The Man in the Twilight by Ridgwell Cullum

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Elas shook his head--

"There are two men in it we recognise. A man named Harker and another
called Sternford--Bull Sternford. We know little of either. You see,
it's kind of far away. Anyway, between them they're pretty--bright. I
don't think they built the mill. I'm sure that's so. It was a man called
Standing. But he seems to have gone out of active management. I might
start by writing them and feel the way."

"Ach no!" Hellbeam shook his head in violent protest. "You write--no.
You have your confidential man, yes? You send him. I give you the
outline of terms. I give you alternative terms. Big terms. He will go.
He will talk. He will hear. Then we will later come to terms. All men
will sell--on terms. Your man. Where is he? I must see him. Then the
Board. It meets. I will address it. I show them how this thing will
serve."

"That's all right, sir," Elas was smiling. "You couldn't offer the Board
a more welcome proposition than the purchase of Sachigo just now. We're
changing our forest organisation right now, and that means temporary
delays and drop in output. Sachigo's our worry while we're doing it. But
with your permission I won't send a man up there. I think," he added
deliberately, "I'd like to send a--woman."

Hellbeam's face was a study. His little eyes opened to their widest
extent. His heavy lips parted, and he snatched his cigar into the safety
of his white fingers.

"A--woman--for this thing? You crazy are!"

There was no restraint or pretence of restraint. The other's smile was
more confident than might have been expected before such an intolerant
outburst.

"Guess a woman has her limitations, sir. Maybe this one hasn't a wide
experience. But she's clever. She's loyal to us, and she's got that
which counts a whole heap when it comes to getting a man on her side.
You reckon to buy Sachigo. If you send a man to deal he'll get short
shrift. If there's anyone to put through this deal for Skandinavia it's
the woman I'm thinking of. And she'll put it through because she's the
woman she is, and not because of any talents. Your pardon, sir, if I
speak frankly. But from all I know of Sachigo, if you--perhaps the king
of financiers on this continent--went to these folk and offered them
double what their enterprise is worth, I guess they'd chase you out of
Labrador so quick you wouldn't have time to think the blasphemy suitable
to the occasion."

Peterman's explanation caught the humour of his countryman. The bulk of
the visitor shook under a suppressed laugh.

"Well," he retorted, "I do not go. This woman. A good-looker, eh? She is
pleasant--to men? Where is she? Who is she?"

"She's my secretary, sir." Elas jumped at the change of his visitor's
humour. "She's not much more than a kid. But she's quite a 'looker,'
I'll send for her, if you'll permit me. She's getting some reports for
me. I'll ask her to bring them up. You can see her then, sir, and, if
you'll forgive me, I won't present her to you. If I do she'll guess
something, and it's best she knows nothing of this contemplated deal--as
regards you."

For a moment the banker made no reply. He sat, an adipose mass,
breathing heavily, and sucking at his cigar. Then quite suddenly, he
nodded.

"Send for her," he said sharply.

Elas reached the telephone and rang down.

"Hello! That you? Oh, will you step up a moment, Miss McDonald? Yes. Are
they ready? Good. That's just what I want. Please. All of them."

* * * * *

Nancy knocked at the door and stepped into the room. She was carrying a
large typescript of many pages. It represented many days and evenings of
concentrated labour. It had been a labour not so much of love as of
ambition. It was an exhaustive summary of the position of the
Skandinavia's forestry in the Shagaunty Valley.

She missed the squat figure in the chair she usually occupied. She saw
nothing of the stare of the narrow eyes concentrated upon her. She saw
only the tall figure of Peterman, standing waiting for her beyond his
desk in such a position that, to reach him, she must pass herself in
review before the devouring gaze of the great banker.

She walked briskly towards him, her short skirt yielding the seductive
rustle of the silk beneath it. Her movements were beyond words in grace.
Her tall figure, so beautifully proportioned, and so daintily rounded,
displayed the becoming coat-frock she usually wore in business to
absolute perfection.

The banker's searching eyes realised all this to the last detail. He
realised much more. For his was the regard that sought beneath the
surface of things. It was that regard which every wholesome, good woman
resents. But ultimately it was the girl's face and hair that held him.
The rare beauty of the latter's colour sent a surge of appreciation
running through his sensual veins. And the perfect beauty, and delicate
charm of her pretty features, stirred him no less. Only her eyes, those
pretty, confident, intelligent, hazel depths he missed. But he waited.

