a candle and showed his scandalized guest the way to bed.</p> + +<p>Thompson was full of a willingness to revive the argument when he was +roused for breakfast at sunrise. But MacLeod had said his say. He +abhorred vain repetition. Since it takes two to keep an argument going, +Thompson's beginning was but the beginning of a monologue which +presently died weakly of inattention. When he gave over trying to inject +a theological motif into the conversation, he found MacLeod responsive +enough. The factor touched upon native customs, upon the fur trade, upon +the vast and unexploited resources of the North, all of which was more +or less hazy to Thompson.</p> + +<p>His men had intimated an early start. Their journey down the Athabasca +had impressed Thompson with the wisdom of that. Only so could they +escape the brazen heat of the sun, and still accomplish a fair day's +travel. So he rose immediately from the breakfast table, when he saw +Breyette and MacDonald standing by the canoe waiting for him. MacLeod +halted him on the verandah steps to give a brusque last word of counsel.</p> + +<p>"Look ye, Mr. Thompson," he said. "An honest bit of advice will do ye no +harm. Ye're startin' out wi' a brave vision o' doin' a great good; of +lettin' a flood o' light into dark places. Speakin' out my ain +first-hand experience ye'll be fairly disappointed, because ye'll +accomplish nought that's in yer mind. Ye'll have no trouble wi' the +Crees. If ye remain among them long enough to mak' them understand yer +talk an' objects they'll listen or not as they feel inclined. They're a +simple, law-abidin' folk. But there's a white man at Lone Moose that +ye'll do well to cultivate wi' discretion. He's a man o' positive +character, and scholarly beyond what ye'd imagine. When ye meet him, +dinna be sanctimonious. His philosophy'll no gibe wi' your religion, an' +if ye attempt to impose a meenesterial attitude on him, it's no beyond +possibility he'd flare up an' do ye bodily damage. I know him. If ye +meet him man to man, ye'll find he'll meet ye half-way in everything but +theology. He'll be the sort of friend ye'll need at Lone Moose. But +dinna wave the Cloth in his face. For some reason that's to him like the +proverbial red rag tae a bull. The last missionary tae Long Moose cam' +awa wi' a lovely pair o' black eyes Sam Carr bestowed on him. I'm +forewarnin' ye for yer ain good. Ye can decry material benefits a' ye +like, but it'll be a decided benefit if ye ha' Sam Carr for a friendly +neighbor at Lone Moose."</p> + +<p>"I don't deliberately seek religious controversy with any one," Thompson +replied rather stiffly. "I have been sent by the Church to do what good +I am able. That should not offend Mr. Carr, or any man."</p> + +<p>"Nor will it," MacLeod returned. Then he added dryly, "It a' depends, as +ye may discover, on the interpretation others put on your method o' +doin' good. However, I wish ye luck. Stop in whenever ye happen along +this way."</p> + +<p>"I thank you, sir," Thompson smiled, "both for your hospitality, and +your advice."</p> + +<p>They shook hands. Thompson strode to the beach. Mike Breyette and Donald +MacDonald stood bare-footed in the shallow water. When Thompson had +stepped awkwardly aboard and seated himself amidships, they lifted on +the canoe and slid it gently off the shingle, leaped to their places +fore and aft and gave way. A hundred yards off shore they lifted the +dripping paddles in mute adieu to old Donald McPhee, smoking his pipe at +the gable end of his cabin. MacLeod watched the gray canoe slip past the +first point. When it vanished beyond that he turned back into his +quarters with a shrug of his burly shoulders, and a few unintelligible +phrases muttered under his breath.</p> + +<p>Lone Moose Creek emptied into Lake Athabasca some forty miles east of +Fort Pachugan. The village of Lone Moose lay another twenty-five miles +or so up the stream. Thompson's canoemen carried with them a rag of a +sail. This they hoisted to a fair wind that held through the morning +hours. Between that and steady paddling they made the creek mouth by +sundown. There they lay overnight on a jutting sandbar where the +mosquitoes plagued them less than on the brushy shore.</p> + +<p>At dawn they pushed into the sinuous channel of Lone Moose, breasting +its slow current with steady strokes, startling flocks of waterfowl at +every bend, gliding hour after hour along this shadowy waterway that +split the hushed reaches of the woods. It was very still and very somber +and a little uncanny. The creek was but a thread in that illimitable +forest which pressed so close on either hand. The sun at high noon could +not dissipate the shadows that lurked among the close-ranked trees; it +touched the earth and the creek with patches and streaks of yellow at +rare intervals and left untouched the obscurity where the rabbits and +the fur-bearing animals and all the wild life of the forest went +furtively about its business. Once they startled a cow moose and her +calf knee-deep in a shallow. The crash of their hurried retreat rose +like a blare of brass horns cutting discordantly into the piping of a +flute. But it died as quickly as it had risen. Even the beasts bowed +before the invisible altars of silence.</p> + +<p>About four in the afternoon Mike Breyette turned the nose of the canoe +sharply into the bank.</p> + +<p>The level of the forest floor lifted ten feet above Thompson's head so +that he could see nothing beyond the earthy rim save the tops of trees. +He kept his seat while Mike tied the bow to a birch trunk with a bit of +rope. He knew that they expected to land him at his destination before +evening fell. This did not impress him as a destination. He did not know +what Lone Moose would be like. The immensity of the North had left him +rather incredulous. Nothing in the North, animate or inanimate, +corresponded ever so little to his preconceived notions of what it would +be like. His ideas of the natives had been tinctured with the flavor of +Hiawatha and certain Leatherstocking tales which he had read with a +sense of guilt when a youngster. He had really started out with the +impression that Lone Moose was a collection of huts and tents about a +log church and a missionary house. The people would be simple and +high-minded, tillers of the soil in summer, trappers of fur in winter, +humble seekers after the Light he was bringing. But he was not a fool, +and he had been compelled to forego that illusion. Then he had surmised +that Lone Moose might be a replica of Fort Pachugan. MacLeod had partly +disabused his mind of that.</p> + +<p>But he still could not keep out of his mind's eye a somewhat hazy +picture of Lone Moose as a group of houses on the bank of a stream, with +Indians and breeds—no matter how dirty and unkempt—going impassively +about their business, an organized community, however rude. Here he saw +nothing save the enfolding forest he had been passing through since +dawn. He scarcely troubled to ask himself why they had stopped. Breyette +and MacDonald were given to casual haltings. He sat in irritable +discomfort brushing aside the hordes of mosquitoes that rose up from the +weedy brink and the shore thickets to assail his tender skin. He did +not notice that MacDonald was waiting for him to move. Mike Breyette +looked down on him from the top of the bank.</p> + +<p>"Well, we here, M'sieu Thompson," he said.</p> + +<p>"What?" Thompson roused himself. "Here? Where is the village?"</p> + +<p>Breyette waved a hand upstream.</p> + +<p>"She's 'roun' de nex' bend," said he. "Two-three hundred yard. Dees +w'ere de meeshonaire have hees cabanne."</p> + +<p>Thompson could not doubt Breyette's statement. He recalled now that Mike +had once told him the mission quarters were built a little apart from +the village. But he peered up through the screen of birch and willow +with a swift wave of misgiving. The forest enclosed him like the blank +walls of a cell. He shrank from it as a sensitive nature shrinks from +the melancholy suggestiveness of an open grave, and he could not have +told why he felt that strange form of depression. He was wholly +unfamiliar with any form of introspective inquiry, any analysis of a +mental state. He had never held sad intellectual inquest over a dead +hope, nor groped blindly for a ray of light in the inky blackness of a +soul's despair.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he was conscious that he felt very much as he might have +felt if, for instance, his guides had stopped anywhere in those somber +woods and without rhyme or reason set him and his goods ashore and +abandoned him forthwith. And when he crawled over the bow of the canoe +and ascended the short, steep bank to a place beside Mike Breyette, this +peculiar sense of being forsaken grew, if anything, more acute, more +appalling.</p> + +<p>They stood on the edge of the bank, taking a reconnaissance, so to +speak. The forest flowed about them like a sea. On Thompson's left hand +it seemed to thin a trifle, giving a faint suggestion of open areas +beyond. Beginning where they stood, some time in past years a square +place had been slashed out of the timber, trees felled and partly +burned, the stumps still standing and the charred trunks lying all askew +as they fell. The unlovely confusion of the uncompleted task was +somewhat concealed by a rank growth of weeds and grass. This +half-hearted attack upon the forest had let the sunlight in. It blazed +full upon a cabin in the center of the clearing, a square, squat +structure of logs with a roof of poles and dirt. A door and a window +faced the creek, a window of tiny panes, a door that stood partly open, +sagging forlornly upon its hinges.</p> + +<p>"Is <i>that</i> the house?" Thompson asked. It seemed to him scarcely +credible. He suspected his guides, as he had before suspected them, of +some rude jest at his expense.</p> + +<p>"Dat's heem," Breyette answered. "Let's tak' leetle more close look on +heem."</p> + +<p>Thompson did not miss the faint note of commiseration in the +half-breed's voice. It stung him a little, nearly made him disregard the +spirit of abnegation he had been taught was a Christian's duty in his +Master's service. He closed his lips on an impulsive protest against +that barren unlovely spot, and stiffened his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"I understand it has not been occupied for some time," he said as they +moved toward the cabin.</p> + +<p>But even forewarned as he was his heart sank a few degrees nearer to his +square-toed shoes when he stepped over the threshold and looked about. +Little, forgotten things recurred to him, matters touched upon lightly, +airily, by the deacons and elders of the Board of Missions when his +appointment was made. He recalled hearing of a letter in which his +predecessor had renounced that particular field and the ministry +together, with what to Thompson had seemed the blasphemous statement +that the North was no place for either God or man.</p> + +<p>The place was foul with dirt and cobwebs, full of a musty odor. The +swallows had nested along the ridge-pole. They fluttered out of the +door, chattering protest against the invasion. Rat nests littered the +corners and the brown rodents scuttled out with alarmed squeaks. The +floor was of logs roughly hewn to flatness. Upon four blocks stood a +rusty cookstove. A few battered, smoke-blackened pots and pans stood on +a shelf and hung upon nails driven in the walls. A rough bedstead of +peeled spruce poles stood in a corner. The remains of a bedtick moldered +on the slats, its grass stuffing given over to the nests of the birds +and rodents.</p> + +<p>It was so utterly and dishearteningly foreign to the orderly +arrangement, the meticulous neatness of the home wherein Thompson had +grown to young manhood under the tutelage of the prim spinsters that he +could scarcely accept as a reality that this, henceforth, was to be his +abode.</p> + +<p>He could only stand, with a feeling in his throat that was new in his +experience of emotions, staring in dismay at this forlorn habitation +abandoned to wind and weather, to the rats and the birds.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV"></a><h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH MR. THOMPSON BEGINS TO WONDER PAINFULLY</h3> +<br> + +<p>To Breyette and MacDonald that forlorn cabin was after all nothing new +or disheartening in their experience. They knew how a deserted house +goes to rack and ruin. They knew also how to restore such an abandoned +place to a measure of its original homeliness. And neither the spectacle +of the one nor the labor of the other gave them any qualms. They were +practical-minded men to whom musty, forsaken cabins, isolation, the +hollow emptiness of the North, the sultry heat of the brief summer, the +flies, the deep snows and iron frosts of the long winter, were a part of +their life, the only life they knew.</p> + +<p>But they were not wholly devoid of sentiment and perception. They +recognized in Thompson a lively susceptibility to certain disagreeable +things which they accepted as a matter of course. They saw that he was +rather less capable of coping with such a situation than a ten-year-old +native boy, that a dirty cabin in a lonely clearing made him stand +aghast. And so—although their bargain with him was closed when they +deposited him and his goods on the bank of Lone Moose—they set to work +with energy to renovate his forlorn-looking abode.</p> + +<p>They made short work of the rats' and the swallows' nests. Breyette +quickly fashioned a broom of fine willow twigs, brought up a shovel from +the canoe, and swept and shovelled the place out. MacDonald meanwhile +cleared the weeds and grass from a space before the cabin and burned up +the unseemly refuse. The stove fulfilled its functions perfectly despite +the red rust of disuse. With buckets of boiling water they flooded and +drenched the floor and walls till the interior was as fresh and clean as +if new erected.</p> + +<p>The place was habitable by sundown. While the long northern twilight +held the three of them carried up the freight that burdened the canoe, +and piled it in one corner, sacks of flour, sides of bacon and salt +pork, boxes of dried fruit, the miscellaneous articles with which a man +must supply himself when he goes into the wilderness.</p> + +<p>That night they slept upon a meager thickness of blanket spread on the +hard floor.</p> + +<p>In the morning Mike went to work again. He showed Thompson how to +arrange a mattress of hemlock boughs on the bed frame. It was a simple +enough makeshift, soft and springy when Thompson spread his bedding over +it. Then Mike superintended the final disposition of his supplies so +that there would be some semblance of order instead of an +indiscriminately mixed pile in which the article wanted was always at +the bottom. Incidentally he strove to impart to Thompson certain +rudimentary principles in the cooking of simple food. He illustrated the +method of mixing a batch of baking-powder bread, and how to parboil salt +pork before cooking, explained to him the otherwise mysterious +expansion of rice and beans and dried apples in boiling water, all of +which Breyette was shrewd enough to realize that Thompson knew nothing +about. He had a ready ear for instructions but a poor understanding of +these matters. So Mike reiterated out of his experience of camp cooking, +and Thompson tried to remember.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, MacDonald, who had vanished into the woods with a rifle in +his hand at daybreak, came back about noon with a deer's carcass slung +on his sturdy back. This, after it was skinned, the two breeds cut into +pieces the thickness of a man's wrist and as long as they could make +them, rubbed well with salt and hung on a stretched line in the sun. The +purpose and preparation of "jerky" was duly elucidated to Thompson; +rather profitless explanation, for he had no rifle, nor any knowledge +whatever in the use of firearms.</p> + +<p>"Bagosh, dat man Ah'm wonder w'ere hees raise," Mike said to his partner +once when Thompson was out of earshot. "Hees ask more damfool question +een ten minute dan a man hees answer een t'ree day. W'at hees gon' do +all by heemself here Ah don' know 'tall, Mac. Bagosh, no!"</p> + +<p>By midafternoon all that was possible in the way of settling their man +had been accomplished, even to a pile of firewood sufficient to last him +two weeks. MacDonald contributed that after one brief exhibition of +Thompson's axemanship. Short of remaining on the spot like a pair of +swarthy guardian angels there was no further help they could give him, +and their solicitude did not run to that beneficent extreme. And so +about three o'clock Mike Breyette surveyed the orderly cabin, the pile +of chopped wood, and the venison drying in the sun, and said briskly:</p> + +<p>"Well, M'sieu Thompson, Ah theenk we go show you hon Lone Moose village +now. Dere's one w'ite man Ah don' know 'tall. But der's breed familee +call Lachlan, eef she's not move 'way somew'ere. Dat familee she's talk +Henglish, and ver' fond of preacher. S'pose we go mak leetle veesit hon +dem Lachlan, eh? Ah theenk us two feller we're gon' beet dat water weeth +de paddle een de morneeng."</p> + +<p>A man does not easily forego habits that have become second nature. +Breyette and MacDonald put on their dilapidated hats, filled their +pipes, and were ready for anything from a social call to a bear hunt. +Thompson had to shave, wash up, brush his hair, put on a tie and collar, +which article of dress he donned without a thought that the North was +utterly devoid of laundries, that he would soon be reduced to flannel +shirts which he must wash himself. His preparations gave the breeds +another trick of his to grin slyly over. But Thompson was preparing +himself to face the units of his future congregation, and he went about +it precisely as he would have gone about getting ready for a Conference, +or a cup of tea with a meeting of the Ladies' Aid. Eventually, however, +the three set out across the trunk-littered clearing.</p> + +<p>The thin place in the belt of timber to the northward proved barely a +hundred yards deep. On the farther side the brushy edge of the woods +gave on the open meadow around which the Lone Moose villagers had built +their cabins. Thompson swept the crescent with a glance, taking in the +dozen or so dwellings huddling as it were under the protecting wings of +the forest, and his gaze came to rest on the more impressive habitation +of Sam Carr.</p> + +<p>"Dat's white man married hon Enjun woman," Breyette responded to +Thompson's inquiry. "Ah don' never see heem maself. Lachlan she's leev +over there."</p> + +<p>Left to himself Thompson would probably have gravitated first to a man +of his own blood, even though he had been warned to approach Carr with +diplomacy. But there was no sign of life about the Carr place, and his +men were headed straight for their objective, walking hurriedly to get +away from the hungry swarms of mosquitoes that rose out of the grass. +Thompson followed them. Two weeks in their company, with a steadily +growing consciousness of his dependence upon them, had inclined him to +follow their lead.</p> + +<p>They found Lachlan at home, a middle-aged Scotch half-breed with a house +full of sons and daughters ranging from the age of four to twenty. How +could they all be housed in three small rooms was almost the first +dubious query which presented itself to Thompson. His mind, to his great +perplexity, seemed to turn more upon incongruities than upon his real +mission there. That is, to Thompson they seemed incongruities. The +little things that go to make up a whole were each impinging upon him +with a force he could not understand. He could not, for instance, tell +why he thought only with difficulty, with extreme haziness, of the +great good he desired to accomplish at Lone Moose, and found his +attention focussing sharply upon the people, their manner of speech, +their surroundings, even upon so minor a detail as a smudge of flour +upon the hand that Mrs. Lachlan extended to him. She was a fat, +dusky-skinned woman, apparently regarding Thompson with a feeling akin +to awe. The entire family, which numbered at least nine souls, spoke in +the broad dialect of their paternal ancestors from the heather country +overseas.</p> + +<p>Thompson spent an hour there, an hour which was far from conducive to a +cheerful survey of the field wherein his spiritual labors would lie. +Aside from Sam Carr, who appeared to be looked upon as the Nestor of the +village, the Lachlans were the only persons who either spoke or +understood a word of English. And Thompson found himself more or less +tongue-tied with them, unable to find any common ground of intercourse. +They were wholly illiterate. As a natural consequence the world beyond +the Athabasca region was as much of an unknown quantity to them as the +North had been to Thompson before he set foot in it—as much of its +needs and customs were yet, for that matter. The Lachlan virtues of +simplicity and kindliness were overcast by obvious dirt and a general +slackness. In so far as religion went if they were—as Breyette had +stated—fond of preachers, it was manifestly because they looked upon a +preacher as a very superior sort of person, and not because of his +gospel message.</p> + +<p>For when Mrs. Lachlan hospitably brewed a cup of tea and Thompson took +the opportunity of making his customary prayer before food an appeal +for divine essence to be showered upon these poor sinful creatures of +earth, the Lachlan family rose from its several knees with an air of +some embarrassing matter well past. And they hastened to converse +volubly upon the weather and the mosquitoes and Sam Carr's garden and a +new canoe that Lachlan's boys were building, and such homely interests. +As to church and service they were utterly dumb, patently unable to +follow Thompson's drift when he spoke of those things. If they had souls +that required salvation they were blissfully unconscious of the fact.</p> + +<p>But they urged him to come again, when he rose to leave. They seemed to +regard him as a very great man, whose presence among them was an honor, +even if his purposes were but dimly apprehended.</p> + +<p>The three walked back across the meadow, Breyette and MacDonald +chattering lightly, Thompson rather preoccupied. It was turning out so +different from what he had fondly imagined it would be. He had envisaged +a mode of living and a manner of people, a fertile field for his labors, +which he began to perceive resentfully could never have existed save in +his imagination. He had been full of the impression, and the advice and +information bestowed upon him by the Board of Missions had served to +heighten the impression, that in Lone Moose he would fill a crying want. +And he was not so obtuse as to fail of perceiving that no want of him or +his message existed. It was discouraging to know that he must strive +mightily to awaken a sense of need before he could begin to fulfill his +appointed function of showing these people how to satisfy that need.</p> + +<p>Apart from these spiritual perplexities he found himself troubled over +practical matters. His creed of blind trust in Providence did not seem +so sound and true. He found himself dreading the hour when his swarthy +guides would leave him to his lonely quarters. He beheld terrible vistas +of loneliness, a state of feeling to which he had always been a +stranger. He foresaw a series of vain struggles over that rusty +cookstove. It did him no good to recall that he had been told in the +beginning that he would occupy the mission quarters, that he must +provide himself with ample supplies of food, that he might have to +prepare that food himself.</p> + +<p>His mind had simply been unable to envisage the sordid reality of these +things until he faced them. Now that he did face them they seemed more +terrible than they really were.</p> + +<p>Lying wakeful on his bed that night, listening to the snoring of the +half-breeds on the floor, to the faint murmur of a wind that stirred the +drooping boughs of the spruce, he reviewed his enthusiasms and his +tenuous plans—and slipped so far into the slough of despond as to call +himself a misguided fool for rearing so fine a structure of dreams upon +so slender a foundation as this appointment to a mission in the outlying +places. He blamed the Board of Missions. Obviously that august circle of +middle-aged and worthy gentlemen were sadly ignorant of the North.</p> + +<p>Whereupon, recognizing the trend of his thought, the Reverend Wesley +Thompson turned upon himself with a bitter accusation of self-seeking, +and besought earnestly the gift of an humble spirit from Above.</p> + +<p>But the deadly pin-points of discontent and discouragement were still +pricking him when he fell asleep.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_V"></a><h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE</h3> +<br> + +<p>Mike Breyette took a last look over his shoulder as the current and the +thrust of two paddles carried the canoe around the first bend. Thompson +stood on the bank, watching them go.</p> + +<p>"Bagosh, dat man hees gon' have dam toff time, Ah theenk," Breyette +voiced his conviction. "Feller lak heem got no beesness for be here +'tall."</p> + +<p>"He didna have tae come here," MacDonald answered carelessly. "An' he +disna have tae stay."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sure, Ah know dat, me," Mike agreed. "All same hees feel bad."</p> + +<p>Which was a correct, if brief, estimate of Mr. Thompson's emotions as he +stood on the bank watching the gray canoe slip silently out of his ken. +That gave him a keener pang, a more complete sense of loss, than he had +ever suffered at parting with any one or anything. It was to him like +taking a last look before a leap in the dark. Thrown entirely upon his +own resources he felt wholly inadequate, found his breast filled with +incomprehensible misgivings. The work he had come there to do seemed to +have lost much of its force as a motive, as an inspiration. He felt +himself—so far as his mission to Lone Moose was concerned—in the +anomalous position of one compelled to make bricks without straw.</p> + +<p>He was, in a word, suffering an acute attack of loneliness.</p> + +<p>That was why the empty space of the clearing affected him with a +physical shrinking, why the neatly arranged interior of his cabin seemed +hollow, abandoned, terribly dispiriting. He longed for the sound of a +human voice, found himself listening for such a sound. The stillness was +not like the stillness of a park, nor an empty street, nor any of the +stillnesses he had ever experienced. It was not a kindly, restful +stillness,—not to him. It was the hollow hush of huge spaces emptied of +all life. Life was at his elbow almost but he could not make himself +aware of that. The forested wilderness affected him much as a small +child is affected by the dark. He was not afraid of this depressing +sense of emptiness, but it troubled him.</p> + +<p>Before nine o'clock in the forenoon had rolled around he set off with +the express purpose of making himself acquainted with Sam Carr. Carr was +a white man, a scholar, MacLeod had said. Passing over the other things +MacLeod had mentioned for his benefit Thompson, in his dimly realized +need of some mental stimulus, could not think of a white man and a +scholar being aught but a special blessing in that primeval solitude. +Thompson had run across that phrase in books—primeval solitude. He was +just beginning to understand what it meant.</p> + +<p>He set out upon his quest of Sam Carr with a good deal of unfounded +hope. In his own world, beginning with the churchly leanings of the +spinster aunts, through the successive steps of education and his +ultimate training for the ministry as a profession, the theological note +had been the note in which he reasoned and thought and felt. His +environment had grounded him in the belief that all the world vibrated +in unison with the theological harmonies. He had never had any doubts or +equivocations. Faith was everything, and he had abundance of faith. As a +matter of fact, until he encountered MacLeod, the factor of Fort +Pachugan, he had never crossed swords with a man open and sincere in +disbelief based on rational grounds. He had found those who evaded and +some who were indifferent, many who compromised, never before a sweeping +denial. He could not picture an atheist as other than a perverted +monster, a moral degenerate, the personification of all evil. This was +his conception of such as denied his God. Blasphemers. Foredoomed to +hell. Yet he had found MacLeod hospitable, ready with kindly advice, +occupying a position of trust in the service of a great company. Was it +after all possible that the essence of Christianity might not be the +exclusive possession of Christians?</p> + +<p>Insensibly he had to modify certain sweeping convictions. He was not +conscious of this inner compulsion when he concluded to try and meet Sam +Carr without making theology an issue. Somehow this man Carr began to +loom in the background of his thought as a commanding figure. At least, +Thompson said to himself as he passed through the fringe of timber, Sam +Carr by all accounts was a person to whom an educated man could speak +in words of more than two syllables without meeting the blank stare of +incomprehension.</p> + +<p>The Lachlans were worthy people enough, but—He shook his head +despondently. As for the Crees—well, he had been at Lone Moose less +than forty-eight hours and he was wondering if the Board of Home +Missions always shot as blindly at a distant mark. It would take him a +year to learn the first smatterings of their tongue. A year! He had +understood that the Lone Moose Crees were partly under civilized +influences. Certainly he had believed that his predecessors in the field +had laid some sort of foundation for the work he was to carry on. It was +considered a matter of course that the mission quarters were livable, +that some sort of meeting place had been provided.</p> + +<p>There was a monetary basis for that belief. Some two thousand dollars +had been expended, or perhaps the better word would be appropriated, for +that purpose. Mr. Thompson could not quite understand what had become of +this sum. There was nothing but a rat-ridden shack on a half-cleared +acre in the edge of the forest. There had never been anything else. +Nothing had been accomplished. Thompson shook his head again. His first +report would be a shock to the Board of Home Missions.</p> + +<p>He bore straight for Sam Carr's house. While still some distance away he +made out two men seated on the porch. As he drew nearer a couple of +nondescript dogs rushed noisily to meet him. Thompson's general +unfamiliarity with the outdoor world extended to dogs. But he had heard +sometime, somewhere, that it was well to put on a bold front with +barking curs. He acted upon this theory, and the dogs kept their teeth +out of his person, though their clamor rose unabated until one of the +men harshly commanded them to be quiet. Thompson came up to the steps. +The two men nodded. Their eyes rested upon him in frank curiosity.</p> + +<p>"My name is Thompson." His diffidence, verging upon forthright +embarrassment, precipitated him into abruptness. He was addressing the +older man, a spare-built man with a trim gray beard and a disconcerting +direct gaze. "I am a newcomer to this place. The factor of Fort Pachugan +spoke of a Mr. Carr here. Have I—er—the—ah—pleasure of addressing +that gentleman?"</p> + +<p>Carr's gray eyes twinkled, the myriad of fine creases radiating from +their outer corners deepened.</p> + +<p>"MacLeod mentioned me, eh? Did he intimate that meeting me might prove a +doubtful pleasure for a gentleman of your calling?"</p> + +<p>That momentarily served to heighten Mr. Thompson's embarrassment—like a +flank attack while he was in the act of waving a flag of truce. But he +perceived that there was no malice in the words, only a flash of ironic +humor. Carr chuckled dryly.</p> + +<p>"Meet Mr. Tommy Ashe, Mr. Thompson," he said. "Mr. Ashe is, like +yourself, a newcomer to Lone Moose. You may be able to exchange mutual +curses on the country. People usually do at first."</p> + +<p>"I've been hereabouts six months," Ashe smiled as he rose to shake +hands. (Carr's friendliness seemed a trifle negative, reserved; he had +not offered his hand.)</p> + +<p>"That means newly come, as time is reckoned here," Carr remarked. "It +takes at least a generation to make one permanent. Have a seat, Mr. +Thompson. What do you think, so far, of the country you have selected +for the scene of your operations?"</p> + +<p>The slightly ironic inflection was not lost upon Thompson. It nettled +him a little, but it was too intangible to be resented, and in any case +he had no ready defence against that sort of thing. He took a third +chair between the two of them and occupied himself a moment +exterminating a few mosquitoes which had followed him from the grassy +floor of the meadow and now slyly sought to find painful lodgment upon +his face and neck.</p> + +<p>"To tell the truth," he said at last, "everything is so different from +my expectations that I find myself a bit uncertain. One +finds—well—certain drawbacks."</p> + +<p>"Material or spiritual?" Carr inquired gravely.</p> + +<p>The Reverend Thompson considered.</p> + +<p>"Both," he answered briefly.</p> + +<p>This was the most candid admission he had ever permitted himself. Carr +laughed quietly.</p> + +<p>"Well," said he, "we are a primitive folk in a primitive region. But I +daresay you hope to accomplish a vast change for the better in us, if +not in the country?"</p> + +<p>Again there was that suggestion of mockery, veiled, scarcely +perceptible, a matter of inflection. Mr. Thompson found himself uttering +an entirely unpremeditated reply.</p> + +<p>"Which I daresay you doubt, Mr. Carr. You seem to be fully aware of my +mission here, and rather dubious as to its merit."</p> + +<p>Carr smiled.</p> + +<p>"News travels fast in a country where even a passing stranger is a +notable event," he remarked. "Naturally one draws certain conclusions +when one hears that a minister has arrived in one's vicinity. As to my +doubts—first and last I've seen three different men sent here by your +Board of Home Missions. They have made no more of an impression than a +pebble chucked into the lake. Your Board of Missions must be a visionary +lot. They should come here in a body. This country would destroy some of +their cherished illusions."</p> + +<p>"A desire to serve is not an illusion," Thompson said defensively.</p> + +<p>"One would have to define service before one could dispute that," Carr +returned casually. "What I mean is that the people who send you here +have not the slightest conception of what they send you to. When you get +here you find yourself rather at sea. Isn't it so?"</p> + +<p>"In a sense, yes," Thompson reluctantly admitted.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," Carr said, with a gesture of dismissing the subject, "that +is your private business in any case. We won't get on at all if we begin +by discussing theology, and dissecting the theological motive and +activities. Do you hunt or fish at all, Mr. Thompson?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Thompson did not, and expressed no hankering for such pursuits. +There came a lapse in the talk. Carr got out his pipe and began stuffing +the bowl of it with tobacco. Tommy Ashe sat gazing impassively over the +meadow, slapping at an occasional mosquito.</p> + +<p>"Tommy might give you a few pointers on game," Carr remarked at last. +"He has the sporting instinct. It hasn't become a commonplace routine +with him yet, a matter of getting meat, as it has to the rest of us up +here."</p> + +<p>Ashe made his first vocal contribution.</p> + +<p>"If you're going to be about here for awhile," said he pleasantly, +"you'll find it interesting to dodge about after things in the woods +with a gun. Keeps you fit, for one thing. Lots of company in a dog and a +gun. Is it a permanent undertaking, this missionary work of yours, Mr. +Thompson?"</p> + +<p>"We hope to make it so," Mr. Thompson responded.</p> + +<p>"I should say you've taken on the deuce of a job," Tommy commented +frankly.</p> + +<p>Thompson had no inclination to dispute that. He had periods of thinking +so himself.</p> + +<p>The conversation languished again.</p> + +<p>Without ever having been aware of it Thompson's circle of friends and +acquaintances had been people of wordy inclination. Their thoughts +dripped unceasingly from their tongue's end like water from a leaky +faucet. He had never come in contact with a type of men who keep silent +unless they have something to say, who think more than they speak. The +spinster aunts had been voluble persons, full of small chatter, women of +no mental reservations whatever. The young men of his group had not been +much different. The reflective attitude as opposed to the discursive was +new to him. New and embarrassing. He felt impelled to talk, and while he +groped uncertainly for some congenial subject he grew more and more +acutely self-conscious. He felt that these men were calmly taking his +measure. Especially Sam Carr.</p> + +<p>He wanted to go on talking. He protested against their intercourse +congealing in that fashion. But he could find no opening. His +conversational stock-in-trade, he had the sense to realize, was totally +unlike theirs. He could do nothing but sit still, remain physically +inert while he was mentally in a state of extreme unrest. He ventured a +banality about the weather. Carr smiled faintly. Tommy Ashe observed +offhand that the heat was beastly, but not a patch to blizzards and +frost. Then they were silent again.</p> + +<p>Thompson had effected a sort of compromise with his principles when he +sought Carr. He had more or less consciously resolved to keep his +calling in the background, to suppress the evangelical tendency which +his training had made nearly second nature. This for the sake of +intelligent companionship. He was like a man sentenced to solitary +confinement. Even the temporary presence of a jailer is a boon to such, +a break in the ghastly solitude. But he was fast succumbing to a despair +of reaching across the barrier of this critical silence and he was about +to rise and leave when he happened to look about and see Sophie Carr +standing within arm's length, gazing at him with a peculiar intentness, +a mild look of surprise upon her vivid young face, a trace of +puzzlement.</p> + +<p>A most amazing thing happened to Mr. Thompson. His heart leaped.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it rarely happens that a normal, healthy man reaches a +comparative degree of maturity without experiencing a quickening of his +blood in the presence of a woman. Yet it cannot be gainsaid that it does +happen. It was so in Thompson's case. Staring into the clear pools of +Sophie Carr's gray eyes some strange quality of attraction in a woman +first dawned on him. Something that made him feel a passionate sense of +incompleteness.</p> + +<p>He did not think this. The singular longing had flamed up like a beacon +within him. It had nothing to do with his mental processes. It was +purely an instinctive revelation. A blind man whose sight has been +restored, upon whose eager vision bursts suddenly all the bright beauty +of sun and sky and colorful landscape, could have been no more +bewildered than he. It was as if indeed he had been blind.</p> + +<p>All the women he had ever known seemed pale and colorless beside this +girl standing near, her head a little aside as she looked at him. There +was not a detail of her that escaped him, that failed to make its +appeal, from the perfect oval of her face down to the small feet in +bead-ornamented moccasins. A woman's eyes, her hair, her hands, her +bearing—these things had never obtruded upon his notice before. Yet he +saw now that a shaft of sunlight on her hair made it shimmer like ripe +wheat straw, that her breast was full and rounded, her lips red and +sweetly curved. But it was not alone that swift revelation of seductive +beauty, or warm human desirableness, that stirred him so deeply, that +afflicted him with those queer uncomfortable sensations. He found +himself struggling with a sense of guilt, of shame. The world, the +flesh, and the devil seemed leagued against his peace of mind.</p> + +<p>He was filled with an incredulous wonder as to what manner of thing this +was which had blown through the inner recesses of his being like a gusty +wind through an open door. He had grown to manhood with nothing but a +cold, passionless tolerance in his attitude toward women. Technically he +was aware of sex, advised as to its pitfalls and temptations; actually +he could grasp nothing of the sort. A very small child is incapable of +associating pain with a hot iron until the hot iron has burned him. Even +then he can scarcely correlate cause and effect. Neither could Thompson. +No woman had ever before stirred his pulse to an added beat.</p> + +<p>But this—this subtle, mysterious emanation from a smiling girl at his +elbow singed him like a flame. If he had been asleep he was now in a +moment breathlessly, confusedly awake.</p> + +<p>The commotion was all inward, mental. Outwardly he kept his composure, +and the only sign of that turmoil was a tinge of color that rose in his +face. And as if there was some mysterious mode of communication +established between them a faint blush deepened the delicate tint of +Sophie Carr's cheeks. Thompson rose. So did Tommy Ashe with some haste +when he perceived her there.</p> + +<p>"No, no," she protested. "Keep your chairs, please."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Thompson," Carr's keen old eyes flickered between the two men and +the girl. "My daughter. Mr. Thompson is the latest leader of the +forlorn hope at Lone Moose, Sophie."</p> + +<p>Mr. Thompson murmured some conventional phrase. He was mightily +disturbed without knowing why he was so disturbed, and rather fearful of +showing this incomprehensible state. The girl's manner put him a little +at his ease. She gave him her hand, soft warm fingers that he had a mad +impulse to press. He wondered why he felt like that. He wondered why +even the tones of her voice gave him a thrill of pleasure.</p> + +<p>"So you are the newest missionary to Lone Moose?" she said. "I wish you +luck."</p> + +<p>Although her voice was full, throaty like a meadow lark's, her tone +carried the same sardonic inflection he had noticed in her father's +comment on his mission. It pained Thompson. He had no available weapon +against that sort of attack. But the girl did not pursue the matter. She +said to her father:</p> + +<p>"Crooked Tree's oldest son is in the kitchen and wants to speak to you, +Dad."</p> + +<p>Carr rose. So did Thompson. He wanted to get away, to think, to fortify +himself somehow against this siren call in his blood. He was sadly +perplexed. Measured by his own standards, even to harbor such thoughts +as welled up in his mind was a sinful weakness of the flesh. He was in +as much anxiety to get away from Carr's as he had been to find a welcome +there.</p> + +<p>"I think I shall be moving along," he said to Carr. "I'll say good-day, +sir."</p> + +<p>Carr thrust out a brown sinewy hand with the first trace of heartiness +he had shown.</p> + +<p>"Come again when you feel like it," he invited. "When you have time and +inclination we'll match our theories of the human problem, maybe. Of +course we'll disagree. But my bark is worse than my bite, no matter what +you've heard."</p> + +<p>He strode off. Sophie bowed to Thompson, nodded to Tommy Ashe, and +followed her father. Ashe got up, stretched his sturdy young arms above +his fair, curly head. He was perhaps a year or two older than Thompson, +a little thicker through the chest, and not quite so tall. One imagined +rightly that he was very strong, that he could be swift and purposeful +in his movements, despite an apparent deliberation. His face was +boyishly expressive. He had a way of smiling at trifles. And one did not +have to puzzle over his nationality. He was English. His accent and +certain intonations established that.</p> + +<p>He picked up a gun now from where it stood against the wall, whistled +shrilly, and a brown dog appeared hastily from somewhere in the grass, +wagging his tail in anticipation.</p> + +<p>"Mind if I poke along with you," he said to Thompson. "There's a slough +over beyond your diggin's where I go now and then to pick up a duck or +two."</p> + +<p>They fell into step across the meadow.</p> + +<p>"Our host," Thompson observed, "is not quite the type one expects to +find here—permanently. I understand he has been here a long time."</p> + +<p>"Fifteen years," Tommy supplied cheerfully. "Deuce of a time to be +buried alive, eh? Carr hasn't got rusty, though. No. Mind like a steel +trap, that man. Curious sort of individual. You ought to see the books +he's got. Amazing. Science, philosophy, the poets—all sorts. Don't try +arguing theology with him unless you're quite advanced. Of course, I +know the church is adapting itself to modern thought, in a way. But +he'll tie you in a bowknot if you hold to the old theological doctrines. +Fact. Carr's scholarly sort, but awfully radical. Awfully."</p> + +<p>"It's queer," said Thompson, "why a man like that should bury himself +here so long. Is it a fact that he is married to a native woman? His +daughter now—one wouldn't imagine her—"</p> + +<p>"No fear," Tommy Ashe interrupted. "Carr's got an Indian woman, right +enough. They've got three mixed-blood youngsters. But his daughter—"</p> + +<p>He gave Thompson a quick sidelong glance.</p> + +<p>"Sophie's pure blood," said he. "She's a thorough-bred."</p> + +<p>He said it almost challengingly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI"></a><h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>CERTAIN PERPLEXITIES</h3> +<br> + +<p>From the direction of the slough two shots sounded, presently followed +by two more. Then the gleeful yipping of Tommy's Ashe's retriever, and +Tommy's stentorian encouragement:</p> + +<p>"That's the boy. Fetch him."</p> + +<p>Close upon this Mr. Thompson's up-pricked ear detected another voice, +one that immediately set up in him an involuntary eagerness of +listening, a clear, liquid voice that called:</p> + +<p>"Oh, Tommy, there's another wounded one, swimming away. Quick!"</p> + +<p>Pow! Tommy's twelve-gauge cracked again. The two voices called +laughingly back and forth across the slough, mingled with the excited +barking of the brown dog as he retrieved the slaughtered ducks. After a +time silence fell. Thompson's nose detected an odor. He turned hastily +to his stove. But he had listened too long. The biscuits in his oven +were smoking.</p> + +<p>That did not matter greatly in itself. It was merely one of a long +procession of culinary disasters. He could not, somehow, contrive to +prepare food in the simple manner of Mike Breyette's instructions. If +the biscuits had not scorched probably they would have been hopelessly +soggy, dismal things compared to the brown discs Mike had turned out of +the same oven. One was as bad as the other. Nothing seemed to work out +right. Nothing ever tasted right. Only a healthy hunger enabled him to +swallow the unsavory messes he concocted in the name of food.</p> + +<p>He had been at Lone Moose two weeks now. His real work, his essential +labor in that untilled field, was no farther advanced. He made about the +same progress as a missionary that he made as a cook. In so far as Lone +Moose was concerned he accomplished nothing because, like Archimedes, he +lacked a foothold from which to apply his leverage. He had the +intelligence to perceive that these people had no pressing wants which +they looked to him to supply, that they were apparently impervious to +any message he could deliver. His power to deliver a message was +vitiated by this utter absence of receptivity. He was, and realized that +he was, as superfluous in Lone Moose as sterling silver and cut glass in +a house where there is neither food nor drink.</p> + +<p>Also he was no longer so secure in the comfortable belief that all +things work for an ultimate good. He was not so sure that a sparrow, or +even an ordained servant of God, might not fall and the Almighty be none +the wiser. The material considerations which he had always scorned +pressed upon him in an unescapable manner. There was no getting away +from them. Thrown at last upon his own resources he began to take stock +of his needs, his instincts, his impulses, and to compare them with the +needs and instincts and impulses of a more Godless humanity,—and he +could not escape certain conclusions. Faith may move mountains, but +chiefly through the medium of a shovel. When a man is hungry his need is +for food. When he is lonely he craves companionship. When he grieves he +desires sympathy. And the Providence Mr. Thompson had been taught to +lean so hard upon did not chop his wood, cook his meals, furnish him +with congenial society, comfort him when he was sad.</p> + +<p>"Religion or nonreligion, belief in a personal, immanent God or a rank +materialism that holds to a purely mechanical theory of the universe, it +doesn't make much difference which you hold to if you do not set +yourself up as the supreme authority and insist that the other fellow +must believe as you do.</p> + +<p>"Because, my dear sir, you cannot escape material factors. The human +organism can't exist without food, clothing, and shelter. Society cannot +attain to a culture which tends to soften the harshnesses of existence, +without leisure in which to develop that culture. Machinery and science +and art weren't handed to humanity done up in a package. Man only +attained to these things through a long process of evolution, and he +only attained them by the use of his muscle and the exercise of his +intellect. Strength and skill—plus application. Nothing else gets +either an individual or a race forward. Don't you see the force of that? +Here is man with his fundamental, undeniable needs. Here is the earth +with the fullness thereof. There's nothing mysterious or supernatural +about it. Brain and brawn applied to the problems of living. That's all. +And you can't dodge it. The first, pressing requirements of any man can +only be filled in two ways. First by working and planning and getting +for himself. Second by being able to compel the strength and skill of +others to function for him so that his needs will be supplied; in other +words, by some turn of circumstances, or some dominant quality in +himself, to get something for nothing."</p> + +<p>Sam Carr had delivered himself of this as a wind-up to a conversation +with Thompson the evening before. Now, while his forgotten biscuits +scorched and he listened to Tommy Ashe and Sophie Carr taking their toll +of meat from the flocks of waterfowl, he was thinking over what Carr had +said. He dissented. Oh, he dissented with a vigor that was almost +bitterness, because the smiling quirk of Sam Carr's lips when he uttered +the last sentence gave it something of a personal edge. However it was +meant, Thompson could not help taking it that way. And Mr. Thompson's +desire was to give—to give lavishly. Only here in this forsaken corner +of the world he seemed to have nothing to give that was of any value.</p> + +<p>He was, at the same time, discovering in himself personal needs to which +he had never given a thought, sordid everyday necessities the +satisfaction of which had always been at hand, unquestioned, taken for +granted much as one takes the sun and the air for granted. His meals had +been provided. His bed had been provided. The funds which had clothed +and educated him and trained him for the ministry had been provided, and +likewise his transportation to the scene of his endeavors. How, he had +not known except in the vaguest way, he had not particularly inquired, +any more than the child inquires the whence and the why of luscious +berries he finds growing upon a bush in the garden.</p> + +<p>Not until he was torn by the roots out of the old, ordered environment +and flung headlong into an environment where cause and effect are linked +close did he consider these things. Materially he was getting a +first-hand lesson in economics—and domestic science of a sort! +Spiritually he was a little bit aghast, amazed that the Almighty did not +personally intervene to save a man from his own inefficiency. He began +to grasp the hitherto unnoted fact that meals and a bed and fires and +clothes and all the other stark necessities involved labor of the hands, +skilful exercise of the thought-function.</p> + +<p>If this was so, he, Wesley Thompson, twenty-five years of age and a +minister of the gospel, was deeply in debt—unless he denied the justice +of giving value for value received. He had received much; he had +returned nothing except perfunctory thanks. And what had he to give? +Even to him, transcendent as was his faith that the glory of man was but +the reflected glory of God, that faith was not a commodity to be +bartered.</p> + +<p>He did not think these things in these terms. He found himself becoming +involved in a maze of speculation, in which he could only grope feebly +for words to define the unrest that was in him.</p> + +<p>While he sat at his small table of rough-hewn boards with his scorched, +unappetizing biscuits, ill-cooked potatoes and bacon, and a pot of tea +that he could never brew to his liking (and Mr. Thompson, from a +considerable amount of juggling afternoon teacups, had acquired a nice +taste in that beverage) he saw Tommy Ashe and Sophie Carr pass along one +edge of his clearing, a cluster of bright-winged ducks slung over +Tommy's shoulder, their voices floating across to him as if they came +down a long corridor. They disappeared toward Lone Moose through the +timber, and Mr. Thompson sat brooding over his lonely meal until he +realized with a start that his mind was concentrating upon Sophie Carr +with a disturbing insistence.</p> + +<p>The plague of mosquitoes had somewhat abated. In the early morning and +for a time in the evening, and also when rain dampened the atmosphere, +these pests still kept a man's hands busy warding them off. But through +the dry heat of the day he could go abroad in reasonable comfort.</p> + +<p>So now Mr. Thompson washed up his dishes in a fashion to make the lips +of a careful housekeeper pucker in disdain, clapped on his broken-rimmed +straw hat and sallied forth.</p> + +<p>He was full of an earnest desire to do good, as he defined doing good. +He had come here for that purpose, backed by an organization for just +such good work. This evangelical fire burned strong in him despite the +crude shifts he was put to, the loneliness, the perplexities and trials +of the spirit. Just as an educated humanitarian coming upon an +illiterate people would gladly banish their illiteracy, so Thompson was +resolved to banish what he deemed the spiritual darkness of these +primitive folk. Holding as he did to the orthodoxy of sin and salvation, +of a literal heaven and a nebulous sort of hell, he deemed it his +business to show them with certainty the paths that led to each.</p> + +<p>But he could not reach them unless he could speak their tongue, he could +not gather them about him in the open meadow as the Man of Galilee +gathered his disciples about him. The climate was against that simple +procedure. Therefore he postulated two things as necessary to make a +beginning—to learn the tribal language and to build a church.</p> + +<p>He was making an attempt at both, and making little more progress than +he made in the culinary art. Only a naturally vigorous stomach enabled +him to assimilate the messes he cooked without suffering acute +indigestion. Likewise only a naïve turn of mind enabled him to ward off +mental indigestion in his struggles with the language. Whatever the +defects of his training for what he considered his life work, he had +considerable power of application. He might get discouraged, but he was +not a quitter. He kept trying. This took the form of studying the +Athabascan gutturals with the aid of Lachlan's second son, a boy of +eighteen. For an hour in the forenoon and the same in the evening he +struggled with pronunciations and meanings like a child learning the +alphabet, forgetting, like the child, a good deal of it between lessons. +And he had begun work on a log building twenty by thirty feet, that was +to be a meeting-house.</p> + +<p>He did not get on with this very fast. He laid his foundation in the +edge of the timber to lessen the distance his material must be moved. +He had to fell trees, to lop off the branches, and cut the trunks to +proper length, then roll them with infinite effort to their proper place +in the structure. He could only gather how a log building could be +erected by asking Lachlan, and by taking the Lone Moose cabins for his +model. And he was a fearful and wonderful axeman. His log ends looked as +if chewed by a beaver, except that they lacked the beaver's neatness of +finish. His feet suffered manifold hairbreadth escapes from the sharp +blade. He could never guess which way a tree would fall. For a week's +work he had got two courses of logs laid in position.</p> + +<p>He did not allow his mind to dwell on the ultimate outcome of this task, +because he was uneasily aware that Lone Moose was smiling slyly behind +its brown hand at him and his works. In his mind there was nothing for +it but a church. He had tried one Sunday service at Lachlan's house, +with Lachlan senior to interpret his words. The Indians had come. +Indeed, they had come en masse. They packed the room he spoke in, big +and little, short, chunky natives, and tall, thin-faced ones, and the +overflow spilled into the kitchen beyond. The day was very hot, the roof +low, the windows closed. There was a vitiation of the atmosphere that +was not helped by a strong bodily odor, a stout and sturdy smell that +came near to sickening Mr. Thompson. He was extraordinarily glad when he +got outside. That closeness—to speak mildly—coupled with the heavy, +copper-red faces, impassive as masks, impersonally listening with +scarcely a flicker of the eye-lids, made Thompson forswear another +attempt to preach until he could speak to them in their own tongue and +speak to them in a goodly place of worship where a man's thoughts would +not be imperiously distracted by a pressing need of ventilation.</p> + +<p>Coming now to the site he had chosen, he stood for a moment casting an +eye over the scene of his undertaking. The longer he looked at it the +more of an undertaking it seemed. He had heard Lachlan speak of two men +felling trees and putting up a sixteen-foot cabin complete from +foundation to ridgelog in three days. He did not see how it could be +done. He was thoroughly incredulous of that statement. But he did expect +to roof in that church before the snow fell. Its walls would be +consecrated with sweat and straining muscles. It would be a concrete +accomplishment. The instinct to create, the will to fashion and mold, to +see something take form under his hands, had begun to stir in him.</p> + +<p>Axe in hand, he set to work. He had learned the first lesson of manual +labor—that a man cannot swing his arms and breathe deeply if his body +is swaddled in clothes. His coat came off and his vest and his hat, all +slung across a fallen tree. Presently, as he warmed up, his outer shirt +joined the discarded garments.</p> + +<p>Stripped for action in a literal sense he did not in the least conform +to the clerical figure. He was the antithesis of asceticism, of +gentleness, of spiritual and scholarly repose. He was simply a big man +lustily chopping, red in the face from his exertions, beads of sweat +standing out on brow and cheek, his sturdy neck all a-glisten with +moisture. Under his thin, short-sleeved undershirt his biceps rippled +and played. The flat muscle-bands across his broad chest slackened and +tightened as his arms swung. For Mr. Thompson had been fashioned by +Nature in a generous mood. He was not a heroic figure, but he was big +and built as a man should be, deep in the chest, flat-backed, very +straight when he stood erect. He had escaped the scholarly stoop. If his +muscles were soft they were in a fair way to become hardened.</p> + +<p>He was more or less unconscious of all this. He had never thought of his +body as being strong or well-shaped, because he had never used it, never +pitted his strength against the strength of other men, never worked, +never striven. It had never been necessary for him to do so. He had been +taught that pride of that sort was sinful, and he had accepted the +teaching rather too literally.</p> + +<p>Already a curious sort of change was manifesting in him. His blue eyes +had a different expression than one would have observed in them +during—well, during the period of his theological studies, shall we +say, when the state of his soul and the state of other people's souls +was the only consideration. One would have been troubled to make out any +pronounced personality then. He was simply a studious young man with a +sanctimonious air. But now that the wind and the sun had somewhat turned +his fair skin and brought out a goodly crop of freckles, now that the +vigor of his movements and the healthy perspiration had rumpled up his +reddish-brown hair and put a wave in it, he could—standing up on his +log—easily have passed for a husky woodsman; until some experienced eye +observed him make such sorry work of a woodsman's task. He had acquired +no skill with the axe. That takes time. But he made vigorous endeavor, +and he was beginning to feel strength flow through him, to realize it as +a potential blessing. Now that the soreness was working out of his +sinews it gave him a peculiar elation to lay hold of a log-end, to heave +until his arms and back grew rigid, and to feel the heavy weight move. +That exultant sense of physical power was quite new and rather puzzling +to him. He could not understand why he enjoyed chopping logs and moving +them about, and yet was prone to grow moody, to be full of disquieting +perplexities when he sat down to think.</p> + +<p>He had been at work for perhaps two hours. He was resting. To be +explicit, he was standing on a fallen tree. Between his feet there was a +notch cut half-way through the wood. In this white gash the blade of his +axe was driven solidly, and he rested his hands on the rigid haft while +he stood drawing gulps of forest-scented air into his lungs.</p> + +<p>Mr. Thompson was not gifted with eyes in the back of his head. His +hearing was keen enough, but the soft, turfy earth absorbed footfalls, +especially when that foot was shod with a buckskin moccasin. So he did +not see Sophie Carr, nor hear her until a thought that was running in +his mind slipped off the end of his tongue.</p> + +<p>"This is going to make a terrible amount of labor."</p> + +<p>He said this aloud, in a matter-of-fact tone.</p> + +<p>"And a terrible waste of labor," Sophie answered him.</p> + +<p>He looked quickly over one shoulder, saw her standing there, got down +off his log—blushing a little at his comparative nakedness. It seemed +to him that he must appear shockingly nude, since the upper part of his +body was but thinly covered by a garment that opened wide over his +breast. He felt a good deal like a shy girl first appearing on the beach +in an abbreviated bathing suit. But Sophie seemed unconscious of his +embarrassment, or the cause of it. However, Mr. Thompson picked up his +coat, and felt more at ease when he had slipped it on. He sat down, +still breathing heavily from his recent exertions.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," she said—and left the sentence unfinished, save by an +outward motion of her hands that might have meant anything. But she +smiled, and Mr. Thompson observed that she had fine, white, even teeth. +Each time he saw her some salient personal feature seemed to claim his +attention. To be sure he had seen other girls with good teeth and red +lips and other physical charms perhaps as great as Sophie Carr's. But +these things had never riveted his attention. There was something about +this girl that quickened every fiber of his being. And even while she +made him always acutely conscious of her bodily presence, he was a +little bit afraid of her. He had swift, discomforting visions of her +standing afar beckoning to him, and of himself unable to resist, no +matter what the penalty. She stirred up things in his mind that made him +blush. He was conscious of a desire to touch her hand, to kiss her. He +found himself totally unable to close the gates of his mind against such +thoughts when she was near him. And it was self-generated within him. +Sophie Carr was never more than impersonally pleasant to him. Sometimes +she was utterly indifferent. Often she said things about his calling +that made him wince.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," Thompson said abruptly, after a momentary silence, "how it +happens that the men who have been here before me left no trace of +any—any—well, anything? There have been other missionaries. They had +funds. They were stationed here. What did they do? I have been going to +ask your father. I daresay you can tell me yourself."</p> + +<p>The girl laughed, whether at the question or at his earnestness he could +not say.</p> + +<p>"They did nothing," she answered in an amused tone. "What could they do? +You haven't begun to realize yet what a difficult job you've tackled. +The others came here, stayed awhile, threw up their hands and went away. +Their idea of doing good seemed to consist of having a ready-made church +and a ready-made congregation, and to preach nice little, ready-made +religiosities on a Sunday. You can't preach anything to a people who +don't understand a word you say, and who are mostly too busy with more +pressing affairs to listen if they did understand. And you see for +yourself there's no church."</p> + +<p>"But what did these fellows do?" he persisted. That had been puzzling +him.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," she said scornfully "nothing but sit around and complain +about the loneliness and the coarse food and the discouraging outlook. +Then they'd finally go away—go back to where they came from, I +suppose."</p> + +<p>"The last man," Thompson ventured doubtfully. "The factor at Pachugan +told me Mr. Carr assaulted him. That seems rather odd to me, after what +I've seen of your father. Was it so?"</p> + +<p>"The last missionary wasn't what you'd call a good man, in any sense," +Sophie answered frankly. "He was here most of one summer, and toward the +last he showed himself up pretty badly. He developed a nasty trick of +annoying little native girls. Dad thrashed him properly. Dad took it as +a sort of reflection on us. Even the Indians don't approve of that sort +of thing. He left in a hurry, after that."</p> + +<p>Thompson felt his face burn.</p> + +<p>"Things like that made a bad impression," he returned diffidently. "I +suppose in all walks of life there are wolves in sheep's clothing. I +hope it hasn't prejudiced you against churchmen in general."</p> + +<p>"One single incident?" she smiled. "That wouldn't be very logical, would +it? No. We're not so intolerant. I don't suppose dad would actually have +gone the length of thrashing him, if the preacher hadn't taken a high +and mighty tone as a sort of bluff. That particular preacher happened to +be a local nuisance. I suppose in a settled, well-organized community, +public opinion and convention is a check on such men. They keep within +bounds because there's a heavy penalty if they don't. Up here where law +and conventions and so on practically don't exist, men of a certain +stamp aren't long in reverting to pure animalism. It's natural enough, I +dare say. Dad would be the last one to set himself up as a critic of any +one's personal morality. But it isn't very nice, especially for +preachers, who come here posing as the representatives of all that is +good and pure and holy."</p> + +<p>"You get terribly sarcastic at times, Miss Carr," Thompson complained. +"A man can preach the Gospel without losing his manhood."</p> + +<p>"If he had any clear conception of manhood I don't see how he could +devote himself to preaching as a profession," she said composedly. "Of +course, it's perhaps an excellent means of livelihood, but rather a +parasitic means, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>"When Christ came among men He was reviled and despised," Mr. Thompson +declared impressively.</p> + +<p>"Do you consider yourself the prototype of Christ?" the girl inquired +mockingly. "Why, if the man of Galilee could be reincarnated the first +thing He would attack would be the official expounders of Christianity, +with their creeds and formalisms, their temples and their self-seeking. +The Nazarene was a radical. The average preacher is an out-and-out +reactionary."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?" he challenged boldly. "According to your own account +of your life so far, you have never had opportunity to find the truth or +falsity of such a sweeping statement. You've always lived—" he looked +about the enfolding woods—"how can one know what the world outside of +Lake Athabasca is, if one has never been there?"</p> + +<p>She laughed.</p> + +<p>"One can't know positively," she said. "Not from personal experience. +But one can read eagerly, and one can think about what one reads, and +one can draw pretty fair conclusions from history, from what wise men, +real thinkers, have written about this big world one has never seen. And +the official exponents of theology show up rather poorly as helpful +social factors, so far as my study of sociology has gone."</p> + +<p>"You seem to have a grudge against the cloth," Thompson hazarded a +shrewd guess. "I wonder why?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you why," the girl said—and she laughed a little +self-consciously. "My reason tells me it's a silly way to feel. I can +never quite consider theology and the preachers from the same +dispassionate plane that dad can. There's a foolish sense of personal +grievance. Dad had it once, too, but he got over it long ago. I never +have. Perhaps you'll understand if I tell you. My mother was a vain, +silly, emotional sort of person, it seems, with some wonderful capacity +for attracting men. Dad was passionately fond of her. When I was about +three years old my foolish mother ran away with a young minister. After +living with him about six months, wandering about from place to place, +she drowned herself."</p> + +<p>Thompson listened to this recital of human frailty in wonder at the calm +way in which Sophie Carr could speak to him, a stranger, of a tragedy so +intimate. She stopped a second.</p> + +<p>"Dad was all broken up about it," she continued. "He loved my mother +with all her weaknesses—and he's a man with a profound knowledge of and +tolerance for human weaknesses. I daresay he would have been quite +willing to consider the past a blank if she had found out she cared most +for him, and had come back. But, as I said, she drowned herself. We +lived in the eastern States. It simply unrooted dad. He took me and came +away up here and buried himself. Incidentally he buried me too. And I +don't want to be buried. I resent being buried. I hope I shall not +always be a prisoner in these woods. And I grow more and more resentful +against that preacher for giving my father a jolt that made a recluse of +him. Don't you see? That one thing has colored my personal attitude +toward preachers as a class. I can never meet a minister without +thinking of that episode which has kept me here where I never see +another white woman, and very seldom a man. It's really a weak spot in +me, holding a grudge like that. One wouldn't condemn carpenters as a +body because one carpenter botched a house. And still—"</p> + +<p>She made the queer little gesture with her hands that he had noticed +before. And she smiled quite pleasantly at Mr. Thompson in womanly +inconsistency with the attitude she had just been explaining she held +toward ministers.</p> + +<p>"One gets such silly notions," she remarked. "Just like your idea that +you can come here and do good. You can't, you know—not for others—not +by your method. It's absurd. One can help others most, I really believe, +by helping oneself. I've noticed in reading of the phenomena of human +relations that the most pronounced idealists are frequently a sad burden +to others."</p> + +<p>Mr. Thompson found himself at a loss for instant reply. It was a trifle +less direct, more subtle than he liked. It opened hazily paths of +speculation he had never explored because generalizations of that sort +had never been propounded to him—certainly never by a young woman whose +very physical presence disturbed him sadly.</p> + +<p>And while he was turning that last sentence over uncomfortably in his +mind a hail sounded across the meadow. Sophie stood up and waved the tin +bucket she had in her hand. Tommy Ashe came striding toward them. He, +too, carried a tin bucket.</p> + +<p>"We're going to a blackberry patch down the creek," Sophie answered +Thompson's involuntary look of inquiry. "Get a pail and come along."</p> + +<p>"I must work," Thompson shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Berry-picking's work, if work is what you want," she retorted. "You'd +think so by the time you'd picked a hundred quarts or more and preserved +them for winter use. But then I suppose <i>your</i> winter supply will +emanate from some mysterious, beneficent source, without any effort on +your part. How fortunate that will be."</p> + +<p>She tempered this sally with a laugh, and being presently joined by +Tommy Ashe, set off toward the bank of Lone Moose, leaving Mr. Thompson +sitting on his log, indulging in some very mixed reflections.</p> + +<p>The task he was engaged upon seemed suddenly to have lost its savor. +Whether this arose from a depressing sense of inability to deny the +truth of much that Sophie Carr had just said, or from the fact that as +he sat there looking after them he found himself envying Tommy Ashe's +pleasant intimacy with the girl, he could not say. Indeed, he did not +inquire too closely of himself. Some of the conclusions he was latterly +arriving at were so radically different from what he was accustomed to +accepting that he was a little bit afraid of them.</p> + +<p>It took him a considerable time to get back into a proper working frame +of mind. The progress of his wooden edifice suffered by that much. When +he went trudging home at last, sweaty and tired, with his axe over one +shoulder, he was wondering frankly if, after all, it was either wise or +necessary to establish a mission at Lone Moose. What good could he or +any other man possibly do there? The logical and proper answer to that +did not spring as readily to his lips as it would have done at the time +of his appointment by the Board of Home Missions.</p> + +<p>Along with that he was troubled by a constant recurrence of his thoughts +to Sophie Carr. Nor was it a matter of wonder at her bookish knowledge, +her astonishing vocabulary, her ability to think and to express her +thoughts concisely. He conceded that she was a remarkable young woman in +that respect. It was not her intellectual capacity which concerned him +greatly, but the sunny aureole of her hair, the smiling curve of her +lips, the willowy pliancy of her well-developed body. Just to think of +her meant a colorful picture, a vision that filled him with uneasy +restlessness, with vague dissatisfaction, with certain indefinable +longings.</p> + +<p>He was quite unable to define to himself the purport of these remarkable +symptoms.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII"></a><h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>A SLIP OF THE AXE</h3> +<br> + +<p>Mr. Thompson gradually became aware of a change in the season. The +calendar lost a good deal of its significance up there, partly because +he had no calendar and partly because one day was so much a duplicate of +another that the flitting of time escaped his notice. But he became +conscious that the days grew shorter, the nights a shade more cool, and +that the atmosphere was taking on that hazy, mellow stillness which +makes Indian Summer a period of rare beauty in the North. He took +serious stock of elapsed time then, and found to his surprise that it +was September the fifteenth.</p> + +<p>He had not accomplished much. The walls of his church stood about the +level of his head. It grew increasingly difficult for him alone to hoist +the logs into place. The door and window spaces were out of square. +Without help he did not see how he was going to rectify these small +errors and get the roof on. Even after it should be roofed, the cracks +chinked and daubed with mud, the doors and windows in place—what then?</p> + +<p>He would still lack hearers for the message which he daily grew a little +more doubtful of his ability to deliver. A native streak of stubbornness +kept him studying the language along with his daily tussle with the axe +and saw. But the rate of his progress was such that he pessimistically +calculated that it would take him at least two years before he could +preach with any degree of understanding in the Athabascan tongue.</p> + +<p>So far he had never gone the length of candidly asking himself whether +by then it would be a task he could put his heart into, if he were even +fitted for such a work, or if it were a useful and worthy task if he +were gifted with a fitness for it. He had been taught that preaching the +gospel was a divinely appointed function. He had not questioned that. +But he had now a lively sense of difficulties hitherto unreckoned, and +an ill-stifled doubt of the good that might accrue. His blank ignorance +of the salient points of human contact, of why men work and play, why +they love and fight and marry and bend all their energies along certain +given lines until they grow old and gray and in the end cease to be, +only served to bewilder him. His association with Tommy Ashe and with +Carr and Carr's daughter—especially with Carr's daughter—further +accentuated the questioning uncertainty of his mind.</p> + +<p>But that was all—merely an uncertainty which he tried to dissipate by +prayer and stern repression of smoldering doubts. At the same time while +he decried and resented their outspoken valuation of material +considerations he found himself constantly subject to those material +factors of daily living.</p> + +<p>The first of these was food. When Mr. Thompson outfitted himself for +that spiritual invasion of Lone Moose he brought in four months' +supplies. He discovered now that his supply of certain articles was not +so adequate as he had been told it would be. Also he had learned from +Carr and Lachlan that if a man wintered at Lone Moose it was well to +bring in a winter's grub before the freeze-up—the canoe being a far +easier mode of transport than a dog-team and sled.</p> + +<p>So Thompson stopped his building activities long enough to make a trip +to Pachugan. He got Lachlan's oldest son to go with him. His quarterly +salary was due, and he had a rather reluctant report of his work to +make. With the money he would be able to replenish his stock of sugar +and tea and dried fruit and flour. He decided too that he would have to +buy a gun and learn to use it as the source of his meat supply.</p> + +<p>His sublime confidence in the organization which had sent him there +suffered a decided shock when he reached Fort Pachugan, and found no +remittance awaiting him. There was a letter from the Board secretary +breathing exhortations which sounded rather hollow in conjunction with +the absence of funds. Mr. Thompson, for the first time in his career, +found himself badly in need of money, irritated beyond measure by its +lack, painfully cognizant of its value. But he was too diffident to +suggest a credit on the strength of the cheque which, upon reflection, +he decided was merely delayed in the more or less uncertain mails. He +could make shift with what he had for another month. Nor did he mention +this slight difficulty to MacLeod.</p> + +<p>That gentleman had greeted him heartily enough.</p> + +<p>"Man, but ye look as if the country agreed wi' you," he observed, after +an appraising glance. "How goes the good work at Lone Moose?"</p> + +<p>"There are difficulties," Thompson responded with an unintentional +touch of ambiguity. "But I daresay I'll manage in time to overcome +them."</p> + +<p>He discovered in himself a disinclination to talk about his labors in +that field.</p> + +<p>MacLeod smiled and forbore to press the subject. There were sundry +parcels for Sam Carr, a letter or two, and a varied assortment of +magazines. Thompson took these, after tarrying overnight at the post, +and started home, refusing MacLeod's cordial invitation to stay over a +day or two. He would be back again when the next mail was due, a matter +of four or five weeks. And late that same evening, by dint of a +favorable breeze that kept the canoe flying, and some hard pulling up +Lone Moose Creek, Thompson and the breed boy reached home.</p> + +<p>Young Lachlan went off to his cabin. Mr. Thompson conscientiously lugged +the assortment of parcels and magazines over to Sam Carr's house, duly +delivered the three letters to Carr himself, and—for reasons that he +could not define as anything but an unwarrantable access of +shyness—declining the first invitation he had ever received to break +bread at Carr's table, hurried back to his own primitive quarters. +Perhaps the fact that Sophie Carr, curled up in a big chair, smiled at +him in a way that made his pulses quicken had something to do with his +hasty retreat. He was wary of the impulses and emotions she never failed +to stir in him when he was near her. There were times when he suspected +that she was aware of this power—which in his naïve conception of women +he believed almost uncanny in her—and that she amused herself by +exercising it upon him. And he resented that.</p> + +<p>So he did not stay long enough to observe Carr lay two of his letters on +the table after a brief glance, and sit looking fixedly at the third, +which by the length of envelope and thickness of enclosure might +conceivably have contained some document of a legal or official nature.</p> + +<p>Carr looked at this letter a long time before he tore it open. He took a +still longer time to peruse its contents. He sat for several minutes +thereafter turning the sheets over and over in his lean fingers, until +in fact he became aware that his daughter's eyes were fixed on him with +a lively curiosity in their gray depths.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Dad?" she asked, as he tucked envelope and foolscap pages +into the inside pocket of his coat.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing much," he said shortly.</p> + +<p>But he leaned back in his chair and immediately became absorbed in +thought that accentuated the multitude of fine lines about his eyes and +drew his lips together in a narrow line. Sophie sat regarding him with a +look of wonder.</p> + +<p>This trifling incident, naturally, did not come under the notice of Mr. +Thompson. Conceivably he would not have noticed had he been present, nor +have been in any degree interested.</p> + +<p>He was, as a matter of fact, fully occupied at that precise moment with +the painful and disagreeable consequences of attempting to split +kindling by lantern light. To be specific the axe had glanced and cut a +deep gash in one side of his foot.</p> + +<p>At about the particular moment in which Sam Carr leaned back in his +chair and fell into that brown study of a matter that was to have a +far-reaching effect, Mr. Thompson was seated on his haunches on his +cabin floor, his hands stained with blood and a considerable trail of +red marking his progress from woodpile to cabin. His face was white, and +his hands rather shaky by the time he finished binding up the wound. The +cut stung and burned. When he essayed to move he found himself quite +effectually crippled.</p> + +<p>For the first time in his twenty-five years of carefully directed +existence Mr. Thompson swore a loud, round, Anglo-Saxon oath. Whether +this relieved his pent-up feelings or not he appeared to suffer no +remorse for the burst of profanity. Instead, he rose and limped +painfully about the building of a fire and the preparation of his +supper.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>—AND THE FRUITS THEREOF</h3> +<br> + +<p>Mr. Thompson slept fitfully that night. A hard day's paddling had left +him tired and sleepy, but the swarm of pain-devils in his slashed foot +destroyed his rest. When he got up at daylight and examined the wound +again he found himself afflicted with a badly swollen foot and ankle, +and a steady dull ache that extended upward past the knee. He was next +to helpless since every movement produced the most acute sort of +pain—sufficiently so that when he had made shift to get some breakfast +he could scarcely eat. In the course of his experiments in self-aid he +discovered that to lie flat on his back with the slashed foot raised +higher than his body gave a measure of ease. So he adopted this position +and stoically set out to endure the hurt. He lay in that position the +better part of the day—until, in fact, four in the afternoon brought +Sam Carr, shotgun in hand, to his door.</p> + +<p>Carr had seldom been in the cabin. This evening, for some reason, he put +his head in the door, and whistled softly at sight of Thompson's +bandaged foot cocked up on a folded overcoat.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," he said, standing his gun against the door casing and +coming in. "What have you done to yourself now?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I cut my foot with the axe last night, worse luck," Thompson +responded petulantly.</p> + +<p>"Bad?" Carr inquired.</p> + +<p>"Bad enough."</p> + +<p>"Let me see it," Carr suggested. "It's a long way to a sawbones, and +Providence never seems quite able to cope with germs of infection. Have +you any sort of antiseptic dressing on it?"</p> + +<p>Thompson shook his head. He would not confess that the pain and swelling +had caused him certain misgivings, brought to his mind uneasily a good +deal that he had read and heard of blood-poisoning from cuts and +scratches. He was secretly glad to let Carr undo the rude bandage and +examine the wound. A man who had spent fifteen years in the wilderness +must have had to cope with similar cases.</p> + +<p>"You did give yourself a nasty nick and no mistake," Carr observed. "You +won't walk on that foot comfortably for two or three weeks. Just grazed +a bone. No carbolic, no peroxide, or anything like that, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>Thompson shook his head. He had not reckoned on cuts and bruises. Carr +put back the wrapping and sat whittling shavings of tobacco off a brown +plug, while Thompson got up, hopped on one foot across to the stove and +began to lay a fire. He had eaten nothing since morning, and was +correspondingly hungry. In addition, a certain unministerial pride +stirred him to action. He was ashamed to lie supinely enduring, to seem +helpless before another man's eyes. But the effort showed in his face.</p> + +<p>Carr lit his pipe and watched silently. His gaze took in every detail +of the cabin's interior, of Thompson's painful movements, of the poorly +cooked remains of breakfast that he was warming up.</p> + +<p>"You'll put that foot in a bad way if you try to use it much," he said +at last. "The best thing you can do is to come home with me and lie +around till you can walk again. I've got stuff to dress it properly. +Think you can hobble across the clearing if I make you a temporary +crutch?"</p> + +<p>Thompson at first declined to be such a source of trouble. He was +grateful enough, but reluctant. Carr, however, went about it in a way +that permitted nothing short of a boorish refusal, and presently Mr. +Thompson found himself, with a crutch made of a forked willow, crossing +the meadow to Sam Carr's house.</p> + +<p>His instincts had more or less subconsciously warned him that it would +not be well for his peace of mind or the good of his soul to be in +intimate daily contact with Sophie Carr. But his general inability to +cope with emergencies—which was patent enough to a practical man if not +wholly so to himself—culminating in this misadventure with a sharp axe, +had brought about that very circumstance.</p> + +<p>He had not looked for such a kindly office on the part of Sam Carr. That +individual's caustic utterances and critical attitude toward theology +had not forewarned Thompson that sympathy and kindliness were +fundamental attributes with Sam Carr. If he had an acid tongue his heart +was tender enough. But Carr was no sentimentalist. When he had bestowed +Thompson in a comfortable room and painstakingly dressed the injured +foot he left his patient much to his own devices—and to the +ministrations of his daughter.</p> + +<p>As a consequence, while the wound in his foot healed rapidly, Mr. +Thompson suffered a more grievous injury to his heart. Sophie Carr +affected him much as strong drink affects men with weak heads. The more +he saw of her the more he desired to see, to feast his eyes on her +loveliness—and invariably, when alone, to berate himself for such a +weakness. He had never dreamed that a man could feel that way about a +woman. He did not see why he, of all men, should succumb to the +fascination of a girl like Sophie Carr.</p> + +<p>But the emotion was undeniable. Perhaps Sophie would have been surprised +if she could have known the amount of repression Mr. Thompson gradually +became compelled to practice when she was with him.</p> + +<p>That was frequently enough. They were all good to him. From Carr's +Indian woman—who could, he now learned, speak passable English—down to +the sloe-eyed youngest Carr of mixed blood, they accepted him as one of +themselves. However, it happened to be Sophie who waited on him most, +who impishly took the greatest liberties with him, who was never averse +to an argument on any subject Thompson cared to touch. He had never +supposed there was a normal being with views on religion and economics, +upon any manifestation of human problems, with views so contrary to his +own. The maddening part of it was her ability to cite facts and +authorities whose existence he was not aware of, to confute him with +logic and compel him to admit that he did not know, that much of what he +asserted so emphatically was based on mere belief rather than +demonstrable fact or rational processes of arriving at a conclusion. +Sometimes both Sam Carr and Tommy Ashe were present at these oral tilts, +sitting back in silent amusement at Mr. Thompson's intellectual +floundering.</p> + +<p>A clean cut in the flesh of a healthy man heals quickly. In two weeks +Thompson could put his full weight on the injured member without pain or +any tendency to reopening the wound. Whereupon he repaired to his cabin +again, in a state of mind that was very disturbing. Without accepting +any of the Carr dictums upon theology and theological activities, he was +fast growing doubtful of his fitness for the job of herding other people +into the fold. He found himself with a growing disinclination for such a +task as his life work. Since that was the only thing he had any aptitude +for or training in, when he thought of cutting loose and facing the +world at large without the least idea of what he should do or how he +should do it, he perceived himself in a good deal of a dilemma.</p> + +<p>He was growing sure of one thing. Over and above the good of his soul +and other people's souls, a man must eat—to put it baldly. He should +earn his keep. He must indeed calculate upon provision for two. Mr. +Thompson had made the common mistake of believing himself +self-sufficient, and Sophie Carr had unwittingly taught him that a male +celibate was an anomaly in nature's reckoning. He had thought himself +immune from the ordinary passions of humanity. The strangest part of it +was a saddened gladness that he was not. Somehow, he did not want to be +a spiritual superman. He would rather love and struggle and suffer than +stand aloof, thanking God that he was not, like the Pharisees, as other +men. Sitting moodily by his rusty stove he confessed to himself that a +man who would gladly give up his hopes of eternal salvation for the +privilege of folding Sophie Carr close in his arms had no business in +the ministry—unless he simply wanted to hold down an easy, salaried +job.</p> + +<p>Whatever other sorts of a fool he might have been Thompson was no +hypocrite. He had never consciously looked upon the ministry as a man +looks upon a business career—a succession of steps to success, to an +assured social and financial position. Yet when he turned the +searchlight of analysis upon his motives he could not help seeing that +this was the very thing he had unwittingly been doing—that he had +expected and hoped for his progress through missionary work and small +churches eventually to bestow upon him a call to a wider field—a call +which Sam Carr had callously suggested meant neither more nor less than +a bigger church, a wider social circle, a bigger salary. And Thompson +could see that he had been looking forward to these things as a just +reward, and he could see too how the material benefits in them were the +lure. He had been coached and primed for that. His inclination had been +sedulously directed into that channel. His enthusiasm had been the +enthusiasm of one who seeks to serve and feels wholly competent.</p> + +<p>But he doubted both his fitness and his inclination now. He said to +himself that when a man loses heart in his work he should abandon that +work. He tried to muster up a resentful feeling against Sophie Carr for +the emotional havoc she had wrought, and the best he could do was a +despairing pang of loneliness. He wanted her. Above all he wanted her. +And she was a rank infidel—a crass materialist—an intellectual Circe. +Why, in the name of God, he asked himself passionately, must <i>he</i> lose +his heart so fully to a woman with whom he could have nothing more in +common save the common factor that she was a woman and he a man.</p> + +<p>Mr. Thompson had not as yet discovered what a highly important factor +that last was.</p> + +<p>He managed to get a partial insight into that some three days later, and +the vision was vouchsafed him in a simple and natural manner, although +to him at the time it seemed the most wonderful and unaccountable thing +in the world.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IX"></a><h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>UNIVERSAL ATTRIBUTES</h3> +<br> + +<p>Afterward Thompson could never quite determine what prompted him to +follow Sophie Carr when he saw her go down toward the creek bank. He was +on his way to Carr's house, driven thither by pure pressure of +loneliness, born of three days' solitary communion within the limits of +his own shack. He wanted to hear a human voice again. And it was a +vagrant, unaccountable impulse that sent him after Sophie instead of +directing him straight to Carr's living room, where her father would +probably be sitting, pipe in mouth, book in hand.</p> + +<p>He hurried with long strides after Sophie. She dipped below the sloping +bank before he came up, and when he came noiselessly down to the grassy +bank she stood leaning against a tree, gazing at the sluggish flow of +Lone Moose.</p> + +<p>He had seen her in moods that varied from feminine pettishness to the +teasingly mischievous. But he had never seen her in quite the same pitch +of spirits that caught his attention as soon as he reached her side.</p> + +<p>There was something bubbling within her, some repressed excitement that +kindled a glow in her gray eyes, kept a curiously happy smile playing +about her lips.</p> + +<p>And that magnetic something that drew the heart out of Thompson, +afflicting him with a maddening surge of impulses, had never functioned +so strongly.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked abruptly. "You seem—you look—"</p> + +<p>He stopped short. It was not what he meant to say. He tried to avoid the +intimately personal when he was with her. He knew the danger of those +sweet familiarities—to himself. But he had blurted out the question +before he was aware. He was standing so close to her that a little +whirling breeze blew a strand of her yellow hair across his face. That +tenuous contact made him quiver, gave him a queer intoxicating thrill.</p> + +<p>"Does it show so plainly as that?" she smiled. "It's a secret. A really +wonderful secret. I'm just bursting to talk about it, but I mustn't. +Talking might break the spell. Do you—along with your other naïve +beliefs—believe in spells, Mr. Thompson?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered simply. "In yours."</p> + +<p>Her eyes danced. She laughed softly, deep in her throat, like a meadow +lark in spring.</p> + +<p>"That's the first time I ever knew you to indulge in irony," she said.</p> + +<p>"It isn't irony," he answered moodily. "It's the honest truth."</p> + +<p>"Poor man," she said gaily. "I'd be flattered to death to think a simple +backwoods maiden could make such a profound impression on a young man +from the city—but it isn't so."</p> + +<p>She turned her head sidewise, like a saucy bird, regarding him with mock +gravity, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. Mr. Thompson had a long arm +and he stood close to her, tantalizingly close. She was smiling. Her +lips parted redly over white, even teeth, and as Thompson bent that +moody somber gaze on her, her breath seemed to come suddenly a little +faster, making her round breast flutter—and a faint tinge of pink stole +up to color the soft whiteness of her neck, up into the smooth round of +her cheeks.</p> + +<p>Thompson's arm closed about her, his lips grazed her cheek as she +twisted her head to evade him. That minor show of resistance stirred all +the primitive instincts that active or dormant lurk in every strong man. +He twisted her head roughly, and as naturally as water flows down hill +their lips met. He felt the girl's body nestle with a little tremor +closer to his, felt with an odd exaltation the quick hammer of her heart +against his breast. He held her tight, and her face slowly drew away +from him, and turned shyly against his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"It is so, and you know it's so," he whispered hoarsely. "Sophie, I +wish—"</p> + +<p>She freed herself from his embrace with a sudden twist. Her breath went +out in a little gasp. She looked over her shoulder once, and up at +Thompson, and a wave of red swept up over her fresh young face and dyed +it to the roots of her sunny hair. For a brief instant her hand lingered +in Thompson's, bestowing a quick and tender pressure. Then she was gone +up the bank with a bound like a startled deer.</p> + +<p>Thompson turned. Ten yards out in the stream Tommy Ashe's red canoe +drifted, and Tommy sat in the stern, his wet paddle poised as if he had +halted it midway of a stroke, his body bent forward, tense as that of a +beast crouched to spring.</p> + +<p>The bow of the canoe grounded. Ashe laid down his paddle, stepped +forward and ashore, hauling the craft's nose high with one hand. His +gaze never left Thompson's face. He came slowly up, his round, boyish +countenance white and hard and ugly, his eyes smoldering. Thompson felt +his own face hardening into the same ugly lines. He felt himself +threatened. Without being fully aware of his act he had dropped into a +belligerent pose, head and shoulders thrust forward, one foot drawn +back, hands clenched. This was purely instinctive. That Tommy Ashe had +seen him kiss Sophie Carr and was advancing upon him in jealous fury did +not occur to Thompson at all.</p> + +<p>"You beggar," Ashe gritted, "is it part of your system of saving souls +to kiss a girl as if—"</p> + +<p>The quality of his tone would have stung a less sensitive man. With +Sophie Carr's lip-pressure fresh and warm upon his own Thompson was in +that exalted mood wherein a man is like an open powder keg. And Tommy +Ashe had supplied the spark. A most unchristian flash of anger shot +through him. His reply was an earnest, if ill-directed blow. This Tommy +dodged by the simplest expedient of twisting his head sidewise without +moving his body, and launched at the same time a return jab which neatly +smacked against Thompson's jaw.</p> + +<p>Tommy Ashe was wonderfully quick on his feet and a powerful man to boot. +Moreover he had a certain dexterity with his fists. He was in deadly +earnest, as a man is when matters of sex lead him to a personal clash. +But he found pitted against him a man equally powerful, a man whose +extra reach and weight offset the advantage in skill, a man who gave and +took blows with silent ferocity.</p> + +<p>Thompson, in all his carefully ordered life, had never fought. He fought +now as if his life depended upon it. Each blow he gave and took brought +to the surface a furious determination. He was not conscious of real +pain, although he knew that his lips were cut and bleeding, that his +cheeks were bruised and cut where Tommy Ashe's hard-knuckled fists +landed with impressive force, that his heart pounded sickeningly against +his ribs, and that every breath was a rasping gasp. Nor was he conscious +of pity when he saw that Tommy Ashe was in no better case. It seemed fit +and proper that they should struggle like that. There was a strange sort +of pleasure in it. It seemed natural, as natural an act as he had ever +performed. The shock of his clenched fist driven with all his force +against the other man's body thrilled him, gave him a curious +satisfaction. And that satisfaction took on a keener edge when Ashe +clinched and they fell to the earth a struggling, squirming heap—for +Thompson felt a tremendous power in his arms, in those arms covered with +flat elastic bands of muscle hardened by weeks of axe-slinging, of +heaving on heavy logs. He wrapped his arms about Ashe and tried to crush +him.</p> + +<p>One trial of that fierce grip enlightened Tommy Ashe. He broke loose +from Thompson by a trick known to every man who has ever wrestled, and +clawed away to his feet. Thereafter he kept clear of grips. Quick, with +some skill at boxing, he could get home two blows to Thompson's one. But +he could not down his man. Nor could Thompson. They struck and parried, +circling and dodging, till their lungs were on fire, and neither had +strength enough left to strike a telling blow.</p> + +<p>The rage had gone out of them by then. It had become a dogged struggle +for mastery. And failing that, there came a moment when they staggered +apart and stood glaring at each other, choking for breath. As they +stood, Tommy Ashe spoke first.</p> + +<p>"You're a tough bird—for a parson."</p> + +<p>He gasped the words.</p> + +<p>With the dying out of that senseless fury a peculiar feeling of elation +came to Thompson, as if he had proved himself upon a doubtful matter. He +was ready to go on. But why? That question urged itself upon him. He +recalled that he had struck the first blow.</p> + +<p>"I think—I started this, didn't I?" he said. "I'm willing to finish it, +if you want to—but isn't it—isn't it rather foolish?"</p> + +<p>"No end foolish. Don't think we'd ever finish," Ashe said with a gleam +of his old humor. "Let's call it a draw. I feel a bit ashamed of myself +by now."</p> + +<p>Somewhere, sometime, Mr. Thompson had heard that men who fought shook +hands when the struggle was ended—a little ceremony that served to +restore the <i>status quo</i>. He had not the least rancor against Tommy +Ashe. It had all seeped away in the blind fury of that clash. He thrust +out a hand upon which the knuckles were cut and bloody. And the man upon +whose countenance he had bruised those knuckles took it with a wry +self-conscious smile.</p> + +<p>Then they drew a little apart and squatted on the bank of the creek to +lave their battered faces in the cold water.</p> + +<p>For a period of possibly five minutes they sat dabbling water-soaked +handkerchiefs upon their faces. The blood ceased to ooze from Thompson's +nostrils. Tommy Ashe looked over at his late antagonist and remarked +casually.</p> + +<p>"We're a pair of capital idiots, eh, Thompson?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Thompson tried to smile. But his countenance was swelling rapidly +and was in no condition for smiling. He mustered up a grimace, nodding +assent.</p> + +<p>"I hope Sophie didn't see us making such asses of ourselves," Tommy +continued ruefully.</p> + +<p>"I hardly think she would," Thompson returned. "It couldn't have been +the sort of spectacle a woman would care to watch."</p> + +<p>"You never can tell about a woman," Ashe observed thoughtfully. "Nor," +he added, "a man. I could never have imagined myself going off +half-cocked like that. I suppose the primitive brute in us is never +really far from the surface. Especially in this country. There's +something," he looked up at the surrounding depths of forest, down along +the dusky channel of Lone Moose, curving away among the spruce, "there's +something about this infernal solitude that brings out the savage. I've +noticed it in little things. We're loosed, in a way, from all restraint, +except what we put upon ourselves. Funny world, eh? You couldn't +imagine two chaps like us mauling each other like a pair of bruisers in +Mrs. Grundy's drawing-room, could you? Over a girl—oh, well, it'll be +all the same a hundred years from now."</p> + +<p>There was nothing apologetic in either Tommy's tone or words. Thompson +understood. Tommy Ashe was thinking out loud, that was all. And +presently, after another silent interval, he stood up.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll be getting back to my own diggings," he said. "So long, +old man."</p> + +<p>He nodded, pushed off his canoe and stepped aboard. In a minute he was +gone around the bend, driving the red canoe with slow, deliberate +strokes.</p> + +<p>Mr. Thompson gave over musing upon Tommy Ashe and Tommy's words and +attitude, and began to take stock of himself. It seemed to him that +Tommy Ashe felt ashamed of himself, whereas by all the precepts of his +earlier life and the code he had assimilated during that formative +period he, Wesley Thompson, was the one who should suffer a sense of +shame. And he felt no shame. On the contrary he experienced nothing more +than an astonishing feeling of exhilaration. Why, he could not +determine. It was un-Christian, undignified, brutal, to give and take +blows, to feel that vicious determination to smash another man with his +bare fists, to know the unholy joy of getting a blow home with all the +weight of his body behind it. Mr. Thompson was a trifle dazed, a trifle +uncertain. His face was puffed out of its natural contours, and very +tender in spots to touch. He knew that he must be a sight. There was a +grievous stiffness creeping over his arms and shoulders, an ache in his +ribs, as his heated body began to cool. But he was not sorry for +anything. He experienced no regrets. Only a heady feeling that for once +in his life he had met an emergency and had been equal to the demand.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the sweet memory of Sophie Carr's warm lips on his had something +to do with this.</p> + +<p>At any rate he rose after a little and followed the creek bank to a +point well down stream, whence he crossed through the fringe of timber +to his cabin.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_X"></a><h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN</h3> +<br> + +<p>Between the queer mixture of emotions which beset him and the discomfort +of his bruised face and over-strained body Thompson turned and twisted, +and sleep withheld its restful oblivion until far in the night. As a +consequence he slept late. Dawn had grown old before he wakened.