The Man in the Twilight by Ridgwell Cullum

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The doubt in Bull's tone set a genuine grin in the other's eyes.

"Sure. That's me. Bat Harker. Maybe you don't guess I look it. Don't
worry. Just pass it over."

Bull groped in an inner pocket, surprise affording him some amusement.
His interest in Sachigo had abruptly focussed itself on this man.

"I'm kind of sorry," he said. "I surely took you for some sort
of--porter."

Bat laughed outright, and glanced down at his work-stained clothing.

"Wal, that ain't new," he said. Then his eyes resumed their keen regard.
"We don't need to wait around though. The skitters are mighty thick down
here. Sachigo's gettin' a special breed I kind o' hate. That letter,
an'--we'll get along."

Bull drew out Father Adam's letter and waited while the other tore it
open. Bat glanced at the contents and jumped to the signature. Then he
thrust out a gnarled and powerful hand.

"Shake," he cried. And there could be no doubting his good will. "Glad
to have you around, Mr. Bull Sternford."

* * * * *

Bull Sternford was seated in the luxurious chair that had once known
Leslie Standing. His pea-jacket was removed and his cap was gone. The
room was warm, and the sun beyond the window was radiant. Beyond the
desk Bat was seated, where his wandering gaze could drift to the one
object of which it never tired. He was at the window which looked out
upon the mill below.

He was reading Father Adam's letter. Sternford was silently regarding
his squat figure. He was waiting and wondering, speculating as to the
hard-faced, uncultured creature who had built up all the amazing details
that made up an industrial city in a territory that was outlawed by
Nature.

Bat thrust the letter away and looked up.

"Father Adam didn't write that letter for you? He just handed it out to
you to bring along?"

"That's how," Bull nodded.

"Sure." Bat's tone became reflective. "He must have wrote that letter
years, and held it against the time he located you. He's queer."

Bull laughed.

"Maybe he is," he said, "I don't know about that. But he's one hell of a
good man," he went on warmly. "Do you know him? But of course you do.
Say, he's just father and mother to every darn lumber-jack that haunts
the forests of Quebec, and it don't worry him if his children are
hellhound or honest. There's that to him sets me just crazy. I'd like to
see his thin, tired face, always smiling." He stirred. And the warmth
died abruptly out of his manner. "Say, you knew me--at the wharf?"

"Sure. I knew you before you came along. We've a wireless out on the
headland."

"I see. Father Adam warned you I was coming. He told you--"

"The whole darn yarn. Sure."

Bull laughed grimly.

"That he guessed to shoot me to small meat if I didn't do as he said?"

"If you didn't cut out homicide from your notions of--sport."

"Yes. It was tough," Bull regretted. "But I'm glad--now."

"Yep. Guess any straight sort of feller would feel that way--after."

The lumberman's regret was unnoticed by the other.

Suddenly Bull leant forward in his chair. A smile, half whimsical, half
incredulous, lit his eyes. He thrust his elbows on the desk and
supported his face in his hands.

"It just beats hell!" he cried. "It certainly does. Oh, I'm awake all
right. Sure, I am. One time I wasn't sure. Two months back I was lying
around a lousy summer camp getting ready to take a hand in the winter
cut for the Skandinavia Corporation. I was within two seconds of
breaking a man's life--the rotten camp boss. And now? Why, now I'm
sitting around in dandy tweeds in the boss chair of a swell office, with
a crazy notion back of my head I'm here to beat the game with the
greatest groundwood mill in the world, and ten million dollars capital
behind me. Maybe there's folks wouldn't guess I'm awake, but I allow I
am. But the whole thing sets me thinking of the fairy stories I used to
read when I was a kid, and never could see the horse sense in wasting
time over."

Bat helped himself to a chew from a fragment of plug tobacco.

"Here, listen," Bull went on, after the briefest pause. "It's my 'show
down.' I don't understand a thing. I'm mostly a kid from college with a
yearning for fight. So far I've learned some of the things the forest
can teach the feller who wants to learn. They're the rough things. And I
like rough things. I've some grip on groundwood. And the making of
groundwood's the main object of my life. That, and the notion of licking
hell out of the other feller. That's me, and those are the things made
Father Adam send me along down to Sachigo. Well, it's up to you." He
spread out his hands, "Where do I stand? How do I stand? And why in the
name of all that's crazy am I sitting in this boss chair--right now?"

Bat swung one trunk-like leg across the other. His movement suggested an
easing of mind and a measure of enjoyment. He pointed at the window and
nodded in its direction.

"Quite a place," he said, in a tone and with a pride that had no
relation to the other's demands. "Makes you feel man ain't the bum sort
of inseck in the scheme of things some highbrows ain't happy not tellin'
you. There's folks who guess it's Nature the proposition that matters.
It's her does it all, an' keeps on doin' it all the time. But Nature's
most like one mighty foolish, extravagant female. That sort o' woman who
don't care but to please the notion of the moment. And when that's done,
goes right on to please the next. Wal, anyway I guess she's got her uses
if it's only to hand chances to the guy that's lookin' on. Take a look
right down there below," he went on. "That's the truck the guy lookin'
on has sweppen up in Nature's trail. It's taken most of fifteen years
collectin' it. We've had to push that broom hard. And now I guess you're
going to boost your weight behind it too. There's other things to
collect, and that's what we want from you. You got nerve. You got big
muscle, and education, too. Well, you'll handle the biggest sweeper of
us all. Does it scare you?"

"Not a thing." Bull was smiling confidently.

Bat chuckled. His eyes were sparkling as he ruthlessly masticated his
tobacco. This man pleased him mightily.