"These are the papers, Mr. Peterman."

Nancy held out the typescript to the waiting man whose eyes had none of
the smiling welcome they would have had in Hellbeam's absence.

"Thank you." Elas glanced down at the neatly bound script.

"It's all complete?"

"Oh, yes. It's the whole story. It's in tabloid form. You will be able
to take the whole close in half an hour."

A rough clearing of the throat interrupted her, and Nancy discovered the
banker beside the desk. In something of a hurry she promptly turned to
depart. But Elas claimed her.

"Will you come to me after lunch?" he said pleasantly.

"I want to go into the details of that trip I explained to you. You must
get away as soon as possible."

"Directly after lunch?"

"Yes. Say three o'clock."

"Very well."

The girl again turned to go, but the banker anticipated her. As she
reached the door he stood beside it, and opened it for her to pass out.
He was holding something in his hand. It was an exquisitely formed gold
fountain-pen.

"This yours is, I think," he said heavily, while his eyes searched those
depths of hazel he had missed before.

The girl smiled as she gazed at the beautiful pen. She shook her head.

"No," she said. "I never possessed anything so beautiful in my life."

"But you drop it as you come, I think, yes?" The man's eyes were
levelled at her devouringly. Quick as thought he turned to Elas watching
the scene. "Is it yours? I see it on the carpet, yes?"

The manager was prompt to take his cue.

"It's not mine," he said. "It must be yours, Miss McDonald. If it isn't
I guess you'd best have it till we find its owner."

The girl smiled from one to the other.

"Thanks ever so much," she said, with frank pleasure. "I'll keep it till
we find the owner. It's a lovely thing."

She took the glittering pen from the fleshy fingers holding it. And just
for an instant her hand encountered the banker's. It was only for an
instant, however. A moment later the door was closed carefully behind
her by the man who had thought Elas crazy to employ a woman.

"Well?"

Elas Peterman was seated behind his desk again. His challenging smile
was directed at the heavily breathing figure of the banker who had
hurried back to his chair.

The great man laughed. It was a curious, unpleasant laugh. His heavy
cheeks were flushed, and his eyes glittered curiously.

"You're a judge, Elas, my boy," he exclaimed, with clumsy geniality.
"Oh, yes. But you are a young man. There is power in that young woman's
eyes." He laughed again. "Oh, no, I think of the young woman. It not her
capability is. See you look to your place in Skandinavia. Let her go.
She may not buy this Sachigo as I think to buy it. She will buy the men
we would drive from our path."

CHAPTER VI

THE LONELY FIGURE

The girl was leaning against the storm-ripped bole of a fallen tree. The
great figure of her companion was silhouetted against the brilliant
sky-line. He was contemplating the distance at the brink of a sheer-cut
ravine, which dropped away at his feet to giddying depths.

Nancy gazed out beyond him. For the moment he held no interest for her.
She only had eyes for the splendid picture of Nature. They were on high
ground, a great shoulder lifted them clear above their surroundings. Far
as the eye could see was a lustreless green world of unbroken forest. It
seemed to have neither beginning nor end. To the girl's imagination
there could be no break in it until the eternal snows of the Arctic were
reached.

The breadth of it all was a little overwhelming. Nancy was gazing upon
just one portion of the Skandinavia's untouched forest limits, and
somehow it left her with a feeling of protest.

She pointed with one gauntleted hand, stirred to an impulse she could
not deny.

"It's too beautiful," she said. "It isn't fair: it's not right. To think
it's all ours, and we have the right to destroy it."

The man turned. He gazed back at this unusual vision of a beautiful,
well-gowned woman in the heart of the forests. He grinned ironically,
this great, rough-bearded creature, in hard cord clothing, and with his
well-worn fur cap pressed low over his lank hair that reached well-nigh
to his shoulders.

"Why not?" he demanded roughly. "Oh, yes. It's Skandinavia's, every mile
of it. An' I guess there's hundreds an' hundreds of 'em. Ain't that what
Canada's forests are for? To feed us the stuff we're needin'? But you
don't need to worry any. We ain't cuttin' that stuff for years. Guess
the waterways out there are mostly a mean outfit that wouldn't raft a
bunch of lucifers. We need to wait permanent railroad for haulage."

Nancy accepted the statement without reply. It was impossible to stir a
man like Arden Laval to any sort of sympathy. He was hardened, crude,
first, last and all the time. He was big and brutal. His limbs were like
to the trees his men were accustomed to fell, and his hands reminded her
of the hind limbs of the mutton. She felt he had a mind that matched his
physical development.