</p> + +<p>When he opened his cabin door he was confronted by the dourest aspect of +the north that he had yet seen. The sky was banked full of slate-gray +clouds scudding low before a northeast wind that droned its melancholy +song in the swaying spruce tops, a song older than the sorrows of men, +the essence of all things forlorn in its minor cadences. A gray, clammy +day, tinged with the chill breath of coming snow. Thompson missed the +sun that had cheered and warmed those hushed solitudes. Just to look at +that dull sky and to hear the wind that was fast stripping the last sere +leaves from willow and maple and birch, and to feel that indefinable +touch of harshness, the first frigid fingerings of the frost-gods in the +air, gave him a swift touch of depression. He shivered a little. Turning +to his wood box he hastened to build a fire in the stove.</p> + +<p>He stoked that rusty firebox until by the time he had cooked and eaten +breakfast it was glowing red. When he sat with his feet cocked up on the +stove front and gave himself up to the sober business of thought, it +seemed to him that he was passing a portentous milestone. To his +unsophisticated mind the simple fact that Sophie Carr had permitted him +to kiss her, that for a moment her head with its fluffy aureole of +yellow hair had rested willingly upon his shoulder, created a bond +between them, an understanding, a tentative promise, a cleaving together +that could have but one conclusion. He found himself reflecting upon +that—to him—most natural conclusion with a peculiar mixture of +gladness and doubt. For even in his exaltation he could not visualize +Sophie Carr as an ideal minister's helpmate. He simply could not. He +could hear too plainly the scorn of her tone as she spoke of +"parasitical parsons", of "unthinking acceptance of priestly myths", of +the Church, his Church, as "an organization essentially materialistic in +its aims and activities", and many more such phrases which were new and +startling to Thompson, even if they had been current among radical +thinkers long enough to become incorporated in a great deal that has +been written upon philosophy and theology.</p> + +<p>Sophie didn't believe in his God, nor his work; he stopped short of +asking if he himself any longer had full and implicit belief in these +things, or if he had simply accepted them without question as he had +accepted so many other things in his brief career. But she believed in +<i>him</i> and cared for him. He took that for granted too. And love covers +a multitude of sins. He had often had occasion to discourse upon various +sorts of love—fatherly love and brotherly love and maternal affection +and so on. But this flare of passionate tenderness focussing upon one +slender bit of a girl was something he could not quite fathom. He would +have contradicted with swift anger any suggestion that perhaps it was +merely wise old Nature's ancient method efficiently at work for an +appointed end. He had been so thoroughly grounded in the convention of +decrying physical impulses, of putting everything upon a pure and +spiritual plane, that in this first emotional crisis of his life he +could no more help dodging first principles than a spaniel pup can help +swimming when he is first tossed into deep water.</p> + +<p>Still—he was not a fool. He knew that his concern was not for Sophie +Carr's immortal soul, nor for the beauty and sweetness of her spirit, +when he was near her, when he touched her hand, nor even in that supreme +moment when he crushed her close to his unquiet heart and pressed that +hot kiss on her lips. It was the sheer flesh and blood womanliness of +her that made his heart beat faster, the sweet curve of her lips, the +willowy grace of her body, the odd little gestures of her hands, the +melody of her voice and the gray pools of her eyes, eyes full of queer +gleams and curious twinkles—all these things were indescribably +beautiful to him. He loved her—just the girl herself. He wanted her, +craved her presence; not the pleasant memory of her, but the forthright +physical nearness of her he desired with an intensity that was like a +fever.</p> + +<p>Just the excitement of feeling—as according to his lights he had a +right to feel—that they stood pledged, made it hard for him to get down +to fundamentals and consider rationally the question of marriage, of +their future, of how his appointed work could be made to dovetail with +the union of two such diverse personalities as himself and Sophie Carr.</p> + +<p>A hodge podge of this sort was turning over in his mind as he sat there, +now and then absently feeling the dusky puffiness under one eye and the +tender spot on the bridge of his nose where Tommy Ashe's hard knuckles +had peeled away the skin. He still had a most un-Christian satisfaction +in the belief that he had given as good as he had got. He was not +ashamed of having fought. He would fight again, any time, anywhere, for +Sophie Carr. He did not ask himself whether the combative instinct once +aroused might not function for lesser cause.</p> + +<p>He came out of this reverie at the faint rustle of footsteps beyond his +door—which was open because of the hot fire he had built.</p> + +<p>He did not suspect that the source of those footsteps might be Sophie +Carr until she stood unmistakably framed in the doorway. He rose to his +feet with a glad cry of welcome, albeit haltingly articulated. He was +suddenly reluctant to face her with the marks of conflict upon his face.</p> + +<p>"May I come in?" she asked coolly—and suited her action to the request +before he made reply.</p> + +<p>She sat down on a box just within the door and looked soberly at him, +scanning his face. Her hands lay quietly in her lap and she did not +seem to see Thompson's involuntarily extended arms. There was about her +none of the glowing witchery of yesterday. She lifted to him a face +thoughtful, even a little sad. And Thompson's hands fell, his heart +keeping them company. It was as if the somberness of those wind-swept +woods had crept into his cabin. It stilled the rush of words that +quivered on his lips. Sophie, indeed, found utterance first.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry that you and Tommy fought," she said constrainedly. "I didn't +know until this morning. It was cowardly of me to run away. But it was +foolish to fight. It didn't occur to me that you two would. I suppose +you wonder what brought me here. I was worried for fear you had been +hurt. I saw Tommy, but he wouldn't talk."</p> + +<p>"I daresay I'm not a pretty object to look at," Thompson admitted. "But +I'm really not much the worse."</p> + +<p>"No. I can see that," she said. "Tommy is very quick and very strong—I +was a little afraid."</p> + +<p>The contrition, the hint of pity in her voice stirred up the queer +personal pride he had lately acquired.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose Ashe has any monopoly of strength and quickness," he +remarked. "That—but there, I don't want to talk about that."</p> + +<p>He came over close beside her and looked down with all his troubled +heart in his clear blue eyes—so that the girl turned her gaze away and +her fingers wove nervously together.</p> + +<p>"My dear," the unaccustomed phrase broke abruptly, with a fierce +tenderness, from his lips. "I love you—which I think you know without +my saying so. I want you. Will you marry me? I—"</p> + +<p>Sophie warded off the impetuous outstretching of his arms and sprang to +her feet, facing him with all the delicate color gone out of her cheeks, +a sudden heave to her breast. She shook her head. "No," she said. "I +won't penalize myself to that extent—nor you. I won't bind myself by +any such promise. I won't even admit that I might."</p> + +<p>He caught her by the shoulders and shook her roughly.</p> + +<p>"Yesterday," he said hoarsely, "you let me kiss you—your lips burned +me—you rested your head against me as if it belonged there. What sort +of a woman are you? Sophie! Sophie!"</p> + +<p>"I know," she returned. "But yesterday was yesterday. This is another +day. Yesterday—oh, you wouldn't understand if I told you. Yesterday I +was bursting with happiness, like a bird in the spring. I like you, big +man with the freckled face. You came down here and stood beside me and +smiled at me. And—and that's all—a minute's madness. We can't marry on +<i>that</i>. I can't. I <i>won't</i>."</p> + +<p>His fingers tightened on the rounded arms. He shook her again with a +restrained savagery. If he hurt her she did not flinch, nor did her gray +eyes, cloudy now and wistful, waver before the passionate fire in his.</p> + +<p>"Sophie," he went on, "you don't know what this means to me. Don't you +care a little?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered slowly. "Perhaps more than a little. I'm made that +way, I suppose. It isn't hard for me to love. But one doesn't—"</p> + +<p>"Then why," he demanded, "why refuse to give me a hope? Why, if you care +in the least, is there no chance for me? It isn't just a sudden fancy. +I've been feeling it grow and struggling to repress it, ever since I +first saw you. You say you care—yet you won't even think of marrying +me. I can't understand that at all. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Do you want to know? Can't you see good grounds why we two, of all +people, should <i>not</i> marry?" she asked evenly. "Can you see anything to +make it desirable except a—a welling up of natural passion? Don't hold +my arms so tight. You hurt."</p> + +<p>He released his unthinking grip and stepped back a pace, his expression +one of hurt bewilderment at the paradox of Sophie's admission and +refusal.</p> + +<p>"We're at opposite poles in everything," she went on. "I don't believe +in the things you believe in. I don't see life with your vision at all. +I never shall. We'd be in a continual clash. I like you but I couldn't +possibly live with you—you couldn't live with me. I rebel at the future +I can see for us. Apart from yourself, the things you'd want to share +with me I despise. If I had to live in an atmosphere of sermons and +shams, of ministerial sanctimoniousness and material striving for a +bigger church and a bigger salary, I'd suffocate—I'd hate myself—and +in the end I'd hate you too."</p> + +<p>A little note of scorn crept into her voice, and she stopped. When she +spoke again her tone had changed, deepened into uncertainty, freighted +with wistfulness.</p> + +<p>"I'm not good—not in your sense of the word," she said. "I don't even +want to be. It would take all the joy out of living. I want to sing and +dance and be vibrantly alive. I want to see far countries and big +cities, to go about among people whose outlook isn't bounded by a forest +and a lake shore, nor by the things you set store by. And I'll be a +discontented pendulum until I do.</p> + +<p>"Why," she burst out passionately, "I'd be the biggest little fool on +earth to marry you just because—just because I like you, because you +kissed me and for a minute made me feel that life could be bounded by +you and kisses. You're only the second possible man I've ever seen. You +and Tommy Ashe. And before you came I could easily have persuaded myself +that I loved Tommy."</p> + +<p>"Now you think perhaps you love me, but that you might perhaps care in +the same way for the next attractive man who comes along? Is that it?" +Thompson asked with a touch of bitterness.</p> + +<p>"I might <i>think</i> so—how can one tell?" she sighed. "But I'm very sure +my impulses will never plunge me into anything headlong, as you would +have me plunge. Don't you see," she made an impatient gesture, "we're +just like a couple of fledgling birds trying our wings. And you want to +proceed on the assumption that we're equal to anything, sure of +everything. I <i>know</i> I'm not. You—"</p> + +<p>She made again that quick, expressive gesture with her hands. Something +about it made Thompson suddenly feel hopeless and forlorn, the airy +castles reared overnight out of the stuff of dreams a tumbled heap +about him. He sat down on one of the rude chairs, and turned his face to +look out the window, a lump slowly gathering in his throat.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said. "Good-by."</p> + +<p>If his tone was harsh and curt he could not help that. It was all he +could say and the only possible fashion of saying it. He wanted to cry +aloud his pain, the yearning ache that filled him, and he could not, +would not—no more than he would have whined under pure physical hurt. +But when he heard the faint rustle of her cotton dress and her step +outside he put his face on his hands and took his breath with a +shuddering sigh.</p> + +<p>At that, he was mistaken. Sophie had not gone. There was the quick, +light pad of her feet on the floor, her soft warm hands closed suddenly +about his neck, and he looked up into eyes bright and wet. Her face +dropped to a level with his own.</p> + +<p>"I'm so sorry, big man," she whispered, in a small, choked voice. "It +hurts me too."</p> + +<p>He felt the warm moist touch of her lips on his cheek, the faint +exhalation of her breath, and while his arms reached swiftly, +instinctively to grasp and hold her close, she was gone. And this time +she did not come back.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XI"></a><h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>A MAN'S JOB FOR A MINISTER</h3> +<br> + +<p>Having thus received a sad jolt through the medium of his affections, +Mr. Thompson, like countless numbers of human beings before him, set +about gathering himself together. He did a tremendous lot of thinking +about things in general, about himself and Sophie Carr in particular. +Moping in that isolated cabin his mind took on a sort of abnormal +activity. He could not even stop thinking when he wanted to stop. He +would lie awake in the silent darkness long after he should have been +asleep, going over his narrow and uneventful existence, the unwelcome +and anguished present, the future that was nothing but a series of blank +pages which he had yet to turn in God only knew what bitterness and +sorrow. That was the way he gloomily put it to himself. He had still to +learn what an adaptable, resilient organism man is. This, his first +tentative brush with life, with the realities of pain and passion, had +left him exceedingly cast down, more than a little inclined to +pessimism.</p> + +<p>He experienced gusts of unreasoning anger at Sophie Carr, forgetting, as +a man wounded in his egotism and disappointed in his first passionate +yearning for a mate is likely to forget, that he had brought it on +himself, that Sophie had not encouraged him, nor lured him to his +undoing, nor given him aught to nourish the illusion that she was his +for the asking.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he would have a vivid flash of jealousy when he thought about +her and Tommy Ashe, when he recalled her admissions. And he would soften +from that mood, twisting his lips wryly, when he remembered the pitying +tenderness of her good-by.</p> + +<p>He could not in the least understand the girl nor her motives, any more +than he could understand the transformation that he felt vaguely was +taking place in himself. She was too wise for her years and her +experience. There was a stinging truth in some of the things she said. +And it was his fault, not hers, that they were unpalatable truths. What +did a man like himself have to offer a girl like her? Nothing. She had +his measure in everything but sheer brute strength, most of all in the +stoutness of her resolution. For Mr. Thompson, pondering soberly, +realized that if he gave free play to the feelings Sophie Carr had +stirred up in him, there was no folly he was not capable of committing. +He, whose official creed it was to expound self-denial, would have +followed his impulses blindly. He would have married out of hand.</p> + +<p>And after that, what?</p> + +<p>He could not see clearly, when he tried to see. He was no longer filled +with the sublime faith that a beneficent Providence kept watch and ward +over him, and all men. He was in fact now almost of the opinion that +both sparrows and preachers might fall and the Great Intelligence +remain unperturbed. It seemed necessary that a man should do more than +have faith. He must imperatively make some conscious, intelligent effort +on his own behalf. He was especially of this opinion since the Board of +Home Missions had overlooked the matter of forwarding his quarterly +salary on time. The faith that moveth mountains was powerless to conjure +flour and sugar and tea out of those dusky woods and silent +waterways—at least not without a canoe and labor and a certain +requisite medium of exchange.</p> + +<p>No, he did not blame Sophie Carr for refusing to allow her judgment to +be fogged with sentiment. He only marvelled that she could do it where +he had failed. He could not blame her—not if his speech and activities +since he came to Lone Moose were the measure of his possible +achievement.</p> + +<p>He was taking grim, unsparing stock of himself, of what he had, of what +he had accomplished altogether, by this time. It was not much. It was +not even promising. A theological education, which, compared to the sort +of culture Sam Carr and his daughter had managed to acquire, seemed +rather inadequate and one-sided. They knew more about the principles he +was supposed to teach than he knew himself. And their knowledge extended +to fields where he could not follow. When he compared himself with Tommy +Ashe—well, Tommy was an Oxford man, and although Oxford had not +indelibly stamped him, still it had left its mark.</p> + +<p>These people had covered all his ground—and they had gone exploring +further in fields of general knowledge while he sat gazing smugly at +his own reflection in a theological mirror. Upon that score certainly +the count was badly against him.</p> + +<p>As for his worldly possessions, when Mr. Thompson sardonically +considered them as a means of supporting a wife he was forced to admit +that the provision would be intolerably meager. His prospects included a +salary that barely sufficed for one. It was apparent, he concluded, that +the Board of Home Missions, like the Army and Navy, calculated its rank +and file to remain in single blessedness and subsist frugally to boot.</p> + +<p>As to his late accomplishments in the field of labor, Mr. Thompson +looked out of his cabin door to where he could see dimly through the +trees the uncompleted bulk of his church—and he set down a mental +cipher against that account. It was waste effort. He felt in his heart +that he would never finish it. What was the use?</p> + +<p>He tried to whip up the old sense of duty to his calling, to the Church, +to the great good which he had been taught he should accomplish. And he +could muster up nothing but an irritating sense of hollow wordiness in +many of his former dictums and utterances, a vast futility of effort.</p> + +<p>Whereupon he at once found himself face to face with a fresh problem, in +which the question of squaring his material needs and queer half-formed +desires with his actions loomed paramount. In other words Mr. Thompson +began, in a fashion scarcely apprehended, upon the painful process of +formulating a philosophy of life that would apply to life as it was +forcing itself upon his consciousness—not as he had hitherto conceived +life to be.</p> + +<p>But he was unable to pin himself down to any definite plan. He could not +evolve a clear idea of what to do, nor even of what he wanted to do. And +in the interim he did little save sit about his cabin, deep in +introspection, chop firewood as needed and cook his plain fare—that was +gradually growing plainer, more restricted. Sometimes he varied this by +long solitary tramps through the woods along the brushy bank of Lone +Moose Creek.</p> + +<p>This hermit existence he kept up for over a fortnight. He had fought +with Tommy Ashe and he felt diffident about inflicting his company on +Tommy, considering the <i>casus belli</i>. Nor could he bring himself to a +casual dropping in on Sam Carr. He shrank from meeting Sophie, from +hearing the sound of her voice, from feeling the tumult of desire her +nearness always stirred up in him. And there was nowhere else to go, no +one with whom he could talk. He could not hold converse with the Crees. +The Lachlan family relapsed into painful stiffness when he entered their +house. There was no common ground between him and them.</p> + +<p>He was really marking time until the next mail should arrive at Fort +Pachugan. The days were growing shorter, the nights edged with sharp +frosts. There came a flurry of snow that lay a day and faded slowly in +the eye of the weakening sun.</p> + +<p>Mr. Thompson, watching his daily diminishing food supply with sedulous +consideration, knew that the winter was drawing near, a season merciless +in its rigor. He knew that one of these days the northerly wind would +bring down a storm which would blanket the land with snow that only the +sun of the next May would banish. He was ill-prepared to face such an +iron-jawed season.</p> + +<p>If he stayed there it would just about take his quarterly salary to +supply him with plain food and the heavier clothing he needed. But—he +drew a long breath and asked himself one day why he should stay there. +Why should he? He could not forbear a wry grimace when he tried to see +himself carrying out his appointed task faithfully to the end—preaching +vainly to uncomprehending ears month after month, year after year, +stagnating mentally and suffocating spiritually in those silent forests +where God and godly living was not a factor at all; where food, +clothing, and shelter loomed bigger than anything else, because until +these primary needs were satisfied a man could not rise above the status +of a hungry animal.</p> + +<p>Yet he shrank from giving up the ministry. He had been bred to it, his +destiny sedulously shaped toward that end by the maiden aunts and the +theological schools. It was, in effect, his trade. He could scarcely +look equably upon a future apart from prayer meetings, from Bible +classes, from carefully thought out and eloquently delivered sermons. He +felt like a renegade when he considered quitting that chosen field. But +he felt also that it was a field in which he had no business now.</p> + +<p>He was still in this uncertain frame of mind a few days later when he +borrowed a canoe from Lachlan and set out for the Fort. He had kept +away from Carr's for nearly five weeks. Neither Sophie nor her father +had come to his cabin again. Once or twice he had hailed Carr from a +distance. In the height of his loneliness he had traversed the half-mile +to Tommy Ashe's shack up Lone Moose, only to find it deserted. He +learned later that Lachlan's oldest son and Ashe had gone partners to +run a line of traps away to the north of the village. It occurred to +Thompson that he might do the same—if—well, he would see about that +when he got home from Pachugan.</p> + +<p>The birch bark Lachlan let him have occasioned him many a rare tussle +before he finally beached it at the Fort. The fall winds were roughening +the lake. It was his first single-handed essay with the paddle. But he +derived a certain satisfaction from winning alone against wind and +water, and also gained food for thought in the odd circumstance of his +growing tendency to get a glow out of purely physical achievements. It +did not irk nor worry him now to sweat and strain for hours on end. +Instead, he found in that continued, concentrated muscular effort a +happy release from troublesome reflection.</p> + +<p>His cheque was waiting. As he fingered the green slip whose face value +was one hundred and twenty dollars, one fourth of his yearly stipend, he +felt relieved, and at the same time oddly reluctant. Not until late in +the evening did he get at the root of that reluctance. MacLeod had +hospitably insisted on putting him up. They sat in the factor's living +room before a great roaring fireplace. Their talk had lapsed into +silence. MacLeod leaned back in his chair, pipe in hand, frowning +abstractedly.</p> + +<p>"Man," he said at length, his bearded face wrinkled with a smile, "I +wish ye were no a preacher wi' labors i' the vineyard of the Lord tae +occupy yer time. I'd have ye do a job for me."</p> + +<p>"A job?" Thompson came out of his preoccupation.</p> + +<p>"Aye," MacLeod grunted. "A job. A reg'lar man's job. There'd be a +reasonable compensation in't. It's a pity," he continued dryly, "that a +parson has a mind sae far above purely mateerial conseederation."</p> + +<p>"It may surprise you," Mr. Thompson returned almost as dryly, "to know +that I have—to a certain extent—modified my views upon what you term +material considerations. They are, I have found, more important than I +realized."</p> + +<p>The factor took his pipe out of his mouth and regarded Thompson with +frank curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Well," he remarked finally. "Yer a young man. It's no surprisin'." He +paused a second.</p> + +<p>"Would it interest ye—would ye consider givin' a month or two of yer +time to a legitimate enterprise if it was made worth yer while?" he +asked bluntly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Thompson answered with equal directness. "If I knew what it +was—if it's something I can do."</p> + +<p>"I'm just marking time at Lone Moose," he went on after a pause. There +was a note of discouragement in his voice. "I'm—well, completely +superfluous there. I'd be tempted—"</p> + +<p>He did not go farther. Nor did MacLeod inquire into the nature of the +suggested temptation. He merely nodded understandingly at the first +part of Thompson's reply.</p> + +<p>"Ye could do it fine, I think," he said thoughtfully, "wi' the use of +yer head an' the bit coachin' and help I'd provide. It's like this. +Pachugan's no so good a deestrict as it used tae be. The fur trade's +slowin' down, an' the Company's no so keen as it was in the old days +when it was lord o' the North. I mind when a factor was a power—but +that time's past. The Company's got ither fish tae fry. Consequently +there's times when we're i' the pickle of them that had tae make bricks +wi'oot straw. I mean there's times when they dinna gie us the support +needful to make the best of what trade there is. Difficulties of +transportation for one thing, an' a dyin' interest in a decayin' branch +of Company business. Forbye a' that they expect results, just the same.</p> + +<p>"Now, I'm short of three verra necessary things, flour, tea, and steel +traps. I canna get them frae Edmonton. They didna fully honor my fall +requisitions, an' it's too late i' the season now. Yet they'll ask why I +dinna get the skins next spring, ye understand. If the Indians dinna get +fully supplied here, they'll go elsewhere; they can do that since +there's a French firm strung a line o' posts to compete i' the region, +ye see.</p> + +<p>"Now I havena got the goods I need an' I canna get them frae Company +sources. But there's a free trader set himsel' up tae the north o' here +last season. The North's no a monopoly for the Company these days, ye +ken. They canna run a free trader out i' the old high-handed fashion. +But there's a bit of the old spirit left—an' this laddie's met wi' +difficulties, in a way o' speakin'. He's discouraged tae the point where +he'll sell cheap; an' he's a fair stock o' the verra goods I want. I'd +tak' over his stock to-morrow—but he's ninety-odd miles away. I canna +leave here i' the height o' the outfittin' season. I ha' naebody I can +leave in charge.</p> + +<p>"The job for ye wad be tae go up there, inventory his stock, take it +over, an' stay there tae distribute it tae such folk as I'd send tae be +supplied in that section. Wi' that completed, transfer the tag-ends doon +here. I'd furnish ye a breed tae guide ye there an' interpret for ye, +an' tae pass on the quality o' such furs as might offer. He'd grade +them, an' ye'd purchase accordin'. Do ye see? It's no a job I can put on +anny half-breed. There's none here can write and figure."</p> + +<p>"As it sounds," Thompson replied, "I daresay I could manage. You said it +would be worth my while. What do I gather from that?"</p> + +<p>"Ye'd gather two dollars a day an' everything supplied," MacLeod +returned dryly. "Will ye tak' it on?"</p> + +<p>Thompson stared into the fire for a minute. Then he looked up at the +Factor of Fort Pachugan.</p> + +<p>"I'm your man," he said briefly.</p> + +<p>"Good," MacLeod grunted. "An' when ye go back tae the preachin' ye'll +find the experience has done ye no harm. Now, we'll go over the +seetuation in detail to-morrow, an' the next day ye'll start north, wi' +Joe Lamont. The freeze-up's due, an' it's quicker an' easier travelin' +by canoe than wi' dogs."</p> + +<p>They talked desultorily for half an hour, until MacLeod, growing drowsy +before the big fire, yawned and went off to bed, after pointing out a +room for his guest and employee-to-be.</p> + +<p>Thompson shut the door of his bedroom and sat down on a stool. He was +warm, comfortable, well-fed. But he was not happy, unless the look of +him belied his real feelings. He raised his eyes and stared curiously at +his reflection in a small mirror on the wall. The scars of Tommy Ashe's +fists had long since faded. His skin was a ruddy, healthy hue, the +freckles across the bridge of his nose almost wholly absorbed in a coat +of tan. But the change that marked him most was a change of expression. +His eyes had lost the old, mild look. They were hard and alert, blue +mirrors of an unquiet spirit. There was a different set to his lips.</p> + +<p>"I don't look like a minister," he muttered. "I look like a man who has +been drunk. I feel like that. There must be a devil in me."</p> + +<p>He had brought with him from Lone Moose a small bag. Out of this he now +took paper, envelopes, a fountain pen, changed his seat to the edge of +the bed, and using the stool for a desk began to write. When he had +covered two sheets he folded them over the green slip he had that day +received, and slid the whole into an envelope which he addressed:</p> + +Mr. A.H. Markham,<br> +Sec. M.E. Board of Home Missions,<br> +412 Echo St.,<br> +Toronto, Ont.<br> + +<p>He laid the letter on the bed and regarded it with an expression in +which regret and relief were equally mingled.</p> + +<p>"They'll say—they'll think," he muttered disconnectedly.</p> + +<p>He got up, paced across the small room, swung about to look at the +letter again.</p> + +<p>"I've got to do it," he said aloud defiantly. "It's the only thing I can +do. Burn all my bridges behind me. If I can't honestly be a minister, I +can at least be a man."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>A FORTUNE AND A FLITTING</h3> +<br> + +<p>Christmas had come and gone before Thompson finished his job at +Porcupine Lake, some ninety-odd miles, as the crow flies, north of Fort +Pachugan. The Porcupine was a marshy stretch of water, the home of +muskrat and beaver, a paradise for waterfowl when the heavy hand of +winter was lifted, a sheet of ice now, a white oval in the dusky green +of the forest. Here the free trader had built a fair-sized structure of +logs with goods piled in the front and the rearward end given over to a +stove, a table, and two bunks. In this place Thompson and Joe Lamont +plied their traffic. MacLeod sent them Indian and half-breed trappers +bearing orders for so much flour, so much tea, so many traps, so much +powder and ball and percussion caps for their nigh obsolete guns. They +took their "debt" and departed into the wilderness, to repay in the +spring with furs.</p> + +<p>So, by degrees, the free-trader's stock approached depletion, until +there remained no more than two good dog teams could haul. With that on +sleds, and a few bundles of furs traded in by trappers whose lines +radiated from the Porcupine, Thompson and Joe Lamont came back to Fort +Pachugan.</p> + +<p>The factor seemed well pleased with the undertaking. He checked up the +goods and opined that the deal would show a rare profit for the Company.</p> + +<p>"Ye have a hundred an' twenty-six dollars due, over an' above a charge +or two against ye," he said to Thompson when they went over the +accounts. "How will ye have it? In cash? If ye purpose to winter at Lone +Moose a credit maybe'll serve as well. Or, if ye go out, ye can have a +cheque on the Company at Edmonton."</p> + +<p>"Give me the hundred in cash," Thompson decided. "I'll take the twenty +odd in grub. I'm going to Lone Moose, but I don't know how long I'll +stay there. There's some stuff of mine there that I want to get. After +that—I'm a bit undecided."</p> + +<p>In those long nights at the Porcupine he had done a good deal of +pondering over his next move. He had not yet come to a fixed decision. +In a general way he knew that he was going out into the world from +whence he had come, with an altogether different point of view, to work +out his future along altogether different lines. But he had not made up +his mind to do this at once. He was clearly conscious of one imperative +craving. That was for a sight of Sophie Carr and a chance to talk to her +again. His heart quickened when he thought of their parting. He knew she +was anything but indifferent. He was not an egotist, but he knew she +harbored a feeling akin to his own, and he built hopes on that, despite +her blunt refusal, the logical reasons she had set forth. He hoped +again. He saw himself in the way of becoming competent—as the North, +which is a keen judge, appraises competence. He had chucked some of his +illusions about relative values. He conceived that in time he might +approximate to Sophie Carr's idea of a man.</p> + +<p>He wanted to see her, to talk with her, to make her define her attitude +a little more clearly. Looking back with his mind a great deal less +confused by emotion, he wondered why he had been so dumb, why he had not +managed to convey to her that the things she foresaw as denying them +happiness or even toleration for each other were not a final state in +him, that his ideas and habits and pursuits were in a state of flux that +might lead him anywhere. She had thrown cold water on the flame of his +passion. But he remembered with a glow of happiness that she had kissed +him.</p> + +<p>He pondered deeply upon this, wondering much at the singular attraction +this girl held for him, the mystery of that strange quality that drew +him so. He lacked knowledge of the way and power of women. It had never +touched him before. It was indeed as if he had been asleep and had +wakened with a start. He was intensely curious about that, curious to +know why he, who had met nice girls and attractive women by the score, +had come into the North woods to be stirred out of all reason by a slip +of a girl with yellow hair and expressive gray eyes and a precocious +manner of thinking.</p> + +<p>He looked forward eagerly to seeing her again. He somehow felt a little +more sure of himself now. He could think of a number of things he wished +to ask her, of ideas he wanted to expand into speech. The hurt of her +blank refusal had dulled a little. He could anticipate a keen pleasure +just in seeing her.</p> + +<p>In the morning he set about outfitting. He had come down from Porcupine +with dogs. He had seen dog teams bearing the goods and chattels of +innumerable natives. He perceived the essential usefulness of dogs and +snowshoes and toboggans in that boundless region of snow. Canoes when +the ice went out, dogs and toboggans when winter came again to lock +tight the waterways. So during his stay at Porcupine he had accepted the +gift of a dog from a Cree, traded tobacco for another, and he and Lamont +had whiled away the long evenings in making two sets of harness and a +small toboggan. A four-dog team will haul a sizable load. Two would move +all the burden of food and gear that he had in his possession. He had +learned painfully to walk upon snowshoes—enough so that he was over the +poignant ache in the calf of the leg which the North calls <i>mal de +racquette</i>. Altogether he felt himself fully equal to fare into the +wilderness alone. Moreover he had none of that intangible dread of the +wilderness which had troubled him when he first came to Lone Moose.</p> + +<p>Then it seemed lonely beyond expression, brooding, sinister. It was +lonely still—but that was all. He was beginning to grasp the motif of +the wilderness, to understand in a measure that to those who adapted +themselves thereto it was a sanctuary. The sailor to his sea, the +woodsman to his woods, and the <i>boulevardier</i> to his beloved avenues! +Thompson did not cleave to the North as a woodsman might. But the +natural phenomena of unbroken silences, of vast soundlessness, of miles +upon miles of somber forest aisles did not oppress him now. What a man +understands he does not fear. The unknown, the potentially terrible +which spurs the imagination to horrifying vision, is what bears heavy on +a man's soul.</p> + +<p>Thompson's preparation for the trail was simple. That lesson he had +learned from two months' close association with Joe Lamont. He had +acquired a sleeping bag of moosehide, soft tanned. This, his gun and +axe, the grub he got from the Pachugan store, he had lashed on the +toboggan and put his dogs in harness at daybreak. There would be little +enough day to light his steps. Dusk came at midafternoon.</p> + +<p>When he had tied the last lashing he shook hands with MacLeod and set +out.</p> + +<p>He traversed the sixty miles between Pachugan and Lone Moose in two +days, by traveling late the first night, under a brilliant moon. It gave +him a far vision of the lake shore, black point after black point +thrusting out into the immense white level of the lake. Upon that hard +smooth surface he could tuck the snowshoes under his lashings and trot +over the ice, his dogs at his heels, the frost-bound hush broken by the +tinkle of a little bell Joe Lamont had fastened on the lead dog's +collar. It rang sweetly, a gay note in that chill void.</p> + +<p>That night he drew into a spruce grove, cleared a space for his fire and +bed, fed himself hot tea and a bannock, and the hindquarters of a rabbit +potted by his rifle on the way. He went to sleep with drowsy eyes +peeping at the cold stars from under the flap of his sleeping bag, at +the jagged silhouette of spruce tops cut sharp against the sky.</p> + +<p>He drew up before the mission quarters in the gray of the next dusk, and +stood again after nigh three months at his own door. The clearing was a +white square, all its unlovely litter of fallen trees and half-burned +stumps hidden under the virgin snow. The cabin sat squat and +brown-walled amid this. On all sides the spruce stood dusky-green. +Beyond, over in Lone Moose meadow, Thompson, standing a moment before he +opened the door, heard voices faintly, the ringing blows of an axe. Some +one laughed.</p> + +<p>The frost stirred him out of this momentary inaction. In a few minutes +he had a fire glowing in the stove, a lamp lighted, the chill driven +from that long deserted room. Except for that chill and a slight +closeness, the cabin was as he had left it. Outside, his two dogs +snarled and growled over their evening ration of dried fish, and when +they had consumed the last scrap curled hardily in the snow bank near +the cabin wall.</p> + +<p>Thompson had achieved a hair-cut at Pachugan. Now he got out his razor +and painstakingly scraped away the accumulated beard. He had allowed it +to grow upon Joe Lamont's assertion that "de wheesker, she's help keep +hout de fros', Bagosh." Thompson doubted the efficiency of whiskers as a +protection, and he wanted to appear like himself. He made that +concession consciously to his vanity.</p> + +<p>He did not waste much time. While he shaved and washed, his supper +cooked. He ate, drew the parka over his head, hooked his toes into the +loops of his snowshoes and strode off toward Carr's house. The timidity +that made him avoid the place after his fight with Tommy Ashe and +subsequent encounter with Sophie had vanished. The very eagerness of his +heart bred a profound self-confidence. He crossed the meadow as +hurriedly as an accepted lover.</p> + +<p>For a few seconds there was no answer to his knock. Then a faint +foot-shuffle sounded, and Carr's Indian woman opened the door. She +blinked a moment in the dazzle of lamp glare on the snow until, +recognizing him, her brown face lit up with a smile.</p> + +<p>"You come back Lone Moose, eh?" she said. "Come in."</p> + +<p>Thompson put back the hood of his parka and laid off his mitts. The room +was hot by comparison with outdoors. He looked about. Carr's woman +motioned him to a chair. Opposite him the youngest Carr squatted like a +brown Billiken on a wolfskin. Every detail of that room was familiar. +There was the heavy, homemade chair wherein Sam Carr was wont to sit and +read. Close by it stood Sophie's favorite seat. A nickel-plated oil lamp +gave forth a mellow light under a pale birch-bark shade. But he missed +the old man with a pipe in his mouth and a book on his knee, the +gray-eyed girl with the slow smile and the sunny hair.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carr and Sophie—are they home?" he asked at length.</p> + +<p>The Indian woman shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Sam and Sophie go 'way," she said placidly. "No come back Lone Moose +long time—maybe no more. Sophie leave sumpin' you. I get."</p> + +<p>She crossed the room to a shelf above the serried volumes of Sam Carr's +library, lifted the cover of a tin tobacco box and took out a letter. +This she gave to Thompson. Then she sat down cross-legged on the +wolfskin beside her youngster, looking up at her visitor impassively, +her moon face void of expression, except perhaps the mildest trace of +curiosity.</p> + +<p>Thompson fingered the envelope for a second, scarcely crediting his +ears. The letter in his hands conveyed nothing. He did not recognize the +writing. He was acutely conscious of a dreadful heartsinking. There was +a finality about the Indian woman's statement that chilled him.</p> + +<p>"They have gone away?" he said. "Where? When did they go?"</p> + +<p>"Long time. Two moon," she replied matter-of-factly. "Dunno where go. +Sam say he go—don't know when come back. Leave me house, plenty +blanket, plenty grub. Next spring he say he send more grub. That all. +Sophie go too."</p> + +<p>Thompson stared at her. Perhaps he was not alone in facing something +that numbed him.</p> + +<p>"Your man go away. Not come back. You sorry? You feel bad?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Her lips parted in a wide smile.</p> + +<p>"Sam he good man," she said evenly. "Leave good place for me. I plenty +warm, plenty to eat. I no care he go. Sam, pretty soon he get old. I +want ketchum man, I ketchum. No feel bad. No."</p> + +<p>She shook her head, as if the idea amused her. And Mr. Thompson, +perceiving that a potential desertion which moved him to sympathy did +not trouble her at all, turned his attention to the letter in his hand. +He opened the envelope. There were half a dozen closely written sheets +within.</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>Dear freckle-faced man: there is such a lot I want to say that I don't +know where to begin. Perhaps you'll think it queer I should write +instead of telling you, but I have found it hard to talk to you, hard to +say what I mean in any clear sort of way. Speech is a tricky thing when +half of one's mind is dwelling on the person one is trying to talk to +and only the other half alive to what one is trying to express. The last +time we were together it was hard for me to talk. I knew what I was +going to do, and I didn't like to tell you. I wanted to talk and when I +tried I blundered. Too much feeling—a sort of inward choking. And the +last few days, when I have become accustomed to the idea of going away +and familiar with the details of the astonishing change which has taken +place in my life, you have been gone. I dare not trust to a casual +meeting between here and Pachugan. I do not even know for sure that you +have gone to Pachugan, or that you will come back—of course I think you +will or I should not write.</p> + +<p>But unless you come back to-night you will not see me at Lone Moose. So +I'm going to write and leave it with Cloudy Moon to give you when you do +come.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I'd better explain a little. Dad had an old bachelor brother +who—it seems—knew me when I was an infant. Somehow he and dad have +kept in some sort of touch. This uncle, whom I do not remember at all, +grew moderately wealthy. When he died some six months ago his money was +willed equally to dad and myself. It was not wholly unexpected. Dad has +often reminded me of that ultimate loophole when I would grow +discontented with being penned up in these dumb forests. I +suppose it may sound callous to be pleased with a dead man's gift, but +regardless of the ways and means provided it seems very wonderful to me +that at last I am going out into the big world that I have spent so many +hours dreaming of, going out to where there are pictures and music and +beautiful things of all sorts—and men.</p> + +<p>You see, I am trying to be brutally frank. I am trying to empty my mind +out to you, and a bit of my heart. I like you a lot, big man. I don't +mind making that confession. If you were not a preacher—if you did not +see life through such narrow eyes, if you were more tolerant, if you had +the kindly faculty of putting yourself in the other fellow's shoes now +and then, if only your creeds and doctrines and formulas meant anything +vital—I—but those cursed ifs cannot be gainsaid.</p> + +<p>It's no use, preacher man. That day you kissed me on the creek bank and +the morning I came to your cabin, I was conscious of loving you—but it +was under protest—under pretty much the same protest with which you +care for me. You were both times carried away so by your own passion +that for the moment your mental reservations were in abeyance. And +although perhaps a breath of that same passion stirred me—I can admit +it now when the distance between us will not make that admission a +weapon in your hands—yet there was somewhere in me a little voice +whispering: "Sophie, it won't do. You can't mix oil and water."</p> + +<p>There is a streak of my poor weak and passionate mother in me. But there +is also a counterbalancing streak of my father's deliberate judgment. He +has schooled me for my ultimate protection—as he has often made +plain—to think, to know why I do a thing, to look, even if ever so +briefly, before I leap. And I cannot help it, if when I felt tempted to +say the word that would have given me the right to feel the ecstasy of +your arms drawing me close and your lips pressed on mine, if in the same +breath I was looking ahead and getting a disillusioning glimpse of what +life together would mean for you and me, you with your deeply implanted +prejudices, your hard and fast conceptions of good and evil, of right +and wrong—I what I am, a creature craving pleasure, joy, luxury, if +possible, happiness wherever and whenever I can assure myself I have +really found it. I wouldn't make a preacher's wife at all, I know. I'd +stifle in that sort of atmosphere.</p> + +<p>Even if you were not a minister—if you were just plain man—and I wish +you were—I don't know. I have to try my wings, now that I have the +opportunity. How do I know what turn my vagrant impulses may take? I may +be one of those queer, perverted creatures (<i>vide</i> Havelock Ellis. +You'll find two volumes of his psychology of sex among dad's books) +whose instincts incline toward many men in turn. I don't believe I am. A +woman's destiny, in so far as I have been able to grasp the feminine +function by what I've read and observed in a limited way, is to mate and +to rear children. I don't think I'm a variation from the normal type, +except in my habit of thinking deeply about these things rather than +being moved by purely instinctive reactions. I could be happy ever so +simply, I think. Mismated, I should be tigerishly miserable. I know +myself, within certain limits—but men I do not know at all, except in +theory. I have never had a chance to know men. You and Tommy Ashe have +been the only two possibilities. I've liked you both. You, dear +freckle-face, with the serious look and muddled ideas, far the better of +the two. I don't know why. Tommy Ashe attracted me physically. I +recognized that ultimately—and that alone isn't enough, although it is +probably the basis of many matings. So do you likewise attract me, but +with a tenderer, more protective passion. I'd like to mother you, to +tease you—and mend your socks! Oh, my dear, I can't marry you, and I +wish I could. I shrink from submerging my own individuality in yours, +and without that sacrifice our life would be one continual clash, until +we should hate each other.</p> + +<p>And still I know that I am going to be very lonely, to feel for awhile +as if I'd lost something. I have felt that way these weeks that you kept +to your cabin, avoiding me. I have felt it more keenly since your cabin +is empty, and I don't know where you may have gone, nor if you will ever +come back. I find myself wondering how you will fare in this grim +country. You're such a visionary. You're so impractical. And neither +nature nor society is kind to visionaries, to those who will not be +adaptable.</p> + +<p>Do you understand what I've been trying to tell you? I wonder if you +will? Or if I am too incoherent. I feel that perhaps I am. I started out +to say things that were bubbling within me, and I am oddly reluctant to +say them. I am like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. I am an +explorer setting out upon a momentous journey. I am making an experiment +that fascinates me. Yet I have regrets. I am uncertain. I am doing the +thing which my nature and my intelligence impel me to do, now that I +have the opportunity. I am satisfying a yearning, and stifling a desire +that could grow very strong if I let myself go.</p> + +<p>I can see you scowl. You will say to yourself—looking at it from your +own peculiar angle—you will say: "She is not worth thinking about." And +unless I have been mistaken in you you will say it very bitterly, and +you will be thinking long and hard when you say it. Just as I, knowing +that I am wise in going away from you, just as my reason points clearly +to the fact that for me living with you would become a daily protest, a +limitation of thought and act that I could not endure, still—knowing +all this—I feel a strange reluctance to accepting the road I have +chosen, I feel a disconcerting tug at my heart when I think of you—and +that is often.</p> + +<p>I shall change, of course. So will you. Psychologically, love doesn't +endure to death—unless it is nurtured by association, unless it has its +foundation in community of interest and effort, a mutual affection that +can survive hard knocks.</p> + +<p>Good-by, dear freckled man. You have taught me something. I hope I have +done as much for you. I'm sorry it couldn't be different. But—a man +must be able to stand on his own feet, eh? I leave you to puzzle out +what "standing on his own feet" means. Good-by.</p> + +<p>Sophie.</p> + +<p>P.S. Dad says that if you winter at Lone Moose and care to kill a few of +the long days you are welcome to help yourself to the books he left. He +will tell Cloudy Moon you are to have them all if you want them, or any +of them, any time.</p></div> + +<p>Mr. Thompson folded up the sheets with deliberate precision, replaced +them in the envelope and tucked the envelope in his pocket. He rose to +go. He had a feeling of wanting to escape from that room which those +penned pages and swiftly acute memories had filled with a presence it +hurt him terribly to recall. His eye fell upon the rows of Carr's books, +orderly upon their shelves. The postscript, fresh in his +sense-impressions because it came last, and the sight of the books, +roused him to a swelling fury of anger.</p> + +<p>The heresies of Huxley and Darwin! The blasphemies of Tom Paine! The +economic diatribes which began with Adam Smith and continued in +multiplying volumes down to the latest emanation from professorial +intellects in every civilized corner of the earth. The bulky, bitter +tomes of Marx and Engels! The Lorias and Leacocks, the tribe of +Gumplowicz, and Haeckel, the Lubbocks and Burtons, all that vast array +of minds which calmly dissect man and his manifold activities, that draw +deeply upon every branch of human knowledge to make clear the age-old +evolution and revolution in both the physical and intellectual +realm—and which generally leave gods and religions out of account +except to analyze them as manifestations of social phenomena. Those +damnable documents which he had never read, but which he had been taught +to shun as the product of perverted intellects, blasts of scientific +artillery, unkindly trained upon sacred concepts!</p> + +<p>He put on his parka hood, gave an abrupt "good evening" to Cloudy Moon, +and went out into the night which had deepened its shadows while he sat +within.</p> + +<p>The North lay hushed and hard under a wan moon. The teeth of the frost +nipped at him. A wolf lifted a dismal howl as he crossed the meadow. And +his anger died. That flare of resentment was, he recognized, but a burst +of wrath against Sophie, a passionate protest at her desertion. She had +loved him and she had left him, deliberately, calculatingly, left him +and love, for the world, the flesh and the devil—tempted by a fortune +untimely directed to her hands.</p> + +<p>He did not mind about the books. Doubtless they were well enough in +their way, a source of practical knowledge. But he did not care a curse +about books or knowledge or faith as he walked through the snow across +that gleaming white patch in the dusky forest. His heart cried aloud in +forlorn protest against the surging emotions that beset him. His eyes +stung. And he fought against that inarticulate misery, against the +melancholy that settled upon him like a dank mist.</p> + +<p>A man must stand upon his own feet! That stabbed at him, cut across his +mood like a slap in the face. Wasn't that what he was learning to do? He +lifted his head with a sudden spirit of defiance, a bitter resolution. A +man must stand on his own feet. Well, he would. If he could no longer +pray and be comforted, he could grit his teeth and struggle and endure. +He had begun to perceive that a man must do that physically—set his +teeth and endure. In the less concrete matter of the spirit it was much +the same.</p> + +<p>He turned for a look at the yellow windows of Sam Carr's house. It was a +hollow, empty place now, one that he never wanted to see again, like a +room in which a beloved person has died and from which the body has been +carried away. His eyes lingered on the dim bulk of the house, dusky +black and white like a sketch in charcoal.</p> + +<p>"Another bridge burned," he said wistfully to himself.</p> + +<p>He faced about, crossed the dividing fringe of timber, passing near the +walls of his unfinished church. A wry smile twisted his lips. That would +remain, the uncompleted monument of his good intentions, the substance +of an unrealizable, impractical dream.</p> + +<p>Beyond that, as he came out into his own clearing, he saw a light in +his cabin, where he had left no light. When he came to the door another +toboggan lay beside his own. Strange dogs shifted furtively about at his +approach. Warned by these signs he opened the door full of a curiosity +as to who, in the accustomed fashion of the North, had stopped and made +himself at home.</p> + +<p>When the man sitting before the stove with his feet on the rusty front +turned his head at Thompson's entrance, he saw, with a mild turn of +surprise, that his visitor was Tommy Ashe.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>PARTNERS</h3> +<br> + +<p>"Hello, old man," Tommy greeted cheerfully. "How goes it?"</p> + +<p>If it occurred to either of them that the last time they faced each +other it had been in hot anger and in earnest endeavor to inflict bodily +damage, they were not embarrassed by that recollection, nor did either +man hold rancor. Their hands gripped sturdily. It seemed to Thompson, +indeed, that a face had never been so welcome. He did not want to sit +alone and think. Even apart from that he was uncommonly glad to see +Tommy Ashe.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't go much at all," he said. "As a matter of fact, I just got +back to Lone Moose to-night after being away for weeks."</p> + +<p>"Same here," Tommy responded. "I've been trapping. Heard you'd gone to +Pachugan, but thought it was only for supplies. I got in to my own +diggings to-night, and the shack was so infernally cold and dismal I +mushed on down here on the off chance that you'd have a fire and +wouldn't mind chinning awhile. Lord, but a fellow surely gets fed up +with his own company, back here. At least I do."</p> + +<p>Thompson awoke to hospitable formalities.</p> + +<p>"Have you had supper?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Stopped and made tea about sundown," Tommy replied. "Thanks just the +same. Gad, but it was cold this afternoon. The air fairly crackled."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Thompson agreed. "It was very cold."</p> + +<p>He drew a stool up to the stove and sat down. Tommy got out his pipe and +began whittling shavings of tobacco off a plug.</p> + +<p>"Did you know that Carr and his daughter have gone away?" Thompson asked +abruptly.</p> + +<p>Tommy nodded.</p> + +<p>"Donald Lachlan—I've been trapping partners with him, y'know—Donald +was home a month or so since. Told me when he came back that the Carrs +were gone. I wasn't surprised."</p> + +<p>"No?" Thompson could not forbear an inquiring inflection on the +monosyllable.</p> + +<p>"No," Tommy continued a bit wistfully. "I was talking to Carr a few days +after you and I had that—that little argument of ours." He smiled. "He +told me then that after fifteen years up here he was inclined to try +civilization again. Mostly to give Sophie a chance to see what the world +was like, I imagine. I gathered from his talk that some sort of windfall +was coming his way. But I daresay you know more about it than I do."</p> + +<p>"No," Thompson replied. "I've been away—a hundred miles north of +Pachugan—for two months. I didn't know anything about it till +to-night."</p> + +<p>Tommy looked at him keenly.</p> + +<p>"Jolted you, eh, old man?" There was a quiet sympathy in his tone.</p> + +<p>"A little," Thompson admitted grimly. "But I'm getting used to jolts. I +had no claim on—on them."</p> + +<p>"We both lost out," Tommy Ashe said thoughtfully. "Sophie Carr is one +woman in ten thousand. I think she's the most remarkable girl I ever +came across anywhere. She knows what she wants, and neither of us quite +measured up. She liked me too—but she wouldn't marry me. Before you +came she tried to convince me of that. And I wasn't slow to see that you +interested her, that as a man she gave you a good deal of thought, +although your—er—your profession's one she rather makes light of. +Women are queer. I didn't know but you might have taken her by storm. +And then again, I rather imagined she'd back off when you got serious."</p> + +<p>"I was a fool," Thompson muttered.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't say that," Tommy responded gently. "A man couldn't resist +her. I've known a lot of women one way and another. I never knew one +could hold a candle to her. She has a mind like a steel trap, that girl. +She understood things in a flash, moods and all that. She'd make a real +chum, as well as a wife. Most women aren't, y'know. They're generally +just one or the other. No, I'd never call myself a fool for liking +Sophie too well. In fact a man would be a fool if he didn't.</p> + +<p>"She likes men too," Tommy went on musingly. "She knew it. I suppose +she'll be friendly and curious and chummy, and hurt men without meaning +to until she finds the particular sort of chap she wants. Oh, well."</p> + +<p>"How's the trapping?"</p> + +<p>Thompson changed the subject abruptly. He could not bear to talk about +that, even to Tommy Ashe who understood out of his own experience, who +had exhibited a rare and kindly understanding.</p> + +<p>"I've been wondering if I could make a try at that. I've got to do +something. I've quit the ministry."</p> + +<p>Tommy looked at him for a second.</p> + +<p>"Why did you get out?" he asked bluntly.</p> + +<p>"I'm not fitted for it," Thompson returned. "I've been through hell for +four months, and I've lost something—some of that sublime faith that a +man must have. I'm not certain about a lot of things I have always taken +for granted. I'm not certain I have an immortal soul which is worth +saving, let alone considering myself peculiarly fitted to save other +people's souls. I'd be like a blind man leading people with good eyes. +It has come to seem to me that I've been trained for the ministry as a +carpenter is trained for his trade. I can't go on feeling like that. I'm +too much interested in my own personal salvation. I'm too keenly +conscious of a tremendous ignorance about tremendously important things +to continue setting myself up as a finger post for other men's spiritual +guidance. If I stay with the church now it seems to me it will only be +because I lack courage to get out and make my living along lines that +won't be so easy. I'd despise myself if I did that. So I've +resigned—quite a while ago, to be exact. I've been working for the H.B. +two months. That's why I asked about the trapping. I've been casting +about for what I'd best try next."</p> + +<p>Tommy sat silent. When he did speak he touched very briefly on +Thompson's confession of faith—or rather the lack of it.</p> + +<p>"When a man's heart isn't in a thing," said he, "it's better for him to +drop it. About the trapping, now—I don't think you'd do much at that +with the season so far along. This district is pretty well covered by +the natives. You'd get into difficulties right off the bat over setting +traps on their territory. They have a rude sort of understanding about +where their several trap lines shall run. And for some reason or other +furs are getting scarce. Up where young Lachlan and I were it was pretty +fair for awhile. We took some good skins. Lately we did a lot of +trap-tending for nothing much. I got fed up with it. Fact is, I'm about +fed up with this region. I think I'll pull out."</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking the same thing," Thompson observed. "There isn't +much here for a man."</p> + +<p>"Not now," Tommy amended. "I'd have been gone long ago only for Sophie +Carr. That was the magnet that held me. It happens that I've come to +something of your pass, right now. I can't afford to loaf any longer, +living off the wilderness. I had a bit of an income to keep me in loose +change when I wanted a taste of towns. But that's been chopped +off—probably for good. I'm strictly on my own henceforth. Every penny I +spend will first have to be earned. And so," he hesitated briefly, "I've +considered a move to the Coast, the Pacific, y'know. Going over the +continental divide while the snow makes a dog team useful. Then I'd go +down the western streams by boat—dugout canoe or bateaux, or whatever +simple craft a man could make himself in the woods. Probably be the last +big trip I'll get a chance at. I'll have roughed it clear across North +America then, and I rather fancy winding up that way. But it's a big +undertaking single-handed. I'm not so partial to an Indian for company; +besides the fact that I'd have to pay him wages and dollars count with +me now. A fellow likes some one he can talk to. If you've cut the cloth +and are at loose ends, why not come along?"</p> + +<p>Thompson looked at him a second.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean it?" he asked. "I'm not what you'd call a good hand on the +trail. You might find me a handicap."</p> + +<p>Tommy grinned.</p> + +<p>"I've got the impression you're a chap that can hold his end up," he +drawled. "I've an idea we'd make a go of it, all right."</p> + +<p>"I believe we would," Thompson asserted impulsively. "Hanged if I +haven't a mind to take you at your word."</p> + +<p>"Do," Tommy urged earnestly. "The Pacific coast has this part of the +interior frazzled when it comes to opportunities. That's what we're both +after, isn't it? An opportunity to get on—in plain English, to make +some money? It's really simple to get up the Peace and through the +mountains and on down to southeastern Alaska or somewhere in northern +B.C. It merely means some hard mushing. And neither of us is very soft. +You've begun to cut your eyeteeth on the wilderness. I can see that."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I believe I have," Thompson assented, "I'm learning to take as a +matter of course a good many things that I used to rather dread. I find +I have a hankering to be on the move. Maybe I'll end up as a tramp. If +you want a partner for that journey I'm your man."</p> + +<p>"Shake," Tommy thrust out his hand with a boyish sort of enthusiasm. +"We'll have no end of a time."</p> + +<p>They sat up till a most unseemly hour talking over the details of that +long trek. Tommy Ashe was warmed with the prospect, and some of his +enthusiasm fired Thompson, proved strangely infectious. The wanderlust, +which Wesley Thompson was only beginning to feel in vague stirrings, had +long since become the chief motif in Tommy's life. He did not unburden +himself at length. It was simply through stray references, offhand bits +of talk, as they checked up resources and distances, that Thompson +pieced out the four years of Ashe's wanderings across Canada—four years +of careless, happy-go-lucky drifting along streams and through virgin +forest, sometimes alone, sometimes with a partner; four years of +hunting, fishing, and camping all the way from Labrador to Lone Moose. +Tommy had worked hard at this fascinating game. He confessed that with +revenue enough to keep him going, to vary the wilderness with an +occasional month in some city, he could go on doing that sort of thing +with an infinite amount of pleasure.</p> + +<p>But something had gone wrong with the source of the funds that came +quarterly. Tommy did not appear to regret that. But he realized its +significance. He would have to work. Having to work he meant to work as +he had played, with all his heart and to some purpose. He had an +ambitious idea of pressing Fortune to her lair. He was young and very +sanguine. His cheerful optimism was the best possible antidote for the +state of mind in which he found Thompson.</p> + +<p>They went to bed at last. With breakfast behind them they went up to +Ashe's cabin and brought down to Thompson's a miscellaneous collection +of articles that Tommy had left behind when he went trapping. Tommy had +four good dogs in addition to the brown retriever. By adding Thompson's +pair and putting all their goods on one capacious toboggan they achieved +a first-class outfit.</p> + +<p>In the North when a man sets out on a winter journey, or any sort of +journey, in fact, his preparations are speedily made. He loads his sled, +hitches his dogs, takes his rifle in hand, hooks his toes in his +snowshoes and goes his way.</p> + +<p>This is precisely the course Tommy Ashe and Thompson followed. Having +decided to go, they went, and neither of them took it as a serious +matter that they were on the first leg of a twelve-hundred-mile jaunt in +the deep of winter across a primitive land.</p> + +<p>To be exact in dates it was February the first when they touched at +Pachugan, where Tommy traded in his furs, and where they took on a +capacity load of grub. West of the lake head they bore across a low, +wooded delta and debouched upon Peace River's frozen surface.</p> + +<p>After that it was plod-plod-plod, one day very much like another, cold +with coldness of the sub-Arctic, the river a white band through heavy +woods, nights that were crisp and still as death, the sky a vast dome +sprinkled with flickering stars, brilliant at times with the Northern +Lights, that strange glow that flashes and shimmers above the Pole, now +a banner of flame, again only a misty sheen. Sometimes it seemed an +unreality, that silence, that immensity of hushed forest, those vast +areas in which life was not a factor. When a blizzard whooped out of the +northern quarter, holding them close to the little tent and the tiny +sheet-iron stove, when they sat for hours with their hands clasped over +their knees, listening to the voice of the wilderness whispering +sibilantly in the swaying boughs, it seemed utterly impossible that +these frigid solitudes could ever know the kindliness of summer, that +those cold white spaces could ever be warm and sunny and bright with +flowers.</p> + +<p>But there were compensations. Two men cannot eat out of the same +pot—figuratively speaking—sleep huddled close together for the warmth +that is in their bodies, hear no voices but their own, exert a common +effort to a common end day after day, until the days become weeks and +the weeks marshal themselves into calendar months—no two men born of +woman can sustain this enforced intimacy over a long period without +acquiring a positive attitude toward each other. They achieve a +contemptuous tolerance, or they achieve a rare and lasting friendship. +It was the fortune of Tommy Ashe and Wesley Thompson to cultivate the +latter. They arrived at it by degrees, in many forty-below-zero camps +along the Peace, in the shadow of those towering mountains where the +Peace cuts through the backbone of North America. It grew out of mutual +respect, a wordless sense of understanding, a conviction that each did +his best to play the game fair and square.</p> + +<p>So that, as they worked westward and gave over their toboggan on the +waters of a stream far beyond the Rockies, when Spring began to touch +the North with her magic wand they grew merry, galvanized by the spirit +of adventure. They could laugh, and sometimes they could sing. And they +planned largely, with the sanguine air of youth. On the edges—not in +the depths—of that wild and rugged land where manifold natural +resources lay untouched, it seemed as if a man had but to try hard +enough in order to succeed. They had conquered an ominous stretch of +wilderness. They would conquer with equal facility whatever barriers +they found between them and fortune.</p> + +<p>The sweep of Spring's progress across the land found them west of the +Coast Range by May, in a wild and forbidding region where three major +streams—the Skeena, the Stikine, and the Naas—take their rise. For +many days their advance was through grim canyons, over precipitous +slopes, across glaciers, bearing always westward, until the maps with +which Tommy Ashe was equipped showed them they were descending the +Stikine. Here they rested in a country full of game animals and birds +and fish, until the height of the spring torrents had passed. During +this time they fashioned a canoe out of a cedar tree, big enough to +carry them and the dogs which had served so faithfully as pack animals +over that last mountainous stretch. The Stikine was swift and +forbidding, but navigable. Thus at last, in the first days of the salmon +run, they came out upon tidewater, down to Wrangel by the sea.</p> + +<p>There was in Thompson's mind no more thought of burned bridges, no +heartache and empty longing, only an eagerness of anticipation. He had +come a long way, in a double sense. He had learned something of the +essential satisfaction of striving. A tough trail had served to toughen +the mental and moral as well as the physical fiber of him. He did not +know what lay ahead, but whatever did so lie would never dismay him +again as things had done in the past, in that too-recent vivid past.</p> + +<p>He was quite sure of this. His mood was tinctured with recklessness when +he summed it up in words. A man must stand on his own feet!</p> + +<p>He would never forget that sentence. It was burned into his memory. He +was beginning to understand what Sophie Carr meant by it. Looking +backward he could see that he never had stood on his own feet like a +man. Always he had required props. And they had been forthcoming from +the time the prim spinster aunts took his training in hand until he came +to Lone Moose self-consciously, rather flauntingly, waving the banner of +righteousness. Thompson could smile wryly at himself now. He could see +the unreckonable element of chance functioning largely in a man's life.</p> + +<p>And in the meantime he went about Wrangel looking for a job!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>THE RESTLESS FOOT</h3> +<br> + +<p>Being in a town that was at once a frontier camp and a minor seaport, +and being there at a season when the major industry of salmon-packing +was at its height, the search of Tommy Ashe and Thompson for a job was +soon ended. They were taken on as cannery hands—a "hand" being the term +for unskilled laborers as distinguished from fishermen, can machine +experts, engineers and the like. As such they were put to all sorts of +tasks, work that usually found them at the day's end weary, dirty with +fish scales and gurry, and more than a little disgusted. But they were +getting three dollars and a half a day, and it was practically clear, +which furnished a strong incentive to stick it out as long as the season +lasted—a matter of two more months.</p> + +<p>"By that time," said Tommy Ashe, "we'll have enough coin to venture into +fresh fields. My word, but we do earn this money. It's the nastiness I +object to, not the work. I shan't forget this first hundred dollars I've +earned by the sweat of my manly brow."</p> + +<p>In the fullness of time the salmon run came to an end. The pack being +finished the hands were paid off. In company with half a hundred others, +Ashe and Thompson were shipped from the Suchoi Bay Canneries back to +Wrangel again.</p> + +<p>In Wrangel, before they had been there four hours, Thompson got the +offer of work in a pile camp. He took his prospective job under +advisement and hunted up Tommy Ashe. Tommy dangled his legs over the +edge of the bed in their room, and considered the matter.</p> + +<p>"No," he said finally. "I don't believe I'll take it on. I think I'll go +down to Vancouver. I'm about two hundred dollars strong, and I don't +really see anything but a poor sort of living in this laboring-man +stuff. I'm going to try some business proposition. I've got a pretty +fair acquaintance with motor cars. I might be able to get in on the +selling end of the game, and there is good money in that in the way of +commissions. I know some people there who should be able to show me the +ropes. In a big live seaport like that there must be chances. Yes, I +think I'll try Vancouver. You'd better come too, Wes."</p> + +<p>Thompson shook his head. He knew nothing of business. He had no trade. +For a time—until he came face to face with an opportunity he could +recognize as such—he shrank from tackling a city. He had not quite +Tommy's confidence in himself.</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "I'd like to—but I don't believe I'd make good. And I +don't want to get in a position where I'd have to be looking for +somebody to throw me a life line. I don't seem to mind common hard work +so much. I don't imagine I could jump right into a town and be any +better off than I would be here. When I get a little more money ahead +I'll be tempted to take a chance on a city. But not yet."</p> + +<p>From this position Tommy's persuasion failed to move him. Tommy was +earnest enough, and perfectly sincere in promising to see him through. +But that was not what Thompson wanted. He was determined that in so far +as he was able he would make his own way unaided. He wanted to be +through with props forever. That had become a matter of pride with him. +He went back and told the pile-camp boss that he would report in two +days.</p> + +<p>A southbound steamer sailed forty-eight hours later. She backed away +from the Wrangel wharf with Tommy waving his hand to his partner on the +pierhead. Thompson went back to their room feeling a trifle blue, as one +does at parting from a friend. But it was not the moodiness of +uncertainty. He knew what he was going to do. He had simply got used to +Tommy being at his elbow, to chatting with him, to knowing that some one +was near with whom he could try to unravel a knotty problem or hold his +peace as he chose. He missed Tommy. But he knew that although they had +been partners over a hard country, had bucked a hard trail like men and +grown nearer to each other in the stress of it, they could not be +Siamese twins. His road and Tommy's road was bound to fork. A man had to +follow his individual inclination, to live his own life according to his +lights. And Tommy's was for town and the business world, while his—as +yet—was not.</p> + +<p>So for the next four months Thompson lived and worked on a wooded +promontory a few miles north of Wrangel, very near the mouth of the +river down which he and Tommy Ashe had come to the sea. He was housed +with thirty other men in a bunkhouse of hand-split cedar; he labored +every day felling and trimming tall slender poles for piling that would +ultimately hold up bridges and wharves. The crew was a cosmopolitan lot +so far as nationality went. In addition they were a tougher lot than +Thompson had ever encountered. He never quite fitted in. They knew him +for something of a tenderfoot, and they had not the least respect for +his size—until he took on and soundly whipped two of them in turn +before the bunkhouse door, with the rest of the thirty, the boss and the +cook for spectators. Thompson did not come off scathless, but he did +come off victor, although he was a bloody sight at the finish. But he +fought in sheer desperation, because otherwise he could not live in the +camp. And he smiled to himself more than once after that fracas, when he +noted the different attitude they took toward him. Might was perhaps not +right, but unless a man was both willing and able to fight for his +rights in the workaday world that was opening up to him, he could never +be very sure that his rights would be respected.</p> + +<p>Along with this incidental light upon the ways of his fellow working-men +he learned properly how to swing an axe; he grew accustomed to dragging +all day on the end of a seven-foot crosscut saw, to lift and strain with +a cant hook. The hardening process, begun at Lone Moose, continued +unceasingly. If mere physical hardihood had been his end, he could +easily have passed for a finished product. He could hold his own with +those broad-shouldered Swedes and Michigan loggers at any turn of the +road. And that was a long way for a man like Thompson to come in the +course of twelve months. If he could have been as sure of a sound, +working philosophy of life as he was of the fitness of his muscles he +would have been well satisfied. Sometimes it was a puzzle to him why men +existed, why the will to live was such a profound force, when living was +a struggle, a vexation, an aimless eating and sleeping and working like +a carthorse. Where was there any plan, any universal purpose at all?</p> + +<p>Having never learned dissipation as a form of amusement, nor having yet +been driven to it by the sheer deadliness of incessant, monotonous +labor, Thompson was able to save his money. When he went to Wrangel once +a month he got a bath, a hair-cut, and some magazines to read, perhaps +an article or two of necessary clothing. That was all his financial +outlay. He came back as clear-eyed as when he left, with the bulk of his +wages in his pocket, where some of his fellows returned with empty +pockets and aching heads.</p> + +<p>Wherefore, when the winter snows at last closed down the pile camp +Thompson had accumulated four hundred dollars. Also he had made an +impression on the contractor by his steadiness, to such an extent that +the man offered him a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month to come +back and take charge of a similar camp in the spring. But Thompson, like +Tommy Ashe, had grown troubled with the wandering foot. The money in +hand gave him security against want in strange places. He would not +promise to be on hand in the spring. Like Tommy, he had a notion to try +town, to see for himself what opportunity town afforded. And he pitched +on Vancouver, not alone because Tommy Ashe was there, but because it was +the biggest port on Canada's western coast. He had heard once from +Tommy. He was a motor-car salesman now, and he was doing well. But +Tommy's letter was neither long nor graphic in its descriptions. It left +a good deal of Vancouver to Thompson's imagination. However, like the +bear that went over the mountain, Thompson thought he would go and see +what he could see.</p> + +<p>Wrangel lies well within the Inside Passage, that great waterway which +is formed between the mainland and a chain of islands that sweeps from +Cape Flattery in the south to the landward end of the Aleutians. All the +steamers that ply between Puget Sound and Skagway take that route. +Seldom do the vessels plying between southern ports and the far beaches +of Nome come inside. They are deep-sea craft, built for offshore work. +So that one taking a steamer at Wrangel can travel in two directions +only, north to Skagway, south to Puget Sound.</p> + +<p>The booking facilities at Wrangel are primitive, to say the least. When +Thompson inquired about southbound passage, he was told to go down and +board the first steamer at the pierhead, and that it would leave at +eleven that night. So he took all his meager belongings, which he could +easily carry in a blanket roll and a sailor's ditty-bag, and went down +half an hour before sailing time. There seemed no one to bar his +passage, and he passed up the gangplank aboard a two-funnelled, +clean-decked steamer, and made his way to a smoking room aft.</p> + +<p>There were a few men lounging about, men of the type he was accustomed +to seeing in Wrangel, miners, prospectors and the like, clad in +mackinaws and heavy laced boots. Thompson, habitually diffident, asked +no questions, struck up no conversations after the free and easy manner +of the North. He laid down his bag and roll, sat awhile listening to the +shift of feet and the clatter of cargo winches on deck and pierhead. +Then, growing drowsy, he stretched himself on a cushioned seat with his +bag for a pillow and fell asleep.</p> + +<p>He woke with an odd sensation of his bed dropping out from under him. +Coming out of a sound slumber he was at first a trifle bewildered, but +instinctively he grasped a stanchion to keep himself from sliding across +the floor as the vessel took another deep roll. The smoking room was +deserted. He gained his feet and peered out of a window. All about him +ran the uneasy heave of the sea. Try as he would his eyes could pick up +no dim shore line. And it was not particularly dark, only a dusky gloom +spotted with white patches where a comber reared up and broke in foam. +He wondered at the ship's position. It did not conform to what he had +been told of the Inside Passage.</p> + +<p>And while he was wondering a ship's officer in uniform walked through +the saloon. He cast a quick glance at Thompson and smiled slightly.</p> + +<p>"This outside roll bother you?" he inquired pleasantly.</p> + +<p>"Outside?" Thompson grasped at the word's significance. "Are we going +down outside?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," the man responded. "We always do."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," Thompson began to sense what he had done, "I say—isn't this +the <i>Roanoke</i> for Seattle?"</p> + +<p>The mate's smile deepened. "Uh-uh," he grinned. "This is the <i>Simoon</i>, +last boat of the season from outside northern points. We had to put into +Wrangel, which we rarely do. The <i>Roanoke</i> berthed right across the +wharf from us. Got aboard us by mistake, did you?"</p> + +<p>Thompson nodded.</p> + +<p>"Well," the officer continued, "sometimes the longest way round is the +shortest way home. We don't touch this side the Golden Gate. So you may +as well see the purser when he gets up and have him assign you a berth. +It's pretty near daylight now."</p> + +<p>He nodded and went on. Thompson, holding fast, getting his first +uncomfortable experience of the roll and recovery of a ship in a beam +sea, made his way out on the after deck. Holding on the rail he peered +over the troubled water that was running in the open mouth of Dixon +Entrance, beyond which lay the vast breadth of the Pacific, an unbroken +stretch to the coast of Japan.</p> + +<p>Again Chance was playing the deuce with his calculations. For a few +minutes he felt uncommonly irritated. He had not started for San +Francisco. He did not want to go to San Francisco. Still—what was the +odds? San Francisco was as good as any other town. He shrugged his +shoulders, and feeling his way to a coiled hawser sat down in the bight +of it to contend with the first, faint touch of seasickness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XV"></a><h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>THE WORLD IS SMALL</h3> +<br> + +<p>For reasons of economy Thompson put himself up at a cheap rooming-house +well out Market Street. His window looked out upon that thoroughfare +which is to San Francisco what the aorta is to the arterial system. +Gazing down from a height of four stories he could see a never-ending +stir, hear the roar of vehicular traffic which swelled from a midnight +murmur to a deep-mouthed roar in the daylight hours. And on either side +the traffic lane there swept a stream of people like the current of the +Stikine River.</p> + +<p>He was not a stranger to cities, no rustic gazing open-mouthed at +throngs and tall buildings. His native city of Toronto was a fair-sized +place as American and Canadian cities go. But it was not a seaport. It +was insular rather than cosmopolitan; it took its character from its +locale rather than from a population gathered from the four quarters of +the globe. San Francisco—is San Francisco—a melting-pot of peoples, +blown through with airs from far countries, not wholly rid of the aura +of Drake and the conquistadores of Spain even in these latter days of +commercial expansion. And all of San Francisco's greatness and color and +wealth is crowded upon a peninsula, built upon rolling hills. What the +city lacks of spaciousness is compensated by action. Life goes at a +great pace.</p> + +<p>It made a profound impression on Thompson, since he had reached the +stage where he was keenly susceptible to external impressions from any +source whatever. Those hurrying multitudes, that unending stir, the +kaleidoscopic shifts of this human antheap made him at first profoundly +lonely, immeasurably insignificant, just as the North had made him feel +when he was new to it. But just as he had shaped himself to that +environment, so he felt—as he had not at first felt in the North—that +in time, with effort, he would become an integral part of this. Here the +big game was played. It was the antithesis of the North inasmuch as all +this activity had a purely human source and was therefore in some +measure akin to himself. The barriers to be overcome and the problems to +be solved were social and monetary. It was less a case of adapting +himself by painful degrees to a hostile primitive environment than a +forthright competitive struggle to make himself a master in this sort of +environment.</p> + +<p>How he should go about it he had no definite idea. He would have to be +an opportunist, he foresaw. He had no illusions about his funds in hand +being a prime lever to success. That four hundred dollars would not last +forever, nor would it be replenished by any effort save his own. It +afforded him a breathing spell, a chance to look about, to discover +where and how he should begin at the task of proving himself upon the +world.</p> + +<p>He had no misgivings about making a living. He could always fall back +on common labor. But a common laborer is socially of little worth, +financially of still less value. Thompson had to make money—using the +phrase in its commonly accepted sense. He subscribed to that doctrine, +because he was beginning to see that in a world where purchasing power +is the prime requisite a man without money is the slave of every +untoward circumstance. Money loomed before Thompson as the key to +freedom, decent surroundings, a chance to pursue knowledge, to so shape +his life that he could lend a hand or a dollar to the less fortunate.</p> + +<p>He still had those stirrings of altruism, a ready sympathy, an instinct +to help. Only he saw very clearly that he could not be of any benefit to +even a limited circle of his fellow men when at every turn of his hand +economic pressure bore so hard upon him as an individual. He began to +see that getting on in the world called for complete concentration of +his efforts upon his own well-being. A pauper cannot be a +philanthropist. One cannot take nothing from nothing and make something. +To be of use to others he must first grasp what he required for himself.</p> + +<p>Once he was settled and familiar enough with San Francisco to get from +the Ferry Building to the Mission and from the Marina to China Basin +without the use of a map he began to cast about for an opening. To make +an apprentice beginning in any of the professions required education. He +had that, he considered. It did not occur to him by what devious routes +men arrived at distinction in the professions. He thought of studying +for the law until the reception he got in various offices where he went +seeking for information discouraged him in that field. Law students were +a drug on the market.</p> + +<p>"My dear young man," one kindly, gray-haired attorney told him, "you'd +be wasting your time. The law means a tremendous amount of intellectual +drudgery, and a slim chance of any great success unless you are gifted +with a special aptitude for certain branches of it. All the great +opportunities for a young man nowadays lie in business and +salesmanship."</p> + +<p>Business and salesmanship being two things of which Thompson knew +himself to be profoundly ignorant, he made little headway. A successful +business operation, so far as he could observe, called for capital which +he did not possess. Salesmanship, when he delved into the method of +getting his foot on that rung of the ladder, required special training, +knowledge of a technical sort. That is, really successful salesmanship. +The other kind consisted of selling goods over a counter for ten dollars +per—with an excellent chance of continuing in that unenviable situation +until old age overtook him. This was an age of specialists—and he had +no specialty. Moreover, every avenue that he investigated seemed to be +jammed full of young men clamoring for a chance. The skilled trades had +their unions, their fixed hours of labor, fixed rates of pay. The big +men, the industrial managers, the men who stood out in the professions, +they had their own orbit into which he could not come until he had made +good. There were the two forces, the top and the bottom of the workaday +world. And he was in between, like a fish out of water.</p> + +<p>Wherefore Thompson continued looking about for a number of weeks. He +looked for work, without finding it save in street gangs and at labor +that was mostly done by Greeks and Italians fresh from Europe. A man had +to begin at the bottom, he realized, but he did not desire to begin at +the bottom of a ditch. He did not seek for such small clerical jobs as +he knew himself able to fill. He did not mean to sit on a high stool and +ruin his eyes over interminable rows of figures. That much at least the +North had done for him—fixed him firmly in the resolve that if he had +to sweat for a pittance it would not be within four walls, behind dusty +windows. He could always go back to the woods. Sometimes he thought he +would better do that out of hand, instead of wasting his time and money +seeking in a city for the goose that was to lay him golden eggs.</p> + +<p>When he was not hard on the trail of some definite opening sheer +loneliness drove him out on the streets. His room was a cheerless place, +a shelter for him when he slept and nothing more. Many a time, lacking +any real objective, he covered miles of San Francisco's streets. He +sought out parks, beaches, public buildings. At night he would drift, a +silent, lonely spirit, among the crowds that ebbed and flowed in the +downtown district that was a blaze of light.</p> + +<p>That restless wandering brought him by chance one evening along a +certain avenue which shall be nameless, because it is no longer the +haunt of the soap-boxer. This curious thoroughfare lay upon the +borderline between the smart shopping district and San Francisco's +Chinatown. For a matter of two or three blocks the street was given +over to an impromptu form of public assembly, a poor man's debating +ground, an open forum where any citizen with a grievance, a theory, or +even merely the gift of gab might air his views and be reasonably sure +of an audience. In the evening there was always a crowd. Street fakirs +plied their traffic under sputtering gas torches, dispensing, along with +a ready flow of glib chatter, marvellous ointments, cure-alls, soap, +suspenders, cheap safety razors, anything that would coax stray dimes +and quarters from the crowd.</p> + +<p>But the street fakirs were in the minority. The percentage of gullible +ones was small. Mostly it was a place of oratory, the haunt of +propagandists. Thompson listened to Social Democrats, Social Laborites, +syndicalists, radicals, revolutionaries, philosophical anarchists, men +with social and economic theories of the extremist type. But they talked +well. They had a grasp of their subject. They had on tap tremendous +quantities of all sorts of knowledge. The very extent of their +vocabulary amazed Thompson. He heard scientific and historical +authorities quoted and disputed, listened to arguments waged on every +sort of ground—from biological complexities which he could not +understand to agricultural statistics which he understood still less. A +lot of it perplexed and irritated him, because the terminology was over +his head. And the fact that he could not follow these men in full +intellectual flight spurred him to find the truth or falsity of those +things for himself. He got an inkling of the economic problems that +afflict society. He found himself assenting offhand to the reasonable +theorem that a man who produced wealth was entitled to what he +produced. He listened to many a wordy debate in which the theory of +evolution was opposed to the seven-day creation. There was thus revived +in him some of those troublesome perplexities which Sam and Sophie Carr +had first aroused.</p> + +<p>In the end, lacking profitable employment and growing dubious of +obtaining it during the slack industrial season which then hovered over +California, he turned to the serried shelves of the city library. Once +started along this road he became an habitué, spending in a particular +chair at a certain table anywhere from three to six hours a day, deep in +a book, not to be deterred therefrom by the usual series of mental +shocks which a man, full-fed all his life on conventions and dogmas and +superficial thinking, gets when he first goes seriously and critically +into the fields of scientific conclusions.</p> + +<p>He was seated at a reading table one afternoon, nursing his chin in one +hand, deep in a volume of Huxley's "Lectures and Essays" which was +making a profound impression upon him through its twin merits of simple, +concise language and breadth of vision. There was in it a rational +explanation of certain elementary processes which to Thompson had never +been accounted for save by means of the supernatural, the mysterious, +the inexplicable. Huxley was merely sharpening a function of his mind +which had been dormant until he ran amuck among the books. He began to +perceive order in the universe and all that it contained, that natural +phenomena could be interpreted by a study of nature, that there was +something more than a name in geology. And he was so immersed in what +he read, in the printed page and the inevitable speculations that arose +in his mind as he conned it, that he was only subconsciously aware of a +woman passing his seat.</p> + +<p>Slowly, as a man roused from deep sleep looks about him for the cause of +dimly heard noises, so now Thompson's eyes lifted from his book, and, +with his mind still half upon the last sentence read, his gaze followed +the girl now some forty feet distant in the long, quiet room.</p> + +<p>There was no valid reason why the rustle of a woman's skirt in passing, +the faint suggestion of some delicate perfume, should have focussed his +attention. He saw scores of women and girls in the library every day. He +passed thousands on the streets. This one, now, upon whom he gazed with +a detached interest, was like many others, a girl of medium height, +slender, well-dressed.</p> + +<p>That was all—until she paused at a desk to have speech with a library +assistant. She turned then so that her face was in profile, so that a +gleam of hair showed under a wide leghorn hat. And Thompson thought +there could scarcely be two women in the world with quite so marvellous +a similarity of face and figure and coloring, nor with quite the same +contour of chin and cheek, nor the same thick hair, yellow like the +husks of ripe corn or a willow leaf in the autumn. He was just as sure +that by some strange chance Sophie Carr stood at that desk as he was +sure of himself sitting in an oak chair at a reading table. And he rose +impulsively to go to her.</p> + +<p>She turned away in the same instant and walked quickly down a passage +between the rows of shelved books. Thompson could not drive himself to +hurry, nor to call. He was sure—yet not too sure. He hated to make +himself appear ridiculous. Nor was he overconfident that if it were +indeed Sophie Carr she would be either pleased or willing to renew their +old intimacy. And so, lagging faint-heartedly, he lost her in the maze +of books.</p> + +<p>But he did not quite give up. He was on the second floor. The windows on +a certain side overlooked the main entrance. He surmised that she would +be leaving. So he crossed to a window that gave on the library entrance +and waited for an eternity it seemed, but in reality a scant five +minutes, before he caught sight of a mauve suit on the broad steps. +Looking from above he could be less sure than when she stood at the +desk. But the girl halted at the foot of the steps and standing by a red +roadster turned to look up at the library building. The sun fell full +upon her upturned face. The distance was one easily to be spanned by +eyes as keen as his. Thompson was no longer uncertain. He was suddenly, +acutely unhappy. The old ghosts which he had thought well laid were +walking, rattling their dry bones forlornly in his ears.</p> + +<p>Sophie got into the machine. The red roadster slid off with gears +singing their metallic song as she shifted through to high. Thompson +watched it turn a corner, and went back to his table with a mind past +all possibility of concentrating upon anything between the covers of a +book. He put the volume back on its shelf at last and went out to walk +the streets in aimless, restless fashion, full of vivid, painful +memories, troubled by a sudden flaring up of emotions which had lain so +long dormant he had supposed them dead.</p> + +<p>Here in San Francisco he had not expected to behold Sophie in the +enjoyment of her good fortune. Yet there was no reason why she should +not be here. Thompson damned under his breath the blind chance which had +set him aboard the wrong steamer at Wrangel.</p> + +<p>But, he said to himself after a time, what did it matter? In a city of +half a million they were as far apart as if he were still at Lone Moose +and she God only knew where. That powerful roadster, the sort of clothes +she wore, the general air of well-being which he had begun to recognize +as a characteristic of people whose social and financial position is +impregnable—these things served to intensify the gulf between them +which their radical differences of outlook had originally opened. No, +Sophie Carr's presence in San Francisco could not possibly make any +difference to him. He repeated this emphatically—with rather more +emphasis than seemed necessary.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>A MEETING BY THE WAY</h3> +<br> + +<p>But he found it did make a difference, a profoundly disturbing +difference. He had grown insulated against the memory of Sophie Carr +tugging at his heartstrings as the magnetic north pulls on the compass +needle. He had grown free of both thought and hope of her. There had +been too many other vital things pressing upon him these months of +adventure in toil, too many undeniable, everyday factors of living +present at every turn, hourly insistent upon being coped with, for him +to nurse old sad dreams and longings. So he had come at last to think of +that passionate yearning as a disease which had run its course.</p> + +<p>Now, to his dismay, it recurred in all its old virulence, at a mere +glimpse of Sophie. The floodgates of memory loosed bitter waters upon +him, to make his heart heavy and spoil his days of passive content. It +angered him to be so hopelessly troubled. But he could not gainsay the +fact.</p> + +<p>It made San Francisco a dreary waste. Try as he would he could not keep +Sophie Carr from being the sun around which the lesser nebulæ of his +thought continually revolved. He could no more help a wistful lookout +for her upon San Francisco's streets than he could help breathing. Upon +the rolling phalanxes of motor cars his gaze would turn with watchful +expectation, and he took to scanning the faces of the passing thousands, +a lonely, shy man with a queer glow in his eyes. That, of course, was +only in moments of forgetfulness. Then he would pull himself together +with a resentful irritation and tax himself with being a weak fool and +stalk along about his business.</p> + +<p>But his business had lost its savor, just as his soul had lost its +slowly-won serenity. His business had no importance to any save himself. +It had been merely to winter decently and economically with an eye +cocked for such opportunities of self-betterment as came his way, and +failing material opportunity in this Bagdad of the Pacific coast to make +the most of his enforced idleness.</p> + +<p>And now the magic of the colorful city had departed along with the magic +of the books. The downtown streets ceased to be a wonderful human +panorama which he loved to watch. The hushed reading room where he had +passed so many contented hours was haunted by a presence that obscured +the printed page. He would find himself staring absently at an open +book, the words blurred and overlaid with mental pictures of Lone Moose, +of Sophie sitting on the creek bank, of his unfinished church, forlorn +and gaunt in the winter snows and the summer silences, of Tommy Ashe +trudging across the meadow, gun in hand, of old Sam Carr in his +moosehide chair, of the Indians, the forest, of all that goes to make +the northern wilderness—and of himself moving through it all, an +unheroic figure, a man who had failed in his work, in his love, in +everything.</p> + +<p>That, chiefly, was what stirred him anew to action, a suddenly acute +sense of failure, of a consciousness that he was drifting instead of +doing. He found himself jarred out of the even tenor of his way. San +Francisco filled him with dissatisfaction now, knowing that she was +there. If the mere knowledge that Sophie Carr dwelt somewhere within the +city boundaries had power to make a mooning idiot of him, he said to +himself testily, then he had better get out, go somewhere, get down to +work, be at his fixed purpose of proving his mettle upon an obdurate +world, and get her out of his mind in the process. He couldn't tune his +whole existence to a sentimental craving for any woman—even such a +woman as Sophie. He would, in the moment of such emotional genuflexions, +have dissented with cynical bitterness from the poetic dictum that it +was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.</p> + +<p>Spurred by this mood he acted instinctively rather than with reasoned +purpose. He gave up his room, packed his clothes and betook himself upon +a work-seeking pilgrimage among the small, interior towns.</p> + +<p>He left San Francisco in March. By May he had circulated all through the +lower San Joaquin and farther abroad to the San Juan, and had turned his +face again toward San Francisco Bay. At various jobs he had tried his +hand, making a living such as it was, acquiring in addition thereto a +store of first-hand experience in the social and monetary values of +itinerant labor. He conceded that such experience might somehow be of +use to a man. But he had had enough of it. He had a feeling of having +tested California for his purposes—and of finding it wanting.</p> + +<p>He had made up his mind to double on his tracks, to go north again, +specifically to British Columbia, partly because Tommy was there, +chiefly because Vancouver was a growing place on the edge of a vast, +newly opened interior. He knew that if no greater thing offered, from +that center there was always the avenue of the woods. He could qualify +in that line. And in the woods even a common axeman exacted and received +more democratic treatment than in this older region where industry ran +in fixed channels, where class lines were more rigidly drawn, where +common labor was cheap and unprivileged.</p> + +<p>He hadn't been getting on in those three months. He had less money than +when he started out—about enough now to get him up North and leave a +hundred dollars or so for emergencies. No, decidedly he wasn't getting +on—he was going down, he told himself. It dismayed him a little. It +wasn't enough to be big and strong and willing. A mule could be that. +The race was not to the swift or the strong. Not in modern industry, +with its bewildering complexities. No, it fell to the trained, the +specialist in knowledge, the man who could do something more +efficiently, with greater precision than his fellows.</p> + +<p>He could not do that—not yet. And so there was nothing in California +for him, he decided. A man could no longer go West and grow up with the +country—but he could go North.</p> + +<p>Thompson was sitting on the border of a road that runs between San +Mateo and the city when he definitely committed himself to doubling on +his tracks, to counteracting the trick of fate which had sent him to a +place where he did not wish to go. He was looking between the trees and +out over an undulating valley floored with emerald fields, studded with +oaks, backed by the bare Hamiltons to the east, and westward by the +redwood-clad ruggedness of the Santa Cruz range. And he was not seeing +this loveliness of landscape at all. He was looking far beyond and his +eyes were full of miles upon miles of untrodden forest, the sanctuary of +silence and furtive living things, of mountains that lifted snowy spires +to heaven high over the glaciers that scarred their sides. And the +smells that for a moment rose strongly in his nostrils were not the +smells of palm and gum and poppy-dotted fields, but odors of pine and +spruce and the smell of birchwood burning in campfires. He came out of +that queer projection of mind into great distance with a slight shake of +his head and a feeling of wonder. It had been very vivid. And it dawned +upon him that for a minute he had grown sentimentally lonely for that +grim, unconquered region where he had first learned the pangs of +loneliness, where he had suffered in body and spirit until he had +learned a lesson he would never forget while he lived.</p> + +<p>The road itself, abutting upon stately homes and modest bungalows behind +a leafy screen of Australian gums, ran straight as an arrow down the +peninsula toward the city and the bay, a broad, smoothly asphalted +highway upon that road where the feet of the Franciscan priests had +traced the <i>Camino Real</i>. And down this highway both north and south +there passed many motor cars swiftly and silently or with less speed and +more noise, according to their quality and each driver's mood.