Joan of Arc of the North Woods Part 21

As on a previous occasion, when the gloom of the night had settled, they were again at the side of the village street, at the mouth of the path by which they had returned from the cliff above the falls.

She had sought the falls that evening because the din of the waters would keep him from talking too much. She was afraid of the light in his eyes and of the repressed feeling in his tones. She knew that she must repulse him if he wooed. Her emotions were mixed, but she was sure there was no love in her heart--all her thoughts were concerned with her quest. If love should by any possibility develop in her and she should allow him to see it, what would become of his man's appet.i.te for fight and danger? She felt obliged to view surrender to him in that light. On the other hand, she could not afford to offend him deeply by allowing matters to come to a climax between them right then; the climax must disclose her lack of affection. She had been estimating that hale man of the woods--she was certain that what she felt toward him was only friendly respect for his character, and she could not lie to him or fawn falsely for her purposes.

"I must go up now and face the usual music," he said, sourly. "I'm getting to be afraid of myself with Flagg."

"I've heard he's afflicted with the toothache to-day. You must make all allowances," she entreated, with a dash of jest in her earnestness.

"Then I especially need a protector. I'm going to ask you again to go along with me. Really, you're needed if I'm expected to stay on my job.

Why," he went on, jest mingling with seriousness in his own case, "if the Flagg drive comes down all right through my efforts, you can take the credit of the victory because you were present to-night and smoothed things; he'll just have to be decent, with a strange young lady in the room."

She was not ready with peremptory refusal, as she had been on the other occasion; she had met the bugbear of Rickety d.i.c.k and had prevailed over the old man's suspicions. As Latisan averred, her presence might help matters; she would entertain strange and acute regrets if her absence should allow the split that Latisan seemed to apprehend.

He timidly put his hand on her arm. "Please!"

"I'll be intruding on a business talk. I may make him all the more touchy." She was hesitating, weighing the hazards of each plan--to go or to stay away.

"There's no private business to be talked. I'm simply going to tell him that I have blown the ice and have the logs in the river and I want to have his orders about how many splash dams I can blow up if I need to do it for a head o' water to beat the Three C's drive to Skulltree. Really, he needs to talk with somebody who is gentle," he went on, and she responded to the touch on her arm and walked slowly with him up the hill. "He sits there day by day and reads the tooth-for-tooth part of the Old Testament, and it keeps hardening his heart. I've thought of a plan. Suppose you get friendly with him! You can take some soothing books up to him in your off hours and read aloud. Let's try to make a different man of Eck Flagg, you and I."

So, over the ledges where her childish feet had stumbled, Lida Kennard, trembling, anxious, yearning for her kin, went again to the door of the big mansion on the hill.

Latisan's words had opened a vista of hope to her; she might be able, after all, to render the service to which old d.i.c.k had exhorted her, hiding her ident.i.ty behind a woman's desire to cheer an invalid.

It was the same square, bleak house of her early memories, now dark except for a dim glow through two dingy windows in the lower part; the yee-yawed curtains were eloquent evidence of the housekeeping methods.

"He won't have any women around, as I told you." Latisan was not tactful in his excuse for the slack aspect of the house.

"I'm afraid it isn't best for me to go in," she said, making a final stand.

"If you go with me you're all right," declared the drive boss, with pride of power where the Flagg interests were concerned. "It'll do him good to be jumped out of himself--to see a young lady from the city."

Latisan did not knock; he walked in, escorting the girl.

In the middle of the sitting room, in a wheel chair that was draped with a moosehide tanned with the hair on it, she beheld an old man with a fleece of white mane and beard. A shaded oil lamp shed a circle of radiance on a big book which lay on his knees. The girl noted that the book was the Bible. Outside that circle of radiance the room was in darkness and the old man heard footsteps without being able to see who had entered; in the shadows was old d.i.c.k on his stool.

"That you, Latisan?" demanded the master.

"Yes, sir!" Ward was about to say more, introducing the girl, but Flagg broke in, paying no attention to what his drive master might have on his mind.

