| Chapter 2 |
| "Some men wanted aft here to take up the slack of the stern-line on
the windlass, sir," - John Cardigan |
| "That girl can't haul her in alone." - John Cardigan |
| "Can't. I'm short-handed," - skipper |
| "Jump
aboard and help her." - skipper |
| "Raise a chantey," - John Cardigan |
| For tinkers and tailors and lawyers and all, Way! Aye! Blow the men
down! They ship for real sailors aboard the Black Ball, Give me some time to
blow the men down. - girl |
| "Please run for'd and help my father with the bow-lines. You're worth
three foremast hands. Indeed, I didn't expect to see a sailor on this
dock." - girl |
| "I had to come around the Horn to get here, Miss," - John Cardigan |
| "and when a man hasn't money to pay for his passage, he needs must
work it." - John Cardigan |
| "I'm the second mate," - girl |
| "We had a
succession of gales from the Falklands to the Evangelistas, and there the
mate got her in irons and she took three big ones over the
taffrail and cost us eight men. Working short-handed, we couldn't get any
canvas on her to speak of--long voyage, you know, and the rest of the crew
got scurvy." - girl |
| "You're a brave girl," - John Cardigan |
| "And you're a first-class A. B.," - girl |
| "If
you're looking for a berth, my father will be glad to ship you." - girl |
| "Sorry, but I can't go," - John Cardigan |
| "I'm Cardigan, and I own this sawmill and must stay
here and look after it." - John Cardigan |
| "Funeral arrangements?" - John Cardigan |
| "Funeral arrangements?" - John Cardigan |
| "Ah, yes, I suppose so. I shall attend to it." - John Cardigan |
| "Come with me, McTavish," - John Cardigan |
| "McTavish," - John Cardigan |
| "she died this morning." - John Cardigan |
| "I'm sore distressed for you, sir," - McTavish |
| "We'd a whisper in the camp yesterday that the lass was like to be in
a bad way." - McTavish |
| "Take
two men from the section-gang, McTavish," - John Cardigan |
| "and
have them dig her grave here; then swamp a trail through the underbrush and
out to the donkey-landing, so we can carry her in. The funeral will be
private." - John Cardigan |
| "Any further orders, sir?" - McTavish |
| "Yes. When you come to that little gap in the hills, cease your
logging and bear off yonder." - John Cardigan |
| "I'm not
going to cut the timber in this valley. You see, McTavish, what it is. The
trees here--ah, man, I haven't the heart to destroy God's most wonderful
handiwork. Besides, she loved this spot, McTavish, and she called the valley
her Valley of the Giants. I--I gave it to her for a wedding present because
she had a bit of a dream that some day the town I started would grow up to
yonder gap, and when that time came and we could afford it, 'twas in her
mind to give her Valley of the Giants to Sequoia for a city park, all hidden
away here and unsuspected. - John Cardigan |
| "She loved it, McTavish. It pleased her to come here with me; she'd
make up a lunch of her own cooking and I would catch trout in the stream by
the dogwoods yonder and fry the fish for her. Sometimes I'd barbecue a
venison steak and--well, 'twas our playhouse, McTavish, and I who am no
longer young--I who never played until I met her--I-- I'm a bit foolish, I
fear, but I found rest and comfort here, McTavish, even before I met her,
and I'm thinking I'll have to come here often for the same. She--she was a
very superior woman, McTavish--very superior. Ah, man, the soul of her! I
cannot bear that her body should rest in Sequoia cemetery, along with the
rag tag and bobtail o' the town. She was like this sunbeam, McTavish.
She--she--" - John Cardigan |
| "Aye," - McTavish |
| "I ken. Ye wouldna gie
her a common or a public spot in which to wait for ye. An' ye'll be shuttin'
down the mill an' loggin'-camps an' layin' off the hands in her
honour for a bit?" - McTavish |
| "Until after the funeral, McTavish. And tell your men they'll be paid
for the lost time. That will be all, lad." - John Cardigan |
| "I'd like to hold my son," - John Cardigan |
| "May I?" - John Cardigan |
| "You'll have her hair and skin and eyes," - John Cardigan |
| "My son, my son, I shall love you so, for now I must love for two.
Sorrow I shall keep from you, please God, and happiness and worldly comfort
shall I leave you when I go to her." - John Cardigan |
| "Just you and my trees," - John Cardigan |
| "just you and my trees to help me hang on to a plucky finish." - John Cardigan |
| Chapter 4 |
| "Look here, Bill: isn't it time we got together on that timber of
yours? You know you've been holding it to block me and force me to buy at
your figure." - John Cardigan |
| "That's why I bought it," - Bill Henderson |
| "Then, before I realized my position, you checkmated me with that
quarter-section in the valley, and we've been deadlocked ever since." - Bill Henderson |
| "I'll give you a dollar a thousand stumpage for your timber,
Bill." - John Cardigan |
| "I want a dollar and a half." - Bill Henderson |
| "A dollar is my absolute limit." - John Cardigan |
| "Then I'll keep my timber." - Bill Henderson |
| "And I'll keep my money. When I finish logging in my
present holdings, I'm going to pull out of that country and log twenty miles
south of Sequoia. I have ten thousand acres in the San Hedrin watershed.
Remember, Bill, the man who buys your timber will have to log it through my
land--and I'm not going to log that quarter-section in the valley. Hence
there will be no outlet for your timber in back." - John Cardigan |
| "Not going to log it? Why, what are you going to do with it?" - Bill Henderson |
| "I'm just going to let it stay there until I die. When my will is
filed for probate, your curiosity will be satisfied--but not until
then." - John Cardigan |
| "John," - Bill Henderson |
| "you just haven't
got the courage to pull out when your timber adjoining mine is gone, and
move twenty miles south to the San Hedrin watershed. That will be too
expensive a move, and you'll only be biting off your nose to spite your
face. Come through with a dollar and a half, John." - Bill Henderson |
| "I never bluff, Bill. Remember, if I pull out for the San Hedrin, I'll
not abandon my logging-camps there to come back and log your timber. One
expensive move is enough for me. Better take a dollar, Bill. It's a good,
fair price, as the market on redwood timber is now, and you'll be making an
even hundred per cent, on your investment. Remember, Bill, if I don't buy
your timber, you'll never log it yourself and neither will anybody else.
You'll be stuck with it for the next forty years--and taxes aren't getting
any lower. Besides, there's a good deal of pine and fir in there, and you
know what a forest fire will do to that." - John Cardigan |
| "I'll hang on a little longer, I think." - Bill Henderson |
| "I think so, too," - John Cardigan |
| "I suppose he thinks you're bluffing," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm not, Bryce. I never bluff--that is, I never permit a bluff of
mine to be called, and don't you ever do it, either. Remember that, boy. Any
time you deliver a verdict, be sure you're in such a position you won't have
to reverse yourself. I'm going to finish logging in that district this fall,
so if I'm to keep the mill running, I'll have to establish my camps on the
San Hedrin watershed right away." - John Cardigan |
| "But isn't it cheaper to give him his price on Squaw
Creek timber than go logging in the San Hedrin and have to build twenty
miles of logging railroad to get your logs to the mill?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It would be, son, if I HAD to build the railroad. Fortunately, I do
not. I'll just shoot the logs down the hillside to the San Hedrin River and
drive them down the stream to a log-boom on tidewater." - John Cardigan |
| "But there isn't enough water in the San Hedrin to float a redwood
log, Dad. I've fished there, and I know." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Quite true--in the summer and fall. But when the winter freshets come
on and the snow begins to melt in the spring up in the Yola Bolas, where the
San Hedrin has its source, we'll have plenty of water for
driving the river. Once we get the logs down to tide-water, we'll raft them
and tow them up to the mill. So you see, Bryce, we won't be bothered with
the expense of maintaining a logging railroad, as at present." - John Cardigan |
| "I guess Dan Keyes is right,
Dad," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Dan says you're crazy--like a fox. Now I know
why you've been picking up claims in the San Hedrin watershed." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No, you don't, Bryce. I've never told you, but I'll tell you now the
real reason. Humboldt County has no rail connection with the outside world,
so we are forced to ship our lumber by water. But some day a railroad will
be built in from the south--from San Francisco; and when it comes, the only
route for it to travel is through our timber in the San Hedrin Valley. I've
accumulated that ten thousand acres for you, my son, for the railroad will
never be built in my day. It may come in yours, but I have grown weary
waiting for it, and now that my hand is forced, I'm going to start logging
there. It doesn't matter, son. You will still be logging there fifty years
from now. And when the railroad people come to you for a right of way, my
boy, give it to them. Don't charge them a cent. It has always been my policy
to encourage the development of this county, and I want you to be a
forward-looking, public-spirited citizen. That's why I'm sending you East to
college. You've been born and raised in this town, and you must see more of
the world. You mustn't be narrow or provincial, because I'm saving up for
you, my son, a great many responsibilities, and I want to educate you to
meet them bravely and sensibly." - John Cardigan |
| "Bryce, lad," - John Cardigan |
| "do you ever wonder why I work so hard and barely
manage to spare the time to go camping with you in vacation time?" - John Cardigan |
| "Why don't you take it easy, Dad? You do work awfully hard, and I have
wondered about it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I have to work hard, my son, because I started something a long time
ago, when work was fun. And now I can't let go. I employ too many people who
are dependent on me for their bread and butter. When they plan a marriage or
the building of a home or the purchase of a cottage organ, they have to
figure me in on the proposition. I didn't have a name for the part I played
in these people's lives until the other night when I was helping you with
your algebra. I'm the unknown quantity." - John Cardigan |
| "Oh, no," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You're the known
quantity." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well, maybe I am," - John Cardigan |
| "I've
always tried to be. And if I have succeeded, then you're the unknown
quantity, Bryce, because some day you'll have to take my place; they will
have to depend upon you when I am gone. Listen to me, son. You're only a
boy, and you can't understand everything I tell you now, but I want you to
remember what I tell you, and some day understanding will come to you. You
mustn't fail the people who work for you--who are dependent upon your
strength and brains and enterprises to furnish them with an opportunity for
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When you are the boss of
Cardigan's mill, you must keep the wheels turning; you must never shut
down the mill or the logging- camps in dull times just to
avoid a loss you can stand better than your employees." - John Cardigan |
| "I want you to be a
brave and honourable man," - John Cardigan |
| "Colonel, how do you purpose logging that timber?" - Bill Henderson |
| "Oh, I don't intend to log it. When I log timber,
it has to be more accessible. I'm just going to hold on and outgame your
former prospect, John Cardigan. He needs that timber; he has to have it--and
one of these days he'll pay me two dollars for it." - Colonel |
| "Hear me, stranger," - Bill Henderson |
| "When you know John
Cardigan as well as I do, you'll change your tune. He doesn't bluff." - Bill Henderson |
| "He doesn't?" - Colonel |
| "Why, that
move of his over to the San Hedrin was the most monumental bluff ever pulled
off in this country." - Colonel |
| "All right, sir. You wait and see." - Bill Henderson |
| "I've seen already. I know." - Colonel |
| "How do you know?" - Bill Henderson |
| "Well, for one thing, Henderson, I noticed Cardigan has carefully
housed his rolling-stock--and he hasn't scrapped his five miles of logging
railroad and three miles of spurs." - Colonel |
| "No," - Bill Henderson |
| "I'll admit
he ain't started scrappin' it yet, but I happen to know he's sold the
rollin'- stock an' rails to the Freshwater Lumber Company, so I reckon
they'll be scrappin' that railroad for him before long." - Bill Henderson |
| "If your information is authentic," - Colonel |
| "I suppose I'll have to build a mill on tidewater and
log the timber." - Colonel |
| "'Twon't pay you to do that at the present price of redwood
lumber." - Bill Henderson |
| "I'm in no hurry. I can wait for better times." - Colonel |
| "Well, when better times arrive, you'll find that John Cardigan owns
the only water-front property on this side of the bay where the water's deep
enough to let a ship lie at low tide and load in safety." - Bill Henderson |
| "There is deep water across the bay and plenty of water-front property
for sale. I'll find a mill-site there and tow my logs across." - Colonel |
| "But you've got to dump 'em in the water on this side. Everything
north of Cardigan's mill is tide-flat; he owns all the deep-water frontage
for a mile south of Sequoia, and after that come more tide- flats. If you
dump your logs on these tide-flats, they'll bog down in the mud, and there
isn't water enough at high tide to float 'em off or let a tug go in an'
snake 'em off." - Bill Henderson |
| "You're a discouraging sort of person," - Colonel |
| "I suppose you'll tell me now that I can't log my timber
without permission from Cardigan." - Colonel |
| "No, that's where you've got the bulge on John, Colonel. You can
build a logging railroad from the southern fringe of your timber north and
up a ten per cent. grade on the far side of the Squaw Creek
watershed, then west three miles around a spur of low hills, and then south
eleven miles through the level country along the bay shore. If you want to
reduce your Squaw Creek grade to say two per cent., figure on ten additional
miles of railroad and a couple extra locomotives. You understand, of course,
Colonel, that no Locomotive can haul a long trainload of redwood logs up a
long, crooked, two per cent. grade. You have to have an extry in back to
push." - Bill Henderson |
| "Nonsense! I'll build my road from Squaw Creek gulch south through
that valley where those whopping big trees grow. That's the natural outlet
for the timber. See here:" - Colonel |
| "But that valley ain't logged yet," - Bill Henderson |
| "Don't worry. Cardigan will sell that valley to me--also a right of
way down his old railroad grade and through his logged-over lands to
tidewater." - Colonel |
| "Bet you a chaw o' tobacco he won't. Those big trees in that valley
ain't goin' to be cut for no railroad right o' way. That valley's John
Cardigan's private park; his wife's buried up there. Why, Colonel, that's
the biggest grove of the biggest sequoia sempervirens in the world, an'
many's the time I've heard John say he'd almost as lief cut off his right
hand as fell one o' his giants, as he calls 'em. I tell you, Colonel, John
Cardigan's mighty peculiar about them big trees. Any time he can get a day
off he goes up an' looks 'em over." - Bill Henderson |
| "But, my very dear sir," - Colonel |
| "if the
man will not listen to reason, the courts will make him. I can condemn a
right of way, you know." - Colonel |
| "We-ll," - Bill Henderson |
| "mebbe
you can, an' then again mebbe you can't. It took me a long time to figger
out just where I stood, but mebbe you're quicker at figgers than I am.
Anyhow, Colonel, good luck to you, whichever way the cat jumps." - Bill Henderson |
| Chapter 6 |
| "Thomas," - John Cardigan |
| "you know, of course, that Bryce is
coming home. Tell George to take the big car and go over to Red Bluff for
him." - John Cardigan |
| "I'll attend to it, Mr Cardigan. Anything else?" - Thomas Sinclair |
| "Yes, but I'll wait until Bryce gets home." - John Cardigan |
| "Hello, George, you radiant red rascal! I'm mighty glad to see you,
boy. Shake!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Driver, this is the stage for Sequoia, is it not?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "This
car?" - George Sea Otter |
| "this--the Sequoia stage! Take a look,
lady. This here's a Napier imported English automobile. It's a private car
and belongs to my boss here." - George Sea Otter |
| "I'm so sorry I slandered your car," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I observed the pennant on the wind-shield, and I thought--" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Quite naturally, you thought it was the Sequoia stage," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "George," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "if you're anxious to hold down your job the next time
a lady speaks to you and asks you a simple question, you answer yes or no
and refrain from sarcastic remarks. Don't let your enthusiasm for this car
run away with you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Was it your
intention to go out to Sequoia on the next trip of the stage?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That means you will have to wait here three days until the stage
returns from Sequoia," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I realized, of course, that we would arrive here too late to connect
with the stage if it maintained the customary schedule for its
departure," - Shirley Sumner |
| "but it didn't occur to me that the
stage- driver wouldn't wait until our train arrived. I had an idea his
schedule was rather elastic." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Stage-drivers have no imagination, to speak of," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "She's used to having people wait on
her." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, dear," - Shirley Sumner |
| "how fearfully
awkward! Now I shall have to take the next train to San Francisco and book
passage on the steamer to Sequoia--and Marcelle is such a poor sailor. Oh,
dear!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "We are about to start for Sequoia now, although the lateness of our
start will compel us to put up tonight at the rest-house on the south fork
of Trinity River and continue the journey in the morning. However, this
rest-house is eminently respectable and the food and accommodations are
extraordinarily good for mountains; so, if an invitation to occupy the
tonneau of my car will not be construed as an impertinence, coming as it
does from a total stranger, you are at liberty to regard this car as to all
intents and purposes the public conveyance which so scandalously declined to
wait for you this morning." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Why, certainly not! You are very kind, and I shall be eternally
grateful." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Thank you for that vote of confidence. It makes me feel that I have
your permission to introduce myself. My name is Bryce Cardigan, and I live
in Sequoia when I'm at home." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Of Cardigan's Redwoods?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I've heard of you, I think," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I am Shirley
Sumner." - Shirley Sumner |
| "You do not live in Sequoia." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No, but I'm going to hereafter. I was there about ten years ago." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I wonder," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "if it
is to be my duty to give you a ride every time you come to Sequoia? The last
time you were there you wheedled me into giving you a ride on my pony, an
animal known as Midget. Do you, by any chance, recall that incident?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Why--why you're the boy with the
beautiful auburn hair," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'm not so sensitive about it
now," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "When we first met, reference to my hair was
apt to rile me." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What a pity it wasn't possible for us to renew acquaintance on the
train, Miss Sumner!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Better late than never, Mr. Cardigan, considering the
predicament in which you found me. What became of Midget?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Midget, I regret to state, made a little pig of herself one day and
died of acute indigestion. She ate half a sack of carrots, and knowing full
well that she was eating forbidden fruit, she bolted them, and for her
failure to Fletcherize--but speaking of Fletcherizing, did you dine aboard
the train?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "So did I, Miss Sumner; hence I take it that you are quite
ready to start." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Quite, Mr. Cardigan." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Then we'll drift. George, suppose you pile Miss Sumner's hand-
baggage in the tonneau and then pile in there yourself and keep Marcelle
company. I'll drive; and you can sit up in front with me, Miss Sumner, snug
behind the wind-shield where you'll not be blown about." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm sure this is going to be a far pleasanter journey than the stage
could possibly have afforded," - Shirley Sumner |
| "You are very kind to share the pleasure with me, Miss Sumner." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "By
the way," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "how did you happen to connect me with
Cardigan's redwoods?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I've heard my uncle, Colonel Seth Pennington, speak of them." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Colonel Seth Pennington means nothing in my young life. I never heard
of him before; so I dare say he's a newcomer in our country. I've been away
six years," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "We're from Michigan. Uncle was formerly in the lumber business there,
but he's logged out now." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I see. So he came West, I suppose, and bought a lot of redwood timber
cheap from some old croaker who never could see any future to the redwood
lumber industry. Personally, I don't think he could have made a better
investment. I hope I shall have the pleasure of making his acquaintance when
I deliver you to him. Perhaps you may be a neighbour of mine. Hope so." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What language was that?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Digger Indian," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "George's mother was my
nurse, and he and I grew up together. So I can't very well help speaking the
language of the tribe." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What a perfectly glorious country!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Can't we stop for just a minute to appreciate it?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Yes," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "it's a he
country; I love it, and I'm glad to get back to it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "George!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "George, when did you first notice that my father's sight was
beginning to fail?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "About two years ago, Bryce." - George Sea Otter |
| "What made you notice it?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He began to walk with his hands held out in front of him, and
sometimes he lifted his feet too high." - George Sea Otter |
| "Can he see at all now, George?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, yes, a little bit--enough to make his way to the office and
back." - George Sea Otter |
| "Poor old governor! George, until you told me this afternoon, I hadn't
heard a word about it. If I had, I never would have taken that two-year
jaunt around the world." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That's what your father said, too. So he
wouldn't tell you, and he ordered everybody else to keep quiet about it.
Myself--well, I didn't want you to go home and not know it until you met
him." - George Sea Otter |
| "That was mighty kind and considerate of you, George. And you say this
man Colonel Pennington and my father have been having trouble?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes--" - George Sea Otter |
| "I'll let you drive now,
George," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm going to leave you now," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Thank you
for riding over from Red Bluff with me. My father never leaves the office
until the whistle blows, and so I'm going to hurry down to that little
building you see at the end of the street and surprise him." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Here comes John Cardigan," - George Sea Otter |
| "Drive Miss Sumner around to Colonel Pennington's house," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, my poor old father!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "My dear old pal! And I've let him grope in the dark for two
years!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Dad!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It is I--Bryce. I've come home to you at last." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Sonny, sonny--oh, I'm so glad you're back. I've missed you. Bryce,
I'm whipped--I've lost your heritage. Oh, son! I'm old--I can't fight any
more. I'm blind--I can't see my enemies. I've lost your redwood trees--even
your mother's Valley of the Giants." - John Cardigan |
| Chapter 8 |
| "I wish I could see you more clearly," - John Cardigan |
| "What's wrong with your eyes, pal?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Cataracts, son," - John Cardigan |
| "Merely the
penalty of old age." - John Cardigan |
| "But can't something be done about it?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Can't they be cured somehow or other?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Certainly they can. But I shall have to wait until they are
completely matured and I have become completely blind; then a specialist
will perform an operation on my eyes, and in all probability my sight will
be restored for a few years. However, I haven't given the matter a great
deal of consideration. At my age one doesn't find very much difficulty in
making the best of everything. And I am about ready to quit now. I'd like
to, in fact; I'm tired." - John Cardigan |
| "Oh, but you can't quit until you've seen your redwoods again," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I suppose it's been a long time since you've
visited the Valley of the Giants; your long exile from the wood-goblins has
made you a trifle gloomy, I'm afraid." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I haven't seen them in a year and a half, Bryce.
Last time I was up, I slipped between the logs on the old skid-road and like
to broke my old fool neck. But even that wasn't warning enough for me. I
cracked right on into the timber and got lost." - John Cardigan |
| "Lost? Poor old partner! And what did you do about it?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The sensible thing, my boy. I just sat down under a tree
and waited for George Sea Otter to trail me and bring me home." - John Cardigan |
| "And did he find you? Or did you have to spend the night in the
woods?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I did not. Along about sunset George
found me. Seems he'd been following me all the time, and when I sat down he
waited to make certain whether I was lost or just taking a rest where I
could be quiet and think." - John Cardigan |
| "I've been leaving to an Indian the fulfillment of my duty," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No, no, son. You have never been deficient in that," - John Cardigan |
| "Why didn't you have the old skid-road planked with refuse lumber so
you wouldn't fall through? And you might have had the woods-boss swamp a new
trail into the timber and fence it on both sides, in order that you might
feel your way along." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes, quite true," - John Cardigan |
| "But then, I
don't spend money quite as freely as I used to, Bryce. I consider carefully
now before I part with a dollar." - John Cardigan |
| "Pal, it wasn't fair of you to make me stay away so long. If I had
only known--if I had remotely suspected--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You'd have spoiled everything--of course. Don't scold me, son. You're
all I have now, and I couldn't bear to send for you until you'd had your
fling." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It was my pleasure,
Bryce," - John Cardigan |
| "and you wouldn't deny me my choice of
sport, would you? Remember, lad, I never had a boyhood; I never
had a college education, and the only real travel I have ever had was when I
worked my way around Cape Horn as a foremast hand, and all I saw then was
water and hardships; all I've seen since is my little world here in Sequoia
and in San Francisco." - John Cardigan |
| "You've sacrificed enough--too much--for me, Dad." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It pleased me to give you all the advantages I wanted and couldn't
afford until I was too old and too busy to consider them. Besides, it was
your mother's wish. We made plans for you before you were born, and I
promised her--ah, well, why be a cry-baby? I knew I could manage until you
were ready to settle down to business. And you HAVE enjoyed your little run,
haven't you?" - John Cardigan |
| "I have, Dad." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Stubborn old
lumberjack!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Ha! I thought so," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "After your
fifty-odd years in the lumber business your head has become packed with
sawdust--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Be serious and talk to me, Bryce." - John Cardigan |
| "I ought to send you to bed without your supper. Talk to you? You bet
I'll talk to you, John Cardigan; and I'll tell you things, too, you
scandalous bunko-steerer. To-morrow morning I'm going to put a pair of
overalls on you, arm you with a tin can and a swab, and set you to greasing
the skidways. Partner, you've deceived me." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, nonsense. If I had whimpered, that would only have spoiled
everything." - John Cardigan |
| "Nevertheless, you were forced to cable me to hurry home." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I summoned you the instant I realized I was going to need you." - John Cardigan |
| "No, you didn't, John Cardigan. You summoned me because, for the first
time in your life, you were panicky and let yourself get out of hand." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "And you aren't over it yet," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What's the trouble, Dad? Trot out your old panic and let me inspect it.
Trouble must be very real when it gets my father on the run." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It is, Bryce, very real indeed. As I remarked before, I've lost your
heritage for you." - John Cardigan |
| "I waited till you would be able
to come home and settle down to business; now you're home, and there isn't
any business to settle down to." - John Cardigan |
| "All right," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Father has lost
his money and we'll have to let the servants go and give up the old home.
That part of it is settled; and weak, anemic, tenderly nurtured little Bryce
Cardigan must put his turkey on his back and go into the woods looking for a
job as lumberjack ... Busted, eh? Did I or did I not hear the six o'clock
whistle blow at the mill? Bet you a dollar I did." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, I have title to everything--yet." - John Cardigan |
| "How I do have to dig for good news! Then it appears we still have a
business; indeed, we may always have a business, for the very fact that it
is going but not quite gone implies a doubt as to its ultimate departure,
and perhaps we may yet scheme a way to retain it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, my boy, when I think of my years of toil and scheming, of the big
dreams I dreamed--" - John Cardigan |
| "Belay all! If we can save enough out of the wreck to insure you your
customary home comforts, I shan't cry, partner. I have a profession to fall
back on. Yes, sirree. I own a sheep-skin, and it says I'm an electrical and
civil engineer." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What!" - John Cardigan |
| "I said it. An electrical and civil engineer. Slipped one over on you
at college, John Cardigan, when all the time you thought I was having a good
time. Thought I'd come home and surprise you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Bu-bu-but--" - John Cardigan |
| "It drives me wild to have a man sputter at me. I'm an electrical and
civil engineer, I tell you, and my two years of travel have been spent
studying the installation and construction of big plants abroad." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I've known for years
that our sawmill was a debilitated old coffee-grinder and would have to be
rebuilt, so I wanted to know how to rebuild it. And I've known for years
that some day I might have to build a logging railroad--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "My dear boy! And you've got your degree?" - John Cardigan |
| "Partner, I have a string of letters after my name like the tail of a
comet." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You comfort me," - John Cardigan |
| "I have
reproached myself with the thought that I reared you with the sole thought
of making a lumberman out of you--and when I saw your lumber business
slipping through my fingers--" - John Cardigan |
| "You were sorry I didn't have a profession to fall back on, eh? Or
were you fearful lest you had raised the usual rich man's son? If the
latter, you did not compliment me, pal. I've never forgotten how hard you
always strove to impress me with a sense of the exact weight of my
responsibility as your successor." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "How big are you now?" - John Cardigan |
| "Well, sir," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm six feet two inches tall, and I weigh
two hundred pounds in the pink of condition. I have a forty-eight-inch
chest, with five and a half inches chest-expansion, and a reach as long as a
gorilla's. My underpinning is good, too; I'm not one of these fellows with
spidery legs and a barrel-chest. I can do a hundred yards in ten seconds;
I'm no slouch of a swimmer; and at Princeton they say I made football
history. And in spite of it all, I haven't an athletic heart." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That is very encouraging, my boy--very. Ever do any boxing?" - John Cardigan |
| "Quite a little. I'm fairly up in the manly art of self-defence." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That's good. And I suppose you did some wrestling at your college
gymnasium, did you not?" - John Cardigan |
| "Naturally. I went in for everything my big carcass could stand." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "There's a big buck woods-boss up
in Pennington's camp," - John Cardigan |
| "He's a
French Canadian imported from northern Michigan by Colonel Pennington. I
dare say he's the only man in this country who measures up to you
physically. He can fight with his fists and wrestle right cleverly, I'm
told. His name is Jules Rondeau, and he's top dog among the lumberjacks.
They say he's the strongest man in the county." - John Cardigan |
| "Folks used to say that about me once," - John Cardigan |
| "Ah, if I could have my eyes to see you meet Jules
Rondeau!" - John Cardigan |
| "Oh, here's my
boy!" - Mrs. Tully |
| "I smell something," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "They're wild blackberries, too," - Mrs. Tully |
| "I remembered how fond you used to be of wild-blackberry pie--so I
phoned up to the logging-camp and had the woods-boss send a man out to pick
them." - Mrs. Tully |
| "I'm still a pie-hound, Mrs. Tully, and you're still the same dear,
thoughtful soul. I'm so glad now that I had sense enough to think of you
before I turned my footsteps toward the setting sun." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Mrs. T.," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I've brought you a nice
big collar of Irish lace--bought it in Belfast, b'gosh. It comes down around
your neck and buckles right here with an old ivory cameo I picked up in
Burma and which formerly was the property of a Hindu queen." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You haven't changed a single speck," - Mrs. Tully |
| "Has the pie?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I should say not." - Mrs. Tully |
| "How many did you make?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Two." - Mrs. Tully |
| "May I have one all for myself, Mrs. Tully?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Indeed you may, my dear." - Mrs. Tully |
| "Thank you, but I do not want it for myself. Mrs. Tully, will you
please wrap one of those wonderful pies in a napkin and the
instant George Sea Otter comes in with the car, tell him to take the pie
over to Colonel Pennington's house and deliver it to Miss Sumner? There's a
girl who doubtless thinks she has tasted pie in her day, and I want to prove
to her that she hasn't." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Isn't this young Cardigan a truly remarkable young man, Shirley?" - Colonel |
| "Why, I have never heard of anything like his astounding
action. If he had sent you over an armful of American Beauty
roses from his father's old-fashioned garden, I could understand it, but an
infernal blackberry pie! Good heavens!" - Colonel |
| "I told you he was different," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I
wonder if it is really as good as he says it is, Shirley." - Colonel |
| "Of course. If it wasn't, he wouldn't have sent it." - Shirley Sumner |
| "How do you know?" - Colonel |
| "By intuition," - Shirley Sumner |
| "That was a genuine hayseed faux-pas," - Colonel |
| "The idea of anybody who has enjoyed the advantages that
fellow has, sending a hot blackberry pie to a girl he has just met!" - Colonel |
| "Yes, the idea!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I find it rather
charming." - Shirley Sumner |
| "You mean amusing." - Colonel |
| "I said 'charming.' Bryce Cardigan is a man with the heart and soul of
a boy, and I think it was mighty sweet of him to share his pie with me. If
he had sent roses, I should have suspected him of trying to 'rush' me, but
the fact that he sent a blackberry pie proves that he's just a natural,
simple, sane, original citizen--just the kind of person a girl can have for
a dear friend without incurring the risk of having to marry him." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I repeat that this is most extraordinary." - Colonel |
| "Only because it is an unusual thing for a young man to do, although,
after all, why shouldn't he send me a blackberry pie if he
thought a blackberry pie would please me more than an armful of roses?