</p> + +<p>Thompson rested, watching them from the grassy level beneath a tree. He +rather regretted now the impulse which had made him ship his bag and +blanket roll from the last town, and undertake this solitary hike. He +had merely humored a whim to walk through orchards and green fields in a +leisurely fashion, to be a careless trudger for a day. True, he was +saving carfare, but he observed dryly that he was expending many +dollars' worth of energy—to say nothing of shoe leather. The pleasure +of walking, paradoxically, was best achieved by sitting still in the +shade. A midday sun was softening the asphalt with its fierce blaze. He +looked idly at passing machines and wondered what the occupants thereof +would say if he halted one and demanded a ride. He smiled.</p> + +<p>He stared after a passing sedan driven by a uniformed chauffeur, one +half the rear seat occupied by a fat, complacent woman, the other half +of the ten-inch upholstery given over to an equally fat and complacent +bulldog. And while he reflected in some little amusement at the +circumstance which gave a pampered animal the seat of honor in a +six-thousand-dollar car and sent an able-bodied young man trudging down +the road in the heat and the dust, another machine came humming up from +the south.</p> + +<p>It was a red car, crowding the state limit for speed, and it swept down +on Thompson with a subdued purr like a great cat before a fire. When it +was almost abreast of him there burst from it a crack like the report of +a shotgun. There was just a perceptible wabble of the machine. Its hot +pace slackened abruptly. It rolled past and came to a stop beside the +road fifty yards along—a massive brute of a red roadster driven by a +slim girl in a pongee suit, a girl whose bare head was bound about with +heavy braids of corn-yellow hair.</p> + +<p>Thompson half rose—then sank back in momentary indecision. Perhaps it +were wiser to let sleeping dogs lie. Then he smiled at the incongruity +of that proverb applied to Sophie Carr.</p> + +<p>He sat watching the machine for a minute. The halting of its burst of +speed was no mystery to Thompson. Miss Carr proceeded with calm +deliberation. She first resurrected a Panama hat from somewhere in the +seat beside her and pinned it atop of her head. Then she got out, walked +around to the front wheel, poked it tentatively once or twice, and +proceeded about the business of getting out a jack and a toolkit.</p> + +<p>By the time Thompson decided that in common decency he should offer to +lend a hand and thus was moved to rise and approach the disabled car she +had the jack under the front axle and was applying a brace wrench to the +rim bolts. But the rim bolts that hold on a five-inch tire are not +designed to unscrew too easily. Sophie had started one with an earnest +tug and was twisting stoutly at the second when he reached her. He knew +by the impersonal glance she gave him that he was to her merely a casual +stranger.</p> + +<p>"May I help you?" he said politely. "A big tire is rather hard to +handle."</p> + +<p>Sophie bestowed another level look upon him as she straightened up from +her task. A puzzled expression showed briefly in her gray eyes. But she +handed him the wrench without parley.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, if you will," she said. "These rim bolts are fearfully stiff. I +daresay I could manage it though. I've done it on a lighter car. But +it's a man's job, really."</p> + +<p>Thompson laid off his coat and set to work silently, withholding speech +for a double reason. He could not trust his tongue, and he was not given +to inconsequential chatter. If she did not recognize him—well, there +was no good reason why she should remember, if she chose not to +remember. He could lend a hand and go his way, just as he would have +been moved to lend a hand to any one in like difficulty.</p> + +<p>He twisted out the bolt-heads, turned the lugs, pulled the rim clear of +the wheel. He stood up to get the spare tire from its place behind. And +he caught Sophie staring at him, astonishment, surprise, inquiry all +blended in one frank stare. But still she did not speak.</p> + +<p>He trundled the blow-out casing to the rear, took off the one ready +inflated, and speedily had it fast in its appointed position on the +wheel.</p> + +<p>And still Sophie Carr did not speak. She leaned against the car body. He +felt her eyes upon him, questioning, appraising, critical, while he +released the jack, gathered up the tools, and tied them up in the roll +on the running board.</p> + +<p>"There you are," he found himself facing her, his tongue giving off +commonplace statements, while his heart thumped heavily in his breast. +"Ready for the road again."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember what Donald Lachlan used to say?" Sophie answered +irrelevantly. "Long time I see you no. Eh, Mr. Thompson?"</p> + +<p>She held out one gloved hand with just the faintest suggestion of a +smile hovering about her mouth. Thompson's work-roughened fingers closed +over her small soft hand. He towered over her, looking down wistfully.</p> + +<p>"I didn't think you knew me," he muttered.</p> + +<p>Sophie laughed. The smile expanded roguishly. The old, quizzical twinkle +flickered in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"You must think my memory poor," she replied. "You're not one of the +peas in a pod, you know. I knew you, and still I wasn't sure. It seemed +scarcely possible. It's a long, long way from the Santa Clara Valley to +Lone Moose."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered calmly. "A long way—the way I came."</p> + +<p>"In a purely geographical sense?"</p> + +<p>Her voice was tinged with gentle raillery.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," he answered noncommittally.</p> + +<p>It dawned upon him that for all his gladness to see her—and he was +glad—he nursed a tiny flame of resentment. He had come a long way +measured on the map, and a far greater distance measured in human +experience, in spiritual reckoning. If the old narrow faith had failed +him he felt that slowly and surely he was acquiring a faith that would +not fail him, because it was based on a common need of mankind. But he +was still sure there must be a wide divergence in their outlook. He was +getting his worldly experience, his knowledge of material factors, of +men's souls and faiths and follies and ideals and weaknesses in a rude +school at first hand—and Sophie had got hers out of books and logical +deductions from critically assembled fact. There was a difference in the +two processes. He knew, because he had tried both. And where the world +at large faced him, and must continue to face him, like an enemy +position, something to be stormed, very likely with fierce fighting, for +Sophie Carr it had all been made easy.</p> + +<p>So he did not follow up that conversational lead. He was not going to +bare his soul offhand to gratify any woman's curiosity. It would be very +easy to make a blithering ass of himself again—with her—because of +her. Already he was on his guard against that. His pride was alert.</p> + +<p>Sophie stowed the canvas tool roll under the seat cushion. She climbed +to her seat behind the steering column and turned to Thompson.</p> + +<p>"Which way are you bound?" she asked. "I'll give you a lift, and we can +talk."</p> + +<p>"I'm on my way to San Francisco," he said. "But time is no object in my +young life right now, or I'd take the Interurban instead of walking. It +would be demoralizing to me, I'm afraid, to whiz down these roads in a +machine like this."</p> + +<p>Sophie shoved the opposite door open.</p> + +<p>"Get in," she let a flavor of reproof creep into her tone. "Don't talk +that sort of nonsense."</p> + +<p>Thompson hesitated. He was suddenly uncomfortable, conscious of his +dusty clothes somewhat the worse for wear, his shoes from which the +pristine freshness had long vanished, the day-old stubble on his chin. +There was a depressing contrast between his outward condition and that +of the smartly dressed girl whose gray eyes were resting curiously on +him now.</p> + +<p>"Do you make a practice of picking up tramps along the road?" he parried +with an effort at lightness. He wanted to refuse outright, yet could not +utter the words. "I'm not very presentable."</p> + +<p>"Get in. Don't be silly," she said impatiently. "You don't think I've +become a snob just because chance has pitchforked me into the ranks of +the idle rich, do you?"</p> + +<p>Thompson laughed awkwardly. There was real feeling in her tone, as if +she had read correctly his hesitation and resented it. After all, why +not? It would merely be an incident to Sophie Carr, and it would save +him some hot and dusty miles. He got in.</p> + +<p>"I'm quite curious to know where you've been and what you've been doing +for the last year," she said, when the red car was once more rolling +toward the city at a sedate pace. "And by the way, where did you learn +to change a tire so smartly?"</p> + +<p>"My last job," Thompson told her truthfully, "was washing cars, +greasing up, and changing tires in a country garage down in the San +Juan." He paused for a moment. "Before that I was chaperon to a stable +full of horses on a Salinas ranch. I've tried being a carpenter's +helper, an assistant gardener, understudy to a suburban plumber—and +other things too numerous to mention—in the last three months. I think +the most satisfactory thing I've tackled was the woods up north, last +fall."</p> + +<p>"You must have acquired experience, at least, even if none of those +things proved an efficient method of making money," she returned +lightly.</p> + +<p>"A man like me," he remarked, "has first to learn how to make a living +before he can set about making money."</p> + +<p>"Making money is relative. Quite often it merely means making a living +with an extended horizon," she observed. "I know a man with a +ten-thousand-dollar salary who finds it a living, no more."</p> + +<p>"Poor devil," he drawled sardonically. "When I get into the +ten-thousand-a-year class I rather think it will afford me a few trifles +beyond bare subsistence."</p> + +<p>She smiled.</p> + +<p>"Have you set that for a mark to shoot at?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't set any limit," he replied. "I haven't got my sights adjusted +yet."</p> + +<p>"I can scarcely assure myself that you are really you," she said after a +momentary silence. "I can't seem to disassociate you with Lone Moose and +a blundering optimism, a mystical faith that the Lord would make things +come out right if you only leaned on Him hard enough. Now your talk is +flavored with both egotism and the bitterness of the cynic."</p> + +<p>"How should a man talk?" he demanded. "Like a worm if he chance to be +trodden on a few times? Does a man necessarily become cynical when he +realizes that plugging from the bottom up is no child's play? As for +egotism—Heaven knows you knocked that out of me pretty effectually when +you left Lone Moose. You made me feel like a whipped puppy for months. I +chucked myself out of the church because of that—that abased, +disheartened feeling. For a year and a half I've been learning and +discovering that life isn't a parlor game. Do you remember that letter +you left with Cloudy Moon for me? I need only to recall a phrase here +and there in that as a cure for incipient egotism. What do you think I +should have become?" he flung at her, unconscious of the passion in his +voice, "A poor thing glad of a ride in your car? Or a confirmed optimist +in overalls?"</p> + +<p>Sophie gave him a queer sidelong glance.</p> + +<p>"Can't you let the dead past bury its dead?" she asked quietly.</p> + +<p>Thompson kept his eyes on the smooth, green-bordered road for a minute. +The quick wave of feeling passed. He stifled it—indeed, felt ashamed +for letting it briefly master him.</p> + +<p>"Of course," he answered at last, and turned to her with a friendly +quirk of his lips. "It is buried pretty deep one way and another, isn't +it? And it would hardly be decent to exhume the remains. Shall we talk +about the weather?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be sarcastic," she reproved gently. "Save that to cope with dad. +He'll relish it coming from you."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Thompson said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't mind a chat with +your father. We wouldn't agree on many things, by a good way, although +I've discovered that some of his philosophy is sound enough. But I've +got to make a move, and I'm so situated that I must make it quickly or +not at all. I'm going to take the first north-bound steamer out of San +Francisco. So I don't imagine Mr. Carr will have a chance at me soon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, he will," Sophie asserted confidently. "In about twenty +minutes."</p> + +<p>Thompson looked at her, startled a little by this bland assertion.</p> + +<p>"We'll be home in about twenty minutes," she explained.</p> + +<p>"But I'm—why take the trouble?" he asked bluntly. "I'm out of your +orbit entirely. Or do you want to exhibit me as a horrible example?"</p> + +<p>"You're downright rude," she laughed. "Or you would be if you were +serious. Do you mind coming to see dad? And I'd like to hear more about +your trip across the mountains with Tommy Ashe."</p> + +<p>Thompson pricked up his ears.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know about that, eh?" he remarked. "How—"</p> + +<p>"Not as much as I'd like to," she interrupted. "Will you come?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he agreed. "But give a fellow a chance. Don't drag me into your +home looking like this. I'm not vain, but I'd feel more comfortable in +clean clothes. I shipped all my things into town. They should be in the +express office now. I'll come this afternoon or this evening, whichever +you say. Drop me off at the first carline."</p> + +<p>"I'll do better than that," she declared. "I'll drive you downtown +myself."</p> + +<p>"But it isn't necessary," he persisted. "I don't want to take up all +your time, and—"</p> + +<p>"For the rest of this day," Sophie murmured, "I have absolutely nothing +to do but kill time. I get restless, and being out in the car cures that +feeling. Do you mind if I chauff you a few miles more or less? Don't be +ungallant. I love to drive."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well."</p> + +<p>Thompson mentally threw up his hands. In that gracious mood Sophie was +irresistible. He sank back in the thick, resilient upholstery and +resolved to take what the gods provided—to dance as it were, and reckon +with the piper when he presented his bill.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>THE REPROOF COURTEOUS (?)</h3> +<br> + +<p>For the few minutes it took the red roadster to slip under the green +summits of Twin Peaks and by a maze of boulevards debouch at length upon +Valencia and so into the busy length of Market Street their talk ran to +commonplaces. Thompson placed himself unreservedly in Sophie's hands. He +had to reach an express office on lower Market, get his things, and +proceed thence to the house where he had roomed all winter. Since it +suited Miss Carr's book to convey him to the first point, he accepted +the gift of her company gladly. So in the fullness of time they came +into the downtown press of traffic, among which, he observed, Sophie +steered her machine like a veteran.</p> + +<p>At Third and Market the traffic whistle blocked them with the front +wheels over the safety line that guided the flow of cross-street +pedestrians, and the point man, crabbed perhaps from a long trick amidst +that roaring maze of vehicles, motioned autocratically for her to back +up.</p> + +<p>Sophie muttered impatiently under her breath and went into reverse. +Behind her the traffic was piling up, each machine stealing every inch +of vantage for the go-ahead signal, crowding up wheel to wheel, the nose +of one thrusting at the rear fender of the other. On one side of Sophie +rose the base of a safety station for street-car boarders. Between her +car and the curb a long-snouted gray touring-car was edging in. And as +she backed under the imperative command of the traffic officer, one rear +hub clinked against the hind fender of the other, jarring both cars a +little, dinting the gray one's fender, marring the glossy finish.</p> + +<p>A chauffeur in a peaked cap drove the gray machine. He looked across at +Sophie, scowling. He was young and red-faced, a pugnacious-looking +individual.</p> + +<p>"Back to the country, Jane, an' practice on the farm wagon," he snarled +out of one corner of his mouth. "Yuh drive like a hick, yuh do."</p> + +<p>"Talk civil to a woman," Thompson snapped back at him, "or keep your +mouth shut."</p> + +<p>The chauffeur bestowed upon him a rancorous glare. His sharp, ferret +eyes gleamed. Then he deliberately spat upon the impeccably shining red +hood of Sophie's roadster.</p> + +<p>A scant arm's length separated him from Thompson. Thompson bridged that +gap with his feet still on the running-board of the roadster. He moved +so quickly that the chauffeur had no chance. He did try to slide out +from behind the wheel and his fist doubled and drew back, but Thompson's +work-hardened fingers closed about his neck, and the powerful arms back +of those clutching hands twisted the man out of all position to strike +any sort of blow. He yanked the chauffeur's head out over the side of +the car, struck him one open-handed slap that was like an earnest cluff +from a sizable bear, lifted again and banged the man's face down on the +controls on his wheels, then pushed him back into his seat, limp and +disheveled, all the insolent defiance knocked out of him.</p> + +<p>Thompson stood on the running board, panting a little, the blaze of a +quick anger bright in his blue eyes, and he became aware of two men in +the rear seat of the gray car, gazing at him in open-mouthed +astonishment. One was fat and long past forty, well fed, well dressed, a +prosperous citizen. The other was a slim youngster in the early +twenties, astonishingly like his older companion as to feature.</p> + +<p>Thompson looked at them, and back at the cowed driver who was feeling +his neck and face with shaky fingers. Just then three things +happened—simultaneously. The traffic whistle blew. The younger man +opened his mouth and uttered, "I say—" Sophie plucked at Thompson's +arm, crying "Sit down, sit down."</p> + +<p>Thompson was still fumbling the catch on the door when they swept over +the cross street and raced down the next block. He looked back. The gray +car was hidden somewhere in a rolling phalanx of other motors. The +traffic had split and flowed about and past it, stalled there doubtless +while the red-faced chauffeur wiped the blood out of his eyes and +wondered if a street car had struck him.</p> + +<p>"Do you habitually reprove ill-bred persons in that vigorous manner?"</p> + +<p>He became aware of Sophie speaking. He looked at her. So far as he could +gather from her profile she was quite unperturbed, making her way among +the traffic that is always like a troubled sea between Third and the +Ferry Building.</p> + +<p>"No," he replied diffidently. "I daresay I'd be in jail or the hospital +most of the time if I did. Still, that was rather a rank case. I'm not +sorry I bumped him. He'll be civil to the next woman he meets."</p> + +<p>What he did not attempt to explain to Sophie, a matter he scarcely +fathomed himself, was his precipitancy, this going off "half-cocked", as +he put it. He wasn't given to quick bursts of temper. It was as if he +had been holding himself in and the self-contained pressure had grown +acute when the insolent chauffeur presented himself as a relief valve. +He felt a little ashamed now.</p> + +<p>Sophie swung the roadster in to the curb before the express office. +Thompson got out.</p> + +<p>"Good-by till this evening, then," he said. "I'll be there if the police +don't get me."</p> + +<p>"If they do," she smiled, "telephone and dad will come down and bail you +out. Good-by, Mr. Thompson."</p> + +<p>Ten minutes or so later he emerged from the express office with a +suitcase, a canvas bag, and a roll of blankets. He had no false pride +about people seeing him with his worldly goods upon his back, so to +speak, wherefore he crossed the street and trudged half a block to a +corner where he could catch a car that would carry him out Market to his +old rooming place.</p> + +<p>And, since this was a day in which events trod upon each other's heels +to reach him, it befell that as he loitered on the curb a gray touring +car rolled up, stopped, and a short, stout man emerging therefrom +disappeared hurriedly within the portals of an office building. +Thompson's gaze rested speculatively on the machine. Gray cars were +common enough. But without a doubt this was the same vehicle. The +chauffeur in the peaked cap was not among those present—but Thompson +could take oath on the other two. The young man sat behind the steering +wheel.</p> + +<p>He, too, it presently transpired, was spurred by recognition. His roving +eyes alighted upon Thompson with a reminiscent gleam. He edged over in +his seat. Thompson stood almost at the front fender.</p> + +<p>"I say," the man in the car addressed him bluntly, "weren't you in a red +roadster back at Third and Market about fifteen or twenty minutes ago?"</p> + +<p>"I was," Thompson admitted.</p> + +<p>Was he to be arrested forthwith on a charge of assault and battery? +Policemen were plentiful enough in that quarter. All one had to do was +crook his finger. People could not be expected to take kindly to having +their chauffeur mauled and disabled like that. But Thompson stood his +ground indifferently.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must say," the young man drawled, producing a cigarette case as +he spoke, "you squashed Pebbles with neatness and despatch, and Pebbles +was supposed to be some scrapper, too. What do you weigh?"</p> + +<p>Thompson laughed outright. He had expected a complaint, perhaps +prosecution. He was handed a compliment.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he smiled. "About a hundred and eighty-five, I think."</p> + +<p>"You must be pretty fit to handle a man like that," the other observed. +"The beggar had it coming, all right. He gets an overnight jag, and is +surly all the next day. I was going to apologize to the lady, but you +were too quick for me. By the way, are you a working-man—or a +capitalist in disguise?"</p> + +<p>Before Thompson quite decided how he should answer this astonishingly +personal inquiry, the young man's companion strode out of the lobby and +entered the car. At least he had his hand on the open door and one foot +on the running board. And there he halted and turned about at something +his son said—Thompson assumed they were father and son. The likeness of +feature was too well-defined to permit of any lesser relation.</p> + +<p>The older man took his foot off the running board, and made a deliberate +survey of Thompson.</p> + +<p>"Just a second, Fred," he muttered, and took a step toward Thompson. His +eyes traveled swiftly from Thompson's face down over the suitcase and +blanket roll, and came back to that deliberate matching of glances.</p> + +<p>"Do you happen to be looking for a position that requires energy, +ability, and a fair command of the English language?" he demanded +abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Thompson answered briefly.</p> + +<p>He wondered what was coming. Were they going to offer him the +chauffeur's job? Did they require a bruiser to drive the gray car?</p> + +<p>"Know anything about motors?"</p> + +<p>"Not the first principles, even." Thompson declared himself frankly. He +did possess a little such knowledge, but held a little knowledge to be a +dangerous admission.</p> + +<p>"So much the better," the stout man commented.</p> + +<p>He fished out a cardcase, and handed his card to Thompson.</p> + +<p>"Call on me at ten o'clock to-morrow morning," he said briskly. "I'll +make you a proposition."</p> + +<p>He did not permit inquiry into his motive or anything else, in fact, for +he got quickly into the car and it started off instantly, leaving Mr. +Wesley Thompson, a little bewildered by the rapidity of these +proceedings, staring at the card, which read:</p> + +<p class="ctr">John P. Henderson, Inc.<br> +Van Ness at Potter Groya Motors</p> + +<p>A westbound street car bore down on the corner. Thompson gave over +reflecting upon this latest turn of affairs, gathered up his things, +boarded the car, and was set off a few minutes later near the Globe +Rooms.</p> + +<p>At precisely 8 p.m. he arrived at the address Sophie had given +him and found it to be an apartment house covering half a block, an +enormous structure clinging upon the slope which dips from Nob Hill down +to the heart of the city. An elevator shot him silently aloft to the +fifth floor. As silently the elevator man indicated the location of +Apartment 509. The whole place seemed pitched to that subdued note, as +if it were a sanctuary from the clash and clamor without its walls. +Thompson walked down a hushed corridor over a velvet carpet that +muffled his footfalls and so came at last to the proper door, where he +pressed a black button in the center of a brass plate. The door opened +almost upon the instant. A maid eyed him interrogatively. He mentioned +his name.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," the maid answered. "This way, please."</p> + +<p>She relieved him of his hat and led him down a short, dusky hall into a +bright-windowed room, in which, from the depths of two capacious leather +chairs, Sophie and her father rose to greet him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>MR. HENDERSON'S PROPOSITION</h3> +<br> + +<p>Late that evening Thompson walked into his room at the Globe. He seated +himself in a rickety chair under a fly-specked incandescent lamp, beside +a bed that was clean and comfortable if neither stylish nor massive. +Over against the opposite wall stood a dresser which had suffered at the +hands of many lodgers. Altogether it was a cheap and cheerless abode, a +place where a man was protected from the weather, where he could lie +down and sleep. That was all.</p> + +<p>Thompson smiled sardonically. With hands clasped behind his head he +surveyed the room deliberately, and the survey failed to please him.</p> + +<p>"Hell," he exploded suddenly. "I'd ten times rather be out in the woods +with a tent than have to live like this—always."</p> + +<p>He had spent a pleasant three hours in surroundings that approximated +luxury. He had been graciously received and entertained. However, it was +easy to be gracious and entertaining when one had the proper setting. A +seven-room suite and two servants were highly desirable from certain +angles. Oh, well—what the devil was the difference!</p> + +<p>Thompson threw off his clothes and got into bed. But he could not escape +insistent thought. Against his dull walls, on which the street light +cast queer patterns through an open window, he could see, through drowsy +eyes, Sophie half-buried in a great chair, listening attentively while +he and her father talked. Of course they had fallen into argument, +sometimes triangular, more often solely confined to himself and Carr. +Thompson was glad that the Grant Street orators had driven him to the +city library that winter. A man needed all the weapons he could command +against that sharp-tongued old student who precipitated himself joyfully +into controversy.</p> + +<p>But of course they did not spend three hours discussing abstract +theories. There was a good deal of the personal. Thompson had learned +that they were in San Francisco for the winter only. Their home was in +Vancouver. And Tommy Ashe was still in Vancouver, graduated from an +automobile salesman to an agency of his own, and doing well in the +venture. Tommy, Carr said, had the modern business instinct. He did not +specify what that meant. Carr did not dwell much on Tommy. He appeared +to be much more interested in Thompson's wanderings, his experiences, +the shifts he had been put to, how the world impressed him, viewed from +the angle of the ordinary man instead of the ministerial.</p> + +<p>"If you wish to achieve success as modern society defines success, +you've been going at it all wrong," he remarked sagely. "The big rewards +do not lie in producing and creating, but in handling the results of +creation and production—at least so it seems to me. Get hold of +something the public wants, Thompson, and sell it to them. Or evolve a +sure method of making big business bigger. They'll fall on your neck and +fill your pockets with money if you can do that. Profitable +undertakings—that's the ticket. Anybody can work at a job."</p> + +<p>That sounded rather cynical and Thompson said so. Carr laughed genially. +One couldn't escape obvious conclusions, he declared. Perhaps youth and +enthusiasm saw it differently.</p> + +<p>Thompson, through sleep-heavy eyes, saw Carr hold a glass of port wine, +glowing like a ruby, up between himself and the light and sip it slowly. +Carr was partial to that wine. Wonder if the old chap didn't get +properly lit up sometimes? He looked as if—well, as if he enjoyed easy +living—easy drinking. There was brandy and soda and a bottle of Scotch +on the sideboard too.—And Sophie <i>was</i> beautiful. All the little +feminine artifices of civilization accentuated the charm that had been +potent enough in the woods. Silk instead of gingham. Dainty shoes +instead of buckskin moccasins.—What an Aladdin's lamp money was, +anyway. Funny that they had settled upon Vancouver for a home. Tommy was +there too. Of course. Should a fellow stick to his hunch? Vancouver +might give birth to an opportunity. Profitable undertakings.—At any +rate he would see her now and then. But would he—working? Did he want +to? Would a cat continue to stare at a king if the king's crown rather +dazzled the cat's eyes? Suppose—just suppose—</p> + +<p>Thompson sat up in bed with a start. It seemed to him that he had just +lain down, that the train of his thought was still racing. But it was +broad day, a dull morning, gloomy with that high fog which in spring +often rides over the city and the bay till near noon.</p> + +<p>He stretched his arms, yawning. All at once he recollected that he had +something to do, a call to make upon Mr. John P. Henderson at ten +o'clock. Groya Motors—he wondered what significance that held. At any +rate he proposed to see.</p> + +<p>It lacked just forty minutes of the appointed time. Thompson bounced out +of bed. Within twenty minutes he had swallowed a cup of coffee at a +near-by lunch counter and was on his way up Van Ness.</p> + +<p>The corner of Van Ness and Potter revealed a six-story concrete +building, its plate-glass frontage upon the sidewalk displaying three or +four beautifully finished automobiles upon a polished oak floor. The +sign across the front bore the heraldry of the card. He walked in, +accosted the first man he saw, and was waved to a flight of stairs +reaching a mezzanine floor. Gaining that he discovered in a short +corridor a door bearing upon its name-plate the legend:</p> + +Mr. John P. Henderson.<br> +<br> +Private.<br> + +<p>Thompson looked at his watch. It lacked but two minutes of ten. He +knocked, and a voice bade him enter. He found himself face to face with +the master of the gray car. Mr. John P. Henderson looked more imposing +behind a mahogany desk than he did on the street. He had a heavy jaw and +a forehead-crinkling way of looking at a man. And—although Thompson +knew nothing of the fact and at the moment would not have cared a +whoop—John P. was just about the biggest toad in San Francisco's +automobile puddle. He had started in business on little but his nerve +and made himself a fortune. It was being whispered along the Row that +John P. was organizing to manufacture cars as well as sell them—and +that was a long look ahead for the Pacific coast.</p> + +<p>He nodded to Thompson, bade him be seated. And Thompson sank into a +chair, facing John P. across the desk. He wanted nothing, expected +nothing. He was simply smitten with a human curiosity to know what this +stout, successful man of affairs had to propose to him.</p> + +<p>"My name is Thompson," he stated cheerfully. "It is ten o'clock. I have +called—as you suggested."</p> + +<p>Henderson smiled.</p> + +<p>"I have been accused of hastiness in my judgment of men, but it is +admitted that I seldom make mistakes," he said complacently. "In this +organization there is always a place for able, aggressive young men. +Some men have ability without any force. Some men are aggressive with no +ability whatever. How about you? Think you could sell motor-cars?"</p> + +<p>"How the deuce do I know?" Thompson replied frankly. "I have never +tried. I'm handicapped to begin. I know nothing about either cars or +salesmanship."</p> + +<p>"Would you like to try?"</p> + +<p>Thompson considered a minute.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he declared. "I've tried several things. I'm willing to try +anything once. Only I do not see how I can qualify."</p> + +<p>"We'll see about that," John P.'s eyes kept boring into him. "D'ye mind +a personal question or two?"</p> + +<p>Thompson shook his head.</p> + +<p>He did not quite know how it came about, but he passed under Henderson's +deft touch from reply to narration, and within twenty minutes had +sketched briefly his whole career.</p> + +<p>Henderson sat tapping the blotter on his desk with a pencil for a silent +minute.</p> + +<p>"You have nothing to unlearn," he announced abruptly. "All big +commercial organizations must to a certain extent train their own men. A +man who appears to possess fundamental qualifications is worth his +training. I have done it repeatedly. I am going to proceed on the +assumption that you will become a useful member of my staff, ultimately +with much profit to yourself. I propose that you apply yourself +diligently to mastering the sale of motor cars to individual purchasers. +I shall pay you twenty-five dollars a week to begin. That's a mechanic's +wages. If you make good on sales—there's no limit to your earning +power."</p> + +<p>"But, look here," Thompson made honest objection. "I appreciate the +opportunity. At the same time I wonder if you realize what a lot I have +to learn. I don't know a thing about cars beyond how to change a tire +and fill grease cups. I've never driven, never even started a motor. +How can I sell cars unless I know cars?"</p> + +<p>"You overestimate your handicap," John P. smiled. "Knowing how to build +and repair cars and knowing how to sell cars are two entirely different +propositions. The first requires a high degree of technical knowledge +and a lot of practical experience. Selling is a matter of +personality—of the power to convince. You can learn to drive in two or +three days. In a month you will handle a machine as well as the other +fellow, and you will learn enough about the principal parts and their +functions—not only of our line, but of other standard machines—to +enable you to discuss and compare them intelligently. The rest will +depend upon a quality within yourself that has nothing to do with the +mechanical end."</p> + +<p>"You should know." Thompson could not help a shade of doubt in his tone. +"But I must say I could approach a man with a proposition to sell him an +article with more confidence if I knew that article inside and out, top +and bottom. If I really knew a thing was good, and <i>why</i>, I could sell +it, I believe."</p> + +<p>"He has the right hunch, Dad."</p> + +<p>Thompson had not heard young Henderson come in. He saw him now a step +behind his chair, garbed in overalls that bore every sign of intimate +contact with machinery.</p> + +<p>He nodded to Thompson and continued to address his father.</p> + +<p>"It's true. Take two men of equal selling force. On the year's business +the one who can drive mechanical superiority home because he knows +wherein it lies will show the biggest sales, and the most satisfied +customers. I believe six months' shop work would just about double the +efficiency of half our sales staff."</p> + +<p>John P. gazed good-naturedly at his son.</p> + +<p>"I know, Fred," he drawled. "I've heard those sentiments before. There's +some truth in it, of course. But Simons and Sam Eppel and Monk White are +products of <i>my</i> method. You cannot deny their efficiency in sales. +What's the idea, anyway?"</p> + +<p>Young Henderson grinned.</p> + +<p>"The fact is," he said, "since I listened in on this conversation I have +come to the conclusion that you've good material here. I need a helper. +He'll get a thorough grounding. Whenever you and he decide that he has +absorbed sufficient mechanics he can join the sales end. I'd like to +train one man for you, properly."</p> + +<p>"Well," John P. remarked judicially, "I can't waste the whole morning +discussing methods of training salesmen in the way they should go. I've +made Mr. Thompson a proposition. What do you say?"</p> + +<p>He turned abruptly on Thompson.</p> + +<p>"Or," young Henderson cut in. "You have the counter proposition of an +indefinite mechanical grind in my department—which is largely +experimental. If you take to it at all I guarantee that in six months +you will know more about the internal combustion motor and automobile +design in general than any two salesmen on my father's staff. And that," +he added, with a boyish grimace at his father, "is saying a lot."</p> + +<p>It seemed to Thompson that both men regarded him with a considerable +expectancy. It perplexed him, that embarrassment of opportunity. He was +a little dazed at the double chance. Here was Opportunity clutching him +by the coat collar. He had nothing but impulse, and perhaps a natural +craving for positive knowledge, to guide his choice. He wasted few +seconds, however, in deciding. Among other things, he had outgrown +vacillation.</p> + +<p>"It is just as I said," he addressed Henderson senior. "I'd feel more +competent to sell cars if I knew them. I'd rather start in the shop."</p> + +<p>"All right," Henderson grunted. "You're the doctor. Be giving Fred a +chance to prove one of his theories. Personally I believe you'd make a +go of selling right off the bat, and a good salesman is wasted in the +mechanical line. When you feel that you've saturated your system with +valve clearances and compression formulas and gear ratios and all the +rest of the shop dope, come and see me. I'll give you a try-out on the +selling end. For the present, report to Fred."</p> + +<p>He reached for some papers on the desk. His manner, no less than his +words, ended the interview. Thompson rose.</p> + +<p>"When can you start in?" young Henderson inquired.</p> + +<p>"Any time," Thompson responded quickly. He was, in truth, a trifle eager +to see what made the wheels go round in that establishment. "I only have +to change my clothes."</p> + +<p>"Come after lunch then," young Henderson suggested. "Take the elevator +to the top floor. Ask one of the men where you'll find me. Bring your +overalls with you. We have a dressing room and lockers on each floor."</p> + +<p>He nodded good-by and turned to his father. Thompson made his exit.</p> + +<p>Half a block away he turned to look back at the house of Henderson. It +was massive, imposing, the visible sign of a prosperous concern, the +manifestation of business on a big scale. Groya Motors, Inc. It was +lettered in neat gilt across the front. It stood forth in four-foot +skeleton characters atop of the flat roof—an electric sign to burn like +a beacon by night. And he was about to become a part of that +establishment, a humble beginner, true, but a beginner with uncommon +prospects. He wondered if Henderson senior was right, if there resided +in him that elusive essence which leads some men to success in dealings +with other men. He was not sure about it himself. Still, the matter was +untried. Henderson might be right.</p> + +<p>But it was all a fluke. It seemed to him he was getting an entirely +disproportionate reward for mauling an insolent chauffeur. That moved +him to wonder what became of Pebbles. He felt sorry for Pebbles. The man +had probably lost his job for good measure. Poor devil!</p> + +<p>As he walked his thought short-circuited to Sophie Carr. Whereat he +turned into a drugstore containing a telephone booth and rang her up.</p> + +<p>Sophie herself answered.</p> + +<p>"I guess my saying good-by last night was a little premature," he told +her. "I'm not going north after all. In fact, if things go on all right +I may be in San Francisco indefinitely. I've got a job."</p> + +<p>"What sort of a job?" Sophie inquired.</p> + +<p>He hadn't told her about the ten o'clock appointment with Henderson. Nor +did he go into that now.</p> + +<p>"I've been taken on in an automobile plant on Van Ness," he said. "A +streak of real luck. I'm to have a chance to learn the business. So I +won't see you in Vancouver. Remember me to Tommy. I suppose you'll be +busy getting ready to go, so I'll wish you a pleasant voyage."</p> + +<p>"Thanks," she answered. "Wouldn't it be more appropriate if you wished +that on us in person before we sail?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he mumbled. "I—"</p> + +<p>A perfectly mad impulse seized him.</p> + +<p>"Sophie," he said sharply into the receiver.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He heard the quick intake of her breath at the other end, almost a gasp. +And the single word was slightly uncertain.</p> + +<p>"What did you mean by a man standing on his own feet?"</p> + +<p>She did not apparently have a ready answer. He pictured her, receiver in +hand, and he did not know if she were startled, or surprised—or merely +amused. That last was intolerable. And suddenly he felt like a fool. +Before that soft, sweet voice could lead him into further masculine +folly he hung up and walked out of the booth. For the next twenty +minutes his opinion of John P. Henderson's judgment of men was rather +low. He did not feel himself to be an individual with any force of +character. In homely language he said to himself that he, Wesley +Thompson, was nothing but a pot of mush.</p> + +<p>However, there in the offing loomed the job. He turned into the first +clothing store he found, and purchased one of those all-covering duck +garments affected by motor-car workers. By that time he had recovered +sufficiently to note that an emotional disturbance does not always +destroy a man's appetite for food.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>A WIDENING HORIZON</h3> +<br> + +<p>This is not a history of the motor car business, nor even of the +successive steps Wes Thompson took to win competent knowledge of that +Beanstalk among modern industries. If it were there might be sound +reasons for recounting the details of his tutelage under Fred Henderson. +No man ever won success without knowing pretty well what he was about. +No one is born with a workable fund of knowledge. It must be acquired.</p> + +<p>That, precisely, is what Thompson set out to do in the Groya shop. In +which purpose he was aided, abetted, and diligently coached by Fred +Henderson. The measure of Thompson's success in this endeavor may be +gauged by what young Henderson said casually to his father on a day some +six months later.</p> + +<p>"Thompson soaks up mechanical theory and practice as a dry sponge soaks +up water."</p> + +<p>"Wasted talent," John P. rumbled. "I suppose you'll have him a wild-eyed +designer before you're through."</p> + +<p>"No," Henderson junior observed thoughtfully. "He'll never design. But +he will know design when he sees it. Thompson is learning for a definite +purpose—to sell cars—to make money. Knowing motor cars thoroughly is +incidental to his main object."</p> + +<p>John P. cocked his ears.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said. "That so? Better send that young man up to me, Fred."</p> + +<p>"I've been expecting that," young Henderson replied. "He's ripe. I wish +you hadn't put that sales bug in his ear to start with. He'd make just +the man I need for an understudy when we get that Oakland plant going."</p> + +<p>"Tush," Henderson snorted inelegantly. "Salesmen are born, not made—the +real high-grade ones. And the factories are turning out mechanical +experts by the gross."</p> + +<p>"I know that," his son grinned. "But I like Thompson. He gives you the +feeling that you can absolutely rely on him."</p> + +<p>"Send him up to me," John P. repeated—and when John P. issued a fiat +like that, even his son did not dispute it.</p> + +<p>And Thompson was duly sent up. He did not go back to the shop on the top +floor where for six months he had been an eager student, where he had +learned something of the labor of creation—for Fred Henderson was +evolving a new car, a model that should have embodied in it power and +looks and comfort at the minimum of cost. And in pursuance of that ideal +he built and discarded, redesigned and rebuilt, putting his motors to +the acid test on the block and his assembled chassis on the road. +Indeed, many a wild ride he and Thompson had taken together on quiet +highways outside of San Francisco during that testing process.</p> + +<p>No, Thompson never went back to that after his interview with John P. +Henderson. He was sorry, in a way. He liked the work. It was fascinating +to put shafting and gears and a motor and a set of insentient wheels +together and make the assembled whole a thing of pulsing power that +leaped under the touch of a finger. But—a good salesman made thousands +where a good mechanic made hundreds. And money was the indispensable +factor—to such as he, who had none.</p> + +<p>Fred Henderson had the satisfaction of seeing his theory verified. +Thompson made good from the start. In three months his sales were second +in volume only to Monk White, who was John P.'s one best bet in the +selling line. Henderson chuckled afresh over this verification of his +original estimate of a man, and Fred Henderson smiled and said nothing. +From either man's standpoint Wes Thompson was a credit to the house. An +asset, besides, of reckonable value in cold cash.</p> + +<p>"New blood counts," John P. rumbled in confidence to his son. "Keeps us +from going stale, Fred."</p> + +<p>When a twelvemonth had elapsed from the day Sophie Carr's red roadster +blew a tire on the San Mateo road and set up that sequence of events +which had landed him where he was, Thompson had left his hall bedroom at +the Globe for quarters in a decent bachelor apartment. He had a +well-stocked wardrobe, a dozen shelves of miscellaneous books, and three +thousand dollars in the bank. Considering his prospects he should have +been a fairly sanguine and well-contented young man.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact he had become so, within certain limits. A man whose +time is continuously and profitably occupied does not brood. Thompson +had found a personal satisfaction in living up to John P. Henderson's +first judgment of him. Through Fred Henderson and through his business +activities he had formed a little group of pleasant acquaintances. +Sophie Carr was growing shadowy—a shadow that sometimes laid upon him +certain regrets, it is true, but the mere memory of her no longer +produced the old overpowering reactions, the sense of sorry failure, of +a dear treasure lost because he lacked a man's full stature in all but +physical bulk.</p> + +<p>It could easily have happened that Thompson would have embraced with +enthusiasm a future bounded by San Francisco, a future in which he would +successfully sell Groya cars until his amassed funds enabled him to +expand still further his material success. If that future embraced a +comfortable home, if a mate and affection suggested themselves as +possibilities well within his reach, the basis of those tentative +yearnings rested upon the need that dwells within every normal human +being, and upon what he saw happening now and then to other young +men—and young women—within the immediate radius of his observation.</p> + +<p>But upon this particular May morning his mind was questing far afield. +The prime cause of that mental projection was a letter in his hand, a +letter from Tommy Ashe. Thompson had a lively imagination, tempered by +the sort of worldly experience no moderately successful man can escape. And +Tommy's letter—the latest in a series of renewed correspondence—opened +up certain desirable eventualities. The first page of Tommy's screed was +devoted to personal matters. The rest ran thus:</p> + +<div class="blkquot"><p>Candidly, old man, your description of the contemplated Henderson + car makes a hit with me. The line I handle now is a fair seller. + But fair isn't good enough for me. I really need—in addition—to + have a smaller machine, to supply a pretty numerous class of + prospects. I should like to get hold of just such a car as you + describe. I am feeling around for the agency of a small, <i>good</i> + car. Send me all the dope on this one, and when it will be on the + market. There is a tremendous market here for something like that. + I'd prefer to take up a line with an established reputation behind + it. But the main thing is to have a car that will sell when you + push it. And this listens good.</p> + +<p> Aren't you about due for a vacation? Why don't you take a run up + here? I'd enjoy a chin-fest. The fishing's good, too—and we are + long on rather striking scenery. Do come up for a week, when you + can get off. Meantime, by-by.</p> + +<p> Tommy</p></div> + +<p>Thompson laid down the letter and stared out over the roof-tops. He +couldn't afford to be a philanthropist. A rather sweeping idea had +flashed into his mind as he read that missive. His horizon was +continually expanding. Money, beyond cavil, was the key to many doors, a +necessity if a man's eyes were fixed upon much that was desirable. If he +could make money selling machines for Groya Motors Inc., why not for +himself? Why not?</p> + +<p>The answer seemed too obvious for argument. The new car which had taken +final form in Fred Henderson's drafting room and in the Groya shop was +long past the experimental stage. All it required was financing and John +P. Henderson had attended efficiently to that. There was a plant rising +swiftly across the bay, a modern plant with railway service, big yards, +and a testing track, in which six months hence would begin an estimated +annual production of ten thousand cars a year. John P. had remarked once +to his son that for the Henderson family to design, produce, manufacture +and market successfully a car they could be proud of would be the summit +of his ambition. And the new car was named the Summit.</p> + +<p>It was a good car, a quality car in everything but sheer bulk. Thompson +knew that. He knew, too, that people were buying motor cars on +performance, not poundage, now. He knew too that he could sell +Summits—if he could get territory in which to make sales.</p> + +<p>He had thought about this before. He knew that in the Groya files lay +dealers' contracts covering the cream of California, Oregon and +Washington. These dealers would handle Summits. There had not seemed an +opening wide enough to justify plans. But now Tommy's letter focused his +vision upon a specific point.</p> + +<p>If he could get that Vancouver territory! Vancouver housed a hundred +thousand people. A Vancouver agency for the Summit, with a live man at +the helm, would run to big figures.</p> + +<p>No, he decided, he would not hastily grasp his fountain pen and say to +Tommy Ashe, "Jump in and contract for territory and allotment, old boy. +The Summit is the goods." Not until he had looked over the ground +himself.</p> + +<p>He had two weeks' vacation due when it pleased him. And it pleased him +to ask John P. as soon as he reached the office that very morning if it +was convenient to the firm to do without him for the ensuing fortnight.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XX"></a><h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>THE SHADOW</h3> +<br> + +<p>Thompson went to Vancouver to spy out the land. He made no confidants. +He went about the Terminal City with his mouth shut and his ears and +eyes open. What he saw and heard soon convinced him that like the +Israelites of old he stood upon the border of a land which—for his +business purpose—flowed with milk and honey. It was easy to weave air +castles. He could visualize a future for himself in Vancouver that +loomed big—if he could but make the proper arrangements at the other +end; that is to say, with Mr. John P. Henderson, President of the Summit +Motors Corporation. Thompson had faith enough in himself to believe he +could make such an arrangement, daring as it seemed when he got down to +actual figures.</p> + +<p>It gave him a curious sense of relief to find Tommy Ashe flirting with +the Petit Six people, apparently forgetful of the Summit specifications. +Thompson hadn't quite taken as his gospel the sound business ethic that +you must look out for number one first, last and always. If Tommy had +broached the subject personally, if he had shown anxiety to acquire +selling rights in the Summit, Thompson would have felt impelled by sheer +loyalty of friendship to help Tommy secure the agency. That would have +been quixotic, of course. Nevertheless, he would have done it, because +not to do it would have seemed like taking a mean advantage. As it was—</p> + +<p>For the rest he warmed to the sheer beauty of the spot. Vancouver +spreads largely over rolling hills and little peninsular juttings into +the sea. From its eminences there sweep unequalled views over the Gulf +of Georgia and northwestward along towering mountain ranges upon whose +lower slopes the firs and cedars marshal themselves in green battalions. +From his hotel window he would gaze in contented abstraction over the +tidal surges through the First Narrows and the tall masts of shipping in +a spacious harbor, landlocked and secure, stretching away like a great +blue lagoon with motor craft and ferries and squat tugs for waterfowl. +Thompson loved the forest as a man loves pleasant, familiar things, and +next to the woods his affection turned to the sea. Here, at his hand, +were both in all their primal grandeur. He was very sure he would like +Vancouver.</p> + +<p>Whether the fact that he encountered the Carrs before he was three days +in town, had dinner at their home, and took Sophie once to luncheon at +the Granada Grill, had anything to do with this conclusion deponent +sayeth not. To be sure he learned with the first frank gleam in Sophie's +gray eyes that she still held for him that mysterious pulse-quickening +lure, that for him her presence was sufficient to stir a glow no other +woman had ever succeeded in kindling ever so briefly. But he had +acquired poise, confidence, a self-mastery not to be disputed. He said +to himself that he could stand the gaff now. He could face facts. And +he said to himself further, a little wistfully, that Sophie Carr was +worth all the pangs she had ever given him—more.</p> + +<p>He could detect no change in her. That was one of the queer, personal +characteristics she possessed—that she could pass beyond his ken for +months, for years he almost believed, and when he met her again she +would be the same, voice, manner, little tricks of speech and gesture +unchanged. Meeting Sophie after that year was like meeting her after a +week. Barring the clothes and the surroundings that spoke of ample means +tastefully expended, the general background of her home and associates, +she seemed to him unchanged. Yet when he reflected, he was not so sure +of this. Sophie was gracious, friendly, frankly interested when he +talked of himself. When their talk ran upon impersonal things the old +nimbleness of mind functioned. But under these superficialities he could +only guess, after all, what the essential woman of her was now. He could +not say if she were still the queer, self-disciplined mixture of cold +logic and primitive passion the Sophie Carr of Lone Moose had revealed +to him. He was not sure if he desired to explore in that direction. The +old scars remained. He shrank from acquiring new ones, yet perforce let +his thought dwell upon her with reviving concentration. After all, he +said to himself, it was on the knees of the gods.</p> + +<p>At any rate he was not to be deterred from his project. He had served +his apprenticeship in the game. He was eager to try his own wings in a +flight of his own choosing.</p> + +<p>Since he had evolved a definite plan of going about that, he entered +decisively upon the first step. Upon reaching San Francisco he bearded +John P. Henderson in his mahogany den and outlined a scheme which made +that worthy gentleman's eyes widen. He heard Thompson to an end, +however, with a growing twinkle in those same, shrewd, worldly-wise +orbs, and at the finish thumped a plump fist on his desk with a force +that made the pen-rack jingle.</p> + +<p>"Damned if I don't go you," he exclaimed. "I said in the beginning you'd +make a salesman, and you've made good. You'll make good in this. If you +don't it isn't for lack of vision—and nerve."</p> + +<p>"Nerve," he chuckled over the word. "You know it isn't good business for +me. I'll be losing a valuable man off my staff, and I'll be taking +longer chances than it has ever been my policy to take. Your only real +asset is—yourself. That isn't a negotiable security."</p> + +<p>"Not exactly," Thompson returned. "Still in your business you are +compelled—every big business is compelled—to place implicit trust in +certain men. From a commercial point of view this move of mine should +prove even more profitable to you than if I remain on your staff as a +salesman—provided your estimate of me, and my own estimate of myself, +is approximately correct. You must have an outlet for your product. I +will still be making money for you. In addition I shall be developing a +market that will, perhaps before so very long, absorb a tremendous +number of cars."</p> + +<p>"Oh, there's no argument. I'm committed to the enterprise," Henderson +declared. "I believe in <i>you</i>, Thompson. Otherwise I couldn't see your +proposition with a microscope. Well, I'll embody the various points in a +contract. Come in this afternoon and sign up."</p> + +<p>As easily as that. Thompson went down the half-flight of stairs still a +trifle incredible over the ease with which he had accomplished a stroke +that meant—oh, well, to his sanguine vision there was no limit.</p> + +<p>He felt pretty much as he had felt when he sold his first Groya to an +apparently hopeless prospect, elated, a little astonished at his +success, brimful of confidence to cope with the next problem.</p> + +<p>The ego in him clamored to be about this bigger business. But that was +not possible. He came back to earth presently with the recollection that +the Summits would not be ready for distribution before late October—and +for the next five months the more Groyas he sold the better position he +would be in when he went on his own.</p> + +<p>So when he finally had in his hands a dealer's contract covering the +Province of British Columbia he put the matter out of his mind—except +for occasional day-dreamings upon it in idle moments—and gave himself +whole-heartedly to serving the house of Henderson.</p> + +<p>Time passed uneventfully enough. June went its way with its brides and +flowers. July drove folk upon vacations to the seaside resorts.</p> + +<p>And in August there burst upon an incredulous world the jagged +lightnings and cannon-thunder of war.</p> + +<p>It would be waste words to describe here the varying fortunes of the +grappling armies during the next few months. The newspapers and current +periodicals and countless self-appointed historians have attended to +that. It is all recorded, so that one must run to read it all. It is as +terribly vivid to us now as it was distant and shadowy then—a madness +of slaughter and destruction that raged on the other side of the earth, +a terror from which we stood comfortably aloof.</p> + +<p>There was something in the war unseen by Thompson and the Hendersons and +a countless host of intelligent, well-dressed, comfortable people who +bought extras wet from the press to read of that merciless thrust +through Belgium, the shock and recoil and counter-shock of armies, of +death dealt wholesale with scientific precision, of 42-centimeter guns +and poison gas and all the rest of that bloody nightmare—they did not +see the dread shadow that hung over Europe lengthening and spreading +until its murky pall should span the Atlantic.</p> + +<p>Thompson was a Canadian. He knew by the papers that Canada was at war, a +voluntary participant. But it did not strike him that he was at war. He +felt no call to arms. In San Francisco there was no common ferment in +the public mind, no marching troops, no military bands making a man's +feet tingle to follow as they passed by. Men discussed the war in much +the same tone as they discussed the stock market. If there was any +definite feeling in the matter it was that the European outbreak was +strictly a European affair. When the German spearhead blunted its point +against the Franco-British legions and the gray hosts recoiled upon the +Marne, the Amateur Board of Strategy said it would be over in six +months.</p> + +<p>In any case, American tradition explicitly postulated that what +occurred in Europe was not, could not, be vital to Americans. But in the +last test blood proves thicker than water. Sentimentally, the men +Thompson knew were pro-Ally. Only, in practice there was no apparent +reason why they should do otherwise than as they had been doing. And in +effect San Francisco only emulated her sister cities when she proceeded +about "business as usual"—just as in those early days, before the war +had bitten deep into their flesh and blood, British merchants flung that +slogan in the face of the enemy.</p> + +<p>So that to Wes Thompson, concentrated upon his personal affairs, the war +never became more than something akin to a bad dream recalled at midday, +an unreal sort of thing. Something that indubitably existed without +making half the impression upon him that seeing a pedestrian mangled +under a street car made upon him during that summer. The war aroused his +interest, but left his emotions unstirred. There was nothing martial +about him. He dreamed no dreams of glory on the battlefield. He had +never thought of the British Empire as something to die for. The issue +was not clear to him, just as it failed to clarify itself to a great +many people in those days. The maiden aunts and all his early +environment had shut off the bigger vision that was sending a steady +stream of Canadian battalions overseas.</p> + +<p>When the Battle of the Marne was past history and the opposing armies +had dug themselves in and the ghastly business of the trenches had +begun, Thompson was more than ever immersed in pursuit of the main +chance, for he was then engaged in organizing Summit Motors in +Vancouver. There had been a period when his optimism about his prospects +had suffered a relapse. He had half-expected that Canada's participation +in that devil's dance across the sea would spoil things commercially. +There had been a sort of temporary demoralization on both sides of the +line, at first. But that was presently adjusted. Through Tommy Ashe and +other sources he learned that business in Vancouver was actually looking +up because of the war.</p> + +<p>He was a little surprised that Tommy was not off to the war. Tommy loved +his England. He was forever singing England's praises. England was +"home" to Tommy Ashe always. It was only a name to Thompson. And he +thought, when he thought about it at all, that if England's need was not +great enough to call her native-born, that the Allies must have the +situation well in hand; as the papers had a way of stating.</p> + +<p>He had other fish to fry, himself, without rushing off to the front. As +a matter of fact he never consciously considered the question of going +to the front. That never occurred to him. When he did think of the war +he thought of it impersonally, as a busy man invariably does think of +matters which do not directly concern him.</p> + +<p>What did concern him most vitally was the project he had in hand. And +next to those ambitions, material considerations, his fancy touched +shyly now and then upon Sophie Carr.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXI"></a><h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>THE RENEWED TRIANGLE</h3> +<br> + +<p>Even after Thompson reached Vancouver and the visible signs of a nation +at war confronted him he experienced no patriotic thrill. After all, +there was no great difference, on the surface, between San Francisco and +Vancouver, save that Vancouver accepted as a matter of course the +principle that when the mother country was at war Canada was also a +belligerent and committed to support. Barring the recruiting offices +draped in the Allied colors, squads of men drilling on certain public +squares, successive tag days for the Red Cross, the Patriotic fund and +such organizations, the war did not flaunt itself in men's faces. The +first hot wave of feeling had passed. The thing had become a grim +business to be gone about in grim determination. And side by side with +those unostensible preparations that kept a stream of armed men passing +quietly overseas, the normal business of a city waxed and throve in the +old accustomed way. Thompson's most vivid impression was of accelerating +business activity, and that was his chief concern. The other thing, +which convulsed a far-off continent, was too distant to be a +reality—like an earthquake in Japan, a reported famine in India.</p> + +<p>He went about his business circumspectly, without loss of time. He +leased a good location, wired the factory to ship at once, began a +modest advertising campaign in the local papers, and as a business coup +collared—at a fat salary and liberal commission—the best salesman on +the staff of the concern doing the biggest motor-car business in town. +Thompson had learned certain business lessons well. He had perceived +long since that it was a cutthroat game when competition grew keen. And +this matter of the salesman was his first blood in that line. The man +brought with him a list of prospects as long as his arm, and a wide +acquaintance in the town, both assets of exceeding value. Altogether +Thompson got off to a flying start. The arrangement whereby Henderson +consigned cars to him enabled him to concentrate all his small capital +on a sales campaign. He paid freight and duty. His cars he paid for when +they were sold—and the discount was his profit.</p> + +<p>When his salesroom was formally opened to the public, with five Summits +on the floor and twice as many en route, when his undertaking and his +car models had received the unqualified approval of a surprising number +of callers, Thompson left the place to his salesman and went to see +Sophie Carr.</p> + +<p>That was a visit born of sudden impulse, a desire to talk about +something besides automobiles and making money. But Sophie was out. Her +father, however, made him welcome, supplementing his welcome with red +wine that carried a kick. Thompson sat down before a fireplace, glass in +hand, stretched his feet to the fire, and listened to his host talk.</p> + +<p>"Considering your early handicaps you have certainly shown some speed +in adapting yourself to conditions," Carr observed facetiously. "There +was a time when I didn't believe you could. Which shows that even wise +men err. Material factors loom bigger and bigger on your horizon, don't +they? Don't let 'em obscure everything though, Thompson. That's a +blunder plenty of smart men make. Well, we've progressed since Lone +Moose days, haven't we—the four of us that foregathered there that last +summer?"</p> + +<p>Thompson smiled. He liked to hear Carr in a philosophic vein. And their +talk ran thence for an hour. At the end of which time Sophie came home.</p> + +<p>She walked into the room, shook hands with Thompson, flung her coat, +hat, and furs across a chair, and drew another up to the crackling fire. +Outside, the long Northern twilight was deepening. Carr rose and +switched on a cluster of lights in frosted globes. In the mellow glow he +resumed his seat, and his glance came to rest upon his daughter with a +curious fixity, as if he subtly divined something that troubled her.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked, after a minute of unbroken silence. "You look—"</p> + +<p>"Out of sorts?" she interrupted. "Showing up poorly as a hostess?"</p> + +<p>Her look included Thompson with a faint, impersonal smile, and her gaze +went back to the fire. Sam Carr held his peace, toying with the +long-stemmed glass in his hand.</p> + +<p>"I went to a Belgian Relief Fund lecture in the Granada ballroom this +afternoon," she said at last. "A Belgian woman—a refugee—spoke in +broken English. The things she told. It was horrible. I wonder if they +could be true?"</p> + +<p>"Atrocities?" Carr questioned.</p> + +<p>Sophie nodded.</p> + +<p>"That's propaganda," her father declared judicially. "We're being +systematically stimulated to ardent support of the war in men and money +through the press and public speaking, through every available avenue +that clever minds can devise. We are not a martial nation, so we have to +be spurred, our emotions aroused. Of course there are atrocities. Is +there an instance in history where an invading army did not commit all +sorts of excesses on enemy soil?"</p> + +<p>"I know," Sophie said absently. "But this woman's story—she wasn't one +of your glib platform spouters, flag-waving and calling the Germans +names. She just talked, groping now and then for the right word. And if +a tithe of what she told is true—well, she made me wish I were a man."</p> + +<p>One small, soft hand, outstretched over the chair-arm toward the fire, +shut suddenly into a hard little fist. And for a moment Thompson felt +acutely uncomfortable, without knowing why.</p> + +<p>Carr eyed his daughter impassively. In a few seconds she went on.</p> + +<p>"Of course I know that in any large army there is bound to be a certain +percentage of abnormals who will be up to all sorts of deviltry whenever +they find themselves free of direct restraint," she said. "The history +of warfare shows that. But this Belgian woman's account puts a +different face on things. These unmentionable brutalities weren't +isolated cases. Her story gave me the impression of ordered barbarity, +of systematic terrorizing by the foulest means imaginable. The sort of +thing the papers have been publishing—and worse."</p> + +<p>"Discount that, Sophie," Carr remarked calmly. "The Germans are reckoned +in the civilized scale the same as ourselves. I'm not ready to damn +sixty-five million human beings outright because certain members of the +group act like brutes. The chances are that a German soldier would be +shot by his own command, for robbery or rape or any of these +brutalities, as promptly as one of our own offenders. The fact of the +matter is that there are a lot of hysterical people loose among us who +seem to think they can kill German soldiers by calling them bad names. +The Allies will win this war with cannon and bayonets, but up to the +present we seem to think we must supplement our bullets with epithets. +Doubtless the Germans do the same at home. It's part of the game."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I suppose so," Sophie admitted. "But what a horror this war must be +for those helpless people who are caught in its sweep."</p> + +<p>"If it affects you like that, be thankful it isn't over here," Carr said +lightly. "War is all that Sherman said it was. As a matter of fact +modern warfare with every scientific and chemical means of destruction +at its hand can't result in anything but horror piled on horror. I look +for some startling—"</p> + +<p>The faint whirr of a buzzer and the patter of a maid's feet along the +hall, checked Carr's speech. He did not resume. Instead he reached for a +box of cigars, and lighted one. By that time Tommy Ashe was being +ushered in.</p> + +<p>Tommy exuded geniality from every pore of his ruddy countenance. He +accepted the drink Carr rose to offer. He lifted the glass and smiled at +Thompson.</p> + +<p>"Here's to success," he toasted. "I believe," he went on between sips of +wine, "that things are going to look up finely for us. I sold a truck +and two touring cars this afternoon. People seem to be loosening up for +some reason. You ought to get your share with the Summit, Wes. Snappy +little machine, that."</p> + +<p>"You rising business men," Carr drawled, "want to learn to leave your +business at the office when you come to my house. Now, we were just +discussing the war. What sort of a prophet are you, Tommy? How long will +it last? Sophie was wondering if it would be over before all the +eligible young men depart across the sea."</p> + +<p>"Well," Tommy grinned cheerfully, "I'm no prophet. Not being in the +confidence of the Allied command, I can't say. I'd hazard a guess, +though, that there'll be plenty of good men left for Sophie to make a +choice among. I can pass on another man's prophecy, though. Had a letter +from one of my brothers yesterday. He was at Mons, got pinked in the +leg, and is now training Territorials. He is sure the grand finale will +come about midsummer next. The way he put it sounds logical. Neither +side can make headway this winter. Germany has made her maximum effort. +If she couldn't beat us when she took the field equipped to the last +button she never can. By spring we'll be organized. France and England +on the west front. The Russian steam roller on the east. The fleet +maintaining the blockade. They can't stand the pressure. It isn't +possible. The Hun—confound him—will blow up with a loud bang about +next July. That's Ned's say-so, and these line officers are pretty +conservative as a rule. War's their business, and they don't nurse +illusions about it."</p> + +<p>"In the meantime, let's talk about selling automobiles, or the weather, +anything but the war," Sophie said suddenly. She pressed a button on the +wall. "We're going to drink tea and forget the war," she continued +almost defiantly. "I won't ask either of you to stay for dinner, because +I'm going out."</p> + +<p>Carr's house sat on a slope that dipped down to a long narrow park, and +beyond that to a beach on which slow rollers from the outside broke with +a sound like the snore of a distant giant. Along that slope and away to +the eastward the city was speckled with lights, although it was barely +five o'clock, so early does dark close in in that latitude when the year +is far spent. And when the maid trundled in a tea-wagon, that vista of +twinkling specks, and the more distant flash of Point Atkinson light +intermittently stabbing the murky Gulf, was shut away by drawn blinds, +and the four of them sat in the cosy room eating little cakes and +drinking tea and chatting lightly of things that bulked smaller than the +war.</p> + +<p>Presently Sam Carr drew Tommy away to the library to look up some legal +technicality over which they had fallen into dispute. Sophie lay back +in her chair, eyes fixed on the red glow of the embers as if she saw +through them and into vast distances beyond.</p> + +<p>And Thompson sat covertly looking at her profile, the dull gold of her +coiled hair, the red-lipped mouth that was made for kisses and +laughter—and he was glad just to look at her, to be near. For he was +beginning to say to himself that it was no good fighting against fate, +that this girl had put some spell on him from which he would never be +wholly free. Nor did he, in that mood, desire to be free. He wanted that +spell to grow so strong that in the end it would weave itself about her +too, make love beget love. There was quickening in him again that desire +to pursue, to conquer, to possess. The ego in him whispered that once +for a moment Sophie had rested like a homing bird in his arms, and +would, again. But he was not to be betrayed by headlong impulse. The +time was not yet. Instinct warned him that in some fashion, vague, +unrevealed, he had still to prove himself to Sophie Carr. He was aware +intuitively that she weighed him in the balance of cold, critical +reason, against any emotional appeal—just as he, himself, was learning +to weigh things and men. He did not know this. He only felt it. But he +felt sure of his instinct where she was concerned.</p> + +<p>And so he was content, for the time, with the privilege of being near +her. Some day—</p> + +<p>Sophie looked at him. For the moment his own gaze had wandered from her +to the fire, his mind yielding tentatively to rose-tinted visions.</p> + +<p>"A penny for your thoughts," she said lightly.</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of you," he answered truthfully.</p> + +<p>He looked up as he spoke and his heart leaped at the faint flush that +rose slowly over Sophie's face. Indeed all the high resolve that had +been shaping in his soul for the past ten minutes came near going by the +board. It would have been so easy to imprison the hand that lay along +the chair-arm next his own, to utter words that trembled on his tongue, +to break through the ice that Sophie used as a shield—for the instant +he felt sure of that—and dare what fires burned beneath.</p> + +<p>While he stood, poised as it were, upon the tip-toe of indecision, Carr +and Tommy Ashe came back.</p> + +<p>Afterward, on his way home, Thompson wondered at the swift challenging +glance Tommy shot at Sophie in that moment. As if Tommy detected some +tensity of feeling that he resented.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>SUNDRY REFLECTIONS</h3> +<br> + +<p>That winter and the summer which followed, and the period which carried +him into the spring of 1916, was materially a triumphal procession for +Wes Thompson. Tommy's forecast of the war's ending had fallen short as +so many other forecasts did. The war went on, developing its own +particular horrors as it spread. But the varying tides of war, and the +manifold demands of war, bestowed upon Vancouver a heaping measure of +prosperity, and Vancouver, in the person of its business men, was rather +too far from the sweat and blood of the struggle to be distracted by the +issues of that struggle from its own immediate purposes. Business men +were in business to make money. They supported the war effort. Every one +could not go to the trenches. Workers were as necessary to victory as +fighters. People had to be fed and clothed. The army had to be fed and +clothed, transported and munitioned. And the fact that the supplying and +equipping and transporting was highly profitable to those engaged in +such pursuits did not detract from the essentially patriotic and +necessary performance of these tasks.</p> + +<p>The effect on Vancouver was an industrial rejuvenation. Money flowed in +all sorts of channels hitherto nearly dry. A lot of it flowed to Wesley +Thompson in exchange for Summit cars. Thompson was like many other men +in Vancouver. He was very busy. The business stood on its feet by virtue +of his direction. If he dropped it and rushed off to the war—well there +was no lack of men, men who had no particular standing, men who could +not subscribe to war charities, to Dominion war-bond issues. There was +plenty of man-power. There was never a surplus of brain-power. Business +was necessary. So a man with a live, thriving business was fighting in +his own way—doing his bit to keep the wheels turning—standing stoutly +behind the fellow with a bayonet. And a lot of them let it go at that. A +lot of them saw no pressing need to don khaki and let everything else go +to pot. A lot of them were so intent upon making the most of their +opportunities that they never brought their innermost thoughts out on +the table and asked themselves point-blank: "Should I go? Why shouldn't +I?" And there were some who saw dimly—as the months slid by with air +raids and submarine sinkings and all the new, terrible devices of death +and destruction which transgressed the old usages of war—there were +some who were troubled without knowing why. There were men who hated +bloodshed, who hated violence, who wished to live and love and go their +ways in peace, but who began uneasily to question whether these things +they valued were of such high value after all.</p> + +<p>And Wes Thompson was one of these. Deep in him his emotions were +stirring. The old tribal instinct—which sent a man forth to fight for +the tribe no matter the cause—was functioning under the layer of stuff +that civilization imposes on every man. His reason gainsaid these +stirrings, those instinctive urgings, but there was a stirring and it +troubled him. He did not desire to die in a trench, nor vanish in +fragments before a bursting shell, nor lie face to the stars in No Man's +Land with a bayonet hole in his middle. He would not risk these +fatalities for any such academic idea as saving the world for democracy.</p> + +<p>Always when that queer, semi-dormant tribe instinct suggested that he go +fight with the tribe against the tribal enemy his reason swiftly choked +the impulse. He would not fight for a political abstraction. He had read +history. It is littered with broken treaties. If he fought it would be +because he felt there was need to strike a blow for something righteous. +And his faith in the righteousness of the Allied cause was still +unfired. He saw no mission to compel justice, to exact retribution, only +a clash of Great Powers, in which the common man was fed to the roaring +guns.</p> + +<p>But he was not so obtuse as to fail of seeing the near future. The +Germans were proving a right hard nut to crack. It might +be—remotely—that a man would have no choice in the matter of fighting. +He saw that cloud on the horizon. Sometimes he wished that he could +muster up a genuine enthusiasm for this business of war. He saw men who +had it and wondered privately how they came by it.</p> + +<p>If he could have felt it an imperative duty laid upon him, that would +have settled certain matters out of hand. Chief among these would have +been the problem of Sophie Carr.</p> + +<p>Sophie eluded and mystified him. Not wholly in a physical +sense—although, to be exact, she did become less accessible in a purely +physical sense. But it went deeper than that. During the eighteen months +following Thompson's motor-sales début he never succeeded in +establishing between them the same sense of spiritual communion that he +had briefly glimpsed those few minutes in Carr's home on the way he +opened his salesroom.</p> + +<p>There was Tommy, for instance. Tommy was far closer to Sophie Carr than +he, Thompson, could manage to come, no matter how he tried. He and Tommy +were friends. They had apartments in the same house. They saw each other +constantly. The matter of competition in business was purely nominal. +They were both too successful in business to be envious of each other in +that respect. But where Sophie Carr was concerned it was a conflict, no +less existent because neither man ever betrayed his consciousness of +such a conflict. Indeed Thompson sometimes wondered uneasily if Ashe's +serenity came from an understanding with her. But he doubted that. Tommy +had not won—yet. That intangible yet impenetrable wall which was rising +about Sophie was built of other, sterner stuff.</p> + +<p>She seldom touched on the war, never more than a casual sentence or two. +Perhaps a phrase would flash like a sword, and then her lips would +close. Carr would discuss the war from any angle whatsoever, at any +time. It became an engrossing topic with him, as if there were phases +that puzzled him, upon which he desired light. He ceased to be +positive. But his daughter shunned war talk.</p> + +<p>Yet the war levied high toll on her waking hours, and for that reason +Thompson seldom saw her save in company. His vision of little dinners, +of drives together, of impromptu luncheons, of a steady siege in which +the sheer warmth of that passion in him should force capitulation to his +love—all those pleasant dreams went a-glimmering. Sophie was always on +some committee, directing some activity growing out of the war, Red +Cross work, Patriotic Fund, all those manifold avenues through which the +women fought their share of Canada's fight. For a pleasure-loving +creature Sophie Carr seemed to have undergone an astonishing +metamorphosis. She spent on these things, quietly, without parade or +press-agenting, all the energy in her, and she had no reserve left for +play. War work seemed to mean something to Sophie besides write-ups in +the society column and pictures of her in sundry poses. These things +besides, surrounded her with all sorts of fussy people, both male and +female, and through this cordon Thompson seldom broke for confidential +talk with her. When he did Sophie baffled him with her calm detachment, +a profound and ever-increasing reserve—as if she had ceased to be a +woman and become a mere, coldly beautiful mechanism for seeing about +shipments of bandage stuff, for collecting funds, and devising practical +methods of raising more funds and creating more supplies.</p> + +<p>Thompson said as much to her one day. She looked at him unmoved, +unsmiling. And something that lurked in her clear gray eyes made him +uncomfortable, sent him away wondering. It was as if somehow she +disapproved. A shadowy impression at best. He wondered if Tommy fared +any better, and he was constrained to think Tommy did because Tommy went +in for patriotic work a good deal, activities that threw him in pretty +close contact with Sophie.</p> + +<p>"I can spare the time," he confided to Thompson one day. "And it's good +business. I meet some pretty influential people. Why don't you spread +yourself a little more, Wes? They'll be saying you're a slacker if you +don't make a noise."</p> + +<p>"I don't fight the Germans with my mouth," Thompson responded shortly. +And Tommy laughed.</p> + +<p>"That's a popular weapon these days," he returned lightly. "It does no +harm to go armed with it."</p> + +<p>Thompson refrained from further speech. That very morning in the lobby +of the Granada Thompson had heard one man sneer at another for a +slacker—and get knocked down for his pains. He did not want to inflict +that indignity on Tommy, and he felt that he would if Tommy made any +more cynical reflections.</p> + +<p>Of course, that was a mere flaring-up of resentment at the fact that, to +save his soul, he could not get off the fence. He could not view the war +as a matter vital to himself; nor could he do like Tommy Ashe, play +patriotic tunes with one hand while the other reached slyly forth to +grasp power and privilege of whatever degree came within reach.</p> + +<p>And in the meantime both men, and other men likewise, went about their +daily affairs. Vancouver grew and prospered, and the growth of Summit +sales left an increasing balance on the profit side of Thompson's +ledger. Moreover the rapid and steady growth of his business kept his +mind on the business. It worked out—his business preoccupation—much in +the manner of the old story of fleas and dogs, to wit: a certain number +of fleas is good for a dog. They keep him from brooding over the fact +that he <i>is</i> a dog.</p> + +<p>So, save for the fact that he continued to make money and was busy and +realized now and then that he had come to a disheartening impasse with +Sophie, the late spring of 1916 found Thompson mentally, morally and +spiritually holding fast by certain props.</p> + +<p>He had come a long way, and he had yet a long way to go. He had come to +Lone Moose very much after the fashion of St. Simeon Stylites all +prepared to mount a spiritual pillar and make a bid for sainthood. But +pillar hermits, he discovered, when harsh, material facts tore the +evangelistic blinkers off his eyes, were neither useful in the world nor +acceptable on high. He had been in a very bad way for awhile. When a man +loses his own self-respect and the faith of his fathers at one stroke he +is apt to suffer intensely. Thompson had not quite reached that pass, +when he came down to Wrangel by the sea, but he was not far off. When he +looked back, he could scarcely trace by what successive steps he had +traveled. But he had got up out of that puddle into which a harsh +environment and wounded egotism had cast him. He was in a way to be what +the world called a success.</p> + +<p>He was not so sure of that himself. But he stayed himself with certain +props, as before mentioned. The base of more than one of these useful +supports had been undermined some time before by a sequence of events +which presented the paradox of being familiar to him and still beyond +his comprehension.</p> + +<p>He was a long way from being aware, in those early summer days of 1916, +that before long some of the aforementioned props were to buckle under +him with strange and disturbing circumstance.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>THE FUSE—</h3> +<br> + +<p>It was in this period that certain phases of the war began to shake the +foundation of things. I do not recall who said that an army marches on +its stomach, but it is true, and it is no less a verity that nations +function primarily on food. The submarine was waxing to its zenith now, +and Europe saw the gaunt wolf at its door. Men cried for more ships. +Cost became secondary. A vessel paid for herself if she landed but two +cargoes in an Allied port.</p> + +<p>Every demand in the economic field produces a supply. On this side of +the Atlantic great shipbuilding plants arose by some superior magic of +construction in ports where the building of ships had been a minor +industry. In this Vancouver did not lag. Wooden ships could be built +quickly. Virgin forests of fir and cedar stood at Vancouver's very door. +Wherefore yards, capable of turning out a three-thousand-ton wooden +steamer in ninety days, rose on tidewater, and an army of labor sawed +and hammered and shaped to the ultimate confusion of the Hun.</p> + +<p>Thompson had seen these yards in the distance. He read newspapers and he +knew that local shipbuilding was playing the dual purpose of +confounding the enemy and adding a huge pay-roll to Vancouver's other +material advantages. Both of which were highly desirable.</p> + +<p>But few details of this came personally to his attention until an +evening when he happened to foregather with Tommy Ashe and two or three +others at Carr's home—upon one of those rare evenings when Sophie was +free of her self-imposed duties and in a mood to play the hostess.</p> + +<p>They had dined, and were gathered upon a wide verandah watching the sun +sink behind the rampart of Vancouver Island in a futurist riot of yellow +and red that died at last to an afterglow which lingered on the mountain +tops like a benediction. A bit of the Gulf opened to them, steel-gray, +mirror-smooth, more like a placid, hill-ringed lake than the troubled +sea.</p> + +<p>But there was more in the eye's cast than beauty of sea and sky and +setting sun. From their seats they could look down on the curious jumble +of long sheds and giant scaffolding that was the great Coughlan steel +shipyard in False Creek. Farther distant, on the North Shore, there was +the yellowish smudge of what a keen vision discerned to be six wooden +schooners in a row, sister ships in varying stages of construction.</p> + +<p>Some one said something about wooden shipbuilding.</p> + +<p>"There's another big yard starting on the North Shore," Sophie said. +"One of our committee was telling me to-day. Her husband has something +to do with it."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I can verify that," Tommy Ashe smiled. "That's my +contribution—the Vancouver Construction Company. I organized it. We +have contracted to supply the Imperial Munitions Board with ten +auxiliary schooners, three thousand tons burden each."</p> + +<p>The fourth man of the party, the lean, suave, enterprising head of a +local trust company, nodded approval, eyeing Tommy with new interest.</p> + +<p>"Good business," he commented. "We've got to beat those U-boats."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Tommy agreed, "and until the Admiralty devises some effectual +method of coping with them, the only way we can beat the subs is to +build ships faster than they can sink them. It's quite some undertaking, +but it has to be done. If we fail to keep supplies pouring into England +and France. Well—"</p> + +<p>He spread his hands in an expressive gesture. Tommy was that type of +Englishman in which rugged health and some generations of breeding and +education have combined to produce what Europe calls a "gentleman." He +was above middle height, very stoutly and squarely built, ruddy +faced—the sort of man one may safely prophesy will acquire a paunch and +double chin with middle age. But Tommy was young and vigorous yet. He +looked very capable, almost aggressive, as he sat there speaking with +the surety of patriotic conviction.</p> + +<p>"We're all in it now," he said simply. "It's no longer our army and navy +against their army and navy and the rest of us looking on from the side +lines. It's our complete material resources and man power against their +complete resources and man power. If <i>they</i> win, the world won't be +worth living in, for the Anglo-Saxon. So we've got to beat them. Every +man's job from now on is going to be either fighting or working. We've +got to have ships. I'm organizing that yard to work top-speed. I'm +trying to set a pace. Watch us on the North Shore. The man in the +trenches won't say we didn't back him up."</p> + +<p>It sounded well. To Thompson it gave a feeling of dissatisfaction which +was nowise lessened by the momentary gleam in Sophie's eyes as they +rested briefly on Tommy and passed casually to him—and beyond.</p> + +<p>He was growing slowly to understand that the war had somehow—in a +fashion beyond his comprehension—bitten deep into Sophie Carr's soul. +She thought about it, if she seldom talked. What was perhaps more vital, +she <i>felt</i> about it with an intensity Thompson could not fathom, because +he had not experienced such feeling himself. He only divined this. +Sophie never paraded either her thoughts or her feelings. And divining +this uneasily he foresaw a shortening of his stature in her eyes by +comparison with Tommy Ashe—who had become a doer, a creator in the +common need, while <i>he</i> remained a gleaner in the field of +self-interest. Thompson rather resented that imputation. Privately he +considered Tommy's speech a trifle grandiloquent. He began to think he +had underestimated Tommy, in more ways than one.</p> + +<p>Nor did he fail to wonder at the dry smile that hovered about Sam Carr's +lips until that worthy old gentleman put his hand over his mouth to hide +it, while his shrewd old eyes twinkled with inner amusement. There was +something more than amusement, too. If Wes Thompson had not known that +Sam Carr liked Tommy, rather admired his push and ability to hold his +own in the general scramble, he would have said Carr's smile and eyes +tinged the amusement with something like contempt.</p> + +<p>That puzzled Thompson. The Dominion, as well as the Empire, was slowly +formulating the war-doctrine that men must either fight or work. Tommy, +with his executive ability, his enthusiasm, was plunging into a needed +work. Tommy had a right to feel that he was doing a big thing. Thompson +granted him that. Why, then, should Carr look at him like that?</p> + +<p>He was still recurring to that when he drove down town with Tommy later +in the evening. He was not surprised that Tommy sauntered into his rooms +after putting up his machine. He had been in the habit of doing that +until lately, and Thompson knew now that Tommy must have been very busy +on that shipyard organization. It had been easy for them to drop into +the old intimacy which had grown up between them on that hard, long +trail between Lone Moose and the Stikine. They had a lot of common +ground to meet on besides that.</p> + +<p>This night Tommy had something on his mind besides casual conversation. +He wasted little time in preliminaries.</p> + +<p>"Would you be interested in taking over my car agencies on a percentage +basis, Wes?" he asked point-blank, when he had settled himself in a +chair with a cigar in his mouth. "I have worked up a good business with +the Standard and the Petit Six. I don't like to let it go altogether. I +shall have to devote all my time to the ship plant. That looms biggest +on the horizon. But I want to hold these agencies as an anchor to +windward. You could run both places without either suffering, I'm +confident. Ill make you a good proposition."</p> + +<p>Thompson reflected a minute.</p> + +<p>"What is your proposition?" he asked at length. "I daresay I could +handle it. But I can't commit myself offhand."</p> + +<p>"Of course not," Tommy agreed. "You can go over my books from the +beginning, and see for yourself what the business amounts to. I'd be +willing to allow you seventy-five per cent. of the net. Based on last +year's business you should clear twelve thousand per annum. Sales are on +the up. You might double that. I would hold an option of taking over the +business on ninety days' notice."</p> + +<p>"It sounds all right," Thompson admitted. "I'll look into it."</p> + +<p>"I want quick action," Tommy declared. "Say, to-morrow you arrange for +some certified accountant to go over my books and make out a balance +sheet. I'll pay his fee. I'm anxious to be free to work on the ship +end."</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll do that. We can arrange the details later if I decide +to take you up," Thompson said.</p> + +<p>Tommy stretched his arms and yawned.</p> + +<p>"By jove," said he, "I'm going to be the busiest thing on wheels for +awhile. It's no joke running a big show."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you were a shipbuilder," Thompson commented.</p> + +<p>"I'm not," Tommy admitted, stifling another yawn. "But I can hire +'em—both brains and labor. The main thing is I've got the contracts. +That's the chief item in this war business. The rest is chiefly a matter +of business judgment. It's something of a jump, I'll admit, but I can +negotiate it, all right."</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact," he continued presently, and with a highly +self-satisfied note in his voice, "apart from the executive work it's +what the Americans call a lead-pipe cinch. We can't lose. I've been +fishing for this quite a while, and I put it over by getting in touch +with the right people. It's wonderful what you can do in the proper +quarter. The Vancouver Construction Company consists of Joe Hedley and +myself. Joe is a very clever chap. Has influential people, too. We have +contracts with the I.M.B. calling for ten schooners estimated to cost +three hundred thousand dollars per. We finance the construction, but we +don't really risk a penny. The contracts are on a basis of cost, plus +ten per cent. You see? If we go above or under the estimate it doesn't +matter much. Our profit is fixed. The main consideration is speed. The +only thing we can be penalized for is failure to launch and deliver +within specified dates."</p> + +<p>Thompson did a rough bit of mental figuring.</p> + +<p>"I should say it was a cinch," he said dryly. "Nobody can accuse you of +profiteering. Yet your undertaking is both patriotic and profitable. I +suppose you had no trouble financing a thing like that?"</p> + +<p>"I should say not. The banks," Tommy replied with cynical emphasis, +"would fall over themselves to get their finger in our pie. But they +won't. Hedley and I have some money. Sam Carr is letting us have fifty +thousand dollars at seven per cent. No bank is going to charge like the +Old Guard at Waterloo on overdrafts and advances—and dictate to us +besides. I'm too wise for that. I'm not in the game for my health. I see +a big lump of money, and I'm after it."</p> + +<p>"I suppose we all are," Thompson reflected absently.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," Tommy responded promptly. "And we'd be suckers if we +weren't."</p> + +<p>He took a puff or two at his cigar and rose.</p> + +<p>"Run over to the plant on the North Shore with me to-morrow if you have +the time. We'll give it the once over, and take a look at the Wallace +yard too. They're starting on steel tramps there now. I'm going over +about two o'clock. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Sure. I'll take time," Thompson agreed.</p> + +<p>"Come down to MacFee's wharf and go over with me on the <i>Alert</i>," Tommy +went on. "That's the quickest and easiest way to cross the Inlet. Two +o'clock. Well, I'm off to bed. Good night, old man."</p> + +<p>"Good night."</p> + +<p>The hall door clicked behind Ashe. Thompson sat deep in thought for a +long time. Then he fished a note pad out of a drawer and began +pencilling figures.</p> + +<p>Ten times three hundred thousand was three million. Ten per cent. on +three million was three hundred thousand dollars. And no chance to lose. +The ten per cent. on construction cost was guaranteed by the Imperial +Munitions Board, behind which stood the British Empire.</p> + +<p>Didn't Tommy say the ten schooners were to be completed in eight months? +Then in eight months Tommy Ashe was going to be approximately one +hundred and fifty thousand dollars richer.</p> + +<p>Thompson wondered if that was why Sam Carr looked at Tommy with that +ambiguous expression when Tommy was chanting his work or fight +philosophy. Carr knew the ins and outs of the deal if he were loaning +money on it.</p> + +<p>And Thompson did not like to think he had read Carr's look aright, +because he was uncomfortably aware that he, Wes Thompson, was following +pretty much in Ashe's footsteps, only on a smaller scale.</p> + +<p>He tore the figured sheet into little strips, and went to bed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a><h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>—AND THE MATCH THAT LIT THE FUSE—</h3> +<br> + +<p>At a minute or two of ten the next morning Thompson stopped his car +before the Canadian Bank of Commerce. The bolt-studded doors were still +closed, and so he kept his seat behind the steering column, glancing +idly along Hastings at the traffic that flowed about the gray stone pile +of the post-office, while he waited the bank's opening for business.</p> + +<p>A tall young man, a bit paler-faced perhaps than a normal young fellow +should be, but otherwise a fine-looking specimen of manhood, sauntered +slowly around the corner of the bank, and came to a stop on the curb +just abreast the fore end of Thompson's motor. He took out a cigarette +and lighted it with slow, deliberate motions. And as he stood there, +gazing with a detached impersonal air at the front of the Summit +roadster, there approached him a recruiting sergeant.</p> + +<p>"How about joining up this morning?" he inquired briskly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," the young man responded casually. "I hadn't thought +about it."</p> + +<p>"Every man should be thinking about it," the sergeant declared. "The +army needs men. Now a well-set-up young fellow like you would get on +capitally at soldiering. It's a great life. When we get the Germans +whipped every man will be proud to say he had a hand in it. If a man +struck you you wouldn't stand back and let some other fellow do your +fighting for you, now would you? More than that, between you and me, it +won't be long before an able-bodied man can't walk these streets in +civvies, without the girls hooting him. It's a man's duty to get into +this war. Better walk along with me to headquarters and sign on."</p> + +<p>The young man gazed across the street with the same immobility of +expression.</p> + +<p>"What's the inducement?" he asked presently.</p> + +<p>The sergeant, taking his cue from this, launched forth upon a glowing +description of army life, the pay, the glory, the manifold advantages +that would certainly accrue. He painted a rosy picture, a gallant +picture. One gathered from his talk that a private in khaki was greater +than a captain of industry in civilian clothes. He dwelt upon the +brotherhood, the democracy of arms. He spilled forth a lot of the +buncombe that is swallowed by those who do not know from bitter +experience that war, at best, is a ghastly job in its modern phases, a +thing that the common man may be constrained to undertake if need +arises, but which brings him little pleasure and less glory—beyond the +consciousness that he has played his part as a man should.</p> + +<p>The young man heard the recruiting sergeant to an end. And when that +worthy had finished he found fixed steadily upon him a pair of coldly +speculative gray-green eyes.</p> + +<p>"How long have you been in the army?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"About eighteen months," the sergeant stated.</p> + +<p>"Have you been over there?"</p> + +<p>"No," the sergeant admitted. "I expect to go soon, but for the present +I'm detailed to recruiting."</p> + +<p>The young man had a flower in the lapel of his coat. He removed it, the +flower, and thrust the lapel in the sergeant's face. The flower had +concealed a bronze button.</p> + +<p>"I've been over there," the young man said calmly. "There's my button, +and my discharge is in my pocket—with the names of places on it that +you'll likely never see. I was in the Princess Pats—you know what +happened to the Pats. You have hinted I was a slacker, that every man +not in uniform is a slacker. Let me tell you something. I know your +gabby kind. The country's full of such as you. So's England. The war's +gone two years and you're still here, going around telling other men to +go to the front. Go there yourself, and get a taste of it. When you've +put in fourteen months in hell like I did, you won't go around peddling +the brand of hot air you've shot into me, just now."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you were a returned man," the sergeant said placatingly. +A pointed barb of resentment had crept into the other's tone as he +spoke.</p> + +<p>"Well, I am," the other snapped. "And I'd advise you to get a new line +of talk. Don't talk to me, anyway. Beat it. I've done my bit."</p> + +<p>The sergeant moved on without another word, and the other man likewise +went his way, with just the merest suggestion of a limp. And +simultaneously the great doors of the bank swung open. Thompson looked +first after one man then after the other, and passed into the bank with +a thoughtful look on his face.</p> + +<p>He finished his business there. Other things occupied his attention +until noon. He lunched. After that he drove to Coal Harbor where the +yachts lie and motor boats find mooring, and having a little time to +spare before Tommy's arrival, walked about the slips looking over the +pleasure craft berthed thereat. Boats appealed to Thompson. He had taken +some pleasant cruises with friends along the coast. Some day he intended +to have a cruising launch. Tommy had already attained that distinction. +He owned a trim forty-footer, the <i>Alert</i>. Thompson's wanderings +presently brought him to this packet.</p> + +<p>A man sat under the awning over the after deck. Thompson recognized in +him the same individual upon whom the recruiting sergeant's eloquence +had been wasted that morning. He was in clean overalls, a seaman's +peaked cap on his head. Thompson had felt an impulse to speak to the man +that morning. If any legitimate excuse had offered he would have done +so. To find the man apparently at home on the boat in which he himself +was taking brief passage was a coincidence of which Thompson proceeded +to take immediate advantage. He climbed into the cockpit. The man looked +at him questioningly.</p> + +<p>"I'm going across the Inlet with Mr. Ashe," Thompson explained. "Are you +on the <i>Alert</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Engineer, skipper, and bo'sun too," the man responded whimsically. +"Cook, captain, and the whole damn crew."</p> + +<p>They fell into talk. The man was intelligent, but there was a queer +abstraction sometimes in his manner. Once the motor of a near-by craft +fired with a staccato roar, and he jumped violently. He looked at +Thompson unsmiling.</p> + +<p>"I'm pretty jumpy yet," he said—but he did not explain why. He did not +say he had been overseas. He did not mention the war. He talked of the +coast, and timber, and fishing, and the adjacent islands, with all of +which he seemed to be fairly familiar.</p> + +<p>"I heard that recruiting sergeant tackle you this morning," Thompson +said at last. "You were standing almost beside my machine. What was it +like over there?"