The Man in the Twilight by Ridgwell Cullum

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He spoke quietly without a sign of emotion. But the light in his hot
eyes was almost desperate.

"I want to hand you the story so you'll get it all clear," he went on
after a moment. "So I'll start by telling you how we stand at the mill.
Get this, an' hold it tight in your head, and the rest'll come clear as
day. Sachigo's right on top. We've boosted it sky high on to the top of
the world's pulp trade. In less than twelve months we'll have grabbed
well-nigh the whole of this country's pulp industry, and we'll beat the
foreigners right back over the sea to their own country. The Skandinavia
folk are rattled. They know all about us and they've done their best to
buy us out of the game. We turned 'em down cold, and they're mad--mad as
hell. It means they're in for the fight of their lives. So are we. And
we know Peterman an' his gang well enough to know what that means. It's
'rough an' tough.' Everything goes. If they can't gouge our eyes they'll
do their best to chew us to small meat. But we've got 'em every way.
This forest gang is sent by the Skandinavia. If they can't smash us by
fire or labour trouble next year'll see us floated into a seventy
million dollar corporation with the whole Canadian wood-pulp industry
lying right in the palms of our hands. That's the reason for the things
doing."

He paused, and the camp-boss nodded his rough head. It was a story he
could clearly understand. Then there were those figures. Seventy million
dollars! They swept the last shadow of doubt from his mind.

"That's the position," Bull went on. "Now for the trouble as it is in
the forests right now. The thing that's had me travelling night an' day
for a month. There's an outfit going right through these forests. I
can't locate its extent. Only the way it works. There's two objects in
view. One is to fire our limits. The other reckons to paralyse our cut.
So far these folks have failed against the fire-guard organisation, and
I guess they'll likely miss most of their fire-bugs when they call the
roll. The other's different."

Bull knocked out his pipe on the stove and gazed thoughtfully at the
streak of brilliant light under the edge of the front damper.

"I've a notion there's an outfit of pedlars at work, as well as others,"
he went on presently.

The camp-boss nodded.

"Sure," he said.

Bull looked up.

"You think that way?" he asked. Then he nodded. "Yes, I guess we're
right. They're handing the boys dope to keep 'em guessing--worrying.
They're telling 'em we're on the edge of a big smash at Sachigo. That we
can't see the winter through. We're cleaned out for cash, and the mill
folk are shouting for their wages and starting in to riot. It's a swell
yarn. It's the sort of yarn I'd tell 'em myself if I was working for the
Skandinavia. It's the sort of dope these crazy forest-jacks are ready to
swallow the same as if it was Rye. Do you see? These fools are being
told they won't get their pay for their winter's cut. So, being what
they are, the boys are going slow. They're going slow, and drawing goods
at the store against each cord they cut. Well, do you see what's going
to happen if the game succeeds? With our forests ablaze, and our cut
fifty down, and the whole outfit on the buck, when spring comes,
Skandinavia reckons our British financiers, when they come along to look
our land over will turn the whole proposition of the flotation down, and
quit us cold. But that's not just all. No, sir. Elas Peterman isn't the
boy to leave it that way. He's handing out the story that when Sachigo
smashes the Skandinavia's going to jump right in and collect the
wreckage cheap. Then they'll start up the mill, and sign on all hands on
their own pay-roll, only stipulating that they won't pay one single cent
of what Sachigo owes for their cut. So, if they're such almighty fools
as to cut, it's going to be their dead loss and the Skandinavia's gain.
Do you get it? It's smart. I guess there's a bigger brain behind it than
Peterman's."

The camp-boss spat into the stove. It was his one expression of disgust.

Bull rose from his chair.

"Here, I need food. So does my boy out there with the dogs. We'll take
it after I'm through with the men. It's snowing like hell, but I pull
out two hours from now. You see, I'm on a hot trail, an' don't fancy
losing a minute."

"You're goin' to talk to 'em--the boys?" Porson's eyes lit with a gleam
of satisfaction. "Can you--twist 'em?"

Bull thrust a hand into his breast pocket and drew out a sealed packet.
He held it up before the other's questioning eyes.