Besides, he may send the roses to-morrow." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Most extraordinary!" - Colonel |
| "What should one expect from such an extraordinary creature? He's an
extraordinary fine-looking young man, with an extraordinary scowl and an
extraordinary crinkly smile that is friendly and generous and free from
masculine guile. Why, I think he's just the kind of man who WOULD send a
girl a blackberry pie." - Shirley Sumner |
| Chapter 9 |
| "Well, John Cardigan," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "to-day
is Friday. I'll spend Saturday and Sunday in sinful sloth and the renewal of
old acquaintance, and on Monday I'll sit in at your desk and give you a
long-deferred vacation. How about that programme, pard?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Our affairs are in such shape that they could not possibly be hurt or
bettered, no matter who takes charge of them now," - John Cardigan |
| "We're about through. I waited too long and trusted too far;
and now--well, in a year we'll be out of business." - John Cardigan |
| "Suppose you start at the beginning and tell me everything right to
the end. George Sea Otter informed me that you've been having trouble with
this Johnny-come-lately, Colonel Pennington. Is he the man who has us where
the hair is short?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The Squaw Creek timber deal, eh?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You wrote me all about that," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You had him blocked whichever way he turned--so
effectually blocked, in fact, that the only pleasure he has
derived from his investment since is the knowledge that he owns two thousand
acres of timber with the exclusive right to pay taxes on it, walk in it,
look at it and admire it--in fact, do everything except log it, mill it, and
realize on his investment. It must make him feel like a bally jackass." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "On the other hand," - John Cardigan |
| "no matter
what the Colonel's feeling on that score may be, misery loves company, and
not until I had pulled out of the Squaw Creek country and started logging in
the San Hedrin watershed, did I realize that I had been considerable of a
jackass myself." - John Cardigan |
| "Yes," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "there can be no doubt but that
you cut off your nose to spite your face." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes,
Bryce, that was a disastrous year," - John Cardigan |
| "The mere
loss of the logs was a severe blow, but in addition I had to pay out quite a
little money to settle with my customers. I was loaded up with low- priced
orders that year, although I didn't expect to make any money. The orders
were merely taken to keep the men employed. You understand,
Bryce! I had a good crew, the finest in the country; and if I had shut down,
my men would have scattered and--well, you know how hard it is to get that
kind of a crew together again. Besides, I had never failed my boys before,
and I couldn't bear the thought of failing them then. Half the mills in the
country were shut down at the time, and there was a lot of distress among
the unemployed. I couldn't do it, Bryce." - John Cardigan |
| "And when you lost the logs, you couldn't fill those
low-priced orders. Then the market commenced to jump and advanced three
dollars in three months--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Exactly, my son. And my customers began to crowd me to fill those old
orders. Praise be, my regular customers knew I wasn't the kind of lumberman
who tries to crawl out of filling low-priced orders after the market has
gone up. Nevertheless I couldn't expect them to suffer with me; my failure
to perform my contracts, while unavoidable, nevertheless would have caused
them a severe loss, and when they were forced to buy elsewhere, I paid them
the difference between the price they paid my competitors and the price at
which they originally placed their orders with me. And the delay in delivery
caused them further loss." - John Cardigan |
| "How much?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Nearly a hundred thousand--to settle for losses to my local customers
alone. Among my orders I had three million feet of clear lumber for shipment
to the United Kingdom, and these foreign customers, thinking I was trying to
crawfish on my contracts, sued me and got judgment for actual and exemplary
damages for my failure to perform, while the demurrage on the ships they sent to freight the lumber sent me hustling to the bank to
borrow money." - John Cardigan |
| "I've always been land-poor," - John Cardigan |
| "Never kept much of a reserve working-
capital for emergencies, you know. Whenever I had idle money, I put it into
timber in the San Hedrin watershed, because I realized that some day the
railroad would build in from the south, tap that timber, and double its
value. I've not as yet found reason to doubt the wisdom of my course;
but"--he sighed--"the railroad is a long time coming!" - John Cardigan |
| "Don't worry, Dad. It will come," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It's bound to." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes, but not in my day. And when it comes, a stranger may own your
San Hedrin timber and reap the reward of my lifetime of labour." - John Cardigan |
| "That was a mistake--logging in the San Hedrin," - John Cardigan |
| "I had my lesson that first year, but I didn't heed it. If I had abandoned
my camps there, pocketed my pride, paid Colonel Pennington two dollars for
his Squaw Creek timber, and rebuilt my old logging-road, I would have been
safe to-day. But I was stubborn; I'd played the game so long, you know--I
didn't want to let that man Pennington outgame me. So I tackled the San
Hedrin again. We put thirty million feet of logs into the river that year,
and when the freshet came, McTavish managed to make a fairly successful
drive. But he was all winter on the job, and when spring came and the men
went into the woods again, they had to leave nearly a million feet of heavy
butt logs permanently stranded in the slack water along the banks, while
perhaps another million feet of lighter logs had been lifted out of the
channel by the overflow and left high and dry when the water receded. There
they were, Bryce, scattered up and down the river, far from the cables and
logging-donkeys, the only power we could use to get those monsters back into
the river again, and I was forced to decide whether they should be abandoned
or split during the summer into railroad ties, posts, pickets,
and shakes--commodities for which there was very little call at the time and
in which, even when sold, there could be no profit after deducting the cost
of the twenty-mile wagon haul to Sequoia, and the water freight from Sequoia
to market. So I abandoned them." - John Cardigan |
| "I remember that phase of it, partner." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "To log it the third year only meant that more of those heavy logs
would jam and spell more loss. Besides, there was always danger of another
cloud-burst which would put me out of business completely, and I couldn't
afford the risk." - John Cardigan |
| "That was the time you should have offered Colonel Pennington a
handsome profit on his Squaw Creek timber, pal." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "If my hindsight was as good as my foresight, and I had my eyesight, I
wouldn't be in this dilemma at all," - John Cardigan |
| "It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and besides, I was
obsessed with the need of protecting your heritage from attack in any
direction." - John Cardigan |
| "Here was the
situation, Bryce: The centre of my palm represents Sequoia; the end of my
fingers represents the San Hedrin timber twenty miles south. Now, if the
railroad built in from the south, you would win. But if it built in from
Grant's Pass, Oregon, on the north from the base of my hand, the terminus of
the line would be Sequoia, twenty miles from your timber in the San Hedrin
watershed!" - John Cardigan |
| "In which event," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "we, would be in much the same position with our San Hedrin timber
as Colonel Pennington is with his Squaw Creek timber. We would have the
comforting knowledge that we owned it and paid taxes on it but couldn't do a
dad-burned thing with it!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Right you are! The thing to do, then, as I viewed the situation,
Bryce, was to acquire a body of timber NORTH of Sequoia and be prepared for
either eventuality. And this I did." - John Cardigan |
| "John, I hear you've bought six thousand acres up in Township
Nine." - Bill Henderson |
| "Going to log it or hold it for investment?" - Bill Henderson |
| "It was a good buy," - John Cardigan |
| "so I thought I'd better take it at the price. I suppose Bryce will log it
some day." - John Cardigan |
| "Then I wish Bryce wasn't such a boy, John. See here, now, neighbour.
I'll 'fess up. I took that money Pennington gave me for my Squaw Creek
timber and put it back into redwood in Township Nine, slam-bang up against
your holdings there. John, I'd build a mill on tidewater if you'd sell me a
site, and I'd log my timber if--" - Bill Henderson |
| "I'll sell you a mill-site, Bill, and I won't stab you to the heart,
either. Consider that settled." - John Cardigan |
| "That's bully, John; but still, you only dispose of part of my
troubles. There's twelve miles of logging-road to build to get my logs to
the mill, and I haven't enough ready money to make the grade. Better throw
in with me, John, and we'll build the road and operate it for our joint
interest." - Bill Henderson |
| "I'll not throw in with you, Bill, at my time of life, I don't want to
have the worry of building, maintaining, and operating twelve miles of
private railroad. But I'll loan you, without security--" - John Cardigan |
| "You'll have to take an unsecured note, John. Everything I've got is
hocked." - Bill Henderson |
| "--the money you need to build and equip the road," - John Cardigan |
| "In return you are to shoulder all the grief and worry of
the road and give me a ten-year contract at a dollar and a half per thousand
feet, to haul my logs down to tidewater with your own. My minimum haul will
be twenty-five million feet annually, and my maximum fifty million--" - John Cardigan |
| "Sold!" - Bill Henderson |
| "And now?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I mortgaged the San Hedrin timber in the south to buy the timber in
the north, my son; then after I commenced logging in my new holdings, came
several long, lean years of famine. I stuck it out, hoping for a change for
the better; I couldn't bear to close down my mill and logging-camps, for the
reason that I could stand the loss far more readily than the men who worked
for me and depended upon me. But the market dragged in the doldrums, and
Bill Henderson died, and his boys got discouraged, and--" - John Cardigan |
| "And
they sold out to Colonel Pennington," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Exactly. The Colonel took over my contract with Henderson's company,
along with the other assets, and it was incumbent upon him, as assignee, to
fulfill the contract. For the past two years the market for redwood has been
most gratifying, and if I could only have gotten a maximum supply of logs
over Pennington's road, I'd have worked out of the hole, but--" - John Cardigan |
| "He manages to hold you to a minimum annual haul of twenty-five
million feet, eh?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He claims he's short of rolling-stock--that
wrecks and fires have embarrassed the road. He can always find excuses for
failing to spot in logging-trucks for Cardigan's logs. Bill Henderson never
played the game that way. He gave me what I wanted and never held me to the
minimum haulage when I was prepared to give him the maximum." - John Cardigan |
| "What does Colonel Pennington want, pard?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He wants," - John Cardigan |
| "my Valley of the
Giants and a right of way through my land from the valley to a log-dump on
deep water." - John Cardigan |
| "And you refused him?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Naturally. You know my ideas on that big timber." - John Cardigan |
| "Folks call them Cardigan's Redwoods now," - John Cardigan |
| "Cardigan's Redwoods--and Pennington would cut them! Oh,
Bryce, the man hasn't a soul!" - John Cardigan |
| "But I fail to see what the loss of Cardigan's Redwoods has to do with
the impending ruin of the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "We have all the timber we want." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "My ten-year contract has but one more year to run, and recently I
tried to get Pennington to renew it. He was very nice and sociable, but--he
named me a freight-rate, for a renewal of the contract for five years, of
three dollars per thousand feet. That rate is prohibitive and puts us out of
business." - John Cardigan |
| "Not necessarily," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "How about the
State railroad commission? Hasn't it got something to say about rates?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes--on common carriers. But Pennington's load is a private logging-
road; my contract will expire next year, and it is not incumbent upon
Pennington to renew it. And one can't operate a sawmill without logs, you
know." - John Cardigan |
| "Then," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "we'll shut the mill down
when the log- hauling contract expires, hold our timber as an investment,
and live the simple life until we can sell it or a transcontinental road
builds into Humboldt County and enables us to start up the mill again." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm mortgaged to the last penny," - John Cardigan |
| "and Pennington has been buying Cardigan Redwood Lumber
Company first-mortgage bonds until he is in control of the issue. He'll buy
in the San Hedrin timber at the foreclosure sale, and in order
to get it back and save something for you out of the wreckage, I'll have to
make an unprofitable trade with him. I'll have to give him my timber
adjoining his north of Sequoia, together with my Valley of the Giants, in
return for the San Hedrin timber, to which he'll have a sheriff's deed. But
the mill, all my old employees, with their numerous dependents--gone, with
you left land-poor and without a dollar to pay your taxes. Smashed--like
that!" - John Cardigan |
| "Perhaps--but not without a fight," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll give that man
Pennington a run for his money, or I'll know the reason." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Hello!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Mercy!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Do you feel as savage as all that, Mr. Cardigan?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "If I had known you were calling, Miss
Sumner," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I shouldn't have growled so." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well, you're forgiven--for several reasons, but principally for
sending me that delicious blackberry pie. Of course, it discoloured my teeth
temporarily, but I don't care. The pie was worth it, and you were awfully
dear to think of sending it. Thank you so much." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Glad you liked it, Miss Sumner. I dare to hope that I may have the
privilege of seeing you soon again." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Of course. One good pie deserves another. Some evening next week,
when that dear old daddy of yours can spare his boy, you might be interested
to see our burl-redwood-panelled dining room Uncle Seth is so proud of. I'm
too recent an arrival to know the hour at which Uncle Seth dines, but I'll
let you know later and name a definite date. Would Thursday
night be convenient?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Perfectly. Thank you a thousand times." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What are you going to do to-morrow, lad?" - John Cardigan |
| "I have to do some thinking to-morrow," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "So I'm going up into Cardigan's Redwoods to do it. Up there a fellow can
get set, as it were, to put over a thought with a punch in it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The dogwoods and rhododendron are blooming now," - John Cardigan |
| "I'll attend
to the flowers for Mother," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "And I'll attend to the battle for Father. We may lose, but that
man Pennington will know he's been in a fight before we fin---" - Bryce Cardigan |
| Chapter 10 |
| "Hey, you, Dan Kenyon," - Zeb |
| "what happened to you this mornin'? It was sixteen seconds between the tail
end o' my whistle an' the front end o' your whinin'. First thing you know,
you'll be gettin' so slack an' careless-like some other man'll be ridin'
that log-carriage o' yourn." - Zeb |
| "I was struck dumb," - Dan |
| "I just stood
there like one o' these here graven images. Last night on my way home from
work I heerd the young feller was back--he got in just as we was knockin'
off for the day; an' this mornin' just as you cut loose, Zeb, I'll be danged
if he didn't show up in front o' the office door, fumblin' for the keyhole.
Yes, sirree! That boy gets in at six o'clock last night an' turns to on his
paw's job when the whistle blows this mornin' at seven." - Dan |
| "You mean young Bryce Cardigan?" - Zeb |
| "I shore do." - Dan |
| "'Tain't possible," - Zeb |
| "You seen a new
bookkeeper, mebbe, but you didn't see Bryce. He aint no such hog for labour
as his daddy before him, I'm tellin' you. Not that there's a lazy bone in
his body, for there ain't, but because that there boy's got too much sense
to come bollin' down to work at seven o'clock the very first mornin' he's
back from Yurrup." - Zeb |
| "I'm layin' you ten to one I seen him," - Dan |
| "an' what's more, I'll bet a good cigar--a ten-center straight--the
boy don't leave till six o'clock to-night." - Dan |
| "You're on," - Zeb |
| Them's lumberjack hours, man. From seven till six means work--an' only
fools an' hosses keeps them hours." - Zeb |
| "I'm a-goin' to tell you
young fellers somethin'," - Dan |
| "Ever since the old
boss got so he couldn't look after his business with his own eyes, things
has been goin' to blazes round this sawmill, but they ain't a-goin' no more.
How do I know? Well, I'll tell you. All this forenoon I kept my eye on the
office door--I can see it through a mill winder; an' I'm tellin' you the old
boss didn't show up till ten o'clock, which the old man ain't never been a
ten o'clock business man at no time. Don't that prove the boy's took his
place?" - Dan |
| "You hear me," - Dan |
| "Thirty year I've been ridin' John Cardigan's log-carriages; thirty year
I've been gettin' everythin' out of a log it's possible to git out, which is
more'n you fellers at the trimmers can git out of a board after I've sawed
it off the cant. There's a lot o' you young fellers that've been takin' John
Cardigan's money under false pretenses, so if I was you I'd keep both eyes
on my job hereafter. For a year I've been claimin' that good No. 2 stock has
been chucked into the slab-fire as refuge lumber." - Dan |
| "But it won't be done no more. The raftsman tells me he seen
Bryce down at the end o' the conveyin' belt givin' that refuge the
once-over--so step easy." - Dan |
| "What does young Cardigan know about runnin' a
sawmill?" - planner man |
| "They tell me he's been
away to college an' travellin' the past six years." - planner man |
| "Wa-ll," - Dan |
| "you git to talkin'
with him some day an' see how much he knows about runnin' a sawmill. What he
knows will surprise you. Yes, indeed, you'll find he knows considerable.
He's picked up loose shingles around the yard an' bundled 'em in vacation
times, an' I want to see the shingle-weaver that can teach him some tricks.
Also, I've had him come up on the steam carriage more'n once an' saw up
logs, while at times I've seen him put in a week or two on the sortin'
table. In a pinch, with a lot o' vessels loadin' here at the dock an' the
skippers raisin' Cain because they wasn't gettin' their cargo fast enough,
I've seen him work nights an' Sundays tallyin' with the best o' them.
Believe me that boy can grade lumber." - Dan |
| "An' I'll tell you somethin' else," - Zeb |
| "If the new boss ever tells you to do a thing his way, you do it an' don't
argue none as to whether he knows more about it than you do or not." - Zeb |
| "A whole lot o' dagos an' bohunks that's come into the woods since the
blue-noses an' canucks an' wild Irish went out had better keep your eyes
open," - Dan |
| "There ain't none o' you any
better'n you ought to be, an' things have been pretty durned slack around
Cardigan's mill since the old man went blind, but--you watch out. There's a
change due. Bryce Cardigan is his father's son. He'll do things." - Dan |
| "Which he's big enough to throw a bear uphill by the
tail," - Zeb |
| "an' you fellers all know how much
tail a bear has." - Zeb |
| "Every mornin' for thirty years, 'ceptin' when we was shut down for
repairs," - Dan |
| "I've looked through that winder,
when John Cardigan wasn't away from Sequoia, to watch him git to his office
on time. He's there when the whistle blows, clear up to the time his eyes go
back on him, an' then he arrives late once or twice on account o' havin' to
go careful. This mornin', for the first time in fifty year, he stays in bed;
but--his son has the key in the office door when the whistle blows,
an'--" - Dan |
| "Hello, Dan--hello, Zeb," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm mighty glad to see you both again. Hello, everybody. I'm the new
boss, so I suppose I'd better introduce myself--there are so many new faces
here. I'm Bryce Cardigan." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes," - Zeb |
| "an' he's like his daddy.
He ain't ashamed to work with his men, an' he ain't ashamed to eat with his
men, nuther. Glad you're back with us again, boy--mighty glad. Dan, here,
he's gittin' slacker'n an old squaw with his work an' needs somebody to jerk
him up, while the rest o' these here--" - Zeb |
| "I noticed that about Dan," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He's slowing up, Zeb. He must have been fifteen seconds late this
morning--or perhaps," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "you were fifteen seconds
earlier than the clock." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm afraid you're getting
too old to ride the log-carriage, Dan. You've been at it a long time; so,
with the utmost good will in the world toward you, you're fired. I might as
well tell you now. You know me, Dan. I always did dislike beating about the
bush." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Fired!" - Dan |
| "Fired-- after thirty years!" - Dan |
| "Fired!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You're hired again, however, at a higher salary, as
mill-superintendent. You can get away with that job, can't you, Dan? In
fact," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "you've got to get away with it, because I discharged the
mill-superintendent I found on the job when I got down here this morning.
He's been letting too many profits go into the slab-fire. In fact, the
entire plant has gone to glory. Fire-hose old and rotten--couldn't stand a
hundred- pound pressure; fire-buckets and water-barrels empty, axes not in
their proper places, fire-extinguishers filled with stale chemical-- why,
the smallest kind of a fire here would get beyond our control with that man
on the job. Besides, he's changed the grading-rules. I found the men putting
clear boards with hard-grained streaks in them in with the No. 1 clear. The
customer may not kick at a small percentage of No. 2 in his No. 1 but it's
only fair to give it to him at two dollars a thousand less." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well," - Zeb |
| "they don't grade lumber as strict nowadays as they used to before you went away.
Colonel Pennington says we're a lot o' back numbers out this way an' too
generous with our grades. First thing he did was to call a meetin' of all
the Humboldt lumber manufacturers an' organize 'em into an association. Then
he had the gradin'-rules changed. The retailers hollered for a while, but
bimeby they got used to it." - Zeb |
| "Did my father join that association?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes. He told Pennington he wasn't goin' to be no obstructionist in
the trade, but he did kick like a bay steer on them new gradin'-rules an'
refused to conform to 'em. Said he was too old an' had been too long in
business to start gougin' his customers at his time o' life. So he got out
o' the association." - Zeb |
| "Bully for John Cardigan!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I suppose we
could make a little more money by cheapening our grade, but the quality of
our lumber is so well known that it sells itself and saves us the expense of
maintaining a corps of salesmen." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "From what I hear tell o' the Colonel," - Dan |
| "the least he ever wants is a hundred and fifty per cent. the best of
it." - Dan |
| "Yes," - Zeb |
| "an' so fur as I can
see, he ain't none too perticular how he gets it." - Zeb |
| "Where do you live, cook?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Bryce Cardigan speaking," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Do
you ever buy any pigs from our mill cook?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Not any more," - butcher |
| "He stung me once
with a dozen fine shoats. They looked great, but after I had slaughtered
them and had them dressed, they turned out to be swill-fed hogs--swill and
alfalfa." - butcher |
| "Thank you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I knew that cook was
wasteful," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He wastes food in order to take the swill home to his
hogs--and nobody watches him. Things have certainly gone to the devil," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No fault of mine," - Thomas Sinclair |
| "I've never paid
any attention to matters outside the office. Your father looked after
everything else." - Thomas Sinclair |
| "Yes," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "my father looked after everything
else--while he could." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, you'll soon get the business straightened out and running
smoothly again," - Thomas Sinclair |
| "Well, I'm glad I started on the job to-day, rather than next Monday,
as I planned to do last night." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "My father brought all this to pass--and now
the task of continuing it is mine! All those men who earn a living in
Cardigan's mill and on Cardigan's dock--those sailors who sail the ships
that carry Cardigan's lumber into the distant marts of men--are
dependent upon me; and my father used to tell me not to fail them. Must my
father have wrought all this in vain? And must I stand by and see all this
go to satisfy the overwhelming ambition of a stranger?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "If I stick around this office a minute longer, I'll go crazy," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Give me your last five annual statements, Mr.
Sinclair, please." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "An enemy has done this
thing," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "And over her
grave!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Poor old Dad!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm glad now he has been
unable to get up here and see this. It would have broken his heart. I'll
have this tree made into fence-posts and the stump dynamited and removed
this summer. After he is operated on and gets back his sight, he will come
up here--and he must never know. Perhaps he will have forgotten how many
trees stood in this circle. And I'll fill in the hole left by the stump and
plant some manzanita there to hide the--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Rondeau!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Jules Rondeau! I've heard that name before--ah, yes! Dad spoke of
him last night. He's Pennington's woods-boss--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll go, after all," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll go--and
I'll see what I shall see." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "At what hour does the logging-train leave the Laguna Grande Lumber
Company's yard for our log-landing in Township Nine?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Eight a.m. and one p.m. daily, Bryce." - Thomas Sinclair |
| "Have you any maps of the holdings of Pennington and ourselves in that
district?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes." - Thomas Sinclair |
| "Let me have them, please. I know the topography of that district
perfectly, but I am not familiar with the holdings in and around ours." - Bryce Cardigan |
| Chapter 13 |
| "Uncle Seth, this is Mr. Cardigan, who was so very nice to me the day
I landed in Red Bluff." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I have to thank you, sir, for your courtesy to my
niece." - Colonel |
| "Your niece, Colonel, is one of those fortunate beings the world will
always clamour to serve." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Quite true, Mr. Cardigan. When she was quite a little girl I came
under her spell myself." - Colonel |
| "So did I, Colonel. Miss Sumner has doubtless told you of our first
meeting some twelve years ago?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Quite so. May I offer you a cocktail, Mr. Cardigan?" - Colonel |
| "Thank you, certainly. Dad and I have been pinning one on about this
time every night since my return." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Shirley belongs to the Band of Hope," - Colonel |
| "She's ready at any time to break a lance with the Demon Rum. Back in
Michigan, where we used to live, she saw too many woodsmen around after the
spring drive. So we'll have to drink her share, Mr. Cardigan. Pray be
seated." - Colonel |
| "Well, we lumbermen are a low lot and naturally
fond of dissipation," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I fear Miss Sumner's
Prohibition tendencies will be still further strengthened after she has seen
the mad-train." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What is that?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "The mad-train runs over your uncle's logging railroad up into
Township Nine, where his timber and ours is located. It is the only train
operated on Sunday, and it leaves Sequoia at five p.m. to carry the
Pennington and Cardigan crews back to the woods after their Saturday-night
celebration in town. As a usual thing, all hands, with the exception of the
brakeman, engineers, and fireman, are singing, weeping or fighting
drunk." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "But why do you provide transportation for them to come to town
Saturday nights?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "They ride in on the last trainload of logs, and if we didn't let them
do it, they'd ask for their time. It's the way of the gentle lumberjack. And
of course, once they get in, we have to round them up on Sunday afternoon
and get them back on the job. Hence the mad- train." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Do they fight, Mr. Cardigan?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Frequently. I might say usually. It's quite an inspiring sight to see
a couple of lumberjacks going to it on a flat-car travelling thirty miles an
hour." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "But aren't they liable to fall off and get killed?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "No. You see, they're used to fighting that way. Moreover, the
engineer looks back, and if he sees any signs of Donnybrook Fair, he slows
down." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "How horrible!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Yes, indeed. The right of way is lined with empty whiskey
bottles." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "We don't have any fighting on the mad-
train any more," - Colonel |
| "Indeed! How do you prevent it?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "My woods-boss, Jules Rondeau, makes them keep the peace," - Colonel |
| "If there's any fighting to be
done, he does it." - Colonel |
| "You mean among his own crew, of course," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No, he's in charge of the mad-train, and whether a fight starts among
your men or ours, he takes a hand. He's had them all behaving mildly for
quite a while, because he can whip any man in the country, and everybody
realizes it. I don't know what I'd do without Rondeau. He certainly makes
those bohunks of mine step lively." - Colonel |
| "Oh-h-h! Do you employ bohunks, Colonel?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Certainly. They cost less; they are far less independent than most
men and more readily handled. And you don't have to pamper them--
particularly in the matter of food. Why, Mr Cardigan, with all due respect
to your father, the way he feeds his men is simply ridiculous!
Cake and pie and doughnuts at the same meal!" - Colonel |
| "Well, Dad started in to feed his men the same food he fed himself,
and I suppose the habits one forms in youth are not readily changed in old
age, Colonel." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "But that makes it hard for other manufacturers," - Colonel |
| "I feed my men good plain food and plenty of it--quite
better food than they were used to before they came to this country; but I
cannot seem to satisfy them. I am continuously being reminded, when I do a
thing thus and so, that John Cardigan does it otherwise. Your respected
parent is the basis for comparison in this country, Cardigan, and I find it
devilish inconvenient." - Colonel |
| "Uncle Seth always grows restless when some other man is the
leader," - Shirley Sumner |
| "He was the Great Pooh-Bah of the lumber-trade back in Michigan, but
out here he has to play second fiddle. Don't you, Nunky-dunk?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'm afraid I do, my dear," - Colonel |
| "I'm afraid I do. However, Mr. Cardigan, now
that you have--at least, I have been so informed--taken over your father's
business, I am hoping we will be enabled to get together on many little
details and work them out on a common basis to our mutual advantage. We
lumbermen should stand together and not make it hard for each other. For
instance, your scale of wages is totally disproportionate to the present
high cost of manufacture and the mediocre market; yet just because you pay it, you set a precedent which we are all forced to follow.
However," - Colonel |
| "let's not talk shop. I imagine we
have enough of that during the day. Besides, here are the cocktails." - Colonel |
| "Trout-fishing when the fish gets into white water is
good sport; salmon-fishing is fine, and the steel-head in Eel River are hard
to beat; muskellunge are a delight, and tarpon are not so bad if you're
looking for thrills; but for genuine inspiration give me a sixteen- foot
swordfish that will leap out of the water from three to six feet, and do it
three or four hundred times--all on a line and rod so light one dares not
state the exact weight if he values his reputation for veracity. Once I was
fishing at San--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "This dining room is Uncle Seth's particular delight, Mr.
Cardigan," - Shirley Sumner |
| "It is very beautiful, Miss Sumner. And your uncle has worked wonders
in the matter of having it polished. Those panels are positively the largest
and most beautiful specimens of redwood burl ever turned out in this
country. The grain is not merely wavy; it is not merely curly; it is
actually so contrary that you have here, Colonel Pennington, a room
absolutely unique, in that it is formed of bird's- eye burl. Mark the deep
shadows in it. And how it does reflect those candles!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It is beautiful," - Colonel |
| "And I must
confess to a pardonable pride in it, although the task of keeping these
walls from being marred by the furniture knocking against them requires the
utmost care." - Colonel |
| "Where DID
you succeed in finding such a marvellous tree?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I know of but one tree in Humboldt County that could have produced
such beautiful burl." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Where did
you find that tree?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Rondeau, my woods-boss, knew I was on the lookout for something
special--something nobody else could get; so he kept his eyes open." - Colonel |
| "Indeed!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "As you say, Colonel, it is
difficult to keep such soft wood from being marred by contact with the
furniture. And you are fortunate to have such a woods-boss in your employ.
Such loyal fellows are usually too good to be true, and quite frequently
they put their blankets on their backs and get out of the country when you
least expect it. I dare say it would be a shock to you if Rondeau did
that." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes," - Colonel |
| "I would be rather disappointed. However, I pay Rondeau rather more
than it is customary to pay woods-bosses; so I imagine he'll stay--unless,
of course, somebody takes a notion to run him out of the county. And when
that happens, I want to be on hand to view the spectacle." - Colonel |
| "I'm going up into
Township Nine to-morrow afternoon," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I
think I shall go over to your camp and pay the incomparable Jules a brief
visit. Really, I have heard so much about that woods-boss of yours, Colonel,
that I ache to take him apart and see what makes him go." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, you can't steal him from me, Cardigan," - Colonel |
| "I
warn you in advance--so spare yourself the effort." - Colonel |
| "I'll try anything once," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "However, I don't want to steal him from you. I want to ascertain
from him where he procured this burl. There may be more of the same in the
neighbourhood where he got this." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He wouldn't tell you." - Colonel |
| "He might. I'm a persuasive little cuss when I choose to exert
myself." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Rondeau is not communicative. He requires lots of persuading." - Colonel |
| "What delicious soup!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Miss
Sumner, may I have a cracker?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Colonel Pennington, I hope I do not have to assure you that my visit
here this evening has not only been delightful but--er--instructive.
Good-night, sir, and pleasant dreams." - Bryce Cardigan |
| Chapter 14 |
| "Well?" - Colonel |
| "Mr. Bryce Cardigan is waiting to see you, sir." - clerk |
| "Very well. Show him in." - Colonel |
| "Good morning, Colonel," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Not for me, my boy," - Colonel |
| "I had
enough of that last night. We'll just consider the hand-shaking all attended
to, if you please. Have a chair; sit down and tell me what I can do to make
you happy." - Colonel |
| "I'm delighted to find you in such a generous frame of mind, Colonel.
