Thurston of Orchard Valley Part 9

"I hardly expected an answer," he went on. "Accordingly, I'll proceed to name the men who I believe must know about this contemptible action, and notify them that they will be paid off to-morrow."

A tumult of mingled wrath and applause started when Thurston coolly called aloud a dozen names. One voice broke through the others: "We're working for Julius Savine, an' don't count a bad two-bits on you," it declared defiantly. "We'll all fling our tools into the river before we let one of them fellows go."

"In that case the value of the tools will be deducted from the wages due you," Thurston announced calmly. "After this notice, Julius Savine's representative won't pay any of the men I mention, whether they work or not; and n.o.body, who does not earn it, will get a single meal out of the cook shanty. I'll give you until to-morrow to make up your minds concerning what you will do." Aside to Davies he said: "I'll take your lumber gang in any case. Go back and send them in as soon as you can."

The a.s.sembly broke up in a divided state of mind. Although it was very late, little groups lingered outside the tents, and at intervals angry voices were heard. Summers set out for the railroad to communicate by telegraph with his employer, and Thurston retired to his tent, where he went peacefully to sleep. Awakening later than usual, he listened with apparent unconcern to Mattawa Tom, who aroused him, with the warning:

"It's time you were out. Them fellows are coming along for their money. The boys called up a big roll, as soon as the lumber gang marched in, and, though there was considerable wild talking, the sensible ones allowed it was no more use kicking."

"That's all right," averred Thurston, who paid the departing malcontents and was glad to get rid of them, knowing that the lumbermen, who were mostly poor settlers, had small sympathy with the mutineers and that he would have at least a balance of power. He set the men to work immediately lengthening the wing of the log slide and the wedge guards of the piers. He himself toiled as hard as any two among them, and, to the astonishment of all, completed the big task before the week was past.

"I hardly like to say what it has cost me, but no log of any length could jam itself in the new pa.s.s," he said to Summers.

"You're an enterprising man," was the answer. "Savine is a bit of a rustler, too, and you'll have a chance of explaining things to him to-morrow. I have had word from him that he's coming through."

CHAPTER VIII

A REST BY THE WAY

It was afternoon when Julius Savine, accompanied by Summers, had entered Thurston's tent. On the way from the railroad, Summers had explained to the contractor all that had happened. Geoffrey rose to greet Savine, glancing at his employer with some curiosity, for he had not met him before. Savine was a man of quick, restless movements and nervous disposition. The gray that tinged his long mustache, lightly sprinkled his hair, gave evidence of his fifty years of intense living.

He was known to be not only a daring engineer, but a generally successful speculator in mining and industrial enterprises.

Nevertheless, Geoffrey fancied that something in his face gave a hint of physical weakness.

"I have heard one or two creditable things about you, and thought of asking you to run up to my offices, but I'm glad to meet you now," said Savine with a smile, adding when Thurston made a solemn bow, "There, I've been sufficiently civil, and I see you would rather I talked business. I'm considerably indebted to you for the way you tackled the late crisis, and approve of the log-guard's extension. How much did the extra work cost you?"

"Here is the wages bill and a list of the iron work charged at cost,"

Thurston answered. "As I did the work without any orders you would be justified in declining to pay for it, and I have included no profit."

"Ah!" said Savine, who glanced over the paper and scribbled across it.

Looking up with a twinkle in his eye, he asked: "Have you been acquiring riches latterly? My cas.h.i.+er will pay that note whenever you hand it in at Vancouver. I'll also endorse your contract for payment if you will give it me. Further, I want to say that I've been to look at your work, and it pleases me. There are plenty of men in this province who would have done it as solidly, but it's the general design and ingenious fixings that take my fancy. May I ask where you got the ideas?"

"In England," answered Geoffrey. "I spent some time in the drawing office of a man of some note." He mentioned a name, and Savine, who looked at him critically, nodded as if in recognition. The older man smiled when Thurston showed signs of resenting his inspection.

"In that case I should say you ought to do," Savine observed, cheerfully.

"I don't understand," said Thurston, and Savine answered:

"No? Well, if you'll wait a few moments I'll try to make things plain to you. I want a live man with brains of his own, and some knowledge of mechanical science. There is no trouble about getting them by the car load from the East or the Old Country, but the man for me must know how to use his muscles, if necessary, and handle ax and drill as well.