"I haven't failed yet," he said quietly. "In nine of our camps back on
the river the work's running full already. I've a whole big yarn for our
boys. But right here I've got what's better. It's the only thing that'll
clinch the yarn I'm going to hand 'em. This," he went on, indicating the
parcel in his hand, "is the bunch of dollars representing the price of
this camp's full winter cut, and the price of a bonus for making up all
leeway already lost. I'm going to have the boys count it. Then I'm going
to have them hand it right over to Abe Risdon to set in his safe, with a
written order from me to pay out in full the moment the winter cut is
complete. Is it good? Can the Skandinavia's junk stand in face of it?
No, sir. And so I've proved right along. I don't hold much of a brief
for the intelligence of the forest-jack, but his belly rules him all the
time. You see, he's human, and no more dishonest than the rest of us.
Have him guessing and worried and you'll get trouble right along. Show
him the lies the Skandinavia's been doping him with, and he'll work out
of sheer spite to beat their game. You get right out and collect the
gang."

* * * * *

The snowfall had ceased. And with its passing the temperature had fallen
to something far below its average winter level. The clouds had vanished
miraculously, and in their place was a night sky ablaze with the light
of myriad stars, and the soft splendour of a brilliant moon.

It was a scene of frigid desolation. Away on the southern horizon lay
the black line which marked the tremendous forest limits of the Beaver
River. For the rest it was a world of snow that hid up the rugged
undulations of a sterile territory.

The dog train was moving at a reckless gait over the untracked,
hardening snow. The man Gouter was driving under imperative orders such
as he loved. Bull Sternford had told him when he left the shelter of
No. 10 Camp: "Get there! Get there quick! There's dogs and to spare at
all our camps, and I don't care a curse if you run the outfit to death."

To a man of Gouter's breed the order was sufficient. Half Eskimo, half
white man, he was a savage of the wild, born and bred to the fierce
northern trail, one of Labrador's hereditary fur hunters by sea and
land. Speed on the fiercest trail was the dream of his vanity. Relays of
dogs, such as he could never afford, and something accomplished which he
could tell of over the camp fire to his less fortunate brethren. So he
accepted the white man's order and drove accordingly.

Bull Sternford sat huddled in the back of the sled under the fur robes
which alone made life possible. His work at No. 10 Camp had left him
satisfied, but every nerve in his body was alert for the final coup he
contemplated. He was weary in mind as well as body. And in his heart he
knew that the need of his physical resources was not so very far off.
But he was beyond care. He had said he was crazy for sleep, but the
words gave no indication of his real condition. His eyes ached. His head
throbbed. There were moments, even, when the things he beheld, the
things he thought became distorted. But he knew that somewhere ahead a
ghostly outfit of strangers was pursuing its evil work against him, and
he meant to come up with it, and to wreak his vengeance in merciless,
summary fashion. His purpose had become an obsession in the long
sleepless days and nights he had endured.

It was war. It was bitter ruthless war on the barren hinterland of
Labrador, where civilisation was unknown. Mercy? Nature never designed
that terrible wilderness as a setting for mercy.

The dogs had been running for hours when Gouter's voice came sharply
back over his shoulder.

"Dog!" he cried, in the laconic fashion habitual to him.

Bull knelt up. His movement suggested the nervous strain he was
enduring. It was almost electrical.

"Where?" he demanded, peering out into the shining night over the man's
furry shoulder.

The half-breed raised a pointing whip ahead and to the south.

"Sure," he said. "I hear him."

Bull had heard nothing. Nothing but the hiss of the snow under their own
runners, and the whimper of their own dogs.

"It wouldn't be a wolf or fox?" he demurred.

The half-breed clucked his tongue. His vanity was outraged.

Bull gazed intently in the direction the whip had pointed. He could see
only the far-off forest line, and the soft whiteness of the world of
snow.

"Hark!"

The half-breed again held up his whip. This time it was for attention.
Bull listened. Still he could hear nothing, nothing at all but the
sounds of their own progress.

"Man! Him speak with dog. Oh, yes."

Gouter had turned. His beady black eyes were shining with a smile of
triumph into the white man's face.

"By the forest?"

"Oh, yes."

"Then in God's name swing over and run to head them off!"

Gouter obeyed with alacrity. He had impressed his white chief. It was
good. A series of unintelligible ejaculations and the dogs swung away to
the south. Then the whip rolled out and fell with cruel accuracy. The
rawhide tugs strained under a mighty effort, as the great dogs were set
racing with their lean bellies low to the ground.

Bull wiped the icicles from about his mouth and nose.

"Now have your guns ready," he cried. "The driver of that team is your
man. The other's mine. If he shows fight kill him. There's five hundred
dollars for you if you get 'em."

"I get 'em."