You can make me genuinely happy by renewing, for ten years on the same terms
as the original contract, your arrangement to freight the logs of the
Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company from the woods to tidewater." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Ahem-m-m!" - Colonel |
| "Upon my soul!" - Colonel |
| "I realized, of course, that this is reopening an issue which you have
been pleased to regard as having been settled in the last letter my father
had from you, and wherein you named terms that were absolutely
prohibitive." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "My dear young friend! My very dear young friend! I must protest at
being asked to discuss this matter. Your father and I have been over it in
detail; we failed to agree, and that settles it. As a matter of fact, I am
not in position to handle your logs with my limited rolling-stock, and that
old hauling contract which I took over when I bought the mills,
timber-lands, and logging railroad from the late Mr. Henderson and
incorporated into the Laguna Grande Lumber Company, has been an
embarrassment I have longed to rid myself of. Under those circumstances you
could scarcely expect me to saddle myself with it again, at your mere
request and solely to oblige you." - Colonel |
| "I did not expect you to agree to my request. I am not quite that
optimistic," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Then why did you ask me?" - Colonel |
| "I thought that possibly, if I reopened negotiations, you might have a
reasonable counter-proposition to suggest." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I haven't thought of any." - Colonel |
| "I suppose if I agreed to sell you that quarter-section of timber in
the little valley over yonder" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "and
the natural outlet for your Squaw Creek timber, you'd quickly think of
one," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No, I am not in the market for that Valley of the Giants, as your
idealistic father prefers to call it. Once I would have
purchased it for double its value, but at present I am not interested." - Colonel |
| "Nevertheless it would be an advantage for you to possess it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "My dear boy, the possession of that big timber is an advantage I
expect to enjoy before I acquire many more gray hairs. But I do not expect
to pay for it." - Colonel |
| "Do you expect me to offer it to you as a bonus for renewing our
hauling contract?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "By George," - Colonel |
| "that's a bright idea, and a few months ago I would have been
inclined to consider it very seriously. But now--" - Colonel |
| "You figure you've got us winging, eh?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I am making no admissions," - Colonel |
| "-- nor any hauling contracts for my neighbour's logs," - Colonel |
| "You may change your mind." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Never." - Colonel |
| "I suppose I'll have to abandon logging in Township Nine and go back
to the San Hedrin," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "If you do, you'll go broke. You can't afford it. You're on the verge
of insolvency this minute." - Colonel |
| "I suppose, since you decline to haul our logs, after the expiration
of our present contract, and in view of the fact that we are not financially
able to build our own logging railroad, that the wisest course my father and
I could pursue would be to sell our timber in Township Nine to you. It
adjoins your holdings in the same township" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I had a notion the situation would begin to dawn upon you." - Colonel |
| "I'll give you a dollar a thousand feet stumpage for
it." - Colonel |
| "On whose cruise?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, my own cruisers will estimate it." - Colonel |
| "I'm afraid I can't accept that offer. We paid a dollar and a half for
it, you know, and if we sold it to you at a dollar, the sale would not bring
us sufficient money to take up our bonded indebtedness; we'd only have the
San Hedrin timber and the Valley of the Giants left, and since we cannot log
either of these at present, naturally we'd be out of business." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That's the way I figured it, my boy." - Colonel |
| "Well--we're not going out of business." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Pardon me for disagreeing with you. I think you are." - Colonel |
| "Not much! We can't afford it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "My dear boy, my very dear young
friend, listen to me. Your paternal ancestor is the only human being who has
ever succeeded in making a perfect monkey of me. When I wanted to purchase
from him a right of way through his absurd Valley of the Giants, in order
that I might log my Squaw Creek timber, he refused me. And to add insult to
injury, he spouted a lot of rot about his big trees, how much they meant to
him, and the utter artistic horror of running a logging-train through the
grove-- particularly since he planned to bequeath it to Sequoia as a public
park. He expects the city to grow up to it during the next twenty
years." - Colonel |
| "My boy, that was the first bad break your father made. His second
break was his refusal to sell me a mill-site. He was the first man in this
county, and he had been shrewd enough to hog all the water-front real estate
and hold onto it. I remember he called himself a progressive citizen, and
when I asked him why he was so assiduously blocking the wheels of progress,
he replied that the railroad would build in from the south some day, but
that when it did, its builders would have to be assured of terminal
facilities on Humboldt Bay. 'By holding intact the spot where rail and water
are bound to meet,' he told me, 'I insure the terminal on tidewater which
the railroad must have before consenting to build. But if I sell it to Tom,
Dick, and Harry, they will be certain to gouge the railroad when the latter
tries to buy it from them. They may scare the railroad away.'" - Colonel |
| "Naturally!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The average human being is
a hog, and merciless when he has the upper hand. He figures that a bird in
the hand is worth two in the bush. My father, on the contrary, has always
planned for the future. He didn't want that railroad blocked by land-
speculators and its building delayed. The country needed rail connection
with the outside world, and moreover his San Hedrin timber isn't worth a
hoot until that feeder to a transcontinental road shall be built to tap
it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "But he sold Bill Henderson the mill-site on tidewater that he refused
to sell me, and later I had to pay Henderson's heirs a whooping price for
it. And I haven't half the land I need." - Colonel |
| "But he needed Henderson then. They had a deal on
together. You must remember, Colonel, that while Bill Henderson held that
Squaw Creek timber he later sold you, my father would never sell him a
mill-site. Can't you see the sporting point of view involved? My father and
Bill Henderson were good-natured rivals; for thirty years they had tried to
outgame each other on that Squaw Creek timber. Henderson thought he could
force my father to buy at a certain price, and my father thought he could
force Henderson to sell at a lesser price; they were perfectly frank about
it with each other and held no grudges. Of course, after you bought
Henderson out, you foolishly took over his job of trying to outgame my
father. That's why you bought Henderson out, isn't it? You had a vision of
my father's paying you a nice profit on your investment, but he fooled you,
and now you're peeved and won't play." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Why shouldn't my
dad be nice to Bill Henderson after the feud ended?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "They could play the game together then, and they did. Colonel, why
can't you be as sporty as Henderson and my father? They fought each other,
but they fought fairly and in the open, and they never lost the respect and
liking each had for the other." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I will not renew your logging contract. That is final, young man. No
man can ride me with spurs and get away with it." - Colonel |
| "Oh, I knew that yesterday." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Then why have you called on me to-day, taking up my time on a dead
issue?" - Colonel |
| "I wanted to give you one final chance to repent. I know
your plan. You have it in your power to smash the Cardigan Redwood Lumber
Company, acquire it at fifty per cent. of its value, and merge its assets
with your Laguna Grande Lumber Company. You are an ambitious man. You want
to be the greatest redwood manufacturer in California, and in order to
achieve your ambitions, you are willing to ruin a competitor: you decline to
play the game like a thoroughbred." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I play the game of business according to the rules of the game; I do
nothing illegal, sir." - Colonel |
| "And nothing generous or chivalrous. Colonel, you know your plea of a
shortage of rolling-stock is that the contract for hauling our logs has been
very profitable and will be more profitable in the future if you will accept
a fifty-cent-per-thousand increase on the freight- rate and renew the
contract for ten years." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Nothing doing, young man. Remember, you are not in a position to ask
favours." - Colonel |
| "Then I suppose we'll have to go down fighting?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I do not anticipate much of a fight." - Colonel |
| "You'll get as much as I can give you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm not at all apprehensive." - Colonel |
| "And I'll begin by running your woods-boss out of the country." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Ah-h!" - Colonel |
| "You know why, of course--those burl panels in your dining room.
Rondeau felled a tree in our Valley of the Giants to get that burl for you,
Colonel Pennington." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I defy you to prove that," - Colonel |
| "Very well. I'll make Rondeau confess; perhaps he'll even tell me who
sent him after the burl. Upon my word, I think you inspired that dastardly
raid. At any rate, I know Rondeau is guilty, and you, as his employer and
the beneficiary of his crime, must accept the odium." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I do not admit anything except that you
appear to have lost your head, young man. However, for the sake of argument:
granting that Rondeau felled that tree, he did it under the apprehension
that your Valley of the Giants is a part of my Squaw Creek timber
adjoining." - Colonel |
| "I do not believe that. There was malice in the act--brutality even;
for my mother's grave identified the land as ours, and Rondeau felled the
tree on her tombstone." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "If that is so, and Rondeau felled that tree--I do not believe he
did--I am sincerely sorry, Cardigan, Name your price and I will pay you for
the tree. I do not desire any trouble to develop over this affair." - Colonel |
| "You can't pay for that tree," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No
pitiful human being can pay in dollars and cents for the wanton destruction
of God's handiwork. You wanted that burl and when my father was blind and
could no longer make his Sunday pilgrimage up to that grove, your woods-boss
went up and stole that which you knew you could not buy." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That will be about all from you, young man. Get out of my office. And
by the way, forget that you have met my niece." - Colonel |
| "It's your office--so I'll get out. As for your second
command"--he snapped his fingers in Pennington's face--"fooey!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Do not send for him, then," - Colonel |
| "I'm
coming up on the eleven-fifteen train and will talk to him when he comes in
for his lunch." - Colonel |
| "Uncle Seth," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'm lonesome. The
bookkeeper tells me you're going up to the logging-camp. May I go with
you?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "By all means. Usually I ride in the cab with the engineer and
fireman; but if you're coming, I'll have them hook on the caboose. Step
lively, my dear, or they'll be holding the train for us and upsetting our
schedule." - Colonel |
| Chapter 16 |
| "Where--did--Cardigan--go?" - Colonel |
| "Surround him--take him," - Colonel |
| "I'll
give--a month's pay--to each of--the six men that bring--that scoundrel to
me. Get him--quickly! Understand?" - Colonel |
| "Get him," - Colonel |
| "There are enough of you to do--the job. Close in on
him--everybody. I'll give a month's pay to--everybody." - Colonel |
| "That offer's good
enough for me," - Flavio Artelan |
| "Come on--
everybody. A month's pay for five minutes' work. I wouldn't tackle the job
with six men, but there are twenty of us here." - Flavio Artelan |
| "Hurry," - Colonel |
| "Don't
you dare!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Twenty to one! For shame!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "For a month's pay," - Flavio Artelan |
| "And I'm takin' orders from my boss." - Flavio Artelan |
| "Call them back! Call them back!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Not on your life!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I told you the fellow was a ruffian. Now, perhaps, you'll believe
me. We'll hold him until Rondeau revives, and then--" - Colonel |
| "Bryce! Bryce!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Run!
They're after you. Twenty of them! Run, run--for my sake!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Run? From those cattle? Not
from man or devil." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "So you've changed your
mind, have you? You've spoken to me again!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The timber's too thick, Shirley. I couldn't
get away anyhow--so I'm coming back." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Get off my property, you savage," - Colonel |
| "Don't be a nut, Colonel," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll get off-- when I get good and ready, and not a second sooner. In
fact, I was trying to get off as rapidly as I could when you sent your men
to bring me back. Prithee why, old thing? Didst crave more conversation with
me, or didst want thy camp cleaned out?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll get you yet," - Colonel |
| "Barking dogs never bite, Colonel. And that reminds me: I've heard
enough from you. One more cheep out of you, my friend, and I'll go up to my
own logging-camp, return here with a crew of bluenoses and wild Irish and
run your wops, bohunks, and cholos out of the county. I don't fancy the
class of labour you're importing into this county, anyhow." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Shirley," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You are presumptuous," - Shirley Sumner |
| "You set me an example in presumption," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Did you not call ME by MY first name a
minute ago?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You spoke to me
--after your promise not to, Shirley," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You
will always speak to me." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I loathe you," - Shirley Sumner |
| "For you I have the utmost respect and admiration," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No, you haven't. If you had, you wouldn't hurt my uncle--the only
human being in all this world who is dear to me." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Gosh!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm jealous of that
man. However, I'm sorry I hurt him. He is no longer young, while I--well, I
forgot the chivalry my daddy taught me. I give you my word I came here to
fight fairly--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He merely tried to stop you from fighting." - Shirley Sumner |
| "No, he didn't, Shirley. He interfered and fouled me. Still, despite
that, if I had known you were a spectator I think I should have controlled
myself and refrained from pulling off my vengeance in your presence. I shall
never cease to regret that I subjected you to such a distressing spectacle.
I do hope, however, that you will believe me when I tell you I am not a
bully, although when there is a fight worth while, I never dodge it. And
this time I fought for the honour of the House of Cardigan." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "If you want me to believe that, you will beg my uncle's pardon." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I can't do that. He is my enemy and I shall hate him forever; I shall
fight him and his way of doing business until he reforms or I am
exhausted." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You realize, of course, what your insistence on that plan means, Mr.
Cardigan?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Call me Bryce," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You're going to call me
that some day anyhow, so why not start now?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You are altogether insufferable, sir. Please go away and never
presume to address me again. You are quite impossible." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I do not give up that readily, Shirley. I didn't
know how dear--what your friendship meant to me, until you sent me away; I
didn't think there was any hope until you warned me those dogs were hunting
me--and called me Bryce." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "'God gave us
our relations,'" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "'but thank God, we can choose our
friends.' And I'll be a good friend to you, Shirley Sumner, until I have
earned the right to be something more. Won't you shake hands with me?
Remember, this fight to-day is only the first skirmish in a war to the
finish--and I am leading a forlorn hope. If I lose--well, this will be
good-bye." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I hate you," - Shirley Sumner |
| "All our fine
friendship-- smashed--and you growing stupidly sentimental. I didn't think
it of you. Please go away. You are distressing me." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Then it is really good-by," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes," - Shirley Sumner |
| "After
all, I have some pride, you know. You mustn't presume to be the butterfly
preaching contentment to the toad in the dust." - Shirley Sumner |
| "As you will it, Shirley." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll send
your axe back with the first trainload of logs from my camp, Colonel," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That fellow
Cardigan is a hard nut to crack--I'll say that for him." - Colonel |
| "I think, my dear, you had better go back into the
caboose, away from the prying eyes of these rough fellows. I'm sorry you
came, Shirley. I'll never forgive myself for bringing you. If I had
thought--but how could I know that scoundrel was coming here to raise a
disturbance? And only last night he was at our house for dinner!" - Colonel |
| "That's just what makes it so terrible, Uncle Seth," - Shirley Sumner |
| "It IS hard to believe that a man of young Cardigan's evident
intelligence and advantages could be such a boor, Shirley. However, I, for
one, am not surprised. You will recall that I warned you he might be his
father's son. The best course to pursue now is to forget that you have ever
met the fellow." - Colonel |
| "I wonder what could have occurred to make such a madman of him?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "He acted more like a demon than a human
being." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Just like his old father," - Colonel |
| "When he can't get what he wants, he sulks. I'll tell you what got on
his confounded nerves. I've been freighting logs for the senior Cardigan
over my railroad; the contract for hauling them was a heritage from old Bill
Henderson, from whom I bought the mill and timber-lands; and of course as
his assignee it was incumbent upon me to fulfill Henderson's contract with
Cardigan, even though the freight-rate was ruinous. - Colonel |
| "Well, this morning young Cardigan came to my office, reminded me that
the contract would expire by limitation next year and asked me to renew it,
and at the same freight-rate. I offered to renew the contract but at a
higher freight-rate, and explained to him that I could not possibly continue
to haul his logs at a loss. Well, right away he flew into a rage and called
me a robber; whereupon I informed him that since he thought me a robber,
perhaps we had better not attempt to have any business dealings with each
other--that I really didn't want his contract at any price, having scarcely sufficient rolling-stock to handle my own logs. That
made him calm down, but in a little while he lost his head again and grew
snarly and abusive--to such an extent, indeed, that finally I was forced to
ask him to leave my office." - Colonel |
| "Nevertheless, Uncle Seth, I cannot understand why he should make such
a furious attack upon your employee." - Shirley Sumner |
| "My dear, that is no mystery to me. There are men who, finding it
impossible or inadvisable to make a physical attack upon their enemy, find
ample satisfaction in poisoning his favourite dog, burning his house, or
beating up one of his faithful employees. Cardigan picked on Rondeau for the
reason that a few days ago he tried to hire Rondeau away from me--offered
him twenty-five dollars a month more than I was paying him, by George! Of
course when Rondeau came to me with Cardigan's proposition, I promptly met
Cardigan's bid and retained Rondeau; consequently Cardigan hates us both and
took the earliest opportunity to vent his spite on us." - Colonel |
| "Thunder," - Colonel |
| "it's all in the
game, so why worry over it? And why continue to discuss an unpleasant topic,
my dear?" - Colonel |
| "I think that
man is badly hurt, Uncle," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Serves him right," - Colonel |
| "He tackled that
cyclone full twenty feet in advance of the others; if they'd all closed in
together, they would have pulled him down. I'll have that cholo
and Rondeau sent down with the next trainload of logs to the company
hospital. They're a poor lot and deserve manhandling--" - Shirley Sumner |
| "The little toy dog is covered with dust, But sturdy and stanch he
stands; And the little toy soldier is red with rust, And his musket molds in
his hands. Time was when the little toy dog was new, And the soldier was
passing fair; And that was the time when our little boy blue, Kissed them
and put them there." - Eugene Field's Poem |
| "Light-hearted devil, isn't he?" - Colonel |
| "And his voice isn't half bad. Just singing to be
defiant, I suppose." - Colonel |
| "Well, what do you think of your company now?" - Colonel |
| "I think," - Shirley Sumner |
| "that you have gained
an enemy worth while and that it behooves you not to underestimate him." - Shirley Sumner |
| Chapter 17 |
| "Where's McTavish?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Up at his shanty," - donkey-driver |
| "Is Mr. McTavish at home?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He cannot see anybody," - Moira McTavish |
| "He's sick." - Moira McTavish |
| "I think he'll see me. And I wonder if you're Moira McTavish." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes, I'm Moira." - Moira McTavish |
| "I'm Bryce Cardigan." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Are you--Bryce
Cardigan?" - Moira McTavish |
| "Yes,
you're Mr. Bryce. You've changed--but then it's been six years since we saw
you last, Mr. Bryce." - Moira McTavish |
| "And you were a little girl
when I saw you last. Now--you're a woman." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm mighty glad to meet you again, Moira.
I just guessed who you were, for of course I should never have recognized
you. When I saw you last, you wore your hair in a braid down your back." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm twenty years old," - Moira McTavish |
| "Stand right where you are until I have looked at you," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "By the gods, Moira," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "you're a peach! When I saw you last, you were awkward and
leggy, like a colt. I'm sure you weren't a bit good-looking. And now you're
the most ravishing young lady in seventeen counties. By jingo, Moira, you're
a stunner and no mistake. Are you married?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What? Not married. Why, what the deuce can be the matter with the
eligible young fellows hereabouts?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "There aren't any eligible young fellows hereabouts, Mr.
Bryce. And I've lived in these woods all my life." - Moira McTavish |
| "That's why you haven't been discovered." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "And I don't intend to marry a lumberjack and continue to live in
these woods," - Moira McTavish |
| "You don't know a thing about it, Moira. Some bright day your Prince
Charming will come by, riding the log-train, and after that it will always
be autumn in the woods for you. Everything will just naturally turn to
crimson and gold." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "How do you know, Mr Bryce?" - Moira McTavish |
| "I read about it in a book." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I prefer spring in the woods, I think. It seems--It's so foolish of
me, I know; I ought to be contented, but it's hard to be contented when it
is always winter in one's heart. That frieze of timber on the skyline limits
my world, Mr Bryce. Hills and timber, timber and hills, and the thunder of
falling redwoods. And when the trees have been logged off so we can see the
world, we move back into green timber again." - Moira McTavish |
| "Are you lonely, Moira?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Poor Moira!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Tut-tut, Moira! Don't cry," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I
understand perfectly, and of course we'll have to do something
about it. You're too fine for this." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Sit down on the steps, Moira, and we'll talk it over. I really
called to see your father, but I guess I don't want to see him after all--if
he's sick." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I didn't know you at first, Mr. Bryce. I
fibbed. Father isn't sick. He's drunk." - Moira McTavish |
| "I thought so when I saw the loading-crew taking it easy at the log-
landing. I'm terribly sorry." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I loathe it--and I cannot leave it," - Moira McTavish |
| "I'm chained to my degradation. I dream dreams, and they'll never
come true. I--I--oh Mr. Bryce, Mr. Bryce, I'm so unhappy." - Moira McTavish |
| "So am I," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "We all get our dose of it, you
know, and just at present I'm having an extra helping, it seems. You're
cursed with too much imagination, Moira. I'm sorry about your father. He's
been with us a long time, and my father has borne a lot from him for old
sake's sake; he told me the other night that he has discharged Mac fourteen
times during the past ten years, but to date he hasn't been able to make it
stick. For all his sixty years, Moira, your confounded parent can still
manhandle any man on the pay-roll, and as fast as Dad put in a new
woods-boss old Mac drove him off the job. He simply declines to be fired,
and Dad's worn out and too tired to bother about his old woods-boss any
more. He's been waiting until I should get back." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I know," - Moira McTavish |
| "Nobody wants to be
Cardigan's woods- boss and have to fight my father to hold his
job. I realize what a nuisance he has become." - Moira McTavish |
| "I asked Father why he didn't stand pat and let Mac
work for nothing; having discharged him, my father was under no obligation
to give him his salary just because he insisted on being woods-boss. Dad
might have starved your father out of these woods, but the trouble was that
old Mac would always come and promise reform and end up by borrowing a
couple of hundred dollars, and then Dad had to hire him again to get it
back! Of course the matter simmers down to this: Dad is so fond of your
father that he just hasn't got the moral courage to work him over--and now
that job is up to me. Moira, I'm not going to beat about the bush with you.
They tell me your father is a hopeless inebriate." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm afraid he is, Mr. Bryce." - Moira McTavish |
| "How long has he been drinking to excess?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "About ten years, I think. Of course, he would always take a few
drinks with the men around pay-day, but after Mother died, he began taking
his drinks between pay-days. Then he took to going down to Sequoia on
Saturday nights and coming back on the mad-train, the maddest of the lot. I
suppose he was lonely, too. He didn't get real bad, however, till about two
years ago." - Moira McTavish |
| "Just about the time my father's eyes began to fail him and he ceased
coming up into the woods to jack Mac up? So he let the brakes go and started
to coast, and now he's reached the bottom! I couldn't get him on the
telephone to-day or yesterday. I suppose he was down in Arcata, liquoring
up." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well, we have to get logs to the mill, and we can't get them with old
John Barleycorn for a woods-boss, Moira. So we're going to change
woods-bosses, and the new woods-boss will not be driven off the job, because
I'm going to stay up here a couple of weeks and break him in myself. By the
way, is Mac ugly in his cups?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Thank God, no," - Moira McTavish |
| "Drunk or
sober, he has never said an unkind word to me." - Moira McTavish |
| "But how do you manage to get money to clothe yourself? Sinclair tells
me Mac needs every cent of his two hundred and fifty dollars a month to
enjoy himself." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I used to steal from him," - Moira McTavish |
| "Then I
grew ashamed of that, and for the past six months I've been earning my own
living. Mr. Sinclair was very kind. He gave me a job waiting on table in the
camp dining room. You see, I had to have something here. I couldn't leave my
father. He had to have somebody to take care of him. Don't you see, Mr.
Bryce?" - Moira McTavish |
| "Sinclair is a fuzzy old fool," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The idea of our woods-boss's daughter slinging hash to lumberjacks.
Poor Moira!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Do you remember when I was a boy,
Moira, how I used to come up to the logging-camps to hunt and fish? I always
lived with the McTavishes then. And in September, when the
huckleberries were ripe, we used to go out and pick them together. Poor
Moira! Why, we're old pals, and I'll be shot if I'm going to see you
suffer." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You haven't changed a
bit, Mr. Bryce. Not one little bit!" - Moira McTavish |
| "Let's talk about you, Moira. You went to school in Sequoia, didn't
you?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes, I was graduated from the high school there. I used to ride the
log-trains into town and back again." - Moira McTavish |
| "Good news! Listen, Moira. I'm going to fire your father, as I've
said, because he's working for old J.B. now, not the Cardigan Redwood Lumber
Company. I really ought to pension him after his long years in the Cardigan
service, but I'll be hanged if we can afford pensions any more--particularly
to keep a man in booze; so the best our old woods-boss gets from me is this
shanty, or another like it when we move to new cuttings, and a perpetual
meal-ticket for our camp dining room while the Cardigans remain in business.
I'd finance him for a trip to some State institution where they sometimes
reclaim such wreckage, if I didn't think he's too old a dog to be taught new
tricks." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Perhaps," - Moira McTavish |
| "you had better talk the
matter over with him." - Moira McTavish |
| "No, I'd rather not. I'm fond of your father, Moira. He was a man when
I saw him last--such a man as these woods will never see again-- and I don't
want to see him again until he's cold sober. I'll write him a letter. As for
you, Moira, you're fired, too. I'll not have you waiting on table in my
logging-camp--not by a jugful! You're to come down to Sequoia and go to work
in our office. We can use you on the books, helping Sinclair,
and relieve him of the task of billing, checking tallies, and looking after
the pay-roll. I'll pay you a hundred dollars a month, Moira. Can you get
along on that?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "All right, Moira. It's a go, then. Hills and timber--timber and
hills--and I'm going to set you free. Perhaps in Sequoia you'll find your
Prince Charming. There, there, girl, don't cry. We Cardigans had twenty-five
years of faithful service from Donald McTavish before he commenced slipping;
after all, we owe him something, I think." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Fiddle-de-dee, Moira! Buck up," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The way you take this, one would think you had
expected me to go back on an old pal and had been pleasantly surprised when
I didn't. Cheer up, Moira! Cherries are ripe, or at any rate they soon will
be; and if you'll just cease shedding the scalding and listen to me, I'll
tell you what I'll do. I'll advance you two months' salary for--well, you'll
need a lot of clothes and things in Sequoia that you don't need here. And
I'm glad I've managed to settle the McTavish hash without kicking up a row
and hurting your feelings. Poor old Mac! I'm sorry I can't bear with him,
but we simply have to have the logs, you know." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Report on the job as soon as possible, Moira," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll bet my immortal soul she
was peeking at me," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Confound the luck!