Nancy McDonald was nearing the end of her third month of forest travel.
The Shagaunty valley lay behind her, desolated by the fierce axe of the
men who lived by their slaughter. She had seen it all. She had studied
the re-afforestation which followed on the heels of the axemen. And the
seeming puerility of this effort to salve the wounds inflicted upon
Nature had filled her with pitying contempt.

She knew the whole process of the forest industry by heart now. It
fascinated her. Oh, yes. It was picturesque, it was real, vital. The
men on the river driving down to the booms had stirred her greatest
admiration. These supermen with their muscles of iron, with the hearts
of lions, and the tongues and habits of beasts of the forest. But they
were men, wonderful men for all their savage crudity. So, too, with the
transporters and freighters handling sixty-foot logs as though dealing
with matchwood. But above all, and before all, the axemen made their
appeal.

There was nothing comparable with the rough skill of these creatures.
She had watched the flash and swing of the axe, with its edge like the
finest razor. She had seen the standing muscles like whipcord writhing
under sunburnt flesh as they served the lethal weapon. She had noted
every blow, how it was calculated to a hair's-breadth, and fell without
waste of one single ounce of power. And then the amazing result. The
fallen tree stretched out on the exact spot and in the exact direction
ready for the hauliers to bear straight away to the final transport
station.

The summer days had been filled with vital interest. And at night, weary
in body, Nancy still had time, lying in the amply, if crudely blanketed
bed provided for her in some lumber-built shanty, to contemplate the
lives of this strangely assorted race. She knew the pay of the forest
men, from the haulier to the princely axeman and river-jack. She had
seen their food, and their dwelling accommodation. She had heard such
details as were possible of telling of their recreations, and had
guessed the rest. And for all her admiration of their manhood she
pitied, in her woman's way, and felt shame for the slavery of it all.

Oh, yes. She had no illusions. She was not weakly sentimental. She
looked at it all with wide-open eyes. It was a well-paid animal life. It
was a life of eating well, of sleeping well, of gambling, and drinking,
and licence. But it was a life of such labour that only perfect
physical creatures could face.

She felt that these folks were wage slaves in the crudest meaning of the
words. There was nothing for them beyond their daily life, which was
wholly animal. Of spirituality there was none. Of future there was none.
Their leisure was given over to their pastimes, while ahead the future
lay always threatening. Stiffening muscles, disease, age. The king of
them all in his youth, in age would be abandoned and driven forth, weary
in body, aching in limbs, a derelict in the ranks of the world's labour.

She was gravely impressed by the things she saw, by the men she met.

Her summer had been an education which had stirred feelings and
sympathies almost unguessed. It was the father, she could scarcely
remember, making himself known to her. For all the ambitions firing her,
the long, fascinating days in the forests of the Shagaunty had taught
her of the existence of an "underdog," who, in himself, was the
foundation upon which the personal ambition of the more fortunate was
achieved. Without him to support the whole edifice of civilisation must
crash to the ground, and life would go back again to the bosom of that
Nature from which it sprang.

Her realisation inspired her with an added desire. It was a desire
coming straight from an honest, unsophisticated heart. She registered a
vow that whithersoever her ambitions might lead her, she would always
remember the "underdog," and work for his betterment and greater
happiness.

"So you can only cut the stuff here within reach of our light haulage
system?" Nancy demanded at last. "The rest's gone. The real big stuff, I
mean, down below in the valley. We're just driven to the plateau where
the cut looks to me more like one in twenty than any better?"

Arden Laval left his position at the brink of the ravine. He came back
to the girl in her modish costume that seemed so out of place beside the
rough clothing that Covered his body.

"Why, I guess that's so," he said. "Still, it's a deal better than one
in twenty." He laughed. "Sure. If it wasn't the darn booms 'ud need to
go hungry."

The man's French temperament left him more than appreciative of the
beauty he beheld. But he was wondering. He was searching his shrewd mind
for the real explanation of Nancy's presence in these forests. To him it
was amazing that the Skandinavia should send this girl, this
good-looker, on a journey through their forests alone. He would
willingly have asked the question. But he remembered her written
commission, signed by Elas Peterman. So he was left with no alternative
but to yield the utmost respect.