The half-breed's confidence was supreme. Bull dropped back into the
sled. He sat with a pair of automatic pistols ready to his hand and
gazed out over the sled rail.

It was a terrific race and all feeling of weariness had passed under the
excitement of it. The dogs were silent now. Every nerve in their
muscular bodies were straining. The pace seemed to increase with every
passing moment, and up out of the horizon the dark line of the forest
leapt at them, deepening and broadening as it came.

For some time the less practised white man saw and heard nothing of his
enemies. He was forced to rely on the half-breed. He observed the man
closely. He noted his every sign and read it as best he could. Presently
Gouter leant forward peering. Then he straightened up and his voice came
back triumphantly.

"I see dem," he exclaimed. And pointed almost abreast. "Dogs.
One--two--five. Yes. Two man. Now we get him sure."

Down fell the whip on the racing dogs. The man shouted his jargon at
them. The sled lurched and swayed with the added spurt, and Bull held
fast to the rail. A glad thrill surged through his senses.

It was a moment of tremendous uplift. Bull had yearned for it for weeks.
But the short days and long nights of deferred hope had had their
effect. He had almost come to feel that this thing that was now at hand
was something impossible.

Yes. There was the outfit growing plainer and plainer with every moment.
He could see it clearly. He could even count its details as the other's
sharper eyes had counted them minutes before. There were five dogs. And
they were running hard. They, too, were being flogged, and the man
driving them was shouting furiously in his urgency.

Suddenly there was a leap of flame and a shot rang out. It came from the
driver of the fleeing dog train. It was replied to on the instant by
Gouter who lost not a second. His own shot sped even as the enemy's
bullet whistled somewhere past his head. He fired again. A third shot
split the air. And with that last shot the enemy's sled seemed to leap
in the air. There was a moment of hideous confusion. Then the wreckage
dropped away behind the pursuers, sprawled and still in the snow.

A fierce shout from Gouter and his dogs swung round. The sled under him
heeled over, and took a desperate chance on a single runner. But the
half-breed's skill saved them from catastrophe. It righted itself, and
the dogs slowed to a trot. Then they halted. And the occupants of the
sled flung themselves prone, with their guns ready for the first sign of
movement in the tangled mass of their adversary's outfit.

* * * * *

Two of the dogs lay buried under the overturned sled. Three others were
sprawling at the end of their rawhide tugs. They were alive. They were
unhurt. They lay there taking full advantage of the situation for rest.

But for the moment interest centred round the body of a white man lying
some yards away. A groan of pain came up to the two men standing over
him.

Bull dropped on his knees. He reached down and turned the body over. The
eyes of the man were visible between the sides of his fur hood. But that
was all.

There was a moment of silent contemplation. Then the injured man
struggled desperately to rise.

"Sternford?" he ejaculated

Gouter was on him in a moment. He heard the tone of voice, and
interpreted the man's movement in his own savage fashion. He knew the
man to be the driver of the team, whom his boss had told him was his
man. So he threw him back and held him.

Bull stood up. The man's voice told him all he wanted to know.

"Laval, eh?" he said quietly. "A second time. I didn't expect it. No."

Then he laughed and turned away. And the sound of his laugh possessed
something terribly mocking in the night silence of the wilderness.

He passed back to the sled. There had been two men in it. He had seen
that for himself.

The wreckage looked hopeless. The sled was completely overturned and its
gleaming runners caught and reflected the white rays of the moon. It had
been thrown by reason of the fallen bodies of the dogs which lay under
it, pinned by its weight, and additionally held fast by their own
tangled harness.

Bull had no thought for anything but the purpose in his mind. So he
reached out and caught the steel runners in his mitted hands and flung
the vehicle aside.

Yes, it was there in the midst of a confusion of baggage and lying cheek
by jowl with the mangled remains of the dogs. He cleared the debris, and
dragged the dogs aside. Then he stood and gazed down at the figure that
remained.

It was clad in a voluminous beaver coat. It was hooded, as was every man
who faced the fierce Labrador trail. But--

The figure moved. It stirred, and deliberately sat up. Bull's hands had
been on his guns at the first movement. But he released them, as the
hood fell back from the face which was ghastly pale in the moonlight.

He flung himself on his knees, and tenderly supported the swaying
figure.

"God in Heaven!" he cried. "Nancy! You?"