Another meeting this afternoon would be embarrassing." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Can't get this danged key to turn in the lock," - brakeman |
| "Lock's rusty, and something's gone bust
inside." - brakeman |
| "Too late!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Even if I could get to the
head of the train, I couldn't stop her with the hand-brake; should I succeed
in locking the wheels, the brute would be doing fifty miles an hour by that
time--the front truck would slide and skid, leave the tracks and pile up
with me at the bottom of a mess of wrecked rolling-stock and redwood
logs." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The caboose must be cut out of this runaway," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "and it must be cut out in a devil of a hurry. Here goes nothing
in particular, and may God be good to my dear old man." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The blamed thing might hold and drag the
caboose along after I've pulled out the coupling-pin," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "And I can't afford to take chances now." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It's had too good a start!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The
momentum is more than I can overcome. Oh, Shirley, my love! God help
you!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I've got
your wheels locked!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll hold you yet, you
brute. Slide! That's it! Slide, and flatten your infernal wheels. Hah! You're quitting--quitting. I'll have you in control before we reach
the curve. Burn, curse you, burn!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "All clear and snug as a bug under a chip, my dear," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Thank God, the caboose became uncoupled--guess that fool
brakeman forgot to drop the pin; it was the last car, and when it jumped the
track and plowed into the dirt, it just naturally quit and toppled over
against the bank. Come out, my dear." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "There, there!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It's all
over, my dear. All's well that ends well." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The train," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Where is
it?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "In little pieces--down in Mad River." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "And the logs weren't even mine! As for the trucks, they were a lot
of ratty antiques and only fit to haul Cardigan's logs. About a hundred
yards of roadbed ruined--that's the extent of my loss, for I'd charged off
the trucks to profit and loss two years ago." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Bryce Cardigan," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I saw him--he was riding
a top log on the train. He--ah, God help him!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Young Cardigan," - Colonel |
| "Riding the logs? Are you certain?" - Colonel |
| "Then Bryce Cardigan is gone!" - Colonel |
| "No man could have rolled down
into Mad River with a trainload of logs and survived. The devil himself
couldn't." - Colonel |
| "Well, that
clears the atmosphere considerably, although for all his
faults, I regret, for his father's sake, that this dreadful affair has
happened. Well, it can't be helped, Shirley. Don't cry, my dear. I know it's
terrible, but--there, there my love. Do brace up. Poor devil! For all his
damnable treatment of me, I wouldn't have had this happen for a million
dollars." - Colonel |
| "Well, I'll be hanged!" - Colonel |
| "I thought you'd gone with the
train." - Colonel |
| "Sorry to have disappointed you, old top," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "but I'm just naturally stubborn. Too bad about the atmosphere you
thought cleared a moment ago! It's clogged worse than ever now." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Bryce Cardigan," - Shirley Sumner |
| "come down here
this instant." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'm not a pretty sight, Shirley. Better let me go about my
business." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Come here!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Well, since you insist," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "How did you get up there--and what do you mean by hiding there spying
on me, you--you--oh, YOU!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Cuss a little, if it will help any," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I
had to get out of your way--out of your sight--and up there was the best
place. I was on the roof of the caboose when it toppled over, so all I had
to do was step ashore and sit down." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Then why didn't you stay there?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "You wouldn't let me," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "And when I
saw you weeping because I was supposed to be with the angels, I couldn't
help coughing to let you know I was still hanging around, ornery as a
book-agent." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "How did you ruin your face, Mr. Cardigan?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Tried to take a cast of the front end of the caboose in my classic
countenance--that's all." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "But you were riding the top log on the last truck--" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Certainly, but I wasn't hayseed enough to stay there until we struck
this curve. I knew exactly what was going to happen, so I climbed down to
the bumper of the caboose, uncoupled it from the truck, climbed up on the
roof, and managed to get the old thing under control with the hand-brake;
then I skedaddled up into the brush because I knew you were inside, and---By
the way, Colonel Pennington, here is your axe, which I borrowed this
afternoon. Much obliged for its use. The last up-train is probably waiting
on the siding at Freshwater to pass the late lamented; consequently a walk
of about a mile will bring you a means of transportation back
to Sequoia. Walk leisurely--you have lots of time. As for myself, I'm in a
hurry, and my room is more greatly to be desired than my company, so I'll
start now." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Uncle Seth," - Shirley Sumner |
| "what would have
happened to us if Bryce Cardigan had not come up here to-day to thrash your
woods- boss?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "We'd both be in Kingdom Come now," - Colonel |
| "Under the circumstances, then," - Shirley Sumner |
| "suppose we all agree to forget that anything unusual happened
to-day--" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I bear the young man no ill will, Shirley, but before you permit
yourself to be carried away by the splendour of his action in cutting out
the caboose and getting it under control, it might be well to remember that
his own precious hide was at stake also. He would have cut the caboose out
even if you and I had not been in it." - Colonel |
| "No, he would not," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Cooped up in
the caboose, we did not know the train was running away until it was too
late for us to jump, while Bryce Cardigan, riding out on the logs, must have
known it almost immediately. He would have had time to jump before the
runaway gathered too much headway--and he would have
jumped, Uncle Seth, for his father's sake." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Well, he certainly didn't stay for mine, Shirley." - Colonel |
| "Uncle Seth," - Shirley Sumner |
| "let's be friends with Bryce
Cardigan; let's get together and agree on an equitable contract for
freighting his logs over our road." - Shirley Sumner |
| "You are now," - Colonel |
| "mixing sentiment
and business; if you persist, the result will be chaos. Cardigan has in a
large measure squared himself for his ruffianly conduct earlier in the day,
and I'll forgive him and treat him with courtesy hereafter; but I want you
to understand, Shirley, that such treatment by me does not constitute a
license for that fellow to crawl up in my lap and be petted. He is
practically a pauper now, which makes him a poor business risk, and you'll
please me greatly by leaving him severely alone--by making him keep his
distance." - Colonel |
| "I'll not do that," - Shirley Sumner |
| Chapter 18 |
| "Well, son," - John Cardigan |
| "another bump, eh?" - John Cardigan |
| "Yes, sir--right on the nose." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I meant another bump to your heritage, my son." - John Cardigan |
| "I'm worrying more about my nose, partner. In fact, I'm not worrying
about my heritage at all. I've come to a decision on that point: We're going
to fight and fight to the last; we're going down fighting. And by the way, I
started the fight this afternoon. I whaled the wadding out of that bucko
woods-boss of Pennington's, and as a special compliment to you, John
Cardigan, I did an almighty fine job of cleaning. Even went so far as to
muss the Colonel up a little." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Wow, wow, Bryce! Bully for you! I wanted that man Rondeau taken
apart. He has terrorized our woods-men for a long time. He's king of the
mad-train, you know." - John Cardigan |
| "Mr. Cardigan," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Bryce," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I--I don't know what to say to you," - Shirley Sumner |
| "There is no necessity for saying anything, Shirley." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "But you saved our lives, and at least have a right to expect due and
grateful acknowledgment of our debt. I rang up to tell you how splendid and
heroic your action was--" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I had my own life to save, Shirley." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You did not think of that at the time." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Well--I didn't think of your uncle's, either," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm sure we never can hope to catch even with you, Mr. Cardigan." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Don't try. Your revered relative will not; so why should you?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You are making it somewhat hard for me to--to--rehabilitate our
friendship, Mr. Cardigan. We have just passed through a most extraordinary
day, and if at evening I can feel as I do now, I think you ought to do your
share--and help." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Bless your heart," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The very fact that you
bothered to ring me up at all makes me your debtor. Shirley, can you stand
some plain speaking--between friends, I mean?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I think so, Mr. Cardigan." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Well, then," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "listen to this: I am your
uncle's enemy until death do us part. Neither he nor I expect to ask or to
give quarter, and I'm going to smash him if I can." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "If you do, you smash me," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Likewise our friendship. I'm sorry, but it's got to be
done if I can do it. Shall--shall we say good-bye, Shirley?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes-s-s!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Good-bye, Mr
Cardigan. I wanted you to know." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Good-bye! Well, that's cutting the mustard," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "and there goes another bright day-dream." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, Bryce!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Hello, McTavish," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Weel! 'Tis the wee laddie hissel," - McTavish |
| "I'm glad
to see ye, boy." - McTavish |
| "You'd have seen me the day before yesterday--if you had been
seeable," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Mac, old
man, they tell me you've gotten to be a regular go-to-hell." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll nae deny I take a wee drappie now an' then," - McTavish |
| "Mac, did Moira give you my message?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Aye." - McTavish |
| "Well, I guess we understand each other, Mac. Was there something else
you wanted to see me about?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Ye'll no be firin' auld Mac oot o'
hand?" - McTavish |
| "Mon, ha ye the heart to do
it--after a' these years?" - McTavish |
| "If you have the heart--after all these years--to draw
pay you do not earn, then I have the heart to put a better man in your
place." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Ye was ever a laddie to hae your bit joke." - McTavish |
| "It's no good arguing, Mac. You're off the pay-roll onto the pension-
roll--your shanty in the woods, your meals at the camp kitchen, your
clothing and tobacco that I send out to you. Neither more nor less!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Here's your wages to
the fifteenth. It's the last Cardigan check you'll ever finger. I'm terribly
sorry, but I'm terribly in earnest." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Who will ye pit in ma place?" - McTavish |
| "I don't know. However, it won't be a difficult task to find a better
man than you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll nae let him work." - McTavish |
| "You worked that racket on my father. Try it on me, and you'll answer
to me--personally. Lay the weight of your finger on your successor, Mac, and
you'll die in the county poor-farm. No threats, old man! You know the
Cardigans; they never bluff." - McTavish |
| "Dinna fire me, lad," - McTavish |
| "I'll gae back on the
job an' leave whusky alone." - McTavish |
| "Nothing doing, Mac. Leave whiskey alone for a year and I'll discharge
your successor to give you back your job. For the present however, my
verdict stands. You're discharged." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Who kens the Cardigan woods as I ken them?" - McTavish |
| "Who'll swamp a road into timber sixty per cent. clear when
the mill's runnin' on foreign orders an' the owd man's calling for clear
logs? Who'll fell trees wi' the least amount o' breakage? Who'll get the
work out o' the men? Who'll--" - McTavish |
| "Don't plead, Mac," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You're
quite through, and I can't waste any more time on you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Ye dinna mean it, lad. Ye canna mean it." - McTavish |
| "On your way, Mac. I loathe arguments. And don't forget your
check." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I maun see yer faither aboot this. He'll nae stand for sic treatment
o' an auld employee." - McTavish |
| "You keep away from my father. You've worried
him enough in the past, you drunkard. If you go up to the house to annoy my
father with your pleadings, McTavish, I'll manhandle you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The next train leaves for the woods in twenty minutes. If
you do not go back on it and behave yourself, you can never go back to
Cardigan woods." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I will nae take charity from any man," - McTavish |
| "I'll nae bother the owd man, an' I'll nae go back to yon woods to
live on yer bounty." - McTavish |
| "Well, go somewhere, Mac, and be quick about it. Only--when you've
reformed, please come back. You'll be mighty welcome. Until then, however,
you're as popular with me--that is, in a business way--as a wet dog." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Ye're nae the man yer faither was," - McTavish |
| "Ye hae a heart o' stone." - McTavish |
| "You've been drunk for fifteen days--and I'm paying you
for it, Mac," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Don't leave your
check behind. You'll need it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I was never a mon to take charity," - McTavish |
| Chapter 19 |
| "That will insure delivery of sufficient logs to get out our orders on
file," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "While we are morally
certain our mill will run but one year longer, I intend that it shall run
full capacity for that year. In fact, I'm going to saw in that one year
remaining to us as much lumber as we would ordinarily saw in two years. To
be exact, I'm going to run a night-shift." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The market
won't absorb it," - John Cardigan |
| "Then we'll stack it in piles to air-dry and wait until the market is
brisk enough to absorb it," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Our finances won't stand the overhead of that night-shift, I tell
you," - John Cardigan |
| "I know we haven't sufficient cash on hand to attempt it, Dad, but--
I'm going to borrow some." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "From whom? No bank in Sequoia will lend us a penny, and long before
you came home I had sounded every possible source of a private loan." - John Cardigan |
| "Did you sound the Sequoia Bank of Commerce?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Certainly not. Pennington owns the controlling interest in that bank,
and I was never a man to waste my time." - John Cardigan |
| "I don't care where the money comes from so long as I
get it, partner. Pennington's money may be tainted; in fact, I'd risk a bet
that it is; but our employees will accept it for wages nevertheless.
Desperate circumstances require desperate measures you know, and the day
before yesterday, when I was quite ignorant of the fact that Colonel
Pennington controls the Sequoia Bank of Commerce, I drifted in on the
president and casually struck him for a loan of one hundred thousand
dollars." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well, I'll be shot, Bryce! What did he say?" - John Cardigan |
| "Said he'd take the matter under consideration and give me an answer
this morning. He asked me, of course, what I wanted that much money for, and
I told him I was going to run a night-shift, double my force of men in the
woods, and buy some more logging-trucks, which I can get rather cheap. Well,
this morning I called for my answer--and got. it. The Sequoia Bank of
Commerce will loan me up to a hundred thousand, but it won't give me the
cash in a lump sum. I can have enough to buy the logging-trucks now, and on the first of each month, when I present my pay-roll, the
bank will advance me the money to meet it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Bryce, I am amazed." - John Cardigan |
| "I am not--since you tell me Colonel Pennington controls that bank.
That the bank should accommodate us is the most natural procedure
imaginable. Pennington is only playing safe--which is why the bank declined
to give me the money in a lump sum. If we run a night-shift, Pennington
knows that we can't dispose of our excess output under present market
conditions. The redwood trade is in the doldrums and will remain in them to
a greater or less degree until the principal redwood centres secure a rail
outlet to the markets of the country. It's a safe bet our lumber is going to
pile up on the mill dock; hence, when the smash comes and the Sequoia Bank
of Commerce calls our loan and we cannot possibly meet it, the lumber on
hand will prove security for the loan, will it not? In fact, it will be
worth two or three dollars per thousand more then than it is now, because it
will be air-dried. And inasmuch as all the signs point to Pennington's
gobbling us anyhow, it strikes me as a rather good business on his part to
give us sufficient rope to insure a thorough job of hanging." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "But what idea have you got back of such a procedure, Bryce?" - John Cardigan |
| "Merely a forlorn hope, Dad. Something might turn up. The market may
take a sudden spurt and go up three or four dollars." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes--and it may take a sudden spurt and drop three or four
dollars," - John Cardigan |
| "That would be Pennington's funeral, Dad.
And whether the market goes up or comes down, it costs us nothing to make
the experiment." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Quite true." - John Cardigan |
| "Then, if you'll come down to the office to-morrow morning, Dad, we'll
hold a meeting of our board of directors and authorize me, as president of
the company, to sign the note to the bank. We're borrowing this without
collateral, you know." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Is that you, Mr. Bryce?" - Moira McTavish |
| "The identical individual, Moira. How did you guess it was I?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I knew you were coming," - Moira McTavish |
| "But how could you know? I didn't telegraph because I wanted to
surprise my father, and the instant the boat touched the dock, I went
overside and came directly here. I didn't even wait for the crew to run out
the gangplank--so I know nobody could have told you I was due." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That is quite right, Mr. Bryce. Nobody told me you were coming, but I
just knew, when I heard the Noyo whistling as she made the dock, that you
were aboard, and I didn't look up when you entered the office because I
wanted to verify my--my suspicion." - Moira McTavish |
| "You had a hunch, Moira. Do you get those telepathic messages very
often?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I've never noticed particularly--that is, until I came to work here.
But I always know when you are returning after a considerable absence." - Moira McTavish |
| "I'm so glad you're back." - Moira McTavish |
| "Why?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I--I really don't know, Mr. Bryce." - Moira McTavish |
| "Well, then," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "what do you think makes you
glad?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I had been thinking how nice it would be to have you back, Mr. Bryce.
When you enter the office, it's like a breeze rustling the tops of the
Redwoods. And your father misses you so; he talks to me a great deal about
you. Why, of course we miss you; anybody would." - Moira McTavish |
| "It hadn't occurred to me before, Moira," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "but it seems to me I'm unusually glad to see you, also. You've
been fixing your hair different." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Do you like my hair done that way?" - Moira McTavish |
| "I don't know whether I do or not. It's unusual--for you. You look
mighty sweetly old-fashioned with it coiled in back--somewhat like an
old-fashioned daguerreotype of my mother. Is this new style the latest in
hairdressing in Sequoia?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I think so, Mr. Bryce. I copied it from Colonel Pennington's niece,
Miss Sumner." - Moira McTavish |
| "Oh," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You've met her, have you? I
didn't know she was in Sequoia still." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "She's been away, but she came back last week. I went to the Valley of
the Giants last Saturday afternoon--" - Moira McTavish |
| "You didn't tell my father about the tree that was
cut, did you?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No." - Moira McTavish |
| "Good girl! He mustn't know. Go on, Moira. I interrupted you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I met Miss Sumner up there. She was lost; she'd followed the old
trail into the timber, and when the trees shut out the sun, she lost all
sense of direction. She was terribly frightened and crying when I found her
and brought her home" - Moira McTavish |
| "Well, I swan, Moira! What was she doing in our timber?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "She told me that once, when she was a little girl, you had taken her
for a ride on your pony up to your mother's grave. And it seems she had a
great curiosity to see that spot again and started out without saying a word
to any one. Poor dear! She was in a sad state when I found her." - Moira McTavish |
| "How fortunate you found her! I've met Miss Sumner three or four
times. That was when she first came to Sequoia. She's a stunning girl, isn't
she?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Perfectly, Mr. Bryce. She's the first lady I've ever met. She's
different." - Moira McTavish |
| "No doubt! Her kind are not a product of homely little communities
like Sequoia. And for that matter, neither is her wolf of an uncle. What did
Miss Sumner have to say to you, Moira?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "She told me all about herself--and she said a lot of nice things
about you, Mr. Bryce, after I told her I worked for you. And when I showed
her the way home, she insisted that I should walk home with her. So I
did--and the butler served us with tea and toast and marmalade. Then she
showed me all her wonderful things--and gave me some of them. Oh, Mr. Bryce,
she's so sweet. She had her maid dress my hair in half a dozen different
styles until they could decide on the right style, and--" - Moira McTavish |
| "And that's it--eh, Moira?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I can see that you and Miss Sumner evidently hit it off just right
with each other. Are you going to call on her again?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, yes! She begged me to. She says she's lonesome." - Moira McTavish |
| "I dare say she is, Moira. Well, her choice of a pal is a tribute to
the brains I suspected her of possessing, and I'm glad you've gotten to know
each other. I've no doubt you find life a little lonely sometimes." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Sometimes, Mr. Bryce." - Moira McTavish |
| "How's my father?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Splendid. I've taken good care of him for you." - Moira McTavish |
| "Moira, you're a sweetheart of a girl. I don't know how we ever
managed to wiggle along without you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Plug the keyhole, son," - John Cardigan |
| "I believe you
have something on your mind--and you know how Mrs. Tully
resents the closing of that door. Estimable soul that she is, I have known
her to eavesdrop. She can't help it, poor thing! She was born that way." - John Cardigan |
| "smoked
up." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well, John Cardigan," - John Cardigan |
| "fate ripped a
big hole in our dark cloud the other day and showed me some of the silver
lining. I've been making bad medicine for Colonel Pennington. Partner, the
pill I'm rolling for that scheming scoundrel will surely nauseate him when
he swallows it." - John Cardigan |
| "What's in the wind, boy?" - John Cardigan |
| "We're going to parallel Pennington's logging-road." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Inasmuch as that will cost close to three quarters of a million
dollars, I'm of the opinion that we're not going to do anything of the
sort." - John Cardigan |
| "Perhaps. Nevertheless, if I can demonstrate to a certain party that
it will not cost more than three quarters of a million, he'll loan me the
money." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I don't believe it, Bryce. Who's the crazy
man?" - John Cardigan |
| "His name is Gregory. He's Scotch." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Now I know he's crazy. When he hands you the money, you'll find he's
talking real money but thinking of Confederate greenbacks. For a sane
Scotchman to loan that much money without collateral security would be
equivalent to exposing his spinal cord and tickling it with a rat- tail
file." - John Cardigan |
| "Pal," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "if you and I have any
brains, they must roll around in our skulls like buckshot in a tin pan. Here
we've been sitting for three months, and twiddling our thumbs,
or lying awake nights trying to scheme a way out of our difficulties, when
if we'd had the sense that God gives geese we would have solved the problem
long ago and ceased worrying. Listen, now, with all your ears. When Bill
Henderson wanted to build the logging railroad which he afterward sold to
Pennington, and which Pennington is now using as a club to beat our brains
out, did he have the money to build it?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No." - John Cardigan |
| "Where did he get it?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I loaned it to him. He only had about eight miles of road to build
then, so I could afford to accommodate him." - John Cardigan |
| "How did he pay you back?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Why, he gave me a ten-year contract for hauling our logs at a dollar
and a half a thousand feet, and I merely credited his account with the
amount of the freight-bills he sent me until he'd squared up the loan,
principal and interest." - John Cardigan |
| "Well, if Bill Henderson financed himself on that plan, why didn't we
think of using the same time-honoured plan for financing a road to parallel
Pennington's?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "By thunder!" - John Cardigan |
| "By thunder!" - John Cardigan |
| "I never thought of that! But then," - John Cardigan |
| "I'm not so young as I used to be, and there are any number of ideas which
would have occurred to me twenty years ago but do not occur to me now." - John Cardigan |
| "All right, John Cardigan. I forgive you. Now, then,
continue to listen: to the north of that great block of timber held by you
and Pennington lie the redwood holdings of the Trinidad Redwood Timber
Company." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Never heard of them before." - John Cardigan |
| "Well, timber away in there in back of beyond has never been well
advertised, because it is regarded as practically inaccessible. By extending
his logging-road and adding to his rolling-stock, Pennington could make it
accessible, but he will not. He figures on buying all that back timber
rather cheap when he gets around to it, for the reason that the Trinidad
Redwood Timber Company cannot possibly mill its timber until a railroad
connects its holdings with the outside world. They can hold it until their
corporation franchise expires, and it will not increase sufficiently in
value to pay taxes." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I wonder why the blamed fools ever bought in there, Bryce." - John Cardigan |
| "When they bought, it looked like a good buy. You will remember that
some ten years ago a company was incorporated with the idea of building a
railroad from Grant's Pass, Oregon, on the line of the Southern Pacific,
down the Oregon and California coast to tap the redwood belt." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I remember. There was a big whoop and hurrah and then the proposition
died abornin'. The engineers found that the cost of construction through
that mountainous country was prohibitive." - John Cardigan |
| "Well, before the project died, Gregory and his associates believed
that it was going to survive. They decided to climb in on the ground
floor--had some advance, inside information that the road was to be
built; go they quietly gathered together thirty thousand
acres of good stuff and then sat down to wait for the railroad, And they are
still waiting. Gregory, by the way, is the president of the Trinidad Redwood
Timber Company. He's an Edinburgh man, and the fly American promoters got
him to put up the price of the timber and then mortgaged their interests to
him as security for the advance. He foreclosed on their notes five years
ago." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "And there he is with his useless timber!" - John Cardigan |
| "The poor Scotch sucker!" - John Cardigan |
| "He isn't poor. The purchase of that timber didn't even dent his
bank-roll. He's what they call in England a tinned-goods
manufacturer--purveyor to His Majesty the King, and all that. But he would
like to sell his timber, and being Scotch, naturally he desires to sell it
at a profit. In order to create a market for it, however, he has to have an
outlet to that market. We supply the outlet--with his help; and what
happens? Why, timber that cost him fifty and seventy-five cents per thousand
feet stumpage--and the actual timber will overrun the cruiser's estimate
every time--will be worth two dollars and fifty cents--perhaps more." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well, well," - John Cardigan |
| "He loans us the money to build our road. We build it--on through our
timber and into his. The collateral security which we put up will be a
twenty-five-years contract to haul his logs to tidewater on Humboldt Bay, at
a base freight-rate of one dollar and fifty cents, with an
increase of twenty-five cents per thousand every five years thereafter, and
an option for a renewal of the contract upon expiration, at the rate of
freight last paid. We also grant him perpetual booming-space for his logs in
the slough which we own and where we now store our logs until needed at the
mill. In addition we sell him, at a reasonable figure, sufficient land
fronting on tidewater to enable him to erect a sawmill, lay out his yards,
and build a dock out into the deep water." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Thus Gregory will have that which he hasn't got now--an outlet to his
market by water; and when the railroad to Sequoia builds in from the south,
it will connect with the road which we have built from Sequoia up into
Township Nine to the north; hence Gregory will also have an outlet to his
market by rail. He can easily get a good manager to run his lumber business
until he finds a customer for it, and in the meantime we will be charging
his account with our freight- bills against him and gradually pay off the
loan without pinching ourselves." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Have you talked with Gregory?" - John Cardigan |
| "Yes. I met him while I was in San Francisco. Somebody brought him up
to a meeting of the Redwood Lumber Manufacturers' Association, and I pounced
on him like an owl on a mouse." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What a wonderful scheme it would have been a year ago," - John Cardigan |
| "You forget, my son, that we cannot last in business
long enough to get that road built though Gregory should agree to finance
the building of it. The interest on our bonded indebtedness
is payable on the first--" - John Cardigan |
| "We can meet it, sir." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Aye, but we can't meet the fifty thousand dollars which, under the
terms of our deed of trust, we are required to pay in on July first of each
year as a sinking fund toward the retirement of our bonds. By super-human
efforts--by sacrificing a dozen cargoes, raising hob with the market, and
getting ourselves disliked by our neighbours--we managed to meet half of it
this year and procure an extension of six months on the balance due." - John Cardigan |
| "That is Pennington's way. He plays with us as a cat does with a
mouse, knowing, like the cat, that when he is weary of playing, he will
devour us. And now, when we are deeper in debt than ever, when the market is
lower and more sluggish than it has been in fifteen years, to hope to meet
the interest and the next payment to the sinking fund taxes my optimism.
Bryce, it just can't be done. We'd have our road about half completed when
we'd bust up in business; indeed, the minute Pennington suspected we were
paralleling his line, he'd choke off our wind. I tell you it can't be
done." - John Cardigan |
| "It can be done," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Gregory knows nothing of our financial condition. Our rating in the
reports of the commercial agencies is as good as it ever was, and a man's
never broke till somebody finds it out." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What do you mean?" - John Cardigan |
| "I mean that if we can start building our road and have it half
completed before Pennington jumps on us, GREGORY WILL SIMPLY
HAVE TO COME TO OUR AID IN SELF-DEFENSE. Once he ties up with us, he's
committed to the task of seeing us through. If we fall, he must pick us up
and carry us, whether he wants to or not; and I will so arrange the deal
that he will have to. I can do it, I tell you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No," - John Cardigan |
| "I
will not allow you to do this. That way--that is the Pennington method. If
we fall, my son, we pass out like gentlemen, not blackguards. We will not
take advantage of this man Gregory's faith. If he joins forces with us, we
lay our hand on the table and let him look." - John Cardigan |
| "Then he'll never join hands with us, partner. We're done." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "We're not done, my son. We have one alternative, and I'm going to
take it. I've got to--for your sake. Moreover, your mother would have wished
it so." - John Cardigan |
| "You don't mean--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes, I do. I'm going to sell Pennington my Valley of the Giants.
Thank God, that quarter-section does not belong to the Cardigan Redwood
Lumber Company. It is my personal property, and it is not mortgaged.
Pennington can never foreclose on it--and until he gets it, twenty-five
hundred acres of virgin timber on Squaw Creek are valueless--nay, a source
of expense to him. Bryce, he has to have it; and he'll pay the price, when
he knows I mean business." - John Cardigan |
| "Lead me to the telephone," - John Cardigan |
| "Find Pennington's number in the telephone-book," - John Cardigan |
| "Pennington," - John Cardigan |
| "this is John Cardigan
speaking. I've decided to sell you that quarter-section that blocks your
timber on Squaw Creek." - John Cardigan |
| "Indeed," - Colonel |
| "I had an idea you were
going to present it to the city for a natural park." - Colonel |
| "I've changed my mind. I've decided to sell at your last offer." - John Cardigan |
| "I've changed my mind, too. I've decided not to buy--at my last offer.
Good-night." - Colonel |
| "Lead me upstairs, son," - John Cardigan |
| "I'm tired.
I'm going to bed." - John Cardigan |
| "Old Cardigan has capitulated at
last," - Colonel |
| "We've played a waiting game and
I've won; he just telephoned to say he'd accept my last offer for his Valley
of the Giants, as the sentimental old fool calls that quarter-section of
huge redwoods that blocks the outlet to our Squaw Creek timber." - Colonel |
| "But you're not going to buy it. You told him so, Uncle Seth." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Of course I'm not going to buy it--at my last offer. It's worth five
thousand dollars in the open market, and once I offered him fifty thousand
for it. Now I'll give him five." - Colonel |
| "I wonder why he wants to sell," - Shirley Sumner |
| "From
what Bryce Cardigan told me once, his father attaches a sentimental value to
that strip of woods; his wife is buried there; it's--or rather, it used to
be--a sort of shrine to the old gentleman." - Shirley Sumner |
| "He's selling it because he's desperate. If he wasn't teetering on the
verge of bankruptcy, he'd never let me outgame him," - Colonel |
| "I'll say this for the old fellow: he's no bluffer. However,
since I know his financial condition almost to a dollar, I do not think it
would be good business to buy his Valley of the Giants now. I'll wait until
he has gone bust--and save twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars." - Colonel |
| "I think you're biting off your nose to spite your face, Uncle Seth.
The Laguna Grande Lumber Company needs that outlet. In dollars and cents,
what is it worth to the Company?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "If I thought I couldn't get it from Cardigan a few months from now,
I'd go as high as a hundred thousand for it to-night," - Colonel |
| "In that event, I advise you to take it for fifty thousand. It's
terribly hard on old Mr. Cardigan to have to sell it, even at that
price." - Shirley Sumner |
| "You do not understand these matters, Shirley. Don't try. And don't
waste your sympathy on that old humbug. He has to dig up fifty thousand
dollars to pay on his bonded indebtedness, and he's finding it a difficult
job. He's just sparring for time, but he'll lose out." - Colonel |
| "I'll do it." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Do what?" - Colonel |
| "Something nice for somebody who did something nice for me," - Shirley Sumner |
| "That McTavish girl?" - Colonel |
| "Poor Moira! Isn't she sweet, Uncle Seth? I'm going to give her that
black suit of mine. I've scarcely worn it--" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I thought so," - Colonel |
| "Well, do whatever makes for your happiness, my dear. That's all money is
for." - Colonel |
| "Well, Bryce, my boy," - Judge Moore |
| "a little bird tells me
your daddy is considering the sale of Cardigan's Redwoods, or the Valley of
the Giants, as your paternal ancestor prefers to refer to that little old
quarter-section out yonder on the edge of town. How about it?" - Judge Moore |
| "Yes, Judge," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "we'll sell, if we get our price." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well," - Judge Moore |
| "I have a client who might
be persuaded. I'm here to talk turkey. What's your price?" - Judge Moore |
| "Before we talk price," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I want you to
answer a question." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Let her fly," - Judge Moore |
| "Are you, directly or indirectly, acting for Colonel Pennington?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That's none of your business, young man--at least, it would be none
of your business if I were, directly or indirectly, acting for that
unconvicted thief. To the best of my information and belief, Colonel
Pennington doesn't figure in this deal in any way, shape, or manner; and as
you know, I've been your daddy's friend for thirty years." - Judge Moore |
| "Well," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "your query is rather sudden, Judge,
but still I can name you a price. I will state frankly, however, that I
believe it to be over your head. We have several times refused to sell to
Colonel Pennington for a hundred thousand dollars." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Naturally that little dab of timber is worth more to Pennington than
to anybody else. However, my client has given me instructions to go as high
as a hundred thousand if necessary to get the property." - Judge Moore |
| "What!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I said it. One hundred thousand dollars of the present standard
weight and fineness." - Judge Moore |
| "Sold!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The Lord loveth a quick trader," - Judge Moore |
| "Here's the deed
already made out in favour of myself, as trustee." - Judge Moore |
| "Client's a bit modest, I take it," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, very. Of course I'm only hazarding a guess, but that guess is
that my client can afford the gamble and is figuring on giving Pennington a
pain where he never knew it to ache him before. In plain English, I believe
the Colonel is in for a razooing at the hands of somebody with a small
grouch against him." - Judge Moore |
| "May the Lord strengthen that somebody's arm," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "If your client can afford to hold out long enough, he'll
be able to buy Pennington's Squaw Creek timber at a bargain." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "My understanding is that such is the programme." - Judge Moore |
| "If you'll be
good enough to wait here, Judge Moore, I'll run up to the house and get my
father to sign this deed. The Valley of the Giants is his personal property,
you know. He didn't include it in his assets when incorporating the Cardigan
Redwood Lumber Company." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Turkey in the Straw." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Bryce Cardigan speaking," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "My dear, impulsive young friend," - Colonel |
| "how often do you have to be told that I am not quite ready to
buy that quarter-section?" - Colonel |
| "Oh," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I merely called up to tell you
that every dollar and every asset you have in the world, including your
heart's blood, isn't sufficient to buy the Valley of the Giants from us
now." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Eh? What's that? Why?" - Colonel |
| "Because, my dear, overcautious, and thoroughly unprincipled enemy, it
was sold five minutes ago for the tidy sum of one hundred thousand dollars,
and if you don't believe me, come over to my office and I'll let you feast
your eyes on the certified check." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I congratulate you," - Colonel |
| "I suppose I'll have to wait a little longer now, won't I?
Well--patience is my middle name. Au revoir." - Colonel |
| "Somebody has learned of the low state of
the Cardigan fortune," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "and taken advantage of it to
induce the old man to sell at last. They're figuring on selling to me at a
neat profit. And I certainly did overplay my hand last night. However,
there's nothing to do now except sit tight and wait for the new owner's next
move." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Moira, you're a lucky girl," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I thought this morning you were going back to a kitchen in
a logging-camp. It almost broke my heart to think of fate's swindling you
like that." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It's autumn in the woods, Moira, and all the underbrush is
golden." - Bryce Cardigan |
| Chapter 20 |
| "I'd gladly give him a hundred thousand for that miserable little dab
of timber and let him keep a couple of acres surrounding his wife's grave,
if the old fool would only listen to reason," - Colonel |
| "I've offered him that price a score of times, and he
tells me blandly the property isn't for sale. Well, he who laughs last
laughs best, and if I can't get that quarter-section by paying more than ten
times what it's worth in the open market, I'll get it some other way, if it
costs me a million." - Colonel |
| "How?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Never mind, my dear," - Colonel |
| "You
wouldn't understand the procedure if I told you. I'll have to run all around
Robin Hood's barn and put up a deal of money, one way or another, but in the
end I'll get it all back with interest--and Cardigan's Redwoods! The old man
can't last forever, and what with his fool methods of doing business, he's
about broke, anyhow. I expect to do business with his executor or his
receiver within a year." - Colonel |
| "I wonder," - Shirley Sumner |
| "He's proud. Perhaps the
realization that he will soon be penniless and shorn of his high estate has
made him chary of acquiring new friends in his old circle. Perhaps if he
were secure in his business affairs--Ah, yes! Poor boy! He was desperate for
fifty thousand dollars!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Oh, Bryce,
Bryce," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I think I'm beginning to understand
some of your fury that day in the woods. It's all a great mystery, but I'm
sure you didn't intend to be so--so terrible. Oh, my dear, if we had only
continued to be the good friends we started out to be, perhaps you'd let me
help you now. For what good is money if one cannot help one's
dear friends in distress. Still, I know you wouldn't let me help you, for
men of your stamp cannot borrow from a woman, no matter how desperate their
need. And yet--you only need a paltry fifty thousand dollars!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "My poor Moira!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "What has happened to distress you? Has your father come back to
Sequoia? Forgive me for asking. You never mentioned him, but I have heard--
There, there, dear! Tell me all about it." - Shirley Sumner |
| "It's Mr. Bryce," - Moira McTavish |
| "He's so unhappy.
Something's happened; they're going to sell Cardigan's Redwoods; and
they--don't want to. Old Mr. Cardigan is home--ill; and just before I left
the office, Mr. Bryce came in--and stood a moment looking--at me--so
tragically I--I asked him what had happened. Then he patted my cheek--oh, I
know I'm just one of his responsibilities--and said 'Poor Moira! Never any
luck!' and went into his--private office. I waited a little, and then I went
in too; and--oh, Miss Sumner, he had his head down on his desk, and when I
touched his head, he reached up and took my hand and held it--and laid his
cheek against it a little while--and oh, his cheek was wet. It's cruel of
God--to make him-- unhappy. He's good--too good. And--oh, I
love him so, Miss Shirley, I love him so--and he'll never, never know. I'm
just one of his-- responsibilities, you know; and I shouldn't presume. But
nobody--has ever been kind to me but Mr. Bryce--and you. And I can't help
loving people who are kind--and gentle to nobodies." - Moira McTavish |
| "Of course, dear," - Shirley Sumner |
| "you couldn't possibly see
anybody you loved suffer so and not feel dreadfully about it. And when a man
like Bryce Cardigan is struck down, he's apt to present rather a tragic and
helpless figure. He wanted sympathy, Moira--woman's sympathy, and it was
dear of you to give it to him." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'd gladly die for him," - Moira McTavish |
| "Oh,
Miss Shirley, you don't know him the way we who work for him do. If you did,
you'd love him, too. You couldn't help it, Miss Shirley." - Moira McTavish |
| "Perhaps he loves you, too, Moira." - Shirley Sumner |
| "No, Miss Shirley. I'm only one of his
many human problems, and he just won't go back on me, for old sake's sake.