In short, I want one who has been right through the mill as you seem to have been, and, so long as he earns it, I'm not going to worry over his salary."

"I'm afraid I would not suit you," said Geoffrey. "I'm rather too fond of my own way to make a good servant, and of late I have not done badly fighting for my own hand. Therefore, while I thank you, and should be glad to undertake any minor contracts you can give me, I prefer to continue as at present."

"I should not fancy that you would be particularly easy to get on with," Savine observed with another shrewd glance, but with unabated good humor. "Still, what you suggest might suit me. I have rather more work at present than I can hold on to with both hands, and have tolerably good accounts of you. Come West with me and spend the week end at my house, where we could talk things over quietly."

Geoffrey was gratified--for the speaker was famous in his profession--and he showed his feeling as he answered: "I consider myself fortunate that you should ask me."

"I figured you were not fond of compliments, and I'm a plain man myself," declared Savine, with the humor apparent in his keen eyes again. "I will, however, give you one piece of advice before I forget it. My sister-in-law might be there, and if she wants to doctor you, don't let her. She has a weakness for physicking strangers, and the results are occasionally embarra.s.sing."

It happened accordingly that Thurston, who had overhauled his wardrobe in Vancouver, duly arrived at a pretty wooden villa which looked down upon a deep inlet. He knew the mountain valleys of the c.u.mberland, and had wandered, sometimes footsore and hungry, under the giant ramparts of the Selkirks and the Rockies, but he had never seen a fairer spot than the reft in the hills which sheltered Savine's villa, and was known by its Indian name, "The Place of the Hundred Springs."

For a background somber cedars lifted their fretted spires against the skyline on the southern hand. Beneath the trees the hillsides closed in and the emerald green of maples and tawny tufts of oak rolled down to a breadth of milk-white pebbles and a stretch of silver sand, past which clear green water shoaling from shade to shade wound inland.

Threads of glancing spray quivered in and out among the foliage, and high above, beyond a strip of sparkling sea and set apart by filmy cloud from all the earth below, stretched the giant saw-edge of the Coast Range's snow.

The white-painted, red-roofed dwelling, with its green-latticed shutters, tasteful scroll work and ample, if indifferently swarded, lawns, was pleasant to look upon, but Thurston found more pleasure in the sight of its young mistress, who awaited him in a great cool room that was hung with deer-head trophies and floored with parquetry of native timber.

Helen Savine wore a white dress and her favorite crimson roses nestled in the belt. Though she greeted Geoffrey with indifferent cordiality, the girl was surprised when her eyes rested upon him. Thurston was not a man of the conventional type one meets and straightway forgets, and she had often thought about him; but, since the night at Crosbie Ghyll, his image had presented itself as she first saw him--ragged, hungry, and grim, a worthy descendant of the wild Thurstons about whom Musker had discoursed. Now, in spite of his weather-beaten face and hardened hands, he appeared what he was, a man of education and some refinement, and his resolute expression, erect carriage, and muscular frame, rendered lithe and almost statuesque by much swinging of the ax, gave him an indefinite air of distinction. Again she decided that Geoffrey Thurston was a well-favored man, but remembering Musker's stories, she set herself to watch for some trace of inherent barbarity. This was unfortunate for Geoffrey, because in such cases observers generally discover what they search for.

Geoffrey was placed beside Helen at dinner, and having roughed it since he left England, and even before that time, it seemed strange to him to be deftly waited upon at a table glittering with silver and gay with flowers. Mrs. Thomas Savine sat opposite him, between her husband and the host, and Helen found certain suspicions confirmed when Savine referred to the crus.h.i.+ng of the strike. Previously, he had given his daughter a brief account of it.

"It was daringly done," said Helen, "but I wonder, Mr. Thurston, if you and others who hold the power ever consider the opposite side of the question. It may be that those men, whose task is evidently highly dangerous, have wives and children depending upon them, and a few extra dollars, earned hardly enough, no doubt, might mean so much to them."

"I am afraid I don't always do so," answered Geoffrey. "I have toiled tolerably hard as a workman myself. If any employe should consider that he was underpaid for the risk he ran, and should say so civilly, I should listen to him. On the other hand, if any combination strove by unfair means to coerce me, I should spare no effort to crush it!"