"Here's the stuff for real men in this book! You ought to take time to read it. I'm sorry I didn't read it regular when I was going about on two legs." He pounded his hand on the opened pages. "The parsons are now preaching too much New Testament stuff. When my folks dragged me to the meetinghouse in the pod-auger days we got Old Testament--red hot. I've been hoping I remembered it right--I've been looking it up. Listen!"

"'If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is thine soul, entice thee secretly, saying, "Let us go and serve other G.o.ds," which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him; but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shalt be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die.'"

Again the old man beat his hand upon the book. "There are the orders for you, Latisan!"

"I don't know as I just get you, sir!"

"You don't expect to find the Three C's mentioned by name in Holy Writ, do you? But the case is covered. They're asking you and me to serve other G.o.ds. They're asking us to go into their combine. If we do so it means that the sawmills on this river will be closed and the homes deserted. They're taking all the timber down to the paper mills. To h.e.l.l with their paper! The folks need lumber for houses. The Three C's shan't control the market and boost prices so that folks can't buy. Latisan! I tell you again, you've got your orders, backed by the Scripture. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth! Families or corporations, it's all the same! Why don't you say something?"

"I'm waiting to introduce a young lady, sir. This is Miss Jones who has just come to town."

Flagg tipped the shade of the lamp and deflected the light upon the couple. He bawled an ugly oath. "Clean shaved, again! Making a dude of yourself! Sapgagging with a girl?"

Latisan stepped forward and broke in on the tirade. "I'll have to ask you to trig that kind of talk, Mr. Flagg. Miss Jones has come here to cheer you up."

"When I want any girl to come here and cheer me up I'll drop her a line and give her thirty days' notice."

The caller who had been snubbed so bluntly turned on her heel. She pleaded, faintly, "I'm sorry, sir. I'll leave you and Mr. Latisan to talk over your business."

"I can't blame you for going," said Latisan. He followed her, and to her profound amazement she discovered that a woodsman could be as temperamental as a prima donna. "I'm going, too, Mr. Flagg," he called over his shoulder. "I'm going for good and all where you're concerned.

I'm done with you. I gave you your fair warning. Send another man north to the drive."

"Just one minute, there, Latisan!" called the master, harshly. "Unless you're afraid to stay here that length of time or can't spare the minute away from your wench!"

The drive master stopped at the door and spun around on his heel.

There had been but one flash of the light's rays on Lida--the old man had immediately allowed the shade to drop; standing just beyond the doorway in the hall, she was safely in the shadows.

"If you expect to hear me whinny like a sick horse you're mistaken,"

went on Flagg, with the staccato of ire. "Now I know what you're worth.

You have appraised yourself. A girl's grin has bought you. I don't know what sort she is, nor care I. But unless she's a fool she can see what you're worth, too. Go along, now!"

There was compunction in Latisan, and he realized it. But there was that untamed spirit of old John, as well, and it made for rancor and rebellion.

In that room at the moment old John's spirit was veritably present in the grandson, reviving the ancient north-country duello of unconquered wills with old Echford in the flesh--and a Latisan had never lowered the crest before a Flagg.

"It's a cheap hired man you want!" Compromise was offered no opportunity by young Latisan's manner and tone. "Hire one--of your picking! And a devilish fine boss that kind will make for you!"

"I'll hire n.o.body," roared Flagg. "I'll ride to the head of the drive in this chair. Even with both sides of me paralyzed I'll be worth more than you are, you lallygagging, love-cracked loon! Get out of here!"

When the two were outside in the night the girl faced Latisan. "I insist on going alone, sir. You have no right to leave a helpless man as you're doing. I cannot believe that you mean what you said just now!"

"I'm through! I have let him curse me out all along and I took it whence it came. But this time it's different."

"Please go back to him."

"I will not. I'm done!"

The grim thought came to her that she had ineluctably become a valuable operative in the interests of the Vose-Mern agency. According to appearances the work was finished. However, she promptly blazed into indignation which rang true. "I'm only a stranger to that poor old man.

He did not understand. I had no right to rush in on him as I did."

"I had the right to invite you."

"I won't have it on my conscience that I have been a party to this break between you two. If it were not so dreadful it would be silly, sir."

"I have the right to be silly about my own business, if you're bound to call it silly, what I have done."

"Go back, I tell you!"

"I will not!"