We played together ten years ago, when he used to spend his vacations at our
house in Cardigan's woods, when my father was woods-boss. He's
Bryce Cardigan--and I--I used to work in the kitchen of his
logging-camp." - Moira McTavish |
| "Never mind, Moira. He may love you, even though you do not suspect
it. You mustn't be so despairing. Providence has a way of working out these
things. Tell me about his trouble, Moira." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I think it's money. He's been terribly worried for a long time, and
I'm afraid things aren't going right with the business. I've felt ever since
I've been there that there's something that puts a cloud over Mr. Bryce's
smile. It hurts them terribly to have to sell the Valley of the Giants, but
they have to; Colonel Pennington is the only one who would consider buying
it; they don't want him to have it--and still they have to sell to him." - Moira McTavish |
| "I happen to know, Moira, that he isn't going to buy it." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Yes, he is--but not at a price that will do them any good. They have
always thought he would be eager to buy whenever they decided to sell, and
now he says he doesn't want it, and old Mr. Cardigan is ill over it all. Mr.
Bryce says his father has lost his courage at last; and oh, dear, things are
in such a mess. Mr. Bryce started to tell me all about it--and then he
stopped suddenly and wouldn't say another word." - Moira McTavish |
| "Silly," - Shirley Sumner |
| "how needlessly you are
grieving! You say my uncle has declined to buy the Valley
of the Giants?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "My uncle doesn't know what he's talking about, Moira. I'll see that
he does buy it. What price are the Cardigans asking for it now?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Well, Colonel Pennington has offered them a hundred thousand dollars
for it time and again, but last night he withdrew that offer. Then they
named a price of fifty thousand, and he said he didn't want it at all." - Moira McTavish |
| "He needs it, and it's worth every cent of a hundred thousand to him,
Moira. Don't worry, dear. He'll buy it, because I'll make him, and he'll buy
it immediately; only you must promise me not to mention a single word of
what I'm telling you to Bryce Cardigan, or in fact, to anybody. Do you
promise?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Very well,
then," - Shirley Sumner |
| "That matter is adjusted, and now
we'll all be happy. Here comes Thelma with luncheon. Cheer up, dear, and
remember that sometime this afternoon you're going to see Mr. Bryce smile
again, and perhaps there won't be so much of a cloud over his smile this
time." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Bring me my motor-coat and hat, Thelma," - Shirley Sumner |
| "and telephone for the limousine." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Mr. Smarty Cardigan," - Shirley Sumner |
| "you walked rough-shod over my pride, didn't you! Placed
me under an obligation I could never hope to meet--and then ignored me--
didn't you? Very well, old boy. We all have our innings sooner or later, you
know, and I'm going to make a substantial payment on that huge obligation as
sure as my name is Shirley Sumner. Then, some day when the sun is shining
for you again, you'll come to me and be very, very humble. You're entirely
too independent, Mr. Cardigan, but, oh, my dear, I do hope you will not need
so much money. I'll be put to my wit's end to get it to you without letting
you know, because if your affairs go to smash, you'll be perfectly
intolerable. And yet you deserve it. You're such an idiot for not loving
Moira. She's an angel, and I gravely fear I'm just an interfering,
mischievous, resentful little devil seeking vengeance on--" - Shirley Sumner |
| "No, I'll not do that, either," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'll keep it myself--for an investment. I'll show Uncle
Seth I'm a business woman, after all. He has had his fair chance at the
Valley of the Giants, after waiting years for it, and now he has
deliberately sacrificed that chance to be mean and vindictive. I'm afraid
Uncle Seth isn't very sporty--after what Bryce Cardigan did for us that day
the log-train ran away. I'll have to teach him not to hit an old man when
he's down and begging for mercy. I'LL buy the Valley but keep my identity
secret from everybody; then, when Uncle Seth finds a stranger in possession,
he'll have a fit, and perhaps, before he recovers, he'll sell me all his
Squaw Creek timber--only he'll never know I'm the buyer. And when I control
the outlet--well, I think that Squaw Creek timber will make an excellent
investment if it's held for a few years. Shirley, my dear, I'm
pleased with you. Really, I never knew until now why men could be so devoted
to business. Won't it be jolly to step in between Uncle Seth and Bryce
Cardigan, hold up my hand like a policeman, and say: 'Stop it, boys. No
fighting, IF you please. And if anybody wants to know who's boss around
here, start something.'" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I noticed in this evening's paper," - Shirley Sumner |
| "that Mr. Cardigan has sold his Valley of the Giants. So you bought
it, after all?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "No such luck!" - Colonel |
| "I'm an idiot. I
should be placed in charge of a keeper. Now, for heaven's sake, Shirley,
don't discuss that timber with me, for if you do, I'll go plain, lunatic
crazy. I've had a very trying day." - Colonel |
| "Poor Uncle Seth!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Oh, I'll get the infernal property, and it will be worth what I have
to pay for it, only it certainly does gravel me to realize that I am about
to be held up, with no help in sight. I'll see Judge Moore to- morrow and
offer him a quick profit for his client. That's the game, you know." - Colonel |
| "I do hope the new owner exhibits some common sense, Uncle dear," - Shirley Sumner |
| "But I greatly
fear," - Shirley Sumner |
| "that the new owner is going to
prove a most obstinate creature and frightfully hard to discover." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Act Three of that little business drama entitled
'The Valley of the Giants,' my dear Judge," - Colonel |
| "I play the lead in this act. You remember me, I hope. I played a bit
in Act Two." - Colonel |
| "In so far as my information goes, sir, you've been cut out of the
cast in Act Three. I don't seem to find any lines for you to speak." - Judge Moore |
| "One line, Judge, one little line. What profit does your client want
on that quarter-section?" - Colonel |
| "That quarter-section is not in the market, Colonel. When it is, I'll
send for you, since you're the only logical prospect should my client decide
to sell. And remembering how you butted in on politics in this county last
fall and provided a slush-fund to beat me and place a crook on the Superior
Court bench, in order to give you an edge in the many suits you are always
filing or having filed against you, I rise to remark that you have about ten
split seconds in which to disappear from my office. If you linger longer,
I'll start throwing paper-weights." - Judge Moore |
| Chapter 21 |
| "Feeling a whole lot better to-day, eh, pal?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes, son," - John Cardigan |
| "I guess I'll manage to live till next spring." - John Cardigan |
| "Oh, I knew there was nothing wrong with you, John Cardigan, that a
healthy check wouldn't cure. Pennington rather jolted you, though, didn't
he?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He did, Bryce. It was jolt enough to be forced to sell that quarter--
I never expected we'd have to do it; but when I realize that it was a case
of sacrificing you or my Giants, of course you won. And I didn't feel so
badly about it as I used to think I would. I suppose that's because there is
a certain morbid pleasure in a real sacrifice for those we love. And I never
doubted but that Pennington would snap up the property the instant I offered
to sell. Hence his refusal--in the face of our desperate need for money to
carry on until conditions improve--almost floored your old man." - John Cardigan |
| "Well, we can afford to draw our breath now, and that gives us a
fighting chance, partner. And right after dinner you and I will sit down and
start brewing a pot of powerful bad medicine for the Colonel." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Son, I've been sitting here simmering all day." - John Cardigan |
| "And it
has occurred to me that even if I must sit on the bench and root, I've not
reached the point where my years have begun to affect my thinking
ability." - John Cardigan |
| " I'm as right as a fox
upstairs, Bryce." - John Cardigan |
| "Right-o, Johnny. We'll buck the line together. After dinner you trot
out your plan of campaign and I'll trot out mine; then we'll tear them
apart, select the best pieces of each and weld them into a perfect
whole." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "We'll have to fight him in the dark." - John Cardigan |
| "Why?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Because if Pennington knows, or even suspects the identity of the man
who is going to parallel his logging railroad, he will throw all the weight
of his truly capable mind, his wealth and his ruthlessness against you--and
you will be smashed. To beat that man, you must do more than spend money.
You will have to outthink him, outwork him, outgame him, and when eventually
you have won, you'll know you've been in the fight of your career. You have
one advantage starting out. The Colonel doesn't think you have the courage
to parallel his road in the first place; in the second place, he knows you
haven't the money; and in the third place he is morally certain you cannot borrow it, because you haven't any collateral to secure
your note." - John Cardigan |
| "We are mortgaged now to the limit, and our floating indebtedness is
very large; on the face of things and according to the Colonel's very
correct inside information, we're helpless; and unless the lumber- market
stiffens very materially this year, by the time our hauling- contract with
Pennington's road expires, we'll be back where we were yesterday before we
sold the Giants. Pennington regards that hundred thousand as get-away money
for us. So, all things considered, the Colonel, will be slow to suspect us
of having an ace in the hole; but by jinks we have it, and we're going to
play it." - John Cardigan |
| "No," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "we're going to let somebody else play
it for us. The point you make--to wit, that we must remain absolutely in the
background--is well taken." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Very well," - John Cardigan |
| "Now let us proceed to
the next point. You must engage some reliable engineer to look over the
proposed route of the road and give us an estimate of the cost of
construction." - John Cardigan |
| "For the sake of argument we will consider that done, and that the
estimate comes within the scope of the sum Gregory is willing to advance
us." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Your third step, then, will be to incorporate a railroad company
under the laws of the State of California." - John Cardigan |
| "I think I'll favour the fair State of New Jersey with our trade," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I notice that when Pennington bought out the
Henderson interests and reorganized that property, he incorporated the
Laguna Grande Lumber Company under the laws of the State of New
Jersey, home of the trusts. There must be some advantage connected with such
a course." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Have it your own way, boy. What's good enough for the Colonel is good
enough for us. Now, then, you are going to incorporate a company to build a
road twelve miles long--and a private road, at that. That would be a fatal
step. Pennington would know somebody was going to build a logging-road, and
regardless of who the builders were, he would have to fight them in
self-protection. How are you going to cover your trail, my son?" - John Cardigan |
| "I will, to begin, have a dummy board of directors.
Also, my road cannot be private; it must be a common carrier, and that's
where the shoe pinches. Common carriers are subject to the rules and
regulations of the Railroad Commission." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "They are wise and just rules," - John Cardigan |
| "expensive to obey at times, but quite necessary. We can obey and still be
happy. Objection overruled." - John Cardigan |
| "Well, then, since we must be a common carrier, we might as well carry
our deception still further and incorporate for the purpose of building a
road from Sequoia to Grant's Pass, Oregon, there to connect with the
Southern Pacific." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The old dream revived, eh? Well, the old jokes
always bring a hearty laugh. People will laugh at your company, because
folks up this way realize that the construction cost of such a road is
prohibitive, not to mention the cost of maintenance, which would be
tremendous and out of all proportion to the freight area tapped." - John Cardigan |
| "Well, since we're not going to build more than twelve
miles of our road during the next year, and probably not more than ten miles
additional during the present century, we won't worry over it. It doesn't
cost a cent more to procure a franchise to build a road from here to the
moon. If we fail to build to Grant's Pass, our franchise to build the
uncompleted portion of the road merely lapses and we hold only that portion
which we have constructed. That's all we want to hold." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "How about rights of way?" - John Cardigan |
| "They will cost us very little, if anything. Most or the landowners
along the proposed route will give us rights of way free gratis and for
nothing, just to encourage the lunatics. Without a railroad the land is
valueless; and as a common carrier they know we can condemn rights of way
capriciously withheld--something we cannot do as a private road. Moreover,
deeds to rights of way can be drawn with a time-limit, after which they
revert to the original owners." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Good strategy, my son! And certainly as a common carrier we will be
welcomed by the farmers and cattlemen along our short line. We can handle
their freight without much annoyance and perhaps at a slight profit." - John Cardigan |
| "Well, that about completes the rough outline of our plan. The next
thing to do is to start and keep right on moving, for as old Omar has it,
'The bird of time hath but a little way to flutter,' and the birdshot is
catching up with him. We have a year in which to build our road; if we do
not hurry, the mill will have to shut down for lack of logs, when our
contract with Pennington expires." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You forget the manager for our new corporation--the
vice-president and general manager. The man we engage must be the fastest
and most convincing talker in California; not only must he be able to tell a
lie with a straight face, but he must be able to believe his own lies. And
he must talk in millions, look millions, and act as if a million dollars
were equivalent in value to a redwood stump. In addition, he must be a man
of real ability and a person you can trust implicitly." - John Cardigan |
| "I have the very man you mention. His name is Buck Ogilvy and only
this very day I received a letter from him begging me for a small loan. I
have Buck on ice in a fifth-class San Francisco hotel." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Tell me about him, Bryce." - John Cardigan |
| "Don't have to. You've just told me about him, However, I'll read you
his letter. I claim there is more character in a letter than in a face." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'd take Buck Ogilvy, Bryce. He'll do. Is he
honest?" - John Cardigan |
| "I don't know. He was, the last time I saw him." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Then wire him a hundred. Don't wait for the mail. The steamer that
carries your letter might be wrecked and your friend Ogilvy forced to
steal." - John Cardigan |
| "I have already wired him the hundred. In all probability he is now
out whirling like a dervish." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Good boy! Well, I think we've planned sufficient for the present,
Bryce. You'd better leave for San Francisco to-morrow and close your deal
with Gregory. Arrange with him to leave his own representative with Ogilvy
to keep tab on the job, check the bills, and pay them as they fall due; and
above all things, insist that Gregory shall place the money in a San
Francisco bank, subject to the joint check of his representative and ours.
Hire a good lawyer to draw up the agreement between you; be sure you're
right, and then go ahead--full speed. When you return to Sequoia, I'll have
a few more points to give you. I'll mull them over in the meantime." - John Cardigan |
| Chapter 23 |
| "How is this new road--improbable as I know it to be--going to affect
the interests of the Laguna Grande Lumber Company, if the unexpected should
happen and those bunco-steerers should actually build a road
from Sequoia to Grant's Pass, Oregon, and thus construct a feeder to a
transcontinental line?" - Colonel |
| "Confound them," - Colonel |
| "I
must look into this immediately." - Colonel |
| "Look into what, Uncle dear?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "This new railroad that man Ogilvy talks of building--which means,
Shirley, that with Sequoia as his starting point, he is going to build a
hundred and fifty miles north to connect with the main line of the Southern
Pacific in Oregon." - Colonel |
| "But wouldn't that be the finest thing that could possibly happen to
Humboldt County?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Undoubtedly it would--to Humboldt County; but to the Laguna Grande
Lumber Company, in which you have something more than a sentimental
interest, my dear, it would be a blow. A large part of the estate left by
your father is invested in Laguna Grande stock, and as you know, all of my
efforts are devoted to appreciating that stock and to fighting
against anything that has a tendency to depreciate it." - Colonel |
| "Which reminds me, Uncle Seth, that you never discuss with me any of
the matters pertaining to my business interests," - Shirley Sumner |
| "There is
no reason why you should puzzle that pretty head of yours with business
affairs while I am alive and on the job," - Colonel |
| "However, since you have expressed a desire to have this railroad situation
explained to you, I will do so. I am not interested in seeing a feeder built
from Sequoia north to Grant's Pass, and connecting with the Southern
Pacific, but I am tremendously interested in seeing a feeder built south
from Sequoia toward San Francisco, to connect with the Northwestern
Pacific." - Colonel |
| "Why?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "For cold, calculating business reasons, my dear." - Colonel |
| "A few months ago I would not have told you
the things I am about to tell you, Shirley, for the reason that a few months
ago it seemed to me you were destined to become rather friendly with young
Cardigan. When that fellow desires to be agreeable, he can be rather a
likable boy--lovable, even. You are both young; with young people who have
many things in common and are thrown together in a community like Sequoia, a
lively friendship may develop into an ardent love; and it has been my
experience that ardent love not infrequently leads to the altar." - Colonel |
| "Fortunately," - Colonel |
| "Bryce Cardigan had the
misfortune to show himself to you in his true colours, and you had the good
sense to dismiss him. Consequently I see no reason why I should not explain
to you now what I considered it the part of wisdom to withhold from you at
that time--provided, of course, that all this does not bore you to
extinction." - Colonel |
| "Do go on, Uncle Seth. I'm tremendously interested," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Shortly after I launched the Laguna Grande Lumber Company--in which,
as your guardian and executor of your father's estate, I deemed it wise to
invest part of your inheritance--I found myself forced to seek further for
sound investments for your surplus funds. Now, good timber, bought cheap,
inevitably will be sold dear. At least, such has been my observation during
a quarter of a century--and old John Cardigan had some twenty thousand acres
of the finest redwood timber in the State--timber which had cost him an
average price of less than fifty cents per thousand." - Colonel |
| "Well, in this instance the old man had overreached himself, and
finding it necessary to increase his working capital, he incorporated his
holdings into the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company and floated a bond-issue
of a million dollars. They were twenty-year six per cent. certificates; the
security was ample, and I invested for you three hundred thousand dollars in
Cardigan bonds. I bought them at eighty, and they were worth two hundred; at
least, they would have been worth two hundred under my management--" - Colonel |
| "How did you manage to buy them so cheap?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Old Cardigan had had a long run of bad luck--due to bad
management and bad judgment, my dear--and when a corporation is bonded, the
bondholders have access to its financial statements. From time to time I
discovered bondholders who needed money and hence unloaded at a sacrifice;
but by far the majority of the bonds I purchased for your account were owned
by local people who had lost confidence in John Cardigan and the future of
the redwood lumber industry hereabouts. You understand, do you not?" - Colonel |
| "I do not understand what all this has to do with a railroad." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Very well--I shall proceed to explain." - Colonel |
| "Item one: For years old John Cardigan has rendered valueless,
because inaccessible, twenty-five hundred acres of Laguna Grande timber on
Squaw Creek. His absurd Valley of the Giants blocks the outlet, and of
course he persisted in refusing me a right of way through that little dab of
timber in order to discourage me and force me to sell him that Squaw Creek
timber at his price." - Colonel |
| "Yes," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I dare say that was his object.
Was it reprehensible of him, Uncle Seth?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Not a bit, my dear. He was simply playing the cold game of business.
I would have done the same thing to Cardigan had the situation been
reversed. We played a game together--and I admit that he won, fairly and
squarely." - Colonel |
| "Then why is it that you feel such resentment against him?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Oh, I don't resent the old fool, Shirley. He merely annoys me. I
suppose I feel a certain natural chagrin at having been beaten, and in
consequence cherish an equally natural desire to pay the old
schemer back in his own coin. Under the rules as we play the game, such
action on my part is perfectly permissible, is it not?" - Colonel |
| "Yes," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I think it is, Uncle Seth.
Certainly, if he blocked you and rendered your timber valueless, there is no
reason why, if you have the opportunity, you should not block him--and
render his timber valueless." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Spoken like a man!" - Colonel |
| "I HAVE the
opportunity and am proceeding to impress the Cardigans with the truth of the
old saying that every dog must have his day. When Cardigan's contract with
our road for the hauling of his logs expires by limitation next year, I am
not going to renew it--at least not until I have forced him to make me the
concessions I desire, and certainly not at the present ruinous
freight-rate." - Colonel |
| "Then," - Shirley Sumner |
| "if you got a right of way
through his Valley of the Giants, you would renew the contract he has with
you for the hauling of his logs, would you not?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I would have, before young Cardigan raised such Hades that day in the
logging-camp, before old Cardigan sold his Valley of the Giants to another
burglar--and before I had gathered indubitable evidence that neither of the
Cardigans knows enough about managing a sawmill and selling lumber to
guarantee a reasonable profit on the capital they have invested and still
pay the interest on their bonded and floating indebtedness. Shirley, I
bought those Cardigan bonds for you because I thought old
Cardigan knew his business and would make the bonds valuable--make them
worth par. Instead, the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company is tottering on the
verge of bankruptcy; the bonds I purchased for you are now worth less than I
paid for them, and by next year the Cardigans will default on the
interest." - Colonel |
| "So I'm going to sit tight and decline to have any more business
dealings with the Cardigans. When their hauling contract expires, I shall
not renew it under any circumstances; that will prevent them from getting
logs, and so they will automatically go out of the lumber business and into
the hands of a receiver; and since you are the largest individual
stockholder, I, representing you and a number of minor bondholders, will
dominate the executive committee of the bondholders when they meet to
consider what shall be done when the Cardigans default on their interest and
the payment due the sinking fund. I shall then have myself appointed
receiver for the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company, investigate its affairs
thoroughly, and see for myself whether or no there is a possibility of
working it out of the jam it is in and saving you a loss on your bonds." - Colonel |
| "I MUST pursue this course, my dear, in justice to you and the other
bondholders. If, on the other hand, I find the situation hopeless or
conclude that a period of several years must ensue before the Cardigans work
out of debt, I shall recommend to the bank which holds the deed of trust and
acts as trustee, that the property be sold at public auction to the highest
bidder to reimburse the bondholders. Of course," - Colonel |
| "if the property sells for more than the corporation owes such excess will then in due course be turned over to the Cardigans." - Colonel |
| "Is it likely to sell at a price in excess of the indebtedness?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "It is possible, but scarcely probable," - Colonel |
| "I have in mind, under those circumstances, bidding the property in
for the Laguna Grande Lumber Company and merging it with our holdings,
paying part of the purchase-price of the Cardigan property in Cardigan
bonds, and the remainder in cash." - Colonel |
| "But what will the Cardigans do then, Uncle Seth?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Well, long before the necessity for such a contingency arises, the
old man will have been gathered to the bosom of Abraham; and after the
Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company has ceased to exist, young Cardigan can go
to work for a living." - Colonel |
| "Would you give him employment, Uncle Seth?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I would not. Do you think I'm crazy, Shirley? Remember, my dear,
there is no sentiment in business. If there was, we wouldn't have any
business." - Colonel |
| "I think I understand, Uncle Seth--with the exception of what effect
the building of the N. C. O. has upon your plans." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Item two," - Colonel |
| "The Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company owns two fine bodies of
redwood timber widely separated--one to the south of Sequoia in the San
Hedrin watershed and at present practically valueless because inaccessible,
and the other to the north of Sequoia, immediately adjoining our holdings in
Township Nine and valuable because of its accessibility." - Colonel |
| "The logging railroad of our corporation, the Laguna Grande Lumber
Company, makes it accessible. Now, while the building of the N.C.O. would be
a grand thing for the county in general, we can get along without it because
it doesn't help us out particularly. We already have a railroad running from
our timber to tidewater, and we can reach the markets of the world with our
ships." - Colonel |
| "I think I understand, Uncle Seth. When Cardigan's hauling contract
with our road expires, his timber in Township Nine will depreciate in value
because it will no longer be accessible, while our timber, being still
accessible, retains its value." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Exactly. And to be perfectly frank with you, Shirley, I do not want
Cardigan's timber in Township Nine given back its value through
accessibility provided by the N.C.O. If that road is not built, Cardigan's
timber in Township Nine will be valuable to us, but not to another living
soul. Moreover, the Trinidad Redwood Timber Company has a raft of fine
timber still farther north and adjoining the holdings of our company and
Cardigan's, and if this infernal N.C.O. isn't built, we'll be enabled to buy
that Trinidad timber pretty cheap one of these bright days, too." - Colonel |
| "All of which appears to me to constitute sound business logic, Uncle
Seth." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Item three," - Colonel |
| "I want to see the feeder for a transcontinental line
built into Sequoia from the south, for the reason that it will tap the
Cardigan holdings in the San Hedrin watershed and give a tremendous value to
timber which at the present time is rather a negative asset;
consequently I would prefer to have that value created after Cardigan's San
Hedrin timber has been merged with the assets of the Laguna Grande Lumber
Company." - Colonel |
| "And so--" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I must investigate this N.C.O. outfit and block it if possible--and
it should be possible." - Colonel |
| "How, for instance?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I haven't considered the means, my dear. Those come later. For the
present I am convinced that the N.C.O. is a corporate joke, sprung on the
dear public by the Trinidad Redwood Timber Company to get the said dear
public excited, create a real-estate boom, and boost timber-values. Before
the boom collapses--a condition which will follow the collapse of the
N.C.O.--the Trinidad people hope to sell their holdings and get from
under." - Colonel |
| "Really," - Shirley Sumner |
| "the more I see of
business, the more fascinating I find it." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Shirley, it's the grandest game in the world." - Colonel |
| "And yet," - Shirley Sumner |
| "old Mr. Cardigan is so
blind and helpless." - Shirley Sumner |
| "They'll be saying that about me some day if I live to be as old as
John Cardigan." - Colonel |
| "Nevertheless, I feel sorry for him, Uncle Seth." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Well, if you'll continue to waste your sympathy on him rather than on
his son, I'll not object," - Colonel |
| "Oh, Bryce Cardigan is able to take care of himself." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Yes, and mean enough." - Colonel |
| "He saved our lives, Uncle Seth." - Shirley Sumner |
| "He had to--in order to save his own. Don't forget that, my dear." - Colonel |
| "I'd give
a ripe peach to learn the identity of the scheming buttinsky who bought old
Cardigan's Valley of the Giants," - Colonel |
| "I'll be
hanged if that doesn't complicate matters a little." - Colonel |
| "You should have bought it when the opportunity offered," - Shirley Sumner |
| "You could have had it then for fifty thousand dollars
less than you would have paid for it a year ago--and I'm sure that should
have been sufficient indication to you that the game you and the Cardigans
had been playing so long had come to an end. He was beaten and acknowledged
it, and I think you might have been a little more generous to your fallen
enemy, Uncle Seth." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I dare say," - Colonel |
| "However, I wasn't,
and now I'm going to be punished for it, my dear: so don't roast me any
more. By the way, that speckled hot-air fellow Ogilvy, who is promoting the
Northern California Oregon Railroad, is back in town again. Somehow, I
haven't much confidence in that fellow. I think I'll wire the San Francisco
office to look him up in Dun's and Bradstreet's. Folks up this way are
taking too much for granted on that fellow's mere say-- so, but I for one
intend to delve for facts--particularly with regard to the N.C.O. bank-roll
and Ogilvy's associates. I'd sleep a whole lot more soundly to-night if I
knew the answer to two very important questions." - Colonel |
| "What are they, Uncle Seth?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Well, I'd like to know whether the N.C.O. is genuine or
a screen to hide the operations of the Trinidad Redwood Timber Company." - Colonel |
| "It might," - Shirley Sumner |
| "be a screen to hide the operations of
Bryce Cardigan. Now that he knows you aren't going to renew his hauling
contract, he may have decided to build his own logging railroad." - Shirley Sumner |
| "No, I have no fear of that. It
would cost five hundred thousand dollars to build that twelve-mile line and
bridge Mad River, and the Cardigans haven't got that amount of money. What's
more, they can't get it." - Colonel |
| "But suppose," - Shirley Sumner |
| "that the real builder of
the road should prove to be Bryce Cardigan, after all. What would you
do?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I greatly fear, my dear, I should
make a noise like something doing." - Colonel |
| "Suppose you lost the battle." - Shirley Sumner |
| "In that event the Laguna Grande Lumber Company wouldn't be any worse
off than it is at present. The principal loser, as I view the situation,
would be Miss Shirley Sumner, who has the misfortune to be loaded up with
Cardigan bonds. And as for Bryce Cardigan--well, that young man would
certainly know he'd been through a fight." - Colonel |
| "I wonder if he'll fight to the last, Uncle Seth." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Why, I believe he will," - Colonel |
| "I'd love to see you beat him." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Shirley! Why, my dear, you're growing ferocious." - Colonel |
| "Why not? I have something at stake, have I not?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Then you really want me to smash him?" - Colonel |
| "You got me into this fight by buying Cardigan bonds for me," - Shirley Sumner |
| "and I look to you to save the investment or as
much of it as possible; for certainly, if it should develop that the
Cardigans are the real promoters of the N.C.O., to permit them to go another
half-million dollars into debt in a forlorn hope of saving a company already
top-heavy with indebtedness wouldn't savor of common business sense. Would
it?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "My dear," - Colonel |
| "you're such a comfort to me.
Upon my word, you are." - Colonel |
| "I'm so glad you have explained the situation to me, Uncle Seth." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I would have explained it long ago had I not cherished a sneaking
suspicion that--er--well, that despite everything, young Cardigan
might--er--influence you against your better judgment and--er--mine." - Colonel |
| "You silly man!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "One must figure every angle of a possible situation, my
dear, and I should hesitate to start something with the Cardigans, and have
you, because of foolish sentiment, call off my dogs." - Colonel |
| "Sick 'em.
Tige!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Shake 'em up, boy!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "You bet I'll shake 'em up," - Colonel |
| "You stimulate me into activity, Shirley. My mind has
been singularly dull of late; I have worried unnecessarily, but now that I
know you are with me, I am inspired. I'll tell you how we'll fix this new
railroad, if it exhibits signs of being dangerous." - Colonel |
| "We'll sew 'em up tighter than a new buttonhole." - Colonel |
| "Do tell me how," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'll block them on their franchise to run over the city streets of
Sequoia." - Colonel |
| "How?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "By making the mayor and the city council see things my way," - Colonel |
| "Furthermore, in order to enter Sequoia, the N. C. O.
will have to cross the tracks of the Laguna Grande Lumber Company's line on
Water Street--make a jump-crossing--and I'll enjoin them and hold them up in
the courts till the cows come home." - Colonel |
| "Uncle Seth, you're a wizard." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Well, at least I'm no slouch at looking after my own interests--and
yours, Shirley. In the midst of peace we should be prepared for war. You've
met Mayor Poundstone and his lady, haven't you?" - Colonel |
| "I had tea at her house last week." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Good news. Suppose you invite her and Poundstone here for dinner some
night this week. Just a quiet little family dinner, Shirley, and after
dinner you can take Mrs. Poundstone upstairs, on some pretext or other,
while I sound Poundstone out on his attitude toward the N. C. O. They
haven't asked for a franchise yet; at least, the Sentinel hasn't printed a
word about it;--but when they do, of course the franchise will
be advertised for sale to the highest bidder. Naturally, I don't want to bid
against them; they might run the price up on me and leave me with a
franchise on my hands--something I do not want, because I have no use for
the blamed thing myself. I feel certain, however, I can find some less
expensive means of keeping them out of it--say by convincing Poundstone and
a majority of the city council that the N. C. O. is not such a public asset
as its promoters claim for it. Hence I think it wise to sound the situation
out in advance, don't you, my dear?" - Colonel |
| "I shall attend to the matter, Uncle Seth." - Shirley Sumner |
| Chapter 24 |
| "I should like to see Mr. Bryce Cardigan," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Hum-m-m!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That noisy fellow Ogilvy,
eh?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "His clothes are simply wonderful--and so is his voice. He's very
refined. But he's carroty red and has freckled hands, Mr. Bryce." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Mr. Bryce Cardigan?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "At your service, Mr. Ogilvy. Please come in." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Thank you so much, sir." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Buck, are you losing your mind?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Losing it? I should say not. I've just lost it." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I believe you. If you were quite sane, you wouldn't run the risk of
being seen entering my office." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Tut-tut, old dear! None of that! Am I not the main-spring of the
Northern California Oregon Railroad and privileged to run the destinies of
that soulless corporation as I see fit?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I was sane when I came in here, but the eyes of the girl
outside--oh, yow, them eyes! I must be introduced to her. And you're
scolding me for coming around here in broad daylight. Why, you duffer, if I
come at night, d'ye suppose I'd have met her? Be sensible." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "You like Moira's eyes, eh?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I've never seen anything like them. Zounds, I'm afire. I have little
prickly sensations, like ants running over me. How can you be insensate
enough to descend to labour with an houri like that around? Oh, man! To
think of an angel like that WORKING--to think of a brute like you making her
work!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Love at first sight, eh, Buck?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I don't know what it is, but it's nice. Who is she?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "She's Moira McTavish, and you're not to make love to her. Understand?
