I mean, how I met and married Nancy, when she was widow of that no-account McDonald feller, the editor of The Abercrombie Herald!"
Bat nodded.
"Yes, sure, I know, Les. When you married Nancy an' made her thirteen-year-old daughter—your daughter."
"Yes. I'd almost forgotten. Yes, there's her girl, Nancy. She's still at school. Well, anyway, you know, these things, all of 'em. But what you don't know is that you—you Bat, old friend, are solely responsible for all the work that's being done here. You, old friend, are responsible that I've enjoyed seven years of something approaching peace of mind. You, you with your bulldog fighting spirit, you with your hell-may-care manner of shouldering responsibility, and facing every threat, have been the staunch pillar on which I have always leant. Without you I'd have gone under years ago, a victim of my own mental ghosts. No, no, Bat," he went on quickly, as the lumberman shook his head in sharp denial, "it's useless. I know. Leaning on you I've built up around me the reality of that original dream, with the other things I've now lost, and with every ounce in me I've worked for its fulfilment.
"Well, what's the logic of it all?" he continued, after a moment's pause. "Yes, it is the logic of it. You may argue that for seven years I've been doing a big work and there's no reason, in spite of what's happened, that I should now abandon it all. But there is. And in your strong old heart you'll know the thing I say is true—if cowardly. During seven years, or part of them, I've known a happiness that's compensated for every terror I've endured. Nancy's been my guardian angel, and the boy, that was to be born, was the beacon light of my life. My poor little wife has gone, and that beacon light, the son we yearned for, has been snuffed right out. And in the shadows left I see only the groping hand of Hellbeam reaching out towards me. In the end that hand will get me, and crush the remains of my miserable life out. I know. Just as sure as God, Hellbeam's going to get me."
The sweat of terror stood on the man's high forehead, and he wiped it away.
Bat flung a clenched fist down upon the tree stump.
"You're wrong, Les. You're plumb wrong. If it means murder I swear before God Hellbeam'll never lay hands on you. Hellbeam? Gee! Let him set his nose north of 'fifty' and I'll promise him a welcome so hot that'll leave hell like a glacier. As for his darn agents? Why, say, I want to feel sorry for 'em 'fore they start. Idepski's hating himself right—"
"I know," cried Standing impatiently. "I know it all. Everything you've said you mean, but—it won't save me. But we can leave all that. There's the other things. Why should I go on living here, working, slaving, haunted by the terror of Hellbeam? With my boy, my wife, to fight for it was worth all the agony. But without them—why? Why in the name of sanity should I go on? To beat the Skandinavians out of Canada's trade, and claim it all for a country that doesn't care a curse? To build up a great name that in the end must be dragged in the mire of public estimation? Not on your life, Bat. No, no. I'm going to cut adrift. I'm going to quit. I'm going to lose myself in these forests, and live the remaining years of my life free to run to earth at the first shot of the hunter's gun. It's all that's left me—as I see it."
"And all this?" Bat said, reaching out one great hand in the direction of the Cove. "An' that school gal 'way down at Abercrombie, learning her knitting, an' letters, an' crying her dandy eyes out for the mother who had to leave her there when she passed over to you? Say, Les, you best go on. Jest go right on an' I'll say my piece after."
Standing sat up. A deep earnestness was in the dark eyes that looked fearlessly into Bat's. He took the other at his word and went on. He had nothing to conceal.
"The mill? Why, I want to pass it over to your care, Bat," he said, permitting one swift regretful glance in the direction of the grey waters below them. Then he spoke almost feverishly. "Here's the proposition. I'm going to hand you full powers—through Charles Nisson. You'll run this thing on the lines laid down. If you fancy carrying on the original proposition of extension, well and good. If not, just carry on and leave the rest for—later. You'll be manager for me through Nisson. I shan't remove one cent of capital. I don't want Hellbeam's money beyond the barest grub stake. It'll remain under Nisson's guardianship for your use in running this mill. You'll simply satisfy Nisson. For the rest I shan't interfere. You're drawing a big salary now. Well, seeing I go out of the work, that salary will be doubled. That's for the immediate. Then there's the future. I've a notion. Maybe it's a crazy notion. But it's mine and I mean to test it. Here. We reckon to build up this enterprise for one great, big purpose. It was my dream to break the Skandinavian ring governing the groundwood trade of this country. It was work that appealed to my imagination. I wanted to build this great thing and pass it on to my boy. It seemed to me fine. Worth while. It was a man's work, and it seemed to me a life well spent. I had the guts then—with your support, and the support the thought of my son gave me. I haven't the guts now. The notion fired you, too. It fired you, and it'll grieve you desperately to see it abandoned. It shan't be abandoned. Once in the woods of this queer country I found a man—such a man as is rarely found. He was a man into whose hands I could put my life. And I guess there's no greater trust one man can have in another. He was a man of immense capacity. A man of intellect for all he had no schooling but the schooling of Quebec's rough woods. That man was you, Bat. I'd like to say to you: 'Here's the property. You know the scheme. Go on. Carry it through.' But I can't. I can't because one man can't do it. Well, the woods gave me one man, and they're going to give me another to take the place of the weak-gutted creature who intends to 'rat.' I'm going to find you a partner, a man with brain and force like yourself. A man of iron guts. And when I've found him I'm going to send him on to you. And if you approve him he shall be full partner with you in this concern the day that sees the Canadian Groundwood Trust completed, and the breaking of the Skandinavian ring. Do you follow it all? You and this man will be equal partners in the mill, and every available cent of its capital—the capital I made Hellbeam provide. It'll be yours and his, solely and alone. I—I shall pass right out of it. Hellbeam has no score against you. He has no penitentiary preparing for you. You are not concerned with him. Whatever he may have in store for me he can do nothing to you, and the money I beat him out of will have passed beyond his reach."
"And this man you figger to locate? You reckon to take a chance on your judgment?"
Bat's challenge came on the instant.
"On mine, and—yours." Standing's eyes were full of a keen confidence. And Bat realised something of the sanity lying behind a seemingly mad proposition. "He'll own nothing until he and you have completed the work as we see it. To own his share in the thing he must prove his capacity. He'll be held by the tightest and strongest contract Charles Nisson can draw up."
Bat spat out his chew. He replaced it with a pipe, and prepared to flake off its filling from a plug of tobacco. Standing watched him with the anxious eyes of a prisoner awaiting sentence. With the cutting of the first flakes of tobacco, Bat looked up.
"And this little gal-child, with the same name as the mother who just meant the whole of everything life could hand you? This kiddie with her mother's blood running in innocent veins? She's your Nancy's daughter and I guess your marriage made her yours."
"She's another man's child."
Standing's retort was instant. And the tone of it cut like a knife.
Bat regarded him keenly. His knife had ceased from its work on the plug.
"That's so," he said after a while. Then his gaze drifted in the direction of the house across the water, and the expression in the grey depths of his eyes became lost to the man who could not forget that the remaining child of his wife was the offspring of another man. "It seems queer," he went on reflectively. "That woman, your Nancy, was about the best loved wife, a fellow could think of. She was all sorts of a woman to you. Guess she was mostly the sun, moon, an' stars of your