Thurston generally was too much in earnest to make a pleasant dinner-table conversationalist. As he spoke, he shut one big brown hand. It was a trifling action, and he was, perhaps, unconscious of it, but Helen, who noticed the flicker in his eyes and the vindictive tightening of the hard fingers, shrank from him instinctively.

"Is that not a cruel plan of action, and is there no room for a gentler policy in your profession? Must the weak always be trampled out of existence?" she replied, with a slight trace of indignation.

Thurston turned towards her with a puzzled expression. Julius Savine smiled, but his sister-in-law, who had remained silent, but not un.o.bservant, broke in: "You believe in the hereditary transmission of character, Mr. Thurston?"

"I think most people do to some extent," answered Geoffrey. "But why do you ask me?"

"It's quite simple," said Mrs. Savine, smiling. "Did my husband tell you that when we were in England, we were held up by a storm there one night in your ancestral home? There was a man there who ought to belong to the feudal ages. He was called Musker, and he told us quaint stories about some of you. I fancy Geoffrey, who robbed the king's dragoons, must have looked just like you when you shut your fingers so, a few minutes ago."

"I am a little surprised," Geoffrey returned with a flush rising in his cheeks. "Musker used to talk a great deal of romantic nonsense.

Crosbie Ghyll is no longer mine. I hope you pa.s.sed a pleasant night there." Mrs. Savine became eloquent concerning the historic interest of the ancient house and her brother-in-law, who appeared interested, observed.

"So far, you have not told me about that particular adventure."

Again the incident was unfortunate for Geoffrey, because Helen, who had no great respect for her aunt's perceptions, decided that if the similitude had struck even that lady, she was right in her own estimation of Thurston's character.

"We heard of several instances of reckless daring, and we Colonials consider all the historic romance of the land we sprang from belongs to us as well as you," Mrs. Savine said. "So, if it is not an intrusion, may I ask if any of those border warriors were remarkable for deeds of self-abnegation or charity?"

"I am afraid not," admitted Geoffrey, rather grimly. "Neither did any of them ever do much towards the making of history. All of them were generally too busy protecting their property or seizing that of their neighbors! But, at least, when they fought, they seem to have fought for the losing side, and, according to tradition, paid for it dearly.

However, to change the subject, is it fair to hold any man responsible for his ancestors' shortcomings? They have gone back to the dust long ago, and it is the present that concerns us."

"Still, can anybody avoid the results of those shortcomings or virtues?" persisted Helen, and her father said:

"I hardly think so. There is an instance beside you, Mr. Thurston.

Miss Savine's grandfather ruled in paternally feudal fas.h.i.+on over a few dozen superst.i.tious habitants way back in old-world Quebec, as his folks had done since the first French colonization. That explains my daughter's views on social matters and her weakness for playing the somewhat autocratic Lady Bountiful. The Seigneurs were benevolent village despots with very quaint ways."

Savine spoke lightly, and one person only noticed that the face of his daughter was slightly less pale in coloring than before, but that one afterwards remembered her father's words and took them as a clue to the woman's character. He discovered also that Helen Savine was both generous and benevolent, but that she loved to rule, and to rule somewhat autocratically.

The first day at the Savine villa pa.s.sed like a pleasant dream to the man who had toiled for a bare living in the shadowy forests or knelt all day among hot rocks to hold the weary drill with bleeding fingers.

Mr. Savine grew more and more interested in Geoffrey, who, during the second day, made great advances in the estimation of Mrs. Thomas Savine. Bicycles were not so common a woman's possession in Canada, or elsewhere, then. In fact, there were few roads in British Columbia fit to propel one on. An American friend had sent Miss Savine a wheel which, after a few journeys over a corduroy road, groaned most distressfully whenever she mounted it. Helen desired to ride in to the railroad, but the gaudy machine complained even more than usual, and when at last one of its wheels declined to revolve, Julius Savine called Geoffrey's attention to it.

"If you are anxious for mild excitement, and want to earn my daughter's grat.i.tude, you might tackle that confounded thing, Mr. Thurston," he said. "The local blacksmith shakes his head over it, and sent it back the last time worse than ever, with several necessary portions missing.