I can't have you snooping around this office after to- day." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "You have an eye to the main chance yourself have you? Have you
proposed to the lady as yet?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "No, you idiot." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Then I'll match you for her--or rather for the chance to propose
first." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Nothing doing, Buck. Spare yourself these agonizing suspicions. The
fact of the matter is that you give me a wonderful inspiration. I've always
been afraid Moira would fall in love with some ordinary fellow around
Sequoia--propinquity, you know--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You bet. Propinquity's the stuff. I'll stick around." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "--and I we been on the lookout for a fine man to marry her off to.
She's too wonderful for you, Buck, but in time you might learn to live up to
her." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Duck! I'm liable to kiss you." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Don't be too precipitate. Her father used to be our woods-boss. I
fired him for boozing." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I wouldn't care two hoots if her dad was old Nick himself. I'm going
to marry her--if she'll have me. Ah, the glorious creature!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "O Lord, send me a cure for freckles.
Bryce, you'll speak a kind word for me, won't you--sort of boom my stock,
eh? Be a good fellow." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Certainly. Now come down to earth and render a report on your
stewardship." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll try. To begin, I've secured rights of way, at a total cost of
twelve thousand, one hundred and three dollars and nine cents, from the city
limits of Sequoia to the southern boundary of your timber in Township Nine.
I've got my line surveyed, and so far as the building of the road is
concerned, I know exactly what I'm going to do, and how and when I'm going
to do it, once I get my material on the ground." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "What steps have you taken toward securing your material?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well, I can close a favourable contract for steel rails with the
Colorado Steel Products Company. Their schedule of deliveries is O. K. as
far as San Francisco, but it's up to you to provide water transportation
from there to Sequoia." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "We can handle the rails on our steam schooners. Next?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I have an option of a rattling good second-hand locomotive down at
the Santa Fe shops, and the Hawkins & Barnes Construction Company
have offered me a steam shovel, half a dozen flat-cars, and a lot of fresnos
and scrapers at ruinous prices. This equipment is pretty well worn, and they
want to get rid of it before buying new stuff for their contract to build
the Arizona and Sonora Central. However, it is first-rate equipment for us,
because it will last until we're through with it; then we can scrap it for
junk. We can buy or rent teams from local citizens and get half of our
labour locally. San Francisco employment bureaus will readily supply the
remainder, and I have half a dozen fine boys on tap to boss the steam
shovel, pile- driver, bridge-building gang, track-layer and construction
gang. And as soon as you tell me how I'm to get my material ashore and out
on the job, I'll order it and get busy." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "That's exactly where the shoe begins to pinch, Pennington's main-
line tracks enter the city along Water Street, with one spur into his
log-dump and another out on his mill-dock. From the main-line tracks we also
have built a spur through our drying-yard out to our log-dump and a
switch-line out on to our milldock. We can unload our locomotive, steam
shovel, and flat-cars on our own wharf, but unless Pennington gives us
permission to use his main-line tracks out to a point beyond the city
limits--where a Y will lead off to the point where our construction
begins--we're up a stump." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Suppose he refuses, Bryce. What then?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Why, we'll simply have to enter the city down Front
Street, paralleling Pennington's tracks on Water Street, turning down B
Street, make a jump-crossing of Pennington's line on Water Street, and
connecting with the spur into our yard." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Can't have an elbow turn at Front and B streets?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Don't have to. We own a square block on that corner, and we'll build
across it, making a gradual turn." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "See here, my son," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "is this your
first adventure in railroad building?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I thought so; otherwise you wouldn't talk so confidently of running
your line over city streets and making jump-crossings on your competitor's
road. If your competitor regards you as a menace to his pocketbook, he can
give you a nice little run for your money and delay you indefinitely." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I realize that, Buck. That's why I'm not appearing in this railroad
deal at all. If Pennington suspected I was back of it, he'd fight me before
the city council and move heaven and earth to keep me out of a franchise to
use the city streets and cross his line. Of course, since his main line runs
on city property, under a franchise granted by the city, the city has a
perfect right to grant me the privilege of making a jump-crossing of his
line---" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Will they do it? That's the problem. If they will not, you're licked,
my son, and I'm out of a job." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "We can sue and condemn a right of way." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes, but if the city council puts up a plea that it is against the
best interests of the city to grant the franchise, you'll find that except
in most extraordinary cases, the courts regard it as against
public policy to give judgment against a municipality, the State or the
Government of the United States. At any rate, they'll hang you up in the
courts till you die of old age; and as I understand the matter, you have to
have this line running in less than a year, or go out of business." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I've been too cocksure," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I shouldn't have spent that twelve thousand for
rights of way until I had settled the matter of the franchise." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, I didn't buy any rights of way--yet," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I've only signed the land-owners up on an agreement to
give or sell me a right of way at the stipulated figures any time within one
year from date. The cost of the surveying gang and my salary and expenses
are all that you are out to date." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Buck, you're a wonder." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Not at all. I've merely been through all this before and have
profited by my experience. Now, then, to get back to our muttons. Will the
city council grant you a franchise to enter the city and jump Pennington's
tracks?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I'm sure I don't know, Buck. You'll have to ask them--sound them out.
The city council meets Saturday morning." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "They'll meet this evening--in the private diningroom of the Hotel
Sequoia, if I can arrange it," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I'm going to have them all up for dinner and talk the matter over.
I'm not exactly aged, Bryce, but I've handled about fifteen city councils
and county boards of supervisors, not to mention Mexican and Central
American governors and presidents, in my day, and I know the
breed from cover to cover. Following a preliminary conference, I'll let you
know whether you're going to get that franchise without difficulty or
whether somebody's itchy palm will have to be crossed with silver first.
Honest men never temporize. You know where they stand, but a grafter
temporizes and plays a waiting game, hoping to wear your patience down to
the point where you'll ask him bluntly to name his figure. By the way, what
do you know about your blighted old city council, anyway?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Two of the five councilmen are for sale; two are honest men--and one
is an uncertain quantity. The mayor is a politician. I've known them all
since boyhood, and if I dared come out in the open, I think that even the
crooks have sentiment enough for what the Cardigans stand for in this county
to decline to hold me up." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Then why not come out in the open and save trouble and expense?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I am not ready to have a lot of notes called on me," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Neither am I desirous of having the Laguna Grande
Lumber Company start a riot in the redwood lumber market by cutting prices
to a point where I would have to sell my lumber at a loss in order to get
hold of a little ready money. Neither do I desire to have trees felled
across the right of way of Pennington's road after his trainloads of logs
have gone through and before mine have started from the woods. I don't want
my log-landings jammed until I can't move, and I don't want Pennington's
engineer to take a curve in such a hurry that he'll whip my loaded logging-trucks off into a canon and leave me hung up for lack
of rolling-stock. I tell you, the man has me under his thumb, and the only
way I can escape is to slip out when he isn't looking. He can do too many
things to block the delivery of my logs and then dub them acts of God, in
order to avoid a judgment against him on suit for non-performance of his
hauling contract with this company." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Hum-m-m! Slimy old beggar, isn't he? I dare say he wouldn't hesitate
to buy the city council to block you, would he?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I know he'll lie and steal. I dare say he'd corrupt a public
official." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I've got my work cut out for
me, haven't I?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "However, it'll be a
fight worth while, and that at least will make it interesting. Well?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Permit me, Moira, to present Mr. Ogilvy. Mr. Ogilvy, Miss McTavish." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Mr. Ogilvy will have frequent need to interview me at this office,
Moira, but it is our joint desire that his visits here shall remain a
profound secret to everybody with the exception of ourselves. To that end he
will hereafter call at night, when this portion of the town is absolutely
deserted. You have an extra key to the office, Moira. I wish you would give
it to Mr. Ogilvy." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Mr. Ogilvy will have to take pains to avoid our
watchman," - Moira McTavish |
| "That is a point well taken, Moira. Buck, when you call, make it a
point to arrive here promptly on the hour. The watchman will be down in the
mill then, punching the time-clock." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "God speed the day when you can come out from under and I'll be
permitted to call during office hours," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Suppose, Miss McTavish, we
start a league for the dispersion of gloom. You be the president, and I'll
be the financial secretary." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "How would the league operate?" - Moira McTavish |
| "Well, it might begin by giving a dinner to all the
members, followed by a little motor-trip into the country next Saturday
afternoon," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I haven't known you
very long, Mr. Ogilvy," - Moira McTavish |
| "Oh, I'm easy to get acquainted with," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Besides, don't I come well recommended?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I'll tell you what, Miss McTavish. Suppose we put it up
to Bryce Cardigan. If he says it's all right we'll pull off the party. If he
says it's all wrong, I'll go out and drown myself--and fairer words than
them has no man spoke." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I'll think it over," - Moira McTavish |
| "By all means. Never decide such an important matter in a hurry. Just
tell me your home telephone number, and I'll ring up at seven this evening
for your decision." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "By all means, accept," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Buck Ogilvy
is one of the finest gentlemen you'll ever meet. I'll stake my reputation on
him. You'll find him vastly amusing, Moira. He'd make Niobe forget her
troubles, and he DOES know how to order a dinner." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Don't you think I ought to have a chaperon?" - Moira McTavish |
| "Well, it isn't necessary, although it's good form in a small town
like Sequoia, where everybody knows everybody else." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I thought so," - Moira McTavish |
| "I'll ask
Miss Sumner to come with us. Mr. Ogilvy won't mind the extra expense, I'm
sure." - Moira McTavish |
| "He'll be delighted," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Ask Miss Sumner, by all means." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Gosh!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I wish I could go, too." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You're a wee bit surprised, aren't you, Mr. Cardigan?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I am," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I had a notion I was
quite persona non grata with you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Are you relieved to find you are not? You aren't, you know." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Thank you. I am relieved." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I suppose you're wondering why I have telephoned to you?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "No, I haven't had time. The suddenness of it all has
left me more or less dumb. Why did you ring up?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I wanted some advice. Suppose you wanted very, very much to know what
two people were talking about, but found yourself in a position where you
couldn't eavesdrop. What would you do?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I wouldn't eavesdrop," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That
isn't a nice thing to do, and I didn't think you would contemplate anything
that isn't nice." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I wouldn't ordinarily. But I have every moral, ethical, and financial
right to be a party to that conversation, only--well--" - Shirley Sumner |
| "With you present there would be no conversation--is that it?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Exactly, Mr. Cardigan." - Shirley Sumner |
| "And it is of the utmost importance that you should know what is
said?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes." - Shirley Sumner |
| "And you do not intend to use your knowledge of this conversation,
when gained, for an illegal or unethical purpose?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I do not. On the contrary, if I am aware of what is being planned, I
can prevent others from doing something illegal and unethical." - Shirley Sumner |
| "In that event, Shirley, I should say you are quite justified in
eavesdropping." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "But how can I do it? I can't hide in a closet and listen." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Buy a dictograph and have it hidden in the room where the
conversation takes place. It will record every word of it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Where can I buy one?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "In San Francisco." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Will you telephone to your San Francisco office and have them buy one
for me and ship it to you, together with directions for using. George Sea
Otter can bring it over to me when it arrives." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Shirley, this is most extraordinary." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I quite realize that. May I depend upon you to oblige me in this
matter?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Certainly. But why pick on me, of all persons, to perform such a
mission for you?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I can trust you to forget that you have performed it." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Thank you. I think you may safely trust me. And I shall attend to the
matter immediately." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You are very kind, Mr. Cardigan. How is your dear old father? Moira
told me sometime ago that he was ill." - Shirley Sumner |
| "He's quite well again, thank you. By the way, Moira doesn't know that
you and I have ever met. Why don't you tell her?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I can't answer that question--now. Perhaps some day I may be in a
position to do so." - Shirley Sumner |
| "It's too bad the circumstances are such that we, who started out to
be such agreeable friends, see so little of each other, Shirley." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Indeed, it is. However, it's all your fault. I have told you once how
you can obviate that distressing situation. But you're so stubborn, Mr.
Cardigan." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I haven't got to the point where I like crawling on my hands and
knees," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Even for your sake, I decline to simulate friendship or tolerance for
your uncle; hence I must be content to let matters stand as they are between
us." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "So you are still uncompromisingly belligerent--
still after Uncle Seth's scalp?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Yes; and I think I'm going to get it. At any rate, he isn't going to
get mine." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Don't you think you're rather unjust to make me suffer for the sins
of my relative, Bryce?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'm lost in a
quagmire of debts--I'm helpless now," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm not
fighting for myself alone, but for a thousand dependents--for a
principle--for an ancient sentiment that was my father's and is now mine.
You do not understand." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I understand more than you give me credit for, and some day you'll
realize it. I understand just enough to make me feel sorry for you. I
understand what even my uncle doesn't suspect at present, and that is that
you're the directing genius of the Northern California Oregon Railroad and
hiding behind your friend Ogilvy. Now, listen to me, Bryce Cardigan: You're
never going to build that road. Do you understand?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'll build that road if it costs me my life-- if it costs me you.
Understand! I'm in this fight to win." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You will not build that road," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Why?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Because I shall not permit you to. I have some financial interest in
the Laguna Grande Lumber Company, and it is not to that financial interest
that you should build the N.C.O." - Shirley Sumner |
| "How did you find out I was behind Ogilvy?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Intuition. Then I accused you of it, and you admitted it." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I suppose you're going to tell your uncle now," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "On the contrary, I am not. I greatly fear I was born with a touch of
sporting blood, Mr. Cardigan, so I'm going to let you two fight until you're
exhausted, and then I'm going to step in and decide the issue. You can save
money by surrendering now. I hold the whip hand." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I prefer to fight. With your permission this bout will go to a
knockout." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm not so certain I do not like you all the more for that decision.
And if it will comfort you the least bit, you have my word of honour that I
shall not reveal to my uncle the identity of the man behind the N. C. O. I'm
not a tattletale, you know, and moreover I have a great curiosity to get to
the end of the story. The fact is, both you and Uncle Seth annoy me
exceedingly. How lovely everything would have been if you two hadn't started
this feud and forced upon me the task of trying to be fair and impartial to
you both." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Can you remain fair and impartial?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I think I can--even up to the point of deciding whether or not you
are going to build that road. Then I shall act independently of you both.
Forgive my slang, but--I'm going to hand you each a poke then." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Shirley," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "listen carefully to
what I am about to say: I love you. I've loved you from the day I first met
you. I shall always love you; and when I get around to it, I'm
going to ask you to marry me. At present, however, that is a right I do not
possess. However, the day I acquire the right I shall exercise it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "And when will that day be?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "The day I drive the last spike in the N. C. O." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm glad, Bryce Cardigan, you're not a quitter.
Good-bye, good luck--and don't forget my errand." - Shirley Sumner |
| "How I'd hate you if
I could handle you!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "He will be able to think without having his thoughts blotted out by a
woman's face," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He's like one of his own
big redwood trees; his head is always above the storm." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What is it, son?" - John Cardigan |
| "George, choke that contraption off," - John Cardigan |
| "I'm in trouble, John Cardigan," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "and I'm not big enough to handle it alone." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Sit down, son, and tell the old man all about it. Begin at the
beginning and let me have all the angles of the angle." - John Cardigan |
| "I understand, sonny, I understand. This young lady is only one
additional reason why you must win, for of course you understand she is not
indifferent to you." - John Cardigan |
| "I do not know that she feels for me anything stronger than a vagrant
sympathy, Dad, for while she is eternally feminine, nevertheless she has a
masculine way of looking at many things. She is a good comrade with a bully
sense of sportsmanship, and unlike her skunk of an uncle, she fights in the
open. Under the circumstances, however, her first loyalty is to him; in
fact, she owes none to me. And I dare say he has given her some extremely
plausible reason why we should be eliminated; while I think she is sorry
that it must be done, nevertheless, in a mistaken impulse of self-protection
she is likely to let him do it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Perhaps, perhaps. One never knows why a woman does things, although
it is a safe bet that if they're with you at all, they're with you all the
way. Eliminate the girl, my boy. She's trying to play fair to you and her
relative. Let us concentrate on Pennington." - John Cardigan |
| "The entire situation hinges on that jump-crossing of his tracks on
Water Street." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He doesn't know you plan to cross them, does he?" - John Cardigan |
| "No." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Then, lad, your job is to get your crossing in before he finds out,
isn't it?" - John Cardigan |
| "Yes, but it is an impossible task, partner. I'm not Aladdin, you
know. I have to have a franchise from the city council, and I have to have
rails." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Both are procurable, my son. Induce the city council to grant you a
temporary franchise to-morrow, and buy your rails from Pennington. He has a
mile of track running up Laurel Creek, and Laurel Creek was logged out three
years ago. I believe that spur is useless to Pennington, and the
ninety-pound rails are rusting there." - John Cardigan |
| "But will he sell them to me?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Not if you tell him why you want them." - John Cardigan |
| "But he hates me, old pal." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The Colonel never permits sentiment to interfere with business, my
son. He doesn't need the rails, and he does desire your money. Consider the
rail-problem settled." - John Cardigan |
| "How do you stand with the Mayor and the council?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I do not stand at all. I opposed Poundstone for the office; Dobbs,
who was appointed to fill a vacancy caused by the death of a regularly
elected councilman, was once a bookkeeper in our office, you will remember.
I discharged him for looting the petty-cash drawer. Andrews and Mullin are
professional politicians and not to be trusted. In fact, Poundstone, Dobbs,
Andrews, and Mullin are known as the Solid Four. Yates and Thatcher, the
remaining members of the city council, are the result of the reform ticket
last fall, but since they are in the minority, they are helpless." - John Cardigan |
| "That makes it bad." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Not at all. The Cardigans are not known to be connected with the N.
C. O. Send your bright friend Ogilvy after that franchise. He's the only man
who can land it. Give him a free hand and tell him to deliver the goods by
any means short of bribery. I imagine he's had experience with
city councils and will know exactly how to proceed. I KNOW you can procure
the rails and have them at the intersection of B and Water streets Thursday
night. If Ogilvy can procure the temporary franchise and have it in his
pocket by six o'clock Thursday night, you should have that crossing in by
sunup Friday morning. Then let Pennington rave. He cannot procure an
injunction to restrain us from cutting his tracks, thus throwing the matter
into the courts and holding us up indefinitely, because by the time he wakes
up, the tracks will have been cut. The best he can do then will be to fight
us before the city council when we apply for our permanent franchise. Thank
God, however, the name of Cardigan carries weight in this county, and with
the pressure of public sympathy and opinion back of us, we may venture, my
boy, to break a lance with the Solid Four, should they stand with
Pennington." - John Cardigan |
| "Partner, it looks like a forlorn hope," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well, you're the boy to lead it. And it will cost but little to put
in the crossing and take a chance. Remember, Bryce, once we have that
crossing in, it stands like a spite-fence between Pennington and the law
which he knows so well how to pervert to suit his ignoble purposes." - John Cardigan |
| "Your job is to keep out of court. Once Pennington gets the law on us, the
issue will not be settled in our favour for years; and in the meantime--you
perish. Run along now and hunt up Ogilvy. George, play that 'Suwannee River'
quartet again. It sort o' soothes me." - John Cardigan |
| Chapter 26 |
| "Got to run a sandy on the Mayor," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "And I'll have to be mighty slick about it, too, or
I'll get my fingers in the jam. If I get the Mayor on my side--if I get him
to the point where he thinks well of me and would like to oblige me without
prejudicing himself financially or politically--I can get that temporary
franchise. Now, how shall I proceed to sneak up on that oily old cuss's
blind side?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Eureka!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I've got Poundstone by the tail
on a downhill haul. Is it a cinch? Well, I just guess I should tell a
man!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Ah-h-h!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I have been expecting Mr. Ogilvy to call for quite
a while. At last we shall see what we shall see. Show him in." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I've been hoping to
have this pleasure for quite some time, Mr. Poundstone," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "But unfortunately I have had so much preliminary detail to attend to
before making an official call that at last I grew discouraged and concluded
I'd just drop in informally and get acquainted." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Glad you did--mighty glad," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "We have all, of course, heard of your great plans and are naturally
anxious to hear more of them, in the hope that we can do all that anybody
reasonably and legally can to promote your enterprise and incidentally our
own, since we are not insensible to the advantages which will accrue to this
county when it is connected by rail with the outside world." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "That extremely broad view is most encouraging," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Reciprocity is the
watchword of progress. I might state, however, that while you Humboldters
are fully alive to the benefits to be derived from a feeder to a
transcontinental road, my associates and myself are not insensible of the
fact that the success of our enterprise depends to a great extent upon the
enthusiasm with which the city of Sequoia shall cooperate with us; and since
you are the chief executive of the city, naturally I have come to you to
explain our plans fully." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I have read your articles of incorporation, Mr. Ogilvy," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "You will recall that they were
published in the Sequoia SENTINEL. It strikes me---" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Then you know exactly what we purpose doing, and any further
explanation would be superfluous," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Well, that being the case, Mr. Ogilvy," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "what can we Sequoians do to make you happy?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Why, to begin with, Mr. Poundstone, you might accept my solemn
assurances that despite the skepticism which, for some unknown reason,
appears to shroud our enterprise in the minds of some people, we have
incorporated a railroad company for the purpose of building a railroad. We
purpose commencing grading operations in the very near future, and the only
thing that can possibly interfere with the project will be the declination
of the city council to grant us a franchise to run our line through the city
to tidewater." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "And I am glad to have your assurance that the city council will not drop a
cold chisel in the cogs of the wheels of progress." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "At the proper time we shall apply for the franchise. It will then be
time enough to discuss it. In the meantime the N. C. O. plans a public
dedicatory ceremony at the first breaking of ground, and I would be greatly
honoured, Mr. Mayor, if you would consent to turn the first shovelful of
earth and deliver the address of welcome upon that occasion." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "The honour will be
mine," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Thank you so much, sir. Well, that's another worry off my mind." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I beg your pardon for bothering you with my affairs twice in the
same day, Mr. Mayor," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "but the
fact is, a condition has just arisen which necessitates the immediate
employment of an attorney. The job is not a very important one
and almost any lawyer would do, but in view of the fact that we must, sooner
or later, employ an attorney to look after our interests locally, it
occurred to me that I might as well make the selection of a permanent
attorney now. I am a stranger in this city Mr. Poundstone. Would it be
imposing on your consideration if I asked you to recommend such a
person?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Why, not at all, not at all! Delighted to help you, Mr. Ogilvy. Let
me see, now. There are several attorneys in Sequoia, all men of excellent
ability and unimpeachable integrity, whom I can recommend with the utmost
pleasure. Cadman & Bates, with offices in the Knights of Pythias Temple, would be just the people. although there is Rodney McKendrick, in the Chamber of Commerce Building -- I forget where his office is, but you can find it in the telephone-book; and if I may be pardoned a dash of paternal ego, there is my son Henry Pounstone, Junio. While Henry is a young man, his carreer in law thus far has been most gratifying, although he hasn't had as broad an experience as the others I mentioned, and perhaps your choice had better lie between Cadman & Banes and Rodney McKendrick. You can't go wrong on either of those two." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Thank you a thousand times," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "We though so, Buck, we though so," - Buck Ogilvy |
| " Yes, Cadman & Banes or Rodney McKendrick may do, but Lord have mercy on the corporate soul of the N.C.O. if I fail to retain Henry Poundstone, Junior. What a wise plan it is to look up the relatives of a public official! Well! Forward,
men, follow me--to Henry's office." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Now, Mr. Poundstone, we will proceed to business. That
retainer isn't a large one, I admit, but neither is the job I have for you
to- day. Later, if need of your services on a larger scale should develop,
we shall of course expect to make a new arrangement whereby you will receive
the customary retainer of all of our corporation attorneys I trust that is
quite satisfactory." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Eminently so," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Very well, then; let us proceed to business." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I have
here," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "agreements from landowners
along the proposed right of way of the N. C. O. to give to that company, on
demand, within one year from date, satisfactory deeds covering rights of way
which are minutely described in the said agreements. I wish these deeds
prepared for signing and recording at the earliest possible moment." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "You shall have them at this time to-morrow," - Henry |
| "By jinks, Dad!" - Henry |
| "I've hooked a fish at
last--and he's a whopper." - Henry |
| "Omit the cheers, my boy. Remember I sent that fish to you," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "What are you doing
for Ogilvy, and how large a retainer did he give you?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "I'm making out deeds to his rights of way. Ordinarily it's about a
fifty-dollar job, but without waiting to discuss finances he handed me out
two hundred and fifty dollars. Why, Dad, that's more than you make in a
month from your job as Mayor." - Henry |
| "Well, that isn't a bad retainer. It's an opening wedge. However, it
would be mere chicken-feed in San Francisco." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Read this," - Henry |
| "Ah-h-h!" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "That accounts for his
failure to bring the matter up at our interview. Upon his return to the
hotel he found this telegram and got busy at once. By Jupiter, this looks
like business. Henry, how did you come into possession of this
telegram?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "It must have been mixed up in the documents Ogilvy left with me. I
found it on my desk when I was sorting out the papers, and in my capacity
of attorney for the N.C.O. I had no hesitancy in reading
it." - Henry |
| "Well, I do declare! Wonder who Hockley is. Never heard of that fellow
in connection with the N.C.O." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Hockley doesn't matter," - Henry |
| "although I'd bet a hat he's one of those heavy-weight Wall Street
fellows and one of J.P.M's vice-presidents, probably. J.P.M., of course, is
the man behind." - Henry |
| "Who the devil is J.P.M.?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Well,
how would J. Pierpont Morgan do for a guess?" - Henry |
| "Hell's bells and panther-tracks!" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "I should say you have hooked a big fish. Boy, you've
landed a whale!" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "By golly, to think of you getting in with that bunch!
Tremendyous! Per-fect-ly tree-mend-yous! Did Ogilvy say anything about
future business?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "He did. Said if I proved satisfactory, he would probably take me on
and pay the customary retainer given all of their corporation
attorneys." - Henry |
| "Well, by golly, he'd better take you on! I had a notion that chap
Ogilvy was smart enough to know which side his bread is buttered on and who
does the buttering." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "If I could guarantee Mr. Ogilvy that temporary franchise mentioned in
his telegram, it might help me to get in right with J.P.M, at the
start," - Henry |
| "I guess it would be
kind of poor to be taken on as one of the regular staff of attorneys for a
Morgan corporation, eh? Say, they pay those chaps as high as fifty thousand
dollars a year retainer!" - Henry |
| "Guarantee it!" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Guarantee it! Well,
I should snicker! We'll just show J. P. M. and his crowd that they made no
mistake when they picked you as their Sequoia legal representative. I'll
call a special meeting of that little old city council of mine and jam that
temporary franchise through while you'd be saying 'Jack Robinson!'" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "I'll tell you what let's do," - Henry |
| "I'll
draw up the temporary franchise to-night, and we'll put it through to-morrow
at, say, ten o'clock without saying a word to Mr. Ogilvy about it. Then when
the city clerk has signed and attested it and put the seal of the city on
it, I'll just casually take it over to Mr. Ogilvy. Of course he'll be
surprised and ask me how I came to get it, and--" - Henry |
| "And you LOOK surprised," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "--sort
of as if you failed to comprehend what he's driving at. Make him repeat.
Then you say: 'Oh, that! Why, that's nothing, Mr. Ogilvy. I found the
telegram in those papers you left with me, read it, and concluded you'd left
it there to give me the dope so I could go ahead and get the franchise for
you. Up here, whenever anybody wants a franchise from the city, they always
hire an attorney to get it for them, so I didn't think anything about this
but just naturally went and got it for you. If it ain't right, why, say so
and I'll have it made right.'" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Let him get the idea you're a fly bird and on to your job." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Leave it to yours truly," - Henry |
| "H'm!" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Wants to cross Water Street at B and
build out Front Street. Well, I dare say nobody will kick over the traces at
that. Nothing but warehouses and lumber-drying yards along there, anyhow.
Still, come to think of it, Pennington will probably raise a howl about
sparks from the engines of the N. C. O. setting his lumber piles afire. And
he won't relish the idea of that crossing, because that means a watchman and
safety-gates, and he'll have to stand half the cost of that." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "He'll be dead against it," - Henry |
| "I know,
because at the Wednesday meeting of the Lumber Manufacturers' Association
the subject of the N. C. O. came up, and Pennington made a talk against it.
He said the N. C. O. ought to be discouraged, if it was a legitimate
enterprise, which he doubted, because the most feasible and natural route
for a road would be from Willits, Mendocino County, north to Sequoia. He
said the N. C. O. didn't tap the main body of the redwood-belt and that his
own road could be extended to act as a feeder to a line that would build in
from the south. I tell you he's dead set against it." - Henry |
| "Then we won't tell him anything about it, Henry. We'll just pull off
this special session of the council and forget to invite the reporters;
after the job has been put over, Pennington can come around and howl all he
wants. We're not letting a chance like this slip by us without
grabbing a handful of the tail-feathers, Henry. No, sir--not if we know
it." - Henry |
| "You bet!" - Henry |
| "Mr. Poundstone," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I have met some meteoric young attorneys in my day, but you're the
first genuine comet I have seen in the legal firmament. Do you mind telling
me exactly how you procured this franchise--and why you procured it without
explicit orders from me?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Why," - Henry |
| "you
left that telegram with me, and I concluded that you regarded it as self-
explanatory or else had forgotten to mention it. I knew you were busy, and I
didn't want to bother you with details, so I just went ahead and filled the
order for you. Anything wrong about that?" - Henry |
| "Certainly not. It's perfectly wonderful. But how did you put it
over?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "My dad's the engineer," - Henry |
| "If thirty days ain't enough time, see me and I'll get you thirty days
more. And in the meantime nobody knows a thing about this little deal.