</p> + +<p>"What was it like?" the man repeated. He shook his head. "That's a big +order. I couldn't tell you in six months. It wasn't nice."</p> + +<p>He seemed to reflect a second or two.</p> + +<p>"I suppose some one has to do it. It has to be done. But it's a tough +game. You don't know where you're going nor what you're up against most +of the time. The racket gets a man, as well as seeing fellows you know +getting bumped off now and then. Some of the boys get hardened to it. I +never did. I try to forget it now, mostly. But I dream things sometimes, +and any sudden noise makes me jump. A fellow had better finish over +there than come home crippled. I'm lucky to hold down a job like this, +lucky that I happen to know gas engines and boats. I look all right, but +I'm not much good. All chewed up with shrapnel. And my nerve's gone. I +wouldn't have got my discharge if they could have used me any more. Aw, +hell, if you haven't been in it you can't imagine what it's like. I +couldn't tell you."</p> + +<p>"Tell me one thing," Thompson asked quickly, spurred by an impulse for +light upon certain matters which had troubled him. He wanted the word of +an eye-witness. "Did you ever see, personally, any of those atrocities +that have been laid to the Germans in Belgium?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," the man replied. "The papers have printed a lot of +stuff. Mind you, over there you hear about a lot of things you never +see. The only thing <i>I</i> saw was children with their hands hacked off at +the wrist."</p> + +<p>"Good God," Thompson uttered. "You actually saw that with your own +eyes."</p> + +<p>"Sure," the man responded. "Nine of 'em in one village.</p> + +<p>"Why, in the name of God, would men do such a thing?" Thompson demanded. +"Was any reason ever given?"</p> + +<p>"No. I suppose they were drunk or something. Fritz was pretty bad in +spots, all right. Maybe they just wanted to put the fear of God in their +hearts. A pal of mine in Flanders told me of a woman—in a place they +took by a night raid—she had her breast slashed open. She said a Boche +officer did it with his sword."</p> + +<p>The man spoke of these things in a detached, impersonal manner, as one +who states commonplace facts. He had not particularly desired to speak +of them. For him those gruesome incidents of war and invasion held no +special horror. They might have rested heavily enough on his mind once. +But he had come apparently to accept them as the grim collateral of war, +without reacting emotionally to their terrible significance. And when +Thompson ceased to question him he ceased to talk.</p> + +<p>But in Thompson these calmly recounted horrors worked profound distress. +His imagination became immediately shot with sinister pictures. All +these things which he had read and doubted, which had left him unmoved, +now took on a terrible reality. He could see these things about which +the returned soldier spoke, and seeing them believed. Believing, there +rose within him a protest that choked him with its force as he sat in +the cockpit beside this veteran of Flanders.</p> + +<p>The man had fallen silent, staring into the green depths overside. +Thompson sat silent beside him. But there was in Thompson none of the +other's passivity. Unlike the returned soldier, who had seen blood and +death until he was surfeited with it, until he wanted nothing but peace +and quietness, and a chance to rest his shrapnel-torn body and +shell-shocked nerves, Thompson quivered with a swift, hot desire to kill +and destroy, to inflict vengeance. He burned for reprisal. For a +passionate moment he felt as if he could rend with his bare hands a man +or men who could wantonly mutilate women and children. He could find no +fit name for such deeds.</p> + +<p>And, responding so surely to that unexpected stimulus, he had no +stomach for crossing the Inlet as Tommy's guest, to view the scene of +Tommy's industrial triumph-to-be. He wasn't interested in that now.</p> + +<p>Sitting under the awning, brooding over these things, he remembered how +Sophie Carr had reacted to the story of the Belgian refugee that +afternoon a year and a half ago. He understood at last. He divined how +Sophie felt that day. And he had blandly discounted those things. He had +gone about his individual concerns insulated against any call to right +wrongs, to fight oppression, to abolish that terror which loomed over +Europe—and which might very well lay its sinister hand on America, if +the Germans were capable of these things, and if the German's military +power prevailed over France and England. When he envisaged Canada as +another Belgium his teeth came together with a little click.</p> + +<p>He clambered out of the <i>Alert's</i> cockpit to the float.</p> + +<p>"Tell Mr. Ashe I changed my mind about going over with him," he said +abruptly, and walked off the float, up the sloping bank to the street, +got in his car and drove away.</p> + +<p>As he drove he felt that he had failed to keep faith with something or +other. He felt bewildered. Those little children, shorn of their +hands—so that they could never lift a sword against Germany—cried +aloud to him. They held up their bloody stumps for him to see.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXV"></a><h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>—AND THE BOMB THE FUSE FIRED</h3> +<br> + +<p>It took Thompson approximately forty-eight hours to arrange his affairs. +He managed things with a precipitancy that would have shocked a sound, +practical business man, for he put out no anchors to windward nor +troubled himself about the future. He paid his bills, transferred the +Summit agency to his head salesman—who had amassed sufficient capital +to purchase the stock of cars and parts at cost. Thus, having +deliberately sacrificed a number of sound assets for the sake of being +free of them without delay, Thompson found himself upon the morning of +the third day without a tie to bind him to Vancouver, and a cash balance +of twenty thousand dollars to his credit in the bank.</p> + +<p>He did not know how, or in what capacity he was going to the front, but +he was going, and the manner of his going did not concern him greatly. +It mattered little how he went, so long as he went in the service of his +country. A little of his haste was born of the sudden realization that +he had a country which needed his services—and that he desired to +serve. It had passed an emotional phase with him. He saw it very clearly +as a duty. He did not foresee or anticipate either pleasure or glory in +the undertaking. He had no illusions about war. It was quite on the +cards that he might never come back. But he had to go.</p> + +<p>So then he had only to determine how he should go.</p> + +<p>That problem, which was less a problem than a matter of making choice, +was solved that very day at luncheon. As he sat at a table in a downtown +café there came to him a figure in khaki, wearing a short, close-fitting +jacket with an odd emblem on the left sleeve—a young fellow who hailed +Thompson with a hearty grip and a friendly grin. He sat himself in a +chair vis-à-vis, laying his funny, wedge-shaped cap on the table.</p> + +<p>"I've been wondering what had become of you, Jimmie," Thompson said. "I +see now. Where have you been keeping yourself?"</p> + +<p>"East," the other returned tersely. "Training. Got my wings. Off to +England day after to-morrow. How's everything with you, these days?"</p> + +<p>Thompson looked his man over thoroughly. Jimmie Wells was the youngest +of the four sons of a wealthy man. The other three were at the front, +one of them already taking his long rest under a white, wooden cross +somewhere in France. Jimmie looked brown and fit. A momentary pang of +regret stung Thompson. He wished he too were standing in uniform, ready +for overseas.</p> + +<p>"I've just wound up my business," he said. "I'm going to the front +myself, Jimmie."</p> + +<p>"Good," Wells approved. "What branch?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know yet," Thompson replied. "I made up my mind in a hurry. I'm +just setting out to find where I'll fit in best."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you try aviation?" Jimmie Wells suggested. "You ought to +make good in that. There are a lot of good fellows flying. If you want +action, the R.F.C. is the sportiest lot of all."</p> + +<p>"I might. I didn't think of that," Thompson returned slowly. "Yes, I +believe I could fly."</p> + +<p>"If you can fly like you drive, you'll be the goods," Jimmie asserted +cheerfully. "Tell you what, Thompson. Come on around to the Flying Corps +headquarters with me. I know a fellow there rather well, and I'll +introduce you. Not that that will get you anything, only Holmes will +give you a lot of unofficial information."</p> + +<p>Thompson rose from the table.</p> + +<p>"Lead me to it," said he. "I'm your man."</p> + +<p>Getting accepted as a cadet in the Royal Flying Corps was not so simple +a matter as enlisting in the infantry. The requirements were infinitely +more rigid. The R.F.C. took only the cream of the country's manhood. +They told Thompson his age was against him—and he was only +twenty-eight. It was true. Ninety per cent. of the winged men were five +years younger. But he passed all their tests by grace of a magnificent +body that housed an active brain and steady nerves.</p> + +<p>All this did not transpire overnight. It took days. He told no one of +his plans in the meantime, no one but Tommy Ashe, who was a trifle +disappointed when Thompson declined to handle Tommy's exceedingly +profitable motor business. Tommy seemed hurt. To make it clear that he +had a vital reason, Thompson explained tersely.</p> + +<p>"I can't do it because I'm going to the front."</p> + +<p>"Eh? What the devil!"</p> + +<p>Tommy looked all the astonishment his tone expressed.</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>what</i> the devil?" Thompson returned tartly. "Is there anything +strange about that? A good many men have gone. A good many more will +have to go before this thing is settled. Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if a man feels that he <i>should</i>," Tommy began. He seemed at a loss +for words, and ended lamely: "There's plenty of cannon-fodder in the +country without men of your caliber wasting themselves in the trenches. +You haven't the military training nor the pull to get a commission."</p> + +<p>Thompson's lips opened to retort with a sentence he knew would sting +like a whiplash. But he thought better of it. He would not try plucking +the mote out of another man's eye, when he had so recently got clear of +the beam in his own.</p> + +<p>Tommy did not tarry long after that. He wished Thompson good luck, but +he left behind him the impression that he privately considered it a poor +move. Thompson was willing to concede that from a purely material +standpoint it was a poor move. But he could no longer adopt the purely +materialistic view. It had suddenly become clear to him that he must +go—and <i>why</i> he must go. Just as the citizen whose house gets on fire +knows beyond peradventure that he must quench the flames if it lies in +his power.</p> + +<p>The Royal Flying Corps arrives at its ends slowly. Perhaps not too +slowly for the niceness of choice that must be made. Presently there +came to Wesley Thompson a brief order to report at a training camp in +Eastern Canada.</p> + +<p>When he held this paper in his hand and knew himself committed +irrevocably to the greatest game of all, he felt a queer, inner glow, a +quiet satisfaction such as must come to a man who succeeds in some high +enterprise. Thompson felt this in spite of desperate facts. He had no +illusions as to what he had set about. He knew very well that in the +R.F.C. it was a short life and not always a merry one. Of course a man +might be lucky. He might survive by superior skill. In any case it had +to be done.</p> + +<p>But he was moved likewise by a strange loneliness, and with his orders +in his hand he understood at last the source of that peculiar regret +which latterly had assailed him in stray moments. There were a few +friends to bid good-by. And chief, if she came last on his round of +calls that last day, was Sophie Carr.</p> + +<p>He found Sophie at home about four in the afternoon, sitting in the big +living room, making Red Cross bandages. She did not stop her work when +he was ushered in. Beside her on a table stood a flat box and in this +from time to time she put a finished roll. It occurred to Thompson that +sometime one of those white bandages fabricated by her hands might be +used on him.</p> + +<p>He smiled a bit sardonically, for the thought arose also that in the +Flying Corps the man who lost in aërial combat needed little besides a +coffin—and sometimes not even that.</p> + +<p>Sophie looked at him almost somberly.</p> + +<p>"I'm working, don't you see?" she said curtly.</p> + +<p>He had never seen her in quite that unapproachable mood. He wanted her +to forget the Red Cross and the war for a little while, to look and +speak with the old lightness. He wasn't a sentimental man, but he did +want to go away with a picture of her smiling. He had not told her he +was going. He did not mean to tell her till he was leaving, and then +only to say casually: "Well, good-by. I'm off for a training-camp +to-night." He had always suspected there was something of the Spartan in +Sophie Carr's make-up. Even if he had not divined that, he had no +intention of making a fuss about his going, of trying to pose as a hero. +But he was a normal man, and he wanted his last recollection of her—if +it <i>should</i> be his last—to be a pleasant one.</p> + +<p>And Sophie was looking at him now, fixedly, a frosty gleam in her gray +eyes. She looked a moment, and her breast heaved. She swept the work off +her lap with a sudden, swift gesture.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with you—and dozens of men like you that I know?" +she demanded in a choked voice. "You stay at home living easy and +getting rich in the security that other men are buying with their blood +and their lives, over there. Fighting against odds and dying like dogs +in a ditch so that we can live here in peace and comfort. You don't even +do anything useful here. There doesn't seem to be anything that can make +you work or fight. They can sink passenger ships and bomb undefended +towns and shell hospitals, and you don't seem to resent it. I've heard +you prate about service—when you thought you walked with God and had a +mission from God to show other men the way. Why don't you serve now? +What is the matter with you? Is your skin so precious? If you can't +fight, can't you make ammunition or help to build ships? Are you a man, +or just a rabbit? I wish to God <i>I</i> were a man."</p> + +<p>Thompson rose to his feet. The lash of her tongue had not lost its power +to sting since those far-off Lone Moose days. Yet, though it stabbed +like a spear, he was more conscious of a passionate craving to gather +her into his arms than of anger and resentment. There were tears in +Sophie's eyes—but there was no softness in her tone. Her red lips +curled as Thompson looked at her in dazed silence. There did not seem to +be anything he could say—not with Sophie looking at him like that.</p> + +<p>"If you feel that way about it—"</p> + +<p>He broke off in the middle of the muttered sentence, turned on his heel, +walked out of the room. And he went down the street suffering from a +species of shock, saying desperately to himself that it did not matter, +nothing mattered.</p> + +<p>But he knew that was a lie, a lie he told himself to keep his soul from +growing sick.</p> + +<p>He went back to his rooms for the last time, and tried with pen and +paper to set down some justification of himself for Sophie's eyes. But +he could not satisfy himself with that. His pride revolted against it. +Why should he plead? Or rather, what was the use of pleading? Why +should he explain? He had a case for the defence, but defence avails +nothing after sentence has been pronounced. He had waited too long. He +had been tried and found wanting.</p> + +<p>He tore the letter into strips, and having sent his things to the +station long before, put on his hat now and walked slowly there himself, +for it lacked but an hour of train-time.</p> + +<p>At the corner of Pender and Hastings he met Sam Carr.</p> + +<p>"Welcome, youthful stranger," Carr greeted heartily. "I haven't seen you +for a long time. Walk down to the Strand with me and have a drink. I've +been looking over the Vancouver Construction Company's yard, and it's a +very dry place."</p> + +<p>Thompson assented. He had time and it was on his way. He reacted +willingly to the suggestion. He needed something to revive his spirit, +but he had not thought of the stimulus of John Barleycorn until Carr +spoke.</p> + +<p>In the Strand bar he poured himself half a glass of Scotch whisky. Carr +regarded him meditatively over port wine.</p> + +<p>"That's the first time I ever saw you touch the hard stuff," he +observed.</p> + +<p>"It will probably be the last," Thompson replied.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I'm off," Thompson explained. "I have sold out my business and have +been accepted for the Royal Flying Corps. I'm taking the train at six to +report at Eastern headquarters."</p> + +<p>Carr fingered the stem of his empty glass a second. "I hate to see you +go, and still I'm glad you're going," he said with an odd, wistful note +in his voice. "I'd go too, Thompson, if I weren't too old to be any use +over there."</p> + +<p>"Eh?" Thompson looked at him keenly. "Have you been revising your +philosophy of life?"</p> + +<p>"No. Merely bringing it up to date," Carr replied soberly. "We have what +we have in the way of government, economic practice, principles of +justice, morality—so forth and so on. I'm opposed to a lot of it. Too +much that's obsolete. A lot that's downright bad. But bad as it is in +spots, it is not a circumstance to what we should have to endure if the +Germans win this war. I believe in my people and my country. I don't +believe in the German system of dominating by sheer force and planned +terror. The militarists and the market hunters have brought us to this. +But we have to destroy the bogey they have raised before we can deal +with them. And a man can't escape nationalism. It's bred in us. What the +tribe thinks, the individual thinks. This thing is in the air. We are +getting unanimous. Whether or not we approve the cause, we are too proud +to consider getting whipped in a war that was forced on us. One way and +another, no matter what we privately think of our politicians and +industrial barons and our institutions generally, it is becoming +unthinkable to the Anglo-Saxon that the German shall stalk rough-shod +over us. We are beginning—we common people—to hate him and his works. +Look at you and me. We were aloof at first. We are intelligent. We have +learned to saddle feeling with logic. We have not been stampeded by +military bands and oratory. Yet there is something in the air. I wish I +could fight. You are going to fight. Not because you like fighting, but +because you see something to fight for. And before long those who cannot +see will be very few. Isn't that about right?"</p> + +<p>"I think so," Thompson replied.</p> + +<p>"There you are," Carr went on. "Myself, I have put philosophic +consideration in abeyance for the time. I've got primitive again. Damn +the Central Powers! If I had seven sons I'd send them all to the front."</p> + +<p>They had another drink.</p> + +<p>"Did you go and say good-by to Sophie?" Carr demanded suddenly.</p> + +<p>"I saw her, but I don't think I said good-by," Thompson said absently. +He was thinking about Carr's surprising outburst. He agreed precisely +with what the old man said. But he had not suspected the old radical of +such intensity. "I didn't tell her I was going."</p> + +<p>"You didn't tell her," Carr persisted. "Why not?"</p> + +<p>"For a variety of reasons." He found it hard to assume lightness with +those shrewd old eyes searchingly upon him. "You can tell her good-by +for me. Well, let's have a last one. It'll be a good many moons before +you and I look over a glass at each other again. If I don't come back +I'll be in honorable company. And I'll give them hell while I last."</p> + +<p>Carr walked with him down to the train.</p> + +<p>"When the war broke out," he said to Thompson at the coach steps, "if +you had proposed to go I should privately have considered you a damned +idealistic fool. Now I envy you. You will never have to make apologies +to yourself for yourself, nor to your fellows. If I strike a blow that a +free people may remain free to work out their destiny in their own +fashion, I must do it by proxy. I wish you all the luck there is, Wes +Thompson. I hope you come back safe to us again."</p> + +<p>They shook hands. A voice warned all and sundry that the train was about +to leave, and over the voice rose the strident notes of a gong. Thompson +climbed the steps, passed within, thrust his head through an open window +as the Imperial Limited gathered way. His last glimpse of a familiar +face was of Carr standing bareheaded, looking wistfully after the +gliding coaches.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;"> + +<p>The grandfather clock in the hall was striking nine when Sam Carr came +home. He hung his hat on the hall-tree and passed with rather unsteady +steps into the living room. He moved circumspectly, with the peculiar +caution of the man who knows that he is intoxicated and governs his +movements accordingly. Carr's legs were very drunk and he was aware of +this, but his head was perfectly clear. He managed to negotiate passage +to a seat near his daughter.</p> + +<p>Sophie was sitting in a big chair, engulfed therein, one might say. A +reading lamp stood on the table at her elbow. A book lay in her lap. But +she was staring at the wall absently, and beyond a casual glance at her +father she neither moved nor spoke, nor gave any sign of being stirred +out of this profound abstraction.</p> + +<p>Carr sank into his chair with a sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>"I am just about pickled, I do believe," he observed to the room at +large.</p> + +<p>"So I see," Sophie commented impersonally. "Is there anything uncommon +about that? I am beginning to think prohibition will be rather a +blessing to you, Dad, when it comes."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" Carr grunted. "I suppose one drink does lead to another. But I +don't need to be legally safe-guarded yet, thank you. My bibulosity is +occasional. When it becomes chronic I shall take to the woods."</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I find myself wishing we had never come out of the woods," +Sophie murmured.</p> + +<p>"What?" Carr exclaimed. Then: "That's rich. You with a sure income +beyond your needs, in your own right, with youth and health and beauty, +with all your life before you, wishing to revert to what you used to say +was a living burial? That's equivalent to holding that the ostrich +philosophy is the true one—what you cannot see does not exist. That +ignorance is better than knowledge—that—that—Hang it, my dear, are +you going to turn reactionary? But that's a woman. Now why should—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't begin one of your interminable, hair-splitting elucidations," +Sophie protested. "I know it's showing weakness to desire to run away +from trouble. I don't know that I have any trouble to run from. I'm not +sure I should dodge trouble if I could. I was just voicing a stray +thought. We <i>were</i> happy at Lone Moose, weren't we, Dad?"</p> + +<p>"After a fashion," Carr replied promptly. "As the animal is happy with +a full belly and a comfortable place to sleep. But we both craved a +great deal more than that of life."</p> + +<p>"And we are not getting more," Sophie retorted. "When you come right +down to fundamentals we eat a greater variety of food, wear better +clothes, live on a scale that by our former standards is the height of +luxury. But not one of my dreams has come true. And you find solace in a +wine glass where you used to find it in books. Over in Europe men are +destroying each other like mad beasts. At home, while part of the nation +plays the game square, there's another part that grafts and corrupts and +profiteers and slacks to no end. It's a rotten world."</p> + +<p>"By gad, you have got the blue glasses on to-night, and no mistake," +Carr mused. "That's unmitigated pessimism, Sophie. What you need is a +vacation. Let somebody else run this women's win-the-war show for +awhile, and you take a rest. That's nerves."</p> + +<p>"I can't. There is too much to do," Sophie said shortly. "I don't want +to. If I sat down and folded my hands these days I'd go crazy."</p> + +<p>Carr grunted. For a minute neither spoke. Sophie lay back in her chair, +eyes half closed, fingers beating a slow rat-a-tat on the chair-arm.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen Wes Thompson lately?" Carr inquired at last.</p> + +<p>"I saw him this afternoon," Sophie replied.</p> + +<p>"Did he tell you he was going overseas?"</p> + +<p>"No." Sophie's interest seemed languid, judged by her tone.</p> + +<p>"You saw him this afternoon, eh?" Carr drawled. "That's queer."</p> + +<p>"What's queer?" Sophie demanded.</p> + +<p>"That he would see you and not tell you where he was off to," Carr went +on. "I saw him away on the Limited at six-o'clock. He told me to tell +you good-by. He's gone to the front."</p> + +<p>Sophie sat upright.</p> + +<p>"How could he do that?" she said impatiently. "A man can't get into +uniform and leave for France on two hours' notice. He called here about +four. Don't be absurd."</p> + +<p>"I don't see anything absurd except your incredulous way of taking it," +Carr defended stoutly. "I tell you he's gone. I saw him take the train. +Who said anything about two hours' notice? I should imagine he has been +getting ready for some time. You know Wes Thompson well enough to know +that he doesn't chatter about what he's going to do. He sold out his +business two weeks ago, and has been waiting to be passed in his tests. +He has finally been accepted and ordered to report East for training in +aviation. He joined the Royal Flying Corps."</p> + +<p>Carr did not know that in the circle of war workers where Sophie moved +so much the R.F.C. was spoken of as the "Legion of Death." No one knew +the percentage of casualties in that gallant service. Such figures were +never published. All that these women knew was that their sons and +brothers and lovers, clean-limbed children of the well-to-do, joined the +Flying Corps, and that their lives, if glorious, were all too brief +once they reached the Western front. Only the supermen, the favored of +God, survived a dozen aërial combats. To have a son or a brother flying +in France meant mourning soon or late. So they spoke sometimes, in +bitter pride, of their birdmen as the "Legion of Death", a gruesome +phrase and apt.</p> + +<p>Carr knew the heavy casualties of aërial fighting. But he had never seen +a proud woman break down before the ominous cablegram, he had never seen +a girl sit dry-eyed and ashy-white, staring dumbly at a slip of yellow +paper. And Sophie had—many a time. To her, a commission in the Royal +Flying Corps had come to mean little short of a death warrant.</p> + +<p>She sat now staring blankly at her father.</p> + +<p>"He closed up his business and joined the Flying Corps two weeks ago."</p> + +<p>She repeated this stupidly, as if she found it almost impossible to +comprehend.</p> + +<p>"That's what I said," Carr replied testily. "What the devil did you do +to him that he didn't tell you, if he was here only two hours before he +left? Why, he must have come to say good-by."</p> + +<p>"What did I do?" Sophie whispered. "My God, how was I to know what I was +doing?"</p> + +<p>She sat staring at her father. But she was not seeing him, and Carr knew +she did not see him. Some other vision filled those wide-pupiled eyes. +Something that she saw or felt sent a shudder through her. Her mouth +quivered. And suddenly she gave a little, stifled gasp, and covered her +face with her hands.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a><h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>THE LAST BRIDGE</h3> +<br> + +<p>Thompson received his preliminary training in a camp not greatly distant +from his birthplace and the suburban Toronto home where the spinster +aunts still lived. He did not go to see them at first, for two reasons. +Primarily, because he had written them a full and frank account of +himself when he got out of the ruck and achieved success in San +Francisco. Their reply had breathed an open disappointment, almost +hostility, at his departure from the chosen path. They made it clear +that in their eyes he was a prodigal son for whom there would never be +any fatted calf. Secondly, he did not go because there was seldom +anything but short leave for a promising aviator.</p> + +<p>Thompson speedily proved himself to belong in that category. There +resided in him those peculiar, indefinable qualities imperative for +mastery of the air. Under able instruction he got on fast, just as he +had got on fast in the Henderson shops. And by the time the first fall +snows whitened the ground, he was ready for England and the finishing +stages of aërial work antecedent to piloting a fighting plane. He had +practically won his official wings.</p> + +<p>With his orders to report overseas he received ten days' final leave. +And a sense of duty spurred him to look up the maiden aunts, to brave +their displeasure for the sake of knowing how they fared. There was +little other use to make of his time. The Pacific Coast was too far +away. The only person he cared to see there had no wish to see him, he +was bitterly aware. And nearer at hand circumstances had shot him clear +out of the orbit of all those he had known as he grew to manhood. +Recalling them, he had no more in common with them now than any +forthright man of action has in common with narrow visionaries. It was +not their fault, he knew. They were creatures of their environment, just +as he had been. But he had outgrown all faith in creeds and forms before +a quickening sympathy with man, a clearer understanding of human +complexities. And as he recalled them his associates had been slaves to +creed and form, worshippers of the letter of Christianity while +unconsciously they violated the spirit of Christ. Thompson had no wish +to renew those old friendships, not even any curiosity about them. So he +passed them by and went to see his aunts, who had fed and clothed him, +to whom he felt a vague sort of allegiance if no particular affection.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Thompson like reliving a very vivid sort of dream to get +off a street car at a certain corner, to walk four blocks south and turn +into the yard before a small brick cottage with a leafless birch rising +out of the tiny grass plot and the bleached vines of sweet peas draping +the fence palings.</p> + +<p>The woman who opened the door at his knock stood before him a living +link with that dreamlike past, unchanged except in minor details, a +little more spare perhaps and grayer for the years he had been gone, but +dressed in the same dull black, with the same spotless apron, the same +bit of a white lace cap over her thin hair, the same pince-nez astride a +high bony nose.</p> + +<p>Aunt Lavina did not know him in his uniform. He made himself known. The +old lady gazed at him searchingly. Her lips worked. She threw her arms +about his neck, laughing and sobbing in the same breath.</p> + +<p>"Surely, it's myself," Thompson patted her shoulder. "I'm off to the +front in a few days and I thought I'd better look you up. How's Aunt +Hattie?"</p> + +<p>Aunt Lavina disengaged herself from his arms, her glasses askew, her +faded old eyes wet, yet smiling as Thompson could not recall ever seeing +her smile.</p> + +<p>"What a spectacle for the neighbors," she said breathlessly. "Me, at my +time of life, hugging and kissing a soldier on the front step. Do come +in, Wesley. Harriet will be so pleased. My dear boy, you don't know how +we have worried about you. How well you look."</p> + +<p>She drew him into the parlor. A minute later Aunt Harriet, with less +fervor than her sister perhaps, made it clear that she was unequivocally +glad to see him, that any past rancor for his departure from grace was +dead and buried.</p> + +<p>They were beyond the sweeping current of everyday life, living their +days in a back eddy, so to speak. But they were aware of events, of the +common enemy, of the straining effort of war, and they were proud of +their nephew in the King's uniform. They twittered over him like fond +birds. He must stay his leave out with them.</p> + +<p>At this pronunciamento of Aunt Lavina's a swift glance passed between +the two old women. Thompson caught it, measured the doubt and uneasiness +of the mutual look, and was puzzled thereby.</p> + +<p>But he did not fathom its source for a day or two, and only then by a +process of deduction. They treated him handsomely, they demonstrated an +affection which moved him deeply because he had never suspected its +existence. (They had always been so precise, almost harsh with him as a +youngster.) But their living was intolerably meager. Disguise it with +every artifice, a paucity of resource—or plain niggardliness—betrayed +itself at every meal. Thompson discarded the theory of niggardliness. +And proceeding thence on the first conclusion stood his two aunts in a +corner—figuratively, of course—and wrung from them a statement of +their financial status.</p> + +<p>They were proud and reluctant. But Thompson had not moved among and +dealt with men of the world to be baffled by two old women, so presently +he was in possession of certain facts.</p> + +<p>They had not been able to support themselves, to rear and educate him, +on their income alone, and gradually their small capital had been +consumed. They were about to negotiate the sale of their home, the +proceeds of which would keep them from want—if they did not live too +long. They tried to make light of it, but Thompson grasped the tragedy. +They had been born in that brick cottage with the silver birch before +the door.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said at length, "I don't want to preëmpt the Lord's +prerogative of providing. But I can't permit this state of affairs. I +wish you had taken me into your confidence, aunties, when I was a +youngster. However, that doesn't matter now. Can you live comfortably on +eleven hundred dollars a year?"</p> + +<p>Aunt Harriet held up her hands.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy," she said, "such a sum would give us luxuries, us two old +women. But that is out of the question. If we get five thousand for the +place we shall have to live on a great deal less than that."</p> + +<p>"Forget that nonsense about selling this place," Thompson said roughly. +That grated on him. He felt a sense of guilt, of responsibility too long +neglected. "Where I'm going I shall be supplied by the government with +all I need. I've made some money. I own war-bonds sufficient to give you +eleven hundred a year in interest. I'll turn them over to you. If I come +back with a whole skin when the war's over, I'll be able to use the +capital in a way to provide for all of us. If I don't come back, you'll +be secure against want as long as you live."</p> + +<p>He made good his word before his leave was up. He had very nearly lost +faith in the value of money, of any material thing. He had struggled for +money and power for a purpose, to demonstrate that he was a man equal to +any man's struggle. He had signally failed in his purpose, for reasons +that were still a little obscure to him. Failure had made him a little +bitter, bred a pessimism it took the plight of his aunts to cure. Even +if he had failed to achieve his heart's desire he had acquired power to +make two lives content. Save that it ministered to his self-respect to +know that he could win in that fierce struggle of the marketplace, money +had lost its high value for him. Money was only a means, not an end. But +to have it, to be able to bestow it where it was sadly needed, was worth +while, after all. If he "crashed" over there, it was something to have +banished the grim spectre of want from these two who were old and +helpless.</p> + +<p>He was thinking of this along with a jumble of other thoughts as he +leaned on the rail of a transport slipping with lights doused out of the +port of Halifax. There was a lump in his throat because of those two old +women who had cried over him and clung to him when he left them. There +was another woman on the other side of the continent to whom his going +meant nothing, he supposed, save a duty laggardly performed. And he +would have sold his soul to feel <i>her</i> arms around his neck and her lips +on his before he went.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," he muttered to himself as he watched the few harbor lights +falling astern, yellow pin-points on the velvety black of the shore," +this is likely to be the finish of <i>that</i>. I think I've burned my last +bridge. And I have learned to stand on my own feet, whether she believes +so or not."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>THOMPSON'S RETURN</h3> + + +"Anon we return, being gathered again<br> +Across the sad valleys all drabbled with rain."<br> +<br> + +<p>On an evening near the first of September, 1918, a Canadian Pacific +train rumbled into Vancouver over tracks flanked on one side by wharves +and on the other by rows of drab warehouses. It rolled, bell clanging +imperiously, with decreasing momentum until it came to a shuddering halt +beside the depot that rises like a great, brown mausoleum at the foot of +a hill on which the city sits looking on the harbor waters below.</p> + +<p>Upon the long, shed-roofed platform were gathered the fortunate few +whose men were on that train. Behind these waited committees of welcome +for stray dogs of war who had no kin. The environs of the depot proper +and a great overhead bridge, which led traffic of foot and wheel from +the streets to the docks, high over the railway yards, were cluttered +with humanity that cheered loudly at the first dribble of khaki from the +train below.</p> + +<p>It was not a troop train, merely the regular express from the East. But +it bore a hundred returned men, and news of their coming had been widely +heralded. So the wives and sweethearts, the committees, and the curious, +facile-minded crowd, were there to greet these veterans who were mostly +the unfortunates of war, armless, legless men, halt and lame, gassed and +shrapnel-scarred—and some who bore no visible sign only the white face +and burning eyes of men who had met horror and walked with it and +suffered yet from the sight. All the wounds of the war are not solely of +the flesh, as many a man can testify.</p> + +<p>From one coach there alighted a youngish man in the uniform of the Royal +Flying Corps. He carried a black bag. He walked a little stiffly. Beyond +that he bore no outward trace of disablement. His step and manner +suggested no weakness. One had to look close to discern pallor and a +peculiar roving habit of the eyes, a queer tensity of the body. A +neurologist, versed in the by-products of war, could have made a fair +guess at this man's medical-history sheet. But the folk on the platform +that night were not specialists in subtle diagnosis of the nervous +system. Nor were the committees. They were male and female of those who +had done their bit at home, were doing it now, welcoming their broken +heroes. The sight of a man with a scarred face, a mutilated limb, +elicited their superficial sympathy, while the hidden sickness of racked +nerves in an unmaimed body they simply could not grasp.</p> + +<p>So this man with the black bag and the wings on his left arm walked the +length of the platform, gained the steel stairway which led to the main +floor of the depot, and when he had climbed half-way stopped to rest and +to look down over the rail.</p> + +<p>Below, the mass of humanity was gravitating into little groups here and +there about a khaki center. There was laughter, and shrill voices, with +an occasional hysterical note. There were men surrounded by women and +children, and there were others by twos and threes and singly who looked +enviously at these little groups of the reunited, men who moved +haltingly on their way to the city above, perfunctorily greeted, +perfunctorily handshaken, and perfunctorily smiled upon by the official +welcomers.</p> + +<p>He looked at this awhile, with a speculative, pitying air, and continued +his climb, passing at last through great doors into a waiting-room, a +place of high, vaulted ceilings, marble pillars, beautiful tiled floors. +He evaded welcoming matrons on the watch for unattached officers, to +hale them into an anteroom reserved for such, to feed them sandwiches +and doubtful coffee, and to elicit tales of their part in the grim +business overseas. This man avoided the cordial clutches of the socially +elect by the simple expedient of saying that his people expected him. He +uttered this polite fiction in self-defense. He did not want to talk or +be fed. He was sick of noise, weary of voices, irritated by raucous +sounds. All he desired was a quiet place away from the confusion of +which he had been a part for many days, to get speedily beyond range of +the medley of voices and people that reminded him of nothing so much as +a great flock of seagulls swooping and crying over a school of herring.</p> + +<p>He passed on to the outer door which gave on the street where taxi +drivers and hotel runners bawled their wares, and here in the entrance +met the first face he knew. A man about his own age, somewhat shorter, a +great deal thicker through the waist, impeccably dressed, shouldered +his way through a group at the exit.</p> + +<p>Their eyes met. Into the faces of both leaped instant recognition. The +soldier pressed forward eagerly. The other stood his ground. There was a +look which approached unbelief on his round, rather florid features. But +he grasped the extended hand readily enough.</p> + +<p>"By jove, it <i>is</i> you, Wes," he said. "I couldn't believe my eyes. So +you're back alive, eh? You were reported killed, you know. Shot down +behind the German lines. You made quite a record, didn't you? How's +everything over there?"</p> + +<p>There was a peculiar quality in Tommy Ashe's tone, a something that was +neither aloofness nor friendliness, nor anything that Wes Thompson could +immediately classify. But it was there, a something Tommy tried to +suppress and still failed to suppress. His words were hearty, but his +manner was not. And this he confirmed by his actions. Thompson said that +things over there were going well, and let it go at that. He was more +vitally concerned just then with over here. But before he could fairly +ask a question Tommy seized his hand and wrung it in farewell.</p> + +<p>"Pardon my rush, old man," he said. "I've got an appointment I can't +afford to pass up, and I'm late already. Look me up to-morrow, will +you?"</p> + +<p>Two years is long for some things, over-brief for others. In Thompson +those twenty-four months had softened certain perspectives. He had +quickened at sight of Tommy's familiar face, albeit that face was a +trifle grosser, more smugly complacent than he had ever expected to +behold it. He could mark the change more surely for the gap in time. But +Tommy had not been glad to see him. Thompson felt that under the outward +cordiality.</p> + +<p>He took up his bag and went out on the street, hailed the least +vociferous of the taxi pirates and had himself driven to the Granada +Hotel. His brows were still knitting in abstracted thought when a +bell-boy had transported the black bag and himself to a room on the +sixth floor, received his gratuity and departed. Thompson was high above +the rumble of street cars, facing a thoroughfare given largely to motor +traffic, with a window which overlooked the lower town and harbor, and +the great hills across the Inlet looming duskily massive against the +paler sky.</p> + +<p>He stood by the window looking over roofs and traffic and the glow-worm +light of shipping in the stream. He could smell the sea, the brown kelp +bared on rocky beaches by a falling tide. And he fancied that even at +that distance he could get a whiff of the fir and cedar that clothed the +mountain flank.</p> + +<p>"By God," he whispered. "It's good to be back."</p> + +<p>He said it much as a man might breathe a prayer. All this that he saw +now had lingered in his memory, had risen up to confront him as +something beautiful and desirable, many times when he never expected to +see it again. For it was not logical, he held, that he should survive +where so many others had perished. It was just a whimsey of Fate. And he +was duly and honestly grateful that it had been permitted him to +outlive many gallant comrades in the perilous service of the air.</p> + +<p>Three days and nights on a train close upon long months in hospital had +left him very tired. Rest both his body and uneasy nerves craved +insistently. Although it lacked some minutes of eight, he threw off his +clothes and went to bed.</p> + +<p>In the morning he rose refreshed, eager to be about, to look up men he +knew, to talk of things beyond the scope of war.</p> + +<p>But when he went out into Vancouver's highways and met people, his +uniform gave them a conversational cue. And he found that here, six +thousand miles from the guns, even less than among his fellows in the +hangars behind the fighting line could he escape that topic. He did not +want to talk about fighting and killing. He had lived those things and +that was enough. So he came back to the Granada and read the papers and +had his lunch and decided to look up Tommy Ashe.</p> + +<p>He had learned casually that morning that Tommy's company had more than +made good Tommy's prophecy of swift work. Tommy Ashe and Joe Hedley were +rising young men.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, they've got a mint," a broker he knew said to Thompson, with +an unconcealed note of envy. "By gad, it's a marvel how a pair of young +cubs like that can start on a shoestring and make half a million apiece +in two years."</p> + +<p>"How did they both manage to escape the draft?" Thompson asked. "I'm +sure Ashe is a Class A man."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" the broker snorted. "Necessary government undertakings. +Necessary hell! All they had to do with the shipbuilding was to bank +their rake-off. I tell you, Thompson, this country has supported the war +in great style—but there's been a lot of raw stuff in places where you +wouldn't suspect it. I'm not knocking, y' understand. This is no time to +knock. But when the war's over, we've got to do some house-cleaning."</p> + +<p>Thompson called the shipyard first. In the glow of a sunny September +morning he felt that he must have imagined Tommy's attitude. He was a +fair-minded man, and he gave Tommy the benefit of the doubt.</p> + +<p>But he failed to get in touch with Tommy. A voice informed him politely +that Mr. Ashe had left town that morning and would be gone several days.</p> + +<p>Thompson hung up the receiver. For at least five minutes he sat debating +with himself. Then he took it down again.</p> + +<p>"Give me Seymour 365L," he said to Central.</p> + +<p>"Hello."</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Carr at home?"</p> + +<p>"You have the wrong number," he was answered, and he heard the +connection break.</p> + +<p>He tried again, and once more the same voice, this time impatiently, +said, "Wrong number."</p> + +<p>"Wait," Thompson said quickly. "Is this Seymour 365L, corner of Larch +and First?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I beg pardon for bothering you. I'm just back from overseas and I'm +rather anxious to locate Mr. Carr—Samuel A. Carr. This was his home +two years ago."</p> + +<p>"Just a minute," the feminine voice had recovered its original +sweetness. "Perhaps I can help you. Hold the line."</p> + +<p>Thompson waited. Presently he was being addressed again.</p> + +<p>"My husband believes Mr. Carr still owns this place. We lease through an +agent, however, Lyng and Salmon, Credit Foncier Building. Probably they +will be able to give you the required information."</p> + +<p>"Thanks," Thompson said.</p> + +<p>He found Lyng and Salmon's number in the telephone book. But the lady +was mistaken. Carr had sold the place. Nor did Lyng and Salmon know his +whereabouts.</p> + +<p>Tommy would know. But Tommy was out of town. Still there were other +sources of information. A man like Carr could not make his home in a +place no larger than Vancouver and drop out of sight without a ripple. +Thompson stuck doggedly to the telephone, sought out numbers and called +them up. In the course of an hour he was in possession of several facts. +Sam Carr was up the coast, operating a timber and land undertaking for +returned soldiers. The precise location he could not discover, beyond +the general one of Toba Inlet.</p> + +<p>They still maintained a residence in town, an apartment suite. From the +caretaker of that he learned that Sophie spent most of her time with her +father, and that their coming and going was uncertain and unheralded.</p> + +<p>The latter facts were purely incidental, save one. Tommy Ashe had that +morning cleared the <i>Alert</i> for a coastwise voyage.</p> + +<p>Sam Carr and Sophie were up the coast. Tommy was up the coast. Thompson +sat for a time in deep study. Very well, then. He, too, would journey up +the coast. He had not come six thousand miles to loaf in a hotel lobby +and wear out shoe leather on concrete walks.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a><h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>FAIR WINDS</h3> +<br> + +<p>Within a gunshot of the heart of Vancouver lies a snug tidal basin where +yachts swing to their moorings, where a mosquito fleet of motor craft +lies along narrow slips, with the green woods of Stanley Park for a +background. Thompson knew Coal Harbor well. He knew the slips and the +boats and many of the men who owned them. He had gone on many a week-end +cruise out of that basin with young fellows who looked their last on the +sea when they crossed the English Channel. So he had picked up a working +fund of nautical practice, a first-hand knowledge of the sea and the +manner of handling small sail.</p> + +<p>From the Granada he went straight to Coal Harbor. While the afternoon +was yet young he had chartered a yawl, a true one-man craft, carrying +plenty of canvas for her inches, but not too much. She had a small, snug +cabin, was well-found as to gear, and was equipped with a sturdy +single-cylinder gas engine to kick her along through calm and tideway.</p> + +<p>Before six he had her ready for sea, his dunnage bag aboard, grub in the +lockers, gas in the tanks, clearance from the customhouse. He slept +aboard in a bunk softer than many a sleeping place that had fallen to +his lot in France. And at sunrise the outgoing tide bore him swiftly +through the Narrows and spewed him out on the broad bosom of the Gulf of +Georgia, all ruffled by a stiff breeze that heeled the little yawl and +sent her scudding like a gray gull when Thompson laid her west, a half +north, to clear Roger Curtis Point.</p> + +<p>He blew through Welcome Pass at noon on the forefront of a rising gale, +with the sun peeping furtively through cracks in a gathering cloudbank. +As the wind freshened, the manes of the white horses curled higher and +whiter. Thompson tied in his last reef in the lee of a point midway of +the Pass. Once clear of it the marching surges lifted the yawl and bore +her racing forward, and when the crest passed she would drop into a +green hollow like a bird to its nest, to lift and race and sink deep in +the trough again.</p> + +<p>But she made merry weather of it. And Thompson rode the tiller, an eye +to his sheets, glorying in his mastery of the sea. It was good to be +there with a clean wind whistling through taut stays, no sound but the +ripple of water streaming under his lee, and the swoosh of breaking seas +that had no power to harm him. Peace rode with him. His body rested, and +the tension left his nerves which for months had been strung like the +gut on a violin.</p> + +<p>Between Welcome Pass and Cape Coburn the southeaster loosed its full +fury on him. The seas rose steeper at the turn of the tide, broke with a +wicked curl. He put the Cape on his lee after a wild fifteen minutes +among dangerous tiderips, and then prudence drove him to shelter.</p> + +<p>He put into a bottle-necked cove gained by a passage scarce twenty feet +wide which opened to a quiet lagoon where no wind could come and where +the swell was broken into a foamy jumble at the narrow entrance.</p> + +<p>He cooked his supper, ate, watched the sun drop behind the encircling +rim of firs. Then he lay on a cushion in the cockpit until dark came and +the green shore of the little bay grew dim and then black and the dusky +water under the yawl's counter was split with the phosphorescent flashes +of darting fish.</p> + +<p>Across a peninsula, on the weather side of the Cape, he could hear the +seas thud and the surf growl like the distant booming of heavy +batteries. Over his head the wind whistled and whined in the firs with a +whistle and a whine like machine-gun bullets that have missed their +mark. But neither of these sounds held the menace of the sounds of which +they reminded him. He listened to those diapasons and thin trebles and +was strangely soothed. And at last he grew sleepy and turned in to his +bunk.</p> + +<p>Some time in the night he had a weird sort of dream. He was falling, +falling swiftly from a great height in the air. On the tail of his plane +rode a German, with a face like those newspaper caricatures of the +Kaiser, who shot at him with a trench mortar—boom—boom—boom—boom!</p> + +<p>Thompson found himself sitting up in his bunk. The queer dream had given +place to reality, in which the staccato explosions continued. As he put +his face to an open porthole a narrow, searching ray of uncommon +brilliance flashed over his yawl and picked up the shore beyond. Back +of the searchlight lifted the red, green, and white triangle of running +lights laid dead for him. It sheered a little. The brilliant ray blinked +out. He saw a dim bulk, a pale glimmer through cabin windows, heard the +murmur of voices and the rattle of anchor chain running through hawse +pipe. Then he closed his eyes and slept again.</p> + +<p>He rose with the sun. Beside him lay a sturdily built motor tug. A man +leaned on the towing bitts aft, smoking a pipe, gazing at the yawl. +Twenty feet would have spanned the distance between them.</p> + +<p>Thompson emerged into the cockpit. The air was cool and he was fully +dressed. At sight of the uniform with the insignia on sleeve and collar +the man straightened up, came to attention, lifted his hand smartly in +the military salute—the formality tempered by a friendly grin. Thompson +saw then that the man had a steel hook where his left hand should have +been. Also a livid scar across his cheek where a bullet or shrapnel had +plowed.</p> + +<p>"It's a fine morning after a wild night," Thompson broke the +conversational ice.</p> + +<p>"It was a wild night outside and no mistake," the man replied. "We took +cover about midnight—got tired of plowing into it, and wasn't too keen +for wallowing through them rips off the Cape. Say, are you back long +from over there?"</p> + +<p>"Not long," Thompson replied. "I left England two weeks ago."</p> + +<p>"How's it going?"</p> + +<p>"We're over the hump," Thompson told him. "They're outgunned now. The +Americans are there in force. And we have them beaten in the air at +last. You know what that means if you've been across."</p> + +<p>"Don't I know it," the man responded feelingly. "By the Lord, it's me +that does know it. I was there when the shoe was on the other foot. I +was a gunner in the Sixty-eighth Battery, and you can believe me there +was times when it made us sick to see German planes overhead. Well, I +hope they give Fritz hell. He gave it to us."</p> + +<p>"They will," Thompson answered simply, and on that word their talk of +the war ended. They spoke of Vancouver, and of the coast generally.</p> + +<p>"By the way, do you happen to know whereabouts in Toba Inlet a man named +Carr is located?" Thompson bethought him of his quest. "Sam Carr. He is +operating some sort of settlement for returned men, I've been told."</p> + +<p>"Sam Carr? Sure. The <i>Squalla</i> here belongs to him—or to the +Company—and Carr is just about the Company himself."</p> + +<p>A voice from the interior abaft the wheelhouse bellowed "Grub-pi-l-e."</p> + +<p>"That's breakfast," the man said. "I see you ain't lighted your fire +yet. Come and have a bite with us. Here, make this line fast and lay +alongside."</p> + +<p>The wind had died with the dawn, and the sea was abating. The <i>Squalla</i> +went her way within the hour, and so did Thompson. There was still a +small air out of the southeast, sufficient to give him steerageway in +the swell that ran for hours after the storm. Between sail and power he +made the Redonda Islands and passed between them far up the narrow gut +of Waddington Channel, lying in a nook near the northern end of that +deep pass when night came on. And by late afternoon the following day he +had traversed the mountain-walled length of Toba Inlet and moored his +yawl beside a great boom of new-cut logs at the mouth of Toba River.</p> + +<p>Thanks to meeting the <i>Squalla</i> he knew his ground. Also he knew +something of Sam Carr's undertaking. The main camp was four miles up the +stream. The deep fin-keel of the yawl barred him from crossing the +shoals at the river mouth except on a twelve-foot tide. So he lay at the +boom, planning to go up the river next morning in the canoe he towed +astern in lieu of a dinghy.</p> + +<p>He sat on his cushions in the cockpit that evening looking up at a calm, +star-speckled sky. On either side of him mountain ranges lifted like +quiescent saurians, heads resting on the summit of the Coast Range, +tails sweeping away in a fifty-mile curve to a lesser elevation and the +open waters of the Gulf. The watery floor of Toba Inlet lay hushed +between, silvered by a moon-path, shimmering under the same pale rays +that struck bluish-white reflections from a glacier high on the northern +side. It was ghostly still at the mouth of the valley whence the Toba +River stole down to salt water, with somber forests lining the beach and +clinging darkly on the steep slopes. A lone light peeped from the window +of a cabin on shore. The silence was thick, uncanny. But it was a +comforting silence to Thompson. He felt no loneliness, he whom the +lonely places had once appalled. But that was a long time ago. Sitting +there thinking of that, he smiled.</p> + +<p>No man lives by, for, or because of love alone. Nor does a woman, +although the poets and romancers have very nearly led us to believe a +woman does. Yet it is a vital factor upon some occasions, in many +natures. There had been times in Thompson's life when the passion Sophie +Carr kindled in him seemed a conflagration that must either transfigure +or destroy him. It was like a volcano that slept, and woke betimes.</p> + +<p>The last two years had rather blotted out those periods of eruption. He +had given her up, and in giving up all hope of her, Sophie and +everything that linked her with him from Lone Moose to the last time he +saw her had grown dim, like a book read long ago and put by on the +shelf. In the fierce usages of aërial warfare distracted thought, any +relaxing from an eagle-like alertness upon the business in hand, meant +death swift and certain. And no man, even a man whose heart is sore, +wishes to die. The will-to-live is too strong in him. Pride spurs him. +To come off victorious over a concrete enemy, to uphold the traditions +of his race, to be of service—these things will carry any man over +desperate places without faltering, if he feels them.</p> + +<p>And Wes Thompson had experienced that sort of vision rather keenly. It +had driven him, a man of peaceful tendency, to blood-drenched fields. +For two years he had been in another world, in a service that demanded +of a man all that was in him. He was just beginning to be conscious +that for so long he had been detached from life that flowed in natural, +normal channels.</p> + +<p>He was conscious too, of a queer, impersonal manner of thinking about +things and people, now that he was back. He wondered about himself. What +particular motive, for instance, had driven him up here? To be sure +there was the very plausible one of obeying a physician's order about +living in the open, of keeping decent hours, of avoiding crowds and +excitement until he was quite himself again. But he could have done that +without coming to Toba Inlet.</p> + +<p>Of course he wanted to see Sam Carr again. Also he wanted to see Sophie. +<i>Why</i> he wished to see her was not so readily answered. He wanted to see +her again, that was all—just as he had wanted to see Canada and his +aunts, and the green slopes of the Pacific again. Because all these +things and people were links with a past that was good and kindly by +comparison with the too-vivid recent days. Yes, surely, he would be glad +to see Sam Carr—and Sophie. When he recalled the last time he spoke +with her he could smile a little wryly. It had been almost a tragedy +then. It did not seem much now. The man who had piloted a battle-plane +over swaying armies in France could smile reminiscently at being called +a rabbit by an angry girl.</p> + +<p>It was queer Sophie had never married. His thought took that turn +presently. She was—he checked the years on his fingers—oh, well, she +was only twenty-four. Still, she was no frail, bloodless creature, but a +woman destined by nature for mating, a beautiful woman well fit to +mother beautiful daughters and strong sons, to fill a lover with joy and +a husband with pride.</p> + +<p>A queer warmth flushed Thompson's cheek when he thought of Sophie this +wise. A jealous feeling stabbed at him. The virus was still in his +blood, he became suddenly aware. And then he laughed out loud, at his +own camouflaging. He had known it all the time. And this trip it would +be kill or cure, he said to himself whimsically.</p> + +<p>Still it <i>was</i> odd, now he came to think of it, that Sophie had never in +those years found a man quite to her liking. She had had choice enough, +Thompson knew. But it was no more strange, after all, than for himself +never to have looked with tender eyes on any one of the women he had +known. He had liked them, but he hadn't ever got past the stage of +comparing them with Sophie Carr. She had always been the standard he set +to judge the others. Thompson realized that he was quite a hopeless case +in this respect.</p> + +<p>"I must be a sort of a freak," he muttered to himself when he was stowed +away in his blankets. "I wonder if I <i>could</i> like another woman, as +well, if I tried? Well, we'll see, we'll see."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a><h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<h3>TWO MEN AND A WOMAN</h3> +<br> + +<p>Thompson drove his canoe around a jutting point and came upon a white +cruiser swinging at anchor in an eddy. Her lines were familiar though he +had not seen her in two years. In any case the name <i>Alert</i> in gold leaf +on her bows would have enlightened him. He was not particularly +surprised to find Tommy's motor boat there. He had half-expected to find +Tommy Ashe hereabouts.</p> + +<p>A man's head rose above the after companion-hatch as the canoe glided +abreast.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Ashe aboard?" Thompson asked.</p> + +<p>The man shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Went up to Carr's camp a while ago."</p> + +<p>"When did you get in?" Thompson inquired further.</p> + +<p>"Last night. Lost a day laying up at Blind Bay for a southeaster. Gee, +she did blow."</p> + +<p>Thompson smiled and passed on. Blind Bay was only two miles from Cape +Coburn. Just a narrow neck of land had separated them that blustery +night. It was almost like a race. Tommy would not be pleased to see him +treading so close on his heels. Thompson felt that intuitively. All was +fair in love and war. Still, even in aërial warfare, ruthless and +desperate as it was, there were certain courtesies, a certain element +of punctilio. Thompson had an intuition that Ashe would not subscribe to +even that simple code. In fact he began to have a premonition of +impending conflict as he thrust stoutly on his paddle blade. Tommy had +changed. He was no longer the simple, straightforward soul with whom +Thompson had fought man-fashion on the bank of Lone Moose, and with whom +he had afterward achieved friendship on a long and bitter trail.</p> + +<p>Three hundred yards past the <i>Alert</i> he came to a landing stage which +fitted the description given by the skipper of the <i>Squalla</i>. Thompson +hauled his canoe out on the float, gained the shore, and found a path +bordering the bank. He followed this. Not greatly distant he could hear +the blows of chopping, the shrill blasts of a donkey-engine whistle and +the whirr of the engine itself as it shuddered and strained on its +anchored skids, reeling up half a mile, more or less, of inch and a +quarter steel cable, snaking a forty-foot log out of the woods as a +child would haul a toothpick on the end of a string.</p> + +<p>Before long the brush-floored forest opened on a small area of parked +wood. In this pleasant place stood a square block of a house. From a +tall staff fluttered the Union Jack. As Thompson came near this the door +opened and a group of youngsters tumbled out pell-mell and began to +frolic. Thompson looked at his watch. He had stumbled on a school in the +hour of morning recess.</p> + +<p>"Where does Mr. Carr live?" he asked one of these urchins when he got +near enough to have speech with him.</p> + +<p>The youngster pointed upstream.</p> + +<p>"First house you come to," he said. "White house with shingles painted +green. Say, mister, have you just come from the war? My dad was over +there. Do you know my dad, mister?"</p> + +<p>The boy stood gazing at him, apparently hopeful of paternal +acquaintance, until he discovered that Thompson did not know his "dad." +Then he darted back to join his fellows at their game.</p> + +<p>Thompson walked on. The white house with green shingles loomed up near +at hand, with a clump of flaming maples beside it. Past that stood other +houses in an orderly row facing the river, and back of them were sheds +and barns, and beyond the group of buildings spread a wide area of +cleared land with charred stumps still dotting many an acre.</p> + +<p>He had to enter the place he took to be Sam Carr's by the back yard, so +to speak. That is, he came up from the rear, passed alongside the +house—and halted abruptly, with his foot on the first of three steps +rising to a roomy verandah.</p> + +<p>He had not meant to eavesdrop, to listen to words not meant for his +hearing. But he had worn the common footgear of yachtsmen, a pair of +rubber-soled canvas shoes, and so had come to the verandah end unseen +and noiselessly. He was arrested there by the sight of two people and +the mention of his own name by one of them.</p> + +<p>Sophie was sitting on the rail, looking soberly down on the glacial +gray of Toba River. There was a queer expression on her face, a mixture +of protest and resignation. Tommy Ashe stood beside her. He had +imprisoned one of her hands between his own and he was speaking rapidly, +eagerly, passionately.</p> + +<p>Thompson had heard without meaning to hear. And what he heard, just a +detached sentence or two, shot him through with a sudden blaze of anger. +He stepped up on the floor, took quickly the three strides that +separated him from Tommy.</p> + +<p>"You are nothing but a common liar," he challenged bluntly. "You know +you are, when you speak of me as being dead. Is that why you scuttled +out of Vancouver and hurried on here, as soon as you saw me back?"</p> + +<p>Ashe shrank back a step. His naturally florid face grew purple. Thompson +matched him glance for glance, wondering as the moments ticked off why +Tommy glared and did not strike.</p> + +<p>"Your heart has grown as flabby as your principles," he said at last +contemptuously.</p> + +<p>For the instant, in anger at a lie, in that fighting mood which puts +other considerations into abeyance when it grips a man, Thompson gave no +heed to Sophie—until he felt her hand on his arm and looked down into +her upturned face, white and troubled, into gray eyes that glowed with +some peculiar fire.</p> + +<p>"It is really, truly you?" she said in a choked voice.</p> + +<p>"Of course," he answered—and he could not help a little fling. "You see +I am no longer a rabbit. I don't like your friend here. He has tried to +sneak a march on me, and I suspect it is not the first. I feel like +hurting him."</p> + +<p>She paid not the least heed to that.</p> + +<p>"You were officially reported dead," she went on. "Reported shot down +behind the German lines a year ago."</p> + +<p>"I know I was reported dead, and so have many other men who still live," +he said gently. "I was shot down, but I escaped and flew again, and was +shot down a second time and still am here not so much the worse."</p> + +<p>Sophie slipped her hand into his and turned on Tommy Ashe.</p> + +<p>"And you knew this?" she said slowly. "Yet you came here to me this +morning—and—and—"</p> + +<p>She stopped with a break in her voice.</p> + +<p>"I didn't believe you were capable of a thing like that, Tommy," she +continued sadly. "I'm ashamed of you. You'd better go away at once."</p> + +<p>Ashe looked at her and then at Thompson, and his face fell. Thompson, +watching him as a man watches his antagonist, saw Tommy's lips tremble, +a suspicious blur creep into his eyes. Even in his anger he felt sorry +for Tommy.</p> + +<p>The next instant the two of them stood alone, Sophie's hand caught fast +in his. She tried to withdraw it. The red leaped into her cheeks. But +there was still that queer glow in her eyes.</p> + +<p>Thompson looked down at the imprisoned hand.</p> + +<p>"You'll never get that away from me again," he said whimsically. "You +see, I am not a rabbit, but a man, no matter what you thought once. And +when a man really wants a thing, he takes it if he can. And I want +you—so—you see?"</p> + +<p>For answer Sophie hid her hot face against his breast.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I'm ashamed of myself too," he heard a muffled whisper. "I sent you +away into that hell over there with a sneer instead of a blessing. And I +was too ashamed, and a little afraid, to write and tell you what a fool +I was, that I'd made a mistake and was sorry. I couldn't do anything +only wait, and hope you'd come back. Didn't you hate me for my miserable +holier-than-thou preachment that day, Wes?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no," he said honestly. "It hurt like the devil, of course. You see +it was partly true. I <i>was</i> going along, making money, playing my own +little hand for all it was worth. I couldn't rush off to the front just +to demonstrate to all and sundry—even to you—that I was a brave man +and a patriot. You understand, don't you? It took me quite a while to +feel, to really and truly feel, that I <i>ought</i> to go—which I suppose +you felt right at the beginning. When I did see it that way—well, I +didn't advertise. I just got ready and went. If you had not been out of +sorts that day, I might have gone away with a kiss instead of your +contempt. But I didn't blame you. Besides, that's neither here nor +there, now. You're a prisoner. You can only be paroled on condition."</p> + +<p>Sophie smiled up at him, and was kissed for her pains.</p> + +<p>"Name the condition."</p> + +<p>"That you love me. I've waited a long time for it."</p> + +<p>"I've always loved you," she said gravely. "Sometimes more, sometimes +less. I haven't always believed we could be happy together. Sometimes I +have been positive we couldn't. But I've always measured other men by +you, and none of them quite measured up. That was why it stung me so to +see you so indifferent about the war. Probably if you had talked about +it to me, if I had known you were thinking of going, I should have been +afraid you would go, I should have been afraid for you. But you seemed +always so unconcerned. It maddened me to think I cared so much for a man +who cared nothing about wrongs and injustices, who could sit contentedly +at home while other men sacrificed themselves. My dear, I'm afraid I'm +an erratic person, a woman whose heart and head are nearly always at +odds."</p> + +<p>Thompson laughed, looking down at her with an air of pride.</p> + +<p>"That is to say you would always rather be sure than sorry," he +remarked. "Well, you can be sure of one thing, Sophie. You can't admit +that you really do care for me and then run away, as you did at Lone +Moose. I have managed to stand on my own feet at last, and your penalty +for liking me and managing to conceal the fact these many moons is that +you must stand with me."</p> + +<p>She drew his face down to her and kissed it. Thompson held her fast.</p> + +<p>"I can stand a lot of that," he said happily.</p> + +<p>"You may have to," she murmured. "I am a woman, not a bisque doll. And +I've waited a long time for the right man."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXX"></a><h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<h3>A MARK TO SHOOT AT</h3> +<br> + +<p>An hour or so later Sam Carr came trudging home with a rod in his hand +and a creel slung from his shoulder, in which creel reposed a half dozen +silver-sided trout on a bed of grass.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, well," he said, at sight of Thompson, and looked earnestly +at the two of them, until at last a slow smile began to play about his +thin lips. "Now, like the ancient Roman, I can wrap my toga about me and +die in peace."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dad, what a thing to say," Sophie protested.</p> + +<p>"Figuratively, my dear, figuratively," he assured her. "Merely my way of +saying that I am glad your man has come home from the war, and that you +can smile again."</p> + +<p>He tweaked her ear playfully, when Sophie blushed. They went into the +house, and the trout disappeared kitchenward in charge of a bland +Chinaman, to reappear later on the luncheon table in a state of +delicious brown crispness. After that Carr smoked a cigar and Thompson a +cigarette, and Sophie sat between them with the old, quizzical twinkle +in her eyes and a smile hovering about the corners of her mouth.</p> + +<p>"Come out and let's make the round of the works, you two," Carr +suggested at last.</p> + +<p>"You go, Wes," Sophie said. "I have promised to help a struggling young +housewife with some sewing this afternoon."</p> + +<p>So they set forth, Carr and Thompson, on a path through the woods toward +where the donkey engines filled the valley with their shrill tootings +and the shudder of their mighty labor. And as they went, Carr talked.</p> + +<p>"All this was virgin forest when you went away," said he. "The first axe +was laid to the timber a year ago last spring. I want you to take +particular notice of this timber. Isn't it magnificent stuff? We are +sending out a little aëroplane spruce, too. Not a great deal, but every +little helps."</p> + +<p>It was a splendid forest that they traversed, a level area clothed with +cedar and spruce and fir, lifting brown trunks of six and seven-foot +girth to a great height. And in a few minutes they came upon a falling +gang at work. Two men on their springboards, six feet above the ground, +plying an eight-foot saw. They stood to watch. Presently the saw ate +through to the undercut, a deep notch on the leaning side, and the top +swayed, moved slowly earthward. The sawyers leaped from their narrow +footing. One cried "Tim-b-r-r-r." And the tree swept in a great arc, +smiting the earth with a crash of breaking boughs and the thud of an +arrested landslide.</p> + +<p>Beyond that there was a logged space, littered with broken branches, +stumps, tops, cut with troughs plowed deep in the soil, where the +donkey had skidded out the logs. And there was the engine puffing and +straining, and the steel cables running away among the trees, spooling +up on the drums, whining and whistling in the iron sheaves. It was like +war, Thompson thought, that purposeful activity, the tremendous forces +harnessed and obedient to man—only these were forces yoked to man's +needs, not to his destruction.</p> + +<p>They lingered awhile watching the crew work, chatted with them in spare +moments. Then Carr led Thompson away through the woods again, and +presently took him across another stretch of stumps where men were +drilling and blasting out the roots of the ravished trees, on to fields +where grain and grass and root crops were ripening in the September sun, +and at last by another cluster of houses to the bank of the river again. +Here Carr sat down on a log, and began to fill a pipe.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "what do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>"For eighteen months' work you have made an astonishing amount of +headway," Thompson observed. "This is hard land to clear."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Carr admitted. "But it's rich land—all alluvial, this whole +valley. Anything that can be grown in this latitude will grow like a +village scandal here."</p> + +<p>He lighted his pipe.</p> + +<p>"I tried high living and it didn't agree with me," Carr said abruptly. +"I have tried a variety of things since I left the North, and none of +them has seemed worth while. I'm not a philanthropist. I hate +charitable projects. They're so damned unscientific—don't you think +so?"</p> + +<p>Thompson nodded.</p> + +<p>"You know that about the time you left, discharged soldiers were +beginning to drift back," Carr continued. "Drift is about the word. The +cripples of war will be taken care of. Their case is obvious, too +obvious to be overlooked or evaded. But there are returned men who are +not cripples, and still are unfit for military duty. They came back to +civilian existence, and a lot of them didn't fit in. The jobs they could +get were not the jobs they could do. As more and more of them came home +the problem grew more and more acute. It is still acute, and I rather +think it will grow more acute until the crisis comes with the end of the +war and God knows how many thousands of men will be chucked into civil +life, which cannot possibly absorb them again as things are going at +present. It's a problem. Public-spirited men have taken it up. The +government took the problem of the returned soldier into consideration. +So far as I know they are still considering it. The Provincial +Legislature talked—and has done nothing. The Dominion Government has +talked a lot, but nothing more than temporary measures has come out of +it. Nothing practical. You can't feed men with promises of after-the-war +reconstruction.</p> + +<p>"All this was apparent to me. So I talked it over with Sophie and one or +two other men who wanted to do something, and we talked to returned +soldiers. We couldn't do what it's the business of the country to +do—and may perhaps do when the red tape is finally untangled. But we +could do something, with a little brains and money and initiative. So we +went at it.</p> + +<p>"I formed a joint stock company. We secured all the timber limits in +this valley. We got together a little group for a start. They were +returned men, some physically handicapped, but eager to do something for +themselves. A man with that spirit always makes good if he gets a +chance. We put in machinery and gear, put up a small sawmill for +ourselves, tore into the logging business, cleared land, built houses. +You see we are quite a community. And we are a self-supporting +community. Some of these men own stock in the company. Any returned men +can find a place for himself here. There is room and work and security +and ultimate independence here for any man willing to cooperate for the +common welfare. This valley runs for miles. As fast as the land is +logged off it is open for soldier entry. There is room here for five +hundred families. So you see there is a lot of scope.</p> + +<p>"It was in the nature of an experiment. There were people who sneered. +And it is working out well. There is not the slightest taint of charity +in it. If I used a lot of money that may be a long time coming back to +me that is my own business. Everybody here pays his own way. All these +men needed was backing and direction."</p> + +<p>Carr looked away across the clearing. His glance swept the houses, and +fields, and the distant woods where the logging crews labored.</p> + +<p>"And there are valleys and valleys," he said thoughtfully; "when they +are cleared and cultivated there is endless room in them for people who +want elbow-room, who want to live without riding on the other fellow's +back.</p> + +<p>"Better get in with us, Wes," he said abruptly. "I'm getting old. It +won't be long before I have to quit. This thing will need a pilot for a +long time yet. Men will always have to have a leader. You can do good +here. Big oaks, you know, from little acorns. I mean, if this project +continues to achieve success, it might blaze the way for a national +undertaking. We said that a country that was worth living in was worth +fighting for. We are liars and cheats if we do not make it so for those +who did our fighting."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't mind taking a hand in this game," Thompson said. "But the +war is still on. If that were over—well, yes, Toba Valley looks good to +me."</p> + +<p>"You aren't out of it for good, then?"</p> + +<p>Thompson shook his head.</p> + +<p>Carr put his hand on Thompson's shoulder. "Ah, well," he said. "It won't +be long now. You'll be back. You can put on an aërial mail service for +us, as your first undertaking."</p> + +<p>He chuckled, and they left their log and strolled back toward the house.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;"> + +<p>"Come and I'll show you what the valley looks like, Wes," Sophie said to +him, when they had finished dinner, and Carr had his nose buried in mail +just that evening arrived.</p> + +<p>She led him a hundred yards upstream to where a footbridge slung upon +steel cables spanned the Toba, crossed that and a little flat on the +north side, and climbed up the flank of a slide-scarred hill until she +came out on a little plateau.</p> + +<p>"Look," she waved her hand, panting a little from the steepness of the +climb.</p> + +<p>Five hundred feet below, the valley of the Toba spread its timbered +greenness, through which looped in sweeping curves the steel-gray of the +river. In a great bend immediately beneath them lay the houses of the +settlement, facing upon the stream. Farther along were isolated +homesteads which he had not seen. Back of these spread little gardens, +and the green square of cultivated fields, and beyond in greater expanse +the stump-dotted land that was still in the making.</p> + +<p>The smoke of the donkey-engines was vanished, fires grown cold with the +end of the day's work. But upriver and down the spoil of axe and saw lay +in red booms along the bunk. He could mark the place where he had stood +that afternoon and watched a puffing yarder bunt a string of forty-foot +logs into the booming-ground. He could see figures about in the gardens, +and the shrill voices and laughter of children echoed up to them on the +hill.</p> + +<p>"It is a great view, and there is more in it than meets the eye," +Thompson said. "Eh, little woman? The greatest war of all, the biggest +struggle. One that never ends. Man struggling to subdue his environment +to his needs."</p> + +<p>Sophie smiled understandingly. She looked over the valley with a wistful +air.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever read 'The Sons of Martha'?" she asked. Do you remember +these lines:</p> + +"'Not as a ladder to reach high Heaven,<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not as an altar to any creed,</span><br> +But simple service simply given<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To his own kind in their common need.'"</span><br> + +<p>"It is a noble mark to shoot at," Thompson said.</p> + +<p>He fell silent. Sophie went on after a minute.</p> + +<p>"Dad said he was going back to first principles when he began this. +There are men here who have found economic salvation and self-respect, +who think he is greater than any general. I'm proud of dad. He wanted to +do something. What he has accomplished makes all my puttering about at +what, after all, was pure charity, a puerile sort of service. I gave +that up after you went away." She snuggled one hand into his. "It didn't +seem worth while—nothing seemed worth while until dad evolved this."</p> + +<p>She waved her hand again over the valley. Thompson's eyes gleamed. It +was good to look at, good to think of. It was good to be there. He +remembered, with uncanny, disturbing clearness of vision, things he had +looked down upon from a greater height over bloody stretches in France. +And he shuddered a little.</p> + +<p>Sophie felt the small tremor run through him.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she whispered anxiously.</p> + +<p>"It is beautiful, and I can appreciate its beauty all the more from +seeing it with you. I'd like to take a hand in this," he said quietly. +"I was just comparing it with other things—and wondering."</p> + +<p>"Wondering what?"</p> + +<p>"If I'll get back to this—and you," he said, with his arms around her. +"Oh, well, I've got three months' leave. That's a lot."</p> + +<p>Sophie looked at him out of troubled eyes. Her voice shook.</p> + +<p>"You will be ordered to the front again?"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "Very likely."</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to go," she broke out passionately. "You mustn't. Oh, +Wes, Wes!"</p> + +<p>"Do you think I like the prospect any better?" he said tenderly. "But I +am an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, and the war is not over yet. +Buck up, sweetheart. I had six months' training, a year in fighting +planes, six months in hospital, and barring an occasional spell of +uncertain nerves, I am still as good as ever. Don't worry. I was silly +to say what I thought, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless, it is true," she said. "You may go again and never come +back. But I suppose one must face that. Thousands of women have had to +face it. Why should I be exempt?"</p> + +<p>She wiped her eyes and smiled uncertainly.</p> + +<p>"We shall simply have to keep that in the background. I want to forget +everything but that you are here and that I'm happy," she whispered, +with her arms about his neck. "I want to forget everything else—until +it's time for you to go."</p> + +<p>"Amen," Thompson replied, and kissed her, and then they went silently, +hand in hand down to the swinging bridge with the sun gone to rest below +the western sky-line, and dusk creeping softly up over the valley +floor.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;"> + +<p>There will be those who, having followed so far, will desire further +light. They will ask naïvely: Did Wes Thompson go back to the front and +get killed? Did they marry and find lasting happiness?</p> + +<p>To these curious folk who seek explicit detail, I can only point out +that Wes Thompson had three months' leave which ran into November, and +that to Sophie that ninety days loomed like a stay of execution. I would +ask them further to recall the eleventh of November, 1918—and so the +first question is duly answered.</p> + +<p>As for the second—I am no soothsayer. I cannot foretell the future. +Most certainly they married. At once—with a haste prudery and lovers of +formalism might term indecent.</p> + +<p>Whether they live happily who can say? Somewhere between the day he +first looked on Sophie Carr at Lone Moose and the day he fell five +thousand feet to earth in a flaming battle-plane, keeping his life by +one of war's miracles, Wes Thompson lived and loved and suffered perhaps +a little more than falls to the common lot. He sloughed off prejudices +and cant and ignorance and narrowness in those six years as a tree sheds +its foliage in autumn.</p> + +<p>A man may come to doubt the omnipotence of God without denying his +Maker. He may scorn churchly creeds and cleave to the Golden Rule. He +may hate greed and oppression, and injustice and intolerance, and +ruthless exploitation of man by man—and still hold firm faith in +humanity, still yearn to love his neighbor as himself.</p> + +<p>To do good, to fight hard and play fair, to love faithfully and to +desire love, to go out of the world when his time should come with the +knowledge of having at least tried to make it a little better for those +who were in it, and for those who should come after. That was Wes +Thompson's working philosophy of life—if he might be said to have a +philosophy—although he certainly never formulated it in words.</p> + +<p>He married a woman whom he loved dearly, who loved him, was proud of +him, who saw life as he did—through tolerant, comprehending eyes. So if +you ask whether they found real and lasting happiness I can only cite +you bald facts. I cannot prophesy. But I wish my chances were as good.</p> + +<p>THE END</p> + +<p>THE NOVELS OF TEMPLE BAILEY</p> + +<p><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's +list.</b></p> +<br> + +<p>THE BLUE WINDOW</p> + +<p>The heroine, Hildegarde, finds herself transplanted from the middle +western farm to the gay social whirl of the East. She is almost swept +off her feet, but in the end she proves true blue.</p> +<br> + +<p>PEACOCK FEATHERS</p> + +<p>The eternal conflict between wealth and love. Jerry, the idealist who is +poor, loves Mimi, a beautiful, spoiled society girl.</p> +<br> + +<p>THE DIM LANTERN</p> + +<p>The romance of little Jane Barnes who is loved by two men.</p> +<br> + +<p>THE GAY COCKADE</p> + +<p>Unusual short stories where Miss Bailey shows her keen knowledge of +character and environment, and how romance comes to different people.</p> +<br> + +<p>THE TRUMPETER SWAN</p> + +<p>Randy Paine comes back from France to the monotony of everyday affairs. +But the girl he loves shows him the beauty in the common place.</p> +<br> + +<p>THE TIN SOLDIER</p> + +<p>A man who wishes to serve his country, but is bound by a tie he cannot +in honor break—that's Derry. A girl who loves him, shares his +humiliation and helps him to win—that's Jean. Their love is the story.</p> +<br> + +<p>MISTRESS ANNE</p> + +<p>A girl in Maryland teaches school, and believes that work is worthy +service. Two men come to the little community; one is weak, the other +strong, and both need Anne.</p> +<br> + +<p>CONTRARY MARY</p> + +<p>An old-fashioned love story that is nevertheless modern.</p> +<br> + +<p>GLORY OF YOUTH</p> + +<p>A novel that deals with a question, old and yet ever new—how far should +an engagement of marriage bind two persons who discover they no longer +love.</p> +<br> + +<p>GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK</p> + +<p>MARGARET PEDLER'S NOVELS</p> + +<p><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's +list.</b></p> +<br> + +<p>TO-MORROW'S TANGLE</p> + +<p>The game of love is fraught with danger. To win in the finest sense, it +must be played fairly.</p> +<br> + +<p>RED ASHES</p> + +<p>A gripping story of a doctor who failed in a crucial operation—and had +only himself to blame. Could the woman he loved forgive him?</p> +<br> + +<p>THE BARBARIAN LOVER</p> + +<p>A love story based on the creed that the only important things between +birth and death are the courage to face life and the love to sweeten it.</p> +<br> + +<p>THE MOON OUT OF REACH</p> + +<p>Nan Davenant's problem is one that many a girl has faced—her own +happiness or her father's bond.</p> +<br> + +<p>THE HOUSE OF DREAMS-COME-TRUE</p> + +<p>How a man and a woman fulfilled a Gypsy's strange prophecy.</p> +<br> + +<p>THE HERMIT OF FAR END</p> + +<p>How love made its way into a walled-in house and a walled-in heart.</p> +<br> + +<p>THE LAMP OF FATE</p> + +<p>The story of a woman who tried to take all and give nothing.</p> +<br> + +<p>THE SPLENDID FOLLY</p> + +<p>Do you believe that husbands and wives should have no secrets from each +other?</p> +<br> + +<p>THE VISION OF DESIRE</p> + +<p>An absorbing romance written with all that sense of feminine tenderness +that has given the novels of Margaret Pedler their universal appeal.</p> +<br> + +<p>WAVES OF DESTINY</p> + +<p>Each of these stories has the sharp impact of an emotional crisis—the +compressed quality of one of Margaret Pedler's widely popular novels.</p> +<br> + +<p>GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK.</p> + +<p>THE NOVELS OF</p> + +<p>GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL</p> + +<p><b>May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's +list.</b></p> +<br> + +<p>A NEW NAME</p> + +<p>ARIEL CUSTER</p> + +<p>BEST MAN, THE</p> + +<p>CITY OF FIRE, THE</p> + +<p>CLOUDY JEWEL</p> + +<p>DAWN OF THE MORNING</p> + +<p>ENCHANTED BARN, THE</p> + +<p>EXIT BETTY</p> + +<p>FINDING OF JASPER HOLT, THE</p> + +<p>GIRL FROM MONTANA, THE</p> + +<p>LO, MICHAEL!</p> + +<p>MAN OF THE DESERT, THE</p> + +<p>MARCIA SCHUYLER</p> + +<p>MIRANDA</p> + +<p>MYSTERY OF MARY, THE</p> + +<p>NOT UNDER THE LAW</p> + +<p>PHOEBE DEANE</p> + +<p>RE-CREATIONS</p> + +<p>RED SIGNAL, THE</p> + +<p>SEARCH, THE</p> + +<p>STORY OF A WHIM, THE</p> + +<p>TOMORROW ABOUT THIS TIME</p> + +<p>TRYST, THE</p> + +<p>VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS, A</p> + +<p>WITNESS, THE</p> +<br> + +<p>GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURNED BRIDGES***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 16553-h.txt or 16553-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/5/5/16553">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/5/5/16553</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/16553-h/images/illus01.gif b/16553-h/images/illus01.gif Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e42e8e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/16553-h/images/illus01.gif diff --git a/16553.txt b/16553.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6fd24b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/16553.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9094 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Burned Bridges, by Bertrand W. Sinclair, +Illustrated by Ralph P. Coleman + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Burned Bridges + + +Author: Bertrand W. Sinclair + + + +Release Date: August 19, 2005 [eBook #16553] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURNED BRIDGES*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Graeme Mackreth, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +BURNED BRIDGES + +by + +BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR + +Author of North of Fifty-Three, etc. + +Frontispiece by Ralph P. Coleman + +Grosset & Dunlap +Publishers New York +Published, August, 1919 +Reprinted, September, 1919 +Reprinted, October, 1919 +Reprinted, November, 1919 +Reprinted, February, 1920 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: He felt with an odd exaltation the quick hammer of her +heart against his breast. Frontispiece. _See page 95._] + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I The First Problem 1 + + II The Man and His Mission 14 + + III The Deserted Cabin 24 + + IV In Which Mr. Thompson Begins to Wonder Painfully 37 + + V Further Acquaintance 46 + + VI Certain Perplexities 60 + + VII A Slip of the Axe 80 + + VIII --And the Fruits Thereof 86 + + IX Universal Attributes 93 + + X The Way of a Maid with a Man 102 + + XI A Man's Job for a Minister 111 + + XII A Fortune and a Flitting 123 + + XIII Partners 139 + + XIV The Restless Foot 150 + + XV The World Is Small 158 + + XVI A Meeting by the Way 168 + + XVII The Reproof Courteous (?) 183 + +XVIII Mr. Henderson's Proposition 191 + + XIX A Widening Horizon 203 + + XX The Shadow 210 + + XXI The Renewed Triangle 218 + + XXII Sundry Reflections 227 + +XXIII The Fuse-- 235 + + XXIV --And the Match That Lit the Fuse-- 244 + + XXV --And the Bomb the Fuse Fired 252 + + XXVI The Last Bridge 267 + +XXVII Thompson's Return 273 + +XXVIII Fair Winds 282 + + XXIX Two Men and a Woman 291 + + XXX A Mark to Shoot at 298 + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE FIRST PROBLEM + + +Lone Moose snaked its way through levels of woodland and open stretches +of meadow, looping sinuously as a sluggish python--a python that rested +its mouth upon the shore of Lake Athabasca while its tail was lost in a +great area of spruce forest and poplar groves, of reedy sloughs and +hushed lakes far northward. + +The waterways of the North are its highways. There are no others. No +wheeled vehicles traverse that silent region which lies just over the +fringe of the prairies and the great Canadian wheat belt. The canoe is +lord of those watery roads; when a man would diverge therefrom he must +carry his goods upon his back. There are paths, to be sure, very faint +in places, padded down by the feet of generations of Athabascan +tribesmen long before the Ancient and Honorable Company of Adventurers +laid the foundation of the first post at Hudson's Bay, long before the +_Half Moon's_ prow first cleft those desolate waters. They have been +trodden, these dim trails, by Scotch and French and English since that +historic event, and by a numerous progeny in whose veins the blood of +all three races mingles with that of the native tribes. But these paths +lead only from stream to stream and from lake to lake. No man familiar +with the North seeks along those faint trails for camp or fur posts or +villages. Wherever in that region red men or white set up a permanent +abode it must of necessity be on the bank of a stream or the shore of a +lake, from whence by canoe and paddle access is gained to the network of +water routes that radiate over the fur country. + +Lone Moose Creek was, so to speak, a trunk line. The ninety miles of its +main channel, its many diverging branches, tapped a region where mink +and marten and beaver, fox and wolf and lesser furs were still fairly +plentiful. Along Lone Moose a dozen Cree and half-breed families +disappeared into the back country during the hazy softness of Indian +summer and came gliding down in the spring with their winter's catch, a +birch-bark flotilla laden indiscriminately with mongrel dogs and +chattering women and children and baled furs and impassive-faced men, +bound for Port Pachugan to the annual barter. + +Up Lone Moose some twenty-odd miles from the lake the social instinct +had drawn a few families, pure-blooded Cree, and Scotch and French +half-breeds, to settle in a permanent location. There was a +crescent-shaped area of grassy turf fronting upon the eastern bank of +Lone Moose, totaling perhaps twenty acres. Its outer edge was ringed +with a dense growth of spruce timber. In the fringe of these dusky +woods, at various intervals of distance, could be seen the outline of +each cabin. They were much of a sort--two or three rooms, log-walled, +brush laid upon poles, and sod on top of that for a roof, with +fireplaces built partly of mud, partly of rough stones. Folk in such +circumstances waste no labor in ornamentation. Each family's abiding +place was purely utilitarian. They cultivated no land, and the meadow +during the brief season supplied them with a profusion of delicate +flowers a southern garden could scarcely excel. Aside from a few trees +felled about each home site, their common effort had cleared away the +willows and birch which bordered the creek bank, so that an open landing +was afforded the canoes. + +There was but one exception to the monotonous similitude of these +several habitations. A few paces back from the stream and standing +boldly in the open rose a log house double the size of any other there. +It contained at least four rooms. Its windows were of ample size, the +doors neatly carpentered. A wide porch ran on three sides. It bore about +itself an air of homely comfort, heightened by muslin at the windows, a +fringe of poppies and forget-me-nots blooming in an orderly row before +it, and a sturdy vine laden with morning-glories twining up each +supporting column of the porch roof. + +Between the house and the woods an acre square was enclosed by a tall +picket fence. Within the fence, which was designed as a barricade +against foraging deer, there grew a variety of vegetables. The produce +of that garden had grown famous far beyond Lone Moose village. But the +spirit and customs and traditions of the gardener's neighbors were all +against any attempt to duplicate it. They were hunters and trappers and +fishermen. The woods and waters supplied their every need. + +Upon a blistering day in July, a little past noon, a man stepped out on +the porch, and drawing into the shadiest part a great, rude homemade +chair upholstered with moosehide, sat down. He had a green-bound book in +his hand. While he stuffed a clay pipe full of tobacco he laid the +volume across his knees. Every movement was as deliberate as the flow of +the deep stream near by. When he had stoked up his pipe he leaned back +and opened the book. The smoke from his pipe kept off what few +mosquitoes were abroad in the scorching heat of midday. + +A casual glance would at once have differentiated him from a native, +held him guiltless of any trace of native blood. His age might have been +anywhere between forty and fifty. His hair, now plentifully shot with +gray, had been a light, wavy brown. His eyes were a clear gray, and his +features were the antithesis of his high-cheekboned neighbors. Only the +weather-beaten hue of his skin, and the scores of fine seams radiating +from his eyes told of many seasons squinting against hot sunlight and +harsh winds. + +Whatever his vocation and manner of living may have been he was now +deeply absorbed in the volume he held. A small child appeared on the +porch, a youngster of three or thereabouts, with swarthy skin, very dark +eyes, and inky-black hair. He went on all fours across Sam Carr's +extended feet several times. Carr remained oblivious, or at least +undisturbed, until the child stood up, laid hold of his knee and shook +it with playful persistence. Then Carr looked over his book, spoke to +the boy casually, shaking his head as he did so. The boy persisted after +the juvenile habit. Carr raised his voice. An Indian woman, not yet of +middle age but already inclining to the stoutness which overtakes women +of her race early in life, appeared in the doorway. She spoke sharply to +the boy in the deep, throaty language of her people. The boy, with a +last impish grin, gave the man's leg a final shake and scuttled indoors. +Carr impassively resumed his reading. + +An hour or so later he lifted his eyes from the printed page at a +distant boom of thunder. The advanced edge of a black cloudbank rolling +swiftly up from the east was already dimming the brassy glare of the +sun. He watched the swift oncoming of the storm. With astonishing +rapidity the dark mass resolved itself into a gray, obscuring streak of +rain riven by vivid flashes of lightning. Carr laid down his book and +refilled his pipe while he gazed on this common phenomenon of the +dog-days. It swept up and passed over the village of Lone Moose as a +sprinkling wagon passes over a city street. The downpour was accompanied +by crashing detonations that sent the village dogs howling to cover. +With the same uncanny swiftness of gathering so it passed, leaving +behind a pleasant coolness in the air, clean smells of the washed earth +arising. The sun blazed out again. A million rain-pearls hung glistening +on the blades of grass in the meadow before Sam Carr's house. + +With the passing of the thunder shower, before Carr left off his +contemplation of the freshened beauty of meadow and woods, a man and a +woman emerged from the spruce forest on the farther side of the meadow. + +They walked a little way in the open, stopped for a minute, facing each +other. Their conversation ended with a sudden quick gesture by the man. +Turning, they came on again toward Carr's house. Sam Carr's clear gray +eyes lit up. The ghost of a smile hovered about his bearded lips. He +watched them approach with that same quizzical expression, a mixture, if +one gauged his look aright, of pleasure and pride and expectation. + +They were young as years go, the pair that walked slowly up to the +cabin. The man was certainly still in his twenties, of medium height, +compactly muscular, a good-looking specimen of pure Anglo-Saxon manhood. +The girl was a flower in perfect bloom, fresh-colored, slender and +pliant as a willow, with all of the willow's grace in every movement. +For all the twenty-odd years between them, and the gulf of sex +differentiation, there was in her glance and bearing much of the +middle-aged man who sat on the porch with a book across his knees and a +clay pipe in his mouth. It did not lie in facial resemblance. It was +more subtle than likeness of feature. Perhaps it was because of their +eyes, alike deep gray, wide and expressive, lifted always to meet +another's in level unembarrassed frankness. + +They halted at the edge of the porch. The girl sat down. The young man +nodded to Carr. Though they had but lately been fair in the path of the +thunderstorm they had escaped a wetting. The girl's eyes followed her +father's glance, seemed to read his thought. + +"We happened to find a spruce thick enough to shed the rain," she +smiled. "Or I suppose we'd have been soaked properly." + +The young fellow tarried only till she was seated. He had no more than +greeted Carr before he lifted his old felt hat to her. + +"I'll be paddling back while the coolness lasts," said he. "Good-by." + +"Good-by, Tommy," the girl answered. + +"So long," Carr followed suit. "Don't give us the go-by too long." + +"Oh, no danger." + +He walked to the creek bank, stepped into a red canoe that lay nose on +to the landing, and backed it free with his paddle. Ten strokes of the +blade drove him out of sight around the first brushy bend upstream. + +The girl looked thoughtfully after him. Her face was flushed, and her +eyes glowed with some queer repressed feeling. Carr sat gazing silently +at her while she continued to look after the vanished canoe whose +passing left tiny swirls on the dark, sluggish current of Lone Moose. +Presently Carr gave the faintest shrug of his lean shoulders and resumed +the reading of his book. + +When he looked up from the page again after a considerable interval the +girl's eyes were fixed intently upon his face, with a queer questioning +expression in them, a mute appeal. He closed his book with a forefinger +inserted to mark the place, and leaned forward a trifle. + +"What is it, Sophie?" he asked gently. "Eh?" + +The girl, like her father, and for that matter the majority of those +who dwelt in that region, wore moccasins. She sat now, rubbing the damp, +bead-decorated toe of one on top of the other, her hands resting idle in +the lap of her cotton dress. She seemed scarcely to hear, but Carr +waited patiently. She continued to look at him with that peculiar, +puzzled quality in her eyes. + +"Tommy Ashe wants me to marry him," she said at last. + +The faint flush on her smooth cheeks deepened. The glow in her eyes gave +way altogether to that vaguely troubled expression. + +Carr stroked his short beard reflectively. + +"Well," he said at length, "seeing that human nature's what it is, I +can't say I'm surprised any more than I would be surprised at the trees +leafing out in spring. And, as it happens, Tommy observed the +conventions of his class in this matter. He asked me about it a few days +ago. I referred him to you. Are you going to?" + +"I don't know, Dad," she murmured. + +"Do you want to?" he pursued the inquiry in a detached, impersonal tone. + +"I don't know," she repeated soberly. "I like Tommy a lot. When I'm with +him I feel sure I'd be perfectly happy to be always with him. When I'm +away from him, I'm not so sure." + +"In other words," Carr observed slowly, "your reason and your emotions +are not in harmony on that subject. Eh? So far as Tommy Ashe goes, your +mind and your body pull you two different ways." + +She looked at him a little more keenly. + +"Perhaps," she said. "I know what you mean. But I don't clearly see why +it should be so. Either I love Tommy Ashe, or I don't, and I should know +which, shouldn't I? The first and most violent manifestation of love is +mostly physical, isn't it? I've always understood that. You've pointed +it out. I do like Tommy. Why should my mind act as a brake on my +feelings?" + +"Because you happen to be made the way you are," Carr returned +thoughtfully. "As I've told you a good many times, you've grown up a +good deal different from the common run of girls. We've been isolated. +Lacking the time-occupying distractions and pleasures of youth in a more +liberal environment, Sophie, you've been thrown back on yourself and me +and books, and as a result you've cultivated a natural tendency to +_think_. Most young women don't. They're seldom taught any rational +process of arriving at conclusions. You have developed that faculty. It +has been my pride and pleasure to cultivate in you what I believed to be +a decided mentality. I've tried to show you how to get down to +fundamentals, to work out a philosophy of life that's really workable. +Knowledge is worth having for its own sake. Once you find yourself in +contact with the world--and for you that time is bound to come--you'll +apply all the knowledge you've absorbed to problems as they arise. If +there's a rational solution to any situation that faces you, you'll make +an effort to find that solution. You'll do it almost instinctively. You +can't help it. Your brain is too alert ever to let you act blindly. At +the present your lack of experience probably handicaps you a little. In +human relations you have nothing much but theory, got from the books +you've digested and the way we've always discussed every possible angle +of life. Take Tommy Ashe. He's practically the first young, attractive +white man you've ever met, the very first possibility as a lover. +Tommy's a nice boy, a pleasant, sunny-natured young fellow. Personally +he's just the sort of fellow that would sweep a simple country girl +clean off her feet. With you, your mind, as you just put it, acts as a +brake on your feelings. Can't you guess why?" + +"No," she said quietly. "I can't. I don't understand myself and my +shifts of feeling. It makes me miserable." + +"Look here, Sophie girl," Carr reached over and taking her by the hand +drew her up on the low arm of his chair, "you're asking yourself a more +or less important question directly, and you're asking it of me +indirectly. Maybe I can help you. At least I can tell how I see it. You +have all your life before you. You want to be happy. That's a universal +human attribute. Sometime or other you're going to mate with a man. That +too is a universal experience. Ordinary mating is based on sex instinct. +Love is mostly an emotional disturbance generated by natural causes for +profoundly natural and important ends. But marriage and the intimate +associations of married life require something more substantial than a +mere flare-up of animal instinct. Lots of men and women aren't capable +of anything else, and consequently they make the best of what's in +them. But there are natures far more complex. You, Sophie, are one of +those complex natures. With you, a union based on sex alone wouldn't +survive six months. Now, in this particular case, leaving out the fact +that you can't compare Tommy Ashe with any other man, because you don't +know any other man, can you conceive yourself living in a tolerable +state of contentment with Tommy if, say, you didn't feel any more +passion for him than you feel for, say, old Standing Wolf over there?" + +"But that's absurd," the girl declared. "Because I have got that feeling +for Tommy Ashe, and therefore I can't imagine myself in any other state. +I can't look at it the cold-blooded way you do, Daddy dear." + +"I'm stating a hypothetical case," Carr went on patiently. "You do now. +We'll take that for granted. Would you still have anything fundamental +in common with Tommy with that part left out? Suppose you got so you +didn't care whether he kissed you or not? Suppose it were no longer a +physical pleasure just to be near him. Would you enjoy his daily and +hourly presence then, in the most intimate relation a man and a woman +can hold to each other?" + +"Why, I wouldn't live with him at all," the girl said positively. "I +simply couldn't. I know." + +"You might have to," Carr answered gently. "You have never yet run foul +of circumstances over which you have no more power than man has over the +run of the tides. But we'll let that pass. I'm trying to help you, +Sophie, not to discourage you. There are some situations in which, and +some natures to whom, half a loaf is worse than no bread. Do you feel, +have you ever for an hour felt that you simply couldn't face an +existence in which Tommy Ashe had no part?" + +Sophie put her arm around his neck, and her fingers played a tattoo on +his shoulder. + +"No," she said at last. "I can't honestly say that I've ever been +overwhelmed with a feeling like that." + +"Well, there you are," Carr observed dryly. "Between the propositions I +think you've answered your own question." + +The girl's breast heaved a little and her breath went out in a +fluttering sigh. + +"Yes," she said gravely. "I suppose that is so." + +They sat silent for an interval. Then something wet and warm dropped on +Carr's hand. He looked up quickly. + +"Does it hurt?" he said softly. "I'm sorry." + +"So am I," she whispered. "But chiefly, I think, I am sorry for Tommy. +_He'd_ be perfectly happy with me." + +"Yes, I suppose so," Carr replied. "But you wouldn't be happy with him, +only for a brief time, Sophie. Tommy's a good boy, but it will take a +good deal of a man to fill your life. You'd outgrow Tommy. And you'd +hurt him worse in the end." + +She ran her soft hand over Carr's grizzled hair with a caressing touch. +Then she got up and walked away into the house. Carr turned his gaze +again to the meadow and the green woods beyond. For ten minutes he sat, +his posture one of peculiar tensity, his eyes on the distance +unseeingly--or as if he saw something vague and far-off that troubled +him. Then he gave his shoulders a quick impatient twitch, and taking up +his book began once more to read. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MAN AND HIS MISSION + + +At almost the same hour in which Sam Carr and his daughter held that +intimate conversation on the porch of their home a twenty-foot +Peterborough freight canoe was sliding down the left-hand bank of the +Athabasca like some gray river-beast seeking the shade of the birch and +willow growth that overhung the shore. The current beneath and the +thrust of the blades sent it swiftly along the last mile of the river +and shot the gray canoe suddenly beyond the sharp nose of a jutting +point fairly into the bosom of a great, still body of water that spread +away northeastward in a widening stretch, its farthest boundary a watery +junction with the horizon. + +There were three men in the canoe. One squatted forward, another rested +his body on his heels in the after end. These two were swarthy, stockily +built men, scantily clad, moccasins on their feet, and worn felt hats +crowning lank, black hair long innocent of a barber's touch. + +The third man sat amidships in a little space left among goods that were +piled to the top of the deep-sided craft. He was no more like his +companions than the North that surrounded them with its silent waterways +and hushed forests is like the tropical jungle. He was a fairly big +man, taller, wider-bodied than the other two. His hair was a +reddish-brown, his eyes as blue as the arched dome from which the hot +sun shed its glare. + +He had on a straight-brimmed straw hat which in the various shifts of +the long water route and many camps had suffered disaster, so that a +part of the brim drooped forlornly over his left ear. This headgear had +preserved upon his brow the pallid fairness of his skin. From the +eyebrows down his face was in the last stages of sunburn, reddened, +minute shreds of skin flaking away much as a snake's skin sheds in +August. Otherwise he was dressed, like a countless multitude of other +men who walk the streets of every city in North America, in a +conventional sack suit, and shoes that still bore traces of blacking. +The paddlers were stripped to thin cotton shirts and worn overalls. The +only concession their passenger had made to the heat was the removal of +his laundered collar. Apparently his dignity did not permit him to lay +aside his coat and vest. As they cleared the point a faint breeze +wavered off the open water. He lifted his hat and let it play about his +moist hair. + +"This is Lake Athabasca?" he asked. + +"Oui, M'sieu Thompson," Mike Breyette answered from the bow, without +turning his head. "Dees de lak." + +"How much longer will it take us to reach Port Pachugan?" Thompson made +further inquiry. + +"Bout two-three hour, maybeso," Breyette responded. + +He said something further, a few quick sentences in the French patois +of the northern half-breeds, at which both he and his fellow-voyageur in +the stern laughed. Their gayety stirred no response from the midship +passenger. If anything, he frowned. He was a serious-minded young man, +and he did not understand French. He had a faint suspicion that his +convoy did not take him as seriously as he wished. Whether their talk +was badinage or profanity or purely casual, he could not say. In the +first stages of their journey together, on the upper reaches of the +river, Mike Breyette and Donald MacDonald had, after the normal habit of +their kind, greeted the several contingencies and minor mishaps such a +journey involved with plaintive oaths in broken English. Mr. Wesley +Thompson, projected into an unfamiliar environment and among a--to +him--strange manner of men, took up his evangelistic cudgel and +administered shocked reproof. It was, in a way, practice for the tasks +the Methodist Board of Home Missions had appointed him to perform. But +if he failed to convict these two of sin, he convinced them of +discourtesy. Even a rude voyageur has his code of manners. Thereafter +they invariably swore in French. + +They bore on in a northerly direction, keeping not too far from the lake +shore, lest the combination of a sudden squall and a heavy-loaded canoe +should bring disaster. When Mike Breyette's "two-tree" hour was run Mr. +Thompson stepped from the canoe to the sloping, sun-blistered beach +before Fort Pachugan, and if he did not openly offer thanks to his Maker +that he stood once more upon solid ground he at least experienced +profound relief. + +For many days he had occupied that midship position with ill-concealed +misgivings. The largest bodies of water he had been on intimate terms +with heretofore had been contained within the dimensions of a bathtub. +He could not swim. No matter that his faith in an all-wise Providence +was strong he could not forbear inward tremors at the certain knowledge +that only a scant quarter-inch of frail wood and canvas stood between +him and a watery grave. He regarded a canoe with distrust. Nor could he +understand the careless confidence with which his guides embarked in so +captious a craft upon the swirling bosom of that wide, swift stream they +had followed from Athabasca Landing down to the lake of the same name. +To Thompson--if he had been capable of analyzing his sensations and +transmuting them into words--the river seemed inexplicably sinister, a +turbid monster writhing over polished boulders, fuming here and there +over rapids, snarling a constant menace under the canoe's prow. + +It did not comfort him to know that he was in the hands of two capable +rivermen, tried and proven in bad water, proud of their skill with the +paddle. Could he have done so the reverend young man would gladly have +walked after the first day in their company. But since that was out of +the question, he took his seat in the canoe each morning and faced each +stretch of troubled water with an inward prayer. + +The last stretch and this last day had tried his soul to its utmost. +Pachugan lay near the end of the water route. What few miles he had to +travel beyond the post would lie along the lake shore, and the lake +reassured him with its smiling calm. Having never seen it harried by +fierce winds, pounding the beaches with curling waves, he could not +visualize it as other than it was now, glassy smooth, languid, inviting. +Over the last twenty miles of the river his guides had strained a point +now and then, just to see their passenger gasp. They would never have +another chance and it was rare sport, just as it is rare sport for +spirited youths to snowball a passer-by who does not take kindly to +their pastime. + +In addition to these nerve-disturbing factors Thompson suffered from the +heat. A perverted dignity, nurtured in a hard-shell, middle-class +environment, prevented him from stripping to his undershirt. The sun's +rays, diffusing abnormal heat through the atmosphere, reflected +piercingly upward from the water, had played havoc with him. His first +act upon landing was to seat himself upon a flat-topped boulder and dab +tenderly at his smarting face while his men hauled up the canoe. That in +itself was a measure of his inefficiency, as inefficiency is measured in +the North. The Chief Factor of a district large enough to embrace a +European kingdom, traveling in state from post to post, would not have +been above lending a hand to haul the canoe clear. Thompson had come to +this _terra incognita_ to preach and pray, to save men's souls. So far +it had not occurred to him that aught else might be required of a man +before he could command a respectful hearing. + +Back from the beach, in a clearing hacked out of the woods, stood a +score or more of low cabins flanking a building more ambitious in scope +and structure. More than a century had passed since the first foundation +logs were laid in the name of the Hudson's Bay Company, to the Company's +glory and profit. It had been a fort then, in all that the name implies +throughout the fur country. It had boasted a stockade, a brass cannon +which commanded the great gates that swung open to friendly strangers +and were closed sharply to potential foes. But the last remnant of +Pachugan's glory had gone glimmering down the corridors of time. The +Company was still as strong, stronger even in power more sure and subtle +than ever lay in armed retainers and absolute monopoly. But Fort +Pachugan had become a mere collecting station for the lesser furs, a +distributing center for trade goods to native trappers. There were no +more hostile tribes. The Company no longer dealt out the high justice, +the middle, and the low. The stockade and the brass cannon were +traditions. Pachugan sprawled on the bank of the lake, open to all +comers, a dimming landmark of the old days. + +What folk were out of doors bent their eyes upon the canoe. The factor +himself rose from his seat on the porch and came down to have speech +with them. Thompson, recognizing authority, made known his name and his +mission. The burly Scot shook hands with him. They walked away together, +up to the factor's house. On the threshold the Reverend Wesley paused +for a backward look, drew the crumpled linen of his handkerchief across +his moist brow, and then disappeared within. Mike Breyette and Donald +MacDonald looked at each other expressively. Their swarthy faces slowly +expanded in a broad grin. + +In the North, what with the crisp autumn, the long winter, and that +bleak, uncertain period which is neither winter nor spring, summer--as +we know it in softer lands--has but a brief span to endure. But Nature +there as elsewhere works out a balance, adheres to a certain law of +proportion. What Northern summers lack in length is compensated by +intensity. When the spring floods have passed and the warm rains follow +through lengthening days of sun, grass and flowers arise with magic +swiftness from a wonderfully fertile soil. Trees bud and leaf; berries +form hard on the blossoming. Overnight, as it were, the woods and +meadows, the river flats and the higher rolling country, become +transformed. And when August passes in a welter of flies and heat and +thunderstorms, the North is ready once more for the frosty segment of +its seasonal round. July and August are hot months in the high +latitudes. For six weeks or thereabouts the bottom-lands of the Peace +and the Athabasca can hold their own with the steaming tropics. After +that--well, this has to do in part with "after that." For it was in late +July when Wesley Thompson touched at Fort Pachugan, a Bible in his +pocket, a few hundred pounds of supplies in Mike Breyette's canoe, +certain aspirations of spiritual labor in his head, and little other +equipment to guide and succor him in that huge, scantily peopled +territory which his superiors had chosen as the field for his labors. + +When Breyette and MacDonald had so bestowed the canoe that the +diligently foraging dogs of the post could not take toll of their +supplies they also hied them up to the cluster of log cabins ranging +about the Company store and factor's quarters. They were on tolerably +familiar ground. First they made for the cabin of Dougal MacPhee, an +ancient servitor of the Company and a distant relative of Breyette's, +for whom they had a gift of tobacco. Old Dougal welcomed them +laconically, without stirring from his seat in the shade. He sucked at +an old clay pipe. His half-breed woman, as wrinkled and time worn as +himself, squatted on the earth sewing moccasins. Old Dougal turned his +thumb toward a bench and bade them be seated. + +"It's a bit war-rm," MacDonald opined, by way of opening the +conversation. + +"What else wad it be this time o' year?" Dougal rumbled. "Tell us +somethin' we dinna ken. Wha's yon cam' wi' ye?" + +"Man, but the heat makes ye crabbed," MacDonald returned with naive +candor. "Yon's a meenister." + +"Bagosh, yes," Breyette chuckled. "Dat ees de man of God w'at you see. +He's com' for save soul hon' de Eenjun hon' Lone Moose. Bagosh, we're +have som' fon weet heem dees treep." + +"He's a loon," MacDonald paused with a forefinger in the bowl of his +pipe. "He doesna know a moccasin from a snowshoe, scarce. I'd like tae +be aboot when 'tis forty below--an' gettin' colder. I'm thinkin' he'd +relish a taste o' hell-fire then, for a change--eh, Mike?" + +The two of them went off into a fit of silent laughter, for the abysmal +ignorance of Wesley Thompson concerning practical things, his awkward +length of body, his student's pallor that the Athabasca sun had played +such havoc with, his blue eyes that looked so often with trepidation or +amazement on the commonplaces of their world, his general incapacity and +blind belief that an all-wise Providence would personally intervene to +make things go right when they went wrong, had not struck these two +hardy children of the solitudes as other than a side-splitting joke. + +"He rises i' the mornin'," MacDonald continued, "win' a word frae the +Book aboot the Lord providin', an' he'd starve if nabody was by t' cook +his meal. He canna build a fire wi'oot scorchin' his fingers. He lays +hold o' a paddle like a three months' babby. He bids ye pit yer trust i' +the Lord, an' himself rises up wi' a start every time a wolf raises the +long howl at nicht. I didna believe there was ever sae helpless a +creature. An' for a' that he's the laddie that's here tae show the +heathen--thae puir, sinfu' heathen, mind ye--how tae find grace. No that +he's any doot aboot bein' equal tae the job. For a' that he's nigh +helpless i' the woods he was forever ying-yangin' at me an' Mike for +what he ca's sinfu' pride in oor ain' persons. I've a notion that if yon +had a bit o' that same sinfu' pride he'd be the better able tae make his +way." + +Old MacPhee took the blackened clay pipe from his mouth and puffed a +blue spiral into the dead, sultry air. A sour expression gathered about +his withered lips. + +"Dinna gibe at yon puir mortal," he rebuked. "Ye canna keep fools frae +wanderin'. I've seen manny's the man like him. It's likely that once +he's had a fair taste o' the North he'll be less a saint an' more a +man." + +The afternoon was far spent when they landed. Breyette and MacDonald +made themselves comfortable with their backs against the wall. Supper +came and was eaten. Evening closed in. The bold, scorching stare of the +sun faded. Little cooling breezes fluttered along the lake shore, +banishing the last trace of that brassy heat. Men who had lounged +indoors, or against shaded walls roamed about, and half-breed women +chattered in voluble gutturals back and forth between the cabins. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE DESERTED CABIN + + +In the factor's comfortable quarters Mr. Thompson sat down to the first +meal he had thoroughly relished in two weeks. A corner of the verandah +was screened off with wire netting. Outside that barrier mosquitoes and +sandflies buzzed and swarmed in futile activity. Within stood an easy +chair or two and a small table which was presently spread with a linen +cloth, set with porcelain dishes, and garnished with silverware. All the +way down the Athabasca Thompson had found every meal beset with +exasperating difficulties, fruitful of things that offended both his +stomach and his sense of fitness. He had not been able to accommodate +himself to the necessity of juggling a tin plate beside a campfire, of +eating with one hand and fending off flies with the other. Also he +objected to grains of sand and particles of ash and charred wood being +incorporated with bread and meat. Neither Breyette nor MacDonald seemed +to mind. But Thompson had never learned to adapt himself to conditions +that were unavoidable. Pitchforked into a comparatively primitive mode +of existence and transportation his first reaction to it took the form +of offended resentment. There were times when he forgot why he was +there, enduring these things. After such a lapse he prayed for guidance +and a patient heart. + +These creature comforts now at hand were in a measure what he had been +accustomed to, what he had, with no thought on the matter, taken as the +accepted and usual order of things, save that his needs had been +administered by two prim and elderly spinster aunts instead of a +black-browed Scotchman and a half-breed servant girl. + +Thompson sat back after his supper, fanning himself with an ancient +newspaper, for the day's heat still lingered. Across the table on which +he rested an elbow MacLeod, bearded, aggressive, capable, regarded his +guest with half-contemptuous pity under cover of the gathering dusk. +MacLeod smoked a pipe. Thompson chewed the cud of reflection. + +"And so," the factor began suddenly, "ye are a missionary to the Lone +Moose Crees. It will be a thankless task; a tougher one nor I'd care to +tackle. I ha' seen the job undertaken before by folk who--beggin' your +pardon--ha' little conception of the country, the people in it, or the +needs of either. Ye'll find the Cree has more concern for meat an' +clothes, for traps an' powder, than he has for his soul. Ye'll +understand this better when ye ha' more experience in the North. Indeed, +it's no impossible ye might come to the same way of thinkin' in time." + +The dusk hid the shocked expression that gathered on Thompson's face. + +"'What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world if he knoweth not +God?'" he quoted gravely. "The priests of the Catholic church have long +carried on missionary work among these tribes. We of the Protestant +faith would be lacking if we did not try to extend our field, if we made +no effort to bear light into the dark places. Man's spiritual need is +always greater than any material need can ever be. I hardly expect to +accomplish a great deal at first. But the work will grow." + +"I see, I see," MacLeod chuckled dryly. "It's partly a matter of the +Methodist Church tryin' to compete with the fathers, eh? Well, I am no +what ye'd call devout. I ha' had much experience wi' these red folk, an' +them that's both red an' white. An' I dinna agree with ye aboot their +speeritual needs. I think ye sky-pilots would do better to leave them to +their ain gods, such as they are. Man, do ye know that it's better than +a century since the fathers began their missionary labors? A hundred +years of teachin' an' preachin'. The sum of it a' is next to +nothin'--an' naebody knows that better than the same fathers. They're +wise, keen-sighted men, too. What good they do they do in a material +way. If men like ye came here wi' any certitude of lightenin' the +struggle for existence--but ye canna do that; or at least ye dinna do +that. Ye'll find that neither red men nor white ha' time or inclination +to praise the Lord an' his grace an' bounty when their life's one long +struggle wi' hardships an' adversity. The God ye offer them disna +mitigate these things. Forbye that, the Indian disna want to be +Christianized. When ye come to a determination of abstract qualities, +his pagan beliefs are as good for him as the God of the Bible. What +right ha' we to cram oor speeritual dogmas doon his gullet?" + +MacLeod applied himself to relighting his pipe. Thompson gathered +himself together. He was momentarily stricken with speechless amazement. +He knew there were such things as critical unbelievers, but he had never +encountered one in the flesh. His life had been too excellently +supervised and directed in youth by the spinster aunts. Nor does +materialistic philosophy flourish in a theological seminary. Young men +in training for the ministry are taught to strangle doubt whenever it +rears its horrid head, to see only with the single eye of faith. + +Neither the bitterness of experience nor a natural gentleness of spirit +had ever permitted Thompson to know the beauty and wisdom of tolerance. +Whosoever disputed his creed and his consecrated purpose must be in +error. The evangelical spirit glowed within him when he faced the factor +across the little table. Figuratively speaking he cleared for action. +His host, being a hard-headed son of a disputatious race, met him more +than half-way. As a result midnight found them still wordily engaged, +one maintaining with emotional fervor that man's spiritual welfare was +the end and aim of human existence; the other as outspoken--if more +calmly and critically so--in his assertion that a tooth-and-toenail +struggle for existence left no room in any rational man's life for the +manner of religion set forth in general by churches and churchmen. The +edge of acrimony crept into the argument. + +"The Lord said, 'Leave all thou hast and follow me,'" Thompson declared. +"My dear sir, you cannot dispute--" + +"Ay, but yon word was said eighteen hundred years past," MacLeod +interrupted. "Since which day there's been a fair rate o' progress in +man's knowledge of himself an' his needs. The Biblical meeracles in the +way o' provender dinna happen nowadays--although some ither modern +commonplaces would partake o' the meeraculous if we didna have a +rational knowledge of their process. Men are no fed wi' loaves and +fishes until they themselves ha' first gotten the loaves an' the fish. +At least, it disna so happen i' the Pachugan deestreect. It's much the +same the world over, but up here especially ye'll find that the problem +o' subsistence is first an' foremost, an' excludes a' else till it's +solved." + +With this MacLeod, weary of an unprofitable controversy, arose, took up +a candle and showed his scandalized guest the way to bed. + +Thompson was full of a willingness to revive the argument when he was +roused for breakfast at sunrise. But MacLeod had said his say. He +abhorred vain repetition. Since it takes two to keep an argument going, +Thompson's beginning was but the beginning of a monologue which +presently died weakly of inattention. When he gave over trying to inject +a theological motif into the conversation, he found MacLeod responsive +enough. The factor touched upon native customs, upon the fur trade, upon +the vast and unexploited resources of the North, all of which was more +or less hazy to Thompson. + +His men had intimated an early start. Their journey down the Athabasca +had impressed Thompson with the wisdom of that. Only so could they +escape the brazen heat of the sun, and still accomplish a fair day's +travel. So he rose immediately from the breakfast table, when he saw +Breyette and MacDonald standing by the canoe waiting for him. MacLeod +halted him on the verandah steps to give a brusque last word of counsel. + +"Look ye, Mr. Thompson," he said. "An honest bit of advice will do ye no +harm. Ye're startin' out wi' a brave vision o' doin' a great good; of +lettin' a flood o' light into dark places. Speakin' out my ain +first-hand experience ye'll be fairly disappointed, because ye'll +accomplish nought that's in yer mind. Ye'll have no trouble wi' the +Crees. If ye remain among them long enough to mak' them understand yer +talk an' objects they'll listen or not as they feel inclined. They're a +simple, law-abidin' folk. But there's a white man at Lone Moose that +ye'll do well to cultivate wi' discretion. He's a man o' positive +character, and scholarly beyond what ye'd imagine. When ye meet him, +dinna be sanctimonious. His philosophy'll no gibe wi' your religion, an' +if ye attempt to impose a meenesterial attitude on him, it's no beyond +possibility he'd flare up an' do ye bodily damage. I know him. If ye +meet him man to man, ye'll find he'll meet ye half-way in everything but +theology. He'll be the sort of friend ye'll need at Lone Moose. But +dinna wave the Cloth in his face. For some reason that's to him like the +proverbial red rag tae a bull. The last missionary tae Long Moose cam' +awa wi' a lovely pair o' black eyes Sam Carr bestowed on him. I'm +forewarnin' ye for yer ain good. Ye can decry material benefits a' ye +like, but it'll be a decided benefit if ye ha' Sam Carr for a friendly +neighbor at Lone Moose." + +"I don't deliberately seek religious controversy with any one," Thompson +replied rather stiffly. "I have been sent by the Church to do what good +I am able. That should not offend Mr. Carr, or any man." + +"Nor will it," MacLeod returned. Then he added dryly, "It a' depends, as +ye may discover, on the interpretation others put on your method o' +doin' good. However, I wish ye luck. Stop in whenever ye happen along +this way." + +"I thank you, sir," Thompson smiled, "both for your hospitality, and +your advice." + +They shook hands. Thompson strode to the beach. Mike Breyette and Donald +MacDonald stood bare-footed in the shallow water. When Thompson had +stepped awkwardly aboard and seated himself amidships, they lifted on +the canoe and slid it gently off the shingle, leaped to their places +fore and aft and gave way. A hundred yards off shore they lifted the +dripping paddles in mute adieu to old Donald McPhee, smoking his pipe at +the gable end of his cabin. MacLeod watched the gray canoe slip past the +first point. When it vanished beyond that he turned back into his +quarters with a shrug of his burly shoulders, and a few unintelligible +phrases muttered under his breath. + +Lone Moose Creek emptied into Lake Athabasca some forty miles east of +Fort Pachugan. The village of Lone Moose lay another twenty-five miles +or so up the stream. Thompson's canoemen carried with them a rag of a +sail. This they hoisted to a fair wind that held through the morning +hours. Between that and steady paddling they made the creek mouth by +sundown. There they lay overnight on a jutting sandbar where the +mosquitoes plagued them less than on the brushy shore. + +At dawn they pushed into the sinuous channel of Lone Moose, breasting +its slow current with steady strokes, startling flocks of waterfowl at +every bend, gliding hour after hour along this shadowy waterway that +split the hushed reaches of the woods. It was very still and very somber +and a little uncanny. The creek was but a thread in that illimitable +forest which pressed so close on either hand. The sun at high noon could +not dissipate the shadows that lurked among the close-ranked trees; it +touched the earth and the creek with patches and streaks of yellow at +rare intervals and left untouched the obscurity where the rabbits and +the fur-bearing animals and all the wild life of the forest went +furtively about its business. Once they startled a cow moose and her +calf knee-deep in a shallow. The crash of their hurried retreat rose +like a blare of brass horns cutting discordantly into the piping of a +flute. But it died as quickly as it had risen. Even the beasts bowed +before the invisible altars of silence. + +About four in the afternoon Mike Breyette turned the nose of the canoe +sharply into the bank. + +The level of the forest floor lifted ten feet above Thompson's head so +that he could see nothing beyond the earthy rim save the tops of trees. +He kept his seat while Mike tied the bow to a birch trunk with a bit of +rope. He knew that they expected to land him at his destination before +evening fell. This did not impress him as a destination. He did not know +what Lone Moose would be like. The immensity of the North had left him +rather incredulous. Nothing in the North, animate or inanimate, +corresponded ever so little to his preconceived notions of what it would +be like. His ideas of the natives had been tinctured with the flavor of +Hiawatha and certain Leatherstocking tales which he had read with a +sense of guilt when a youngster. He had really started out with the +impression that Lone Moose was a collection of huts and tents about a +log church and a missionary house. The people would be simple and +high-minded, tillers of the soil in summer, trappers of fur in winter, +humble seekers after the Light he was bringing. But he was not a fool, +and he had been compelled to forego that illusion. Then he had surmised +that Lone Moose might be a replica of Fort Pachugan. MacLeod had partly +disabused his mind of that. + +But he still could not keep out of his mind's eye a somewhat hazy +picture of Lone Moose as a group of houses on the bank of a stream, with +Indians and breeds--no matter how dirty and unkempt--going impassively +about their business, an organized community, however rude. Here he saw +nothing save the enfolding forest he had been passing through since +dawn. He scarcely troubled to ask himself why they had stopped. Breyette +and MacDonald were given to casual haltings. He sat in irritable +discomfort brushing aside the hordes of mosquitoes that rose up from the +weedy brink and the shore thickets to assail his tender skin. He did +not notice that MacDonald was waiting for him to move. Mike Breyette +looked down on him from the top of the bank. + +"Well, we here, M'sieu Thompson," he said. + +"What?" Thompson roused himself. "Here? Where is the village?" + +Breyette waved a hand upstream. + +"She's 'roun' de nex' bend," said he. "Two-three hundred yard. Dees +w'ere de meeshonaire have hees cabanne." + +Thompson could not doubt Breyette's statement. He recalled now that Mike +had once told him the mission quarters were built a little apart from +the village. But he peered up through the screen of birch and willow +with a swift wave of misgiving. The forest enclosed him like the blank +walls of a cell. He shrank from it as a sensitive nature shrinks from +the melancholy suggestiveness of an open grave, and he could not have +told why he felt that strange form of depression. He was wholly +unfamiliar with any form of introspective inquiry, any analysis of a +mental state. He had never held sad intellectual inquest over a dead +hope, nor groped blindly for a ray of light in the inky blackness of a +soul's despair. + +Nevertheless, he was conscious that he felt very much as he might have +felt if, for instance, his guides had stopped anywhere in those somber +woods and without rhyme or reason set him and his goods ashore and +abandoned him forthwith. And when he crawled over the bow of the canoe +and ascended the short, steep bank to a place beside Mike Breyette, this +peculiar sense of being forsaken grew, if anything, more acute, more +appalling. + +They stood on the edge of the bank, taking a reconnaissance, so to +speak. The forest flowed about them like a sea. On Thompson's left hand +it seemed to thin a trifle, giving a faint suggestion of open areas +beyond. Beginning where they stood, some time in past years a square +place had been slashed out of the timber, trees felled and partly +burned, the stumps still standing and the charred trunks lying all askew +as they fell. The unlovely confusion of the uncompleted task was +somewhat concealed by a rank growth of weeds and grass. This +half-hearted attack upon the forest had let the sunlight in. It blazed +full upon a cabin in the center of the clearing, a square, squat +structure of logs with a roof of poles and dirt. A door and a window +faced the creek, a window of tiny panes, a door that stood partly open, +sagging forlornly upon its hinges. + +"Is _that_ the house?" Thompson asked. It seemed to him scarcely +credible. He suspected his guides, as he had before suspected them, of +some rude jest at his expense. + +"Dat's heem," Breyette answered. "Let's tak' leetle more close look on +heem." + +Thompson did not miss the faint note of commiseration in the +half-breed's voice. It stung him a little, nearly made him disregard the +spirit of abnegation he had been taught was a Christian's duty in his +Master's service. He closed his lips on an impulsive protest against +that barren unlovely spot, and stiffened his shoulders. + +"I understand it has not been occupied for some time," he said as they +moved toward the cabin. + +But even forewarned as he was his heart sank a few degrees nearer to his +square-toed shoes when he stepped over the threshold and looked about. +Little, forgotten things recurred to him, matters touched upon lightly, +airily, by the deacons and elders of the Board of Missions when his +appointment was made. He recalled hearing of a letter in which his +predecessor had renounced that particular field and the ministry +together, with what to Thompson had seemed the blasphemous statement +that the North was no place for either God or man. + +The place was foul with dirt and cobwebs, full of a musty odor. The +swallows had nested along the ridge-pole. They fluttered out of the +door, chattering protest against the invasion. Rat nests littered the +corners and the brown rodents scuttled out with alarmed squeaks. The +floor was of logs roughly hewn to flatness. Upon four blocks stood a +rusty cookstove. A few battered, smoke-blackened pots and pans stood on +a shelf and hung upon nails driven in the walls. A rough bedstead of +peeled spruce poles stood in a corner. The remains of a bedtick moldered +on the slats, its grass stuffing given over to the nests of the birds +and rodents. + +It was so utterly and dishearteningly foreign to the orderly +arrangement, the meticulous neatness of the home wherein Thompson had +grown to young manhood under the tutelage of the prim spinsters that he +could scarcely accept as a reality that this, henceforth, was to be his +abode. + +He could only stand, with a feeling in his throat that was new in his +experience of emotions, staring in dismay at this forlorn habitation +abandoned to wind and weather, to the rats and the birds. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN WHICH MR. THOMPSON BEGINS TO WONDER PAINFULLY + + +To Breyette and MacDonald that forlorn cabin was after all nothing new +or disheartening in their experience. They knew how a deserted house +goes to rack and ruin. They knew also how to restore such an abandoned +place to a measure of its original homeliness. And neither the spectacle +of the one nor the labor of the other gave them any qualms. They were +practical-minded men to whom musty, forsaken cabins, isolation, the +hollow emptiness of the North, the sultry heat of the brief summer, the +flies, the deep snows and iron frosts of the long winter, were a part of +their life, the only life they knew. + +But they were not wholly devoid of sentiment and perception. They +recognized in Thompson a lively susceptibility to certain disagreeable +things which they accepted as a matter of course. They saw that he was +rather less capable of coping with such a situation than a ten-year-old +native boy, that a dirty cabin in a lonely clearing made him stand +aghast. And so--although their bargain with him was closed when they +deposited him and his goods on the bank of Lone Moose--they set to work +with energy to renovate his forlorn-looking abode. + +They made short work of the rats' and the swallows' nests. Breyette +quickly fashioned a broom of fine willow twigs, brought up a shovel from +the canoe, and swept and shovelled the place out. MacDonald meanwhile +cleared the weeds and grass from a space before the cabin and burned up +the unseemly refuse. The stove fulfilled its functions perfectly despite +the red rust of disuse. With buckets of boiling water they flooded and +drenched the floor and walls till the interior was as fresh and clean as +if new erected. + +The place was habitable by sundown. While the long northern twilight +held the three of them carried up the freight that burdened the canoe, +and piled it in one corner, sacks of flour, sides of bacon and salt +pork, boxes of dried fruit, the miscellaneous articles with which a man +must supply himself when he goes into the wilderness. + +That night they slept upon a meager thickness of blanket spread on the +hard floor. + +In the morning Mike went to work again. He showed Thompson how to +arrange a mattress of hemlock boughs on the bed frame. It was a simple +enough makeshift, soft and springy when Thompson spread his bedding over +it. Then Mike superintended the final disposition of his supplies so +that there would be some semblance of order instead of an +indiscriminately mixed pile in which the article wanted was always at +the bottom. Incidentally he strove to impart to Thompson certain +rudimentary principles in the cooking of simple food. He illustrated the +method of mixing a batch of baking-powder bread, and how to parboil salt +pork before cooking, explained to him the otherwise mysterious +expansion of rice and beans and dried apples in boiling water, all of +which Breyette was shrewd enough to realize that Thompson knew nothing +about. He had a ready ear for instructions but a poor understanding of +these matters. So Mike reiterated out of his experience of camp cooking, +and Thompson tried to remember. + +Meanwhile, MacDonald, who had vanished into the woods with a rifle in +his hand at daybreak, came back about noon with a deer's carcass slung +on his sturdy back. This, after it was skinned, the two breeds cut into +pieces the thickness of a man's wrist and as long as they could make +them, rubbed well with salt and hung on a stretched line in the sun. The +purpose and preparation of "jerky" was duly elucidated to Thompson; +rather profitless explanation, for he had no rifle, nor any knowledge +whatever in the use of firearms. + +"Bagosh, dat man Ah'm wonder w'ere hees raise," Mike said to his partner +once when Thompson was out of earshot. "Hees ask more damfool question +een ten minute dan a man hees answer een t'ree day. W'at hees gon' do +all by heemself here Ah don' know 'tall, Mac. Bagosh, no!" + +By midafternoon all that was possible in the way of settling their man +had been accomplished, even to a pile of firewood sufficient to last him +two weeks. MacDonald contributed that after one brief exhibition of +Thompson's axemanship. Short of remaining on the spot like a pair of +swarthy guardian angels there was no further help they could give him, +and their solicitude did not run to that beneficent extreme. And so +about three o'clock Mike Breyette surveyed the orderly cabin, the pile +of chopped wood, and the venison drying in the sun, and said briskly: + +"Well, M'sieu Thompson, Ah theenk we go show you hon Lone Moose village +now. Dere's one w'ite man Ah don' know 'tall. But der's breed familee +call Lachlan, eef she's not move 'way somew'ere. Dat familee she's talk +Henglish, and ver' fond of preacher. S'pose we go mak leetle veesit hon +dem Lachlan, eh? Ah theenk us two feller we're gon' beet dat water weeth +de paddle een de morneeng." + +A man does not easily forego habits that have become second nature. +Breyette and MacDonald put on their dilapidated hats, filled their +pipes, and were ready for anything from a social call to a bear hunt. +Thompson had to shave, wash up, brush his hair, put on a tie and collar, +which article of dress he donned without a thought that the North was +utterly devoid of laundries, that he would soon be reduced to flannel +shirts which he must wash himself. His preparations gave the breeds +another trick of his to grin slyly over. But Thompson was preparing +himself to face the units of his future congregation, and he went about +it precisely as he would have gone about getting ready for a Conference, +or a cup of tea with a meeting of the Ladies' Aid. Eventually, however, +the three set out across the trunk-littered clearing. + +The thin place in the belt of timber to the northward proved barely a +hundred yards deep. On the farther side the brushy edge of the woods +gave on the open meadow around which the Lone Moose villagers had built +their cabins. Thompson swept the crescent with a glance, taking in the +dozen or so dwellings huddling as it were under the protecting wings of +the forest, and his gaze came to rest on the more impressive habitation +of Sam Carr. + +"Dat's white man married hon Enjun woman," Breyette responded to +Thompson's inquiry. "Ah don' never see heem maself. Lachlan she's leev +over there." + +Left to himself Thompson would probably have gravitated first to a man +of his own blood, even though he had been warned to approach Carr with +diplomacy. But there was no sign of life about the Carr place, and his +men were headed straight for their objective, walking hurriedly to get +away from the hungry swarms of mosquitoes that rose out of the grass. +Thompson followed them. Two weeks in their company, with a steadily +growing consciousness of his dependence upon them, had inclined him to +follow their lead. + +They found Lachlan at home, a middle-aged Scotch half-breed with a house +full of sons and daughters ranging from the age of four to twenty. How +could they all be housed in three small rooms was almost the first +dubious query which presented itself to Thompson. His mind, to his great +perplexity, seemed to turn more upon incongruities than upon his real +mission there. That is, to Thompson they seemed incongruities. The +little things that go to make up a whole were each impinging upon him +with a force he could not understand. He could not, for instance, tell +why he thought only with difficulty, with extreme haziness, of the +great good he desired to accomplish at Lone Moose, and found his +attention focussing sharply upon the people, their manner of speech, +their surroundings, even upon so minor a detail as a smudge of flour +upon the hand that Mrs. Lachlan extended to him. She was a fat, +dusky-skinned woman, apparently regarding Thompson with a feeling akin +to awe. The entire family, which numbered at least nine souls, spoke in +the broad dialect of their paternal ancestors from the heather country +overseas. + +Thompson spent an hour there, an hour which was far from conducive to a +cheerful survey of the field wherein his spiritual labors would lie. +Aside from Sam Carr, who appeared to be looked upon as the Nestor of the +village, the Lachlans were the only persons who either spoke or +understood a word of English. And Thompson found himself more or less +tongue-tied with them, unable to find any common ground of intercourse. +They were wholly illiterate. As a natural consequence the world beyond +the Athabasca region was as much of an unknown quantity to them as the +North had been to Thompson before he set foot in it--as much of its +needs and customs were yet, for that matter. The Lachlan virtues of +simplicity and kindliness were overcast by obvious dirt and a general +slackness. In so far as religion went if they were--as Breyette had +stated--fond of preachers, it was manifestly because they looked upon a +preacher as a very superior sort of person, and not because of his +gospel message. + +For when Mrs. Lachlan hospitably brewed a cup of tea and Thompson took +the opportunity of making his customary prayer before food an appeal +for divine essence to be showered upon these poor sinful creatures of +earth, the Lachlan family rose from its several knees with an air of +some embarrassing matter well past. And they hastened to converse +volubly upon the weather and the mosquitoes and Sam Carr's garden and a +new canoe that Lachlan's boys were building, and such homely interests. +As to church and service they were utterly dumb, patently unable to +follow Thompson's drift when he spoke of those things. If they had souls +that required salvation they were blissfully unconscious of the fact. + +But they urged him to come again, when he rose to leave. They seemed to +regard him as a very great man, whose presence among them was an honor, +even if his purposes were but dimly apprehended. + +The three walked back across the meadow, Breyette and MacDonald +chattering lightly, Thompson rather preoccupied. It was turning out so +different from what he had fondly imagined it would be. He had envisaged +a mode of living and a manner of people, a fertile field for his labors, +which he began to perceive resentfully could never have existed save in +his imagination. He had been full of the impression, and the advice and +information bestowed upon him by the Board of Missions had served to +heighten the impression, that in Lone Moose he would fill a crying want. +And he was not so obtuse as to fail of perceiving that no want of him or +his message existed. It was discouraging to know that he must strive +mightily to awaken a sense of need before he could begin to fulfill his +appointed function of showing these people how to satisfy that need. + +Apart from these spiritual perplexities he found himself troubled over +practical matters. His creed of blind trust in Providence did not seem +so sound and true. He found himself dreading the hour when his swarthy +guides would leave him to his lonely quarters. He beheld terrible vistas +of loneliness, a state of feeling to which he had always been a +stranger. He foresaw a series of vain struggles over that rusty +cookstove. It did him no good to recall that he had been told in the +beginning that he would occupy the mission quarters, that he must +provide himself with ample supplies of food, that he might have to +prepare that food himself. + +His mind had simply been unable to envisage the sordid reality of these +things until he faced them. Now that he did face them they seemed more +terrible than they really were. + +Lying wakeful on his bed that night, listening to the snoring of the +half-breeds on the floor, to the faint murmur of a wind that stirred the +drooping boughs of the spruce, he reviewed his enthusiasms and his +tenuous plans--and slipped so far into the slough of despond as to call +himself a misguided fool for rearing so fine a structure of dreams upon +so slender a foundation as this appointment to a mission in the outlying +places. He blamed the Board of Missions. Obviously that august circle of +middle-aged and worthy gentlemen were sadly ignorant of the North. + +Whereupon, recognizing the trend of his thought, the Reverend Wesley +Thompson turned upon himself with a bitter accusation of self-seeking, +and besought earnestly the gift of an humble spirit from Above. + +But the deadly pin-points of discontent and discouragement were still +pricking him when he fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE + + +Mike Breyette took a last look over his shoulder as the current and the +thrust of two paddles carried the canoe around the first bend. Thompson +stood on the bank, watching them go. + +"Bagosh, dat man hees gon' have dam toff time, Ah theenk," Breyette +voiced his conviction. "Feller lak heem got no beesness for be here +'tall." + +"He didna have tae come here," MacDonald answered carelessly. "An' he +disna have tae stay." + +"Oh, sure, Ah know dat, me," Mike agreed. "All same hees feel bad." + +Which was a correct, if brief, estimate of Mr. Thompson's emotions as he +stood on the bank watching the gray canoe slip silently out of his ken. +That gave him a keener pang, a more complete sense of loss, than he had +ever suffered at parting with any one or anything. It was to him like +taking a last look before a leap in the dark. Thrown entirely upon his +own resources he felt wholly inadequate, found his breast filled with +incomprehensible misgivings. The work he had come there to do seemed to +have lost much of its force as a motive, as an inspiration. He felt +himself--so far as his mission to Lone Moose was concerned--in the +anomalous position of one compelled to make bricks without straw. + +He was, in a word, suffering an acute attack of loneliness. + +That was why the empty space of the clearing affected him with a +physical shrinking, why the neatly arranged interior of his cabin seemed +hollow, abandoned, terribly dispiriting. He longed for the sound of a +human voice, found himself listening for such a sound. The stillness was +not like the stillness of a park, nor an empty street, nor any of the +stillnesses he had ever experienced. It was not a kindly, restful +stillness,--not to him. It was the hollow hush of huge spaces emptied of +all life. Life was at his elbow almost but he could not make himself +aware of that. The forested wilderness affected him much as a small +child is affected by the dark. He was not afraid of this depressing +sense of emptiness, but it troubled him. + +Before nine o'clock in the forenoon had rolled around he set off with +the express purpose of making himself acquainted with Sam Carr. Carr was +a white man, a scholar, MacLeod had said. Passing over the other things +MacLeod had mentioned for his benefit Thompson, in his dimly realized +need of some mental stimulus, could not think of a white man and a +scholar being aught but a special blessing in that primeval solitude. +Thompson had run across that phrase in books--primeval solitude. He was +just beginning to understand what it meant. + +He set out upon his quest of Sam Carr with a good deal of unfounded +hope. In his own world, beginning with the churchly leanings of the +spinster aunts, through the successive steps of education and his +ultimate training for the ministry as a profession, the theological note +had been the note in which he reasoned and thought and felt. His +environment had grounded him in the belief that all the world vibrated +in unison with the theological harmonies. He had never had any doubts or +equivocations. Faith was everything, and he had abundance of faith. As a +matter of fact, until he encountered MacLeod, the factor of Fort +Pachugan, he had never crossed swords with a man open and sincere in +disbelief based on rational grounds. He had found those who evaded and +some who were indifferent, many who compromised, never before a sweeping +denial. He could not picture an atheist as other than a perverted +monster, a moral degenerate, the personification of all evil. This was +his conception of such as denied his God. Blasphemers. Foredoomed to +hell. Yet he had found MacLeod hospitable, ready with kindly advice, +occupying a position of trust in the service of a great company. Was it +after all possible that the essence of Christianity might not be the +exclusive possession of Christians? + +Insensibly he had to modify certain sweeping convictions. He was not +conscious of this inner compulsion when he concluded to try and meet Sam +Carr without making theology an issue. Somehow this man Carr began to +loom in the background of his thought as a commanding figure. At least, +Thompson said to himself as he passed through the fringe of timber, Sam +Carr by all accounts was a person to whom an educated man could speak +in words of more than two syllables without meeting the blank stare of +incomprehension. + +The Lachlans were worthy people enough, but--He shook his head +despondently. As for the Crees--well, he had been at Lone Moose less +than forty-eight hours and he was wondering if the Board of Home +Missions always shot as blindly at a distant mark. It would take him a +year to learn the first smatterings of their tongue. A year! He had +understood that the Lone Moose Crees were partly under civilized +influences. Certainly he had believed that his predecessors in the field +had laid some sort of foundation for the work he was to carry on. It was +considered a matter of course that the mission quarters were livable, +that some sort of meeting place had been provided. + +There was a monetary basis for that belief. Some two thousand dollars +had been expended, or perhaps the better word would be appropriated, for +that purpose. Mr. Thompson could not quite understand what had become of +this sum. There was nothing but a rat-ridden shack on a half-cleared +acre in the edge of the forest. There had never been anything else. +Nothing had been accomplished. Thompson shook his head again. His first +report would be a shock to the Board of Home Missions. + +He bore straight for Sam Carr's house. While still some distance away he +made out two men seated on the porch. As he drew nearer a couple of +nondescript dogs rushed noisily to meet him. Thompson's general +unfamiliarity with the outdoor world extended to dogs. But he had heard +sometime, somewhere, that it was well to put on a bold front with +barking curs. He acted upon this theory, and the dogs kept their teeth +out of his person, though their clamor rose unabated until one of the +men harshly commanded them to be quiet. Thompson came up to the steps. +The two men nodded. Their eyes rested upon him in frank curiosity. + +"My name is Thompson." His diffidence, verging upon forthright +embarrassment, precipitated him into abruptness. He was addressing the +older man, a spare-built man with a trim gray beard and a disconcerting +direct gaze. "I am a newcomer to this place. The factor of Fort Pachugan +spoke of a Mr. Carr here. Have I--er--the--ah--pleasure of addressing +that gentleman?" + +Carr's gray eyes twinkled, the myriad of fine creases radiating from +their outer corners deepened. + +"MacLeod mentioned me, eh? Did he intimate that meeting me might prove a +doubtful pleasure for a gentleman of your calling?" + +That momentarily served to heighten Mr. Thompson's embarrassment--like a +flank attack while he was in the act of waving a flag of truce. But he +perceived that there was no malice in the words, only a flash of ironic +humor. Carr chuckled dryly. + +"Meet Mr. Tommy Ashe, Mr. Thompson," he said. "Mr. Ashe is, like +yourself, a newcomer to Lone Moose. You may be able to exchange mutual +curses on the country. People usually do at first." + +"I've been hereabouts six months," Ashe smiled as he rose to shake +hands. (Carr's friendliness seemed a trifle negative, reserved; he had +not offered his hand.) + +"That means newly come, as time is reckoned here," Carr remarked. "It +takes at least a generation to make one permanent. Have a seat, Mr. +Thompson. What do you think, so far, of the country you have selected +for the scene of your operations?" + +The slightly ironic inflection was not lost upon Thompson. It nettled +him a little, but it was too intangible to be resented, and in any case +he had no ready defence against that sort of thing. He took a third +chair between the two of them and occupied himself a moment +exterminating a few mosquitoes which had followed him from the grassy +floor of the meadow and now slyly sought to find painful lodgment upon +his face and neck. + +"To tell the truth," he said at last, "everything is so different from +my expectations that I find myself a bit uncertain. One +finds--well--certain drawbacks." + +"Material or spiritual?" Carr inquired gravely. + +The Reverend Thompson considered. + +"Both," he answered briefly. + +This was the most candid admission he had ever permitted himself. Carr +laughed quietly. + +"Well," said he, "we are a primitive folk in a primitive region. But I +daresay you hope to accomplish a vast change for the better in us, if +not in the country?" + +Again there was that suggestion of mockery, veiled, scarcely +perceptible, a matter of inflection. Mr. Thompson found himself uttering +an entirely unpremeditated reply. + +"Which I daresay you doubt, Mr. Carr. You seem to be fully aware of my +mission here, and rather dubious as to its merit." + +Carr smiled. + +"News travels fast in a country where even a passing stranger is a +notable event," he remarked. "Naturally one draws certain conclusions +when one hears that a minister has arrived in one's vicinity. As to my +doubts--first and last I've seen three different men sent here by your +Board of Home Missions. They have made no more of an impression than a +pebble chucked into the lake. Your Board of Missions must be a visionary +lot. They should come here in a body. This country would destroy some of +their cherished illusions." + +"A desire to serve is not an illusion," Thompson said defensively. + +"One would have to define service before one could dispute that," Carr +returned casually. "What I mean is that the people who send you here +have not the slightest conception of what they send you to. When you get +here you find yourself rather at sea. Isn't it so?" + +"In a sense, yes," Thompson reluctantly admitted. + +"Oh, well," Carr said, with a gesture of dismissing the subject, "that +is your private business in any case. We won't get on at all if we begin +by discussing theology, and dissecting the theological motive and +activities. Do you hunt or fish at all, Mr. Thompson?" + +Mr. Thompson did not, and expressed no hankering for such pursuits. +There came a lapse in the talk. Carr got out his pipe and began stuffing +the bowl of it with tobacco. Tommy Ashe sat gazing impassively over the +meadow, slapping at an occasional mosquito. + +"Tommy might give you a few pointers on game," Carr remarked at last. +"He has the sporting instinct. It hasn't become a commonplace routine +with him yet, a matter of getting meat, as it has to the rest of us up +here." + +Ashe made his first vocal contribution. + +"If you're going to be about here for awhile," said he pleasantly, +"you'll find it interesting to dodge about after things in the woods +with a gun. Keeps you fit, for one thing. Lots of company in a dog and a +gun. Is it a permanent undertaking, this missionary work of yours, Mr. +Thompson?" + +"We hope to make it so," Mr. Thompson responded. + +"I should say you've taken on the deuce of a job," Tommy commented +frankly. + +Thompson had no inclination to dispute that. He had periods of thinking +so himself. + +The conversation languished again. + +Without ever having been aware of it Thompson's circle of friends and +acquaintances had been people of wordy inclination. Their thoughts +dripped unceasingly from their tongue's end like water from a leaky +faucet. He had never come in contact with a type of men who keep silent +unless they have something to say, who think more than they speak. The +spinster aunts had been voluble persons, full of small chatter, women of +no mental reservations whatever. The young men of his group had not been +much different. The reflective attitude as opposed to the discursive was +new to him. New and embarrassing. He felt impelled to talk, and while he +groped uncertainly for some congenial subject he grew more and more +acutely self-conscious. He felt that these men were calmly taking his +measure. Especially Sam Carr. + +He wanted to go on talking. He protested against their intercourse +congealing in that fashion. But he could find no opening. His +conversational stock-in-trade, he had the sense to realize, was totally +unlike theirs. He could do nothing but sit still, remain physically +inert while he was mentally in a state of extreme unrest. He ventured a +banality about the weather. Carr smiled faintly. Tommy Ashe observed +offhand that the heat was beastly, but not a patch to blizzards and +frost. Then they were silent again. + +Thompson had effected a sort of compromise with his principles when he +sought Carr. He had more or less consciously resolved to keep his +calling in the background, to suppress the evangelical tendency which +his training had made nearly second nature. This for the sake of +intelligent companionship. He was like a man sentenced to solitary +confinement. Even the temporary presence of a jailer is a boon to such, +a break in the ghastly solitude. But he was fast succumbing to a despair +of reaching across the barrier of this critical silence and he was about +to rise and leave when he happened to look about and see Sophie Carr +standing within arm's length, gazing at him with a peculiar intentness, +a mild look of surprise upon her vivid young face, a trace of +puzzlement. + +A most amazing thing happened to Mr. Thompson. His heart leaped. + +Perhaps it rarely happens that a normal, healthy man reaches a +comparative degree of maturity without experiencing a quickening of his +blood in the presence of a woman. Yet it cannot be gainsaid that it does +happen. It was so in Thompson's case. Staring into the clear pools of +Sophie Carr's gray eyes some strange quality of attraction in a woman +first dawned on him. Something that made him feel a passionate sense of +incompleteness. + +He did not think this. The singular longing had flamed up like a beacon +within him. It had nothing to do with his mental processes. It was +purely an instinctive revelation. A blind man whose sight has been +restored, upon whose eager vision bursts suddenly all the bright beauty +of sun and sky and colorful landscape, could have been no more +bewildered than he. It was as if indeed he had been blind. + +All the women he had ever known seemed pale and colorless beside this +girl standing near, her head a little aside as she looked at him. There +was not a detail of her that escaped him, that failed to make its +appeal, from the perfect oval of her face down to the small feet in +bead-ornamented moccasins. A woman's eyes, her hair, her hands, her +bearing--these things had never obtruded upon his notice before. Yet he +saw now that a shaft of sunlight on her hair made it shimmer like ripe +wheat straw, that her breast was full and rounded, her lips red and +sweetly curved. But it was not alone that swift revelation of seductive +beauty, or warm human desirableness, that stirred him so deeply, that +afflicted him with those queer uncomfortable sensations. He found +himself struggling with a sense of guilt, of shame. The world, the +flesh, and the devil seemed leagued against his peace of mind. + +He was filled with an incredulous wonder as to what manner of thing this +was which had blown through the inner recesses of his being like a gusty +wind through an open door. He had grown to manhood with nothing but a +cold, passionless tolerance in his attitude toward women. Technically he +was aware of sex, advised as to its pitfalls and temptations; actually +he could grasp nothing of the sort. A very small child is incapable of +associating pain with a hot iron until the hot iron has burned him. Even +then he can scarcely correlate cause and effect. Neither could Thompson. +No woman had ever before stirred his pulse to an added beat. + +But this--this subtle, mysterious emanation from a smiling girl at his +elbow singed him like a flame. If he had been asleep he was now in a +moment breathlessly, confusedly awake. + +The commotion was all inward, mental. Outwardly he kept his composure, +and the only sign of that turmoil was a tinge of color that rose in his +face. And as if there was some mysterious mode of communication +established between them a faint blush deepened the delicate tint of +Sophie Carr's cheeks. Thompson rose. So did Tommy Ashe with some haste +when he perceived her there. + +"No, no," she protested. "Keep your chairs, please." + +"Mr. Thompson," Carr's keen old eyes flickered between the two men and +the girl. "My daughter. Mr. Thompson is the latest leader of the +forlorn hope at Lone Moose, Sophie." + +Mr. Thompson murmured some conventional phrase. He was mightily +disturbed without knowing why he was so disturbed, and rather fearful of +showing this incomprehensible state. The girl's manner put him a little +at his ease. She gave him her hand, soft warm fingers that he had a mad +impulse to press. He wondered why he felt like that. He wondered why +even the tones of her voice gave him a thrill of pleasure. + +"So you are the newest missionary to Lone Moose?" she said. "I wish you +luck." + +Although her voice was full, throaty like a meadow lark's, her tone +carried the same sardonic inflection he had noticed in her father's +comment on his mission. It pained Thompson. He had no available weapon +against that sort of attack. But the girl did not pursue the matter. She +said to her father: + +"Crooked Tree's oldest son is in the kitchen and wants to speak to you, +Dad." + +Carr rose. So did Thompson. He wanted to get away, to think, to fortify +himself somehow against this siren call in his blood. He was sadly +perplexed. Measured by his own standards, even to harbor such thoughts +as welled up in his mind was a sinful weakness of the flesh. He was in +as much anxiety to get away from Carr's as he had been to find a welcome +there. + +"I think I shall be moving along," he said to Carr. "I'll say good-day, +sir." + +Carr thrust out a brown sinewy hand with the first trace of heartiness +he had shown. + +"Come again when you feel like it," he invited. "When you have time and +inclination we'll match our theories of the human problem, maybe. Of +course we'll disagree. But my bark is worse than my bite, no matter what +you've heard." + +He strode off. Sophie bowed to Thompson, nodded to Tommy Ashe, and +followed her father. Ashe got up, stretched his sturdy young arms above +his fair, curly head. He was perhaps a year or two older than Thompson, +a little thicker through the chest, and not quite so tall. One imagined +rightly that he was very strong, that he could be swift and purposeful +in his movements, despite an apparent deliberation. His face was +boyishly expressive. He had a way of smiling at trifles. And one did not +have to puzzle over his nationality. He was English. His accent and +certain intonations established that. + +He picked up a gun now from where it stood against the wall, whistled +shrilly, and a brown dog appeared hastily from somewhere in the grass, +wagging his tail in anticipation. + +"Mind if I poke along with you," he said to Thompson. "There's a slough +over beyond your diggin's where I go now and then to pick up a duck or +two." + +They fell into step across the meadow. + +"Our host," Thompson observed, "is not quite the type one expects to +find here--permanently. I understand he has been here a long time." + +"Fifteen years," Tommy supplied cheerfully. "Deuce of a time to be +buried alive, eh? Carr hasn't got rusty, though. No. Mind like a steel +trap, that man. Curious sort of individual. You ought to see the books +he's got. Amazing. Science, philosophy, the poets--all sorts. Don't try +arguing theology with him unless you're quite advanced. Of course, I +know the church is adapting itself to modern thought, in a way. But +he'll tie you in a bowknot if you hold to the old theological doctrines. +Fact. Carr's scholarly sort, but awfully radical. Awfully." + +"It's queer," said Thompson, "why a man like that should bury himself +here so long. Is it a fact that he is married to a native woman? His +daughter now--one wouldn't imagine her--" + +"No fear," Tommy Ashe interrupted. "Carr's got an Indian woman, right +enough. They've got three mixed-blood youngsters. But his daughter--" + +He gave Thompson a quick sidelong glance. + +"Sophie's pure blood," said he. "She's a thorough-bred." + +He said it almost challengingly. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +CERTAIN PERPLEXITIES + + +From the direction of the slough two shots sounded, presently followed +by two more. Then the gleeful yipping of Tommy's Ashe's retriever, and +Tommy's stentorian encouragement: + +"That's the boy. Fetch him." + +Close upon this Mr. Thompson's up-pricked ear detected another voice, +one that immediately set up in him an involuntary eagerness of +listening, a clear, liquid voice that called: + +"Oh, Tommy, there's another wounded one, swimming away. Quick!" + +Pow! Tommy's twelve-gauge cracked again. The two voices called +laughingly back and forth across the slough, mingled with the excited +barking of the brown dog as he retrieved the slaughtered ducks. After a +time silence fell. Thompson's nose detected an odor. He turned hastily +to his stove. But he had listened too long. The biscuits in his oven +were smoking. + +That did not matter greatly in itself. It was merely one of a long +procession of culinary disasters. He could not, somehow, contrive to +prepare food in the simple manner of Mike Breyette's instructions. If +the biscuits had not scorched probably they would have been hopelessly +soggy, dismal things compared to the brown discs Mike had turned out of +the same oven. One was as bad as the other. Nothing seemed to work out +right. Nothing ever tasted right. Only a healthy hunger enabled him to +swallow the unsavory messes he concocted in the name of food. + +He had been at Lone Moose two weeks now. His real work, his essential +labor in that untilled field, was no farther advanced. He made about the +same progress as a missionary that he made as a cook. In so far as Lone +Moose was concerned he accomplished nothing because, like Archimedes, he +lacked a foothold from which to apply his leverage. He had the +intelligence to perceive that these people had no pressing wants which +they looked to him to supply, that they were apparently impervious to +any message he could deliver. His power to deliver a message was +vitiated by this utter absence of receptivity. He was, and realized that +he was, as superfluous in Lone Moose as sterling silver and cut glass in +a house where there is neither food nor drink. + +Also he was no longer so secure in the comfortable belief that all +things work for an ultimate good. He was not so sure that a sparrow, or +even an ordained servant of God, might not fall and the Almighty be none +the wiser. The material considerations which he had always scorned +pressed upon him in an unescapable manner. There was no getting away +from them. Thrown at last upon his own resources he began to take stock +of his needs, his instincts, his impulses, and to compare them with the +needs and instincts and impulses of a more Godless humanity,--and he +could not escape certain conclusions. Faith may move mountains, but +chiefly through the medium of a shovel. When a man is hungry his need is +for food. When he is lonely he craves companionship. When he grieves he +desires sympathy. And the Providence Mr. Thompson had been taught to +lean so hard upon did not chop his wood, cook his meals, furnish him +with congenial society, comfort him when he was sad. + +"Religion or nonreligion, belief in a personal, immanent God or a rank +materialism that holds to a purely mechanical theory of the universe, it +doesn't make much difference which you hold to if you do not set +yourself up as the supreme authority and insist that the other fellow +must believe as you do. + +"Because, my dear sir, you cannot escape material factors. The human +organism can't exist without food, clothing, and shelter. Society cannot +attain to a culture which tends to soften the harshnesses of existence, +without leisure in which to develop that culture. Machinery and science +and art weren't handed to humanity done up in a package. Man only +attained to these things through a long process of evolution, and he +only attained them by the use of his muscle and the exercise of his +intellect. Strength and skill--plus application. Nothing else gets +either an individual or a race forward. Don't you see the force of that? +Here is man with his fundamental, undeniable needs. Here is the earth +with the fullness thereof. There's nothing mysterious or supernatural +about it. Brain and brawn applied to the problems of living. That's all. +And you can't dodge it. The first, pressing requirements of any man can +only be filled in two ways. First by working and planning and getting +for himself. Second by being able to compel the strength and skill of +others to function for him so that his needs will be supplied; in other +words, by some turn of circumstances, or some dominant quality in +himself, to get something for nothing." + +Sam Carr had delivered himself of this as a wind-up to a conversation +with Thompson the evening before. Now, while his forgotten biscuits +scorched and he listened to Tommy Ashe and Sophie Carr taking their toll +of meat from the flocks of waterfowl, he was thinking over what Carr had +said. He dissented. Oh, he dissented with a vigor that was almost +bitterness, because the smiling quirk of Sam Carr's lips when he uttered +the last sentence gave it something of a personal edge. However it was +meant, Thompson could not help taking it that way. And Mr. Thompson's +desire was to give--to give lavishly. Only here in this forsaken corner +of the world he seemed to have nothing to give that was of any value. + +He was, at the same time, discovering in himself personal needs to which +he had never given a thought, sordid everyday necessities the +satisfaction of which had always been at hand, unquestioned, taken for +granted much as one takes the sun and the air for granted. His meals had +been provided. His bed had been provided. The funds which had clothed +and educated him and trained him for the ministry had been provided, and +likewise his transportation to the scene of his endeavors. How, he had +not known except in the vaguest way, he had not particularly inquired, +any more than the child inquires the whence and the why of luscious +berries he finds growing upon a bush in the garden. + +Not until he was torn by the roots out of the old, ordered environment +and flung headlong into an environment where cause and effect are linked +close did he consider these things. Materially he was getting a +first-hand lesson in economics--and domestic science of a sort! +Spiritually he was a little bit aghast, amazed that the Almighty did not +personally intervene to save a man from his own inefficiency. He began +to grasp the hitherto unnoted fact that meals and a bed and fires and +clothes and all the other stark necessities involved labor of the hands, +skilful exercise of the thought-function. + +If this was so, he, Wesley Thompson, twenty-five years of age and a +minister of the gospel, was deeply in debt--unless he denied the justice +of giving value for value received. He had received much; he had +returned nothing except perfunctory thanks. And what had he to give? +Even to him, transcendent as was his faith that the glory of man was but +the reflected glory of God, that faith was not a commodity to be +bartered. + +He did not think these things in these terms. He found himself becoming +involved in a maze of speculation, in which he could only grope feebly +for words to define the unrest that was in him. + +While he sat at his small table of rough-hewn boards with his scorched, +unappetizing biscuits, ill-cooked potatoes and bacon, and a pot of tea +that he could never brew to his liking (and Mr. Thompson, from a +considerable amount of juggling afternoon teacups, had acquired a nice +taste in that beverage) he saw Tommy Ashe and Sophie Carr pass along one +edge of his clearing, a cluster of bright-winged ducks slung over +Tommy's shoulder, their voices floating across to him as if they came +down a long corridor. They disappeared toward Lone Moose through the +timber, and Mr. Thompson sat brooding over his lonely meal until he +realized with a start that his mind was concentrating upon Sophie Carr +with a disturbing insistence. + +The plague of mosquitoes had somewhat abated. In the early morning and +for a time in the evening, and also when rain dampened the atmosphere, +these pests still kept a man's hands busy warding them off. But through +the dry heat of the day he could go abroad in reasonable comfort. + +So now Mr. Thompson washed up his dishes in a fashion to make the lips +of a careful housekeeper pucker in disdain, clapped on his broken-rimmed +straw hat and sallied forth. + +He was full of an earnest desire to do good, as he defined doing good. +He had come here for that purpose, backed by an organization for just +such good work. This evangelical fire burned strong in him despite the +crude shifts he was put to, the loneliness, the perplexities and trials +of the spirit. Just as an educated humanitarian coming upon an +illiterate people would gladly banish their illiteracy, so Thompson was +resolved to banish what he deemed the spiritual darkness of these +primitive folk. Holding as he did to the orthodoxy of sin and salvation, +of a literal heaven and a nebulous sort of hell, he deemed it his +business to show them with certainty the paths that led to each. + +But he could not reach them unless he could speak their tongue, he could +not gather them about him in the open meadow as the Man of Galilee +gathered his disciples about him. The climate was against that simple +procedure. Therefore he postulated two things as necessary to make a +beginning--to learn the tribal language and to build a church. + +He was making an attempt at both, and making little more progress than +he made in the culinary art. Only a naturally vigorous stomach enabled +him to assimilate the messes he cooked without suffering acute +indigestion. Likewise only a naive turn of mind enabled him to ward off +mental indigestion in his struggles with the language. Whatever the +defects of his training for what he considered his life work, he had +considerable power of application. He might get discouraged, but he was +not a quitter. He kept trying. This took the form of studying the +Athabascan gutturals with the aid of Lachlan's second son, a boy of +eighteen. For an hour in the forenoon and the same in the evening he +struggled with pronunciations and meanings like a child learning the +alphabet, forgetting, like the child, a good deal of it between lessons. +And he had begun work on a log building twenty by thirty feet, that was +to be a meeting-house. + +He did not get on with this very fast. He laid his foundation in the +edge of the timber to lessen the distance his material must be moved. +He had to fell trees, to lop off the branches, and cut the trunks to +proper length, then roll them with infinite effort to their proper place +in the structure. He could only gather how a log building could be +erected by asking Lachlan, and by taking the Lone Moose cabins for his +model. And he was a fearful and wonderful axeman. His log ends looked as +if chewed by a beaver, except that they lacked the beaver's neatness of +finish. His feet suffered manifold hairbreadth escapes from the sharp +blade. He could never guess which way a tree would fall. For a week's +work he had got two courses of logs laid in position. + +He did not allow his mind to dwell on the ultimate outcome of this task, +because he was uneasily aware that Lone Moose was smiling slyly behind +its brown hand at him and his works. In his mind there was nothing for +it but a church. He had tried one Sunday service at Lachlan's house, +with Lachlan senior to interpret his words. The Indians had come. +Indeed, they had come en masse. They packed the room he spoke in, big +and little, short, chunky natives, and tall, thin-faced ones, and the +overflow spilled into the kitchen beyond. The day was very hot, the roof +low, the windows closed. There was a vitiation of the atmosphere that +was not helped by a strong bodily odor, a stout and sturdy smell that +came near to sickening Mr. Thompson. He was extraordinarily glad when he +got outside. That closeness--to speak mildly--coupled with the heavy, +copper-red faces, impassive as masks, impersonally listening with +scarcely a flicker of the eye-lids, made Thompson forswear another +attempt to preach until he could speak to them in their own tongue and +speak to them in a goodly place of worship where a man's thoughts would +not be imperiously distracted by a pressing need of ventilation. + +Coming now to the site he had chosen, he stood for a moment casting an +eye over the scene of his undertaking. The longer he looked at it the +more of an undertaking it seemed. He had heard Lachlan speak of two men +felling trees and putting up a sixteen-foot cabin complete from +foundation to ridgelog in three days. He did not see how it could be +done. He was thoroughly incredulous of that statement. But he did expect +to roof in that church before the snow fell. Its walls would be +consecrated with sweat and straining muscles. It would be a concrete +accomplishment. The instinct to create, the will to fashion and mold, to +see something take form under his hands, had begun to stir in him. + +Axe in hand, he set to work. He had learned the first lesson of manual +labor--that a man cannot swing his arms and breathe deeply if his body +is swaddled in clothes. His coat came off and his vest and his hat, all +slung across a fallen tree. Presently, as he warmed up, his outer shirt +joined the discarded garments. + +Stripped for action in a literal sense he did not in the least conform +to the clerical figure. He was the antithesis of asceticism, of +gentleness, of spiritual and scholarly repose. He was simply a big man +lustily chopping, red in the face from his exertions, beads of sweat +standing out on brow and cheek, his sturdy neck all a-glisten with +moisture. Under his thin, short-sleeved undershirt his biceps rippled +and played. The flat muscle-bands across his broad chest slackened and +tightened as his arms swung. For Mr. Thompson had been fashioned by +Nature in a generous mood. He was not a heroic figure, but he was big +and built as a man should be, deep in the chest, flat-backed, very +straight when he stood erect. He had escaped the scholarly stoop. If his +muscles were soft they were in a fair way to become hardened. + +He was more or less unconscious of all this. He had never thought of his +body as being strong or well-shaped, because he had never used it, never +pitted his strength against the strength of other men, never worked, +never striven. It had never been necessary for him to do so. He had been +taught that pride of that sort was sinful, and he had accepted the +teaching rather too literally. + +Already a curious sort of change was manifesting in him. His blue eyes +had a different expression than one would have observed in them +during--well, during the period of his theological studies, shall we +say, when the state of his soul and the state of other people's souls +was the only consideration. One would have been troubled to make out any +pronounced personality then. He was simply a studious young man with a +sanctimonious air. But now that the wind and the sun had somewhat turned +his fair skin and brought out a goodly crop of freckles, now that the +vigor of his movements and the healthy perspiration had rumpled up his +reddish-brown hair and put a wave in it, he could--standing up on his +log--easily have passed for a husky woodsman; until some experienced eye +observed him make such sorry work of a woodsman's task. He had acquired +no skill with the axe. That takes time. But he made vigorous endeavor, +and he was beginning to feel strength flow through him, to realize it as +a potential blessing. Now that the soreness was working out of his +sinews it gave him a peculiar elation to lay hold of a log-end, to heave +until his arms and back grew rigid, and to feel the heavy weight move. +That exultant sense of physical power was quite new and rather puzzling +to him. He could not understand why he enjoyed chopping logs and moving +them about, and yet was prone to grow moody, to be full of disquieting +perplexities when he sat down to think. + +He had been at work for perhaps two hours. He was resting. To be +explicit, he was standing on a fallen tree. Between his feet there was a +notch cut half-way through the wood. In this white gash the blade of his +axe was driven solidly, and he rested his hands on the rigid haft while +he stood drawing gulps of forest-scented air into his lungs. + +Mr. Thompson was not gifted with eyes in the back of his head. His +hearing was keen enough, but the soft, turfy earth absorbed footfalls, +especially when that foot was shod with a buckskin moccasin. So he did +not see Sophie Carr, nor hear her until a thought that was running in +his mind slipped off the end of his tongue. + +"This is going to make a terrible amount of labor." + +He said this aloud, in a matter-of-fact tone. + +"And a terrible waste of labor," Sophie answered him. + +He looked quickly over one shoulder, saw her standing there, got down +off his log--blushing a little at his comparative nakedness. It seemed +to him that he must appear shockingly nude, since the upper part of his +body was but thinly covered by a garment that opened wide over his +breast. He felt a good deal like a shy girl first appearing on the beach +in an abbreviated bathing suit. But Sophie seemed unconscious of his +embarrassment, or the cause of it. However, Mr. Thompson picked up his +coat, and felt more at ease when he had slipped it on. He sat down, +still breathing heavily from his recent exertions. + +"Why do you say that?" he asked. + +"Oh, well," she said--and left the sentence unfinished, save by an +outward motion of her hands that might have meant anything. But she +smiled, and Mr. Thompson observed that she had fine, white, even teeth. +Each time he saw her some salient personal feature seemed to claim his +attention. To be sure he had seen other girls with good teeth and red +lips and other physical charms perhaps as great as Sophie Carr's. But +these things had never riveted his attention. There was something about +this girl that quickened every fiber of his being. And even while she +made him always acutely conscious of her bodily presence, he was a +little bit afraid of her. He had swift, discomforting visions of her +standing afar beckoning to him, and of himself unable to resist, no +matter what the penalty. She stirred up things in his mind that made him +blush. He was conscious of a desire to touch her hand, to kiss her. He +found himself totally unable to close the gates of his mind against such +thoughts when she was near him. And it was self-generated within him. +Sophie Carr was never more than impersonally pleasant to him. Sometimes +she was utterly indifferent. Often she said things about his calling +that made him wince. + +"Tell me," Thompson said abruptly, after a momentary silence, "how it +happens that the men who have been here before me left no trace of +any--any--well, anything? There have been other missionaries. They had +funds. They were stationed here. What did they do? I have been going to +ask your father. I daresay you can tell me yourself." + +The girl laughed, whether at the question or at his earnestness he could +not say. + +"They did nothing," she answered in an amused tone. "What could they do? +You haven't begun to realize yet what a difficult job you've tackled. +The others came here, stayed awhile, threw up their hands and went away. +Their idea of doing good seemed to consist of having a ready-made church +and a ready-made congregation, and to preach nice little, ready-made +religiosities on a Sunday. You can't preach anything to a people who +don't understand a word you say, and who are mostly too busy with more +pressing affairs to listen if they did understand. And you see for +yourself there's no church." + +"But what did these fellows do?" he persisted. That had been puzzling +him. + +"Nothing," she said scornfully "nothing but sit around and complain +about the loneliness and the coarse food and the discouraging outlook. +Then they'd finally go away--go back to where they came from, I +suppose." + +"The last man," Thompson ventured doubtfully. "The factor at Pachugan +told me Mr. Carr assaulted him. That seems rather odd to me, after what +I've seen of your father. Was it so?" + +"The last missionary wasn't what you'd call a good man, in any sense," +Sophie answered frankly. "He was here most of one summer, and toward the +last he showed himself up pretty badly. He developed a nasty trick of +annoying little native girls. Dad thrashed him properly. Dad took it as +a sort of reflection on us. Even the Indians don't approve of that sort +of thing. He left in a hurry, after that." + +Thompson felt his face burn. + +"Things like that made a bad impression," he returned diffidently. "I +suppose in all walks of life there are wolves in sheep's clothing. I +hope it hasn't prejudiced you against churchmen in general." + +"One single incident?" she smiled. "That wouldn't be very logical, would +it? No. We're not so intolerant. I don't suppose dad would actually have +gone the length of thrashing him, if the preacher hadn't taken a high +and mighty tone as a sort of bluff. That particular preacher happened to +be a local nuisance. I suppose in a settled, well-organized community, +public opinion and convention is a check on such men. They keep within +bounds because there's a heavy penalty if they don't. Up here where law +and conventions and so on practically don't exist, men of a certain +stamp aren't long in reverting to pure animalism. It's natural enough, I +dare say. Dad would be the last one to set himself up as a critic of any +one's personal morality. But it isn't very nice, especially for +preachers, who come here posing as the representatives of all that is +good and pure and holy." + +"You get terribly sarcastic at times, Miss Carr," Thompson complained. +"A man can preach the Gospel without losing his manhood." + +"If he had any clear conception of manhood I don't see how he could +devote himself to preaching as a profession," she said composedly. "Of +course, it's perhaps an excellent means of livelihood, but rather a +parasitic means, don't you think?" + +"When Christ came among men He was reviled and despised," Mr. Thompson +declared impressively. + +"Do you consider yourself the prototype of Christ?" the girl inquired +mockingly. "Why, if the man of Galilee could be reincarnated the first +thing He would attack would be the official expounders of Christianity, +with their creeds and formalisms, their temples and their self-seeking. +The Nazarene was a radical. The average preacher is an out-and-out +reactionary." + +"How do you know?" he challenged boldly. "According to your own account +of your life so far, you have never had opportunity to find the truth or +falsity of such a sweeping statement. You've always lived--" he looked +about the enfolding woods--"how can one know what the world outside of +Lake Athabasca is, if one has never been there?" + +She laughed. + +"One can't know positively," she said. "Not from personal experience. +But one can read eagerly, and one can think about what one reads, and +one can draw pretty fair conclusions from history, from what wise men, +real thinkers, have written about this big world one has never seen. And +the official exponents of theology show up rather poorly as helpful +social factors, so far as my study of sociology has gone." + +"You seem to have a grudge against the cloth," Thompson hazarded a +shrewd guess. "I wonder why?" + +"I'll tell you why," the girl said--and she laughed a little +self-consciously. "My reason tells me it's a silly way to feel. I can +never quite consider theology and the preachers from the same +dispassionate plane that dad can. There's a foolish sense of personal +grievance. Dad had it once, too, but he got over it long ago. I never +have. Perhaps you'll understand if I tell you. My mother was a vain, +silly, emotional sort of person, it seems, with some wonderful capacity +for attracting men. Dad was passionately fond of her. When I was about +three years old my foolish mother ran away with a young minister. After +living with him about six months, wandering about from place to place, +she drowned herself." + +Thompson listened to this recital of human frailty in wonder at the calm +way in which Sophie Carr could speak to him, a stranger, of a tragedy so +intimate. She stopped a second. + +"Dad was all broken up about it," she continued. "He loved my mother +with all her weaknesses--and he's a man with a profound knowledge of and +tolerance for human weaknesses. I daresay he would have been quite +willing to consider the past a blank if she had found out she cared most +for him, and had come back. But, as I said, she drowned herself. We +lived in the eastern States. It simply unrooted dad. He took me and came +away up here and buried himself. Incidentally he buried me too. And I +don't want to be buried. I resent being buried. I hope I shall not +always be a prisoner in these woods. And I grow more and more resentful +against that preacher for giving my father a jolt that made a recluse of +him. Don't you see? That one thing has colored my personal attitude +toward preachers as a class. I can never meet a minister without +thinking of that episode which has kept me here where I never see +another white woman, and very seldom a man. It's really a weak spot in +me, holding a grudge like that. One wouldn't condemn carpenters as a +body because one carpenter botched a house. And still--" + +She made the queer little gesture with her hands that he had noticed +before. And she smiled quite pleasantly at Mr. Thompson in womanly +inconsistency with the attitude she had just been explaining she held +toward ministers. + +"One gets such silly notions," she remarked. "Just like your idea that +you can come here and do good. You can't, you know--not for others--not +by your method. It's absurd. One can help others most, I really believe, +by helping oneself. I've noticed in reading of the phenomena of human +relations that the most pronounced idealists are frequently a sad burden +to others." + +Mr. Thompson found himself at a loss for instant reply. It was a trifle +less direct, more subtle than he liked. It opened hazily paths of +speculation he had never explored because generalizations of that sort +had never been propounded to him--certainly never by a young woman whose +very physical presence disturbed him sadly. + +And while he was turning that last sentence over uncomfortably in his +mind a hail sounded across the meadow. Sophie stood up and waved the tin +bucket she had in her hand. Tommy Ashe came striding toward them. He, +too, carried a tin bucket. + +"We're going to a blackberry patch down the creek," Sophie answered +Thompson's involuntary look of inquiry. "Get a pail and come along." + +"I must work," Thompson shook his head. + +"Berry-picking's work, if work is what you want," she retorted. "You'd +think so by the time you'd picked a hundred quarts or more and preserved +them for winter use. But then I suppose _your_ winter supply will +emanate from some mysterious, beneficent source, without any effort on +your part. How fortunate that will be." + +She tempered this sally with a laugh, and being presently joined by +Tommy Ashe, set off toward the bank of Lone Moose, leaving Mr. Thompson +sitting on his log, indulging in some very mixed reflections. + +The task he was engaged upon seemed suddenly to have lost its savor. +Whether this arose from a depressing sense of inability to deny the +truth of much that Sophie Carr had just said, or from the fact that as +he sat there looking after them he found himself envying Tommy Ashe's +pleasant intimacy with the girl, he could not say. Indeed, he did not +inquire too closely of himself. Some of the conclusions he was latterly +arriving at were so radically different from what he was accustomed to +accepting that he was a little bit afraid of them. + +It took him a considerable time to get back into a proper working frame +of mind. The progress of his wooden edifice suffered by that much. When +he went trudging home at last, sweaty and tired, with his axe over one +shoulder, he was wondering frankly if, after all, it was either wise or +necessary to establish a mission at Lone Moose. What good could he or +any other man possibly do there? The logical and proper answer to that +did not spring as readily to his lips as it would have done at the time +of his appointment by the Board of Home Missions. + +Along with that he was troubled by a constant recurrence of his thoughts +to Sophie Carr. Nor was it a matter of wonder at her bookish knowledge, +her astonishing vocabulary, her ability to think and to express her +thoughts concisely. He conceded that she was a remarkable young woman in +that respect. It was not her intellectual capacity which concerned him +greatly, but the sunny aureole of her hair, the smiling curve of her +lips, the willowy pliancy of her well-developed body. Just to think of +her meant a colorful picture, a vision that filled him with uneasy +restlessness, with vague dissatisfaction, with certain indefinable +longings. + +He was quite unable to define to himself the purport of these remarkable +symptoms. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A SLIP OF THE AXE + + +Mr. Thompson gradually became aware of a change in the season. The +calendar lost a good deal of its significance up there, partly because +he had no calendar and partly because one day was so much a duplicate of +another that the flitting of time escaped his notice. But he became +conscious that the days grew shorter, the nights a shade more cool, and +that the atmosphere was taking on that hazy, mellow stillness which +makes Indian Summer a period of rare beauty in the North. He took +serious stock of elapsed time then, and found to his surprise that it +was September the fifteenth. + +He had not accomplished much. The walls of his church stood about the +level of his head. It grew increasingly difficult for him alone to hoist +the logs into place. The door and window spaces were out of square. +Without help he did not see how he was going to rectify these small +errors and get the roof on. Even after it should be roofed, the cracks +chinked and daubed with mud, the doors and windows in place--what then? + +He would still lack hearers for the message which he daily grew a little +more doubtful of his ability to deliver. A native streak of stubbornness +kept him studying the language along with his daily tussle with the axe +and saw. But the rate of his progress was such that he pessimistically +calculated that it would take him at least two years before he could +preach with any degree of understanding in the Athabascan tongue. + +So far he had never gone the length of candidly asking himself whether +by then it would be a task he could put his heart into, if he were even +fitted for such a work, or if it were a useful and worthy task if he +were gifted with a fitness for it. He had been taught that preaching the +gospel was a divinely appointed function. He had not questioned that. +But he had now a lively sense of difficulties hitherto unreckoned, and +an ill-stifled doubt of the good that might accrue. His blank ignorance +of the salient points of human contact, of why men work and play, why +they love and fight and marry and bend all their energies along certain +given lines until they grow old and gray and in the end cease to be, +only served to bewilder him. His association with Tommy Ashe and with +Carr and Carr's daughter--especially with Carr's daughter--further +accentuated the questioning uncertainty of his mind. + +But that was all--merely an uncertainty which he tried to dissipate by +prayer and stern repression of smoldering doubts. At the same time while +he decried and resented their outspoken valuation of material +considerations he found himself constantly subject to those material +factors of daily living. + +The first of these was food. When Mr. Thompson outfitted himself for +that spiritual invasion of Lone Moose he brought in four months' +supplies. He discovered now that his supply of certain articles was not +so adequate as he had been told it would be. Also he had learned from +Carr and Lachlan that if a man wintered at Lone Moose it was well to +bring in a winter's grub before the freeze-up--the canoe being a far +easier mode of transport than a dog-team and sled. + +So Thompson stopped his building activities long enough to make a trip +to Pachugan. He got Lachlan's oldest son to go with him. His quarterly +salary was due, and he had a rather reluctant report of his work to +make. With the money he would be able to replenish his stock of sugar +and tea and dried fruit and flour. He decided too that he would have to +buy a gun and learn to use it as the source of his meat supply. + +His sublime confidence in the organization which had sent him there +suffered a decided shock when he reached Fort Pachugan, and found no +remittance awaiting him. There was a letter from the Board secretary +breathing exhortations which sounded rather hollow in conjunction with +the absence of funds. Mr. Thompson, for the first time in his career, +found himself badly in need of money, irritated beyond measure by its +lack, painfully cognizant of its value. But he was too diffident to +suggest a credit on the strength of the cheque which, upon reflection, +he decided was merely delayed in the more or less uncertain mails. He +could make shift with what he had for another month. Nor did he mention +this slight difficulty to MacLeod. + +That gentleman had greeted him heartily enough. + +"Man, but ye look as if the country agreed wi' you," he observed, after +an appraising glance. "How goes the good work at Lone Moose?" + +"There are difficulties," Thompson responded with an unintentional +touch of ambiguity. "But I daresay I'll manage in time to overcome +them." + +He discovered in himself a disinclination to talk about his labors in +that field. + +MacLeod smiled and forbore to press the subject. There were sundry +parcels for Sam Carr, a letter or two, and a varied assortment of +magazines. Thompson took these, after tarrying overnight at the post, +and started home, refusing MacLeod's cordial invitation to stay over a +day or two. He would be back again when the next mail was due, a matter +of four or five weeks. And late that same evening, by dint of a +favorable breeze that kept the canoe flying, and some hard pulling up +Lone Moose Creek, Thompson and the breed boy reached home. + +Young Lachlan went off to his cabin. Mr. Thompson conscientiously lugged +the assortment of parcels and magazines over to Sam Carr's house, duly +delivered the three letters to Carr himself, and--for reasons that he +could not define as anything but an unwarrantable access of +shyness--declining the first invitation he had ever received to break +bread at Carr's table, hurried back to his own primitive quarters. +Perhaps the fact that Sophie Carr, curled up in a big chair, smiled at +him in a way that made his pulses quicken had something to do with his +hasty retreat. He was wary of the impulses and emotions she never failed +to stir in him when he was near her. There were times when he suspected +that she was aware of this power--which in his naive conception of women +he believed almost uncanny in her--and that she amused herself by +exercising it upon him. And he resented that. + +So he did not stay long enough to observe Carr lay two of his letters on +the table after a brief glance, and sit looking fixedly at the third, +which by the length of envelope and thickness of enclosure might +conceivably have contained some document of a legal or official nature. + +Carr looked at this letter a long time before he tore it open. He took a +still longer time to peruse its contents. He sat for several minutes +thereafter turning the sheets over and over in his lean fingers, until +in fact he became aware that his daughter's eyes were fixed on him with +a lively curiosity in their gray depths. + +"What is it, Dad?" she asked, as he tucked envelope and foolscap pages +into the inside pocket of his coat. + +"Oh, nothing much," he said shortly. + +But he leaned back in his chair and immediately became absorbed in +thought that accentuated the multitude of fine lines about his eyes and +drew his lips together in a narrow line. Sophie sat regarding him with a +look of wonder. + +This trifling incident, naturally, did not come under the notice of Mr. +Thompson. Conceivably he would not have noticed had he been present, nor +have been in any degree interested. + +He was, as a matter of fact, fully occupied at that precise moment with +the painful and disagreeable consequences of attempting to split +kindling by lantern light. To be specific the axe had glanced and cut a +deep gash in one side of his foot. + +At about the particular moment in which Sam Carr leaned back in his +chair and fell into that brown study of a matter that was to have a +far-reaching effect, Mr. Thompson was seated on his haunches on his +cabin floor, his hands stained with blood and a considerable trail of +red marking his progress from woodpile to cabin. His face was white, and +his hands rather shaky by the time he finished binding up the wound. The +cut stung and burned. When he essayed to move he found himself quite +effectually crippled. + +For the first time in his twenty-five years of carefully directed +existence Mr. Thompson swore a loud, round, Anglo-Saxon oath. Whether +this relieved his pent-up feelings or not he appeared to suffer no +remorse for the burst of profanity. Instead, he rose and limped +painfully about the building of a fire and the preparation of his +supper. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +--AND THE FRUITS THEREOF + + +Mr. Thompson slept fitfully that night. A hard day's paddling had left +him tired and sleepy, but the swarm of pain-devils in his slashed foot +destroyed his rest. When he got up at daylight and examined the wound +again he found himself afflicted with a badly swollen foot and ankle, +and a steady dull ache that extended upward past the knee. He was next +to helpless since every movement produced the most acute sort of +pain--sufficiently so that when he had made shift to get some breakfast +he could scarcely eat. In the course of his experiments in self-aid he +discovered that to lie flat on his back with the slashed foot raised +higher than his body gave a measure of ease. So he adopted this position +and stoically set out to endure the hurt. He lay in that position the +better part of the day--until, in fact, four in the afternoon brought +Sam Carr, shotgun in hand, to his door. + +Carr had seldom been in the cabin. This evening, for some reason, he put +his head in the door, and whistled softly at sight of Thompson's +bandaged foot cocked up on a folded overcoat. + +"Well, well," he said, standing his gun against the door casing and +coming in. "What have you done to yourself now?" + +"Oh, I cut my foot with the axe last night, worse luck," Thompson +responded petulantly. + +"Bad?" Carr inquired. + +"Bad enough." + +"Let me see it," Carr suggested. "It's a long way to a sawbones, and +Providence never seems quite able to cope with germs of infection. Have +you any sort of antiseptic dressing on it?" + +Thompson shook his head. He would not confess that the pain and swelling +had caused him certain misgivings, brought to his mind uneasily a good +deal that he had read and heard of blood-poisoning from cuts and +scratches. He was secretly glad to let Carr undo the rude bandage and +examine the wound. A man who had spent fifteen years in the wilderness +must have had to cope with similar cases. + +"You did give yourself a nasty nick and no mistake," Carr observed. "You +won't walk on that foot comfortably for two or three weeks. Just grazed +a bone. No carbolic, no peroxide, or anything like that, I suppose?" + +Thompson shook his head. He had not reckoned on cuts and bruises. Carr +put back the wrapping and sat whittling shavings of tobacco off a brown +plug, while Thompson got up, hopped on one foot across to the stove and +began to lay a fire. He had eaten nothing since morning, and was +correspondingly hungry. In addition, a certain unministerial pride +stirred him to action. He was ashamed to lie supinely enduring, to seem +helpless before another man's eyes. But the effort showed in his face. + +Carr lit his pipe and watched silently. His gaze took in every detail +of the cabin's interior, of Thompson's painful movements, of the poorly +cooked remains of breakfast that he was warming up. + +"You'll put that foot in a bad way if you try to use it much," he said +at last. "The best thing you can do is to come home with me and lie +around till you can walk again. I've got stuff to dress it properly. +Think you can hobble across the clearing if I make you a temporary +crutch?" + +Thompson at first declined to be such a source of trouble. He was +grateful enough, but reluctant. Carr, however, went about it in a way +that permitted nothing short of a boorish refusal, and presently Mr. +Thompson found himself, with a crutch made of a forked willow, crossing +the meadow to Sam Carr's house. + +His instincts had more or less subconsciously warned him that it would +not be well for his peace of mind or the good of his soul to be in +intimate daily contact with Sophie Carr. But his general inability to +cope with emergencies--which was patent enough to a practical man if not +wholly so to himself--culminating in this misadventure with a sharp axe, +had brought about that very circumstance. + +He had not looked for such a kindly office on the part of Sam Carr. That +individual's caustic utterances and critical attitude toward theology +had not forewarned Thompson that sympathy and kindliness were +fundamental attributes with Sam Carr. If he had an acid tongue his heart +was tender enough. But Carr was no sentimentalist. When he had bestowed +Thompson in a comfortable room and painstakingly dressed the injured +foot he left his patient much to his own devices--and to the +ministrations of his daughter. + +As a consequence, while the wound in his foot healed rapidly, Mr. +Thompson suffered a more grievous injury to his heart. Sophie Carr +affected him much as strong drink affects men with weak heads. The more +he saw of her the more he desired to see, to feast his eyes on her +loveliness--and invariably, when alone, to berate himself for such a +weakness. He had never dreamed that a man could feel that way about a +woman. He did not see why he, of all men, should succumb to the +fascination of a girl like Sophie Carr. + +But the emotion was undeniable. Perhaps Sophie would have been surprised +if she could have known the amount of repression Mr. Thompson gradually +became compelled to practice when she was with him. + +That was frequently enough. They were all good to him. From Carr's +Indian woman--who could, he now learned, speak passable English--down to +the sloe-eyed youngest Carr of mixed blood, they accepted him as one of +themselves. However, it happened to be Sophie who waited on him most, +who impishly took the greatest liberties with him, who was never averse +to an argument on any subject Thompson cared to touch. He had never +supposed there was a normal being with views on religion and economics, +upon any manifestation of human problems, with views so contrary to his +own. The maddening part of it was her ability to cite facts and +authorities whose existence he was not aware of, to confute him with +logic and compel him to admit that he did not know, that much of what he +asserted so emphatically was based on mere belief rather than +demonstrable fact or rational processes of arriving at a conclusion. +Sometimes both Sam Carr and Tommy Ashe were present at these oral tilts, +sitting back in silent amusement at Mr. Thompson's intellectual +floundering. + +A clean cut in the flesh of a healthy man heals quickly. In two weeks +Thompson could put his full weight on the injured member without pain or +any tendency to reopening the wound. Whereupon he repaired to his cabin +again, in a state of mind that was very disturbing. Without accepting +any of the Carr dictums upon theology and theological activities, he was +fast growing doubtful of his fitness for the job of herding other people +into the fold. He found himself with a growing disinclination for such a +task as his life work. Since that was the only thing he had any aptitude +for or training in, when he thought of cutting loose and facing the +world at large without the least idea of what he should do or how he +should do it, he perceived himself in a good deal of a dilemma. + +He was growing sure of one thing. Over and above the good of his soul +and other people's souls, a man must eat--to put it baldly. He should +earn his keep. He must indeed calculate upon provision for two. Mr. +Thompson had made the common mistake of believing himself +self-sufficient, and Sophie Carr had unwittingly taught him that a male +celibate was an anomaly in nature's reckoning. He had thought himself +immune from the ordinary passions of humanity. The strangest part of it +was a saddened gladness that he was not. Somehow, he did not want to be +a spiritual superman. He would rather love and struggle and suffer than +stand aloof, thanking God that he was not, like the Pharisees, as other +men. Sitting moodily by his rusty stove he confessed to himself that a +man who would gladly give up his hopes of eternal salvation for the +privilege of folding Sophie Carr close in his arms had no business in +the ministry--unless he simply wanted to hold down an easy, salaried +job. + +Whatever other sorts of a fool he might have been Thompson was no +hypocrite. He had never consciously looked upon the ministry as a man +looks upon a business career--a succession of steps to success, to an +assured social and financial position. Yet when he turned the +searchlight of analysis upon his motives he could not help seeing that +this was the very thing he had unwittingly been doing--that he had +expected and hoped for his progress through missionary work and small +churches eventually to bestow upon him a call to a wider field--a call +which Sam Carr had callously suggested meant neither more nor less than +a bigger church, a wider social circle, a bigger salary. And Thompson +could see that he had been looking forward to these things as a just +reward, and he could see too how the material benefits in them were the +lure. He had been coached and primed for that. His inclination had been +sedulously directed into that channel. His enthusiasm had been the +enthusiasm of one who seeks to serve and feels wholly competent. + +But he doubted both his fitness and his inclination now. He said to +himself that when a man loses heart in his work he should abandon that +work. He tried to muster up a resentful feeling against Sophie Carr for +the emotional havoc she had wrought, and the best he could do was a +despairing pang of loneliness. He wanted her. Above all he wanted her. +And she was a rank infidel--a crass materialist--an intellectual Circe. +Why, in the name of God, he asked himself passionately, must _he_ lose +his heart so fully to a woman with whom he could have nothing more in +common save the common factor that she was a woman and he a man. + +Mr. Thompson had not as yet discovered what a highly important factor +that last was. + +He managed to get a partial insight into that some three days later, and +the vision was vouchsafed him in a simple and natural manner, although +to him at the time it seemed the most wonderful and unaccountable thing +in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +UNIVERSAL ATTRIBUTES + + +Afterward Thompson could never quite determine what prompted him to +follow Sophie Carr when he saw her go down toward the creek bank. He was +on his way to Carr's house, driven thither by pure pressure of +loneliness, born of three days' solitary communion within the limits of +his own shack. He wanted to hear a human voice again. And it was a +vagrant, unaccountable impulse that sent him after Sophie instead of +directing him straight to Carr's living room, where her father would +probably be sitting, pipe in mouth, book in hand. + +He hurried with long strides after Sophie. She dipped below the sloping +bank before he came up, and when he came noiselessly down to the grassy +bank she stood leaning against a tree, gazing at the sluggish flow of +Lone Moose. + +He had seen her in moods that varied from feminine pettishness to the +teasingly mischievous. But he had never seen her in quite the same pitch +of spirits that caught his attention as soon as he reached her side. + +There was something bubbling within her, some repressed excitement that +kindled a glow in her gray eyes, kept a curiously happy smile playing +about her lips. + +And that magnetic something that drew the heart out of Thompson, +afflicting him with a maddening surge of impulses, had never functioned +so strongly. + +"What is it?" he asked abruptly. "You seem--you look--" + +He stopped short. It was not what he meant to say. He tried to avoid the +intimately personal when he was with her. He knew the danger of those +sweet familiarities--to himself. But he had blurted out the question +before he was aware. He was standing so close to her that a little +whirling breeze blew a strand of her yellow hair across his face. That +tenuous contact made him quiver, gave him a queer intoxicating thrill. + +"Does it show so plainly as that?" she smiled. "It's a secret. A really +wonderful secret. I'm just bursting to talk about it, but I mustn't. +Talking might break the spell. Do you--along with your other naive +beliefs--believe in spells, Mr. Thompson?" + +"Yes," he answered simply. "In yours." + +Her eyes danced. She laughed softly, deep in her throat, like a meadow +lark in spring. + +"That's the first time I ever knew you to indulge in irony," she said. + +"It isn't irony," he answered moodily. "It's the honest truth." + +"Poor man," she said gaily. "I'd be flattered to death to think a simple +backwoods maiden could make such a profound impression on a young man +from the city--but it isn't so." + +She turned her head sidewise, like a saucy bird, regarding him with mock +gravity, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. Mr. Thompson had a long arm +and he stood close to her, tantalizingly close. She was smiling. Her +lips parted redly over white, even teeth, and as Thompson bent that +moody somber gaze on her, her breath seemed to come suddenly a little +faster, making her round breast flutter--and a faint tinge of pink stole +up to color the soft whiteness of her neck, up into the smooth round of +her cheeks. + +Thompson's arm closed about her, his lips grazed her cheek as she +twisted her head to evade him. That minor show of resistance stirred all +the primitive instincts that active or dormant lurk in every strong man. +He twisted her head roughly, and as naturally as water flows down hill +their lips met. He felt the girl's body nestle with a little tremor +closer to his, felt with an odd exaltation the quick hammer of her heart +against his breast. He held her tight, and her face slowly drew away +from him, and turned shyly against his shoulder. + +"It is so, and you know it's so," he whispered hoarsely. "Sophie, I +wish--" + +She freed herself from his embrace with a sudden twist. Her breath went +out in a little gasp. She looked over her shoulder once, and up at +Thompson, and a wave of red swept up over her fresh young face and dyed +it to the roots of her sunny hair. For a brief instant her hand lingered +in Thompson's, bestowing a quick and tender pressure. Then she was gone +up the bank with a bound like a startled deer. + +Thompson turned. Ten yards out in the stream Tommy Ashe's red canoe +drifted, and Tommy sat in the stern, his wet paddle poised as if he had +halted it midway of a stroke, his body bent forward, tense as that of a +beast crouched to spring. + +The bow of the canoe grounded. Ashe laid down his paddle, stepped +forward and ashore, hauling the craft's nose high with one hand. His +gaze never left Thompson's face. He came slowly up, his round, boyish +countenance white and hard and ugly, his eyes smoldering. Thompson felt +his own face hardening into the same ugly lines. He felt himself +threatened. Without being fully aware of his act he had dropped into a +belligerent pose, head and shoulders thrust forward, one foot drawn +back, hands clenched. This was purely instinctive. That Tommy Ashe had +seen him kiss Sophie Carr and was advancing upon him in jealous fury did +not occur to Thompson at all. + +"You beggar," Ashe gritted, "is it part of your system of saving souls +to kiss a girl as if--" + +The quality of his tone would have stung a less sensitive man. With +Sophie Carr's lip-pressure fresh and warm upon his own Thompson was in +that exalted mood wherein a man is like an open powder keg. And Tommy +Ashe had supplied the spark. A most unchristian flash of anger shot +through him. His reply was an earnest, if ill-directed blow. This Tommy +dodged by the simplest expedient of twisting his head sidewise without +moving his body, and launched at the same time a return jab which neatly +smacked against Thompson's jaw. + +Tommy Ashe was wonderfully quick on his feet and a powerful man to boot. +Moreover he had a certain dexterity with his fists. He was in deadly +earnest, as a man is when matters of sex lead him to a personal clash. +But he found pitted against him a man equally powerful, a man whose +extra reach and weight offset the advantage in skill, a man who gave and +took blows with silent ferocity. + +Thompson, in all his carefully ordered life, had never fought. He fought +now as if his life depended upon it. Each blow he gave and took brought +to the surface a furious determination. He was not conscious of real +pain, although he knew that his lips were cut and bleeding, that his +cheeks were bruised and cut where Tommy Ashe's hard-knuckled fists +landed with impressive force, that his heart pounded sickeningly against +his ribs, and that every breath was a rasping gasp. Nor was he conscious +of pity when he saw that Tommy Ashe was in no better case. It seemed fit +and proper that they should struggle like that. There was a strange sort +of pleasure in it. It seemed natural, as natural an act as he had ever +performed. The shock of his clenched fist driven with all his force +against the other man's body thrilled him, gave him a curious +satisfaction. And that satisfaction took on a keener edge when Ashe +clinched and they fell to the earth a struggling, squirming heap--for +Thompson felt a tremendous power in his arms, in those arms covered with +flat elastic bands of muscle hardened by weeks of axe-slinging, of +heaving on heavy logs. He wrapped his arms about Ashe and tried to crush +him. + +One trial of that fierce grip enlightened Tommy Ashe. He broke loose +from Thompson by a trick known to every man who has ever wrestled, and +clawed away to his feet. Thereafter he kept clear of grips. Quick, with +some skill at boxing, he could get home two blows to Thompson's one. But +he could not down his man. Nor could Thompson. They struck and parried, +circling and dodging, till their lungs were on fire, and neither had +strength enough left to strike a telling blow. + +The rage had gone out of them by then. It had become a dogged struggle +for mastery. And failing that, there came a moment when they staggered +apart and stood glaring at each other, choking for breath. As they +stood, Tommy Ashe spoke first. + +"You're a tough bird--for a parson." + +He gasped the words. + +With the dying out of that senseless fury a peculiar feeling of elation +came to Thompson, as if he had proved himself upon a doubtful matter. He +was ready to go on. But why? That question urged itself upon him. He +recalled that he had struck the first blow. + +"I think--I started this, didn't I?" he said. "I'm willing to finish it, +if you want to--but isn't it--isn't it rather foolish?" + +"No end foolish. Don't think we'd ever finish," Ashe said with a gleam +of his old humor. "Let's call it a draw. I feel a bit ashamed of myself +by now." + +Somewhere, sometime, Mr. Thompson had heard that men who fought shook +hands when the struggle was ended--a little ceremony that served to +restore the _status quo_. He had not the least rancor against Tommy +Ashe. It had all seeped away in the blind fury of that clash. He thrust +out a hand upon which the knuckles were cut and bloody. And the man upon +whose countenance he had bruised those knuckles took it with a wry +self-conscious smile. + +Then they drew a little apart and squatted on the bank of the creek to +lave their battered faces in the cold water. + +For a period of possibly five minutes they sat dabbling water-soaked +handkerchiefs upon their faces. The blood ceased to ooze from Thompson's +nostrils. Tommy Ashe looked over at his late antagonist and remarked +casually. + +"We're a pair of capital idiots, eh, Thompson?" + +Mr. Thompson tried to smile. But his countenance was swelling rapidly +and was in no condition for smiling. He mustered up a grimace, nodding +assent. + +"I hope Sophie didn't see us making such asses of ourselves," Tommy +continued ruefully. + +"I hardly think she would," Thompson returned. "It couldn't have been +the sort of spectacle a woman would care to watch." + +"You never can tell about a woman," Ashe observed thoughtfully. "Nor," +he added, "a man. I could never have imagined myself going off +half-cocked like that. I suppose the primitive brute in us is never +really far from the surface. Especially in this country. There's +something," he looked up at the surrounding depths of forest, down along +the dusky channel of Lone Moose, curving away among the spruce, "there's +something about this infernal solitude that brings out the savage. I've +noticed it in little things. We're loosed, in a way, from all restraint, +except what we put upon ourselves. Funny world, eh? You couldn't +imagine two chaps like us mauling each other like a pair of bruisers in +Mrs. Grundy's drawing-room, could you? Over a girl--oh, well, it'll be +all the same a hundred years from now." + +There was nothing apologetic in either Tommy's tone or words. Thompson +understood. Tommy Ashe was thinking out loud, that was all. And +presently, after another silent interval, he stood up. + +"I think I'll be getting back to my own diggings," he said. "So long, +old man." + +He nodded, pushed off his canoe and stepped aboard. In a minute he was +gone around the bend, driving the red canoe with slow, deliberate +strokes. + +Mr. Thompson gave over musing upon Tommy Ashe and Tommy's words and +attitude, and began to take stock of himself. It seemed to him that +Tommy Ashe felt ashamed of himself, whereas by all the precepts of his +earlier life and the code he had assimilated during that formative +period he, Wesley Thompson, was the one who should suffer a sense of +shame. And he felt no shame. On the contrary he experienced nothing more +than an astonishing feeling of exhilaration. Why, he could not +determine. It was un-Christian, undignified, brutal, to give and take +blows, to feel that vicious determination to smash another man with his +bare fists, to know the unholy joy of getting a blow home with all the +weight of his body behind it. Mr. Thompson was a trifle dazed, a trifle +uncertain. His face was puffed out of its natural contours, and very +tender in spots to touch. He knew that he must be a sight. There was a +grievous stiffness creeping over his arms and shoulders, an ache in his +ribs, as his heated body began to cool. But he was not sorry for +anything. He experienced no regrets. Only a heady feeling that for once +in his life he had met an emergency and had been equal to the demand. + +Perhaps the sweet memory of Sophie Carr's warm lips on his had something +to do with this. + +At any rate he rose after a little and followed the creek bank to a +point well down stream, whence he crossed through the fringe of timber +to his cabin. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN + + +Between the queer mixture of emotions which beset him and the discomfort +of his bruised face and over-strained body Thompson turned and twisted, +and sleep withheld its restful oblivion until far in the night. As a +consequence he slept late. Dawn had grown old before he wakened. + +When he opened his cabin door he was confronted by the dourest aspect of +the north that he had yet seen. The sky was banked full of slate-gray +clouds scudding low before a northeast wind that droned its melancholy +song in the swaying spruce tops, a song older than the sorrows of men, +the essence of all things forlorn in its minor cadences. A gray, clammy +day, tinged with the chill breath of coming snow. Thompson missed the +sun that had cheered and warmed those hushed solitudes. Just to look at +that dull sky and to hear the wind that was fast stripping the last sere +leaves from willow and maple and birch, and to feel that indefinable +touch of harshness, the first frigid fingerings of the frost-gods in the +air, gave him a swift touch of depression. He shivered a little. Turning +to his wood box he hastened to build a fire in the stove. + +He stoked that rusty firebox until by the time he had cooked and eaten +breakfast it was glowing red. When he sat with his feet cocked up on the +stove front and gave himself up to the sober business of thought, it +seemed to him that he was passing a portentous milestone. To his +unsophisticated mind the simple fact that Sophie Carr had permitted him +to kiss her, that for a moment her head with its fluffy aureole of +yellow hair had rested willingly upon his shoulder, created a bond +between them, an understanding, a tentative promise, a cleaving together +that could have but one conclusion. He found himself reflecting upon +that--to him--most natural conclusion with a peculiar mixture of +gladness and doubt. For even in his exaltation he could not visualize +Sophie Carr as an ideal minister's helpmate. He simply could not. He +could hear too plainly the scorn of her tone as she spoke of +"parasitical parsons", of "unthinking acceptance of priestly myths", of +the Church, his Church, as "an organization essentially materialistic in +its aims and activities", and many more such phrases which were new and +startling to Thompson, even if they had been current among radical +thinkers long enough to become incorporated in a great deal that has +been written upon philosophy and theology. + +Sophie didn't believe in his God, nor his work; he stopped short of +asking if he himself any longer had full and implicit belief in these +things, or if he had simply accepted them without question as he had +accepted so many other things in his brief career. But she believed in +_him_ and cared for him. He took that for granted too. And love covers +a multitude of sins. He had often had occasion to discourse upon various +sorts of love--fatherly love and brotherly love and maternal affection +and so on. But this flare of passionate tenderness focussing upon one +slender bit of a girl was something he could not quite fathom. He would +have contradicted with swift anger any suggestion that perhaps it was +merely wise old Nature's ancient method efficiently at work for an +appointed end. He had been so thoroughly grounded in the convention of +decrying physical impulses, of putting everything upon a pure and +spiritual plane, that in this first emotional crisis of his life he +could no more help dodging first principles than a spaniel pup can help +swimming when he is first tossed into deep water. + +Still--he was not a fool. He knew that his concern was not for Sophie +Carr's immortal soul, nor for the beauty and sweetness of her spirit, +when he was near her, when he touched her hand, nor even in that supreme +moment when he crushed her close to his unquiet heart and pressed that +hot kiss on her lips. It was the sheer flesh and blood womanliness of +her that made his heart beat faster, the sweet curve of her lips, the +willowy grace of her body, the odd little gestures of her hands, the +melody of her voice and the gray pools of her eyes, eyes full of queer +gleams and curious twinkles--all these things were indescribably +beautiful to him. He loved her--just the girl herself. He wanted her, +craved her presence; not the pleasant memory of her, but the forthright +physical nearness of her he desired with an intensity that was like a +fever. + +Just the excitement of feeling--as according to his lights he had a +right to feel--that they stood pledged, made it hard for him to get down +to fundamentals and consider rationally the question of marriage, of +their future, of how his appointed work could be made to dovetail with +the union of two such diverse personalities as himself and Sophie Carr. + +A hodge podge of this sort was turning over in his mind as he sat there, +now and then absently feeling the dusky puffiness under one eye and the +tender spot on the bridge of his nose where Tommy Ashe's hard knuckles +had peeled away the skin. He still had a most un-Christian satisfaction +in the belief that he had given as good as he had got. He was not +ashamed of having fought. He would fight again, any time, anywhere, for +Sophie Carr. He did not ask himself whether the combative instinct once +aroused might not function for lesser cause. + +He came out of this reverie at the faint rustle of footsteps beyond his +door--which was open because of the hot fire he had built. + +He did not suspect that the source of those footsteps might be Sophie +Carr until she stood unmistakably framed in the doorway. He rose to his +feet with a glad cry of welcome, albeit haltingly articulated. He was +suddenly reluctant to face her with the marks of conflict upon his face. + +"May I come in?" she asked coolly--and suited her action to the request +before he made reply. + +She sat down on a box just within the door and looked soberly at him, +scanning his face. Her hands lay quietly in her lap and she did not +seem to see Thompson's involuntarily extended arms. There was about her +none of the glowing witchery of yesterday. She lifted to him a face +thoughtful, even a little sad. And Thompson's hands fell, his heart +keeping them company. It was as if the somberness of those wind-swept +woods had crept into his cabin. It stilled the rush of words that +quivered on his lips. Sophie, indeed, found utterance first. + +"I'm sorry that you and Tommy fought," she said constrainedly. "I didn't +know until this morning. It was cowardly of me to run away. But it was +foolish to fight. It didn't occur to me that you two would. I suppose +you wonder what brought me here. I was worried for fear you had been +hurt. I saw Tommy, but he wouldn't talk." + +"I daresay I'm not a pretty object to look at," Thompson admitted. "But +I'm really not much the worse." + +"No. I can see that," she said. "Tommy is very quick and very strong--I +was a little afraid." + +The contrition, the hint of pity in her voice stirred up the queer +personal pride he had lately acquired. + +"I don't suppose Ashe has any monopoly of strength and quickness," he +remarked. "That--but there, I don't want to talk about that." + +He came over close beside her and looked down with all his troubled +heart in his clear blue eyes--so that the girl turned her gaze away and +her fingers wove nervously together. + +"My dear," the unaccustomed phrase broke abruptly, with a fierce +tenderness, from his lips. "I love you--which I think you know without +my saying so. I want you. Will you marry me? I--" + +Sophie warded off the impetuous outstretching of his arms and sprang to +her feet, facing him with all the delicate color gone out of her cheeks, +a sudden heave to her breast. She shook her head. "No," she said. "I +won't penalize myself to that extent--nor you. I won't bind myself by +any such promise. I won't even admit that I might." + +He caught her by the shoulders and shook her roughly. + +"Yesterday," he said hoarsely, "you let me kiss you--your lips burned +me--you rested your head against me as if it belonged there. What sort +of a woman are you? Sophie! Sophie!" + +"I know," she returned. "But yesterday was yesterday. This is another +day. Yesterday--oh, you wouldn't understand if I told you. Yesterday I +was bursting with happiness, like a bird in the spring. I like you, big +man with the freckled face. You came down here and stood beside me and +smiled at me. And--and that's all--a minute's madness. We can't marry on +_that_. I can't. I _won't_." + +His fingers tightened on the rounded arms. He shook her again with a +restrained savagery. If he hurt her she did not flinch, nor did her gray +eyes, cloudy now and wistful, waver before the passionate fire in his. + +"Sophie," he went on, "you don't know what this means to me. Don't you +care a little?" + +"Yes," she answered slowly. "Perhaps more than a little. I'm made that +way, I suppose. It isn't hard for me to love. But one doesn't--" + +"Then why," he demanded, "why refuse to give me a hope? Why, if you care +in the least, is there no chance for me? It isn't just a sudden fancy. +I've been feeling it grow and struggling to repress it, ever since I +first saw you. You say you care--yet you won't even think of marrying +me. I can't understand that at all. Why?" + +"Do you want to know? Can't you see good grounds why we two, of all +people, should _not_ marry?" she asked evenly. "Can you see anything to +make it desirable except a--a welling up of natural passion? Don't hold +my arms so tight. You hurt." + +He released his unthinking grip and stepped back a pace, his expression +one of hurt bewilderment at the paradox of Sophie's admission and +refusal. + +"We're at opposite poles in everything," she went on. "I don't believe +in the things you believe in. I don't see life with your vision at all. +I never shall. We'd be in a continual clash. I like you but I couldn't +possibly live with you--you couldn't live with me. I rebel at the future +I can see for us. Apart from yourself, the things you'd want to share +with me I despise. If I had to live in an atmosphere of sermons and +shams, of ministerial sanctimoniousness and material striving for a +bigger church and a bigger salary, I'd suffocate--I'd hate myself--and +in the end I'd hate you too." + +A little note of scorn crept into her voice, and she stopped. When she +spoke again her tone had changed, deepened into uncertainty, freighted +with wistfulness. + +"I'm not good--not in your sense of the word," she said. "I don't even +want to be. It would take all the joy out of living. I want to sing and +dance and be vibrantly alive. I want to see far countries and big +cities, to go about among people whose outlook isn't bounded by a forest +and a lake shore, nor by the things you set store by. And I'll be a +discontented pendulum until I do. + +"Why," she burst out passionately, "I'd be the biggest little fool on +earth to marry you just because--just because I like you, because you +kissed me and for a minute made me feel that life could be bounded by +you and kisses. You're only the second possible man I've ever seen. You +and Tommy Ashe. And before you came I could easily have persuaded myself +that I loved Tommy." + +"Now you think perhaps you love me, but that you might perhaps care in +the same way for the next attractive man who comes along? Is that it?" +Thompson asked with a touch of bitterness. + +"I might _think_ so--how can one tell?" she sighed. "But I'm very sure +my impulses will never plunge me into anything headlong, as you would +have me plunge. Don't you see," she made an impatient gesture, "we're +just like a couple of fledgling birds trying our wings. And you want to +proceed on the assumption that we're equal to anything, sure of +everything. I _know_ I'm not. You--" + +She made again that quick, expressive gesture with her hands. Something +about it made Thompson suddenly feel hopeless and forlorn, the airy +castles reared overnight out of the stuff of dreams a tumbled heap +about him. He sat down on one of the rude chairs, and turned his face to +look out the window, a lump slowly gathering in his throat. + +"All right," he said. "Good-by." + +If his tone was harsh and curt he could not help that. It was all he +could say and the only possible fashion of saying it. He wanted to cry +aloud his pain, the yearning ache that filled him, and he could not, +would not--no more than he would have whined under pure physical hurt. +But when he heard the faint rustle of her cotton dress and her step +outside he put his face on his hands and took his breath with a +shuddering sigh. + +At that, he was mistaken. Sophie had not gone. There was the quick, +light pad of her feet on the floor, her soft warm hands closed suddenly +about his neck, and he looked up into eyes bright and wet. Her face +dropped to a level with his own. + +"I'm so sorry, big man," she whispered, in a small, choked voice. "It +hurts me too." + +He felt the warm moist touch of her lips on his cheek, the faint +exhalation of her breath, and while his arms reached swiftly, +instinctively to grasp and hold her close, she was gone. And this time +she did not come back. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A MAN'S JOB FOR A MINISTER + + +Having thus received a sad jolt through the medium of his affections, +Mr. Thompson, like countless numbers of human beings before him, set +about gathering himself together. He did a tremendous lot of thinking +about things in general, about himself and Sophie Carr in particular. +Moping in that isolated cabin his mind took on a sort of abnormal +activity. He could not even stop thinking when he wanted to stop. He +would lie awake in the silent darkness long after he should have been +asleep, going over his narrow and uneventful existence, the unwelcome +and anguished present, the future that was nothing but a series of blank +pages which he had yet to turn in God only knew what bitterness and +sorrow. That was the way he gloomily put it to himself. He had still to +learn what an adaptable, resilient organism man is. This, his first +tentative brush with life, with the realities of pain and passion, had +left him exceedingly cast down, more than a little inclined to +pessimism. + +He experienced gusts of unreasoning anger at Sophie Carr, forgetting, as +a man wounded in his egotism and disappointed in his first passionate +yearning for a mate is likely to forget, that he had brought it on +himself, that Sophie had not encouraged him, nor lured him to his +undoing, nor given him aught to nourish the illusion that she was his +for the asking. + +Sometimes he would have a vivid flash of jealousy when he thought about +her and Tommy Ashe, when he recalled her admissions. And he would soften +from that mood, twisting his lips wryly, when he remembered the pitying +tenderness of her good-by. + +He could not in the least understand the girl nor her motives, any more +than he could understand the transformation that he felt vaguely was +taking place in himself. She was too wise for her years and her +experience. There was a stinging truth in some of the things she said. +And it was his fault, not hers, that they were unpalatable truths. What +did a man like himself have to offer a girl like her? Nothing. She had +his measure in everything but sheer brute strength, most of all in the +stoutness of her resolution. For Mr. Thompson, pondering soberly, +realized that if he gave free play to the feelings Sophie Carr had +stirred up in him, there was no folly he was not capable of committing. +He, whose official creed it was to expound self-denial, would have +followed his impulses blindly. He would have married out of hand. + +And after that, what? + +He could not see clearly, when he tried to see. He was no longer filled +with the sublime faith that a beneficent Providence kept watch and ward +over him, and all men. He was in fact now almost of the opinion that +both sparrows and preachers might fall and the Great Intelligence +remain unperturbed. It seemed necessary that a man should do more than +have faith. He must imperatively make some conscious, intelligent effort +on his own behalf. He was especially of this opinion since the Board of +Home Missions had overlooked the matter of forwarding his quarterly +salary on time. The faith that moveth mountains was powerless to conjure +flour and sugar and tea out of those dusky woods and silent +waterways--at least not without a canoe and labor and a certain +requisite medium of exchange. + +No, he did not blame Sophie Carr for refusing to allow her judgment to +be fogged with sentiment. He only marvelled that she could do it where +he had failed. He could not blame her--not if his speech and activities +since he came to Lone Moose were the measure of his possible +achievement. + +He was taking grim, unsparing stock of himself, of what he had, of what +he had accomplished altogether, by this time. It was not much. It was +not even promising. A theological education, which, compared to the sort +of culture Sam Carr and his daughter had managed to acquire, seemed +rather inadequate and one-sided. They knew more about the principles he +was supposed to teach than he knew himself. And their knowledge extended +to fields where he could not follow. When he compared himself with Tommy +Ashe--well, Tommy was an Oxford man, and although Oxford had not +indelibly stamped him, still it had left its mark. + +These people had covered all his ground--and they had gone exploring +further in fields of general knowledge while he sat gazing smugly at +his own reflection in a theological mirror. Upon that score certainly +the count was badly against him. + +As for his worldly possessions, when Mr. Thompson sardonically +considered them as a means of supporting a wife he was forced to admit +that the provision would be intolerably meager. His prospects included a +salary that barely sufficed for one. It was apparent, he concluded, that +the Board of Home Missions, like the Army and Navy, calculated its rank +and file to remain in single blessedness and subsist frugally to boot. + +As to his late accomplishments in the field of labor, Mr. Thompson +looked out of his cabin door to where he could see dimly through the +trees the uncompleted bulk of his church--and he set down a mental +cipher against that account. It was waste effort. He felt in his heart +that he would never finish it. What was the use? + +He tried to whip up the old sense of duty to his calling, to the Church, +to the great good which he had been taught he should accomplish. And he +could muster up nothing but an irritating sense of hollow wordiness in +many of his former dictums and utterances, a vast futility of effort. + +Whereupon he at once found himself face to face with a fresh problem, in +which the question of squaring his material needs and queer half-formed +desires with his actions loomed paramount. In other words Mr. Thompson +began, in a fashion scarcely apprehended, upon the painful process of +formulating a philosophy of life that would apply to life as it was +forcing itself upon his consciousness--not as he had hitherto conceived +life to be. + +But he was unable to pin himself down to any definite plan. He could not +evolve a clear idea of what to do, nor even of what he wanted to do. And +in the interim he did little save sit about his cabin, deep in +introspection, chop firewood as needed and cook his plain fare--that was +gradually growing plainer, more restricted. Sometimes he varied this by +long solitary tramps through the woods along the brushy bank of Lone +Moose Creek. + +This hermit existence he kept up for over a fortnight. He had fought +with Tommy Ashe and he felt diffident about inflicting his company on +Tommy, considering the _casus belli_. Nor could he bring himself to a +casual dropping in on Sam Carr. He shrank from meeting Sophie, from +hearing the sound of her voice, from feeling the tumult of desire her +nearness always stirred up in him. And there was nowhere else to go, no +one with whom he could talk. He could not hold converse with the Crees. +The Lachlan family relapsed into painful stiffness when he entered their +house. There was no common ground between him and them. + +He was really marking time until the next mail should arrive at Fort +Pachugan. The days were growing shorter, the nights edged with sharp +frosts. There came a flurry of snow that lay a day and faded slowly in +the eye of the weakening sun. + +Mr. Thompson, watching his daily diminishing food supply with sedulous +consideration, knew that the winter was drawing near, a season merciless +in its rigor. He knew that one of these days the northerly wind would +bring down a storm which would blanket the land with snow that only the +sun of the next May would banish. He was ill-prepared to face such an +iron-jawed season. + +If he stayed there it would just about take his quarterly salary to +supply him with plain food and the heavier clothing he needed. But--he +drew a long breath and asked himself one day why he should stay there. +Why should he? He could not forbear a wry grimace when he tried to see +himself carrying out his appointed task faithfully to the end--preaching +vainly to uncomprehending ears month after month, year after year, +stagnating mentally and suffocating spiritually in those silent forests +where God and godly living was not a factor at all; where food, +clothing, and shelter loomed bigger than anything else, because until +these primary needs were satisfied a man could not rise above the status +of a hungry animal. + +Yet he shrank from giving up the ministry. He had been bred to it, his +destiny sedulously shaped toward that end by the maiden aunts and the +theological schools. It was, in effect, his trade. He could scarcely +look equably upon a future apart from prayer meetings, from Bible +classes, from carefully thought out and eloquently delivered sermons. He +felt like a renegade when he considered quitting that chosen field. But +he felt also that it was a field in which he had no business now. + +He was still in this uncertain frame of mind a few days later when he +borrowed a canoe from Lachlan and set out for the Fort. He had kept +away from Carr's for nearly five weeks. Neither Sophie nor her father +had come to his cabin again. Once or twice he had hailed Carr from a +distance. In the height of his loneliness he had traversed the half-mile +to Tommy Ashe's shack up Lone Moose, only to find it deserted. He +learned later that Lachlan's oldest son and Ashe had gone partners to +run a line of traps away to the north of the village. It occurred to +Thompson that he might do the same--if--well, he would see about that +when he got home from Pachugan. + +The birch bark Lachlan let him have occasioned him many a rare tussle +before he finally beached it at the Fort. The fall winds were roughening +the lake. It was his first single-handed essay with the paddle. But he +derived a certain satisfaction from winning alone against wind and +water, and also gained food for thought in the odd circumstance of his +growing tendency to get a glow out of purely physical achievements. It +did not irk nor worry him now to sweat and strain for hours on end. +Instead, he found in that continued, concentrated muscular effort a +happy release from troublesome reflection. + +His cheque was waiting. As he fingered the green slip whose face value +was one hundred and twenty dollars, one fourth of his yearly stipend, he +felt relieved, and at the same time oddly reluctant. Not until late in +the evening did he get at the root of that reluctance. MacLeod had +hospitably insisted on putting him up. They sat in the factor's living +room before a great roaring fireplace. Their talk had lapsed into +silence. MacLeod leaned back in his chair, pipe in hand, frowning +abstractedly. + +"Man," he said at length, his bearded face wrinkled with a smile, "I +wish ye were no a preacher wi' labors i' the vineyard of the Lord tae +occupy yer time. I'd have ye do a job for me." + +"A job?" Thompson came out of his preoccupation. + +"Aye," MacLeod grunted. "A job. A reg'lar man's job. There'd be a +reasonable compensation in't. It's a pity," he continued dryly, "that a +parson has a mind sae far above purely mateerial conseederation." + +"It may surprise you," Mr. Thompson returned almost as dryly, "to know +that I have--to a certain extent--modified my views upon what you term +material considerations. They are, I have found, more important than I +realized." + +The factor took his pipe out of his mouth and regarded Thompson with +frank curiosity. + +"Well," he remarked finally. "Yer a young man. It's no surprisin'." He +paused a second. + +"Would it interest ye--would ye consider givin' a month or two of yer +time to a legitimate enterprise if it was made worth yer while?" he +asked bluntly. + +"Yes," Thompson answered with equal directness. "If I knew what it +was--if it's something I can do." + +"I'm just marking time at Lone Moose," he went on after a pause. There +was a note of discouragement in his voice. "I'm--well, completely +superfluous there. I'd be tempted--" + +He did not go farther. Nor did MacLeod inquire into the nature of the +suggested temptation. He merely nodded understandingly at the first +part of Thompson's reply. + +"Ye could do it fine, I think," he said thoughtfully, "wi' the use of +yer head an' the bit coachin' and help I'd provide. It's like this. +Pachugan's no so good a deestrict as it used tae be. The fur trade's +slowin' down, an' the Company's no so keen as it was in the old days +when it was lord o' the North. I mind when a factor was a power--but +that time's past. The Company's got ither fish tae fry. Consequently +there's times when we're i' the pickle of them that had tae make bricks +wi'oot straw. I mean there's times when they dinna gie us the support +needful to make the best of what trade there is. Difficulties of +transportation for one thing, an' a dyin' interest in a decayin' branch +of Company business. Forbye a' that they expect results, just the same. + +"Now, I'm short of three verra necessary things, flour, tea, and steel +traps. I canna get them frae Edmonton. They didna fully honor my fall +requisitions, an' it's too late i' the season now. Yet they'll ask why I +dinna get the skins next spring, ye understand. If the Indians dinna get +fully supplied here, they'll go elsewhere; they can do that since +there's a French firm strung a line o' posts to compete i' the region, +ye see. + +"Now I havena got the goods I need an' I canna get them frae Company +sources. But there's a free trader set himsel' up tae the north o' here +last season. The North's no a monopoly for the Company these days, ye +ken. They canna run a free trader out i' the old high-handed fashion. +But there's a bit of the old spirit left--an' this laddie's met wi' +difficulties, in a way o' speakin'. He's discouraged tae the point where +he'll sell cheap; an' he's a fair stock o' the verra goods I want. I'd +tak' over his stock to-morrow--but he's ninety-odd miles away. I canna +leave here i' the height o' the outfittin' season. I ha' naebody I can +leave in charge. + +"The job for ye wad be tae go up there, inventory his stock, take it +over, an' stay there tae distribute it tae such folk as I'd send tae be +supplied in that section. Wi' that completed, transfer the tag-ends doon +here. I'd furnish ye a breed tae guide ye there an' interpret for ye, +an' tae pass on the quality o' such furs as might offer. He'd grade +them, an' ye'd purchase accordin'. Do ye see? It's no a job I can put on +anny half-breed. There's none here can write and figure." + +"As it sounds," Thompson replied, "I daresay I could manage. You said it +would be worth my while. What do I gather from that?" + +"Ye'd gather two dollars a day an' everything supplied," MacLeod +returned dryly. "Will ye tak' it on?" + +Thompson stared into the fire for a minute. Then he looked up at the +Factor of Fort Pachugan. + +"I'm your man," he said briefly. + +"Good," MacLeod grunted. "An' when ye go back tae the preachin' ye'll +find the experience has done ye no harm. Now, we'll go over the +seetuation in detail to-morrow, an' the next day ye'll start north, wi' +Joe Lamont. The freeze-up's due, an' it's quicker an' easier travelin' +by canoe than wi' dogs." + +They talked desultorily for half an hour, until MacLeod, growing drowsy +before the big fire, yawned and went off to bed, after pointing out a +room for his guest and employee-to-be. + +Thompson shut the door of his bedroom and sat down on a stool. He was +warm, comfortable, well-fed. But he was not happy, unless the look of +him belied his real feelings. He raised his eyes and stared curiously at +his reflection in a small mirror on the wall. The scars of Tommy Ashe's +fists had long since faded. His skin was a ruddy, healthy hue, the +freckles across the bridge of his nose almost wholly absorbed in a coat +of tan. But the change that marked him most was a change of expression. +His eyes had lost the old, mild look. They were hard and alert, blue +mirrors of an unquiet spirit. There was a different set to his lips. + +"I don't look like a minister," he muttered. "I look like a man who has +been drunk. I feel like that. There must be a devil in me." + +He had brought with him from Lone Moose a small bag. Out of this he now +took paper, envelopes, a fountain pen, changed his seat to the edge of +the bed, and using the stool for a desk began to write. When he had +covered two sheets he folded them over the green slip he had that day +received, and slid the whole into an envelope which he addressed: + + Mr. A.H. Markham, + Sec. M.E. Board of Home Missions, + 412 Echo St., + Toronto, Ont. + +He laid the letter on the bed and regarded it with an expression in +which regret and relief were equally mingled. + +"They'll say--they'll think," he muttered disconnectedly. + +He got up, paced across the small room, swung about to look at the +letter again. + +"I've got to do it," he said aloud defiantly. "It's the only thing I can +do. Burn all my bridges behind me. If I can't honestly be a minister, I +can at least be a man." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A FORTUNE AND A FLITTING + + +Christmas had come and gone before Thompson finished his job at +Porcupine Lake, some ninety-odd miles, as the crow flies, north of Fort +Pachugan. The Porcupine was a marshy stretch of water, the home of +muskrat and beaver, a paradise for waterfowl when the heavy hand of +winter was lifted, a sheet of ice now, a white oval in the dusky green +of the forest. Here the free trader had built a fair-sized structure of +logs with goods piled in the front and the rearward end given over to a +stove, a table, and two bunks. In this place Thompson and Joe Lamont +plied their traffic. MacLeod sent them Indian and half-breed trappers +bearing orders for so much flour, so much tea, so many traps, so much +powder and ball and percussion caps for their nigh obsolete guns. They +took their "debt" and departed into the wilderness, to repay in the +spring with furs. + +So, by degrees, the free-trader's stock approached depletion, until +there remained no more than two good dog teams could haul. With that on +sleds, and a few bundles of furs traded in by trappers whose lines +radiated from the Porcupine, Thompson and Joe Lamont came back to Fort +Pachugan. + +The factor seemed well pleased with the undertaking. He checked up the +goods and opined that the deal would show a rare profit for the Company. + +"Ye have a hundred an' twenty-six dollars due, over an' above a charge +or two against ye," he said to Thompson when they went over the +accounts. "How will ye have it? In cash? If ye purpose to winter at Lone +Moose a credit maybe'll serve as well. Or, if ye go out, ye can have a +cheque on the Company at Edmonton." + +"Give me the hundred in cash," Thompson decided. "I'll take the twenty +odd in grub. I'm going to Lone Moose, but I don't know how long I'll +stay there. There's some stuff of mine there that I want to get. After +that--I'm a bit undecided." + +In those long nights at the Porcupine he had done a good deal of +pondering over his next move. He had not yet come to a fixed decision. +In a general way he knew that he was going out into the world from +whence he had come, with an altogether different point of view, to work +out his future along altogether different lines. But he had not made up +his mind to do this at once. He was clearly conscious of one imperative +craving. That was for a sight of Sophie Carr and a chance to talk to her +again. His heart quickened when he thought of their parting. He knew she +was anything but indifferent. He was not an egotist, but he knew she +harbored a feeling akin to his own, and he built hopes on that, despite +her blunt refusal, the logical reasons she had set forth. He hoped +again. He saw himself in the way of becoming competent--as the North, +which is a keen judge, appraises competence. He had chucked some of his +illusions about relative values. He conceived that in time he might +approximate to Sophie Carr's idea of a man. + +He wanted to see her, to talk with her, to make her define her attitude +a little more clearly. Looking back with his mind a great deal less +confused by emotion, he wondered why he had been so dumb, why he had not +managed to convey to her that the things she foresaw as denying them +happiness or even toleration for each other were not a final state in +him, that his ideas and habits and pursuits were in a state of flux that +might lead him anywhere. She had thrown cold water on the flame of his +passion. But he remembered with a glow of happiness that she had kissed +him. + +He pondered deeply upon this, wondering much at the singular attraction +this girl held for him, the mystery of that strange quality that drew +him so. He lacked knowledge of the way and power of women. It had never +touched him before. It was indeed as if he had been asleep and had +wakened with a start. He was intensely curious about that, curious to +know why he, who had met nice girls and attractive women by the score, +had come into the North woods to be stirred out of all reason by a slip +of a girl with yellow hair and expressive gray eyes and a precocious +manner of thinking. + +He looked forward eagerly to seeing her again. He somehow felt a little +more sure of himself now. He could think of a number of things he wished +to ask her, of ideas he wanted to expand into speech. The hurt of her +blank refusal had dulled a little. He could anticipate a keen pleasure +just in seeing her. + +In the morning he set about outfitting. He had come down from Porcupine +with dogs. He had seen dog teams bearing the goods and chattels of +innumerable natives. He perceived the essential usefulness of dogs and +snowshoes and toboggans in that boundless region of snow. Canoes when +the ice went out, dogs and toboggans when winter came again to lock +tight the waterways. So during his stay at Porcupine he had accepted the +gift of a dog from a Cree, traded tobacco for another, and he and Lamont +had whiled away the long evenings in making two sets of harness and a +small toboggan. A four-dog team will haul a sizable load. Two would move +all the burden of food and gear that he had in his possession. He had +learned painfully to walk upon snowshoes--enough so that he was over the +poignant ache in the calf of the leg which the North calls _mal de +racquette_. Altogether he felt himself fully equal to fare into the +wilderness alone. Moreover he had none of that intangible dread of the +wilderness which had troubled him when he first came to Lone Moose. + +Then it seemed lonely beyond expression, brooding, sinister. It was +lonely still--but that was all. He was beginning to grasp the motif of +the wilderness, to understand in a measure that to those who adapted +themselves thereto it was a sanctuary. The sailor to his sea, the +woodsman to his woods, and the _boulevardier_ to his beloved avenues! +Thompson did not cleave to the North as a woodsman might. But the +natural phenomena of unbroken silences, of vast soundlessness, of miles +upon miles of somber forest aisles did not oppress him now. What a man +understands he does not fear. The unknown, the potentially terrible +which spurs the imagination to horrifying vision, is what bears heavy on +a man's soul. + +Thompson's preparation for the trail was simple. That lesson he had +learned from two months' close association with Joe Lamont. He had +acquired a sleeping bag of moosehide, soft tanned. This, his gun and +axe, the grub he got from the Pachugan store, he had lashed on the +toboggan and put his dogs in harness at daybreak. There would be little +enough day to light his steps. Dusk came at midafternoon. + +When he had tied the last lashing he shook hands with MacLeod and set +out. + +He traversed the sixty miles between Pachugan and Lone Moose in two +days, by traveling late the first night, under a brilliant moon. It gave +him a far vision of the lake shore, black point after black point +thrusting out into the immense white level of the lake. Upon that hard +smooth surface he could tuck the snowshoes under his lashings and trot +over the ice, his dogs at his heels, the frost-bound hush broken by the +tinkle of a little bell Joe Lamont had fastened on the lead dog's +collar. It rang sweetly, a gay note in that chill void. + +That night he drew into a spruce grove, cleared a space for his fire and +bed, fed himself hot tea and a bannock, and the hindquarters of a rabbit +potted by his rifle on the way. He went to sleep with drowsy eyes +peeping at the cold stars from under the flap of his sleeping bag, at +the jagged silhouette of spruce tops cut sharp against the sky. + +He drew up before the mission quarters in the gray of the next dusk, and +stood again after nigh three months at his own door. The clearing was a +white square, all its unlovely litter of fallen trees and half-burned +stumps hidden under the virgin snow. The cabin sat squat and +brown-walled amid this. On all sides the spruce stood dusky-green. +Beyond, over in Lone Moose meadow, Thompson, standing a moment before he +opened the door, heard voices faintly, the ringing blows of an axe. Some +one laughed. + +The frost stirred him out of this momentary inaction. In a few minutes +he had a fire glowing in the stove, a lamp lighted, the chill driven +from that long deserted room. Except for that chill and a slight +closeness, the cabin was as he had left it. Outside, his two dogs +snarled and growled over their evening ration of dried fish, and when +they had consumed the last scrap curled hardily in the snow bank near +the cabin wall. + +Thompson had achieved a hair-cut at Pachugan. Now he got out his razor +and painstakingly scraped away the accumulated beard. He had allowed it +to grow upon Joe Lamont's assertion that "de wheesker, she's help keep +hout de fros', Bagosh." Thompson doubted the efficiency of whiskers as a +protection, and he wanted to appear like himself. He made that +concession consciously to his vanity. + +He did not waste much time. While he shaved and washed, his supper +cooked. He ate, drew the parka over his head, hooked his toes into the +loops of his snowshoes and strode off toward Carr's house. The timidity +that made him avoid the place after his fight with Tommy Ashe and +subsequent encounter with Sophie had vanished. The very eagerness of his +heart bred a profound self-confidence. He crossed the meadow as +hurriedly as an accepted lover. + +For a few seconds there was no answer to his knock. Then a faint +foot-shuffle sounded, and Carr's Indian woman opened the door. She +blinked a moment in the dazzle of lamp glare on the snow until, +recognizing him, her brown face lit up with a smile. + +"You come back Lone Moose, eh?" she said. "Come in." + +Thompson put back the hood of his parka and laid off his mitts. The room +was hot by comparison with outdoors. He looked about. Carr's woman +motioned him to a chair. Opposite him the youngest Carr squatted like a +brown Billiken on a wolfskin. Every detail of that room was familiar. +There was the heavy, homemade chair wherein Sam Carr was wont to sit and +read. Close by it stood Sophie's favorite seat. A nickel-plated oil lamp +gave forth a mellow light under a pale birch-bark shade. But he missed +the old man with a pipe in his mouth and a book on his knee, the +gray-eyed girl with the slow smile and the sunny hair. + +"Mr. Carr and Sophie--are they home?" he asked at length. + +The Indian woman shook her head. + +"Sam and Sophie go 'way," she said placidly. "No come back Lone Moose +long time--maybe no more. Sophie leave sumpin' you. I get." + +She crossed the room to a shelf above the serried volumes of Sam Carr's +library, lifted the cover of a tin tobacco box and took out a letter. +This she gave to Thompson. Then she sat down cross-legged on the +wolfskin beside her youngster, looking up at her visitor impassively, +her moon face void of expression, except perhaps the mildest trace of +curiosity. + +Thompson fingered the envelope for a second, scarcely crediting his +ears. The letter in his hands conveyed nothing. He did not recognize the +writing. He was acutely conscious of a dreadful heartsinking. There was +a finality about the Indian woman's statement that chilled him. + +"They have gone away?" he said. "Where? When did they go?" + +"Long time. Two moon," she replied matter-of-factly. "Dunno where go. +Sam say he go--don't know when come back. Leave me house, plenty +blanket, plenty grub. Next spring he say he send more grub. That all. +Sophie go too." + +Thompson stared at her. Perhaps he was not alone in facing something +that numbed him. + +"Your man go away. Not come back. You sorry? You feel bad?" he asked. + +Her lips parted in a wide smile. + +"Sam he good man," she said evenly. "Leave good place for me. I plenty +warm, plenty to eat. I no care he go. Sam, pretty soon he get old. I +want ketchum man, I ketchum. No feel bad. No." + +She shook her head, as if the idea amused her. And Mr. Thompson, +perceiving that a potential desertion which moved him to sympathy did +not trouble her at all, turned his attention to the letter in his hand. +He opened the envelope. There were half a dozen closely written sheets +within. + + Dear freckle-faced man: there is such a lot I want to say that I + don't know where to begin. Perhaps you'll think it queer I should + write instead of telling you, but I have found it hard to talk to + you, hard to say what I mean in any clear sort of way. Speech is + a tricky thing when half of one's mind is dwelling on the person + one is trying to talk to and only the other half alive to what + one is trying to express. The last time we were together it was + hard for me to talk. I knew what I was going to do, and I didn't + like to tell you. I wanted to talk and when I tried I blundered. + Too much feeling--a sort of inward choking. And the last few + days, when I have become accustomed to the idea of going away and + familiar with the details of the astonishing change which has + taken place in my life, you have been gone. I dare not trust to a + casual meeting between here and Pachugan. I do not even know for + sure that you have gone to Pachugan, or that you will come + back--of course I think you will or I should not write. + + But unless you come back to-night you will not see me at Lone + Moose. So I'm going to write and leave it with Cloudy Moon to + give you when you do come. + + Perhaps I'd better explain a little. Dad had an old bachelor + brother who--it seems--knew me when I was an infant. Somehow he + and dad have kept in some sort of touch. This uncle, whom I do + not remember at all, grew moderately wealthy. When he died some + six months ago his money was willed equally to dad and myself. It + was not wholly unexpected. Dad has often reminded me of that + ultimate loophole when I would grow discontented with being + penned up in these dumb forests. I suppose it may sound callous + to be pleased with a dead man's gift, but regardless of the ways + and means provided it seems very wonderful to me that at last I + am going out into the big world that I have spent so many hours + dreaming of, going out to where there are pictures and music and + beautiful things of all sorts--and men. + + You see, I am trying to be brutally frank. I am trying to empty + my mind out to you, and a bit of my heart. I like you a lot, big + man. I don't mind making that confession. If you were not a + preacher--if you did not see life through such narrow eyes, if + you were more tolerant, if you had the kindly faculty of putting + yourself in the other fellow's shoes now and then, if only your + creeds and doctrines and formulas meant anything vital--I--but + those cursed ifs cannot be gainsaid. + + It's no use, preacher man. That day you kissed me on the creek + bank and the morning I came to your cabin, I was conscious of + loving you--but it was under protest--under pretty much the same + protest with which you care for me. You were both times carried + away so by your own passion that for the moment your mental + reservations were in abeyance. And although perhaps a breath of + that same passion stirred me--I can admit it now when the + distance between us will not make that admission a weapon in your + hands--yet there was somewhere in me a little voice whispering: + "Sophie, it won't do. You can't mix oil and water." + + There is a streak of my poor weak and passionate mother in me. + But there is also a counterbalancing streak of my father's + deliberate judgment. He has schooled me for my ultimate + protection--as he has often made plain--to think, to know why I + do a thing, to look, even if ever so briefly, before I leap. And + I cannot help it, if when I felt tempted to say the word that + would have given me the right to feel the ecstasy of your arms + drawing me close and your lips pressed on mine, if in the same + breath I was looking ahead and getting a disillusioning glimpse + of what life together would mean for you and me, you with your + deeply implanted prejudices, your hard and fast conceptions of + good and evil, of right and wrong--I what I am, a creature + craving pleasure, joy, luxury, if possible, happiness wherever + and whenever I can assure myself I have really found it. I + wouldn't make a preacher's wife at all, I know. I'd stifle in + that sort of atmosphere. + + Even if you were not a minister--if you were just plain man--and + I wish you were--I don't know. I have to try my wings, now that I + have the opportunity. How do I know what turn my vagrant impulses + may take? I may be one of those queer, perverted creatures + (_vide_ Havelock Ellis. You'll find two volumes of his psychology + of sex among dad's books) whose instincts incline toward many men + in turn. I don't believe I am. A woman's destiny, in so far as I + have been able to grasp the feminine function by what I've read + and observed in a limited way, is to mate and to rear children. I + don't think I'm a variation from the normal type, except in my + habit of thinking deeply about these things rather than being + moved by purely instinctive reactions. I could be happy ever so + simply, I think. Mismated, I should be tigerishly miserable. I + know myself, within certain limits--but men I do not know at all, + except in theory. I have never had a chance to know men. You and + Tommy Ashe have been the only two possibilities. I've liked you + both. You, dear freckle-face, with the serious look and muddled + ideas, far the better of the two. I don't know why. Tommy Ashe + attracted me physically. I recognized that ultimately--and that + alone isn't enough, although it is probably the basis of many + matings. So do you likewise attract me, but with a tenderer, more + protective passion. I'd like to mother you, to tease you--and + mend your socks! Oh, my dear, I can't marry you, and I wish I + could. I shrink from submerging my own individuality in yours, + and without that sacrifice our life would be one continual clash, + until we should hate each other. + + And still I know that I am going to be very lonely, to feel for + awhile as if I'd lost something. I have felt that way these weeks + that you kept to your cabin, avoiding me. I have felt it more + keenly since your cabin is empty, and I don't know where you may + have gone, nor if you will ever come back. I find myself + wondering how you will fare in this grim country. You're such a + visionary. You're so impractical. And neither nature nor society + is kind to visionaries, to those who will not be adaptable. + + Do you understand what I've been trying to tell you? I wonder if + you will? Or if I am too incoherent. I feel that perhaps I am. I + started out to say things that were bubbling within me, and I am + oddly reluctant to say them. I am like a butterfly emerging from + its cocoon. I am an explorer setting out upon a momentous + journey. I am making an experiment that fascinates me. Yet I have + regrets. I am uncertain. I am doing the thing which my nature and + my intelligence impel me to do, now that I have the opportunity. + I am satisfying a yearning, and stifling a desire that could grow + very strong if I let myself go. + + I can see you scowl. You will say to yourself--looking at it from + your own peculiar angle--you will say: "She is not worth thinking + about." And unless I have been mistaken in you you will say it + very bitterly, and you will be thinking long and hard when you + say it. Just as I, knowing that I am wise in going away from you, + just as my reason points clearly to the fact that for me living + with you would become a daily protest, a limitation of thought + and act that I could not endure, still--knowing all this--I feel + a strange reluctance to accepting the road I have chosen, I feel + a disconcerting tug at my heart when I think of you--and that is + often. + + I shall change, of course. So will you. Psychologically, love + doesn't endure to death--unless it is nurtured by association, + unless it has its foundation in community of interest and effort, + a mutual affection that can survive hard knocks. + + Good-by, dear freckled man. You have taught me something. I hope + I have done as much for you. I'm sorry it couldn't be different. + But--a man must be able to stand on his own feet, eh? I leave you + to puzzle out what "standing on his own feet" means. Good-by. + + Sophie. + + P.S. Dad says that if you winter at Lone Moose and care to kill a + few of the long days you are welcome to help yourself to the + books he left. He will tell Cloudy Moon you are to have them all + if you want them, or any of them, any time. + +Mr. Thompson folded up the sheets with deliberate precision, replaced +them in the envelope and tucked the envelope in his pocket. He rose to +go. He had a feeling of wanting to escape from that room which those +penned pages and swiftly acute memories had filled with a presence it +hurt him terribly to recall. His eye fell upon the rows of Carr's books, +orderly upon their shelves. The postscript, fresh in his +sense-impressions because it came last, and the sight of the books, +roused him to a swelling fury of anger. + +The heresies of Huxley and Darwin! The blasphemies of Tom Paine! The +economic diatribes which began with Adam Smith and continued in +multiplying volumes down to the latest emanation from professorial +intellects in every civilized corner of the earth. The bulky, bitter +tomes of Marx and Engels! The Lorias and Leacocks, the tribe of +Gumplowicz, and Haeckel, the Lubbocks and Burtons, all that vast array +of minds which calmly dissect man and his manifold activities, that draw +deeply upon every branch of human knowledge to make clear the age-old +evolution and revolution in both the physical and intellectual +realm--and which generally leave gods and religions out of account +except to analyze them as manifestations of social phenomena. Those +damnable documents which he had never read, but which he had been taught +to shun as the product of perverted intellects, blasts of scientific +artillery, unkindly trained upon sacred concepts! + +He put on his parka hood, gave an abrupt "good evening" to Cloudy Moon, +and went out into the night which had deepened its shadows while he sat +within. + +The North lay hushed and hard under a wan moon. The teeth of the frost +nipped at him. A wolf lifted a dismal howl as he crossed the meadow. And +his anger died. That flare of resentment was, he recognized, but a burst +of wrath against Sophie, a passionate protest at her desertion. She had +loved him and she had left him, deliberately, calculatingly, left him +and love, for the world, the flesh and the devil--tempted by a fortune +untimely directed to her hands. + +He did not mind about the books. Doubtless they were well enough in +their way, a source of practical knowledge. But he did not care a curse +about books or knowledge or faith as he walked through the snow across +that gleaming white patch in the dusky forest. His heart cried aloud in +forlorn protest against the surging emotions that beset him. His eyes +stung. And he fought against that inarticulate misery, against the +melancholy that settled upon him like a dank mist. + +A man must stand upon his own feet! That stabbed at him, cut across his +mood like a slap in the face. Wasn't that what he was learning to do? He +lifted his head with a sudden spirit of defiance, a bitter resolution. A +man must stand on his own feet. Well, he would. If he could no longer +pray and be comforted, he could grit his teeth and struggle and endure. +He had begun to perceive that a man must do that physically--set his +teeth and endure. In the less concrete matter of the spirit it was much +the same. + +He turned for a look at the yellow windows of Sam Carr's house. It was a +hollow, empty place now, one that he never wanted to see again, like a +room in which a beloved person has died and from which the body has been +carried away. His eyes lingered on the dim bulk of the house, dusky +black and white like a sketch in charcoal. + +"Another bridge burned," he said wistfully to himself. + +He faced about, crossed the dividing fringe of timber, passing near the +walls of his unfinished church. A wry smile twisted his lips. That would +remain, the uncompleted monument of his good intentions, the substance +of an unrealizable, impractical dream. + +Beyond that, as he came out into his own clearing, he saw a light in +his cabin, where he had left no light. When he came to the door another +toboggan lay beside his own. Strange dogs shifted furtively about at his +approach. Warned by these signs he opened the door full of a curiosity +as to who, in the accustomed fashion of the North, had stopped and made +himself at home. + +When the man sitting before the stove with his feet on the rusty front +turned his head at Thompson's entrance, he saw, with a mild turn of +surprise, that his visitor was Tommy Ashe. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +PARTNERS + + +"Hello, old man," Tommy greeted cheerfully. "How goes it?" + +If it occurred to either of them that the last time they faced each +other it had been in hot anger and in earnest endeavor to inflict bodily +damage, they were not embarrassed by that recollection, nor did either +man hold rancor. Their hands gripped sturdily. It seemed to Thompson, +indeed, that a face had never been so welcome. He did not want to sit +alone and think. Even apart from that he was uncommonly glad to see +Tommy Ashe. + +"It doesn't go much at all," he said. "As a matter of fact, I just got +back to Lone Moose to-night after being away for weeks." + +"Same here," Tommy responded. "I've been trapping. Heard you'd gone to +Pachugan, but thought it was only for supplies. I got in to my own +diggings to-night, and the shack was so infernally cold and dismal I +mushed on down here on the off chance that you'd have a fire and +wouldn't mind chinning awhile. Lord, but a fellow surely gets fed up +with his own company, back here. At least I do." + +Thompson awoke to hospitable formalities. + +"Have you had supper?" he asked. + +"Stopped and made tea about sundown," Tommy replied. "Thanks just the +same. Gad, but it was cold this afternoon. The air fairly crackled." + +"Yes," Thompson agreed. "It was very cold." + +He drew a stool up to the stove and sat down. Tommy got out his pipe and +began whittling shavings of tobacco off a plug. + +"Did you know that Carr and his daughter have gone away?" Thompson asked +abruptly. + +Tommy nodded. + +"Donald Lachlan--I've been trapping partners with him, y'know--Donald +was home a month or so since. Told me when he came back that the Carrs +were gone. I wasn't surprised." + +"No?" Thompson could not forbear an inquiring inflection on the +monosyllable. + +"No," Tommy continued a bit wistfully. "I was talking to Carr a few days +after you and I had that--that little argument of ours." He smiled. "He +told me then that after fifteen years up here he was inclined to try +civilization again. Mostly to give Sophie a chance to see what the world +was like, I imagine. I gathered from his talk that some sort of windfall +was coming his way. But I daresay you know more about it than I do." + +"No," Thompson replied. "I've been away--a hundred miles north of +Pachugan--for two months. I didn't know anything about it till +to-night." + +Tommy looked at him keenly. + +"Jolted you, eh, old man?" There was a quiet sympathy in his tone. + +"A little," Thompson admitted grimly. "But I'm getting used to jolts. I +had no claim on--on them." + +"We both lost out," Tommy Ashe said thoughtfully. "Sophie Carr is one +woman in ten thousand. I think she's the most remarkable girl I ever +came across anywhere. She knows what she wants, and neither of us quite +measured up. She liked me too--but she wouldn't marry me. Before you +came she tried to convince me of that. And I wasn't slow to see that you +interested her, that as a man she gave you a good deal of thought, +although your--er--your profession's one she rather makes light of. +Women are queer. I didn't know but you might have taken her by storm. +And then again, I rather imagined she'd back off when you got serious." + +"I was a fool," Thompson muttered. + +"I wouldn't say that," Tommy responded gently. "A man couldn't resist +her. I've known a lot of women one way and another. I never knew one +could hold a candle to her. She has a mind like a steel trap, that girl. +She understood things in a flash, moods and all that. She'd make a real +chum, as well as a wife. Most women aren't, y'know. They're generally +just one or the other. No, I'd never call myself a fool for liking +Sophie too well. In fact a man would be a fool if he didn't. + +"She likes men too," Tommy went on musingly. "She knew it. I suppose +she'll be friendly and curious and chummy, and hurt men without meaning +to until she finds the particular sort of chap she wants. Oh, well." + +"How's the trapping?" + +Thompson changed the subject abruptly. He could not bear to talk about +that, even to Tommy Ashe who understood out of his own experience, who +had exhibited a rare and kindly understanding. + +"I've been wondering if I could make a try at that. I've got to do +something. I've quit the ministry." + +Tommy looked at him for a second. + +"Why did you get out?" he asked bluntly. + +"I'm not fitted for it," Thompson returned. "I've been through hell for +four months, and I've lost something--some of that sublime faith that a +man must have. I'm not certain about a lot of things I have always taken +for granted. I'm not certain I have an immortal soul which is worth +saving, let alone considering myself peculiarly fitted to save other +people's souls. I'd be like a blind man leading people with good eyes. +It has come to seem to me that I've been trained for the ministry as a +carpenter is trained for his trade. I can't go on feeling like that. I'm +too much interested in my own personal salvation. I'm too keenly +conscious of a tremendous ignorance about tremendously important things +to continue setting myself up as a finger post for other men's spiritual +guidance. If I stay with the church now it seems to me it will only be +because I lack courage to get out and make my living along lines that +won't be so easy. I'd despise myself if I did that. So I've +resigned--quite a while ago, to be exact. I've been working for the H.B. +two months. That's why I asked about the trapping. I've been casting +about for what I'd best try next." + +Tommy sat silent. When he did speak he touched very briefly on +Thompson's confession of faith--or rather the lack of it. + +"When a man's heart isn't in a thing," said he, "it's better for him to +drop it. About the trapping, now--I don't think you'd do much at that +with the season so far along. This district is pretty well covered by +the natives. You'd get into difficulties right off the bat over setting +traps on their territory. They have a rude sort of understanding about +where their several trap lines shall run. And for some reason or other +furs are getting scarce. Up where young Lachlan and I were it was pretty +fair for awhile. We took some good skins. Lately we did a lot of +trap-tending for nothing much. I got fed up with it. Fact is, I'm about +fed up with this region. I think I'll pull out." + +"I've been thinking the same thing," Thompson observed. "There isn't +much here for a man." + +"Not now," Tommy amended. "I'd have been gone long ago only for Sophie +Carr. That was the magnet that held me. It happens that I've come to +something of your pass, right now. I can't afford to loaf any longer, +living off the wilderness. I had a bit of an income to keep me in loose +change when I wanted a taste of towns. But that's been chopped +off--probably for good. I'm strictly on my own henceforth. Every penny I +spend will first have to be earned. And so," he hesitated briefly, "I've +considered a move to the Coast, the Pacific, y'know. Going over the +continental divide while the snow makes a dog team useful. Then I'd go +down the western streams by boat--dugout canoe or bateaux, or whatever +simple craft a man could make himself in the woods. Probably be the last +big trip I'll get a chance at. I'll have roughed it clear across North +America then, and I rather fancy winding up that way. But it's a big +undertaking single-handed. I'm not so partial to an Indian for company; +besides the fact that I'd have to pay him wages and dollars count with +me now. A fellow likes some one he can talk to. If you've cut the cloth +and are at loose ends, why not come along?" + +Thompson looked at him a second. + +"Do you mean it?" he asked. "I'm not what you'd call a good hand on the +trail. You might find me a handicap." + +Tommy grinned. + +"I've got the impression you're a chap that can hold his end up," he +drawled. "I've an idea we'd make a go of it, all right." + +"I believe we would," Thompson asserted impulsively. "Hanged if I +haven't a mind to take you at your word." + +"Do," Tommy urged earnestly. "The Pacific coast has this part of the +interior frazzled when it comes to opportunities. That's what we're both +after, isn't it? An opportunity to get on--in plain English, to make +some money? It's really simple to get up the Peace and through the +mountains and on down to southeastern Alaska or somewhere in northern +B.C. It merely means some hard mushing. And neither of us is very soft. +You've begun to cut your eyeteeth on the wilderness. I can see that." + +"Yes, I believe I have," Thompson assented, "I'm learning to take as a +matter of course a good many things that I used to rather dread. I find +I have a hankering to be on the move. Maybe I'll end up as a tramp. If +you want a partner for that journey I'm your man." + +"Shake," Tommy thrust out his hand with a boyish sort of enthusiasm. +"We'll have no end of a time." + +They sat up till a most unseemly hour talking over the details of that +long trek. Tommy Ashe was warmed with the prospect, and some of his +enthusiasm fired Thompson, proved strangely infectious. The wanderlust, +which Wesley Thompson was only beginning to feel in vague stirrings, had +long since become the chief motif in Tommy's life. He did not unburden +himself at length. It was simply through stray references, offhand bits +of talk, as they checked up resources and distances, that Thompson +pieced out the four years of Ashe's wanderings across Canada--four years +of careless, happy-go-lucky drifting along streams and through virgin +forest, sometimes alone, sometimes with a partner; four years of +hunting, fishing, and camping all the way from Labrador to Lone Moose. +Tommy had worked hard at this fascinating game. He confessed that with +revenue enough to keep him going, to vary the wilderness with an +occasional month in some city, he could go on doing that sort of thing +with an infinite amount of pleasure. + +But something had gone wrong with the source of the funds that came +quarterly. Tommy did not appear to regret that. But he realized its +significance. He would have to work. Having to work he meant to work as +he had played, with all his heart and to some purpose. He had an +ambitious idea of pressing Fortune to her lair. He was young and very +sanguine. His cheerful optimism was the best possible antidote for the +state of mind in which he found Thompson. + +They went to bed at last. With breakfast behind them they went up to +Ashe's cabin and brought down to Thompson's a miscellaneous collection +of articles that Tommy had left behind when he went trapping. Tommy had +four good dogs in addition to the brown retriever. By adding Thompson's +pair and putting all their goods on one capacious toboggan they achieved +a first-class outfit. + +In the North when a man sets out on a winter journey, or any sort of +journey, in fact, his preparations are speedily made. He loads his sled, +hitches his dogs, takes his rifle in hand, hooks his toes in his +snowshoes and goes his way. + +This is precisely the course Tommy Ashe and Thompson followed. Having +decided to go, they went, and neither of them took it as a serious +matter that they were on the first leg of a twelve-hundred-mile jaunt in +the deep of winter across a primitive land. + +To be exact in dates it was February the first when they touched at +Pachugan, where Tommy traded in his furs, and where they took on a +capacity load of grub. West of the lake head they bore across a low, +wooded delta and debouched upon Peace River's frozen surface. + +After that it was plod-plod-plod, one day very much like another, cold +with coldness of the sub-Arctic, the river a white band through heavy +woods, nights that were crisp and still as death, the sky a vast dome +sprinkled with flickering stars, brilliant at times with the Northern +Lights, that strange glow that flashes and shimmers above the Pole, now +a banner of flame, again only a misty sheen. Sometimes it seemed an +unreality, that silence, that immensity of hushed forest, those vast +areas in which life was not a factor. When a blizzard whooped out of the +northern quarter, holding them close to the little tent and the tiny +sheet-iron stove, when they sat for hours with their hands clasped over +their knees, listening to the voice of the wilderness whispering +sibilantly in the swaying boughs, it seemed utterly impossible that +these frigid solitudes could ever know the kindliness of summer, that +those cold white spaces could ever be warm and sunny and bright with +flowers. + +But there were compensations. Two men cannot eat out of the same +pot--figuratively speaking--sleep huddled close together for the warmth +that is in their bodies, hear no voices but their own, exert a common +effort to a common end day after day, until the days become weeks and +the weeks marshal themselves into calendar months--no two men born of +woman can sustain this enforced intimacy over a long period without +acquiring a positive attitude toward each other. They achieve a +contemptuous tolerance, or they achieve a rare and lasting friendship. +It was the fortune of Tommy Ashe and Wesley Thompson to cultivate the +latter. They arrived at it by degrees, in many forty-below-zero camps +along the Peace, in the shadow of those towering mountains where the +Peace cuts through the backbone of North America. It grew out of mutual +respect, a wordless sense of understanding, a conviction that each did +his best to play the game fair and square. + +So that, as they worked westward and gave over their toboggan on the +waters of a stream far beyond the Rockies, when Spring began to touch +the North with her magic wand they grew merry, galvanized by the spirit +of adventure. They could laugh, and sometimes they could sing. And they +planned largely, with the sanguine air of youth. On the edges--not in +the depths--of that wild and rugged land where manifold natural +resources lay untouched, it seemed as if a man had but to try hard +enough in order to succeed. They had conquered an ominous stretch of +wilderness. They would conquer with equal facility whatever barriers +they found between them and fortune. + +The sweep of Spring's progress across the land found them west of the +Coast Range by May, in a wild and forbidding region where three major +streams--the Skeena, the Stikine, and the Naas--take their rise. For +many days their advance was through grim canyons, over precipitous +slopes, across glaciers, bearing always westward, until the maps with +which Tommy Ashe was equipped showed them they were descending the +Stikine. Here they rested in a country full of game animals and birds +and fish, until the height of the spring torrents had passed. During +this time they fashioned a canoe out of a cedar tree, big enough to +carry them and the dogs which had served so faithfully as pack animals +over that last mountainous stretch. The Stikine was swift and +forbidding, but navigable. Thus at last, in the first days of the salmon +run, they came out upon tidewater, down to Wrangel by the sea. + +There was in Thompson's mind no more thought of burned bridges, no +heartache and empty longing, only an eagerness of anticipation. He had +come a long way, in a double sense. He had learned something of the +essential satisfaction of striving. A tough trail had served to toughen +the mental and moral as well as the physical fiber of him. He did not +know what lay ahead, but whatever did so lie would never dismay him +again as things had done in the past, in that too-recent vivid past. + +He was quite sure of this. His mood was tinctured with recklessness when +he summed it up in words. A man must stand on his own feet! + +He would never forget that sentence. It was burned into his memory. He +was beginning to understand what Sophie Carr meant by it. Looking +backward he could see that he never had stood on his own feet like a +man. Always he had required props. And they had been forthcoming from +the time the prim spinster aunts took his training in hand until he came +to Lone Moose self-consciously, rather flauntingly, waving the banner of +righteousness. Thompson could smile wryly at himself now. He could see +the unreckonable element of chance functioning largely in a man's life. + +And in the meantime he went about Wrangel looking for a job! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE RESTLESS FOOT + + +Being in a town that was at once a frontier camp and a minor seaport, +and being there at a season when the major industry of salmon-packing +was at its height, the search of Tommy Ashe and Thompson for a job was +soon ended. They were taken on as cannery hands--a "hand" being the term +for unskilled laborers as distinguished from fishermen, can machine +experts, engineers and the like. As such they were put to all sorts of +tasks, work that usually found them at the day's end weary, dirty with +fish scales and gurry, and more than a little disgusted. But they were +getting three dollars and a half a day, and it was practically clear, +which furnished a strong incentive to stick it out as long as the season +lasted--a matter of two more months. + +"By that time," said Tommy Ashe, "we'll have enough coin to venture into +fresh fields. My word, but we do earn this money. It's the nastiness I +object to, not the work. I shan't forget this first hundred dollars I've +earned by the sweat of my manly brow." + +In the fullness of time the salmon run came to an end. The pack being +finished the hands were paid off. In company with half a hundred others, +Ashe and Thompson were shipped from the Suchoi Bay Canneries back to +Wrangel again. + +In Wrangel, before they had been there four hours, Thompson got the +offer of work in a pile camp. He took his prospective job under +advisement and hunted up Tommy Ashe. Tommy dangled his legs over the +edge of the bed in their room, and considered the matter. + +"No," he said finally. "I don't believe I'll take it on. I think I'll go +down to Vancouver. I'm about two hundred dollars strong, and I don't +really see anything but a poor sort of living in this laboring-man +stuff. I'm going to try some business proposition. I've got a pretty +fair acquaintance with motor cars. I might be able to get in on the +selling end of the game, and there is good money in that in the way of +commissions. I know some people there who should be able to show me the +ropes. In a big live seaport like that there must be chances. Yes, I +think I'll try Vancouver. You'd better come too, Wes." + +Thompson shook his head. He knew nothing of business. He had no trade. +For a time--until he came face to face with an opportunity he could +recognize as such--he shrank from tackling a city. He had not quite +Tommy's confidence in himself. + +"No," he said. "I'd like to--but I don't believe I'd make good. And I +don't want to get in a position where I'd have to be looking for +somebody to throw me a life line. I don't seem to mind common hard work +so much. I don't imagine I could jump right into a town and be any +better off than I would be here. When I get a little more money ahead +I'll be tempted to take a chance on a city. But not yet." + +From this position Tommy's persuasion failed to move him. Tommy was +earnest enough, and perfectly sincere in promising to see him through. +But that was not what Thompson wanted. He was determined that in so far +as he was able he would make his own way unaided. He wanted to be +through with props forever. That had become a matter of pride with him. +He went back and told the pile-camp boss that he would report in two +days. + +A southbound steamer sailed forty-eight hours later. She backed away +from the Wrangel wharf with Tommy waving his hand to his partner on the +pierhead. Thompson went back to their room feeling a trifle blue, as one +does at parting from a friend. But it was not the moodiness of +uncertainty. He knew what he was going to do. He had simply got used to +Tommy being at his elbow, to chatting with him, to knowing that some one +was near with whom he could try to unravel a knotty problem or hold his +peace as he chose. He missed Tommy. But he knew that although they had +been partners over a hard country, had bucked a hard trail like men and +grown nearer to each other in the stress of it, they could not be +Siamese twins. His road and Tommy's road was bound to fork. A man had to +follow his individual inclination, to live his own life according to his +lights. And Tommy's was for town and the business world, while his--as +yet--was not. + +So for the next four months Thompson lived and worked on a wooded +promontory a few miles north of Wrangel, very near the mouth of the +river down which he and Tommy Ashe had come to the sea. He was housed +with thirty other men in a bunkhouse of hand-split cedar; he labored +every day felling and trimming tall slender poles for piling that would +ultimately hold up bridges and wharves. The crew was a cosmopolitan lot +so far as nationality went. In addition they were a tougher lot than +Thompson had ever encountered. He never quite fitted in. They knew him +for something of a tenderfoot, and they had not the least respect for +his size--until he took on and soundly whipped two of them in turn +before the bunkhouse door, with the rest of the thirty, the boss and the +cook for spectators. Thompson did not come off scathless, but he did +come off victor, although he was a bloody sight at the finish. But he +fought in sheer desperation, because otherwise he could not live in the +camp. And he smiled to himself more than once after that fracas, when he +noted the different attitude they took toward him. Might was perhaps not +right, but unless a man was both willing and able to fight for his +rights in the workaday world that was opening up to him, he could never +be very sure that his rights would be respected. + +Along with this incidental light upon the ways of his fellow working-men +he learned properly how to swing an axe; he grew accustomed to dragging +all day on the end of a seven-foot crosscut saw, to lift and strain with +a cant hook. The hardening process, begun at Lone Moose, continued +unceasingly. If mere physical hardihood had been his end, he could +easily have passed for a finished product. He could hold his own with +those broad-shouldered Swedes and Michigan loggers at any turn of the +road. And that was a long way for a man like Thompson to come in the +course of twelve months. If he could have been as sure of a sound, +working philosophy of life as he was of the fitness of his muscles he +would have been well satisfied. Sometimes it was a puzzle to him why men +existed, why the will to live was such a profound force, when living was +a struggle, a vexation, an aimless eating and sleeping and working like +a carthorse. Where was there any plan, any universal purpose at all? + +Having never learned dissipation as a form of amusement, nor having yet +been driven to it by the sheer deadliness of incessant, monotonous +labor, Thompson was able to save his money. When he went to Wrangel once +a month he got a bath, a hair-cut, and some magazines to read, perhaps +an article or two of necessary clothing. That was all his financial +outlay. He came back as clear-eyed as when he left, with the bulk of his +wages in his pocket, where some of his fellows returned with empty +pockets and aching heads. + +Wherefore, when the winter snows at last closed down the pile camp +Thompson had accumulated four hundred dollars. Also he had made an +impression on the contractor by his steadiness, to such an extent that +the man offered him a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month to come +back and take charge of a similar camp in the spring. But Thompson, like +Tommy Ashe, had grown troubled with the wandering foot. The money in +hand gave him security against want in strange places. He would not +promise to be on hand in the spring. Like Tommy, he had a notion to try +town, to see for himself what opportunity town afforded. And he pitched +on Vancouver, not alone because Tommy Ashe was there, but because it was +the biggest port on Canada's western coast. He had heard once from +Tommy. He was a motor-car salesman now, and he was doing well. But +Tommy's letter was neither long nor graphic in its descriptions. It left +a good deal of Vancouver to Thompson's imagination. However, like the +bear that went over the mountain, Thompson thought he would go and see +what he could see. + +Wrangel lies well within the Inside Passage, that great waterway which +is formed between the mainland and a chain of islands that sweeps from +Cape Flattery in the south to the landward end of the Aleutians. All the +steamers that ply between Puget Sound and Skagway take that route. +Seldom do the vessels plying between southern ports and the far beaches +of Nome come inside. They are deep-sea craft, built for offshore work. +So that one taking a steamer at Wrangel can travel in two directions +only, north to Skagway, south to Puget Sound. + +The booking facilities at Wrangel are primitive, to say the least. When +Thompson inquired about southbound passage, he was told to go down and +board the first steamer at the pierhead, and that it would leave at +eleven that night. So he took all his meager belongings, which he could +easily carry in a blanket roll and a sailor's ditty-bag, and went down +half an hour before sailing time. There seemed no one to bar his +passage, and he passed up the gangplank aboard a two-funnelled, +clean-decked steamer, and made his way to a smoking room aft. + +There were a few men lounging about, men of the type he was accustomed +to seeing in Wrangel, miners, prospectors and the like, clad in +mackinaws and heavy laced boots. Thompson, habitually diffident, asked +no questions, struck up no conversations after the free and easy manner +of the North. He laid down his bag and roll, sat awhile listening to the +shift of feet and the clatter of cargo winches on deck and pierhead. +Then, growing drowsy, he stretched himself on a cushioned seat with his +bag for a pillow and fell asleep. + +He woke with an odd sensation of his bed dropping out from under him. +Coming out of a sound slumber he was at first a trifle bewildered, but +instinctively he grasped a stanchion to keep himself from sliding across +the floor as the vessel took another deep roll. The smoking room was +deserted. He gained his feet and peered out of a window. All about him +ran the uneasy heave of the sea. Try as he would his eyes could pick up +no dim shore line. And it was not particularly dark, only a dusky gloom +spotted with white patches where a comber reared up and broke in foam. +He wondered at the ship's position. It did not conform to what he had +been told of the Inside Passage. + +And while he was wondering a ship's officer in uniform walked through +the saloon. He cast a quick glance at Thompson and smiled slightly. + +"This outside roll bother you?" he inquired pleasantly. + +"Outside?" Thompson grasped at the word's significance. "Are we going +down outside?" + +"Sure," the man responded. "We always do." + +"I wonder," Thompson began to sense what he had done, "I say--isn't this +the _Roanoke_ for Seattle?" + +The mate's smile deepened. "Uh-uh," he grinned. "This is the _Simoon_, +last boat of the season from outside northern points. We had to put into +Wrangel, which we rarely do. The _Roanoke_ berthed right across the +wharf from us. Got aboard us by mistake, did you?" + +Thompson nodded. + +"Well," the officer continued, "sometimes the longest way round is the +shortest way home. We don't touch this side the Golden Gate. So you may +as well see the purser when he gets up and have him assign you a berth. +It's pretty near daylight now." + +He nodded and went on. Thompson, holding fast, getting his first +uncomfortable experience of the roll and recovery of a ship in a beam +sea, made his way out on the after deck. Holding on the rail he peered +over the troubled water that was running in the open mouth of Dixon +Entrance, beyond which lay the vast breadth of the Pacific, an unbroken +stretch to the coast of Japan. + +Again Chance was playing the deuce with his calculations. For a few +minutes he felt uncommonly irritated. He had not started for San +Francisco. He did not want to go to San Francisco. Still--what was the +odds? San Francisco was as good as any other town. He shrugged his +shoulders, and feeling his way to a coiled hawser sat down in the bight +of it to contend with the first, faint touch of seasickness. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE WORLD IS SMALL + + +For reasons of economy Thompson put himself up at a cheap rooming-house +well out Market Street. His window looked out upon that thoroughfare +which is to San Francisco what the aorta is to the arterial system. +Gazing down from a height of four stories he could see a never-ending +stir, hear the roar of vehicular traffic which swelled from a midnight +murmur to a deep-mouthed roar in the daylight hours. And on either side +the traffic lane there swept a stream of people like the current of the +Stikine River. + +He was not a stranger to cities, no rustic gazing open-mouthed at +throngs and tall buildings. His native city of Toronto was a fair-sized +place as American and Canadian cities go. But it was not a seaport. It +was insular rather than cosmopolitan; it took its character from its +locale rather than from a population gathered from the four quarters of +the globe. San Francisco--is San Francisco--a melting-pot of peoples, +blown through with airs from far countries, not wholly rid of the aura +of Drake and the conquistadores of Spain even in these latter days of +commercial expansion. And all of San Francisco's greatness and color and +wealth is crowded upon a peninsula, built upon rolling hills. What the +city lacks of spaciousness is compensated by action. Life goes at a +great pace. + +It made a profound impression on Thompson, since he had reached the +stage where he was keenly susceptible to external impressions from any +source whatever. Those hurrying multitudes, that unending stir, the +kaleidoscopic shifts of this human antheap made him at first profoundly +lonely, immeasurably insignificant, just as the North had made him feel +when he was new to it. But just as he had shaped himself to that +environment, so he felt--as he had not at first felt in the North--that +in time, with effort, he would become an integral part of this. Here the +big game was played. It was the antithesis of the North inasmuch as all +this activity had a purely human source and was therefore in some +measure akin to himself. The barriers to be overcome and the problems to +be solved were social and monetary. It was less a case of adapting +himself by painful degrees to a hostile primitive environment than a +forthright competitive struggle to make himself a master in this sort of +environment. + +How he should go about it he had no definite idea. He would have to be +an opportunist, he foresaw. He had no illusions about his funds in hand +being a prime lever to success. That four hundred dollars would not last +forever, nor would it be replenished by any effort save his own. It +afforded him a breathing spell, a chance to look about, to discover +where and how he should begin at the task of proving himself upon the +world. + +He had no misgivings about making a living. He could always fall back +on common labor. But a common laborer is socially of little worth, +financially of still less value. Thompson had to make money--using the +phrase in its commonly accepted sense. He subscribed to that doctrine, +because he was beginning to see that in a world where purchasing power +is the prime requisite a man without money is the slave of every +untoward circumstance. Money loomed before Thompson as the key to +freedom, decent surroundings, a chance to pursue knowledge, to so shape +his life that he could lend a hand or a dollar to the less fortunate. + +He still had those stirrings of altruism, a ready sympathy, an instinct +to help. Only he saw very clearly that he could not be of any benefit to +even a limited circle of his fellow men when at every turn of his hand +economic pressure bore so hard upon him as an individual. He began to +see that getting on in the world called for complete concentration of +his efforts upon his own well-being. A pauper cannot be a +philanthropist. One cannot take nothing from nothing and make something. +To be of use to others he must first grasp what he required for himself. + +Once he was settled and familiar enough with San Francisco to get from +the Ferry Building to the Mission and from the Marina to China Basin +without the use of a map he began to cast about for an opening. To make +an apprentice beginning in any of the professions required education. He +had that, he considered. It did not occur to him by what devious routes +men arrived at distinction in the professions. He thought of studying +for the law until the reception he got in various offices where he went +seeking for information discouraged him in that field. Law students were +a drug on the market. + +"My dear young man," one kindly, gray-haired attorney told him, "you'd +be wasting your time. The law means a tremendous amount of intellectual +drudgery, and a slim chance of any great success unless you are gifted +with a special aptitude for certain branches of it. All the great +opportunities for a young man nowadays lie in business and +salesmanship." + +Business and salesmanship being two things of which Thompson knew +himself to be profoundly ignorant, he made little headway. A successful +business operation, so far as he could observe, called for capital which +he did not possess. Salesmanship, when he delved into the method of +getting his foot on that rung of the ladder, required special training, +knowledge of a technical sort. That is, really successful salesmanship. +The other kind consisted of selling goods over a counter for ten dollars +per--with an excellent chance of continuing in that unenviable situation +until old age overtook him. This was an age of specialists--and he had +no specialty. Moreover, every avenue that he investigated seemed to be +jammed full of young men clamoring for a chance. The skilled trades had +their unions, their fixed hours of labor, fixed rates of pay. The big +men, the industrial managers, the men who stood out in the professions, +they had their own orbit into which he could not come until he had made +good. There were the two forces, the top and the bottom of the workaday +world. And he was in between, like a fish out of water. + +Wherefore Thompson continued looking about for a number of weeks. He +looked for work, without finding it save in street gangs and at labor +that was mostly done by Greeks and Italians fresh from Europe. A man had +to begin at the bottom, he realized, but he did not desire to begin at +the bottom of a ditch. He did not seek for such small clerical jobs as +he knew himself able to fill. He did not mean to sit on a high stool and +ruin his eyes over interminable rows of figures. That much at least the +North had done for him--fixed him firmly in the resolve that if he had +to sweat for a pittance it would not be within four walls, behind dusty +windows. He could always go back to the woods. Sometimes he thought he +would better do that out of hand, instead of wasting his time and money +seeking in a city for the goose that was to lay him golden eggs. + +When he was not hard on the trail of some definite opening sheer +loneliness drove him out on the streets. His room was a cheerless place, +a shelter for him when he slept and nothing more. Many a time, lacking +any real objective, he covered miles of San Francisco's streets. He +sought out parks, beaches, public buildings. At night he would drift, a +silent, lonely spirit, among the crowds that ebbed and flowed in the +downtown district that was a blaze of light. + +That restless wandering brought him by chance one evening along a +certain avenue which shall be nameless, because it is no longer the +haunt of the soap-boxer. This curious thoroughfare lay upon the +borderline between the smart shopping district and San Francisco's +Chinatown. For a matter of two or three blocks the street was given +over to an impromptu form of public assembly, a poor man's debating +ground, an open forum where any citizen with a grievance, a theory, or +even merely the gift of gab might air his views and be reasonably sure +of an audience. In the evening there was always a crowd. Street fakirs +plied their traffic under sputtering gas torches, dispensing, along with +a ready flow of glib chatter, marvellous ointments, cure-alls, soap, +suspenders, cheap safety razors, anything that would coax stray dimes +and quarters from the crowd. + +But the street fakirs were in the minority. The percentage of gullible +ones was small. Mostly it was a place of oratory, the haunt of +propagandists. Thompson listened to Social Democrats, Social Laborites, +syndicalists, radicals, revolutionaries, philosophical anarchists, men +with social and economic theories of the extremist type. But they talked +well. They had a grasp of their subject. They had on tap tremendous +quantities of all sorts of knowledge. The very extent of their +vocabulary amazed Thompson. He heard scientific and historical +authorities quoted and disputed, listened to arguments waged on every +sort of ground--from biological complexities which he could not +understand to agricultural statistics which he understood still less. A +lot of it perplexed and irritated him, because the terminology was over +his head. And the fact that he could not follow these men in full +intellectual flight spurred him to find the truth or falsity of those +things for himself. He got an inkling of the economic problems that +afflict society. He found himself assenting offhand to the reasonable +theorem that a man who produced wealth was entitled to what he +produced. He listened to many a wordy debate in which the theory of +evolution was opposed to the seven-day creation. There was thus revived +in him some of those troublesome perplexities which Sam and Sophie Carr +had first aroused. + +In the end, lacking profitable employment and growing dubious of +obtaining it during the slack industrial season which then hovered over +California, he turned to the serried shelves of the city library. Once +started along this road he became an habitue, spending in a particular +chair at a certain table anywhere from three to six hours a day, deep in +a book, not to be deterred therefrom by the usual series of mental +shocks which a man, full-fed all his life on conventions and dogmas and +superficial thinking, gets when he first goes seriously and critically +into the fields of scientific conclusions. + +He was seated at a reading table one afternoon, nursing his chin in one +hand, deep in a volume of Huxley's "Lectures and Essays" which was +making a profound impression upon him through its twin merits of simple, +concise language and breadth of vision. There was in it a rational +explanation of certain elementary processes which to Thompson had never +been accounted for save by means of the supernatural, the mysterious, +the inexplicable. Huxley was merely sharpening a function of his mind +which had been dormant until he ran amuck among the books. He began to +perceive order in the universe and all that it contained, that natural +phenomena could be interpreted by a study of nature, that there was +something more than a name in geology. And he was so immersed in what +he read, in the printed page and the inevitable speculations that arose +in his mind as he conned it, that he was only subconsciously aware of a +woman passing his seat. + +Slowly, as a man roused from deep sleep looks about him for the cause of +dimly heard noises, so now Thompson's eyes lifted from his book, and, +with his mind still half upon the last sentence read, his gaze followed +the girl now some forty feet distant in the long, quiet room. + +There was no valid reason why the rustle of a woman's skirt in passing, +the faint suggestion of some delicate perfume, should have focussed his +attention. He saw scores of women and girls in the library every day. He +passed thousands on the streets. This one, now, upon whom he gazed with +a detached interest, was like many others, a girl of medium height, +slender, well-dressed. + +That was all--until she paused at a desk to have speech with a library +assistant. She turned then so that her face was in profile, so that a +gleam of hair showed under a wide leghorn hat. And Thompson thought +there could scarcely be two women in the world with quite so marvellous +a similarity of face and figure and coloring, nor with quite the same +contour of chin and cheek, nor the same thick hair, yellow like the +husks of ripe corn or a willow leaf in the autumn. He was just as sure +that by some strange chance Sophie Carr stood at that desk as he was +sure of himself sitting in an oak chair at a reading table. And he rose +impulsively to go to her. + +She turned away in the same instant and walked quickly down a passage +between the rows of shelved books. Thompson could not drive himself to +hurry, nor to call. He was sure--yet not too sure. He hated to make +himself appear ridiculous. Nor was he overconfident that if it were +indeed Sophie Carr she would be either pleased or willing to renew their +old intimacy. And so, lagging faint-heartedly, he lost her in the maze +of books. + +But he did not quite give up. He was on the second floor. The windows on +a certain side overlooked the main entrance. He surmised that she would +be leaving. So he crossed to a window that gave on the library entrance +and waited for an eternity it seemed, but in reality a scant five +minutes, before he caught sight of a mauve suit on the broad steps. +Looking from above he could be less sure than when she stood at the +desk. But the girl halted at the foot of the steps and standing by a red +roadster turned to look up at the library building. The sun fell full +upon her upturned face. The distance was one easily to be spanned by +eyes as keen as his. Thompson was no longer uncertain. He was suddenly, +acutely unhappy. The old ghosts which he had thought well laid were +walking, rattling their dry bones forlornly in his ears. + +Sophie got into the machine. The red roadster slid off with gears +singing their metallic song as she shifted through to high. Thompson +watched it turn a corner, and went back to his table with a mind past +all possibility of concentrating upon anything between the covers of a +book. He put the volume back on its shelf at last and went out to walk +the streets in aimless, restless fashion, full of vivid, painful +memories, troubled by a sudden flaring up of emotions which had lain so +long dormant he had supposed them dead. + +Here in San Francisco he had not expected to behold Sophie in the +enjoyment of her good fortune. Yet there was no reason why she should +not be here. Thompson damned under his breath the blind chance which had +set him aboard the wrong steamer at Wrangel. + +But, he said to himself after a time, what did it matter? In a city of +half a million they were as far apart as if he were still at Lone Moose +and she God only knew where. That powerful roadster, the sort of clothes +she wore, the general air of well-being which he had begun to recognize +as a characteristic of people whose social and financial position is +impregnable--these things served to intensify the gulf between them +which their radical differences of outlook had originally opened. No, +Sophie Carr's presence in San Francisco could not possibly make any +difference to him. He repeated this emphatically--with rather more +emphasis than seemed necessary. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A MEETING BY THE WAY + + +But he found it did make a difference, a profoundly disturbing +difference. He had grown insulated against the memory of Sophie Carr +tugging at his heartstrings as the magnetic north pulls on the compass +needle. He had grown free of both thought and hope of her. There had +been too many other vital things pressing upon him these months of +adventure in toil, too many undeniable, everyday factors of living +present at every turn, hourly insistent upon being coped with, for him +to nurse old sad dreams and longings. So he had come at last to think of +that passionate yearning as a disease which had run its course. + +Now, to his dismay, it recurred in all its old virulence, at a mere +glimpse of Sophie. The floodgates of memory loosed bitter waters upon +him, to make his heart heavy and spoil his days of passive content. It +angered him to be so hopelessly troubled. But he could not gainsay the +fact. + +It made San Francisco a dreary waste. Try as he would he could not keep +Sophie Carr from being the sun around which the lesser nebulae of his +thought continually revolved. He could no more help a wistful lookout +for her upon San Francisco's streets than he could help breathing. Upon +the rolling phalanxes of motor cars his gaze would turn with watchful +expectation, and he took to scanning the faces of the passing thousands, +a lonely, shy man with a queer glow in his eyes. That, of course, was +only in moments of forgetfulness. Then he would pull himself together +with a resentful irritation and tax himself with being a weak fool and +stalk along about his business. + +But his business had lost its savor, just as his soul had lost its +slowly-won serenity. His business had no importance to any save himself. +It had been merely to winter decently and economically with an eye +cocked for such opportunities of self-betterment as came his way, and +failing material opportunity in this Bagdad of the Pacific coast to make +the most of his enforced idleness. + +And now the magic of the colorful city had departed along with the magic +of the books. The downtown streets ceased to be a wonderful human +panorama which he loved to watch. The hushed reading room where he had +passed so many contented hours was haunted by a presence that obscured +the printed page. He would find himself staring absently at an open +book, the words blurred and overlaid with mental pictures of Lone Moose, +of Sophie sitting on the creek bank, of his unfinished church, forlorn +and gaunt in the winter snows and the summer silences, of Tommy Ashe +trudging across the meadow, gun in hand, of old Sam Carr in his +moosehide chair, of the Indians, the forest, of all that goes to make +the northern wilderness--and of himself moving through it all, an +unheroic figure, a man who had failed in his work, in his love, in +everything. + +That, chiefly, was what stirred him anew to action, a suddenly acute +sense of failure, of a consciousness that he was drifting instead of +doing. He found himself jarred out of the even tenor of his way. San +Francisco filled him with dissatisfaction now, knowing that she was +there. If the mere knowledge that Sophie Carr dwelt somewhere within the +city boundaries had power to make a mooning idiot of him, he said to +himself testily, then he had better get out, go somewhere, get down to +work, be at his fixed purpose of proving his mettle upon an obdurate +world, and get her out of his mind in the process. He couldn't tune his +whole existence to a sentimental craving for any woman--even such a +woman as Sophie. He would, in the moment of such emotional genuflexions, +have dissented with cynical bitterness from the poetic dictum that it +was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. + +Spurred by this mood he acted instinctively rather than with reasoned +purpose. He gave up his room, packed his clothes and betook himself upon +a work-seeking pilgrimage among the small, interior towns. + +He left San Francisco in March. By May he had circulated all through the +lower San Joaquin and farther abroad to the San Juan, and had turned his +face again toward San Francisco Bay. At various jobs he had tried his +hand, making a living such as it was, acquiring in addition thereto a +store of first-hand experience in the social and monetary values of +itinerant labor. He conceded that such experience might somehow be of +use to a man. But he had had enough of it. He had a feeling of having +tested California for his purposes--and of finding it wanting. + +He had made up his mind to double on his tracks, to go north again, +specifically to British Columbia, partly because Tommy was there, +chiefly because Vancouver was a growing place on the edge of a vast, +newly opened interior. He knew that if no greater thing offered, from +that center there was always the avenue of the woods. He could qualify +in that line. And in the woods even a common axeman exacted and received +more democratic treatment than in this older region where industry ran +in fixed channels, where class lines were more rigidly drawn, where +common labor was cheap and unprivileged. + +He hadn't been getting on in those three months. He had less money than +when he started out--about enough now to get him up North and leave a +hundred dollars or so for emergencies. No, decidedly he wasn't getting +on--he was going down, he told himself. It dismayed him a little. It +wasn't enough to be big and strong and willing. A mule could be that. +The race was not to the swift or the strong. Not in modern industry, +with its bewildering complexities. No, it fell to the trained, the +specialist in knowledge, the man who could do something more +efficiently, with greater precision than his fellows. + +He could not do that--not yet. And so there was nothing in California +for him, he decided. A man could no longer go West and grow up with the +country--but he could go North. + +Thompson was sitting on the border of a road that runs between San +Mateo and the city when he definitely committed himself to doubling on +his tracks, to counteracting the trick of fate which had sent him to a +place where he did not wish to go. He was looking between the trees and +out over an undulating valley floored with emerald fields, studded with +oaks, backed by the bare Hamiltons to the east, and westward by the +redwood-clad ruggedness of the Santa Cruz range. And he was not seeing +this loveliness of landscape at all. He was looking far beyond and his +eyes were full of miles upon miles of untrodden forest, the sanctuary of +silence and furtive living things, of mountains that lifted snowy spires +to heaven high over the glaciers that scarred their sides. And the +smells that for a moment rose strongly in his nostrils were not the +smells of palm and gum and poppy-dotted fields, but odors of pine and +spruce and the smell of birchwood burning in campfires. He came out of +that queer projection of mind into great distance with a slight shake of +his head and a feeling of wonder. It had been very vivid. And it dawned +upon him that for a minute he had grown sentimentally lonely for that +grim, unconquered region where he had first learned the pangs of +loneliness, where he had suffered in body and spirit until he had +learned a lesson he would never forget while he lived. + +The road itself, abutting upon stately homes and modest bungalows behind +a leafy screen of Australian gums, ran straight as an arrow down the +peninsula toward the city and the bay, a broad, smoothly asphalted +highway upon that road where the feet of the Franciscan priests had +traced the _Camino Real_. And down this highway both north and south +there passed many motor cars swiftly and silently or with less speed and +more noise, according to their quality and each driver's mood. + +Thompson rested, watching them from the grassy level beneath a tree. He +rather regretted now the impulse which had made him ship his bag and +blanket roll from the last town, and undertake this solitary hike. He +had merely humored a whim to walk through orchards and green fields in a +leisurely fashion, to be a careless trudger for a day. True, he was +saving carfare, but he observed dryly that he was expending many +dollars' worth of energy--to say nothing of shoe leather. The pleasure +of walking, paradoxically, was best achieved by sitting still in the +shade. A midday sun was softening the asphalt with its fierce blaze. He +looked idly at passing machines and wondered what the occupants thereof +would say if he halted one and demanded a ride. He smiled. + +He stared after a passing sedan driven by a uniformed chauffeur, one +half the rear seat occupied by a fat, complacent woman, the other half +of the ten-inch upholstery given over to an equally fat and complacent +bulldog. And while he reflected in some little amusement at the +circumstance which gave a pampered animal the seat of honor in a +six-thousand-dollar car and sent an able-bodied young man trudging down +the road in the heat and the dust, another machine came humming up from +the south. + +It was a red car, crowding the state limit for speed, and it swept down +on Thompson with a subdued purr like a great cat before a fire. When it +was almost abreast of him there burst from it a crack like the report of +a shotgun. There was just a perceptible wabble of the machine. Its hot +pace slackened abruptly. It rolled past and came to a stop beside the +road fifty yards along--a massive brute of a red roadster driven by a +slim girl in a pongee suit, a girl whose bare head was bound about with +heavy braids of corn-yellow hair. + +Thompson half rose--then sank back in momentary indecision. Perhaps it +were wiser to let sleeping dogs lie. Then he smiled at the incongruity +of that proverb applied to Sophie Carr. + +He sat watching the machine for a minute. The halting of its burst of +speed was no mystery to Thompson. Miss Carr proceeded with calm +deliberation. She first resurrected a Panama hat from somewhere in the +seat beside her and pinned it atop of her head. Then she got out, walked +around to the front wheel, poked it tentatively once or twice, and +proceeded about the business of getting out a jack and a toolkit. + +By the time Thompson decided that in common decency he should offer to +lend a hand and thus was moved to rise and approach the disabled car she +had the jack under the front axle and was applying a brace wrench to the +rim bolts. But the rim bolts that hold on a five-inch tire are not +designed to unscrew too easily. Sophie had started one with an earnest +tug and was twisting stoutly at the second when he reached her. He knew +by the impersonal glance she gave him that he was to her merely a casual +stranger. + +"May I help you?" he said politely. "A big tire is rather hard to +handle." + +Sophie bestowed another level look upon him as she straightened up from +her task. A puzzled expression showed briefly in her gray eyes. But she +handed him the wrench without parley. + +"Thanks, if you will," she said. "These rim bolts are fearfully stiff. I +daresay I could manage it though. I've done it on a lighter car. But +it's a man's job, really." + +Thompson laid off his coat and set to work silently, withholding speech +for a double reason. He could not trust his tongue, and he was not given +to inconsequential chatter. If she did not recognize him--well, there +was no good reason why she should remember, if she chose not to +remember. He could lend a hand and go his way, just as he would have +been moved to lend a hand to any one in like difficulty. + +He twisted out the bolt-heads, turned the lugs, pulled the rim clear of +the wheel. He stood up to get the spare tire from its place behind. And +he caught Sophie staring at him, astonishment, surprise, inquiry all +blended in one frank stare. But still she did not speak. + +He trundled the blow-out casing to the rear, took off the one ready +inflated, and speedily had it fast in its appointed position on the +wheel. + +And still Sophie Carr did not speak. She leaned against the car body. He +felt her eyes upon him, questioning, appraising, critical, while he +released the jack, gathered up the tools, and tied them up in the roll +on the running board. + +"There you are," he found himself facing her, his tongue giving off +commonplace statements, while his heart thumped heavily in his breast. +"Ready for the road again." + +"Do you remember what Donald Lachlan used to say?" Sophie answered +irrelevantly. "Long time I see you no. Eh, Mr. Thompson?" + +She held out one gloved hand with just the faintest suggestion of a +smile hovering about her mouth. Thompson's work-roughened fingers closed +over her small soft hand. He towered over her, looking down wistfully. + +"I didn't think you knew me," he muttered. + +Sophie laughed. The smile expanded roguishly. The old, quizzical twinkle +flickered in her eyes. + +"You must think my memory poor," she replied. "You're not one of the +peas in a pod, you know. I knew you, and still I wasn't sure. It seemed +scarcely possible. It's a long, long way from the Santa Clara Valley to +Lone Moose." + +"Yes," he answered calmly. "A long way--the way I came." + +"In a purely geographical sense?" + +Her voice was tinged with gentle raillery. + +"Perhaps," he answered noncommittally. + +It dawned upon him that for all his gladness to see her--and he was +glad--he nursed a tiny flame of resentment. He had come a long way +measured on the map, and a far greater distance measured in human +experience, in spiritual reckoning. If the old narrow faith had failed +him he felt that slowly and surely he was acquiring a faith that would +not fail him, because it was based on a common need of mankind. But he +was still sure there must be a wide divergence in their outlook. He was +getting his worldly experience, his knowledge of material factors, of +men's souls and faiths and follies and ideals and weaknesses in a rude +school at first hand--and Sophie had got hers out of books and logical +deductions from critically assembled fact. There was a difference in the +two processes. He knew, because he had tried both. And where the world +at large faced him, and must continue to face him, like an enemy +position, something to be stormed, very likely with fierce fighting, for +Sophie Carr it had all been made easy. + +So he did not follow up that conversational lead. He was not going to +bare his soul offhand to gratify any woman's curiosity. It would be very +easy to make a blithering ass of himself again--with her--because of +her. Already he was on his guard against that. His pride was alert. + +Sophie stowed the canvas tool roll under the seat cushion. She climbed +to her seat behind the steering column and turned to Thompson. + +"Which way are you bound?" she asked. "I'll give you a lift, and we can +talk." + +"I'm on my way to San Francisco," he said. "But time is no object in my +young life right now, or I'd take the Interurban instead of walking. It +would be demoralizing to me, I'm afraid, to whiz down these roads in a +machine like this." + +Sophie shoved the opposite door open. + +"Get in," she let a flavor of reproof creep into her tone. "Don't talk +that sort of nonsense." + +Thompson hesitated. He was suddenly uncomfortable, conscious of his +dusty clothes somewhat the worse for wear, his shoes from which the +pristine freshness had long vanished, the day-old stubble on his chin. +There was a depressing contrast between his outward condition and that +of the smartly dressed girl whose gray eyes were resting curiously on +him now. + +"Do you make a practice of picking up tramps along the road?" he parried +with an effort at lightness. He wanted to refuse outright, yet could not +utter the words. "I'm not very presentable." + +"Get in. Don't be silly," she said impatiently. "You don't think I've +become a snob just because chance has pitchforked me into the ranks of +the idle rich, do you?" + +Thompson laughed awkwardly. There was real feeling in her tone, as if +she had read correctly his hesitation and resented it. After all, why +not? It would merely be an incident to Sophie Carr, and it would save +him some hot and dusty miles. He got in. + +"I'm quite curious to know where you've been and what you've been doing +for the last year," she said, when the red car was once more rolling +toward the city at a sedate pace. "And by the way, where did you learn +to change a tire so smartly?" + +"My last job," Thompson told her truthfully, "was washing cars, +greasing up, and changing tires in a country garage down in the San +Juan." He paused for a moment. "Before that I was chaperon to a stable +full of horses on a Salinas ranch. I've tried being a carpenter's +helper, an assistant gardener, understudy to a suburban plumber--and +other things too numerous to mention--in the last three months. I think +the most satisfactory thing I've tackled was the woods up north, last +fall." + +"You must have acquired experience, at least, even if none of those +things proved an efficient method of making money," she returned +lightly. + +"A man like me," he remarked, "has first to learn how to make a living +before he can set about making money." + +"Making money is relative. Quite often it merely means making a living +with an extended horizon," she observed. "I know a man with a +ten-thousand-dollar salary who finds it a living, no more." + +"Poor devil," he drawled sardonically. "When I get into the +ten-thousand-a-year class I rather think it will afford me a few trifles +beyond bare subsistence." + +She smiled. + +"Have you set that for a mark to shoot at?" + +"I haven't set any limit," he replied. "I haven't got my sights adjusted +yet." + +"I can scarcely assure myself that you are really you," she said after a +momentary silence. "I can't seem to disassociate you with Lone Moose and +a blundering optimism, a mystical faith that the Lord would make things +come out right if you only leaned on Him hard enough. Now your talk is +flavored with both egotism and the bitterness of the cynic." + +"How should a man talk?" he demanded. "Like a worm if he chance to be +trodden on a few times? Does a man necessarily become cynical when he +realizes that plugging from the bottom up is no child's play? As for +egotism--Heaven knows you knocked that out of me pretty effectually when +you left Lone Moose. You made me feel like a whipped puppy for months. I +chucked myself out of the church because of that--that abased, +disheartened feeling. For a year and a half I've been learning and +discovering that life isn't a parlor game. Do you remember that letter +you left with Cloudy Moon for me? I need only to recall a phrase here +and there in that as a cure for incipient egotism. What do you think I +should have become?" he flung at her, unconscious of the passion in his +voice, "A poor thing glad of a ride in your car? Or a confirmed optimist +in overalls?" + +Sophie gave him a queer sidelong glance. + +"Can't you let the dead past bury its dead?" she asked quietly. + +Thompson kept his eyes on the smooth, green-bordered road for a minute. +The quick wave of feeling passed. He stifled it--indeed, felt ashamed +for letting it briefly master him. + +"Of course," he answered at last, and turned to her with a friendly +quirk of his lips. "It is buried pretty deep one way and another, isn't +it? And it would hardly be decent to exhume the remains. Shall we talk +about the weather?" + +"Don't be sarcastic," she reproved gently. "Save that to cope with dad. +He'll relish it coming from you." + +"I don't know," Thompson said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't mind a chat with +your father. We wouldn't agree on many things, by a good way, although +I've discovered that some of his philosophy is sound enough. But I've +got to make a move, and I'm so situated that I must make it quickly or +not at all. I'm going to take the first north-bound steamer out of San +Francisco. So I don't imagine Mr. Carr will have a chance at me soon." + +"Oh, yes, he will," Sophie asserted confidently. "In about twenty +minutes." + +Thompson looked at her, startled a little by this bland assertion. + +"We'll be home in about twenty minutes," she explained. + +"But I'm--why take the trouble?" he asked bluntly. "I'm out of your +orbit entirely. Or do you want to exhibit me as a horrible example?" + +"You're downright rude," she laughed. "Or you would be if you were +serious. Do you mind coming to see dad? And I'd like to hear more about +your trip across the mountains with Tommy Ashe." + +Thompson pricked up his ears. + +"Oh, you know about that, eh?" he remarked. "How--" + +"Not as much as I'd like to," she interrupted. "Will you come?" + +"Yes," he agreed. "But give a fellow a chance. Don't drag me into your +home looking like this. I'm not vain, but I'd feel more comfortable in +clean clothes. I shipped all my things into town. They should be in the +express office now. I'll come this afternoon or this evening, whichever +you say. Drop me off at the first carline." + +"I'll do better than that," she declared. "I'll drive you downtown +myself." + +"But it isn't necessary," he persisted. "I don't want to take up all +your time, and--" + +"For the rest of this day," Sophie murmured, "I have absolutely nothing +to do but kill time. I get restless, and being out in the car cures that +feeling. Do you mind if I chauff you a few miles more or less? Don't be +ungallant. I love to drive." + +"Oh, well." + +Thompson mentally threw up his hands. In that gracious mood Sophie was +irresistible. He sank back in the thick, resilient upholstery and +resolved to take what the gods provided--to dance as it were, and reckon +with the piper when he presented his bill. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE REPROOF COURTEOUS(?) + + +For the few minutes it took the red roadster to slip under the green +summits of Twin Peaks and by a maze of boulevards debouch at length upon +Valencia and so into the busy length of Market Street their talk ran to +commonplaces. Thompson placed himself unreservedly in Sophie's hands. He +had to reach an express office on lower Market, get his things, and +proceed thence to the house where he had roomed all winter. Since it +suited Miss Carr's book to convey him to the first point, he accepted +the gift of her company gladly. So in the fullness of time they came +into the downtown press of traffic, among which, he observed, Sophie +steered her machine like a veteran. + +At Third and Market the traffic whistle blocked them with the front +wheels over the safety line that guided the flow of cross-street +pedestrians, and the point man, crabbed perhaps from a long trick amidst +that roaring maze of vehicles, motioned autocratically for her to back +up. + +Sophie muttered impatiently under her breath and went into reverse. +Behind her the traffic was piling up, each machine stealing every inch +of vantage for the go-ahead signal, crowding up wheel to wheel, the nose +of one thrusting at the rear fender of the other. On one side of Sophie +rose the base of a safety station for street-car boarders. Between her +car and the curb a long-snouted gray touring-car was edging in. And as +she backed under the imperative command of the traffic officer, one rear +hub clinked against the hind fender of the other, jarring both cars a +little, dinting the gray one's fender, marring the glossy finish. + +A chauffeur in a peaked cap drove the gray machine. He looked across at +Sophie, scowling. He was young and red-faced, a pugnacious-looking +individual. + +"Back to the country, Jane, an' practice on the farm wagon," he snarled +out of one corner of his mouth. "Yuh drive like a hick, yuh do." + +"Talk civil to a woman," Thompson snapped back at him, "or keep your +mouth shut." + +The chauffeur bestowed upon him a rancorous glare. His sharp, ferret +eyes gleamed. Then he deliberately spat upon the impeccably shining red +hood of Sophie's roadster. + +A scant arm's length separated him from Thompson. Thompson bridged that +gap with his feet still on the running-board of the roadster. He moved +so quickly that the chauffeur had no chance. He did try to slide out +from behind the wheel and his fist doubled and drew back, but Thompson's +work-hardened fingers closed about his neck, and the powerful arms back +of those clutching hands twisted the man out of all position to strike +any sort of blow. He yanked the chauffeur's head out over the side of +the car, struck him one open-handed slap that was like an earnest cluff +from a sizable bear, lifted again and banged the man's face down on the +controls on his wheels, then pushed him back into his seat, limp and +disheveled, all the insolent defiance knocked out of him. + +Thompson stood on the running board, panting a little, the blaze of a +quick anger bright in his blue eyes, and he became aware of two men in +the rear seat of the gray car, gazing at him in open-mouthed +astonishment. One was fat and long past forty, well fed, well dressed, a +prosperous citizen. The other was a slim youngster in the early +twenties, astonishingly like his older companion as to feature. + +Thompson looked at them, and back at the cowed driver who was feeling +his neck and face with shaky fingers. Just then three things +happened--simultaneously. The traffic whistle blew. The younger man +opened his mouth and uttered, "I say--" Sophie plucked at Thompson's +arm, crying "Sit down, sit down." + +Thompson was still fumbling the catch on the door when they swept over +the cross street and raced down the next block. He looked back. The gray +car was hidden somewhere in a rolling phalanx of other motors. The +traffic had split and flowed about and past it, stalled there doubtless +while the red-faced chauffeur wiped the blood out of his eyes and +wondered if a street car had struck him. + +"Do you habitually reprove ill-bred persons in that vigorous manner?" + +He became aware of Sophie speaking. He looked at her. So far as he could +gather from her profile she was quite unperturbed, making her way among +the traffic that is always like a troubled sea between Third and the +Ferry Building. + +"No," he replied diffidently. "I daresay I'd be in jail or the hospital +most of the time if I did. Still, that was rather a rank case. I'm not +sorry I bumped him. He'll be civil to the next woman he meets." + +What he did not attempt to explain to Sophie, a matter he scarcely +fathomed himself, was his precipitancy, this going off "half-cocked", as +he put it. He wasn't given to quick bursts of temper. It was as if he +had been holding himself in and the self-contained pressure had grown +acute when the insolent chauffeur presented himself as a relief valve. +He felt a little ashamed now. + +Sophie swung the roadster in to the curb before the express office. +Thompson got out. + +"Good-by till this evening, then," he said. "I'll be there if the police +don't get me." + +"If they do," she smiled, "telephone and dad will come down and bail you +out. Good-by, Mr. Thompson." + +Ten minutes or so later he emerged from the express office with a +suitcase, a canvas bag, and a roll of blankets. He had no false pride +about people seeing him with his worldly goods upon his back, so to +speak, wherefore he crossed the street and trudged half a block to a +corner where he could catch a car that would carry him out Market to his +old rooming place. + +And, since this was a day in which events trod upon each other's heels +to reach him, it befell that as he loitered on the curb a gray touring +car rolled up, stopped, and a short, stout man emerging therefrom +disappeared hurriedly within the portals of an office building. +Thompson's gaze rested speculatively on the machine. Gray cars were +common enough. But without a doubt this was the same vehicle. The +chauffeur in the peaked cap was not among those present--but Thompson +could take oath on the other two. The young man sat behind the steering +wheel. + +He, too, it presently transpired, was spurred by recognition. His roving +eyes alighted upon Thompson with a reminiscent gleam. He edged over in +his seat. Thompson stood almost at the front fender. + +"I say," the man in the car addressed him bluntly, "weren't you in a red +roadster back at Third and Market about fifteen or twenty minutes ago?" + +"I was," Thompson admitted. + +Was he to be arrested forthwith on a charge of assault and battery? +Policemen were plentiful enough in that quarter. All one had to do was +crook his finger. People could not be expected to take kindly to having +their chauffeur mauled and disabled like that. But Thompson stood his +ground indifferently. + +"Well, I must say," the young man drawled, producing a cigarette case as +he spoke, "you squashed Pebbles with neatness and despatch, and Pebbles +was supposed to be some scrapper, too. What do you weigh?" + +Thompson laughed outright. He had expected a complaint, perhaps +prosecution. He was handed a compliment. + +"I don't know," he smiled. "About a hundred and eighty-five, I think." + +"You must be pretty fit to handle a man like that," the other observed. +"The beggar had it coming, all right. He gets an overnight jag, and is +surly all the next day. I was going to apologize to the lady, but you +were too quick for me. By the way, are you a working-man--or a +capitalist in disguise?" + +Before Thompson quite decided how he should answer this astonishingly +personal inquiry, the young man's companion strode out of the lobby and +entered the car. At least he had his hand on the open door and one foot +on the running board. And there he halted and turned about at something +his son said--Thompson assumed they were father and son. The likeness of +feature was too well-defined to permit of any lesser relation. + +The older man took his foot off the running board, and made a deliberate +survey of Thompson. + +"Just a second, Fred," he muttered, and took a step toward Thompson. His +eyes traveled swiftly from Thompson's face down over the suitcase and +blanket roll, and came back to that deliberate matching of glances. + +"Do you happen to be looking for a position that requires energy, +ability, and a fair command of the English language?" he demanded +abruptly. + +"Yes," Thompson answered briefly. + +He wondered what was coming. Were they going to offer him the +chauffeur's job? Did they require a bruiser to drive the gray car? + +"Know anything about motors?" + +"Not the first principles, even." Thompson declared himself frankly. He +did possess a little such knowledge, but held a little knowledge to be a +dangerous admission. + +"So much the better," the stout man commented. + +He fished out a cardcase, and handed his card to Thompson. + +"Call on me at ten o'clock to-morrow morning," he said briskly. "I'll +make you a proposition." + +He did not permit inquiry into his motive or anything else, in fact, for +he got quickly into the car and it started off instantly, leaving Mr. +Wesley Thompson, a little bewildered by the rapidity of these +proceedings, staring at the card, which read: + + John P. Henderson, Inc. + + Van Ness at Potter Groya Motors + +A westbound street car bore down on the corner. Thompson gave over +reflecting upon this latest turn of affairs, gathered up his things, +boarded the car, and was set off a few minutes later near the Globe +Rooms. + +At precisely 8 p.m. he arrived at the address Sophie had given +him and found it to be an apartment house covering half a block, an +enormous structure clinging upon the slope which dips from Nob Hill down +to the heart of the city. An elevator shot him silently aloft to the +fifth floor. As silently the elevator man indicated the location of +Apartment 509. The whole place seemed pitched to that subdued note, as +if it were a sanctuary from the clash and clamor without its walls. +Thompson walked down a hushed corridor over a velvet carpet that +muffled his footfalls and so came at last to the proper door, where he +pressed a black button in the center of a brass plate. The door opened +almost upon the instant. A maid eyed him interrogatively. He mentioned +his name. + +"Oh yes," the maid answered. "This way, please." + +She relieved him of his hat and led him down a short, dusky hall into a +bright-windowed room, in which, from the depths of two capacious leather +chairs, Sophie and her father rose to greet him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MR. HENDERSON'S PROPOSITION + + +Late that evening Thompson walked into his room at the Globe. He seated +himself in a rickety chair under a fly-specked incandescent lamp, beside +a bed that was clean and comfortable if neither stylish nor massive. +Over against the opposite wall stood a dresser which had suffered at the +hands of many lodgers. Altogether it was a cheap and cheerless abode, a +place where a man was protected from the weather, where he could lie +down and sleep. That was all. + +Thompson smiled sardonically. With hands clasped behind his head he +surveyed the room deliberately, and the survey failed to please him. + +"Hell," he exploded suddenly. "I'd ten times rather be out in the woods +with a tent than have to live like this--always." + +He had spent a pleasant three hours in surroundings that approximated +luxury. He had been graciously received and entertained. However, it was +easy to be gracious and entertaining when one had the proper setting. A +seven-room suite and two servants were highly desirable from certain +angles. Oh, well--what the devil was the difference! + +Thompson threw off his clothes and got into bed. But he could not escape +insistent thought. Against his dull walls, on which the street light +cast queer patterns through an open window, he could see, through drowsy +eyes, Sophie half-buried in a great chair, listening attentively while +he and her father talked. Of course they had fallen into argument, +sometimes triangular, more often solely confined to himself and Carr. +Thompson was glad that the Grant Street orators had driven him to the +city library that winter. A man needed all the weapons he could command +against that sharp-tongued old student who precipitated himself joyfully +into controversy. + +But of course they did not spend three hours discussing abstract +theories. There was a good deal of the personal. Thompson had learned +that they were in San Francisco for the winter only. Their home was in +Vancouver. And Tommy Ashe was still in Vancouver, graduated from an +automobile salesman to an agency of his own, and doing well in the +venture. Tommy, Carr said, had the modern business instinct. He did not +specify what that meant. Carr did not dwell much on Tommy. He appeared +to be much more interested in Thompson's wanderings, his experiences, +the shifts he had been put to, how the world impressed him, viewed from +the angle of the ordinary man instead of the ministerial. + +"If you wish to achieve success as modern society defines success, +you've been going at it all wrong," he remarked sagely. "The big rewards +do not lie in producing and creating, but in handling the results of +creation and production--at least so it seems to me. Get hold of +something the public wants, Thompson, and sell it to them. Or evolve a +sure method of making big business bigger. They'll fall on your neck and +fill your pockets with money if you can do that. Profitable +undertakings--that's the ticket. Anybody can work at a job." + +That sounded rather cynical and Thompson said so. Carr laughed genially. +One couldn't escape obvious conclusions, he declared. Perhaps youth and +enthusiasm saw it differently. + +Thompson, through sleep-heavy eyes, saw Carr hold a glass of port wine, +glowing like a ruby, up between himself and the light and sip it slowly. +Carr was partial to that wine. Wonder if the old chap didn't get +properly lit up sometimes? He looked as if--well, as if he enjoyed easy +living--easy drinking. There was brandy and soda and a bottle of Scotch +on the sideboard too.--And Sophie _was_ beautiful. All the little +feminine artifices of civilization accentuated the charm that had been +potent enough in the woods. Silk instead of gingham. Dainty shoes +instead of buckskin moccasins.--What an Aladdin's lamp money was, +anyway. Funny that they had settled upon Vancouver for a home. Tommy was +there too. Of course. Should a fellow stick to his hunch? Vancouver +might give birth to an opportunity. Profitable undertakings.--At any +rate he would see her now and then. But would he--working? Did he want +to? Would a cat continue to stare at a king if the king's crown rather +dazzled the cat's eyes? Suppose--just suppose-- + +Thompson sat up in bed with a start. It seemed to him that he had just +lain down, that the train of his thought was still racing. But it was +broad day, a dull morning, gloomy with that high fog which in spring +often rides over the city and the bay till near noon. + +He stretched his arms, yawning. All at once he recollected that he had +something to do, a call to make upon Mr. John P. Henderson at ten +o'clock. Groya Motors--he wondered what significance that held. At any +rate he proposed to see. + +It lacked just forty minutes of the appointed time. Thompson bounced out +of bed. Within twenty minutes he had swallowed a cup of coffee at a +near-by lunch counter and was on his way up Van Ness. + +The corner of Van Ness and Potter revealed a six-story concrete +building, its plate-glass frontage upon the sidewalk displaying three or +four beautifully finished automobiles upon a polished oak floor. The +sign across the front bore the heraldry of the card. He walked in, +accosted the first man he saw, and was waved to a flight of stairs +reaching a mezzanine floor. Gaining that he discovered in a short +corridor a door bearing upon its name-plate the legend: + +Mr. John P. Henderson. + +Private. + +Thompson looked at his watch. It lacked but two minutes of ten. He +knocked, and a voice bade him enter. He found himself face to face with +the master of the gray car. Mr. John P. Henderson looked more imposing +behind a mahogany desk than he did on the street. He had a heavy jaw and +a forehead-crinkling way of looking at a man. And--although Thompson +knew nothing of the fact and at the moment would not have cared a +whoop--John P. was just about the biggest toad in San Francisco's +automobile puddle. He had started in business on little but his nerve +and made himself a fortune. It was being whispered along the Row that +John P. was organizing to manufacture cars as well as sell them--and +that was a long look ahead for the Pacific coast. + +He nodded to Thompson, bade him be seated. And Thompson sank into a +chair, facing John P. across the desk. He wanted nothing, expected +nothing. He was simply smitten with a human curiosity to know what this +stout, successful man of affairs had to propose to him. + +"My name is Thompson," he stated cheerfully. "It is ten o'clock. I have +called--as you suggested." + +Henderson smiled. + +"I have been accused of hastiness in my judgment of men, but it is +admitted that I seldom make mistakes," he said complacently. "In this +organization there is always a place for able, aggressive young men. +Some men have ability without any force. Some men are aggressive with no +ability whatever. How about you? Think you could sell motor-cars?" + +"How the deuce do I know?" Thompson replied frankly. "I have never +tried. I'm handicapped to begin. I know nothing about either cars or +salesmanship." + +"Would you like to try?" + +Thompson considered a minute. + +"Yes," he declared. "I've tried several things. I'm willing to try +anything once. Only I do not see how I can qualify." + +"We'll see about that," John P.'s eyes kept boring into him. "D'ye mind +a personal question or two?" + +Thompson shook his head. + +He did not quite know how it came about, but he passed under Henderson's +deft touch from reply to narration, and within twenty minutes had +sketched briefly his whole career. + +Henderson sat tapping the blotter on his desk with a pencil for a silent +minute. + +"You have nothing to unlearn," he announced abruptly. "All big +commercial organizations must to a certain extent train their own men. A +man who appears to possess fundamental qualifications is worth his +training. I have done it repeatedly. I am going to proceed on the +assumption that you will become a useful member of my staff, ultimately +with much profit to yourself. I propose that you apply yourself +diligently to mastering the sale of motor cars to individual purchasers. +I shall pay you twenty-five dollars a week to begin. That's a mechanic's +wages. If you make good on sales--there's no limit to your earning +power." + +"But, look here," Thompson made honest objection. "I appreciate the +opportunity. At the same time I wonder if you realize what a lot I have +to learn. I don't know a thing about cars beyond how to change a tire +and fill grease cups. I've never driven, never even started a motor. +How can I sell cars unless I know cars?" + +"You overestimate your handicap," John P. smiled. "Knowing how to build +and repair cars and knowing how to sell cars are two entirely different +propositions. The first requires a high degree of technical knowledge +and a lot of practical experience. Selling is a matter of +personality--of the power to convince. You can learn to drive in two or +three days. In a month you will handle a machine as well as the other +fellow, and you will learn enough about the principal parts and their +functions--not only of our line, but of other standard machines--to +enable you to discuss and compare them intelligently. The rest will +depend upon a quality within yourself that has nothing to do with the +mechanical end." + +"You should know." Thompson could not help a shade of doubt in his tone. +"But I must say I could approach a man with a proposition to sell him an +article with more confidence if I knew that article inside and out, top +and bottom. If I really knew a thing was good, and _why_, I could sell +it, I believe." + +"He has the right hunch, Dad." + +Thompson had not heard young Henderson come in. He saw him now a step +behind his chair, garbed in overalls that bore every sign of intimate +contact with machinery. + +He nodded to Thompson and continued to address his father. + +"It's true. Take two men of equal selling force. On the year's business +the one who can drive mechanical superiority home because he knows +wherein it lies will show the biggest sales, and the most satisfied +customers. I believe six months' shop work would just about double the +efficiency of half our sales staff." + +John P. gazed good-naturedly at his son. + +"I know, Fred," he drawled. "I've heard those sentiments before. There's +some truth in it, of course. But Simons and Sam Eppel and Monk White are +products of _my_ method. You cannot deny their efficiency in sales. +What's the idea, anyway?" + +Young Henderson grinned. + +"The fact is," he said, "since I listened in on this conversation I have +come to the conclusion that you've good material here. I need a helper. +He'll get a thorough grounding. Whenever you and he decide that he has +absorbed sufficient mechanics he can join the sales end. I'd like to +train one man for you, properly." + +"Well," John P. remarked judicially, "I can't waste the whole morning +discussing methods of training salesmen in the way they should go. I've +made Mr. Thompson a proposition. What do you say?" + +He turned abruptly on Thompson. + +"Or," young Henderson cut in. "You have the counter proposition of an +indefinite mechanical grind in my department--which is largely +experimental. If you take to it at all I guarantee that in six months +you will know more about the internal combustion motor and automobile +design in general than any two salesmen on my father's staff. And that," +he added, with a boyish grimace at his father, "is saying a lot." + +It seemed to Thompson that both men regarded him with a considerable +expectancy. It perplexed him, that embarrassment of opportunity. He was +a little dazed at the double chance. Here was Opportunity clutching him +by the coat collar. He had nothing but impulse, and perhaps a natural +craving for positive knowledge, to guide his choice. He wasted few +seconds, however, in deciding. Among other things, he had outgrown +vacillation. + +"It is just as I said," he addressed Henderson senior. "I'd feel more +competent to sell cars if I knew them. I'd rather start in the shop." + +"All right," Henderson grunted. "You're the doctor. Be giving Fred a +chance to prove one of his theories. Personally I believe you'd make a +go of selling right off the bat, and a good salesman is wasted in the +mechanical line. When you feel that you've saturated your system with +valve clearances and compression formulas and gear ratios and all the +rest of the shop dope, come and see me. I'll give you a try-out on the +selling end. For the present, report to Fred." + +He reached for some papers on the desk. His manner, no less than his +words, ended the interview. Thompson rose. + +"When can you start in?" young Henderson inquired. + +"Any time," Thompson responded quickly. He was, in truth, a trifle eager +to see what made the wheels go round in that establishment. "I only have +to change my clothes." + +"Come after lunch then," young Henderson suggested. "Take the elevator +to the top floor. Ask one of the men where you'll find me. Bring your +overalls with you. We have a dressing room and lockers on each floor." + +He nodded good-by and turned to his father. Thompson made his exit. + +Half a block away he turned to look back at the house of Henderson. It +was massive, imposing, the visible sign of a prosperous concern, the +manifestation of business on a big scale. Groya Motors, Inc. It was +lettered in neat gilt across the front. It stood forth in four-foot +skeleton characters atop of the flat roof--an electric sign to burn like +a beacon by night. And he was about to become a part of that +establishment, a humble beginner, true, but a beginner with uncommon +prospects. He wondered if Henderson senior was right, if there resided +in him that elusive essence which leads some men to success in dealings +with other men. He was not sure about it himself. Still, the matter was +untried. Henderson might be right. + +But it was all a fluke. It seemed to him he was getting an entirely +disproportionate reward for mauling an insolent chauffeur. That moved +him to wonder what became of Pebbles. He felt sorry for Pebbles. The man +had probably lost his job for good measure. Poor devil! + +As he walked his thought short-circuited to Sophie Carr. Whereat he +turned into a drugstore containing a telephone booth and rang her up. + +Sophie herself answered. + +"I guess my saying good-by last night was a little premature," he told +her. "I'm not going north after all. In fact, if things go on all right +I may be in San Francisco indefinitely. I've got a job." + +"What sort of a job?" Sophie inquired. + +He hadn't told her about the ten o'clock appointment with Henderson. Nor +did he go into that now. + +"I've been taken on in an automobile plant on Van Ness," he said. "A +streak of real luck. I'm to have a chance to learn the business. So I +won't see you in Vancouver. Remember me to Tommy. I suppose you'll be +busy getting ready to go, so I'll wish you a pleasant voyage." + +"Thanks," she answered. "Wouldn't it be more appropriate if you wished +that on us in person before we sail?" + +"I don't know," he mumbled. "I--" + +A perfectly mad impulse seized him. + +"Sophie," he said sharply into the receiver. + +"Yes." + +He heard the quick intake of her breath at the other end, almost a gasp. +And the single word was slightly uncertain. + +"What did you mean by a man standing on his own feet?" + +She did not apparently have a ready answer. He pictured her, receiver in +hand, and he did not know if she were startled, or surprised--or merely +amused. That last was intolerable. And suddenly he felt like a fool. +Before that soft, sweet voice could lead him into further masculine +folly he hung up and walked out of the booth. For the next twenty +minutes his opinion of John P. Henderson's judgment of men was rather +low. He did not feel himself to be an individual with any force of +character. In homely language he said to himself that he, Wesley +Thompson, was nothing but a pot of mush. + +However, there in the offing loomed the job. He turned into the first +clothing store he found, and purchased one of those all-covering duck +garments affected by motor-car workers. By that time he had recovered +sufficiently to note that an emotional disturbance does not always +destroy a man's appetite for food. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A WIDENING HORIZON + + +This is not a history of the motor car business, nor even of the +successive steps Wes Thompson took to win competent knowledge of that +Beanstalk among modern industries. If it were there might be sound +reasons for recounting the details of his tutelage under Fred Henderson. +No man ever won success without knowing pretty well what he was about. +No one is born with a workable fund of knowledge. It must be acquired. + +That, precisely, is what Thompson set out to do in the Groya shop. In +which purpose he was aided, abetted, and diligently coached by Fred +Henderson. The measure of Thompson's success in this endeavor may be +gauged by what young Henderson said casually to his father on a day some +six months later. + +"Thompson soaks up mechanical theory and practice as a dry sponge soaks +up water." + +"Wasted talent," John P. rumbled. "I suppose you'll have him a wild-eyed +designer before you're through." + +"No," Henderson junior observed thoughtfully. "He'll never design. But +he will know design when he sees it. Thompson is learning for a definite +purpose--to sell cars--to make money. Knowing motor cars thoroughly is +incidental to his main object." + +John P. cocked his ears. + +"Yes," he said. "That so? Better send that young man up to me, Fred." + +"I've been expecting that," young Henderson replied. "He's ripe. I wish +you hadn't put that sales bug in his ear to start with. He'd make just +the man I need for an understudy when we get that Oakland plant going." + +"Tush," Henderson snorted inelegantly. "Salesmen are born, not made--the +real high-grade ones. And the factories are turning out mechanical +experts by the gross." + +"I know that," his son grinned. "But I like Thompson. He gives you the +feeling that you can absolutely rely on him." + +"Send him up to me," John P. repeated--and when John P. issued a fiat +like that, even his son did not dispute it. + +And Thompson was duly sent up. He did not go back to the shop on the top +floor where for six months he had been an eager student, where he had +learned something of the labor of creation--for Fred Henderson was +evolving a new car, a model that should have embodied in it power and +looks and comfort at the minimum of cost. And in pursuance of that ideal +he built and discarded, redesigned and rebuilt, putting his motors to +the acid test on the block and his assembled chassis on the road. +Indeed, many a wild ride he and Thompson had taken together on quiet +highways outside of San Francisco during that testing process. + +No, Thompson never went back to that after his interview with John P. +Henderson. He was sorry, in a way. He liked the work. It was fascinating +to put shafting and gears and a motor and a set of insentient wheels +together and make the assembled whole a thing of pulsing power that +leaped under the touch of a finger. But--a good salesman made thousands +where a good mechanic made hundreds. And money was the indispensable +factor--to such as he, who had none. + +Fred Henderson had the satisfaction of seeing his theory verified. +Thompson made good from the start. In three months his sales were second +in volume only to Monk White, who was John P.'s one best bet in the +selling line. Henderson chuckled afresh over this verification of his +original estimate of a man, and Fred Henderson smiled and said nothing. +From either man's standpoint Wes Thompson was a credit to the house. An +asset, besides, of reckonable value in cold cash. + +"New blood counts," John P. rumbled in confidence to his son. "Keeps us +from going stale, Fred." + +When a twelvemonth had elapsed from the day Sophie Carr's red roadster +blew a tire on the San Mateo road and set up that sequence of events +which had landed him where he was, Thompson had left his hall bedroom at +the Globe for quarters in a decent bachelor apartment. He had a +well-stocked wardrobe, a dozen shelves of miscellaneous books, and three +thousand dollars in the bank. Considering his prospects he should have +been a fairly sanguine and well-contented young man. + +As a matter of fact he had become so, within certain limits. A man whose +time is continuously and profitably occupied does not brood. Thompson +had found a personal satisfaction in living up to John P. Henderson's +first judgment of him. Through Fred Henderson and through his business +activities he had formed a little group of pleasant acquaintances. +Sophie Carr was growing shadowy--a shadow that sometimes laid upon him +certain regrets, it is true, but the mere memory of her no longer +produced the old overpowering reactions, the sense of sorry failure, of +a dear treasure lost because he lacked a man's full stature in all but +physical bulk. + +It could easily have happened that Thompson would have embraced with +enthusiasm a future bounded by San Francisco, a future in which he would +successfully sell Groya cars until his amassed funds enabled him to +expand still further his material success. If that future embraced a +comfortable home, if a mate and affection suggested themselves as +possibilities well within his reach, the basis of those tentative +yearnings rested upon the need that dwells within every normal human +being, and upon what he saw happening now and then to other young +men--and young women--within the immediate radius of his observation. + +But upon this particular May morning his mind was questing far afield. +The prime cause of that mental projection was a letter in his hand, a +letter from Tommy Ashe. Thompson had a lively imagination, tempered by +the sort of worldly experience no moderately successful man can escape. And +Tommy's letter--the latest in a series of renewed correspondence--opened +up certain desirable eventualities. The first page of Tommy's screed was +devoted to personal matters. The rest ran thus: + + Candidly, old man, your description of the contemplated Henderson + car makes a hit with me. The line I handle now is a fair seller. + But fair isn't good enough for me. I really need--in addition--to + have a smaller machine, to supply a pretty numerous class of + prospects. I should like to get hold of just such a car as you + describe. I am feeling around for the agency of a small, _good_ + car. Send me all the dope on this one, and when it will be on the + market. There is a tremendous market here for something like that. + I'd prefer to take up a line with an established reputation behind + it. But the main thing is to have a car that will sell when you + push it. And this listens good. + + Aren't you about due for a vacation? Why don't you take a run up + here? I'd enjoy a chin-fest. The fishing's good, too--and we are + long on rather striking scenery. Do come up for a week, when you + can get off. Meantime, by-by. + + Tommy + +Thompson laid down the letter and stared out over the roof-tops. He +couldn't afford to be a philanthropist. A rather sweeping idea had +flashed into his mind as he read that missive. His horizon was +continually expanding. Money, beyond cavil, was the key to many doors, a +necessity if a man's eyes were fixed upon much that was desirable. If he +could make money selling machines for Groya Motors Inc., why not for +himself? Why not? + +The answer seemed too obvious for argument. The new car which had taken +final form in Fred Henderson's drafting room and in the Groya shop was +long past the experimental stage. All it required was financing and John +P. Henderson had attended efficiently to that. There was a plant rising +swiftly across the bay, a modern plant with railway service, big yards, +and a testing track, in which six months hence would begin an estimated +annual production of ten thousand cars a year. John P. had remarked once +to his son that for the Henderson family to design, produce, manufacture +and market successfully a car they could be proud of would be the summit +of his ambition. And the new car was named the Summit. + +It was a good car, a quality car in everything but sheer bulk. Thompson +knew that. He knew, too, that people were buying motor cars on +performance, not poundage, now. He knew too that he could sell +Summits--if he could get territory in which to make sales. + +He had thought about this before. He knew that in the Groya files lay +dealers' contracts covering the cream of California, Oregon and +Washington. These dealers would handle Summits. There had not seemed an +opening wide enough to justify plans. But now Tommy's letter focused his +vision upon a specific point. + +If he could get that Vancouver territory! Vancouver housed a hundred +thousand people. A Vancouver agency for the Summit, with a live man at +the helm, would run to big figures. + +No, he decided, he would not hastily grasp his fountain pen and say to +Tommy Ashe, "Jump in and contract for territory and allotment, old boy. +The Summit is the goods." Not until he had looked over the ground +himself. + +He had two weeks' vacation due when it pleased him. And it pleased him +to ask John P. as soon as he reached the office that very morning if it +was convenient to the firm to do without him for the ensuing fortnight. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE SHADOW + + +Thompson went to Vancouver to spy out the land. He made no confidants. +He went about the Terminal City with his mouth shut and his ears and +eyes open. What he saw and heard soon convinced him that like the +Israelites of old he stood upon the border of a land which--for his +business purpose--flowed with milk and honey. It was easy to weave air +castles. He could visualize a future for himself in Vancouver that +loomed big--if he could but make the proper arrangements at the other +end; that is to say, with Mr. John P. Henderson, President of the Summit +Motors Corporation. Thompson had faith enough in himself to believe he +could make such an arrangement, daring as it seemed when he got down to +actual figures. + +It gave him a curious sense of relief to find Tommy Ashe flirting with +the Petit Six people, apparently forgetful of the Summit specifications. +Thompson hadn't quite taken as his gospel the sound business ethic that +you must look out for number one first, last and always. If Tommy had +broached the subject personally, if he had shown anxiety to acquire +selling rights in the Summit, Thompson would have felt impelled by sheer +loyalty of friendship to help Tommy secure the agency. That would have +been quixotic, of course. Nevertheless, he would have done it, because +not to do it would have seemed like taking a mean advantage. As it was-- + +For the rest he warmed to the sheer beauty of the spot. Vancouver +spreads largely over rolling hills and little peninsular juttings into +the sea. From its eminences there sweep unequalled views over the Gulf +of Georgia and northwestward along towering mountain ranges upon whose +lower slopes the firs and cedars marshal themselves in green battalions. +From his hotel window he would gaze in contented abstraction over the +tidal surges through the First Narrows and the tall masts of shipping in +a spacious harbor, landlocked and secure, stretching away like a great +blue lagoon with motor craft and ferries and squat tugs for waterfowl. +Thompson loved the forest as a man loves pleasant, familiar things, and +next to the woods his affection turned to the sea. Here, at his hand, +were both in all their primal grandeur. He was very sure he would like +Vancouver. + +Whether the fact that he encountered the Carrs before he was three days +in town, had dinner at their home, and took Sophie once to luncheon at +the Granada Grill, had anything to do with this conclusion deponent +sayeth not. To be sure he learned with the first frank gleam in Sophie's +gray eyes that she still held for him that mysterious pulse-quickening +lure, that for him her presence was sufficient to stir a glow no other +woman had ever succeeded in kindling ever so briefly. But he had +acquired poise, confidence, a self-mastery not to be disputed. He said +to himself that he could stand the gaff now. He could face facts. And +he said to himself further, a little wistfully, that Sophie Carr was +worth all the pangs she had ever given him--more. + +He could detect no change in her. That was one of the queer, personal +characteristics she possessed--that she could pass beyond his ken for +months, for years he almost believed, and when he met her again she +would be the same, voice, manner, little tricks of speech and gesture +unchanged. Meeting Sophie after that year was like meeting her after a +week. Barring the clothes and the surroundings that spoke of ample means +tastefully expended, the general background of her home and associates, +she seemed to him unchanged. Yet when he reflected, he was not so sure +of this. Sophie was gracious, friendly, frankly interested when he +talked of himself. When their talk ran upon impersonal things the old +nimbleness of mind functioned. But under these superficialities he could +only guess, after all, what the essential woman of her was now. He could +not say if she were still the queer, self-disciplined mixture of cold +logic and primitive passion the Sophie Carr of Lone Moose had revealed +to him. He was not sure if he desired to explore in that direction. The +old scars remained. He shrank from acquiring new ones, yet perforce let +his thought dwell upon her with reviving concentration. After all, he +said to himself, it was on the knees of the gods. + +At any rate he was not to be deterred from his project. He had served +his apprenticeship in the game. He was eager to try his own wings in a +flight of his own choosing. + +Since he had evolved a definite plan of going about that, he entered +decisively upon the first step. Upon reaching San Francisco he bearded +John P. Henderson in his mahogany den and outlined a scheme which made +that worthy gentleman's eyes widen. He heard Thompson to an end, +however, with a growing twinkle in those same, shrewd, worldly-wise +orbs, and at the finish thumped a plump fist on his desk with a force +that made the pen-rack jingle. + +"Damned if I don't go you," he exclaimed. "I said in the beginning you'd +make a salesman, and you've made good. You'll make good in this. If you +don't it isn't for lack of vision--and nerve." + +"Nerve," he chuckled over the word. "You know it isn't good business for +me. I'll be losing a valuable man off my staff, and I'll be taking +longer chances than it has ever been my policy to take. Your only real +asset is--yourself. That isn't a negotiable security." + +"Not exactly," Thompson returned. "Still in your business you are +compelled--every big business is compelled--to place implicit trust in +certain men. From a commercial point of view this move of mine should +prove even more profitable to you than if I remain on your staff as a +salesman--provided your estimate of me, and my own estimate of myself, +is approximately correct. You must have an outlet for your product. I +will still be making money for you. In addition I shall be developing a +market that will, perhaps before so very long, absorb a tremendous +number of cars." + +"Oh, there's no argument. I'm committed to the enterprise," Henderson +declared. "I believe in _you_, Thompson. Otherwise I couldn't see your +proposition with a microscope. Well, I'll embody the various points in a +contract. Come in this afternoon and sign up." + +As easily as that. Thompson went down the half-flight of stairs still a +trifle incredible over the ease with which he had accomplished a stroke +that meant--oh, well, to his sanguine vision there was no limit. + +He felt pretty much as he had felt when he sold his first Groya to an +apparently hopeless prospect, elated, a little astonished at his +success, brimful of confidence to cope with the next problem. + +The ego in him clamored to be about this bigger business. But that was +not possible. He came back to earth presently with the recollection that +the Summits would not be ready for distribution before late October--and +for the next five months the more Groyas he sold the better position he +would be in when he went on his own. + +So when he finally had in his hands a dealer's contract covering the +Province of British Columbia he put the matter out of his mind--except +for occasional day-dreamings upon it in idle moments--and gave himself +whole-heartedly to serving the house of Henderson. + +Time passed uneventfully enough. June went its way with its brides and +flowers. July drove folk upon vacations to the seaside resorts. + +And in August there burst upon an incredulous world the jagged +lightnings and cannon-thunder of war. + +It would be waste words to describe here the varying fortunes of the +grappling armies during the next few months. The newspapers and current +periodicals and countless self-appointed historians have attended to +that. It is all recorded, so that one must run to read it all. It is as +terribly vivid to us now as it was distant and shadowy then--a madness +of slaughter and destruction that raged on the other side of the earth, +a terror from which we stood comfortably aloof. + +There was something in the war unseen by Thompson and the Hendersons and +a countless host of intelligent, well-dressed, comfortable people who +bought extras wet from the press to read of that merciless thrust +through Belgium, the shock and recoil and counter-shock of armies, of +death dealt wholesale with scientific precision, of 42-centimeter guns +and poison gas and all the rest of that bloody nightmare--they did not +see the dread shadow that hung over Europe lengthening and spreading +until its murky pall should span the Atlantic. + +Thompson was a Canadian. He knew by the papers that Canada was at war, a +voluntary participant. But it did not strike him that he was at war. He +felt no call to arms. In San Francisco there was no common ferment in +the public mind, no marching troops, no military bands making a man's +feet tingle to follow as they passed by. Men discussed the war in much +the same tone as they discussed the stock market. If there was any +definite feeling in the matter it was that the European outbreak was +strictly a European affair. When the German spearhead blunted its point +against the Franco-British legions and the gray hosts recoiled upon the +Marne, the Amateur Board of Strategy said it would be over in six +months. + +In any case, American tradition explicitly postulated that what +occurred in Europe was not, could not, be vital to Americans. But in the +last test blood proves thicker than water. Sentimentally, the men +Thompson knew were pro-Ally. Only, in practice there was no apparent +reason why they should do otherwise than as they had been doing. And in +effect San Francisco only emulated her sister cities when she proceeded +about "business as usual"--just as in those early days, before the war +had bitten deep into their flesh and blood, British merchants flung that +slogan in the face of the enemy. + +So that to Wes Thompson, concentrated upon his personal affairs, the war +never became more than something akin to a bad dream recalled at midday, +an unreal sort of thing. Something that indubitably existed without +making half the impression upon him that seeing a pedestrian mangled +under a street car made upon him during that summer. The war aroused his +interest, but left his emotions unstirred. There was nothing martial +about him. He dreamed no dreams of glory on the battlefield. He had +never thought of the British Empire as something to die for. The issue +was not clear to him, just as it failed to clarify itself to a great +many people in those days. The maiden aunts and all his early +environment had shut off the bigger vision that was sending a steady +stream of Canadian battalions overseas. + +When the Battle of the Marne was past history and the opposing armies +had dug themselves in and the ghastly business of the trenches had +begun, Thompson was more than ever immersed in pursuit of the main +chance, for he was then engaged in organizing Summit Motors in +Vancouver. There had been a period when his optimism about his prospects +had suffered a relapse. He had half-expected that Canada's participation +in that devil's dance across the sea would spoil things commercially. +There had been a sort of temporary demoralization on both sides of the +line, at first. But that was presently adjusted. Through Tommy Ashe and +other sources he learned that business in Vancouver was actually looking +up because of the war. + +He was a little surprised that Tommy was not off to the war. Tommy loved +his England. He was forever singing England's praises. England was +"home" to Tommy Ashe always. It was only a name to Thompson. And he +thought, when he thought about it at all, that if England's need was not +great enough to call her native-born, that the Allies must have the +situation well in hand; as the papers had a way of stating. + +He had other fish to fry, himself, without rushing off to the front. As +a matter of fact he never consciously considered the question of going +to the front. That never occurred to him. When he did think of the war +he thought of it impersonally, as a busy man invariably does think of +matters which do not directly concern him. + +What did concern him most vitally was the project he had in hand. And +next to those ambitions, material considerations, his fancy touched +shyly now and then upon Sophie Carr. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE RENEWED TRIANGLE + + +Even after Thompson reached Vancouver and the visible signs of a nation +at war confronted him he experienced no patriotic thrill. After all, +there was no great difference, on the surface, between San Francisco and +Vancouver, save that Vancouver accepted as a matter of course the +principle that when the mother country was at war Canada was also a +belligerent and committed to support. Barring the recruiting offices +draped in the Allied colors, squads of men drilling on certain public +squares, successive tag days for the Red Cross, the Patriotic fund and +such organizations, the war did not flaunt itself in men's faces. The +first hot wave of feeling had passed. The thing had become a grim +business to be gone about in grim determination. And side by side with +those unostensible preparations that kept a stream of armed men passing +quietly overseas, the normal business of a city waxed and throve in the +old accustomed way. Thompson's most vivid impression was of accelerating +business activity, and that was his chief concern. The other thing, +which convulsed a far-off continent, was too distant to be a +reality--like an earthquake in Japan, a reported famine in India. + +He went about his business circumspectly, without loss of time. He +leased a good location, wired the factory to ship at once, began a +modest advertising campaign in the local papers, and as a business coup +collared--at a fat salary and liberal commission--the best salesman on +the staff of the concern doing the biggest motor-car business in town. +Thompson had learned certain business lessons well. He had perceived +long since that it was a cutthroat game when competition grew keen. And +this matter of the salesman was his first blood in that line. The man +brought with him a list of prospects as long as his arm, and a wide +acquaintance in the town, both assets of exceeding value. Altogether +Thompson got off to a flying start. The arrangement whereby Henderson +consigned cars to him enabled him to concentrate all his small capital +on a sales campaign. He paid freight and duty. His cars he paid for when +they were sold--and the discount was his profit. + +When his salesroom was formally opened to the public, with five Summits +on the floor and twice as many en route, when his undertaking and his +car models had received the unqualified approval of a surprising number +of callers, Thompson left the place to his salesman and went to see +Sophie Carr. + +That was a visit born of sudden impulse, a desire to talk about +something besides automobiles and making money. But Sophie was out. Her +father, however, made him welcome, supplementing his welcome with red +wine that carried a kick. Thompson sat down before a fireplace, glass in +hand, stretched his feet to the fire, and listened to his host talk. + +"Considering your early handicaps you have certainly shown some speed +in adapting yourself to conditions," Carr observed facetiously. "There +was a time when I didn't believe you could. Which shows that even wise +men err. Material factors loom bigger and bigger on your horizon, don't +they? Don't let 'em obscure everything though, Thompson. That's a +blunder plenty of smart men make. Well, we've progressed since Lone +Moose days, haven't we--the four of us that foregathered there that last +summer?" + +Thompson smiled. He liked to hear Carr in a philosophic vein. And their +talk ran thence for an hour. At the end of which time Sophie came home. + +She walked into the room, shook hands with Thompson, flung her coat, +hat, and furs across a chair, and drew another up to the crackling fire. +Outside, the long Northern twilight was deepening. Carr rose and +switched on a cluster of lights in frosted globes. In the mellow glow he +resumed his seat, and his glance came to rest upon his daughter with a +curious fixity, as if he subtly divined something that troubled her. + +"What is it?" he asked, after a minute of unbroken silence. "You look--" + +"Out of sorts?" she interrupted. "Showing up poorly as a hostess?" + +Her look included Thompson with a faint, impersonal smile, and her gaze +went back to the fire. Sam Carr held his peace, toying with the +long-stemmed glass in his hand. + +"I went to a Belgian Relief Fund lecture in the Granada ballroom this +afternoon," she said at last. "A Belgian woman--a refugee--spoke in +broken English. The things she told. It was horrible. I wonder if they +could be true?" + +"Atrocities?" Carr questioned. + +Sophie nodded. + +"That's propaganda," her father declared judicially. "We're being +systematically stimulated to ardent support of the war in men and money +through the press and public speaking, through every available avenue +that clever minds can devise. We are not a martial nation, so we have to +be spurred, our emotions aroused. Of course there are atrocities. Is +there an instance in history where an invading army did not commit all +sorts of excesses on enemy soil?" + +"I know," Sophie said absently. "But this woman's story--she wasn't one +of your glib platform spouters, flag-waving and calling the Germans +names. She just talked, groping now and then for the right word. And if +a tithe of what she told is true--well, she made me wish I were a man." + +One small, soft hand, outstretched over the chair-arm toward the fire, +shut suddenly into a hard little fist. And for a moment Thompson felt +acutely uncomfortable, without knowing why. + +Carr eyed his daughter impassively. In a few seconds she went on. + +"Of course I know that in any large army there is bound to be a certain +percentage of abnormals who will be up to all sorts of deviltry whenever +they find themselves free of direct restraint," she said. "The history +of warfare shows that. But this Belgian woman's account puts a +different face on things. These unmentionable brutalities weren't +isolated cases. Her story gave me the impression of ordered barbarity, +of systematic terrorizing by the foulest means imaginable. The sort of +thing the papers have been publishing--and worse." + +"Discount that, Sophie," Carr remarked calmly. "The Germans are reckoned +in the civilized scale the same as ourselves. I'm not ready to damn +sixty-five million human beings outright because certain members of the +group act like brutes. The chances are that a German soldier would be +shot by his own command, for robbery or rape or any of these +brutalities, as promptly as one of our own offenders. The fact of the +matter is that there are a lot of hysterical people loose among us who +seem to think they can kill German soldiers by calling them bad names. +The Allies will win this war with cannon and bayonets, but up to the +present we seem to think we must supplement our bullets with epithets. +Doubtless the Germans do the same at home. It's part of the game." + +"Oh, I suppose so," Sophie admitted. "But what a horror this war must be +for those helpless people who are caught in its sweep." + +"If it affects you like that, be thankful it isn't over here," Carr said +lightly. "War is all that Sherman said it was. As a matter of fact +modern warfare with every scientific and chemical means of destruction +at its hand can't result in anything but horror piled on horror. I look +for some startling--" + +The faint whirr of a buzzer and the patter of a maid's feet along the +hall, checked Carr's speech. He did not resume. Instead he reached for a +box of cigars, and lighted one. By that time Tommy Ashe was being +ushered in. + +Tommy exuded geniality from every pore of his ruddy countenance. He +accepted the drink Carr rose to offer. He lifted the glass and smiled at +Thompson. + +"Here's to success," he toasted. "I believe," he went on between sips of +wine, "that things are going to look up finely for us. I sold a truck +and two touring cars this afternoon. People seem to be loosening up for +some reason. You ought to get your share with the Summit, Wes. Snappy +little machine, that." + +"You rising business men," Carr drawled, "want to learn to leave your +business at the office when you come to my house. Now, we were just +discussing the war. What sort of a prophet are you, Tommy? How long will +it last? Sophie was wondering if it would be over before all the +eligible young men depart across the sea." + +"Well," Tommy grinned cheerfully, "I'm no prophet. Not being in the +confidence of the Allied command, I can't say. I'd hazard a guess, +though, that there'll be plenty of good men left for Sophie to make a +choice among. I can pass on another man's prophecy, though. Had a letter +from one of my brothers yesterday. He was at Mons, got pinked in the +leg, and is now training Territorials. He is sure the grand finale will +come about midsummer next. The way he put it sounds logical. Neither +side can make headway this winter. Germany has made her maximum effort. +If she couldn't beat us when she took the field equipped to the last +button she never can. By spring we'll be organized. France and England +on the west front. The Russian steam roller on the east. The fleet +maintaining the blockade. They can't stand the pressure. It isn't +possible. The Hun--confound him--will blow up with a loud bang about +next July. That's Ned's say-so, and these line officers are pretty +conservative as a rule. War's their business, and they don't nurse +illusions about it." + +"In the meantime, let's talk about selling automobiles, or the weather, +anything but the war," Sophie said suddenly. She pressed a button on the +wall. "We're going to drink tea and forget the war," she continued +almost defiantly. "I won't ask either of you to stay for dinner, because +I'm going out." + +Carr's house sat on a slope that dipped down to a long narrow park, and +beyond that to a beach on which slow rollers from the outside broke with +a sound like the snore of a distant giant. Along that slope and away to +the eastward the city was speckled with lights, although it was barely +five o'clock, so early does dark close in in that latitude when the year +is far spent. And when the maid trundled in a tea-wagon, that vista of +twinkling specks, and the more distant flash of Point Atkinson light +intermittently stabbing the murky Gulf, was shut away by drawn blinds, +and the four of them sat in the cosy room eating little cakes and +drinking tea and chatting lightly of things that bulked smaller than the +war. + +Presently Sam Carr drew Tommy away to the library to look up some legal +technicality over which they had fallen into dispute. Sophie lay back +in her chair, eyes fixed on the red glow of the embers as if she saw +through them and into vast distances beyond. + +And Thompson sat covertly looking at her profile, the dull gold of her +coiled hair, the red-lipped mouth that was made for kisses and +laughter--and he was glad just to look at her, to be near. For he was +beginning to say to himself that it was no good fighting against fate, +that this girl had put some spell on him from which he would never be +wholly free. Nor did he, in that mood, desire to be free. He wanted that +spell to grow so strong that in the end it would weave itself about her +too, make love beget love. There was quickening in him again that desire +to pursue, to conquer, to possess. The ego in him whispered that once +for a moment Sophie had rested like a homing bird in his arms, and +would, again. But he was not to be betrayed by headlong impulse. The +time was not yet. Instinct warned him that in some fashion, vague, +unrevealed, he had still to prove himself to Sophie Carr. He was aware +intuitively that she weighed him in the balance of cold, critical +reason, against any emotional appeal--just as he, himself, was learning +to weigh things and men. He did not know this. He only felt it. But he +felt sure of his instinct where she was concerned. + +And so he was content, for the time, with the privilege of being near +her. Some day-- + +Sophie looked at him. For the moment his own gaze had wandered from her +to the fire, his mind yielding tentatively to rose-tinted visions. + +"A penny for your thoughts," she said lightly. + +"I was thinking of you," he answered truthfully. + +He looked up as he spoke and his heart leaped at the faint flush that +rose slowly over Sophie's face. Indeed all the high resolve that had +been shaping in his soul for the past ten minutes came near going by the +board. It would have been so easy to imprison the hand that lay along +the chair-arm next his own, to utter words that trembled on his tongue, +to break through the ice that Sophie used as a shield--for the instant +he felt sure of that--and dare what fires burned beneath. + +While he stood, poised as it were, upon the tip-toe of indecision, Carr +and Tommy Ashe came back. + +Afterward, on his way home, Thompson wondered at the swift challenging +glance Tommy shot at Sophie in that moment. As if Tommy detected some +tensity of feeling that he resented. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +SUNDRY REFLECTIONS + + +That winter and the summer which followed, and the period which carried +him into the spring of 1916, was materially a triumphal procession for +Wes Thompson. Tommy's forecast of the war's ending had fallen short as +so many other forecasts did. The war went on, developing its own +particular horrors as it spread. But the varying tides of war, and the +manifold demands of war, bestowed upon Vancouver a heaping measure of +prosperity, and Vancouver, in the person of its business men, was rather +too far from the sweat and blood of the struggle to be distracted by the +issues of that struggle from its own immediate purposes. Business men +were in business to make money. They supported the war effort. Every one +could not go to the trenches. Workers were as necessary to victory as +fighters. People had to be fed and clothed. The army had to be fed and +clothed, transported and munitioned. And the fact that the supplying and +equipping and transporting was highly profitable to those engaged in +such pursuits did not detract from the essentially patriotic and +necessary performance of these tasks. + +The effect on Vancouver was an industrial rejuvenation. Money flowed in +all sorts of channels hitherto nearly dry. A lot of it flowed to Wesley +Thompson in exchange for Summit cars. Thompson was like many other men +in Vancouver. He was very busy. The business stood on its feet by virtue +of his direction. If he dropped it and rushed off to the war--well there +was no lack of men, men who had no particular standing, men who could +not subscribe to war charities, to Dominion war-bond issues. There was +plenty of man-power. There was never a surplus of brain-power. Business +was necessary. So a man with a live, thriving business was fighting in +his own way--doing his bit to keep the wheels turning--standing stoutly +behind the fellow with a bayonet. And a lot of them let it go at that. A +lot of them saw no pressing need to don khaki and let everything else go +to pot. A lot of them were so intent upon making the most of their +opportunities that they never brought their innermost thoughts out on +the table and asked themselves point-blank: "Should I go? Why shouldn't +I?" And there were some who saw dimly--as the months slid by with air +raids and submarine sinkings and all the new, terrible devices of death +and destruction which transgressed the old usages of war--there were +some who were troubled without knowing why. There were men who hated +bloodshed, who hated violence, who wished to live and love and go their +ways in peace, but who began uneasily to question whether these things +they valued were of such high value after all. + +And Wes Thompson was one of these. Deep in him his emotions were +stirring. The old tribal instinct--which sent a man forth to fight for +the tribe no matter the cause--was functioning under the layer of stuff +that civilization imposes on every man. His reason gainsaid these +stirrings, those instinctive urgings, but there was a stirring and it +troubled him. He did not desire to die in a trench, nor vanish in +fragments before a bursting shell, nor lie face to the stars in No Man's +Land with a bayonet hole in his middle. He would not risk these +fatalities for any such academic idea as saving the world for democracy. + +Always when that queer, semi-dormant tribe instinct suggested that he go +fight with the tribe against the tribal enemy his reason swiftly choked +the impulse. He would not fight for a political abstraction. He had read +history. It is littered with broken treaties. If he fought it would be +because he felt there was need to strike a blow for something righteous. +And his faith in the righteousness of the Allied cause was still +unfired. He saw no mission to compel justice, to exact retribution, only +a clash of Great Powers, in which the common man was fed to the roaring +guns. + +But he was not so obtuse as to fail of seeing the near future. The +Germans were proving a right hard nut to crack. It might +be--remotely--that a man would have no choice in the matter of fighting. +He saw that cloud on the horizon. Sometimes he wished that he could +muster up a genuine enthusiasm for this business of war. He saw men who +had it and wondered privately how they came by it. + +If he could have felt it an imperative duty laid upon him, that would +have settled certain matters out of hand. Chief among these would have +been the problem of Sophie Carr. + +Sophie eluded and mystified him. Not wholly in a physical +sense--although, to be exact, she did become less accessible in a purely +physical sense. But it went deeper than that. During the eighteen months +following Thompson's motor-sales debut he never succeeded in +establishing between them the same sense of spiritual communion that he +had briefly glimpsed those few minutes in Carr's home on the way he +opened his salesroom. + +There was Tommy, for instance. Tommy was far closer to Sophie Carr than +he, Thompson, could manage to come, no matter how he tried. He and Tommy +were friends. They had apartments in the same house. They saw each other +constantly. The matter of competition in business was purely nominal. +They were both too successful in business to be envious of each other in +that respect. But where Sophie Carr was concerned it was a conflict, no +less existent because neither man ever betrayed his consciousness of +such a conflict. Indeed Thompson sometimes wondered uneasily if Ashe's +serenity came from an understanding with her. But he doubted that. Tommy +had not won--yet. That intangible yet impenetrable wall which was rising +about Sophie was built of other, sterner stuff. + +She seldom touched on the war, never more than a casual sentence or two. +Perhaps a phrase would flash like a sword, and then her lips would +close. Carr would discuss the war from any angle whatsoever, at any +time. It became an engrossing topic with him, as if there were phases +that puzzled him, upon which he desired light. He ceased to be +positive. But his daughter shunned war talk. + +Yet the war levied high toll on her waking hours, and for that reason +Thompson seldom saw her save in company. His vision of little dinners, +of drives together, of impromptu luncheons, of a steady siege in which +the sheer warmth of that passion in him should force capitulation to his +love--all those pleasant dreams went a-glimmering. Sophie was always on +some committee, directing some activity growing out of the war, Red +Cross work, Patriotic Fund, all those manifold avenues through which the +women fought their share of Canada's fight. For a pleasure-loving +creature Sophie Carr seemed to have undergone an astonishing +metamorphosis. She spent on these things, quietly, without parade or +press-agenting, all the energy in her, and she had no reserve left for +play. War work seemed to mean something to Sophie besides write-ups in +the society column and pictures of her in sundry poses. These things +besides, surrounded her with all sorts of fussy people, both male and +female, and through this cordon Thompson seldom broke for confidential +talk with her. When he did Sophie baffled him with her calm detachment, +a profound and ever-increasing reserve--as if she had ceased to be a +woman and become a mere, coldly beautiful mechanism for seeing about +shipments of bandage stuff, for collecting funds, and devising practical +methods of raising more funds and creating more supplies. + +Thompson said as much to her one day. She looked at him unmoved, +unsmiling. And something that lurked in her clear gray eyes made him +uncomfortable, sent him away wondering. It was as if somehow she +disapproved. A shadowy impression at best. He wondered if Tommy fared +any better, and he was constrained to think Tommy did because Tommy went +in for patriotic work a good deal, activities that threw him in pretty +close contact with Sophie. + +"I can spare the time," he confided to Thompson one day. "And it's good +business. I meet some pretty influential people. Why don't you spread +yourself a little more, Wes? They'll be saying you're a slacker if you +don't make a noise." + +"I don't fight the Germans with my mouth," Thompson responded shortly. +And Tommy laughed. + +"That's a popular weapon these days," he returned lightly. "It does no +harm to go armed with it." + +Thompson refrained from further speech. That very morning in the lobby +of the Granada Thompson had heard one man sneer at another for a +slacker--and get knocked down for his pains. He did not want to inflict +that indignity on Tommy, and he felt that he would if Tommy made any +more cynical reflections. + +Of course, that was a mere flaring-up of resentment at the fact that, to +save his soul, he could not get off the fence. He could not view the war +as a matter vital to himself; nor could he do like Tommy Ashe, play +patriotic tunes with one hand while the other reached slyly forth to +grasp power and privilege of whatever degree came within reach. + +And in the meantime both men, and other men likewise, went about their +daily affairs. Vancouver grew and prospered, and the growth of Summit +sales left an increasing balance on the profit side of Thompson's +ledger. Moreover the rapid and steady growth of his business kept his +mind on the business. It worked out--his business preoccupation--much in +the manner of the old story of fleas and dogs, to wit: a certain number +of fleas is good for a dog. They keep him from brooding over the fact +that he _is_ a dog. + +So, save for the fact that he continued to make money and was busy and +realized now and then that he had come to a disheartening impasse with +Sophie, the late spring of 1916 found Thompson mentally, morally and +spiritually holding fast by certain props. + +He had come a long way, and he had yet a long way to go. He had come to +Lone Moose very much after the fashion of St. Simeon Stylites all +prepared to mount a spiritual pillar and make a bid for sainthood. But +pillar hermits, he discovered, when harsh, material facts tore the +evangelistic blinkers off his eyes, were neither useful in the world nor +acceptable on high. He had been in a very bad way for awhile. When a man +loses his own self-respect and the faith of his fathers at one stroke he +is apt to suffer intensely. Thompson had not quite reached that pass, +when he came down to Wrangel by the sea, but he was not far off. When he +looked back, he could scarcely trace by what successive steps he had +traveled. But he had got up out of that puddle into which a harsh +environment and wounded egotism had cast him. He was in a way to be what +the world called a success. + +He was not so sure of that himself. But he stayed himself with certain +props, as before mentioned. The base of more than one of these useful +supports had been undermined some time before by a sequence of events +which presented the paradox of being familiar to him and still beyond +his comprehension. + +He was a long way from being aware, in those early summer days of 1916, +that before long some of the aforementioned props were to buckle under +him with strange and disturbing circumstance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE FUSE-- + + +It was in this period that certain phases of the war began to shake the +foundation of things. I do not recall who said that an army marches on +its stomach, but it is true, and it is no less a verity that nations +function primarily on food. The submarine was waxing to its zenith now, +and Europe saw the gaunt wolf at its door. Men cried for more ships. +Cost became secondary. A vessel paid for herself if she landed but two +cargoes in an Allied port. + +Every demand in the economic field produces a supply. On this side of +the Atlantic great shipbuilding plants arose by some superior magic of +construction in ports where the building of ships had been a minor +industry. In this Vancouver did not lag. Wooden ships could be built +quickly. Virgin forests of fir and cedar stood at Vancouver's very door. +Wherefore yards, capable of turning out a three-thousand-ton wooden +steamer in ninety days, rose on tidewater, and an army of labor sawed +and hammered and shaped to the ultimate confusion of the Hun. + +Thompson had seen these yards in the distance. He read newspapers and he +knew that local shipbuilding was playing the dual purpose of +confounding the enemy and adding a huge pay-roll to Vancouver's other +material advantages. Both of which were highly desirable. + +But few details of this came personally to his attention until an +evening when he happened to foregather with Tommy Ashe and two or three +others at Carr's home--upon one of those rare evenings when Sophie was +free of her self-imposed duties and in a mood to play the hostess. + +They had dined, and were gathered upon a wide verandah watching the sun +sink behind the rampart of Vancouver Island in a futurist riot of yellow +and red that died at last to an afterglow which lingered on the mountain +tops like a benediction. A bit of the Gulf opened to them, steel-gray, +mirror-smooth, more like a placid, hill-ringed lake than the troubled +sea. + +But there was more in the eye's cast than beauty of sea and sky and +setting sun. From their seats they could look down on the curious jumble +of long sheds and giant scaffolding that was the great Coughlan steel +shipyard in False Creek. Farther distant, on the North Shore, there was +the yellowish smudge of what a keen vision discerned to be six wooden +schooners in a row, sister ships in varying stages of construction. + +Some one said something about wooden shipbuilding. + +"There's another big yard starting on the North Shore," Sophie said. +"One of our committee was telling me to-day. Her husband has something +to do with it." + +"Yes. I can verify that," Tommy Ashe smiled. "That's my +contribution--the Vancouver Construction Company. I organized it. We +have contracted to supply the Imperial Munitions Board with ten +auxiliary schooners, three thousand tons burden each." + +The fourth man of the party, the lean, suave, enterprising head of a +local trust company, nodded approval, eyeing Tommy with new interest. + +"Good business," he commented. "We've got to beat those U-boats." + +"Yes," Tommy agreed, "and until the Admiralty devises some effectual +method of coping with them, the only way we can beat the subs is to +build ships faster than they can sink them. It's quite some undertaking, +but it has to be done. If we fail to keep supplies pouring into England +and France. Well--" + +He spread his hands in an expressive gesture. Tommy was that type of +Englishman in which rugged health and some generations of breeding and +education have combined to produce what Europe calls a "gentleman." He +was above middle height, very stoutly and squarely built, ruddy +faced--the sort of man one may safely prophesy will acquire a paunch and +double chin with middle age. But Tommy was young and vigorous yet. He +looked very capable, almost aggressive, as he sat there speaking with +the surety of patriotic conviction. + +"We're all in it now," he said simply. "It's no longer our army and navy +against their army and navy and the rest of us looking on from the side +lines. It's our complete material resources and man power against their +complete resources and man power. If _they_ win, the world won't be +worth living in, for the Anglo-Saxon. So we've got to beat them. Every +man's job from now on is going to be either fighting or working. We've +got to have ships. I'm organizing that yard to work top-speed. I'm +trying to set a pace. Watch us on the North Shore. The man in the +trenches won't say we didn't back him up." + +It sounded well. To Thompson it gave a feeling of dissatisfaction which +was nowise lessened by the momentary gleam in Sophie's eyes as they +rested briefly on Tommy and passed casually to him--and beyond. + +He was growing slowly to understand that the war had somehow--in a +fashion beyond his comprehension--bitten deep into Sophie Carr's soul. +She thought about it, if she seldom talked. What was perhaps more vital, +she _felt_ about it with an intensity Thompson could not fathom, because +he had not experienced such feeling himself. He only divined this. +Sophie never paraded either her thoughts or her feelings. And divining +this uneasily he foresaw a shortening of his stature in her eyes by +comparison with Tommy Ashe--who had become a doer, a creator in the +common need, while _he_ remained a gleaner in the field of +self-interest. Thompson rather resented that imputation. Privately he +considered Tommy's speech a trifle grandiloquent. He began to think he +had underestimated Tommy, in more ways than one. + +Nor did he fail to wonder at the dry smile that hovered about Sam Carr's +lips until that worthy old gentleman put his hand over his mouth to hide +it, while his shrewd old eyes twinkled with inner amusement. There was +something more than amusement, too. If Wes Thompson had not known that +Sam Carr liked Tommy, rather admired his push and ability to hold his +own in the general scramble, he would have said Carr's smile and eyes +tinged the amusement with something like contempt. + +That puzzled Thompson. The Dominion, as well as the Empire, was slowly +formulating the war-doctrine that men must either fight or work. Tommy, +with his executive ability, his enthusiasm, was plunging into a needed +work. Tommy had a right to feel that he was doing a big thing. Thompson +granted him that. Why, then, should Carr look at him like that? + +He was still recurring to that when he drove down town with Tommy later +in the evening. He was not surprised that Tommy sauntered into his rooms +after putting up his machine. He had been in the habit of doing that +until lately, and Thompson knew now that Tommy must have been very busy +on that shipyard organization. It had been easy for them to drop into +the old intimacy which had grown up between them on that hard, long +trail between Lone Moose and the Stikine. They had a lot of common +ground to meet on besides that. + +This night Tommy had something on his mind besides casual conversation. +He wasted little time in preliminaries. + +"Would you be interested in taking over my car agencies on a percentage +basis, Wes?" he asked point-blank, when he had settled himself in a +chair with a cigar in his mouth. "I have worked up a good business with +the Standard and the Petit Six. I don't like to let it go altogether. I +shall have to devote all my time to the ship plant. That looms biggest +on the horizon. But I want to hold these agencies as an anchor to +windward. You could run both places without either suffering, I'm +confident. Ill make you a good proposition." + +Thompson reflected a minute. + +"What is your proposition?" he asked at length. "I daresay I could +handle it. But I can't commit myself offhand." + +"Of course not," Tommy agreed. "You can go over my books from the +beginning, and see for yourself what the business amounts to. I'd be +willing to allow you seventy-five per cent. of the net. Based on last +year's business you should clear twelve thousand per annum. Sales are on +the up. You might double that. I would hold an option of taking over the +business on ninety days' notice." + +"It sounds all right," Thompson admitted. "I'll look into it." + +"I want quick action," Tommy declared. "Say, to-morrow you arrange for +some certified accountant to go over my books and make out a balance +sheet. I'll pay his fee. I'm anxious to be free to work on the ship +end." + +"All right. I'll do that. We can arrange the details later if I decide +to take you up," Thompson said. + +Tommy stretched his arms and yawned. + +"By jove," said he, "I'm going to be the busiest thing on wheels for +awhile. It's no joke running a big show." + +"I didn't know you were a shipbuilder," Thompson commented. + +"I'm not," Tommy admitted, stifling another yawn. "But I can hire +'em--both brains and labor. The main thing is I've got the contracts. +That's the chief item in this war business. The rest is chiefly a matter +of business judgment. It's something of a jump, I'll admit, but I can +negotiate it, all right." + +"As a matter of fact," he continued presently, and with a highly +self-satisfied note in his voice, "apart from the executive work it's +what the Americans call a lead-pipe cinch. We can't lose. I've been +fishing for this quite a while, and I put it over by getting in touch +with the right people. It's wonderful what you can do in the proper +quarter. The Vancouver Construction Company consists of Joe Hedley and +myself. Joe is a very clever chap. Has influential people, too. We have +contracts with the I.M.B. calling for ten schooners estimated to cost +three hundred thousand dollars per. We finance the construction, but we +don't really risk a penny. The contracts are on a basis of cost, plus +ten per cent. You see? If we go above or under the estimate it doesn't +matter much. Our profit is fixed. The main consideration is speed. The +only thing we can be penalized for is failure to launch and deliver +within specified dates." + +Thompson did a rough bit of mental figuring. + +"I should say it was a cinch," he said dryly. "Nobody can accuse you of +profiteering. Yet your undertaking is both patriotic and profitable. I +suppose you had no trouble financing a thing like that?" + +"I should say not. The banks," Tommy replied with cynical emphasis, +"would fall over themselves to get their finger in our pie. But they +won't. Hedley and I have some money. Sam Carr is letting us have fifty +thousand dollars at seven per cent. No bank is going to charge like the +Old Guard at Waterloo on overdrafts and advances--and dictate to us +besides. I'm too wise for that. I'm not in the game for my health. I see +a big lump of money, and I'm after it." + +"I suppose we all are," Thompson reflected absently. + +"Certainly," Tommy responded promptly. "And we'd be suckers if we +weren't." + +He took a puff or two at his cigar and rose. + +"Run over to the plant on the North Shore with me to-morrow if you have +the time. We'll give it the once over, and take a look at the Wallace +yard too. They're starting on steel tramps there now. I'm going over +about two o'clock. Will you?" + +"Sure. I'll take time," Thompson agreed. + +"Come down to MacFee's wharf and go over with me on the _Alert_," Tommy +went on. "That's the quickest and easiest way to cross the Inlet. Two +o'clock. Well, I'm off to bed. Good night, old man." + +"Good night." + +The hall door clicked behind Ashe. Thompson sat deep in thought for a +long time. Then he fished a note pad out of a drawer and began +pencilling figures. + +Ten times three hundred thousand was three million. Ten per cent. on +three million was three hundred thousand dollars. And no chance to lose. +The ten per cent. on construction cost was guaranteed by the Imperial +Munitions Board, behind which stood the British Empire. + +Didn't Tommy say the ten schooners were to be completed in eight months? +Then in eight months Tommy Ashe was going to be approximately one +hundred and fifty thousand dollars richer. + +Thompson wondered if that was why Sam Carr looked at Tommy with that +ambiguous expression when Tommy was chanting his work or fight +philosophy. Carr knew the ins and outs of the deal if he were loaning +money on it. + +And Thompson did not like to think he had read Carr's look aright, +because he was uncomfortably aware that he, Wes Thompson, was following +pretty much in Ashe's footsteps, only on a smaller scale. + +He tore the figured sheet into little strips, and went to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +--AND THE MATCH THAT LIT THE FUSE-- + + +At a minute or two of ten the next morning Thompson stopped his car +before the Canadian Bank of Commerce. The bolt-studded doors were still +closed, and so he kept his seat behind the steering column, glancing +idly along Hastings at the traffic that flowed about the gray stone pile +of the post-office, while he waited the bank's opening for business. + +A tall young man, a bit paler-faced perhaps than a normal young fellow +should be, but otherwise a fine-looking specimen of manhood, sauntered +slowly around the corner of the bank, and came to a stop on the curb +just abreast the fore end of Thompson's motor. He took out a cigarette +and lighted it with slow, deliberate motions. And as he stood there, +gazing with a detached impersonal air at the front of the Summit +roadster, there approached him a recruiting sergeant. + +"How about joining up this morning?" he inquired briskly. + +"Oh, I don't know," the young man responded casually. "I hadn't thought +about it." + +"Every man should be thinking about it," the sergeant declared. "The +army needs men. Now a well-set-up young fellow like you would get on +capitally at soldiering. It's a great life. When we get the Germans +whipped every man will be proud to say he had a hand in it. If a man +struck you you wouldn't stand back and let some other fellow do your +fighting for you, now would you? More than that, between you and me, it +won't be long before an able-bodied man can't walk these streets in +civvies, without the girls hooting him. It's a man's duty to get into +this war. Better walk along with me to headquarters and sign on." + +The young man gazed across the street with the same immobility of +expression. + +"What's the inducement?" he asked presently. + +The sergeant, taking his cue from this, launched forth upon a glowing +description of army life, the pay, the glory, the manifold advantages +that would certainly accrue. He painted a rosy picture, a gallant +picture. One gathered from his talk that a private in khaki was greater +than a captain of industry in civilian clothes. He dwelt upon the +brotherhood, the democracy of arms. He spilled forth a lot of the +buncombe that is swallowed by those who do not know from bitter +experience that war, at best, is a ghastly job in its modern phases, a +thing that the common man may be constrained to undertake if need +arises, but which brings him little pleasure and less glory--beyond the +consciousness that he has played his part as a man should. + +The young man heard the recruiting sergeant to an end. And when that +worthy had finished he found fixed steadily upon him a pair of coldly +speculative gray-green eyes. + +"How long have you been in the army?" he asked. + +"About eighteen months," the sergeant stated. + +"Have you been over there?" + +"No," the sergeant admitted. "I expect to go soon, but for the present +I'm detailed to recruiting." + +The young man had a flower in the lapel of his coat. He removed it, the +flower, and thrust the lapel in the sergeant's face. The flower had +concealed a bronze button. + +"I've been over there," the young man said calmly. "There's my button, +and my discharge is in my pocket--with the names of places on it that +you'll likely never see. I was in the Princess Pats--you know what +happened to the Pats. You have hinted I was a slacker, that every man +not in uniform is a slacker. Let me tell you something. I know your +gabby kind. The country's full of such as you. So's England. The war's +gone two years and you're still here, going around telling other men to +go to the front. Go there yourself, and get a taste of it. When you've +put in fourteen months in hell like I did, you won't go around peddling +the brand of hot air you've shot into me, just now." + +"I didn't know you were a returned man," the sergeant said placatingly. +A pointed barb of resentment had crept into the other's tone as he +spoke. + +"Well, I am," the other snapped. "And I'd advise you to get a new line +of talk. Don't talk to me, anyway. Beat it. I've done my bit." + +The sergeant moved on without another word, and the other man likewise +went his way, with just the merest suggestion of a limp. And +simultaneously the great doors of the bank swung open. Thompson looked +first after one man then after the other, and passed into the bank with +a thoughtful look on his face. + +He finished his business there. Other things occupied his attention +until noon. He lunched. After that he drove to Coal Harbor where the +yachts lie and motor boats find mooring, and having a little time to +spare before Tommy's arrival, walked about the slips looking over the +pleasure craft berthed thereat. Boats appealed to Thompson. He had taken +some pleasant cruises with friends along the coast. Some day he intended +to have a cruising launch. Tommy had already attained that distinction. +He owned a trim forty-footer, the _Alert_. Thompson's wanderings +presently brought him to this packet. + +A man sat under the awning over the after deck. Thompson recognized in +him the same individual upon whom the recruiting sergeant's eloquence +had been wasted that morning. He was in clean overalls, a seaman's +peaked cap on his head. Thompson had felt an impulse to speak to the man +that morning. If any legitimate excuse had offered he would have done +so. To find the man apparently at home on the boat in which he himself +was taking brief passage was a coincidence of which Thompson proceeded +to take immediate advantage. He climbed into the cockpit. The man looked +at him questioningly. + +"I'm going across the Inlet with Mr. Ashe," Thompson explained. "Are you +on the _Alert_?" + +"Engineer, skipper, and bo'sun too," the man responded whimsically. +"Cook, captain, and the whole damn crew." + +They fell into talk. The man was intelligent, but there was a queer +abstraction sometimes in his manner. Once the motor of a near-by craft +fired with a staccato roar, and he jumped violently. He looked at +Thompson unsmiling. + +"I'm pretty jumpy yet," he said--but he did not explain why. He did not +say he had been overseas. He did not mention the war. He talked of the +coast, and timber, and fishing, and the adjacent islands, with all of +which he seemed to be fairly familiar. + +"I heard that recruiting sergeant tackle you this morning," Thompson +said at last. "You were standing almost beside my machine. What was it +like over there?" + +"What was it like?" the man repeated. He shook his head. "That's a big +order. I couldn't tell you in six months. It wasn't nice." + +He seemed to reflect a second or two. + +"I suppose some one has to do it. It has to be done. But it's a tough +game. You don't know where you're going nor what you're up against most +of the time. The racket gets a man, as well as seeing fellows you know +getting bumped off now and then. Some of the boys get hardened to it. I +never did. I try to forget it now, mostly. But I dream things sometimes, +and any sudden noise makes me jump. A fellow had better finish over +there than come home crippled. I'm lucky to hold down a job like this, +lucky that I happen to know gas engines and boats. I look all right, but +I'm not much good. All chewed up with shrapnel. And my nerve's gone. I +wouldn't have got my discharge if they could have used me any more. Aw, +hell, if you haven't been in it you can't imagine what it's like. I +couldn't tell you." + +"Tell me one thing," Thompson asked quickly, spurred by an impulse for +light upon certain matters which had troubled him. He wanted the word of +an eye-witness. "Did you ever see, personally, any of those atrocities +that have been laid to the Germans in Belgium?" + +"Well, I don't know," the man replied. "The papers have printed a lot of +stuff. Mind you, over there you hear about a lot of things you never +see. The only thing _I_ saw was children with their hands hacked off at +the wrist." + +"Good God," Thompson uttered. "You actually saw that with your own +eyes." + +"Sure," the man responded. "Nine of 'em in one village. + +"Why, in the name of God, would men do such a thing?" Thompson demanded. +"Was any reason ever given?" + +"No. I suppose they were drunk or something. Fritz was pretty bad in +spots, all right. Maybe they just wanted to put the fear of God in their +hearts. A pal of mine in Flanders told me of a woman--in a place they +took by a night raid--she had her breast slashed open. She said a Boche +officer did it with his sword." + +The man spoke of these things in a detached, impersonal manner, as one +who states commonplace facts. He had not particularly desired to speak +of them. For him those gruesome incidents of war and invasion held no +special horror. They might have rested heavily enough on his mind once. +But he had come apparently to accept them as the grim collateral of war, +without reacting emotionally to their terrible significance. And when +Thompson ceased to question him he ceased to talk. + +But in Thompson these calmly recounted horrors worked profound distress. +His imagination became immediately shot with sinister pictures. All +these things which he had read and doubted, which had left him unmoved, +now took on a terrible reality. He could see these things about which +the returned soldier spoke, and seeing them believed. Believing, there +rose within him a protest that choked him with its force as he sat in +the cockpit beside this veteran of Flanders. + +The man had fallen silent, staring into the green depths overside. +Thompson sat silent beside him. But there was in Thompson none of the +other's passivity. Unlike the returned soldier, who had seen blood and +death until he was surfeited with it, until he wanted nothing but peace +and quietness, and a chance to rest his shrapnel-torn body and +shell-shocked nerves, Thompson quivered with a swift, hot desire to kill +and destroy, to inflict vengeance. He burned for reprisal. For a +passionate moment he felt as if he could rend with his bare hands a man +or men who could wantonly mutilate women and children. He could find no +fit name for such deeds. + +And, responding so surely to that unexpected stimulus, he had no +stomach for crossing the Inlet as Tommy's guest, to view the scene of +Tommy's industrial triumph-to-be. He wasn't interested in that now. + +Sitting under the awning, brooding over these things, he remembered how +Sophie Carr had reacted to the story of the Belgian refugee that +afternoon a year and a half ago. He understood at last. He divined how +Sophie felt that day. And he had blandly discounted those things. He had +gone about his individual concerns insulated against any call to right +wrongs, to fight oppression, to abolish that terror which loomed over +Europe--and which might very well lay its sinister hand on America, if +the Germans were capable of these things, and if the German's military +power prevailed over France and England. When he envisaged Canada as +another Belgium his teeth came together with a little click. + +He clambered out of the _Alert's_ cockpit to the float. + +"Tell Mr. Ashe I changed my mind about going over with him," he said +abruptly, and walked off the float, up the sloping bank to the street, +got in his car and drove away. + +As he drove he felt that he had failed to keep faith with something or +other. He felt bewildered. Those little children, shorn of their +hands--so that they could never lift a sword against Germany--cried +aloud to him. They held up their bloody stumps for him to see. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +--AND THE BOMB THE FUSE FIRED + + +It took Thompson approximately forty-eight hours to arrange his affairs. +He managed things with a precipitancy that would have shocked a sound, +practical business man, for he put out no anchors to windward nor +troubled himself about the future. He paid his bills, transferred the +Summit agency to his head salesman--who had amassed sufficient capital +to purchase the stock of cars and parts at cost. Thus, having +deliberately sacrificed a number of sound assets for the sake of being +free of them without delay, Thompson found himself upon the morning of +the third day without a tie to bind him to Vancouver, and a cash balance +of twenty thousand dollars to his credit in the bank. + +He did not know how, or in what capacity he was going to the front, but +he was going, and the manner of his going did not concern him greatly. +It mattered little how he went, so long as he went in the service of his +country. A little of his haste was born of the sudden realization that +he had a country which needed his services--and that he desired to +serve. It had passed an emotional phase with him. He saw it very clearly +as a duty. He did not foresee or anticipate either pleasure or glory in +the undertaking. He had no illusions about war. It was quite on the +cards that he might never come back. But he had to go. + +So then he had only to determine how he should go. + +That problem, which was less a problem than a matter of making choice, +was solved that very day at luncheon. As he sat at a table in a downtown +cafe there came to him a figure in khaki, wearing a short, close-fitting +jacket with an odd emblem on the left sleeve--a young fellow who hailed +Thompson with a hearty grip and a friendly grin. He sat himself in a +chair vis-a-vis, laying his funny, wedge-shaped cap on the table. + +"I've been wondering what had become of you, Jimmie," Thompson said. "I +see now. Where have you been keeping yourself?" + +"East," the other returned tersely. "Training. Got my wings. Off to +England day after to-morrow. How's everything with you, these days?" + +Thompson looked his man over thoroughly. Jimmie Wells was the youngest +of the four sons of a wealthy man. The other three were at the front, +one of them already taking his long rest under a white, wooden cross +somewhere in France. Jimmie looked brown and fit. A momentary pang of +regret stung Thompson. He wished he too were standing in uniform, ready +for overseas. + +"I've just wound up my business," he said. "I'm going to the front +myself, Jimmie." + +"Good," Wells approved. "What branch?" + +"I don't know yet," Thompson replied. "I made up my mind in a hurry. I'm +just setting out to find where I'll fit in best." + +"Why don't you try aviation?" Jimmie Wells suggested. "You ought to +make good in that. There are a lot of good fellows flying. If you want +action, the R.F.C. is the sportiest lot of all." + +"I might. I didn't think of that," Thompson returned slowly. "Yes, I +believe I could fly." + +"If you can fly like you drive, you'll be the goods," Jimmie asserted +cheerfully. "Tell you what, Thompson. Come on around to the Flying Corps +headquarters with me. I know a fellow there rather well, and I'll +introduce you. Not that that will get you anything, only Holmes will +give you a lot of unofficial information." + +Thompson rose from the table. + +"Lead me to it," said he. "I'm your man." + +Getting accepted as a cadet in the Royal Flying Corps was not so simple +a matter as enlisting in the infantry. The requirements were infinitely +more rigid. The R.F.C. took only the cream of the country's manhood. +They told Thompson his age was against him--and he was only +twenty-eight. It was true. Ninety per cent. of the winged men were five +years younger. But he passed all their tests by grace of a magnificent +body that housed an active brain and steady nerves. + +All this did not transpire overnight. It took days. He told no one of +his plans in the meantime, no one but Tommy Ashe, who was a trifle +disappointed when Thompson declined to handle Tommy's exceedingly +profitable motor business. Tommy seemed hurt. To make it clear that he +had a vital reason, Thompson explained tersely. + +"I can't do it because I'm going to the front." + +"Eh? What the devil!" + +Tommy looked all the astonishment his tone expressed. + +"Well, _what_ the devil?" Thompson returned tartly. "Is there anything +strange about that? A good many men have gone. A good many more will +have to go before this thing is settled. Why not?" + +"Oh, if a man feels that he _should_," Tommy began. He seemed at a loss +for words, and ended lamely: "There's plenty of cannon-fodder in the +country without men of your caliber wasting themselves in the trenches. +You haven't the military training nor the pull to get a commission." + +Thompson's lips opened to retort with a sentence he knew would sting +like a whiplash. But he thought better of it. He would not try plucking +the mote out of another man's eye, when he had so recently got clear of +the beam in his own. + +Tommy did not tarry long after that. He wished Thompson good luck, but +he left behind him the impression that he privately considered it a poor +move. Thompson was willing to concede that from a purely material +standpoint it was a poor move. But he could no longer adopt the purely +materialistic view. It had suddenly become clear to him that he must +go--and _why_ he must go. Just as the citizen whose house gets on fire +knows beyond peradventure that he must quench the flames if it lies in +his power. + +The Royal Flying Corps arrives at its ends slowly. Perhaps not too +slowly for the niceness of choice that must be made. Presently there +came to Wesley Thompson a brief order to report at a training camp in +Eastern Canada. + +When he held this paper in his hand and knew himself committed +irrevocably to the greatest game of all, he felt a queer, inner glow, a +quiet satisfaction such as must come to a man who succeeds in some high +enterprise. Thompson felt this in spite of desperate facts. He had no +illusions as to what he had set about. He knew very well that in the +R.F.C. it was a short life and not always a merry one. Of course a man +might be lucky. He might survive by superior skill. In any case it had +to be done. + +But he was moved likewise by a strange loneliness, and with his orders +in his hand he understood at last the source of that peculiar regret +which latterly had assailed him in stray moments. There were a few +friends to bid good-by. And chief, if she came last on his round of +calls that last day, was Sophie Carr. + +He found Sophie at home about four in the afternoon, sitting in the big +living room, making Red Cross bandages. She did not stop her work when +he was ushered in. Beside her on a table stood a flat box and in this +from time to time she put a finished roll. It occurred to Thompson that +sometime one of those white bandages fabricated by her hands might be +used on him. + +He smiled a bit sardonically, for the thought arose also that in the +Flying Corps the man who lost in aerial combat needed little besides a +coffin--and sometimes not even that. + +Sophie looked at him almost somberly. + +"I'm working, don't you see?" she said curtly. + +He had never seen her in quite that unapproachable mood. He wanted her +to forget the Red Cross and the war for a little while, to look and +speak with the old lightness. He wasn't a sentimental man, but he did +want to go away with a picture of her smiling. He had not told her he +was going. He did not mean to tell her till he was leaving, and then +only to say casually: "Well, good-by. I'm off for a training-camp +to-night." He had always suspected there was something of the Spartan in +Sophie Carr's make-up. Even if he had not divined that, he had no +intention of making a fuss about his going, of trying to pose as a hero. +But he was a normal man, and he wanted his last recollection of her--if +it _should_ be his last--to be a pleasant one. + +And Sophie was looking at him now, fixedly, a frosty gleam in her gray +eyes. She looked a moment, and her breast heaved. She swept the work off +her lap with a sudden, swift gesture. + +"What is the matter with you--and dozens of men like you that I know?" +she demanded in a choked voice. "You stay at home living easy and +getting rich in the security that other men are buying with their blood +and their lives, over there. Fighting against odds and dying like dogs +in a ditch so that we can live here in peace and comfort. You don't even +do anything useful here. There doesn't seem to be anything that can make +you work or fight. They can sink passenger ships and bomb undefended +towns and shell hospitals, and you don't seem to resent it. I've heard +you prate about service--when you thought you walked with God and had a +mission from God to show other men the way. Why don't you serve now? +What is the matter with you? Is your skin so precious? If you can't +fight, can't you make ammunition or help to build ships? Are you a man, +or just a rabbit? I wish to God _I_ were a man." + +Thompson rose to his feet. The lash of her tongue had not lost its power +to sting since those far-off Lone Moose days. Yet, though it stabbed +like a spear, he was more conscious of a passionate craving to gather +her into his arms than of anger and resentment. There were tears in +Sophie's eyes--but there was no softness in her tone. Her red lips +curled as Thompson looked at her in dazed silence. There did not seem to +be anything he could say--not with Sophie looking at him like that. + +"If you feel that way about it--" + +He broke off in the middle of the muttered sentence, turned on his heel, +walked out of the room. And he went down the street suffering from a +species of shock, saying desperately to himself that it did not matter, +nothing mattered. + +But he knew that was a lie, a lie he told himself to keep his soul from +growing sick. + +He went back to his rooms for the last time, and tried with pen and +paper to set down some justification of himself for Sophie's eyes. But +he could not satisfy himself with that. His pride revolted against it. +Why should he plead? Or rather, what was the use of pleading? Why +should he explain? He had a case for the defence, but defence avails +nothing after sentence has been pronounced. He had waited too long. He +had been tried and found wanting. + +He tore the letter into strips, and having sent his things to the +station long before, put on his hat now and walked slowly there himself, +for it lacked but an hour of train-time. + +At the corner of Pender and Hastings he met Sam Carr. + +"Welcome, youthful stranger," Carr greeted heartily. "I haven't seen you +for a long time. Walk down to the Strand with me and have a drink. I've +been looking over the Vancouver Construction Company's yard, and it's a +very dry place." + +Thompson assented. He had time and it was on his way. He reacted +willingly to the suggestion. He needed something to revive his spirit, +but he had not thought of the stimulus of John Barleycorn until Carr +spoke. + +In the Strand bar he poured himself half a glass of Scotch whisky. Carr +regarded him meditatively over port wine. + +"That's the first time I ever saw you touch the hard stuff," he +observed. + +"It will probably be the last," Thompson replied. + +"Why?" + +"I'm off," Thompson explained. "I have sold out my business and have +been accepted for the Royal Flying Corps. I'm taking the train at six to +report at Eastern headquarters." + +Carr fingered the stem of his empty glass a second. "I hate to see you +go, and still I'm glad you're going," he said with an odd, wistful note +in his voice. "I'd go too, Thompson, if I weren't too old to be any use +over there." + +"Eh?" Thompson looked at him keenly. "Have you been revising your +philosophy of life?" + +"No. Merely bringing it up to date," Carr replied soberly. "We have what +we have in the way of government, economic practice, principles of +justice, morality--so forth and so on. I'm opposed to a lot of it. Too +much that's obsolete. A lot that's downright bad. But bad as it is in +spots, it is not a circumstance to what we should have to endure if the +Germans win this war. I believe in my people and my country. I don't +believe in the German system of dominating by sheer force and planned +terror. The militarists and the market hunters have brought us to this. +But we have to destroy the bogey they have raised before we can deal +with them. And a man can't escape nationalism. It's bred in us. What the +tribe thinks, the individual thinks. This thing is in the air. We are +getting unanimous. Whether or not we approve the cause, we are too proud +to consider getting whipped in a war that was forced on us. One way and +another, no matter what we privately think of our politicians and +industrial barons and our institutions generally, it is becoming +unthinkable to the Anglo-Saxon that the German shall stalk rough-shod +over us. We are beginning--we common people--to hate him and his works. +Look at you and me. We were aloof at first. We are intelligent. We have +learned to saddle feeling with logic. We have not been stampeded by +military bands and oratory. Yet there is something in the air. I wish I +could fight. You are going to fight. Not because you like fighting, but +because you see something to fight for. And before long those who cannot +see will be very few. Isn't that about right?" + +"I think so," Thompson replied. + +"There you are," Carr went on. "Myself, I have put philosophic +consideration in abeyance for the time. I've got primitive again. Damn +the Central Powers! If I had seven sons I'd send them all to the front." + +They had another drink. + +"Did you go and say good-by to Sophie?" Carr demanded suddenly. + +"I saw her, but I don't think I said good-by," Thompson said absently. +He was thinking about Carr's surprising outburst. He agreed precisely +with what the old man said. But he had not suspected the old radical of +such intensity. "I didn't tell her I was going." + +"You didn't tell her," Carr persisted. "Why not?" + +"For a variety of reasons." He found it hard to assume lightness with +those shrewd old eyes searchingly upon him. "You can tell her good-by +for me. Well, let's have a last one. It'll be a good many moons before +you and I look over a glass at each other again. If I don't come back +I'll be in honorable company. And I'll give them hell while I last." + +Carr walked with him down to the train. + +"When the war broke out," he said to Thompson at the coach steps, "if +you had proposed to go I should privately have considered you a damned +idealistic fool. Now I envy you. You will never have to make apologies +to yourself for yourself, nor to your fellows. If I strike a blow that a +free people may remain free to work out their destiny in their own +fashion, I must do it by proxy. I wish you all the luck there is, Wes +Thompson. I hope you come back safe to us again." + +They shook hands. A voice warned all and sundry that the train was about +to leave, and over the voice rose the strident notes of a gong. Thompson +climbed the steps, passed within, thrust his head through an open window +as the Imperial Limited gathered way. His last glimpse of a familiar +face was of Carr standing bareheaded, looking wistfully after the +gliding coaches. + + * * * * * + +The grandfather clock in the hall was striking nine when Sam Carr came +home. He hung his hat on the hall-tree and passed with rather unsteady +steps into the living room. He moved circumspectly, with the peculiar +caution of the man who knows that he is intoxicated and governs his +movements accordingly. Carr's legs were very drunk and he was aware of +this, but his head was perfectly clear. He managed to negotiate passage +to a seat near his daughter. + +Sophie was sitting in a big chair, engulfed therein, one might say. A +reading lamp stood on the table at her elbow. A book lay in her lap. But +she was staring at the wall absently, and beyond a casual glance at her +father she neither moved nor spoke, nor gave any sign of being stirred +out of this profound abstraction. + +Carr sank into his chair with a sigh of relief. + +"I am just about pickled, I do believe," he observed to the room at +large. + +"So I see," Sophie commented impersonally. "Is there anything uncommon +about that? I am beginning to think prohibition will be rather a +blessing to you, Dad, when it comes." + +"Huh!" Carr grunted. "I suppose one drink does lead to another. But I +don't need to be legally safe-guarded yet, thank you. My bibulosity is +occasional. When it becomes chronic I shall take to the woods." + +"Sometimes I find myself wishing we had never come out of the woods," +Sophie murmured. + +"What?" Carr exclaimed. Then: "That's rich. You with a sure income +beyond your needs, in your own right, with youth and health and beauty, +with all your life before you, wishing to revert to what you used to say +was a living burial? That's equivalent to holding that the ostrich +philosophy is the true one--what you cannot see does not exist. That +ignorance is better than knowledge--that--that--Hang it, my dear, are +you going to turn reactionary? But that's a woman. Now why should--" + +"Oh, don't begin one of your interminable, hair-splitting elucidations," +Sophie protested. "I know it's showing weakness to desire to run away +from trouble. I don't know that I have any trouble to run from. I'm not +sure I should dodge trouble if I could. I was just voicing a stray +thought. We _were_ happy at Lone Moose, weren't we, Dad?" + +"After a fashion," Carr replied promptly. "As the animal is happy with +a full belly and a comfortable place to sleep. But we both craved a +great deal more than that of life." + +"And we are not getting more," Sophie retorted. "When you come right +down to fundamentals we eat a greater variety of food, wear better +clothes, live on a scale that by our former standards is the height of +luxury. But not one of my dreams has come true. And you find solace in a +wine glass where you used to find it in books. Over in Europe men are +destroying each other like mad beasts. At home, while part of the nation +plays the game square, there's another part that grafts and corrupts and +profiteers and slacks to no end. It's a rotten world." + +"By gad, you have got the blue glasses on to-night, and no mistake," +Carr mused. "That's unmitigated pessimism, Sophie. What you need is a +vacation. Let somebody else run this women's win-the-war show for +awhile, and you take a rest. That's nerves." + +"I can't. There is too much to do," Sophie said shortly. "I don't want +to. If I sat down and folded my hands these days I'd go crazy." + +Carr grunted. For a minute neither spoke. Sophie lay back in her chair, +eyes half closed, fingers beating a slow rat-a-tat on the chair-arm. + +"Have you seen Wes Thompson lately?" Carr inquired at last. + +"I saw him this afternoon," Sophie replied. + +"Did he tell you he was going overseas?" + +"No." Sophie's interest seemed languid, judged by her tone. + +"You saw him this afternoon, eh?" Carr drawled. "That's queer." + +"What's queer?" Sophie demanded. + +"That he would see you and not tell you where he was off to," Carr went +on. "I saw him away on the Limited at six-o'clock. He told me to tell +you good-by. He's gone to the front." + +Sophie sat upright. + +"How could he do that?" she said impatiently. "A man can't get into +uniform and leave for France on two hours' notice. He called here about +four. Don't be absurd." + +"I don't see anything absurd except your incredulous way of taking it," +Carr defended stoutly. "I tell you he's gone. I saw him take the train. +Who said anything about two hours' notice? I should imagine he has been +getting ready for some time. You know Wes Thompson well enough to know +that he doesn't chatter about what he's going to do. He sold out his +business two weeks ago, and has been waiting to be passed in his tests. +He has finally been accepted and ordered to report East for training in +aviation. He joined the Royal Flying Corps." + +Carr did not know that in the circle of war workers where Sophie moved +so much the R.F.C. was spoken of as the "Legion of Death." No one knew +the percentage of casualties in that gallant service. Such figures were +never published. All that these women knew was that their sons and +brothers and lovers, clean-limbed children of the well-to-do, joined the +Flying Corps, and that their lives, if glorious, were all too brief +once they reached the Western front. Only the supermen, the favored of +God, survived a dozen aerial combats. To have a son or a brother flying +in France meant mourning soon or late. So they spoke sometimes, in +bitter pride, of their birdmen as the "Legion of Death", a gruesome +phrase and apt. + +Carr knew the heavy casualties of aerial fighting. But he had never seen +a proud woman break down before the ominous cablegram, he had never seen +a girl sit dry-eyed and ashy-white, staring dumbly at a slip of yellow +paper. And Sophie had--many a time. To her, a commission in the Royal +Flying Corps had come to mean little short of a death warrant. + +She sat now staring blankly at her father. + +"He closed up his business and joined the Flying Corps two weeks ago." + +She repeated this stupidly, as if she found it almost impossible to +comprehend. + +"That's what I said," Carr replied testily. "What the devil did you do +to him that he didn't tell you, if he was here only two hours before he +left? Why, he must have come to say good-by." + +"What did I do?" Sophie whispered. "My God, how was I to know what I was +doing?" + +She sat staring at her father. But she was not seeing him, and Carr knew +she did not see him. Some other vision filled those wide-pupiled eyes. +Something that she saw or felt sent a shudder through her. Her mouth +quivered. And suddenly she gave a little, stifled gasp, and covered her +face with her hands. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE LAST BRIDGE + + +Thompson received his preliminary training in a camp not greatly distant +from his birthplace and the suburban Toronto home where the spinster +aunts still lived. He did not go to see them at first, for two reasons. +Primarily, because he had written them a full and frank account of +himself when he got out of the ruck and achieved success in San +Francisco. Their reply had breathed an open disappointment, almost +hostility, at his departure from the chosen path. They made it clear +that in their eyes he was a prodigal son for whom there would never be +any fatted calf. Secondly, he did not go because there was seldom +anything but short leave for a promising aviator. + +Thompson speedily proved himself to belong in that category. There +resided in him those peculiar, indefinable qualities imperative for +mastery of the air. Under able instruction he got on fast, just as he +had got on fast in the Henderson shops. And by the time the first fall +snows whitened the ground, he was ready for England and the finishing +stages of aerial work antecedent to piloting a fighting plane. He had +practically won his official wings. + +With his orders to report overseas he received ten days' final leave. +And a sense of duty spurred him to look up the maiden aunts, to brave +their displeasure for the sake of knowing how they fared. There was +little other use to make of his time. The Pacific Coast was too far +away. The only person he cared to see there had no wish to see him, he +was bitterly aware. And nearer at hand circumstances had shot him clear +out of the orbit of all those he had known as he grew to manhood. +Recalling them, he had no more in common with them now than any +forthright man of action has in common with narrow visionaries. It was +not their fault, he knew. They were creatures of their environment, just +as he had been. But he had outgrown all faith in creeds and forms before +a quickening sympathy with man, a clearer understanding of human +complexities. And as he recalled them his associates had been slaves to +creed and form, worshippers of the letter of Christianity while +unconsciously they violated the spirit of Christ. Thompson had no wish +to renew those old friendships, not even any curiosity about them. So he +passed them by and went to see his aunts, who had fed and clothed him, +to whom he felt a vague sort of allegiance if no particular affection. + +It seemed to Thompson like reliving a very vivid sort of dream to get +off a street car at a certain corner, to walk four blocks south and turn +into the yard before a small brick cottage with a leafless birch rising +out of the tiny grass plot and the bleached vines of sweet peas draping +the fence palings. + +The woman who opened the door at his knock stood before him a living +link with that dreamlike past, unchanged except in minor details, a +little more spare perhaps and grayer for the years he had been gone, but +dressed in the same dull black, with the same spotless apron, the same +bit of a white lace cap over her thin hair, the same pince-nez astride a +high bony nose. + +Aunt Lavina did not know him in his uniform. He made himself known. The +old lady gazed at him searchingly. Her lips worked. She threw her arms +about his neck, laughing and sobbing in the same breath. + +"Surely, it's myself," Thompson patted her shoulder. "I'm off to the +front in a few days and I thought I'd better look you up. How's Aunt +Hattie?" + +Aunt Lavina disengaged herself from his arms, her glasses askew, her +faded old eyes wet, yet smiling as Thompson could not recall ever seeing +her smile. + +"What a spectacle for the neighbors," she said breathlessly. "Me, at my +time of life, hugging and kissing a soldier on the front step. Do come +in, Wesley. Harriet will be so pleased. My dear boy, you don't know how +we have worried about you. How well you look." + +She drew him into the parlor. A minute later Aunt Harriet, with less +fervor than her sister perhaps, made it clear that she was unequivocally +glad to see him, that any past rancor for his departure from grace was +dead and buried. + +They were beyond the sweeping current of everyday life, living their +days in a back eddy, so to speak. But they were aware of events, of the +common enemy, of the straining effort of war, and they were proud of +their nephew in the King's uniform. They twittered over him like fond +birds. He must stay his leave out with them. + +At this pronunciamento of Aunt Lavina's a swift glance passed between +the two old women. Thompson caught it, measured the doubt and uneasiness +of the mutual look, and was puzzled thereby. + +But he did not fathom its source for a day or two, and only then by a +process of deduction. They treated him handsomely, they demonstrated an +affection which moved him deeply because he had never suspected its +existence. (They had always been so precise, almost harsh with him as a +youngster.) But their living was intolerably meager. Disguise it with +every artifice, a paucity of resource--or plain niggardliness--betrayed +itself at every meal. Thompson discarded the theory of niggardliness. +And proceeding thence on the first conclusion stood his two aunts in a +corner--figuratively, of course--and wrung from them a statement of +their financial status. + +They were proud and reluctant. But Thompson had not moved among and +dealt with men of the world to be baffled by two old women, so presently +he was in possession of certain facts. + +They had not been able to support themselves, to rear and educate him, +on their income alone, and gradually their small capital had been +consumed. They were about to negotiate the sale of their home, the +proceeds of which would keep them from want--if they did not live too +long. They tried to make light of it, but Thompson grasped the tragedy. +They had been born in that brick cottage with the silver birch before +the door. + +"Well," he said at length, "I don't want to preempt the Lord's +prerogative of providing. But I can't permit this state of affairs. I +wish you had taken me into your confidence, aunties, when I was a +youngster. However, that doesn't matter now. Can you live comfortably on +eleven hundred dollars a year?" + +Aunt Harriet held up her hands. + +"My dear boy," she said, "such a sum would give us luxuries, us two old +women. But that is out of the question. If we get five thousand for the +place we shall have to live on a great deal less than that." + +"Forget that nonsense about selling this place," Thompson said roughly. +That grated on him. He felt a sense of guilt, of responsibility too long +neglected. "Where I'm going I shall be supplied by the government with +all I need. I've made some money. I own war-bonds sufficient to give you +eleven hundred a year in interest. I'll turn them over to you. If I come +back with a whole skin when the war's over, I'll be able to use the +capital in a way to provide for all of us. If I don't come back, you'll +be secure against want as long as you live." + +He made good his word before his leave was up. He had very nearly lost +faith in the value of money, of any material thing. He had struggled for +money and power for a purpose, to demonstrate that he was a man equal to +any man's struggle. He had signally failed in his purpose, for reasons +that were still a little obscure to him. Failure had made him a little +bitter, bred a pessimism it took the plight of his aunts to cure. Even +if he had failed to achieve his heart's desire he had acquired power to +make two lives content. Save that it ministered to his self-respect to +know that he could win in that fierce struggle of the marketplace, money +had lost its high value for him. Money was only a means, not an end. But +to have it, to be able to bestow it where it was sadly needed, was worth +while, after all. If he "crashed" over there, it was something to have +banished the grim spectre of want from these two who were old and +helpless. + +He was thinking of this along with a jumble of other thoughts as he +leaned on the rail of a transport slipping with lights doused out of the +port of Halifax. There was a lump in his throat because of those two old +women who had cried over him and clung to him when he left them. There +was another woman on the other side of the continent to whom his going +meant nothing, he supposed, save a duty laggardly performed. And he +would have sold his soul to feel _her_ arms around his neck and her lips +on his before he went. + +"Oh, well," he muttered to himself as he watched the few harbor lights +falling astern, yellow pin-points on the velvety black of the shore," +this is likely to be the finish of _that_. I think I've burned my last +bridge. And I have learned to stand on my own feet, whether she believes +so or not." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THOMPSON'S RETURN + + +"Anon we return, being gathered again +Across the sad valleys all drabbled with rain." + +On an evening near the first of September, 1918, a Canadian Pacific +train rumbled into Vancouver over tracks flanked on one side by wharves +and on the other by rows of drab warehouses. It rolled, bell clanging +imperiously, with decreasing momentum until it came to a shuddering halt +beside the depot that rises like a great, brown mausoleum at the foot of +a hill on which the city sits looking on the harbor waters below. + +Upon the long, shed-roofed platform were gathered the fortunate few +whose men were on that train. Behind these waited committees of welcome +for stray dogs of war who had no kin. The environs of the depot proper +and a great overhead bridge, which led traffic of foot and wheel from +the streets to the docks, high over the railway yards, were cluttered +with humanity that cheered loudly at the first dribble of khaki from the +train below. + +It was not a troop train, merely the regular express from the East. But +it bore a hundred returned men, and news of their coming had been widely +heralded. So the wives and sweethearts, the committees, and the curious, +facile-minded crowd, were there to greet these veterans who were mostly +the unfortunates of war, armless, legless men, halt and lame, gassed and +shrapnel-scarred--and some who bore no visible sign only the white face +and burning eyes of men who had met horror and walked with it and +suffered yet from the sight. All the wounds of the war are not solely of +the flesh, as many a man can testify. + +From one coach there alighted a youngish man in the uniform of the Royal +Flying Corps. He carried a black bag. He walked a little stiffly. Beyond +that he bore no outward trace of disablement. His step and manner +suggested no weakness. One had to look close to discern pallor and a +peculiar roving habit of the eyes, a queer tensity of the body. A +neurologist, versed in the by-products of war, could have made a fair +guess at this man's medical-history sheet. But the folk on the platform +that night were not specialists in subtle diagnosis of the nervous +system. Nor were the committees. They were male and female of those who +had done their bit at home, were doing it now, welcoming their broken +heroes. The sight of a man with a scarred face, a mutilated limb, +elicited their superficial sympathy, while the hidden sickness of racked +nerves in an unmaimed body they simply could not grasp. + +So this man with the black bag and the wings on his left arm walked the +length of the platform, gained the steel stairway which led to the main +floor of the depot, and when he had climbed half-way stopped to rest and +to look down over the rail. + +Below, the mass of humanity was gravitating into little groups here and +there about a khaki center. There was laughter, and shrill voices, with +an occasional hysterical note. There were men surrounded by women and +children, and there were others by twos and threes and singly who looked +enviously at these little groups of the reunited, men who moved +haltingly on their way to the city above, perfunctorily greeted, +perfunctorily handshaken, and perfunctorily smiled upon by the official +welcomers. + +He looked at this awhile, with a speculative, pitying air, and continued +his climb, passing at last through great doors into a waiting-room, a +place of high, vaulted ceilings, marble pillars, beautiful tiled floors. +He evaded welcoming matrons on the watch for unattached officers, to +hale them into an anteroom reserved for such, to feed them sandwiches +and doubtful coffee, and to elicit tales of their part in the grim +business overseas. This man avoided the cordial clutches of the socially +elect by the simple expedient of saying that his people expected him. He +uttered this polite fiction in self-defense. He did not want to talk or +be fed. He was sick of noise, weary of voices, irritated by raucous +sounds. All he desired was a quiet place away from the confusion of +which he had been a part for many days, to get speedily beyond range of +the medley of voices and people that reminded him of nothing so much as +a great flock of seagulls swooping and crying over a school of herring. + +He passed on to the outer door which gave on the street where taxi +drivers and hotel runners bawled their wares, and here in the entrance +met the first face he knew. A man about his own age, somewhat shorter, a +great deal thicker through the waist, impeccably dressed, shouldered +his way through a group at the exit. + +Their eyes met. Into the faces of both leaped instant recognition. The +soldier pressed forward eagerly. The other stood his ground. There was a +look which approached unbelief on his round, rather florid features. But +he grasped the extended hand readily enough. + +"By jove, it _is_ you, Wes," he said. "I couldn't believe my eyes. So +you're back alive, eh? You were reported killed, you know. Shot down +behind the German lines. You made quite a record, didn't you? How's +everything over there?" + +There was a peculiar quality in Tommy Ashe's tone, a something that was +neither aloofness nor friendliness, nor anything that Wes Thompson could +immediately classify. But it was there, a something Tommy tried to +suppress and still failed to suppress. His words were hearty, but his +manner was not. And this he confirmed by his actions. Thompson said that +things over there were going well, and let it go at that. He was more +vitally concerned just then with over here. But before he could fairly +ask a question Tommy seized his hand and wrung it in farewell. + +"Pardon my rush, old man," he said. "I've got an appointment I can't +afford to pass up, and I'm late already. Look me up to-morrow, will +you?" + +Two years is long for some things, over-brief for others. In Thompson +those twenty-four months had softened certain perspectives. He had +quickened at sight of Tommy's familiar face, albeit that face was a +trifle grosser, more smugly complacent than he had ever expected to +behold it. He could mark the change more surely for the gap in time. But +Tommy had not been glad to see him. Thompson felt that under the outward +cordiality. + +He took up his bag and went out on the street, hailed the least +vociferous of the taxi pirates and had himself driven to the Granada +Hotel. His brows were still knitting in abstracted thought when a +bell-boy had transported the black bag and himself to a room on the +sixth floor, received his gratuity and departed. Thompson was high above +the rumble of street cars, facing a thoroughfare given largely to motor +traffic, with a window which overlooked the lower town and harbor, and +the great hills across the Inlet looming duskily massive against the +paler sky. + +He stood by the window looking over roofs and traffic and the glow-worm +light of shipping in the stream. He could smell the sea, the brown kelp +bared on rocky beaches by a falling tide. And he fancied that even at +that distance he could get a whiff of the fir and cedar that clothed the +mountain flank. + +"By God," he whispered. "It's good to be back." + +He said it much as a man might breathe a prayer. All this that he saw +now had lingered in his memory, had risen up to confront him as +something beautiful and desirable, many times when he never expected to +see it again. For it was not logical, he held, that he should survive +where so many others had perished. It was just a whimsey of Fate. And he +was duly and honestly grateful that it had been permitted him to +outlive many gallant comrades in the perilous service of the air. + +Three days and nights on a train close upon long months in hospital had +left him very tired. Rest both his body and uneasy nerves craved +insistently. Although it lacked some minutes of eight, he threw off his +clothes and went to bed. + +In the morning he rose refreshed, eager to be about, to look up men he +knew, to talk of things beyond the scope of war. + +But when he went out into Vancouver's highways and met people, his +uniform gave them a conversational cue. And he found that here, six +thousand miles from the guns, even less than among his fellows in the +hangars behind the fighting line could he escape that topic. He did not +want to talk about fighting and killing. He had lived those things and +that was enough. So he came back to the Granada and read the papers and +had his lunch and decided to look up Tommy Ashe. + +He had learned casually that morning that Tommy's company had more than +made good Tommy's prophecy of swift work. Tommy Ashe and Joe Hedley were +rising young men. + +"Oh, yes, they've got a mint," a broker he knew said to Thompson, with +an unconcealed note of envy. "By gad, it's a marvel how a pair of young +cubs like that can start on a shoestring and make half a million apiece +in two years." + +"How did they both manage to escape the draft?" Thompson asked. "I'm +sure Ashe is a Class A man." + +"Huh!" the broker snorted. "Necessary government undertakings. +Necessary hell! All they had to do with the shipbuilding was to bank +their rake-off. I tell you, Thompson, this country has supported the war +in great style--but there's been a lot of raw stuff in places where you +wouldn't suspect it. I'm not knocking, y' understand. This is no time to +knock. But when the war's over, we've got to do some house-cleaning." + +Thompson called the shipyard first. In the glow of a sunny September +morning he felt that he must have imagined Tommy's attitude. He was a +fair-minded man, and he gave Tommy the benefit of the doubt. + +But he failed to get in touch with Tommy. A voice informed him politely +that Mr. Ashe had left town that morning and would be gone several days. + +Thompson hung up the receiver. For at least five minutes he sat debating +with himself. Then he took it down again. + +"Give me Seymour 365L," he said to Central. + +"Hello." + +"Is Mr. Carr at home?" + +"You have the wrong number," he was answered, and he heard the +connection break. + +He tried again, and once more the same voice, this time impatiently, +said, "Wrong number." + +"Wait," Thompson said quickly. "Is this Seymour 365L, corner of Larch +and First?" + +"Yes." + +"I beg pardon for bothering you. I'm just back from overseas and I'm +rather anxious to locate Mr. Carr--Samuel A. Carr. This was his home +two years ago." + +"Just a minute," the feminine voice had recovered its original +sweetness. "Perhaps I can help you. Hold the line." + +Thompson waited. Presently he was being addressed again. + +"My husband believes Mr. Carr still owns this place. We lease through an +agent, however, Lyng and Salmon, Credit Foncier Building. Probably they +will be able to give you the required information." + +"Thanks," Thompson said. + +He found Lyng and Salmon's number in the telephone book. But the lady +was mistaken. Carr had sold the place. Nor did Lyng and Salmon know his +whereabouts. + +Tommy would know. But Tommy was out of town. Still there were other +sources of information. A man like Carr could not make his home in a +place no larger than Vancouver and drop out of sight without a ripple. +Thompson stuck doggedly to the telephone, sought out numbers and called +them up. In the course of an hour he was in possession of several facts. +Sam Carr was up the coast, operating a timber and land undertaking for +returned soldiers. The precise location he could not discover, beyond +the general one of Toba Inlet. + +They still maintained a residence in town, an apartment suite. From the +caretaker of that he learned that Sophie spent most of her time with her +father, and that their coming and going was uncertain and unheralded. + +The latter facts were purely incidental, save one. Tommy Ashe had that +morning cleared the _Alert_ for a coastwise voyage. + +Sam Carr and Sophie were up the coast. Tommy was up the coast. Thompson +sat for a time in deep study. Very well, then. He, too, would journey up +the coast. He had not come six thousand miles to loaf in a hotel lobby +and wear out shoe leather on concrete walks. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +FAIR WINDS + + +Within a gunshot of the heart of Vancouver lies a snug tidal basin where +yachts swing to their moorings, where a mosquito fleet of motor craft +lies along narrow slips, with the green woods of Stanley Park for a +background. Thompson knew Coal Harbor well. He knew the slips and the +boats and many of the men who owned them. He had gone on many a week-end +cruise out of that basin with young fellows who looked their last on the +sea when they crossed the English Channel. So he had picked up a working +fund of nautical practice, a first-hand knowledge of the sea and the +manner of handling small sail. + +From the Granada he went straight to Coal Harbor. While the afternoon +was yet young he had chartered a yawl, a true one-man craft, carrying +plenty of canvas for her inches, but not too much. She had a small, snug +cabin, was well-found as to gear, and was equipped with a sturdy +single-cylinder gas engine to kick her along through calm and tideway. + +Before six he had her ready for sea, his dunnage bag aboard, grub in the +lockers, gas in the tanks, clearance from the customhouse. He slept +aboard in a bunk softer than many a sleeping place that had fallen to +his lot in France. And at sunrise the outgoing tide bore him swiftly +through the Narrows and spewed him out on the broad bosom of the Gulf of +Georgia, all ruffled by a stiff breeze that heeled the little yawl and +sent her scudding like a gray gull when Thompson laid her west, a half +north, to clear Roger Curtis Point. + +He blew through Welcome Pass at noon on the forefront of a rising gale, +with the sun peeping furtively through cracks in a gathering cloudbank. +As the wind freshened, the manes of the white horses curled higher and +whiter. Thompson tied in his last reef in the lee of a point midway of +the Pass. Once clear of it the marching surges lifted the yawl and bore +her racing forward, and when the crest passed she would drop into a +green hollow like a bird to its nest, to lift and race and sink deep in +the trough again. + +But she made merry weather of it. And Thompson rode the tiller, an eye +to his sheets, glorying in his mastery of the sea. It was good to be +there with a clean wind whistling through taut stays, no sound but the +ripple of water streaming under his lee, and the swoosh of breaking seas +that had no power to harm him. Peace rode with him. His body rested, and +the tension left his nerves which for months had been strung like the +gut on a violin. + +Between Welcome Pass and Cape Coburn the southeaster loosed its full +fury on him. The seas rose steeper at the turn of the tide, broke with a +wicked curl. He put the Cape on his lee after a wild fifteen minutes +among dangerous tiderips, and then prudence drove him to shelter. + +He put into a bottle-necked cove gained by a passage scarce twenty feet +wide which opened to a quiet lagoon where no wind could come and where +the swell was broken into a foamy jumble at the narrow entrance. + +He cooked his supper, ate, watched the sun drop behind the encircling +rim of firs. Then he lay on a cushion in the cockpit until dark came and +the green shore of the little bay grew dim and then black and the dusky +water under the yawl's counter was split with the phosphorescent flashes +of darting fish. + +Across a peninsula, on the weather side of the Cape, he could hear the +seas thud and the surf growl like the distant booming of heavy +batteries. Over his head the wind whistled and whined in the firs with a +whistle and a whine like machine-gun bullets that have missed their +mark. But neither of these sounds held the menace of the sounds of which +they reminded him. He listened to those diapasons and thin trebles and +was strangely soothed. And at last he grew sleepy and turned in to his +bunk. + +Some time in the night he had a weird sort of dream. He was falling, +falling swiftly from a great height in the air. On the tail of his plane +rode a German, with a face like those newspaper caricatures of the +Kaiser, who shot at him with a trench mortar--boom--boom--boom--boom! + +Thompson found himself sitting up in his bunk. The queer dream had given +place to reality, in which the staccato explosions continued. As he put +his face to an open porthole a narrow, searching ray of uncommon +brilliance flashed over his yawl and picked up the shore beyond. Back +of the searchlight lifted the red, green, and white triangle of running +lights laid dead for him. It sheered a little. The brilliant ray blinked +out. He saw a dim bulk, a pale glimmer through cabin windows, heard the +murmur of voices and the rattle of anchor chain running through hawse +pipe. Then he closed his eyes and slept again. + +He rose with the sun. Beside him lay a sturdily built motor tug. A man +leaned on the towing bitts aft, smoking a pipe, gazing at the yawl. +Twenty feet would have spanned the distance between them. + +Thompson emerged into the cockpit. The air was cool and he was fully +dressed. At sight of the uniform with the insignia on sleeve and collar +the man straightened up, came to attention, lifted his hand smartly in +the military salute--the formality tempered by a friendly grin. Thompson +saw then that the man had a steel hook where his left hand should have +been. Also a livid scar across his cheek where a bullet or shrapnel had +plowed. + +"It's a fine morning after a wild night," Thompson broke the +conversational ice. + +"It was a wild night outside and no mistake," the man replied. "We took +cover about midnight--got tired of plowing into it, and wasn't too keen +for wallowing through them rips off the Cape. Say, are you back long +from over there?" + +"Not long," Thompson replied. "I left England two weeks ago." + +"How's it going?" + +"We're over the hump," Thompson told him. "They're outgunned now. The +Americans are there in force. And we have them beaten in the air at +last. You know what that means if you've been across." + +"Don't I know it," the man responded feelingly. "By the Lord, it's me +that does know it. I was there when the shoe was on the other foot. I +was a gunner in the Sixty-eighth Battery, and you can believe me there +was times when it made us sick to see German planes overhead. Well, I +hope they give Fritz hell. He gave it to us." + +"They will," Thompson answered simply, and on that word their talk of +the war ended. They spoke of Vancouver, and of the coast generally. + +"By the way, do you happen to know whereabouts in Toba Inlet a man named +Carr is located?" Thompson bethought him of his quest. "Sam Carr. He is +operating some sort of settlement for returned men, I've been told." + +"Sam Carr? Sure. The _Squalla_ here belongs to him--or to the +Company--and Carr is just about the Company himself." + +A voice from the interior abaft the wheelhouse bellowed "Grub-pi-l-e." + +"That's breakfast," the man said. "I see you ain't lighted your fire +yet. Come and have a bite with us. Here, make this line fast and lay +alongside." + +The wind had died with the dawn, and the sea was abating. The _Squalla_ +went her way within the hour, and so did Thompson. There was still a +small air out of the southeast, sufficient to give him steerageway in +the swell that ran for hours after the storm. Between sail and power he +made the Redonda Islands and passed between them far up the narrow gut +of Waddington Channel, lying in a nook near the northern end of that +deep pass when night came on. And by late afternoon the following day he +had traversed the mountain-walled length of Toba Inlet and moored his +yawl beside a great boom of new-cut logs at the mouth of Toba River. + +Thanks to meeting the _Squalla_ he knew his ground. Also he knew +something of Sam Carr's undertaking. The main camp was four miles up the +stream. The deep fin-keel of the yawl barred him from crossing the +shoals at the river mouth except on a twelve-foot tide. So he lay at the +boom, planning to go up the river next morning in the canoe he towed +astern in lieu of a dinghy. + +He sat on his cushions in the cockpit that evening looking up at a calm, +star-speckled sky. On either side of him mountain ranges lifted like +quiescent saurians, heads resting on the summit of the Coast Range, +tails sweeping away in a fifty-mile curve to a lesser elevation and the +open waters of the Gulf. The watery floor of Toba Inlet lay hushed +between, silvered by a moon-path, shimmering under the same pale rays +that struck bluish-white reflections from a glacier high on the northern +side. It was ghostly still at the mouth of the valley whence the Toba +River stole down to salt water, with somber forests lining the beach and +clinging darkly on the steep slopes. A lone light peeped from the window +of a cabin on shore. The silence was thick, uncanny. But it was a +comforting silence to Thompson. He felt no loneliness, he whom the +lonely places had once appalled. But that was a long time ago. Sitting +there thinking of that, he smiled. + +No man lives by, for, or because of love alone. Nor does a woman, +although the poets and romancers have very nearly led us to believe a +woman does. Yet it is a vital factor upon some occasions, in many +natures. There had been times in Thompson's life when the passion Sophie +Carr kindled in him seemed a conflagration that must either transfigure +or destroy him. It was like a volcano that slept, and woke betimes. + +The last two years had rather blotted out those periods of eruption. He +had given her up, and in giving up all hope of her, Sophie and +everything that linked her with him from Lone Moose to the last time he +saw her had grown dim, like a book read long ago and put by on the +shelf. In the fierce usages of aerial warfare distracted thought, any +relaxing from an eagle-like alertness upon the business in hand, meant +death swift and certain. And no man, even a man whose heart is sore, +wishes to die. The will-to-live is too strong in him. Pride spurs him. +To come off victorious over a concrete enemy, to uphold the traditions +of his race, to be of service--these things will carry any man over +desperate places without faltering, if he feels them. + +And Wes Thompson had experienced that sort of vision rather keenly. It +had driven him, a man of peaceful tendency, to blood-drenched fields. +For two years he had been in another world, in a service that demanded +of a man all that was in him. He was just beginning to be conscious +that for so long he had been detached from life that flowed in natural, +normal channels. + +He was conscious too, of a queer, impersonal manner of thinking about +things and people, now that he was back. He wondered about himself. What +particular motive, for instance, had driven him up here? To be sure +there was the very plausible one of obeying a physician's order about +living in the open, of keeping decent hours, of avoiding crowds and +excitement until he was quite himself again. But he could have done that +without coming to Toba Inlet. + +Of course he wanted to see Sam Carr again. Also he wanted to see Sophie. +_Why_ he wished to see her was not so readily answered. He wanted to see +her again, that was all--just as he had wanted to see Canada and his +aunts, and the green slopes of the Pacific again. Because all these +things and people were links with a past that was good and kindly by +comparison with the too-vivid recent days. Yes, surely, he would be glad +to see Sam Carr--and Sophie. When he recalled the last time he spoke +with her he could smile a little wryly. It had been almost a tragedy +then. It did not seem much now. The man who had piloted a battle-plane +over swaying armies in France could smile reminiscently at being called +a rabbit by an angry girl. + +It was queer Sophie had never married. His thought took that turn +presently. She was--he checked the years on his fingers--oh, well, she +was only twenty-four. Still, she was no frail, bloodless creature, but a +woman destined by nature for mating, a beautiful woman well fit to +mother beautiful daughters and strong sons, to fill a lover with joy and +a husband with pride. + +A queer warmth flushed Thompson's cheek when he thought of Sophie this +wise. A jealous feeling stabbed at him. The virus was still in his +blood, he became suddenly aware. And then he laughed out loud, at his +own camouflaging. He had known it all the time. And this trip it would +be kill or cure, he said to himself whimsically. + +Still it _was_ odd, now he came to think of it, that Sophie had never in +those years found a man quite to her liking. She had had choice enough, +Thompson knew. But it was no more strange, after all, than for himself +never to have looked with tender eyes on any one of the women he had +known. He had liked them, but he hadn't ever got past the stage of +comparing them with Sophie Carr. She had always been the standard he set +to judge the others. Thompson realized that he was quite a hopeless case +in this respect. + +"I must be a sort of a freak," he muttered to himself when he was stowed +away in his blankets. "I wonder if I _could_ like another woman, as +well, if I tried? Well, we'll see, we'll see." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +TWO MEN AND A WOMAN + + +Thompson drove his canoe around a jutting point and came upon a white +cruiser swinging at anchor in an eddy. Her lines were familiar though he +had not seen her in two years. In any case the name _Alert_ in gold leaf +on her bows would have enlightened him. He was not particularly +surprised to find Tommy's motor boat there. He had half-expected to find +Tommy Ashe hereabouts. + +A man's head rose above the after companion-hatch as the canoe glided +abreast. + +"Is Mr. Ashe aboard?" Thompson asked. + +The man shook his head. + +"Went up to Carr's camp a while ago." + +"When did you get in?" Thompson inquired further. + +"Last night. Lost a day laying up at Blind Bay for a southeaster. Gee, +she did blow." + +Thompson smiled and passed on. Blind Bay was only two miles from Cape +Coburn. Just a narrow neck of land had separated them that blustery +night. It was almost like a race. Tommy would not be pleased to see him +treading so close on his heels. Thompson felt that intuitively. All was +fair in love and war. Still, even in aerial warfare, ruthless and +desperate as it was, there were certain courtesies, a certain element +of punctilio. Thompson had an intuition that Ashe would not subscribe to +even that simple code. In fact he began to have a premonition of +impending conflict as he thrust stoutly on his paddle blade. Tommy had +changed. He was no longer the simple, straightforward soul with whom +Thompson had fought man-fashion on the bank of Lone Moose, and with whom +he had afterward achieved friendship on a long and bitter trail. + +Three hundred yards past the _Alert_ he came to a landing stage which +fitted the description given by the skipper of the _Squalla_. Thompson +hauled his canoe out on the float, gained the shore, and found a path +bordering the bank. He followed this. Not greatly distant he could hear +the blows of chopping, the shrill blasts of a donkey-engine whistle and +the whirr of the engine itself as it shuddered and strained on its +anchored skids, reeling up half a mile, more or less, of inch and a +quarter steel cable, snaking a forty-foot log out of the woods as a +child would haul a toothpick on the end of a string. + +Before long the brush-floored forest opened on a small area of parked +wood. In this pleasant place stood a square block of a house. From a +tall staff fluttered the Union Jack. As Thompson came near this the door +opened and a group of youngsters tumbled out pell-mell and began to +frolic. Thompson looked at his watch. He had stumbled on a school in the +hour of morning recess. + +"Where does Mr. Carr live?" he asked one of these urchins when he got +near enough to have speech with him. + +The youngster pointed upstream. + +"First house you come to," he said. "White house with shingles painted +green. Say, mister, have you just come from the war? My dad was over +there. Do you know my dad, mister?" + +The boy stood gazing at him, apparently hopeful of paternal +acquaintance, until he discovered that Thompson did not know his "dad." +Then he darted back to join his fellows at their game. + +Thompson walked on. The white house with green shingles loomed up near +at hand, with a clump of flaming maples beside it. Past that stood other +houses in an orderly row facing the river, and back of them were sheds +and barns, and beyond the group of buildings spread a wide area of +cleared land with charred stumps still dotting many an acre. + +He had to enter the place he took to be Sam Carr's by the back yard, so +to speak. That is, he came up from the rear, passed alongside the +house--and halted abruptly, with his foot on the first of three steps +rising to a roomy verandah. + +He had not meant to eavesdrop, to listen to words not meant for his +hearing. But he had worn the common footgear of yachtsmen, a pair of +rubber-soled canvas shoes, and so had come to the verandah end unseen +and noiselessly. He was arrested there by the sight of two people and +the mention of his own name by one of them. + +Sophie was sitting on the rail, looking soberly down on the glacial +gray of Toba River. There was a queer expression on her face, a mixture +of protest and resignation. Tommy Ashe stood beside her. He had +imprisoned one of her hands between his own and he was speaking rapidly, +eagerly, passionately. + +Thompson had heard without meaning to hear. And what he heard, just a +detached sentence or two, shot him through with a sudden blaze of anger. +He stepped up on the floor, took quickly the three strides that +separated him from Tommy. + +"You are nothing but a common liar," he challenged bluntly. "You know +you are, when you speak of me as being dead. Is that why you scuttled +out of Vancouver and hurried on here, as soon as you saw me back?" + +Ashe shrank back a step. His naturally florid face grew purple. Thompson +matched him glance for glance, wondering as the moments ticked off why +Tommy glared and did not strike. + +"Your heart has grown as flabby as your principles," he said at last +contemptuously. + +For the instant, in anger at a lie, in that fighting mood which puts +other considerations into abeyance when it grips a man, Thompson gave no +heed to Sophie--until he felt her hand on his arm and looked down into +her upturned face, white and troubled, into gray eyes that glowed with +some peculiar fire. + +"It is really, truly you?" she said in a choked voice. + +"Of course," he answered--and he could not help a little fling. "You see +I am no longer a rabbit. I don't like your friend here. He has tried to +sneak a march on me, and I suspect it is not the first. I feel like +hurting him." + +She paid not the least heed to that. + +"You were officially reported dead," she went on. "Reported shot down +behind the German lines a year ago." + +"I know I was reported dead, and so have many other men who still live," +he said gently. "I was shot down, but I escaped and flew again, and was +shot down a second time and still am here not so much the worse." + +Sophie slipped her hand into his and turned on Tommy Ashe. + +"And you knew this?" she said slowly. "Yet you came here to me this +morning--and--and--" + +She stopped with a break in her voice. + +"I didn't believe you were capable of a thing like that, Tommy," she +continued sadly. "I'm ashamed of you. You'd better go away at once." + +Ashe looked at her and then at Thompson, and his face fell. Thompson, +watching him as a man watches his antagonist, saw Tommy's lips tremble, +a suspicious blur creep into his eyes. Even in his anger he felt sorry +for Tommy. + +The next instant the two of them stood alone, Sophie's hand caught fast +in his. She tried to withdraw it. The red leaped into her cheeks. But +there was still that queer glow in her eyes. + +Thompson looked down at the imprisoned hand. + +"You'll never get that away from me again," he said whimsically. "You +see, I am not a rabbit, but a man, no matter what you thought once. And +when a man really wants a thing, he takes it if he can. And I want +you--so--you see?" + +For answer Sophie hid her hot face against his breast. + +"Ah, I'm ashamed of myself too," he heard a muffled whisper. "I sent you +away into that hell over there with a sneer instead of a blessing. And I +was too ashamed, and a little afraid, to write and tell you what a fool +I was, that I'd made a mistake and was sorry. I couldn't do anything +only wait, and hope you'd come back. Didn't you hate me for my miserable +holier-than-thou preachment that day, Wes?" + +"Why, no," he said honestly. "It hurt like the devil, of course. You see +it was partly true. I _was_ going along, making money, playing my own +little hand for all it was worth. I couldn't rush off to the front just +to demonstrate to all and sundry--even to you--that I was a brave man +and a patriot. You understand, don't you? It took me quite a while to +feel, to really and truly feel, that I _ought_ to go--which I suppose +you felt right at the beginning. When I did see it that way--well, I +didn't advertise. I just got ready and went. If you had not been out of +sorts that day, I might have gone away with a kiss instead of your +contempt. But I didn't blame you. Besides, that's neither here nor +there, now. You're a prisoner. You can only be paroled on condition." + +Sophie smiled up at him, and was kissed for her pains. + +"Name the condition." + +"That you love me. I've waited a long time for it." + +"I've always loved you," she said gravely. "Sometimes more, sometimes +less. I haven't always believed we could be happy together. Sometimes I +have been positive we couldn't. But I've always measured other men by +you, and none of them quite measured up. That was why it stung me so to +see you so indifferent about the war. Probably if you had talked about +it to me, if I had known you were thinking of going, I should have been +afraid you would go, I should have been afraid for you. But you seemed +always so unconcerned. It maddened me to think I cared so much for a man +who cared nothing about wrongs and injustices, who could sit contentedly +at home while other men sacrificed themselves. My dear, I'm afraid I'm +an erratic person, a woman whose heart and head are nearly always at +odds." + +Thompson laughed, looking down at her with an air of pride. + +"That is to say you would always rather be sure than sorry," he +remarked. "Well, you can be sure of one thing, Sophie. You can't admit +that you really do care for me and then run away, as you did at Lone +Moose. I have managed to stand on my own feet at last, and your penalty +for liking me and managing to conceal the fact these many moons is that +you must stand with me." + +She drew his face down to her and kissed it. Thompson held her fast. + +"I can stand a lot of that," he said happily. + +"You may have to," she murmured. "I am a woman, not a bisque doll. And +I've waited a long time for the right man." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +A MARK TO SHOOT AT + + +An hour or so later Sam Carr came trudging home with a rod in his hand +and a creel slung from his shoulder, in which creel reposed a half dozen +silver-sided trout on a bed of grass. + +"Well, well, well," he said, at sight of Thompson, and looked earnestly +at the two of them, until at last a slow smile began to play about his +thin lips. "Now, like the ancient Roman, I can wrap my toga about me and +die in peace." + +"Oh, Dad, what a thing to say," Sophie protested. + +"Figuratively, my dear, figuratively," he assured her. "Merely my way of +saying that I am glad your man has come home from the war, and that you +can smile again." + +He tweaked her ear playfully, when Sophie blushed. They went into the +house, and the trout disappeared kitchenward in charge of a bland +Chinaman, to reappear later on the luncheon table in a state of +delicious brown crispness. After that Carr smoked a cigar and Thompson a +cigarette, and Sophie sat between them with the old, quizzical twinkle +in her eyes and a smile hovering about the corners of her mouth. + +"Come out and let's make the round of the works, you two," Carr +suggested at last. + +"You go, Wes," Sophie said. "I have promised to help a struggling young +housewife with some sewing this afternoon." + +So they set forth, Carr and Thompson, on a path through the woods toward +where the donkey engines filled the valley with their shrill tootings +and the shudder of their mighty labor. And as they went, Carr talked. + +"All this was virgin forest when you went away," said he. "The first axe +was laid to the timber a year ago last spring. I want you to take +particular notice of this timber. Isn't it magnificent stuff? We are +sending out a little aeroplane spruce, too. Not a great deal, but every +little helps." + +It was a splendid forest that they traversed, a level area clothed with +cedar and spruce and fir, lifting brown trunks of six and seven-foot +girth to a great height. And in a few minutes they came upon a falling +gang at work. Two men on their springboards, six feet above the ground, +plying an eight-foot saw. They stood to watch. Presently the saw ate +through to the undercut, a deep notch on the leaning side, and the top +swayed, moved slowly earthward. The sawyers leaped from their narrow +footing. One cried "Tim-b-r-r-r." And the tree swept in a great arc, +smiting the earth with a crash of breaking boughs and the thud of an +arrested landslide. + +Beyond that there was a logged space, littered with broken branches, +stumps, tops, cut with troughs plowed deep in the soil, where the +donkey had skidded out the logs. And there was the engine puffing and +straining, and the steel cables running away among the trees, spooling +up on the drums, whining and whistling in the iron sheaves. It was like +war, Thompson thought, that purposeful activity, the tremendous forces +harnessed and obedient to man--only these were forces yoked to man's +needs, not to his destruction. + +They lingered awhile watching the crew work, chatted with them in spare +moments. Then Carr led Thompson away through the woods again, and +presently took him across another stretch of stumps where men were +drilling and blasting out the roots of the ravished trees, on to fields +where grain and grass and root crops were ripening in the September sun, +and at last by another cluster of houses to the bank of the river again. +Here Carr sat down on a log, and began to fill a pipe. + +"Well," he said, "what do you think of it?" + +"For eighteen months' work you have made an astonishing amount of +headway," Thompson observed. "This is hard land to clear." + +"Yes," Carr admitted. "But it's rich land--all alluvial, this whole +valley. Anything that can be grown in this latitude will grow like a +village scandal here." + +He lighted his pipe. + +"I tried high living and it didn't agree with me," Carr said abruptly. +"I have tried a variety of things since I left the North, and none of +them has seemed worth while. I'm not a philanthropist. I hate +charitable projects. They're so damned unscientific--don't you think +so?" + +Thompson nodded. + +"You know that about the time you left, discharged soldiers were +beginning to drift back," Carr continued. "Drift is about the word. The +cripples of war will be taken care of. Their case is obvious, too +obvious to be overlooked or evaded. But there are returned men who are +not cripples, and still are unfit for military duty. They came back to +civilian existence, and a lot of them didn't fit in. The jobs they could +get were not the jobs they could do. As more and more of them came home +the problem grew more and more acute. It is still acute, and I rather +think it will grow more acute until the crisis comes with the end of the +war and God knows how many thousands of men will be chucked into civil +life, which cannot possibly absorb them again as things are going at +present. It's a problem. Public-spirited men have taken it up. The +government took the problem of the returned soldier into consideration. +So far as I know they are still considering it. The Provincial +Legislature talked--and has done nothing. The Dominion Government has +talked a lot, but nothing more than temporary measures has come out of +it. Nothing practical. You can't feed men with promises of after-the-war +reconstruction. + +"All this was apparent to me. So I talked it over with Sophie and one or +two other men who wanted to do something, and we talked to returned +soldiers. We couldn't do what it's the business of the country to +do--and may perhaps do when the red tape is finally untangled. But we +could do something, with a little brains and money and initiative. So we +went at it. + +"I formed a joint stock company. We secured all the timber limits in +this valley. We got together a little group for a start. They were +returned men, some physically handicapped, but eager to do something for +themselves. A man with that spirit always makes good if he gets a +chance. We put in machinery and gear, put up a small sawmill for +ourselves, tore into the logging business, cleared land, built houses. +You see we are quite a community. And we are a self-supporting +community. Some of these men own stock in the company. Any returned men +can find a place for himself here. There is room and work and security +and ultimate independence here for any man willing to cooperate for the +common welfare. This valley runs for miles. As fast as the land is +logged off it is open for soldier entry. There is room here for five +hundred families. So you see there is a lot of scope. + +"It was in the nature of an experiment. There were people who sneered. +And it is working out well. There is not the slightest taint of charity +in it. If I used a lot of money that may be a long time coming back to +me that is my own business. Everybody here pays his own way. All these +men needed was backing and direction." + +Carr looked away across the clearing. His glance swept the houses, and +fields, and the distant woods where the logging crews labored. + +"And there are valleys and valleys," he said thoughtfully; "when they +are cleared and cultivated there is endless room in them for people who +want elbow-room, who want to live without riding on the other fellow's +back. + +"Better get in with us, Wes," he said abruptly. "I'm getting old. It +won't be long before I have to quit. This thing will need a pilot for a +long time yet. Men will always have to have a leader. You can do good +here. Big oaks, you know, from little acorns. I mean, if this project +continues to achieve success, it might blaze the way for a national +undertaking. We said that a country that was worth living in was worth +fighting for. We are liars and cheats if we do not make it so for those +who did our fighting." + +"I wouldn't mind taking a hand in this game," Thompson said. "But the +war is still on. If that were over--well, yes, Toba Valley looks good to +me." + +"You aren't out of it for good, then?" + +Thompson shook his head. + +Carr put his hand on Thompson's shoulder. "Ah, well," he said. "It won't +be long now. You'll be back. You can put on an aerial mail service for +us, as your first undertaking." + +He chuckled, and they left their log and strolled back toward the house. + + * * * * * + +"Come and I'll show you what the valley looks like, Wes," Sophie said to +him, when they had finished dinner, and Carr had his nose buried in mail +just that evening arrived. + +She led him a hundred yards upstream to where a footbridge slung upon +steel cables spanned the Toba, crossed that and a little flat on the +north side, and climbed up the flank of a slide-scarred hill until she +came out on a little plateau. + +"Look," she waved her hand, panting a little from the steepness of the +climb. + +Five hundred feet below, the valley of the Toba spread its timbered +greenness, through which looped in sweeping curves the steel-gray of the +river. In a great bend immediately beneath them lay the houses of the +settlement, facing upon the stream. Farther along were isolated +homesteads which he had not seen. Back of these spread little gardens, +and the green square of cultivated fields, and beyond in greater expanse +the stump-dotted land that was still in the making. + +The smoke of the donkey-engines was vanished, fires grown cold with the +end of the day's work. But upriver and down the spoil of axe and saw lay +in red booms along the bunk. He could mark the place where he had stood +that afternoon and watched a puffing yarder bunt a string of forty-foot +logs into the booming-ground. He could see figures about in the gardens, +and the shrill voices and laughter of children echoed up to them on the +hill. + +"It is a great view, and there is more in it than meets the eye," +Thompson said. "Eh, little woman? The greatest war of all, the biggest +struggle. One that never ends. Man struggling to subdue his environment +to his needs." + +Sophie smiled understandingly. She looked over the valley with a wistful +air. + +"Did you ever read 'The Sons of Martha'?" she asked. Do you remember +these lines: + +"'Not as a ladder to reach high Heaven, + Not as an altar to any creed, +But simple service simply given + To his own kind in their common need.'" + +"It is a noble mark to shoot at," Thompson said. + +He fell silent. Sophie went on after a minute. + +"Dad said he was going back to first principles when he began this. +There are men here who have found economic salvation and self-respect, +who think he is greater than any general. I'm proud of dad. He wanted to +do something. What he has accomplished makes all my puttering about at +what, after all, was pure charity, a puerile sort of service. I gave +that up after you went away." She snuggled one hand into his. "It didn't +seem worth while--nothing seemed worth while until dad evolved this." + +She waved her hand again over the valley. Thompson's eyes gleamed. It +was good to look at, good to think of. It was good to be there. He +remembered, with uncanny, disturbing clearness of vision, things he had +looked down upon from a greater height over bloody stretches in France. +And he shuddered a little. + +Sophie felt the small tremor run through him. + +"What is it?" she whispered anxiously. + +"It is beautiful, and I can appreciate its beauty all the more from +seeing it with you. I'd like to take a hand in this," he said quietly. +"I was just comparing it with other things--and wondering." + +"Wondering what?" + +"If I'll get back to this--and you," he said, with his arms around her. +"Oh, well, I've got three months' leave. That's a lot." + +Sophie looked at him out of troubled eyes. Her voice shook. + +"You will be ordered to the front again?" + +He nodded. "Very likely." + +"I don't want you to go," she broke out passionately. "You mustn't. Oh, +Wes, Wes!" + +"Do you think I like the prospect any better?" he said tenderly. "But I +am an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, and the war is not over yet. +Buck up, sweetheart. I had six months' training, a year in fighting +planes, six months in hospital, and barring an occasional spell of +uncertain nerves, I am still as good as ever. Don't worry. I was silly +to say what I thought, I suppose." + +"Nevertheless, it is true," she said. "You may go again and never come +back. But I suppose one must face that. Thousands of women have had to +face it. Why should I be exempt?" + +She wiped her eyes and smiled uncertainly. + +"We shall simply have to keep that in the background. I want to forget +everything but that you are here and that I'm happy," she whispered, +with her arms about his neck. "I want to forget everything else--until +it's time for you to go." + +"Amen," Thompson replied, and kissed her, and then they went silently, +hand in hand down to the swinging bridge with the sun gone to rest below +the western sky-line, and dusk creeping softly up over the valley +floor. + + * * * * * + +There will be those who, having followed so far, will desire further +light. They will ask naively: Did Wes Thompson go back to the front and +get killed? Did they marry and find lasting happiness? + +To these curious folk who seek explicit detail, I can only point out +that Wes Thompson had three months' leave which ran into November, and +that to Sophie that ninety days loomed like a stay of execution. I would +ask them further to recall the eleventh of November, 1918--and so the +first question is duly answered. + +As for the second--I am no soothsayer. I cannot foretell the future. +Most certainly they married. At once--with a haste prudery and lovers of +formalism might term indecent. + +Whether they live happily who can say? Somewhere between the day he +first looked on Sophie Carr at Lone Moose and the day he fell five +thousand feet to earth in a flaming battle-plane, keeping his life by +one of war's miracles, Wes Thompson lived and loved and suffered perhaps +a little more than falls to the common lot. He sloughed off prejudices +and cant and ignorance and narrowness in those six years as a tree sheds +its foliage in autumn. + +A man may come to doubt the omnipotence of God without denying his +Maker. He may scorn churchly creeds and cleave to the Golden Rule. He +may hate greed and oppression, and injustice and intolerance, and +ruthless exploitation of man by man--and still hold firm faith in +humanity, still yearn to love his neighbor as himself. + +To do good, to fight hard and play fair, to love faithfully and to +desire love, to go out of the world when his time should come with the +knowledge of having at least tried to make it a little better for those +who were in it, and for those who should come after. That was Wes +Thompson's working philosophy of life--if he might be said to have a +philosophy--although he certainly never formulated it in words. + +He married a woman whom he loved dearly, who loved him, was proud of +him, who saw life as he did--through tolerant, comprehending eyes. So if +you ask whether they found real and lasting happiness I can only cite +you bald facts. I cannot prophesy. But I wish my chances were as good. + +THE END + + + * * * * * * + + + +THE NOVELS OF TEMPLE BAILEY + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +THE BLUE WINDOW + +The heroine, Hildegarde, finds herself transplanted from the middle +western farm to the gay social whirl of the East. She is almost swept +off her feet, but in the end she proves true blue. + + +PEACOCK FEATHERS + +The eternal conflict between wealth and love. Jerry, the idealist who is +poor, loves Mimi, a beautiful, spoiled society girl. + + +THE DIM LANTERN + +The romance of little Jane Barnes who is loved by two men. + + +THE GAY COCKADE + +Unusual short stories where Miss Bailey shows her keen knowledge of +character and environment, and how romance comes to different people. + + +THE TRUMPETER SWAN + +Randy Paine comes back from France to the monotony of everyday affairs. +But the girl he loves shows him the beauty in the common place. + + +THE TIN SOLDIER + +A man who wishes to serve his country, but is bound by a tie he cannot +in honor break--that's Derry. A girl who loves him, shares his +humiliation and helps him to win--that's Jean. Their love is the story. + + +MISTRESS ANNE + +A girl in Maryland teaches school, and believes that work is worthy +service. Two men come to the little community; one is weak, the other +strong, and both need Anne. + + +CONTRARY MARY + +An old-fashioned love story that is nevertheless modern. + + +GLORY OF YOUTH + +A novel that deals with a question, old and yet ever new--how far should +an engagement of marriage bind two persons who discover they no longer +love. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK + +MARGARET PEDLER'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +TO-MORROW'S TANGLE + +The game of love is fraught with danger. To win in the finest sense, it +must be played fairly. + + +RED ASHES + +A gripping story of a doctor who failed in a crucial operation--and had +only himself to blame. Could the woman he loved forgive him? + + +THE BARBARIAN LOVER + +A love story based on the creed that the only important things between +birth and death are the courage to face life and the love to sweeten it. + + +THE MOON OUT OF REACH + +Nan Davenant's problem is one that many a girl has faced--her own +happiness or her father's bond. + + +THE HOUSE OF DREAMS-COME-TRUE + +How a man and a woman fulfilled a Gypsy's strange prophecy. + + +THE HERMIT OF FAR END + +How love made its way into a walled-in house and a walled-in heart. + + +THE LAMP OF FATE + +The story of a woman who tried to take all and give nothing. + + +THE SPLENDID FOLLY + +Do you believe that husbands and wives should have no secrets from each +other? + + +THE VISION OF DESIRE + +An absorbing romance written with all that sense of feminine tenderness +that has given the novels of Margaret Pedler their universal appeal. + + +WAVES OF DESTINY + +Each of these stories has the sharp impact of an emotional crisis--the +compressed quality of one of Margaret Pedler's widely popular novels. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK. + +THE NOVELS OF + +GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +A NEW NAME + +ARIEL CUSTER + +BEST MAN, THE + +CITY OF FIRE, THE + +CLOUDY JEWEL + +DAWN OF THE MORNING + +ENCHANTED BARN, THE + +EXIT BETTY + +FINDING OF JASPER HOLT, THE + +GIRL FROM MONTANA, THE + +LO, MICHAEL! + +MAN OF THE DESERT, THE + +MARCIA SCHUYLER + +MIRANDA + +MYSTERY OF MARY, THE + +NOT UNDER THE LAW + +PHOEBE DEANE + +RE-CREATIONS + +RED SIGNAL, THE + +SEARCH, THE + +STORY OF A WHIM, THE + +TOMORROW ABOUT THIS TIME + +TRYST, THE + +VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS, A + +WITNESS, THE + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURNED BRIDGES*** + + +******* This file should be named 16553.txt or 16553.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/5/5/16553 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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