CHAPTER XX

ON THE HOME TRAIL

Nancy's eyes were desperately troubled as she gazed out across the great
valley of the Beaver River. Somewhere behind her, in the shelter of the
woods, a mid-day camp had been pitched, and the men who had captured her
red-hand in the work of their enemies were preparing the, rough food of
the trail. But she was beyond all such concern.

Far out on every hand lay the amazing panorama of the splendid valley,
but she saw none of it. The mighty frozen waterway, the depths of virgin
snow, the far-reaching woodlands its gaping lips embraced; they were
things of frigid beauty for her eyes to gaze upon, but their meaning was
lost upon a mind tortured with the vivid, hateful pictures it was
powerless to escape.

From the moment of that dreadful night when she had witnessed the
ruthless climax of the work to which she had given herself she had known
no peace. It was no thought of her failure, her capture, that inspired
her trouble. She could have been thankful enough for that. It was the
only mercy, she felt, that had been vouchsafed to her.

No, long before her capture, a deep undermining of regret had set in.
She had been without realisation of it, perhaps. But it had been there.
In yielding to the demands of those she served, in her self-confidence
she had forgotten the woman in her. She had forgotten everything but the
crazy ambition which had blinded her to all consequences. Yes, even in
the excitement of the work itself she had forgotten everything but the
achievement she desired. But through it all, under it all, the woman in
her had been slowly awakening, and an unadmitted regret at the
destruction of work which meant the whole life of another had been
stirring. Then, when the leading tongues of the guns had flashed out,
and human life, even the life of dogs, had yielded to the demand of her
cause, the last vestige of her dreaming had been swept away, and she
told herself it was murder, _murder at her bidding_!

Now her soul was afire with the bitterness of repentance, with
passionate self-accusation. Murder had been done through her. Murder!
The horror of it all had driven her well-nigh demented when she gazed
from the distance while the two men disposed of Arden Laval's body under
the snow. The dogs? They had been left where they fell. The living had
been cut loose from their trappings to roam the forests at their will,
while the dead had remained to satisfy the fierce hunger of the savage
forest creatures. Even the sled had been destroyed, and its wood used to
make fire that the living might endure on those pitiless northern
heights. The memory of it all was days old now, but its horror showed no
abatement. The agony was still with her. She felt that never again could
she know peace.

So she had moved away out from camp, as she had done at every stopping
they had made on the long journey from the highlands down to Sachigo.
Somehow it seemed to her impossible to do otherwise. She felt she must
hide herself from the sight of those others who were her captors, and
who, in their hearts, she felt, must deeply abhor the presence of so
vile a creature in their camp.

How long she had been standing there, while the men prepared the mid-day
meal, she did not know. It was a matter of no sort of consequence to her
anyway. Nothing really seemed of any consequence now. Her jaded mind
was obsessed by a horror she could not shake off. There was nothing,
nothing in the world to do but nurse the anguish driving her.

"You'll come right along and eat, Nancy?"

The girl almost jumped at the gentle tones of the man's voice, and
glanced round at Bull Sternford in an agony of sudden terror.

"I--I--" she stammered. Then composure returned to her. "If you wish
it," she said submissively. "But I don't need food."

Bull regarded the averted face for moments. Sympathy and love were in
his clear gazing eyes. He understood something of the thing she was
enduring, and the tone of his voice had been a real expression of his
feelings. This girl, with the courage of twenty men, with her radiant
beauty, and in her pitiful, heartbroken condition, was far more precious
to him than any victory he had set himself to achieve. He knew that the
world held nothing half so precious.

He came a step nearer.

"I wonder if you'll listen to me, Nancy," he said, with a hesitation and
doubt utterly foreign, to him. "You know, for all that's happened, for
all we're mixed up against each other in this war, I'm the same man you
found me on the _Myra_ and in Quebec. I--"

"Don't."

The girl flung out her hands in a piteous appeal. And Bull recognised
the hysteria lying behind the movement.

"I know," she cried. "Oh, I know. But--don't you understand? You must
know what I am. It's my doing that Laval has gone to his death. I'm
responsible, just as surely as if I'd fired the gun that robbed him of
his life. Oh, why, why didn't I refuse the work? Why did they send me?
And those dogs. Those poor helpless dogs. They, too. I must have been
mad--mad. How can you come near me? How can you stand there summoning
me to eat food--with you? It's useless. It's--I who sent that man to his
death--I who--"

"Why, I thought it was Gouter."

Bull's manner had suddenly changed. The danger signal in the girl's eyes
had determined him. So he smiled, and there was laughter in his
challenge.