What's more, they won't know. I figured Colonel Pennington might try to
block you at that crossing so I--" - Henry |
| "My dear Poundstone," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I am not a man
to forget clever work. At the proper time I shall--" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "You understand, of course, that I am speaking for
myself and can make you no firm promises. However--" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "All I have to say is that you'll do!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Thank you," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Thank you
ever so much." - Buck Ogilvy |
| Chapter 28 |
| "Good morning, Mr. Cardigan," - Shirley Sumner |
| "How do you feel this morning? Any the worse for having permitted yourself
to be a human being last night?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Why, I feel pretty fine, Shirley. I think it did me a lot of good to
crawl out of my shell last night." - John Cardigan |
| "You feel encouraged to go on living, eh?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Yes." - John Cardigan |
| "And fighting?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "By all means." - John Cardigan |
| "Then, something has occurred of late to give you new courage?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Oh, many things. Didn't I give an exhibition of my courage in
accepting Ogilvy's invitation to dinner, knowing you were going to be
there?" - John Cardigan |
| "You carry your frankness to extremes, my
friend," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'm sure I've always been much nicer
to you than you deserve." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Nevertheless there wasn't any valid reason why I should tantalize
myself last night." - John Cardigan |
| "Then why did you come?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Partly to please Ogilvy, who has fallen head over heels in love with
Moira; partly to please Moira, who wanted me to meet you, but mostly to
please myself, because, while I dreaded it, nevertheless I wanted to see you
again. I comforted myself with the thought that for the sake of appearances
we dared not quarrel in the presence of Moira and my friend Ogilvy, and I
dare say you felt the same way. At any rate, I have seldom had more
enjoyment when partaking of a meal with an enemy." - John Cardigan |
| "Please do not say that," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I am your
opponent, but not your enemy." - Shirley Sumner |
| "That's nice of you. By the way, Shirley, you may inform your uncle at
breakfast Friday morning about my connection with the N. C. O. In fact, I
think it would be far better for you if you made it a point to do so." - John Cardigan |
| "Why?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Because both Ogilvy and myself have a very strong suspicion that your
uncle has a detective or two on our trails. There was a strange man rather
prevalent around him all day yesterday and I noticed a fellow following my
car last night. He was on a bicycle and followed me home. I communicated my
suspicions to Ogilvy, and this morning he spent two hours trying to shake
the same man off his trail--and couldn't. So I judge your uncle will learn
to-day that you dined with Ogilvy, Moira, and me last night." - John Cardigan |
| "Oh, dear! That's terrible." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Ashamed of having been seen in my company, eh?" - John Cardigan |
| "Please don't. Are you quite serious in this matter?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Quite." - John Cardigan |
| "Uncle Seth will think it so--so strange." - Shirley Sumner |
| "He'll probably tell you about it. Better beat him to the issue by
'fessing up, Shirley. Doubtless his suspicions are already aroused, and if
you inform him that you know I am the real builder of the N. C. O., he'll
think you're a smart woman and that you've been doing a little private
gum-shoe work of your own on behalf of the Laguna Grande Lumber
Company." - John Cardigan |
| "Which is exactly what I have been doing," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I know. But then, I'm not afraid of you, Shirley--that is, any more.
And after Friday morning I'll not be afraid of your uncle. Do tell him at
breakfast. Then watch to see if it affects his appetite." - John Cardigan |
| "Oh, dear! I feel as if I were a conspirator." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I believe you are one. Your dictograph has arrived. Shall I send
George Sea Otter over with it? And have you somebody to install it?" - John Cardigan |
| "Oh, bother! Does it have to be installed?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "It does. You place the contraption--hide it, rather--in the room
where the conspirators conspire; then you run wires from it into another
room where the detectives listen in on the receivers." - John Cardigan |
| "Could George Sea Otter install it?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I think he could. There is a printed card of instructions, and I dare
say George would find the job no more baffling than the ignition-system on
the Napier." - John Cardigan |
| "Will he tell anybody?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Not if you ask him not to." - John Cardigan |
| "Not even you?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Not even a whisper to himself, Shirley." - John Cardigan |
| "Very well, then. Please send him over. Thank you so much, Bryce
Cardigan. You're an awful good old sort, after all. Really, it hurts me to
have to oppose you. It would be so much nicer if we didn't have all those
redwood trees to protect, wouldn't it?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Let us not argue the question, Shirley. I think I have my redwood
trees protected. Good-bye." - John Cardigan |
| "There's your little old
temporary franchise, old thing," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "And now if you will phone up to your logging-camp and instruct the
woods-boss to lay off about fifty men to rest for the day, pending a hard
night's work, and arrange to send them down on the last log-train to-day,
I'll drop around after dinner and we'll fly to that jump-crossing. Here's a
list of the tools we'll need." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I'll telephone Colonel Pennington's manager and ask him to kick a
switch-engine in on the Laurel Creek spur and snake those flat-cars with my
rails aboard out to the junction with the main line," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Why not switch back with the mogul after the logtrain has been hauled
out on the main line?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "My dear fellow," - Colonel |
| "quite impossible, I assure you. That old trestle
across the creek, my boy--it hasn't been looked at for years. While I'd send
the light switch-engine over it and have no fears--" - Colonel |
| "I happen to know, Colonel, that the big mogul kicked those flats in
to load the rails!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I know it. And what happened? Why, that old trestle squeaked and
shook and gave every evidence of being about to buckle in the centre. My
engineer threatened to quit if I sent him in again." - Colonel |
| "Very well. I suppose I'll have to wait until the switch-engine comes
out of the shop," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Checkmated!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Whipped to a frazzle. The Colonel is lying, Buck, and I've caught him at
it. As a matter of fact, the mogul didn't kick those flats in at all. The
switch-engine did--and I know it. Now I'm going to send a man over to
snoop around Pennington's roundhouse and verify his report
about the switch-engine being in the shop." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That settles it," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "He had gum-shoe
men on my trail, after all; they have reported, and the Colonel is as
suspicious as a rhino. He doesn't know anything, but he smells danger just
the same." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Exactly, Buck. So he is delaying the game until he can learn
something definite." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Buck, can you run a locomotive?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "With one hand, old man." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Fine business! Well, I guess we'll put in that crossing to-morrow
night. The switch-engine will be in the roundhouse at Pennington's mill
to-morrow night so we can't steal that; but we can steal the mogul. I'll
just send word up to my woods-boss not to have his train loaded when the
mogul comes up late to-morrow afternoon to haul it down to our log-landing.
He will explain to the engineer and fireman that our big bull donkey went
out and we couldn't get our logs down to the landing in time to get them
loaded that day. Of course, the engine-crew won't bother to run down to
Sequoia for the night--that is, they won't run the mogul down. They'll just
leave her at our log- landing all night and put up for the night at our
camp. However, if they should be forced, because of their private affairs,
to return to Sequoia, they'll borrow my trackwalker's
velocipede. I have one that is driven with a small gasolene engine--I use it
in running back and forth to the logging-camp in case I fail to connect with
a log- train." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "But how do you know they will put up at your camp all night,
Bryce?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "My men will make them comfortable, and it means they can lie abed
until seven o'clock instead of having to roll out at five o'clock, which
would be the case if they spent the night at this end of the line. If they
do not stay at our logging-camp, the mogul will stay there, provided my
woods-foreman lends them my velocipede. The fireman would prefer that to
firing that big mogul all the way back to Sequoia." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I think he would." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "There is a slight grade at our log-landing. I know that, because the
air leaked out of the brakes on a log-train I was on a short time ago, and
the train ran away with me. Now, the engine-crew will set the airbrakes on
the mogul and leave her with steam up to throb all night; they'll not blow
her down, for that would mean work firing her in the morning. Our task,
Buck, will be to throw off the airbrakes and let her glide silently out of
our log-landing. About a mile down the road we'll stop, get up steam, run
down to the junction with the main line, back in on the Laurel Creek spur,
couple on to those flat- cars and breeze merrily down to Sequoia with them.
They'll be loaded waiting for us; our men will be congregated in our
dry-yard just off Water Street near B, waiting for us to arrive with the
rails--and bingo--we go to it. After we drop the flats, we'll run the engine
back to the woods, leave it where we found it, return a-flying
on the velocipede, if it's there, or in my automobile, if it isn't there.
You can get back in ample time to superintend the cutting of the
crossing!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Spoken like a man!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "You're the one
man in this world for whom I'd steal a locomotive. 'At-a boy!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| Chapter 29 |
| "flivver," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "I feel like a perfect fool, calling upon these people in this filthy
little rattletrap," - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "In pity's name, woman," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "talk about
something else. Give me one night of peace. Let me enjoy my dinner and this
visit." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "I can't help it," - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "If I had a sedan like that, I could die happy. And it only cost thirty-two
hundred and fifty dollars." - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "I paid six hundred and fifty for the rattletrap, and I couldn't
afford that," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "You were happy with it
until I was elected mayor." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "You forget our social position, my dear," - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "Hang your social position," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Shut up, will you? Social position in a sawmill town!
Rats!" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Sh--sh! Control yourself, Henry!" - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "Dammit, you'll drive me crazy yet," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Mayor Poundstone and Mrs. Poundstone." - butler |
| "Glad to see you aboard the ship," - Colonel |
| "Well, well," - Colonel |
| "this is
certainly delightful. My niece will be down in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
Have a cigarette, Mr. Poundstone." - Colonel |
| "materials," - Colonel |
| "To your beautiful eyes, Mrs. Poundstone," - Colonel |
| "Poundstone, your very good health, sir." - Colonel |
| "Dee-licious," - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "Perfectly
dee-licious. And not a bit strong!" - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "Have another," - Colonel |
| "I will, if Miss Sumner will join me," - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "Thanks. I seldom drink a cocktail, and one is always my limit," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Oh, well," - Colonel |
| "we'll make
it a three- cornered festival. Poundstone, smoke up." - Colonel |
| "smoked up," - Colonel |
| "kick" - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "I was telling Henry as we came up the walk how greatly I envied you
that beautiful sedan, Miss Sumner," - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "Isn't it a
perfectly stunning car?" - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "And I was telling
Mrs. Poundstone," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "that a little jitney was our gait, and
that she might as well abandon her passionate yearning for a closed car.
Angelina, my dear, something tells me I'm going to enjoy this dinner a whole
lot more if you'll just make up your mind to be real nice and resign
yourself to the inevitable." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Never, my dear, never." - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "You dear old tightie," - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "you don't realize what a
closed car means to a woman." - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "How an
open car does blow one around, my dear!" - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "Yes, indeed," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Heard the McKinnon people had a man killed up in their woods
yesterday, Colonel," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Yes. The fellow's own fault," - Colonel |
| "He
was one of those employees who held to the opinion that every man is the
captain of his own soul and the sole proprietor of his own body--hence that
it behooved him to look after both, in view of the high cost of
safety-appliances. He was warned that the logging-cable was weak at that old
splice and liable to pull out of the becket--and sure enough it
did. The free end of the cable snapped back like a whip, and--" - Colonel |
| "I hold to the opinion," - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "that if one wishes for a thing hard enough and just keeps on wishing, one
is bound to get it." - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "My dear," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "if you
would only confine yourself to wishing, I assure you your chances for
success would be infinitely brighter." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Well," - Colonel |
| "what do you
hear with reference to the Northern-California-Gregon Railroad?" - Colonel |
| "Oh, the usual amount of wind, Colonel. Nobody knows what to make of
that outfit." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Well, I don't know
what to think of that project either," - Colonel |
| "But while it looks like a fake, I have a suspicion that where
there's so much smoke, one is likely to discover a little fire. I've been
waiting to see whether or not they will apply for a franchise to enter the
city, but they seem to be taking their time about it." - Colonel |
| "They certainly are a deliberate crowd," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Have they made any move to get a franchise?" - Colonel |
| "If they have, I suppose you would be the first man to hear
about it. I don't mean to be impertinent," - Colonel |
| "but the fact is I noticed that windbag Ogilvy entering your
office in the city hall the other afternoon, and I couldn't help wondering
whether his visit was social or official." - Colonel |
| "Social--so far as I could observe," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Preliminary to the official visit, I dare say." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "I hadn't anticipated discussing this matter with you, Poundstone, and
you must forgive me for it; but the fact is--I might as well be frank with
you--I am very greatly interested in the operation of this proposed
railroad." - Colonel |
| "Indeed! Financially?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Yes, but not in the financial way you think. If that
railroad is built, it will have a very distinct effect on my finances." - Colonel |
| "In just what way?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Disastrous." - Colonel |
| "I am amazed, Colonel." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "You wouldn't if you had given the subject very close consideration.
The logical route for this railroad is from Willits north to Sequoia, not
from Sequoia north to Grant's Pass, Oregon. Such a road as the N.C.O.
contemplates will tap about one third of the redwood belt only, while a line
built in from the south will tap two thirds of it. The remaining third can
be tapped by an extension of my own logging- road; when my own timber is
logged out, I will want other business for my road, and if the N.C.O.
parallels it, I will be left with two streaks of rust on my hands." - Colonel |
| "Ah, I perceive. So it will, so it will!" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "You agree with me, then, Poundstone, that the N.C.O. is not designed
to foster the best interests of the community. Of course you do." - Colonel |
| "Well, I hadn't given the subject very mature thought, Colonel, but in
the light of your observations it would appear that you are quite
right." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Of course I am right. I take it, therefore, that when the N.C.O.
applies for its franchise to run through Sequoia, neither you nor your city
council will consider the proposition at all." - Colonel |
| "I cannot, of course, speak for the city council--" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Be frank with me, Poundstone. I am not a child. What I would like to
know is this: will you exert every effort to block that
franchise in the firm conviction that by so doing you will accomplish a
laudable public service?" - Colonel |
| "I should not care, at this time, to go on
record," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "When I have had time to look
into the matter more thoroughly--" - Poundstone |
| "Tut-tut, my dear man! Let us not straddle the fence. Business is a
game, and so is politics. Neither knows any sentiment. Suppose you should
favour this N.C.O. crowd in a mistaken idea that you were doing the right
thing, and that subsequently numberless fellow- citizens developed the idea
that you had not done your public duty? Would some of them not be likely to
invoke a recall election and retire you and your city council--in
disgrace?" - Colonel |
| "I doubt if they could defeat me, Colonel." - Mayor PoundsTone |
| "I have no such doubt," - Colonel |
| "Is that a
threat?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "My dear fellow! Threaten my guest!" - Colonel |
| "I am giving you advice, Poundstone--and rather good
advice, it strikes me. However, while we're on the subject, I have no
hesitancy in telling you that in the event of a disastrous decision on your
part, I should not feel justified in supporting you." - Colonel |
| "I would smash you." - Colonel |
| "Let's not beat about the bush, Poundstone," - Colonel |
| "You've been doing
business with Ogilvy; I know it for a fact, and you might as well admit
it." - Colonel |
| "If I had known--" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Certainly, certainly! I realize you acted in perfect good faith.
You're like the majority of people in Sequoia. You're all so crazy for
rail-connection with the outside world that you jump at the first plan that
seems to promise you one. Now, I'm as eager as the others, but if we are
going to have a railroad, I, for one, desire the right kind of railroad; and
the N.C.O. isn't the right kind--that is, not for the interests I represent.
Have you promised Ogilvy a franchise?" - Colonel |
| "come clean." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "The city council has already granted the N.C.O. a temporary
franchise," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Dammit." - Colonel |
| "why did you do that without consulting me?" - Colonel |
| "Didn't know you were remotely interested." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "And we did not commit ourselves irrevocably," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "The temporary franchise will expire in twenty-eight days --and in
that short time the N.C.O. cannot even get started." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Have you any understanding as to an extension of that temporary
franchise, in case the N.C.O. desires it?" - Colonel |
| "Well, yes--not in writing, however. I gave Ogilvy to understand that
if he was not ready in thirty days, an extension could readily be
arranged." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Any witnesses?" - Colonel |
| "I am not such a fool, sir," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "I had a notion--I might as well admit it--that you would have
serious objection to having your tracks cut by a jump-crossing at B and
Water streets." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "I
repeat," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "that I did not put it in writing." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "You oily rascal!" - Colonel |
| "You're a
smarter man than I thought. You're trying to play both ends against the
middle." - Colonel |
| "Ogilvy did business with you through your son Henry," - Colonel |
| "How much did Henry get out
of it?" - Colonel |
| "Two hundred and fifty dollars retainer, and not a cent more," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "You're not so good a business man as I gave you credit for
being," - Colonel |
| "Two hundred and fifty
dollars! Oh, Lord! Poundstone, you're funny. Upon my word, you're a
scream." - Colonel |
| "You call it a retainer," - Colonel |
| "but
a grand jury might call it something else. However," - Colonel |
| "you're not in politics for your health; so let's get
down to brass tacks. How much do you want to deny the N.C.O. not only an
extension of that temporary franchise but also a permanent franchise when
they apply for it?" - Colonel |
| "Colonel Pennington, sir," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "you insult me." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Sit down. You've been insulted that way before now. Shall we say one
thousand dollars per each for your three good councilmen and true, and for
yourself that sedan of my niece's? It's a good car. Last year's model, but
only run about four thousand miles and in tiptop condition.
It's always had the best of care, and I imagine it will please Mrs. P.
immensely and grant you surcease from sorrow. Of course, I will not give it
to you. I'll sell it to you--five hundred down upon the signing of the
agreement, and in lieu of the cash, I will take over that jitney Mrs.
Poundstone finds so distasteful. Then I will employ your son Henry as the
attorney for the Laguna Grande Lumber Company and give him a retainer of
twenty-five hundred dollars for one year. I will leave it to you to get this
twenty-five hundred dollars from Henry and pay my niece cash for the car.
Doesn't that strike you as a perfectly safe and sane proposition?" - Colonel |
| "It might be arranged, Colonel," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "It is already arranged," - Colonel |
| "Leave your jit at the front gate and drive home in Shirley's car.
I'll arrange matters with her." - Colonel |
| "It means,
of course, that I'll have to telegraph to San Francisco to-morrow and buy her a later model. Thank goodness, she has a birthday
to-morrow! Have a fresh cigar, Mayor." - Colonel |
| "Oh, Henry, you darling!" - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "What did I tell you?
If a person only wishes hard enough--" - Mrs. Poundstone |
| "Oh, go to the devil!" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "You've nagged
me into it. Shut up and take your arm away. Do you want me to wreck the car
before we've had it an hour?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Lucky I blocked the young beggar from getting those rails out of
the Laurel Creek spur," - Colonel |
| "or he'd have had his
jump-crossing in overnight--and then where the devil would I have been? Up
Salt Creek without a paddle--and all the courts in Christendom would avail
me nothing." - Colonel |
| "A locomotive and two flat-cars!" - Colonel |
| "And they
just passed over the switch leading from the main-line tracks out to my
log-dump. That means the train is going down Water Street to the switch into
Cardigan's yard. By George, they've outwitted me!" - Colonel |
| Chapter 30 |
| "They're staying here all night, sir," - woods-crew |
| "House them as far from the log-landing as possible, and
organize a poker-game to keep them busy in case they don't go to bed before
eight o'clock," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "In the meantime, send a man
you can trust--Jim Harding, who runs the big bull-donkey, will do--down to
the locomotive to keep steam up until I arrive." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Safe-o, Buck!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "How about your end of
the contract?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Crowbars, picks, shovels, hack-saws to cut the rails, lanterns to
work by, and men to do the work will be cached in your lumber-yard by nine
o'clock, waiting for the rails to arrive." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Then I suppose there's nothing to do but
get a bite of dinner and proceed to business." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well, sonny, I've had a mighty pleasant afternoon," - John Cardigan |
| "I've been up to the Valley of
the Giants." - John Cardigan |
| "Why, how could you?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The
old skid- road is impassable, and after you leave the end of the skid-road,
the trail in to Mother's grave is so overgrown with buckthorn and wild lilac
I doubt if a rabbit could get through it comfortably." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Not a bit of it," - John Cardigan |
| "Somebody has gone to work and planked that old skid-road and put up a
hand-railing on each side, while the trail through the Giants has been
grubbed out and smoothed over. All that old logging-cable I abandoned in
those choppings has been strung from tree to tree alongside the path on both
sides. I can go up there alone now, once George sets me on the old
skid-road; I can't get lost." - John Cardigan |
| "How did you discover this?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Judge Moore, representing the new owner, called round this morning
and took me in tow. He said his client knew the property held for me a
certain sentimental value which wasn't transferred in the deed, and so the
Judge had been instructed to have the skid-road planked and the forest trail
grubbed out--for me. It appears that the Valley is going to be a public
park, after all, but for the present and while I live, it is my private
park." - John Cardigan |
| "This is perfectly amazing, partner." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It's mighty comforting," - John Cardigan |
| "Guess
the new owner must be one of my old friends--perhaps somebody I did a favour
for once--and this is his way of repaying. Remember the old sugar-pine
windfall we used to sit on? Well, it's rotted through, and bears have clawed
it into chips in their search for grubs, but the new owner had a seat put in
there for me--just the kind of seat I like--a lumberjack's rocking-chair
made from an old vinegar-barrel. I sat in it, and the Judge left me, and I
did a right smart lot o' thinking. And while it didn't lead me anywhere,
still I--er--" - John Cardigan |
| "You felt better, didn't you?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'd like to know the name of the owner," - John Cardigan |
| "I'd like mighty well to say thank you to him. It
isn't usual for people nowadays to have as much respect for sentiment in an
old duffer like me as the fellow has. He sort of makes me feel as if I
hadn't sold at all." - John Cardigan |
| "That you, Jim?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You bet." - Jim Harding |
| "Run up to Jabe Curtis's shanty, and tell him we're here. Have him
gather his gang and bring two pairs of overalls and two jumpers-- large
size--with him when he comes." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "A hundred and forty," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Good enough!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Who's in charge here, and what in blazes do you mean by cutting my
tracks?" - Colonel |
| "Colonel," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "--I
presume you are Colonel Pennington--my name is Buchanan P. Ogilvy, and I am
in charge of these operations. I am the vice-president and general manager
of the N.C.O., and I am engaged in the blithe task of making a
jump-crossing of your rails. I had hoped to accomplish this without your
knowledge or consent, but now that you are here, that hope, of course, has
died a-bornin'. Have a cigar." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Stand back, Colonel, stand back, if you please. You're in the way of
the shovellers," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "You--you--" - Colonel |
| "I'm the N.C.O.," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Nice little fiction
that of yours about the switch-engine being laid up in the shops and the
Laurel Creek bridge being unsafe for this big mogul." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You're certainly on the job,
Colonel. I'll say that much for you. The man who plans to defeat you must
jump far and fast, or his tail will be trod on." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You've stolen my engine," - Colonel |
| "I'll have the law on you for grand larceny." - Colonel |
| "Tut-tut! You don't know who stole your engine. For all you know, your
own engine-crew may have run it down here." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll attend to you, sir," - Colonel |
| "Not to-night, at least," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Having
gone this far, I would be a poor general to permit you to
escape now with the news of your discovery. You'd be down here in an hour
with a couple of hundred members of your mill-crew and give us the rush. You
will oblige me, Colonel Pennington, by remaining exactly where you are until
I give you permission to depart." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "And if I refuse--" - Colonel |
| "Then I shall manhandle you, truss you up like a fowl in the tonneau
of your car, and gag you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, very well!" - Colonel |
| "I guess you've got the bulge on me, young man. Do you
mind if I sit in the warm cab of my own engine? I came away in such a hurry
I quite forgot my overcoat." - Colonel |
| "Not at all. I'll sit up there and keep you company." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Sexton!" - Colonel |
| "Cardigan's cutting in a crossing.
He's holding me here against my will. Get the mill-crew together and phone
for Rondeau and his woods-crew. Send the switch-engine and a couple of flats
up for them. Phone Poundstone. Tell him to have the chief of police--" - Colonel |
| "You win,
Colonel," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No good can come of holding you here
any longer. Into your car and on your way." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Thank you, young man," - Colonel |
| "Plenty of time," - Colonel |
| "Curfew shall not ring
to- night." - Colonel |
| "Sure!" - Black Minorca |
| "I'll fix 'em good and
plenty." - Black Minorca |
| "I don't think he's hurt anybody," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "but that's due to his
marksmanship rather than his intentions." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "He tried hard enough to plug me," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "They call him the Black Minorca, and he's a
mongrel greaser who'd kill his own mother for a fifty-dollar bill." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'd like to plug him," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "What would be the use? This will be his last night in Humboldt
County--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "All right, boss," - George Sea Otter |
| "Now we get busy again." - George Sea Otter |
| "Safe-o, men," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Back to the job." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Take the swine over to the Laguna Grande Lumber Company's hospital
and tell them to patch him up," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll keep both rifles and the ammunition here for Jules Rondeau and his
woods-gang. They'll probably be dropping in on us about two a.m., if I know
anything about Colonel Pennington's way of doing things." - Bryce Cardigan |
| Chapter 31 |
| "Uncle Seth!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Here!" - Colonel |
| "What's the matter?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "There's the devil to pay," - Colonel |
| "That fellow
Cardigan is back of the N.C.O., after all, and he and Ogilvy have a gang of
fifty men down at the intersection of Water and B streets, cutting in a
jump-crossing of our line." - Colonel |
| "At last!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "That you, Poundstone?" - Colonel |
| "Pennington speaking. Young Bryce Cardigan is behind that
N.C.O. outfit, and it's a logging-road and not intended to
build through to Grant's Pass at all. Cardigan and Ogilvy are at Water and B
streets this very instant with a gang of fifty men cutting in a
jump-crossing of my line, curse them! They'll have it in by six o'clock
to-morrow morning if something isn't done--and once they get it in, the
fat's in the fire." - Colonel |
| "Telephone the chief of police and order him to take his entire force
down there, if necessary, and stop that work. To blazes with that temporary
franchise! You stop that work for two hours, and I'll do the rest. Tell the
chief of police not to recognize that temporary franchise. He can be
suspicious of it, can't he, and refuse to let the work go on until he finds
you? And you can be hard to find for two hours, can you not? Delay, delay,
man! That's all I want... Yes, yes, I understand. You get down about
daylight and roast the chief of police for interfering, but in the
meantime!... Thank you, Poundstone, thank you. Good-bye." - Colonel |
| "Sexton? Pennington speaking. I've sent over the Black Minorca with a
rifle and sixty rounds of ammunition... What? You can hear him shooting
already? Bully boy with a crockery eye! He'll clean that gang out and keep
them from working until the police arrive. You've telephoned Rondeau, have
you?... Good! He'll have his men waiting at the log-landing,
and there'll be no delay. As soon as you've seen the switch-engine started
for the woods, meet me down at Water and B streets. Sexton, we've got to
block them. It means a loss of millions to me if we fail!" - Colonel |
| "Uncle Seth," - Shirley Sumner |
| "use any honourable
method of defeating Bryce Cardigan, but call off the Black Minorca. I shall
hold you personally responsible for Bryce Cardigan's life, and if you fail
me, I shall never forgive you." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Silly, silly girl!" - Colonel |
| "Don't you know I
would not stoop to bush-whacking? There's some shooting going on, but its
wild shooting, just to frighten Cardigan and his men off the job." - Colonel |
| "You can't frighten him," - Shirley Sumner |
| "You
know you can't. He'll kill the Black Minorca, or the Black Minorca will kill
him. Go instantly and stop it." - Shirley Sumner |
| "All right, all right!" - Colonel |
| "I'll play the game fairly, Shirley,
never fear." - Colonel |
| "George!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Come here." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Is Mr. Cardigan hurt?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Nobody hurt 'cept the Black
Minorca. I am taking him to your company hospital, miss. He tried to shoot
my boss, so I shoot him myself once through the leg. Now my boss says: 'Take
him to the Laguna Grande hospital, George.' Me, I would drop this greaser in
the bay if I was the boss." - George Sea Otter |
| "On your way back from the hospital stop and
pick me up, George," - Shirley Sumner |
| "This senseless feud has
gone far enough. I must stop it--at once." - Shirley Sumner |
| "What's the meaning of all this row, Mr. Cardigan?" - Sam Perkins |
| "Something has slipped, Sam," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You've been calling me Bryce for the past twenty years, and now you're
mistering me! The meaning of this row, you ask?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well, I'm engaged in making a jump-crossing of Colonel Pennington's
tracks, under a temporary franchise granted me by the city of Sequoia.
Here's the franchise." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "This is the first I've heard about any franchise," - Sam Perkins |
| "Seems to me you been mighty secret
about this job. How do I know this ain't a forgery?" - Sam Perkins |
| "Call up the mayor and ask him," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll do that," - Sam Perkins |
| "And in
the meantime, don't do any more digging or rail-cutting." - Sam Perkins |
| "Also in the meantime, young man," - Colonel |
| "you will pardon me if I take possession of my locomotive and
flat-cars. I observe you have finished unloading those rails." - Colonel |
| "Help yourself, Colonel," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Thank you so much, Cardigan." - Colonel |
| "That engine being my property," - Colonel |
| "I'll
take the short end of any bet you care to make, young man, that it will sit
on those tracks until your temporary franchise expires. I'd
give a good deal to see anybody not in my employ attempt to get up steam in
that boiler until I give the word. Cut in your jump-crossing now, if you
can, you whelp, and be damned to you. I've got you blocked!" - Colonel |
| "I rather imagine this nice gentleman has it on us, old dear," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Well! We did our damndest, which
angels can't do no more. Let us gather up our tools and go home, my son, for
something tells me that if I hang around here I'll bust one of two
things--this sleek scoundrel's gray head or one of my bellicose veins!
Hello! Whom have we here?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "My friend," - Shirley Sumner |
| "didn't I tell
you I would not permit you to build the N.C.O.?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "''Tis midnight's holy hour,'" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "'and
silence now is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er a still and pulseless
world.' Bryce, old chap, this is one of those occasions where silence is
golden. Speak not. I'll do it for you. Miss Sumner," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "and Colonel Pennington," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "we leave you in
possession of the field--temporarily. However, if anybody should drive up in
a hack and lean out and ask you, just tell him Buck Ogilvy has another trump
tucked away in his kimono." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Bryce!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Your uncle's killer did that, Shirley," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It's only a slight flesh-wound, but that is no fault of your allies.
Good- night." - Bryce Cardigan |
| Chapter 33 |
| "He has gone to San Francisco for more ammunition," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Very well, Unkie-dunk! While you're away, I shall
manufacture a few bombs myself." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Rondeau," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Mr. Cardigan is a bad man to
fight. You fought him once. Are you going to do it again?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "By whose orders?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Mr. Sexton, he tell me to do it." - Rondeau |
| "Well, Rondeau, some day I'll be boss of Laguna Grande and there'll be
no more fighting," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Where is he, dear?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I must see
him." - Shirley Sumner |
| "In that office, Miss Shirley," - Moira McTavish |
| "Don't get up, Bryce," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I know you're quite exhausted. You look it." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'm so sorry," - Shirley Sumner |
| "It doesn't amount to that, Shirley." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It throbs a little and it's stiff and
sore, so I carry it in the sling. That helps a little. What did you want to
see me about?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I wanted to tell you," - Shirley Sumner |
| "that--that last
night's affair was not of my making." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I--I couldn't bear to have you think I'd break my word and tell
him." - Shirley Sumner |
| "It never occurred to me that you had dealt me a hand from the bottom
of the deck, Shirley. Please don't worry about it. Your uncle has had two
private detectives watching Ogilvy and me." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Well, then," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I suppose you don't hate me." - Shirley Sumner |
| "On the contrary, I love you," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "However,
since you must have known this for some time past, I suppose it is
superfluous to mention it. Moreover, I haven't the right--yet." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I suppose you'll acknowledge yourself whipped at last,
Bryce?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Would it please you to have me surrender?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Indeed it would, Bryce." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Why?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Because I'm tired of fighting. I want peace. I'm--I'm afraid to let
this matter go any further. I'm truly afraid." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I think I want peace, too," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'd
be glad to quit--with honour. And I'll do it, too, if you can induce your
uncle to give me the kind of logging contract I want with his road." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I couldn't do that, Bryce. He has you whipped--and he is not merciful
to the fallen. You'll have to--surrender unconditionally." Again she laid
her little hand timidly on his wounded forearm. "Please give up, Bryce--for
my sake. If you persist, somebody will get killed." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I suppose I'll have to," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I dare say
you're right, though one should never admit defeat until he is counted out.