"Y'see, mam," he went on easily. "I guess I could talk quite a piece on
this thing, but maybe you won't fancy my dope. Skandinavia's been badly
spoilt by the cut in the Shagaunty Valley. You've seen it all. Guess
you've come right through. Well, that being so, you'll understand the
Shagaunty cut's been far above average. Now we're down to average.
That's all. That's how the Skandinavia's been spoilt."

He thrust his cap back from his forehead. It was a movement of
irritation. Then he produced a plug of tobacco from his hip-pocket, and
bit off a chew.

"I've been twenty odd years lumbering," he went on a moment later. "I've
lumbered most every forest in Ontario and Quebec. There ain't more'n one
bunch of plums like the Shagaunty. Mostly the forest's full of the sort
of stuff we're handling here. These forests are average and I'd like to
say to the Skandinavia, 'you've got to figger results on the average.'
We're cutting down to the minimum because we've got to, to feed the
booms right. Well, that's goin' on if I know my job. There's patch
stuff better. I daresay there's new ground on our limits liable to hand
us Shagaunty stuff. But that's just as I say, patch stuff, an' not
average. If they want Shagaunty quality right through let 'em get out
and get limits up on Labrador. I reckon there's a hundred years cutting
up there that 'ud leave Shagaunty a bunch of weed grass. They say the
folks out on the coast are worried to death there's so much stuff, an'
so big, an' good, an' soft, an' long-fibred. The jacks out that way are
up to the neck in a hell of a good time, sure. I get it they've time to
sleep half the year, it's so easy. Well, it ain't that way here. We've
no time singing hymns around this lay-out. It's hell, here, keeping the
darn booms fed. Speakin' for my outfit I'd say they're a pretty bright
lot of boys. What a feller can do they can do, I guess. But there are
times I get mighty sick chasing to get even the minimum. An' it's all
the time kick. The Skandinavia seems to have got a grouch about now you
couldn't beat with a tank of rye whisky. You've seen it all as far as I
can show you, mam, and I'd be glad to know if you're satisfied I've done
the things you want. If I have, and you feel good about it, I'd be
thankful if you'd report the way we're workin' this camp. And if you've
a spare moment to talk other things, you might say that the boys of my
camp are mighty hard put to get the stuff, and they're as tough a gang
of jacks as ever heard tell of the dog's life of the forest."

The man spoke with the fluency of real protest. He somehow felt he was
on his defence in the presence of this woman representative of his
employers. This girl was not there enduring the discomforts of the
forests for amusement. She came with authority, and she seemed to
possess great understanding. Arden Laval knew his own value. His record
was one of long service with his company. Furthermore, his outfit was
trusted with the pioneering work of the forest where judgment and
enterprise, and great experience were needed. He felt it was the moment
to talk, and to talk straight to this woman with the red hair who had
invaded his domain. So he gave full rope to his feelings.

It was some moments before the girl replied, and the man waited
expectantly. He was studying the far-off gaze of the pretty hazel eyes,
and wondering at the thought moving behind them. At length Nancy
withdrew her gaze from the forest.

"I shall certainly report the things I've seen," she said with a smile
that found prompt response in the man's dark eyes. "You've certainly
done your best to show me, and tell me, the exact position. I shall make
a point of reporting all that. Yes, I've seen it all, thank you very
much."

Then her smile suddenly vanished. The shrewd gaze of commercial interest
replaced it.

"But these Labrador folk?" she demanded. "Is that stuff just--hearsay?"

The man shook his head. He was feeling easier.

"It's God's truth, mam." He spat out a stream of tobacco juice. "I know
them forests. Say," his eyes had lost their smile, "I don't guess I
figger to know the business side of things, I don't calculate to know if
the folks on Labrador work with, or against the Skandinavia. But I do
know that if they're up against us they've got us plumb beat before we
start. They got the sort of lumber the jacks dream about when they got
their bellies full on a Saturday night, and they're going to wake up to
find it Sunday mornin'. I'm just a lumberman, and if I hadn't fifteen
years' record with the Skandinavia, and wasn't pouching two hundred and
fifty bucks, and what I can make besides, a month, why, it 'ud be me for
the coast where you can jamb the rivers in a three months' cut, and
souse rye the rest of the year till the bugs look as big as mountains.
Guess it's the summer rose garden of the lumber-jack, for all it's under
snow eight months in the year, when you can't tell your guts from an
iceflow, and the skitters, in summer, mostly reach the size of a
gasoline tank. It's a dog's life, mam, lumberin' anywhere. But they're
lap-dogs out that way."