"Say," he went on rapidly, "if you told that to Gouter he'd be crazy
mad. He's the boss running shot on Labrador, and if you claimed
responsibility for the killing of Laval you'd be dead up against it with
him." He shook his head. "No, he's sort of grieved he didn't drop him
plumb on the instant as it is. It won't do you talking that way with him
around."

He watched for the effect of his words and realised a slight relaxing of
the strained look in the hazel eyes. Forthwith he plunged into the thing
he contemplated.

"I'm going to make a big talk with you before we eat," he said. "You
see, I've wanted to right along, Nancy, but--Well, I want to tell you
you're no more responsible for Laval's life, and the lives of those
dogs, than I am. We're each playing our little parts in the things of
life like the puppets we are. Our hands are clean enough, but it's not
that way with the skunks that could send you, a girl, almost a child, to
do the work, and live the life that boys like Gouter hardly know how to
get through. That man, Peterman, is going to get it one day from me if I
have luck. And I won't call it murder when I get my hands on his dirty
alien throat. But never mind that. I want to ease that poor aching head
of yours. I want to try and get you some peace of mind. That's why I
tell you you've nothing to chide yourself for, nothing at all. It's
true. You've played the game like the loyal adversary you are. And, for
the moment, I'm top dog. You've handed me a bad nightmare by the
wonderful courage and grit you've well-nigh shamed me, as a man, with.
True, true you haven't a thing to blame yourself with. You've fought a
mighty big fight I'd have been pleased to fight. It's just circumstances
pitched you into the muss up, and let you see the thing your folks have
brought about. It's that that's worrying. Think, Nancy, think hard. This
is their fight. Not yours. The blood of Laval is on Elas Peterman's
head. His, and those other creatures who are ready to commit any crime
to steal our country from us. Oh, I'm not preaching just my side. It's
true, true. We at Sachigo were content to compete openly, honestly.
Peterman and those others saw disaster in our competition. And so they
got ready to murder--if necessary. It's the soulless crime of a gang of
unscrupulous foreigners, and those hounds of hell have left you to
suffer for it just as sure as if they'd seared your poor gentle heart
with a red hot iron. Say, Nancy," he went on, with persuasive
earnestness, "put it all out of your mind. Forget it all. You're out of
the fight now. And it just hurts me to see your eyes troubled, and that
poor tender heart of yours all broken up. Won't you?"

The girl had turned away to the gaping valley again. But she answered
him. And her tone was less dull, and it was without the dreadful passion
of moments ago.

"I--I've tried to tell myself something of that," she said, with the
pathetic helplessness of a child.

"Then try some more."

Bull had drawn nearer. He laid one hand gently on her shoulder. It moved
down and took possession of the soft arm under her furs. Nancy shook her
head. But there was no decision in the movement.

"Oh, I wish--" she began.

But she could get no further. Suddenly she buried her face in her hands,
and broke into a passion of weeping.

Bull stood helplessly by. He gazed upon the shaking woman while great
sobs racked her whole body. There was nothing he could do, nothing he
dared do. He knew that. His impulse was to take her in his arms and
protect her with his body against the things which gave her pain.
But--somehow he felt that perhaps it was good for her to weep. Perhaps
it would help her. So he waited.

Slowly the violence of the girl's grief subsided. And after a while she
turned to him and gazed at him through her tears.

"I'm--I'm--"

But Bull shook his head.

"Come. Shall we go and eat?"

He still retained his hold upon her arm. And as he spoke he led her
unresistingly away towards the camp.

CHAPTER XXI

THE MAN IN THE TWILIGHT

Bat Harker passed out of the house on the hillside. Muffled in heavy
furs he stood for a moment filling up the storm doorway, gazing out over
a desolate prospect, a scene of grave-like, significant stillness.

The mills he loved were completely idle. But that was not all. He knew
them to be at the mercy of an army of men who had abandoned their work
at the call of wanton political and commercial agitators. It was
disaster, grievous disaster. And he told himself he was about to beat a
retreat like some hard-pressed general, hastily retiring in face of the
enemy from a position no longer tenable.

There was no yielding in the lumberman. But to a man of his forcefulness
and headstrong courage the thought of retreat was maddening. He was
yearning to fight in any and every way that offered. He knew that he was
going to fight this thing out, that his present retreat was purely
strategic. He knew that the whole campaign was only just beginning. But
it galled his spirit that his first move must be a--retreat.

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