I suppose," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "your uncle is in high
feather this morning." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I don't know, Bryce. He left in his motor for San Francisco about one
o'clock this morning." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Glorious news, my dear Shirley, perfectly glorious! So the old fox
has gone to San Francisco, eh? Left in a hurry and via the overland route!
Couldn't wait for the regular passenger-steamer to-morrow, eh? Great jumping
Jehoshaphat! He must have had important business to attend to." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, the poor old Colonel," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "the dear old pirate! What a horrible right swing
he's running into! And you want me to acknowledge defeat! My dear girl, in
the language of the classic, there is nothing doing. I shall put in my
crossing Sunday morning, and if you don't believe it, drop around and see me
in action." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You mustn't try," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Rondeau is there
with his crew--and he has orders to stop you. Besides, you can't expect help
from the police. Uncle Seth has made a deal with the Mayor," - Shirley Sumner |
| "That for the police and that venal Mayor Poundstone!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'll rid the city of them
at the fall election." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I came prepared to suggest a compromise, Bryce," - Shirley Sumner |
| "You can't effect a compromise. You've been telling me I shall never
build the N.C.O. because you will not permit me to. You're powerless, I tell
you. I shall build it." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You shan't!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "You're the most stubborn and belligerent
man I have ever known. Sometimes I almost hate you." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Come around at ten to-morrow morning and watch me put in the
crossing--watch me give Rondeau and his gang the run." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "How I love you, dear little
antagonist!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "If you loved me, you wouldn't oppose me," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I tell you again, Bryce, you make it very hard for me to be
friendly with you." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I don't want to be friendly with you. You're driving me crazy,
Shirley. Please run along home, or wherever you're bound. I've tried to
understand your peculiar code, but you're too deep for me; so let me go my
way to the devil. George Sea Otter is outside asleep in the tonneau of the
car. Tell him to drive you wherever you're going. I suppose you're afoot
to-day, for I noticed the Mayor riding to his office in your sedan this
morning." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, very well," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Have it your own way. I've tried to warn you. Thank you for your
offer of the car. I shall be glad to use it. Uncle Seth sold my car to Mayor
Poundstone last night. Mrs. P. admired it so!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Ah! Then it was that rascally Poundstone who told your uncle about
the temporary franchise, thus arousing his suspicions to such
an extent that when he heard his locomotive rumbling into town, he smelled a
rat and hurried down to the crossing?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Possibly. The Poundstones dined at our house last night." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Pretty hard on you, I should say. But then I suppose you have to play
the game with Uncle Seth. Well, good morning, Shirley. Sorry to hurry you
away, but you must remember we're on a strictly business basis--yet; and you
mustn't waste my time." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You're horrid, Bryce Cardigan." - Shirley Sumner |
| "You're adorable. Good morning." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You'll be sorry for this," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Good
morning." - Shirley Sumner |
| "God bless her!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "She's been my ally all
along, and I never suspected it! I wonder what her game can be." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "old Poundstone has double-crossed us--and Pennington made it worth
his while. And the Colonel sold the Mayor his niece's automobile. It's worth
twenty-five hundred dollars, at least, and since old Poundstone's finances
will not permit such an extravagance, I'm wondering how Pennington expects
him to pay for it. I smell a rat as big as a kangaroo. In this case two and
two don't make four. They make six! Guess I'll build a fire
under old Poundstone." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Bryce
Cardigan speaking, Mr. Poundstone," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, hello, Bryce, my boy," - Mayor Poundstone |
| "How's tricks?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "So-so! I hear you've bought that sedan from Colonel Pennington's
niece. Wish I'd known it was for sale. I'd have outbid you. Want to make a
profit on your bargain?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No, not this morning, Bryce. I think we'll keep it. Mrs. P. has been
wanting a closed car for a long time, and when the Colonel offered me this
one at a bargain, I snapped it up. Couldn't afford a new one, you know, but
then this one's just as good as new." - Mayor Poundstone |
| "And you don't care to get rid of it at a profit?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "No, sirree!" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "Oh, you're mistaken, Mr. Mayor. I think you do. I would suggest that
you take that car back to Pennington's garage and leave it there. That would
be the most profitable thing you could do." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Wha--what--what in blue blazes are you driving at?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "I wouldn't care to discuss it over the telephone. I take it, however,
that a hint to the wise is sufficient; and I warn you, Mayor, that if you
keep that car it will bring you bad luck. To-day is Friday, and Friday is an
unlucky day. I'd get rid of that sedan before noon if I were you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You think it best, Cardigan?" - Mayor Poundstone |
| "I do. Return it to No. 38 Redwood Boulevard, and no questions will be
asked. Good-bye!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Has Poundstone returned your car?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Why, yes. What makes you ask?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Oh, I had a suspicion he might. You see, I called him up and
suggested it; somehow His Honour is peculiarly susceptible to suggestions
from me, and--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Bryce Cardigan," - Shirley Sumner |
| "you're a sly
rascal--that's what you are. I shan't tell you another thing." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I hope you had a stenographer at the dictograph when the Mayor and
your uncle cooked up their little deal," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "That
was thoughtful of you, Shirley. It was a bully club to have up your sleeve
at the final show-down, for with it you can make Unkie-dunk behave himself
and force that compromise you spoke of. Seriously, however, I don't want you
to use it, Shirley. We must avoid a scandal by all means; and
praise be, I don't need your club to beat your uncle's brains out. I'm
taking HIS club away from him to use for that purpose." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Really, I believe you're happy to-day." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Happy? I should tell a man! If the streets of Sequoia were paved with
eggs, I could walk them all day without making an omelette." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "It must be nice to feel so happy, after so many months of the
blues." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Indeed it is, Shirley. You see until very recently I was very much
worried as to your attitude toward me. I couldn't believe you'd so far
forget yourself as to love me in spite of everything--so I never took the
trouble to ask you. And now I don't have to ask you. I know! And I'll be
around to see you after I get that crossing in!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You're perfectly horrid," - Shirley Sumner |
| Chapter 37 |
| "There is one more matter, sir, which will doubtless be of interest to
you," - Sexton |
| "Miss Sumner called me
on the telephone yesterday and instructed me formally to notify the board of
directors of the Laguna Grande Company of a special meeting of the board, to
be held here at two o'clock this afternoon. In view of the impossibility of
communicating with you while you were en route, I conformed to her wishes.
Our by-laws, as you know, stipulate that no meeting of the board shall be
called without formal written notice to each director mailed twenty-four
hours previously." - Sexton |
| "What the devil do you mean, Sexton, by conforming to her
wishes? Miss Sumner is not a director of this company." - Colonel |
| "Miss Sumner controls forty per cent. of the Laguna Grande stock, sir.
I took that into consideration." - Sexton |
| "You lie!" - Colonel |
| "You took into
consideration your job as secretary and general manager. Damnation!" - Colonel |
| "You
fool!" - Colonel |
| "Get out of here and leave me alone." - Colonel |
| "Shirley," - Colonel |
| "what is the meaning of this directors' meeting you have
requested?" - Colonel |
| "Be seated, Uncle Seth," - Shirley Sumner |
| "If
you will only be quiet and reasonable, perhaps we can dispense with this
directors' meeting which appears to frighten you so." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I scarcely know how to begin, Uncle Seth," - Shirley Sumner |
| "It hurts me terribly to be forced to hurt you, but there
doesn't appear to be any other way out of it. I cannot trust you to manage
my financial affairs in the future--this for a number of reasons, the
principal one being--" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Young Cardigan," - Colonel |
| "I suppose so," - Shirley Sumner |
| "although I did think
until very recently that it was those sixteen townships of red
cedar--that crown grant in British Columbia in which you induced me to
invest four hundred thousand dollars. You will remember that you purchased
that timber for me from the Caribou Timber Company, Limited. You said it was
an unparalleled investment. Quite recently I learned--no matter how--that
you were the principal owner of the Caribou Timber Company, Limited! Smart
as you are, somebody swindled you with that red cedar. It was a wonderful
stand of timber--so read the cruiser's report--but fifty per cent. of it,
despite its green and flourishing appearance, is hollow-butted! And the
remaining fifty per cent. of sound timber cannot be logged unless the rotten
timber is logged also and gotten out of the way also. And I am informed that
logging it spells bankruptcy." - Shirley Sumner |
| "You had erected a huge sawmill and built and equipped a logging-road
before you discovered you had been swindled. So, in order to save as much as
possible from the wreck, you decided to unload your white elephant on
somebody else. I was the readiest victim. You were the executor of my
father's estate--you were my guardian and financial adviser, and so you
found it very, very easy to swindle me!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I had my back to the wall," - Colonel |
| "I was
desperate--and it wasn't at all the bad investment you have been told it is.
You had the money--more money than you knew what to do with--and with the
proceeds of the sale of those cedar lands, I knew I could
make an investment in California redwood and more than retrieve my
fortunes-- make big money for both of us." - Colonel |
| "You might have borrowed the money from me. You know I have never
hesitated to join in your enterprises." - Shirley Sumner |
| "This was too big a deal for you, Shirley. I had vision. I could see
incalculable riches in this redwood empire, but it was a tremendous gamble
and required twenty millions to swing it at the very start. I dreamed of the
control of California redwood; and if you will stand by me, Shirley, I shall
yet make my dream come true--and half of it shall be yours. It has always
been my intention to buy back from you secretly and at a nice profit to you
that Caribou red cedar, and with the acquisition of the Cardigan properties
I would have been in position to do so. Why, that Cardigan tract in the San
Hedrin which we will buy in within a year for half a million is worth five
millions at least. And by that time, I feel certain--in fact, I know-- the
Northern Pacific will commence building in from the south, from
Willits." - Colonel |
| "You shall not smash the
Cardigans," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I shall--" - Colonel |
| "You are devoid of mercy, of a sense of sportsmanship. Now, then,
Uncle Seth, listen to me: You have twenty-four hours in which to make up
your mind whether to accept my ultimatum or refuse it. If you refuse, I shall prosecute you for fraud and a betrayal of trust as my
father's executor on that red-cedar timber deal." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I'm afraid that would be a long, hard row to
hoe, my dear, and of course, I shall have to defend myself." - Colonel |
| "In addition," - Shirley Sumner |
| "the county
grand jury shall be furnished with a stenographic report of your
conversation of Thursday night with Mayor Poundstone. That will not be a
long, hard row to hoe, Uncle Seth, for in addition to the stenographer, I
have another very reliable witness, Judge Moore. Your casual disposal of my
sedan as a bribe to the Mayor will be hard to explain and rather amusing, in
view of the fact that Bryce Cardigan managed to frighten Mr. Poundstone into
returning the sedan while you were away. And if that is not sufficient for
my purposes, I have the sworn confession of the Black Minorca that you gave
him five hundred dollars to kill Bryce Cardigan. Your woods-boss, Rondeau,
will also swear that you approached him with a proposition to do away with
Bryce Cardigan. I think, therefore, that you will readily see how impossible
a situation you have managed to create and will not disagree with me when I
suggest that it would be better for you to leave this county." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I can't," - Colonel |
| "I can't leave this great business now. Your own interests in the
company render such a course unthinkable. Without my hand at the helms,
things will go to smash." - Colonel |
| "I'll risk that. I want to get rid of that worthless red-cedar timber;
so I think you had better buy it back from me at the same
figure at which, you sold it to me." - Shirley Sumner |
| "But I haven't the money and I can't borrow it. I--I---" - Colonel |
| "I will have the equivalent in stock of the Laguna Grande Lumber
Company. You will call on Judge Moore to complete the transaction and leave
with him your resignation as president of the Laguna Grande Lumber
Company." - Shirley Sumner |
| "She is a Pennington!" - Colonel |
| "I am showing you more mercy than you deserve--you to whom mercy was
ever a sign of weakness, of vacillation. There is a gulf between us, Uncle
Seth--a gulf which for a long time I have dimly sensed and which, because of
my recent discoveries, has widened until it can no longer be bridged." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Don't touch me," - Shirley Sumner |
| "You planned to kill Bryce Cardigan! And for that--and
that alone--I shall never forgive you." - Shirley Sumner |
| "There will be no directors' meeting, Mr. Sexton," - Shirley Sumner |
| "It is
postponed." - Shirley Sumner |
| Chapter 38 |
| "Poor dear!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "God didn't spare you
for much happiness, did He?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Who is
it?" - John Cardigan |
| "Who is it?" - John Cardigan |
| "Shirley Sumner," - Shirley Sumner |
| "You do not know me, Mr.
Cardigan." - Shirley Sumner |
| "No," - John Cardigan |
| "I do not. That is a name I have
heard, however. You are Seth Pennington's niece. Is someone with you?" - John Cardigan |
| "I am quite alone, Mr. Cardigan." - Shirley Sumner |
| "And why did you come here alone?" - John Cardigan |
| "I--I wanted to think." - Shirley Sumner |
| "You mean you wanted to think clearly, my dear. Ah, yes, this is the
place for thoughts." - John Cardigan |
| "You were
thinking aloud, Miss Shirley Sumner. I heard you. You said: 'Poor dear, God
didn't spare you for much happiness, did He?' And I think you rearranged my
roses. Didn't I have them on her grave?" - John Cardigan |
| "Yes, Mr. Cardigan. I was merely making room for some wild flowers I
had gathered." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Indeed. Then you knew--about her being here." - John Cardigan |
| "Yes, sir. Some ten years ago, when I was a very little girl, I met
your son Bryce. He gave me a ride on his Indian pony, and we came here. So I
remember." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Well, I declare! Ten years ago, eh? You've met, eh? You've met Bryce
since his return to Sequoia, I believe. He's quite a fellow now." - John Cardigan |
| "He is indeed." - Shirley Sumner |
| "So that's why you thought aloud," - John Cardigan |
| "Bryce told you about her. You are right, Miss
Shirley Sumner. God didn't give her much time for happiness--just three
years; but oh, such wonderful years! Such wonderful years!" - John Cardigan |
| "It was mighty fine of you to bring flowers," - John Cardigan |
| "I appreciate that. I wish I could see you. You must be a
dear, nice, thoughtful girl. Won't you sit down and talk to me?" - John Cardigan |
| "I should be glad to," - Shirley Sumner |
| "So you came up here to do a little clear thinking," - John Cardigan |
| "Do you come here
often?" - John Cardigan |
| "This is the third time in ten years," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I
feel that I have no business to intrude here. This is your shrine, and
strangers should not profane it." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I think I should have resented the presence of any other person, Miss
Sumner. I resented you--until you spoke." - John Cardigan |
| "I'm glad you said that, Mr. Cardigan. It sets me at ease." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I hadn't been up here for nearly two years until recently. You see
I--I don't own the Valley of the Giants any more." - John Cardigan |
| "Indeed. To whom have you sold it?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I do not know, Miss Sumner. I had to sell; there was no other way out
of the jam Bryce and I were in; so I sacrificed my sentiment for my boy.
However, the new owner has been wonderfully kind and thoughtful. She
reorganized that old skid-road so even an old blind duffer like me can find
his way in and out without getting lost--and she had this easy-chair made
for me. I have told Judge Moore, who represents the unknown owner, to extend
my thanks to his client. But words are so empty, Shirley Sumner. If that new
owner could only understand how truly grateful I am--how profoundly her
courtesy touches me--" - John Cardigan |
| "HER courtesy?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Did a woman buy the
Giants?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Why, certainly. Who but a woman--and a dear,
kind, thoughtful woman--would have thought to have this chair made and
brought up here for me?" - John Cardigan |
| "Why, how stupid of me not to have
guessed it immediately!" - John Cardigan |
| "You are the new owner. My
dear child, if the silent prayers of a very unhappy old man will bring God's
blessing on you--there, there, girl! I didn't intend to make you weep. What
a tender heart it is, to be sure!" - John Cardigan |
| "Oh, you must not
tell anybody! You mustn't," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Good land of
love, girl, what made you do it? Why should a girl like you give a hundred
thousand dollars for my Valley of the Giants? Were you"--
hesitatingly--"your uncle's agent?" - John Cardigan |
| "No, I bought it myself--with my own money. My uncle doesn't know I am
the new owner. You see, he wanted it--for nothing." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Ah, yes. I suspected as much a long time ago. Your uncle is the
modern type of business man. Not very much of an idealist, I'm afraid. But
tell me why you decided to thwart the plans of your relative." - John Cardigan |
| "I knew it hurt you terribly to sell your Giants; they were dear to
you for sentimental reasons. I understood, also, why you were forced to
sell; so I--well, I decided the Giants would be safer in my possession than
in my uncle's. In all probability he would have logged this valley for the
sake of the clear seventy-two-inch boards he could get from these
trees." - Shirley Sumner |
| "That does not explain satisfactorily, to me, why you
took sides with a stranger against your own kin," - John Cardigan |
| "There must be a deeper and more potent reason, Miss
Shirley Sumner." - John Cardigan |
| "Well," - Shirley Sumner |
| "when I came
to Sequoia last May, your son and I met, quite accidentally. The stage to
Sequoia had already gone, and he was gracious enough to invite me to make
the journey in his car. Then we recalled having met as children, and
presently I gathered from his conversation that he and his John-partner, as
he called you, were very dear to each other. I was witness to your meeting
that night--I saw him take you in his big arms and hold you tight because
you'd--gone blind while he was away having a good time. And you hadn't told
him! I thought that was brave of you; and later, when Bryce and Moira
McTavish told me about you-- how kind you were, how you felt your
responsibility toward your employees and the community--well, I just
couldn't help a leaning toward John-partner and John-partner's boy, because
the boy was so fine and true to his father's ideals." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Ah, he's a man. He is indeed," - John Cardigan |
| "I dare say you'll never get to know him intimately, but if
you should--" - John Cardigan |
| "I know him intimately," - Shirley Sumner |
| "He saved my
life the day the log-train ran away. And that was another reason. I owed him
a debt, and so did my uncle; but Uncle wouldn't pay his share, and I had to
pay for him." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Wonderful," - John Cardigan |
| "wonderful! But
still you haven't told me why you paid a hundred thousand
dollars for the Giants when you could have bought them for fifty thousand.
You had a woman's reason, I dare say, and women always reason from the
heart, never the head. However, if you do not care to tell me, I shall not
insist. Perhaps I have appeared, unduly inquisitive." - John Cardigan |
| "I would rather not tell you," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Why should I ask, when I know?" - John Cardigan |
| "Am I allowed one guess, Miss Shirley Sumner?" - John Cardigan |
| "Yes, but you would never guess the reason." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I am a very wise old man. When one sits in the dark, one sees much
that was hidden from him in the full glare of the light. My son is proud,
manly, independent, and the soul of honour. He needed a hundred thousand
dollars; you knew it. Probably your uncle informed you. You wanted to loan
him some money, but--you couldn't. You feared to offend him by proffering
it; had you proffered it, he would have declined it. So you bought my Valley
of the Giants at a preposterous price and kept your action a secret." - John Cardigan |
| "What is that?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "That is my son, coming to fetch his old daddy home," - John Cardigan |
| "That thing he's howling is an Indian war-song or paean of
triumph--something his nurse taught him when he wore
pinafores. If you'll excuse me, Miss Shirley Sumner, I'll leave you now. I
generally contrive to meet him on the trail." - John Cardigan |
| "Hello,
John Cardigan!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What do you mean by skallyhooting
through these woods without a pilot? Eh? Explain your reckless conduct." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You great overgrown duffer," - John Cardigan |
| "I thought you'd never come." - John Cardigan |
| "By gravy, son," - John Cardigan |
| "I do believe I left my silk handkerchief--the one Moira gave me for my
last birthday--up yonder. I wouldn't lose that handkerchief for a farm. Skip
along and find it for me, son. I'll wait for you here. Don't hurry." - John Cardigan |
| "I'll be back in a pig's whisper," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You--you!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "The governor sent me back to look for his handkerchief, Shirley," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He didn't tell me you were here. Guess he didn't hear
you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I'm tremendously glad
to see you to-day, Shirley," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Fate has been singularly kind to me. Indeed, I've been pondering all day
as to just how I was to arrange a private and confidential little chat with
you, without calling upon you at your uncle's house." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I don't feel like chatting to-day," - Shirley Sumner |
| "I've waited too long, sweetheart," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Thank
God, I can tell you at last all the things that have been accumulating in my
heart. I love you, Shirley. I've loved you from that first day we met at the
station, and all these months of strife and repression have merely served to
make me love you the more. Perhaps you have been all the dearer to me
because you seemed so hopelessly unattainable." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I love
you," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "All that I have--all that I am--all that I hope to be--I offer to
you, Shirley Sumner; and in the shrine of my heart I shall hold you sacred
while life shall last. You are not indifferent to me, dear. I know you're
not; but tell me--answer me--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Ah, may I?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, my dear, impulsive, gentle big sweetheart," - Shirley Sumner |
| "Oh, my love!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I hadn't dared dream
of such happiness until to-day. You were so unattainable--the obstacles
between us were so many and so great--" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Why to-day, Bryce?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "The light began to dawn yesterday, my dear little enemy,
following an interesting half-hour which I put in with His Honour the Mayor.
Acting upon suspicion only, I told Poundstone I was prepared to send him to
the rock-pile if he didn't behave himself in the matter of my permanent
franchise for the N.C.O.--and the oily old invertebrate wept and promised me
anything if I wouldn't disgrace him. So I promised I wouldn't do anything
until the franchise matter should be definitely settled--after
which I returned to my office, to find awaiting me there no less a person
than the right-of-way man for the Northwestern Pacific. He was a perfectly
delightful young fellow, and he had a proposition to unfold. It seems the
Northwestern Pacific has decided to build up from Willits, and all that
powwow and publicity of Buck Ogilvy's about the N.C.O. was in all
probability the very thing that spurred them to action. They figured the
C.M. & St.P. was back of the N.C.O.--that it was to be the first
link of a chain of coast roads to be connected ultimately with the terminus
of the C.M. & St.P. on Gray's Harbour, Washington, and if the N.C.O.
should be built, it meant that a rival road would get the edge on them in
the matter of every stick of Humboldt and Del Norte redwood-- and they'd be
left holding the sack." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Why did they think that, dear?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "That amazing rascal Buck Ogilvy used to be a C. M. & St. P. man; the thought they traced an analogy, I dare say. Perhaps Buck fibbed to them. At any rate, this right-of-way man was mighty anxious to know whether or not the N.C.O. had purchased frmo the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company a site for a terminus on tidewater (we control all teh deep-water frontage on the Bay), and when I told him the deal had not yet been closed, he started to close one with me." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Did you close?" - Shirley Sumner |
| My dear girl, will a duck swim? Of course I closed. I sold three quarters of all we had, for three quarters of a million dollars, and an hour ago I received a wire from my attorney in San Francisco informing
me that the money
had been deposited in escrow there awaiting formal deed. That money puts the
Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company in the clear--no receivership for us now, my
dear one. And I'm going right ahead with the building of the N.C.O.--while
our holdings down on the San Hedrin double in value, for the reason that
within three years they will be accessible and can be logged over the rails
of the Northwestern Pacific!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Bryce," - Shirley Sumner |
| "haven't I always told you
I'd never permit you to build the N.C.O.?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "Of course," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "but surely you're going to
withdraw your objections now." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I am not. You must choose between the N.C.O. and me." - Shirley Sumner |
| "Shirley! You don't mean it?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I do mean it. I have always meant it. I love you, dear, but for all
that, you must not build that road." - Shirley Sumner |
| "I must build it, Shirley.
I've contracted to do it, and I must keep faith with Gregory of the Trinidad
Timber Company. He's putting up the money, and I'm to do the work and
operate the line. I can't go back on him now." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Not for my sake?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I
must go on," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Do you realize what that resolution means to us?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I realize what it means to me!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Oh, you dear big booby!" - Shirley Sumner |
| "I was just testing you." - Shirley Sumner |
| "You always beat me down--you always win. Bryce, dear, I'm the Laguna
Grande Lumber Company--at least, I will be to-morrow, and I repeat for the
last time that you shall NOT build the N.C.O.--because I'm going to--oh,
dear, I shall die laughing at you--because I'm going to merge with the
Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company, and then my railroad shall be your
railroad, and we'll extend it and haul Gregory's logs to tidewater for him
also. And--silly, didn't I tell you you'd never build the N.C.O.?" - Shirley Sumner |
| "God bless my mildewed soul!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Well," - John Cardigan |
| "did you find
my handkerchief for me, son?" - John Cardigan |
| "I didn't find your handkerchief, John Cardigan," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "but I did find what I suspect you sent me back for--and that is a
perfectly wonderful daughter-in-law for you." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "This," - John Cardigan |
| "is the happiest day that I have known since my boy was
born." - John Cardigan |
| Chapter 40 |
| "Big doings up on Little Laurel Creek this morning, Buck." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Do tell!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "It was great," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Old Duncan McTavish
returned. I knew he would. His year on the mourner's-bench expired
yesterday, and he came back to claim his old job of woods-boss." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He's one year too late," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I wouldn't
let that big Canadian Jules Rondeau quit for a farm. Some woods-boss,
that--and his first job with this company was the dirtiest you could hand
him-- smearing grease on the skid-road at a dollar and a half a day and
found. He's made too good to lose out now. I don't care what his private
morals may be. He CAN get out the logs, hang his rascally hide, and I'm for
him." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I'm afraid you haven't anything to say about it, Buck," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "I haven't, eh? Well, any time you deny me the privilege
of hiring and firing, you're going to be out the service of a rattling good
general manager, my son. Yes, sir! If you hold me responsible for results, I
must select the tools I want to work with." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Oh, very well," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Have it your own way.
Only if you can drive Duncan McTavish out of Cardigan's woods, I'd like to
see you do it. Possession is nine points of the law, Buck--and Old Duncan is
in possession." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What do you mean--in possession?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I mean that at ten o'clock this morning Duncan McTavish appeared at
our log-landing. The whisky-fat was all gone from him, and he appeared forty
years old instead of the sixty he is. With a whoop he came jumping over the
logs, straight for Jules Rondeau. The big Canuck saw him coming and knew
what his visit portended--so he wasn't taken unawares. It was a case of
fight for his job--and Rondeau fought." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The devil you say!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I do--and there was the devil to pay. It was a rough and tumble and
no grips barred--just the kind of fight Rondeau likes. Nevertheless old
Duncan floored him. While he's been away somebody taught him the hammer-lock
and the crotch-hold and a few more fancy ones, and he got to work on Rondeau
in a hurry. In fact, he had to, for if the tussle had gone over five
minutes, Rondeau's youth would have decided the issue." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "And Rondeau was whipped?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "To a whisper. Mac floored him, climbed him, and choked him until he
beat the ground with his free hand in token of surrender; whereupon old
Duncan let him up, and Rondeau went to his shanty and packed
his turkey. The last I saw of him he was headed over the hill to Camp Two on
Laguna Grande. He'll probably chase that assistant woods-boss I hired after
the consolidation, out of Shirley's woods and help himself to the fellow's
job. I don't care if he does. What interests me is the fact that the old
Cardigan woods-boss is back on the job in Cardigan's woods, and I'm mighty
glad of it. The old horsethief has had his lesson and will remain sober
hereafter. I think he's cured." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "The infamous old outlaw!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Mac knows the San Hedrin as I know my own pocket. He'll be a tower of
strength when we open up that tract after the railroad builds in. By the
way, has my dad been down this morning?" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Yes. Moira read the mail to him and then took him up to the Valley of
the Giants. He said he wanted to do a little quiet figuring on that new
steam schooner you're thinking of building. He thinks she ought to be
bigger--big enough to carry two million feet." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "It's half after eleven," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Guess I'll run up to the Giants and bring him home to luncheon." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Moira," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "your dad is back, and what's more, Bryce Cardigan has let him
have his old job as woods-boss. And I'm here to announce that you're not
going back to the woods to keep house for him. Understand?
Now, look here, Moira. I've shilly-shallied around you for months,
protesting my love, and I haven't gotten anywhere. To-day I'm going to ask
you for the last time. Will you marry me? I need you worse than that rascal
of a father of yours does, and I tell you I'll not have you go back to the
woods to take care of him. Come, now, Moira. Do give me a definite
answer." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I'm afraid I don't love you well enough to marry you, Mr.
Ogilvy," - Moira McTavish |
| "I'm truly fond of you, but--" - Moira McTavish |
| "The last boat's gone," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I'm answered. Well, I'll not stick around here much longer, Moira. I
realize I must be a nuisance, but I can't help being a nuisance when you're
near me. So I'll quit my good job here and go back to my old game of
railroading." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Oh, you wouldn't quit a ten-thousand-dollar job," - Moira McTavish |
| "I'd quit a million-dollar job. I'm desperate enough to go over to the
mill and pick a fight with the big bandsaw. I'm going away where I can't see
you. Your eyes are driving me crazy." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "But I don't want you to go, Mr. Ogilvy." - Moira McTavish |
| "Call me Buck," - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I don't want you to go, Buck," - Moira McTavish |
| "I
shall feel guilty, driving you out of a fine position." - Moira McTavish |
| "Then marry me and I'll stay." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "But suppose I don't love you the way you deserve--" - Moira McTavish |
| "Suppose! Suppose!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "You're no longer certain of yourself. How dare you deny your love for
me? Eh? Moira, I'll risk it." - Buck Ogilvy |
| "I don't know," - Moira McTavish |
| "and it's a big responsibility in case--" - Moira McTavish |
| "Oh, the devil take the case!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Do I improve with age, dear Moira?" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Oh, Buck, dear," - Moira McTavish |
| "I don't know, I'm
sure, but perhaps I've loved you a little bit for a long time." - Moira McTavish |
| "I'm perfectly wild over you. You're the most wonderful woman I ever
heard of. Old rosy-cheeks!" - Buck Ogilvy |
| "Wake up, partner," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "John Cardigan!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Wake up, old pal." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "Good
son," - John Cardigan |
| "good son!" - John Cardigan |
| "I've been sitting here--waiting," - John Cardigan |
| "No, not waiting for you, boy--waiting--" - John Cardigan |
| "Listen," - John Cardigan |
| "Can't you hear it--the
Silence? I'll wait for you here, my son. Mother and I will wait together
now-- in this spot she fancied. I'm tired--I want rest. Look after old Mac
and Moira--and Bill Dandy, who lost his leg at Camp Seven last fall-- and
Tom Ellington's children--and--all the others, son. You know, Bryce. They're
your responsibilities. Sorry I can't wait to see the San Hedrin opened up,
but--I've lived my life and loved my love. Ah, yes, I've been happy--so
happy just doing things--and--dreaming here among my Giants--and--" - John Cardigan |
| "Good son," - John Cardigan |
| "Good-bye, old John-partner!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You've escaped into the light at last. We'll go home together now,
but we'll come back again." - Bryce Cardigan |
| "He was a giant among men," - Bryce Cardigan |
| "What
a fitting place for him to lie!" - Bryce Cardigan |
| "You made it possible, sweetheart." - Bryce Cardigan |