The man's words brought the return of the girl's smile. "Yes, I spose
it's--tough," she observed thoughtfully. Then quite suddenly she spread
out her hands. "Oh, yes," she exclaimed, with a sudden vehemence, "it's
worse than tough. It's hopeless. Utterly hopeless. I've seen it. I've
watched it. I had to. I couldn't escape it. It's so desperately patent.
But it's not the life as these folk live it. It's the future I'm
thinking of. It's middle life and old age. These boys. They're
wonders--now. How long does it last, and then--what happens? I'm here on
business, hard business. But I guess this thing's got hold of me so I
can't sometimes sleep at nights. Tell me about them."

Arden Laval, one of the hardest specimens of the lumber boss, turned
away. His understanding of women was built up out of intimacy with the
poor creatures who peopled the camps he knew. This girl's burst of
feeling only stirred him to a cynical humour.

"Mam," he said, with a grin that was almost hateful, "if I was to start
in to hand you the life history of a lumber-jack you'd feel like
throwing up your kind heart, and any other old thing you hadn't use for
in your stummick. But I guess I can say right here, a lumber-jack's a
most disgustin' sort of vermin who hasn't more right than a louse to
figger in your reckonin'. I guess he was born wrong, and he'll mostly
die as he was born. And meanwhile he's lived a life that's mostly dirt,
and no account anyway. There's a few things we ask of a lumber-jack, and
if he fulfils 'em right he can go right on living. When he can't fulfil
'em, why, it's up to him to hit the trail for the pay box, an' get out.
Guess you feel good when you see a boy swingin' an axe, or handlin' a
peavy. Sure. That sort of thing don't come your way often. Neither does
it come your way to see the rest. He's mostly a sink of filth in mind
and body, and if he ain't all that at the start he gets it quick. He's a
waster of God's pure air, and is mostly in his right surroundings when
the forest does its best to hide him up from the eyes of the rest of the
world. Guess he's the best man I know--dead."

For all his grin Arden Laval was in deadly earnest. Nancy stared at the
broad back he had turned on her with his final word. And her indignation
surged.

"I don't believe it," she cried. "I can't believe it. You're just
talking out of years of experience of a life you've probably learned to
hate. Man, if that's your opinion of your fellows, then it's you who
ought never to leave the forest you claim does its best to hide up folk
from the eyes of the rest of the world. You're a camp boss. You're our
head man in these forests. You're trusted, and we know your skill. Well,
it seems to me you've a duty that goes further than just feeding the
booms right. You've a moral duty towards these men you condemn. You can
help them. It should surely be your pride to lift them out of the
desperate mire you claim they are floundering in. I'll not believe you
mean it all."

The man turned away as a black-clothed figure emerged from the trees,
and came to a stand at the brink of the ravine some hundred and more
yards to the east of them. Nancy, too, beheld the lonely figure and she,
too, became interested in its movements.

The lumber boss laughed shortly, roughly, and raised an arm, pointing as
he turned a grinning face to the girl.

"See him, there?" he cried. "Say, mam, with all respect, I'd say to you,
if you're feeling the way you talk, and look to get the sort of stuff
you'd maybe fancy hearing, that's the guy you need to open out to. As
you say, I'm the head camp-boss on the Skandinavia's limits. I've had
nigh twenty years an' more experience of the lumber-jack. An' I'm
tellin' you the things any camp-boss speakin' truth'll tell you. That's
all, I don't hate the boys. I don't pity 'em. But I don't love 'em.
They're just part of a machine to cut lumber, and it don't matter a hoot
in hell to me what they are, or who they are, or what becomes of 'em. I
ain't shepherdin' souls like that guy. It ain't in me, anyway. I just
got to make good so that some day I ken quit these cursed forests and
live easy the way I'd fancy. When that time comes maybe I'll change.
Maybe I'll feel like that guy standin' doping over that spread of forest
scene. I don't know. And just now I don't care--a curse."

But Nancy was no longer listening. The lonely, black-coated figure Laval
had pointed out absorbed all her interest. His allusion to the man's
calling had created in her an irresistible desire.

"Who is he? That man?" she demanded abruptly.

Laval laughed.

"Why, Father Adam," he replied. There was a curious softening in his
harsh voice, which brought the girl's eyes swiftly back to him.

"Father Adam? A priest?" she questioned.

Laval shook his head. He had turned again, regarding the stranger. His
face was hidden from the searching eyes of the girl.

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