"No, no, auntie, it doesn't. You would never question uncle. You are a woman, and just as foolish and stupid about that sort of thing as the rest of us. We must take our men on trust. They are men, and their lives are different from ours. We cannot judge them, or, at any rate, we would rather not. Why does a woman cling to a scoundrelly husband who ill-treats her and makes her life one long round of worry, and even misery? Is it because she simply has to? No. It is because he is her man. He is hers, and she would rather have his unkindness than another man's caresses. Foolish we may be, and I am not sure but that we would rather be foolish – where our men are concerned. Jim has come back. His past five years are his. I am going to take up my little story where it was broken five years ago. The stories I have heard are nothing to me. So, if you don't mind, dear, we will close the subject."
"And – and you love him?" questioned the elder woman.
But the girl had turned to the window. She pointed out down the road in the direction of the village.
"Here is uncle returning," she said, ignoring the question. "He's hurrying. Why – he's actually running!"
"Running?"
Mrs. Chepstow bustled to the girl's side, and both stood watching the vigorous form of the parson racing up the trail. Just as he came to the veranda they turned from the window and their eyes met. Betty's were full of pained apprehension, while her aunt's were alight with perplexed curiosity. Betty felt that she knew something of the meaning of her uncle's undignified haste. She did not actually interpret it, she knew it meant disaster, but the nature of that disaster never entered into her thought. Something was wrong, she knew instinctively; and, with the patience of strength, she made no attempt to even guess at it, but simply waited. Her aunt rushed at the parson as he entered the room and flung aside his soft felt hat. Betty gazed mutely at the flaming anger she saw in his blue eyes, as his wife questioned him.
"What is it?" she demanded. "What has happened?"
Parson Tom drew a chair up to the table and flung himself into it.
"We'll have tea," he said curtly.
His wife obediently took her seat.
"And Jim?" she questioned.
The angry blue eyes still flashed.
"We won't wait for him."
Then Betty came to the man's side and laid one small brown hand firmly on his shoulder.
"You – you saw him?" she demanded.
Her uncle shook her hand off almost roughly.
"Yes – I saw him," he said.
"And why isn't he here?" the girl persisted without a tremor, without even noticing his rebuff.
"Because he's lying on his bed at the hotel – drunk. Blind drunk, – confound him."
CHAPTER VII
THE WORK AT THE MILLS
It was sundown. The evening shadows, long drawn out, were rapidly merging into the purple shades of twilight. The hush of night was stealing upon the valley.
There was one voice alone, one discordant note, to jar upon the peace of Nature's repose. It was the voice of Dave's mills, a voice that was never silent. The village, with all its bustling life, its noisy boarding-houses, its well-filled drinking booths, its roystering lumber-jacks released from their day's toil, was powerless to disturb that repose. But the harsh voice of the driving machinery rose dominant above all other sounds. Repose was impossible, even for Nature, where the restless spirit of Dave's enterprise prevailed.
The vast wooden structures of the mills, acres of them, stood like some devouring growth at the very core of Nature's fair body. It almost seemed like a living organism feeding upon all the best she had to yield. Day and night the saws, like the gleaming fangs of a voracious life, tore, devoured, digested, and the song of its labors droned without ceasing.
Controlling, directing, ordering to the last detail, Dave sat in his unpretentious office. Love of the lumberman's craft ran hot in his veins. He had been born and bred to it. He had passed through its every phase. He was a sawyer whose name was historical in the forests of Oregon. As a cant-hook man he had few equals. As foreman he could extract more work from these simple woodsman giants than could those he employed in a similar capacity.
In work he was inevitable. His men knew that when he demanded they must yield. In this direction he displayed no sympathy, no gentleness. He knew the disposition of the lumber-jack. These woodsmen rate their employer by his driving power. They understand and expect to be ruled by a stern discipline, and if this treatment is not forthcoming, their employer may just as well abandon his enterprise for all the work they will yield him.
But though this was Dave in his business, it was the result of his tremendous force of character rather than the nature of the man. If he drove, it was honestly, legitimately. He paid for the best a man could give him, and he saw that he got it. Sickness was sure of ready sympathy, not outspoken, but practical. He was much like the prairie man with his horse. His beast is cared for far better than its master cares for himself, but it must work, and work enthusiastically to the last ounce of its power. Fail, and the horse must go. So it was with Dave. The man who failed him would receive his "time" instantly. There was no question, no excuse. And every lumber-jack knew this and gladly entered his service.
Dave was closeted with his foreman, Joel Dawson, receiving the day's report.
"The tally's eighty thousand," Dawson was saying.
Dave looked up from his books. His keen, humorous eyes surveyed the man's squat figure.
"Not enough," he said.
"She's pressing hard now," came the man's rejoinder, almost defensively.
"She's got to do twenty thousand more," retorted Dave finally.
"Then y'll have to give her more saw room."
"We'll see to it. Meanwhile shove her. How are the logs running? Is Mason keeping the length?"
"Guess he cayn't do better. We ain't handled nothin' under eighty foot."
"Good. They're driving down the river fast?"
"The boom's full, an' we're workin' 'em good an' plenty." The man paused. "'Bout more saw beds an' rollers," he went on a moment later. "Ther' ain't an inch o' space, boss. We'll hev to build."
Dave shook his head and faced round from his desk.
"There's no time. You'll have to take out the gang saws and replace them for log trimming."
Dawson spat into the spittoon. He eyed the ugly, powerful young features of his boss speculatively while he made a swift mental calculation.
"That'll mebbe give us eight thousand more. 'Tain't enough, I guess," he said emphatically. "Say, there's that mill up river. Her as belongs to Jim Truscott. If we had her runnin' I 'lows we'd handle twenty-five thousand on a day and night shift. Givin' us fifty all told."
Dave's eyes lit.
"I've thought of that," he said. "That'll put us up with a small margin. I'll see what can be done. How are the new boys making? I've had a good report from Mason up on No. 1 camp. He's transferred his older hands to new camps, and has the new men with him. He's started to cut on Section 80. His estimate is ten million in the stump on that cut; all big stuff. He's running a big saw-gang up there. The roads were easy making and good for travoying, and most of the timber is within half a mile of the river. We don't need to worry about the 'drive.' He's got the stuff plenty, and all the 'hands' he needs. It's the mill right here that's worrying."
Dawson took a fresh chew.
"Yes, it's the mill, I guess," he said slowly. "That an' this yer strike. We're goin' to feel it – the strike, I mean. The engineers and firemen are going 'out,' I hear, sure."
"That doesn't hit us," said Dave sharply. But there was a keen look of inquiry in his eyes.
"Don't it?" Dawson raised his shaggy eyebrows.
"Our stuff is merely to be placed