"That's all right," he said. Then he went on after a silent moment while
he gazed thoughtfully out of the window. "It's right here," he
exclaimed. "Here's a mill, a swell mill that don't lack for a thing to
make it well-nigh perfect. I'll tell you about it. Its capacity. Its
present limit is six thousand tons dry weight groundwood pulp to the
week. That's runnin' full. There's a hundred and twenty grinders feeding
a hundred and eighty sheetin' machines. And they're figgered to use up
fifty-five thousand horse power of the five hundred thousand we got
harnessed on this great little old river that falls off the highlands.
That power is ours winter an' summer. It don't matter a shuck the
'freeze up.' It's there for us all the darn time. Then we've forest
limits to hand us the cordage for that output that could give us three
times what we're needing for a thousand years. Labour? We got it
plenty. And later, by closing in our system of foresting, I figger to
cut out present costs on a sight bigger output. The plans for all that
are fixed in my head. Then we come to the market for our stuff, an' I
guess that's the syrup in the pie. The world's market's waitin' on us.
It's ours before we start. Why? Our power don't cost us one cent a unit.
We're able to hand our folks a standard of living through the nature of
things that leaves wages easy. The river's wide, and full, and it's _our
own_. Then our sea passage to Europe's just eighteen hundred miles
instead of three thousand. An' these things mean our costs leave us
cutting right under other folks, and Skandinavia beat. There it is," he
cried, with a wide gesture of his knotted hands. "It's pie!"

Something of the lumberman's enthusiasm found reflection in Sternford's
eyes.

"But Nature's handed us a lemon in the basket of oranges," Bat went on,
with a shake of his head. "It's that woman in her again. Y'see, she
gives us just four months in the year to get our stuff out. Oh, she
don't freeze the cove right up. No. That's the tough of it. The
channel's mostly open. But storm, and fog, and ice, beats the
ocean-going skipper's power to navigate it with any sort o' safety. The
headlands are desperate narrow, and--well, there it is. We've four
months in the year to get our stuff out. It's a sum. Figger it yourself.
Set us goin' full. Six thousand tons in the week. What is it? Three
hundred thousand in the year. How many trips at ten thousand tons? Or
put the average tonnage lower. Say eight thousand. Forty trips. Four
months. A vessel making two trips on an average turn round. We need a
fleet of twenty 'bottoms,' to do it in the time. And they'll need to be
our own. You can't help yourself to the world's market, and fix prices,
and all the while fight for shipping in the open market. See?"

"Sure--I see."

Bat nodded approval.

"When we get that the rest can go through. Meanwhile there's sixty
grinders idle, which leaves us workin' half capacity. As it stands it's
a dandy enterprise. We're making a swell balance sheet. But profit ain't
the whole purpose. There's the rest."

The super lumber-jack turned again to the window with that fascination
that was almost pathetic.

"And the rest?"

Bull Sternford urged the other sharply, and Bat turned at once.

"Canada's groundwood for the Canadian, inside the Empire," he shot at
him.

The other nodded.

"The world's market for the country that can and should supply it," he
replied.

"The smashing of the darn Skandinavian ring," cried Bat, his deep-set
eyes alight.

"And drive them--back over the sea."

Bat suddenly leant across the table.

"That's it, boy," he cried. "That's it! Hellbeam and all his gang. The
Skandinavia Corporation. Smash 'em! Drive 'em to Hell! It ain't profit.
It's the trade. The A'mighty made Canada an' built the Canadian. He set
him right here to help himself to the things He gave him. It's being
filched by these foreigners--his birthright. They're fat on it. Did we
fight the world war for that? Not by a darn sight. We fought to hold a
place on the map for ourselves. And that's a proposition we've all got
to get our back teeth into."

"It sure is."

The mill manager sat back in his chair and chewed vigorously.

"That's it," he said. "How?" he went on. "Combination. Finance--and the
interest of the little, great old country across the water. It's all
planned and laid out by the feller that started up this proposition.
It's scheduled for you. Guess you'll find the last word of it writ out
in the locked book in this desk. It's clear and straight for the feller
with the nerve. That's you. Wal?"

Bat was watching--searching. He was looking for that flicker of an
eyelid he had learned to dread in the past. But he failed to discover
it. The wide, clear eyes of the younger man returned his regard
unwaveringly. The uncultured lumberman had stirred a responsive
enthusiasm, and somehow the project no longer seemed the crazy thing it
had once appeared to Bull Sternford.

"Guess my back teeth have got it," he said, with a smile. "You needn't
worry I'll let go."

Bat drew a deep breath. He stood up and spat his mangled chew into the
cuspidore.

"I'm glad. I'm real glad," he cried. "I'm a heap more glad you told me
those words without askin' the other things you need to know. But you
got to know 'em right away. Say, the day that fixes up the things we
been talkin' sees you with me and another masters of this mill an' all
it means. And while you're playin' your hand there's one big fat salary
for you to draw. This house and office is yours, an' me an' the mill's
ready to do all we know all the time, just the way you need it. Down in
Abercrombie there's the attorney, Charles Nisson, who's got the outfit
of papers that you're goin' to sign. And when you seen him, why you'll
get busy. Shake, boy," he cried, thrusting out one knotted hand. "Father
Adam sent you, and I don't guess he's made any mistake."

Bull had risen, and his height left him towering over the man across the
table.

"Now for the mill," he cried, as their hands fell apart. "The _Myra_
sails sundown to-morrow and I need to get a swift look around before
then. Say, you folk have kind of taken me on a chance--well, that's all
right. I'm glad."

CHAPTER IV

DRAWING THE NET

Nathaniel Hellbeam was contemplating the spiral of smoke rising from his
long cigar. He was dreaming pleasantly. He was dreaming of those
successful manipulations of finance it was his purpose to achieve. He
had lunched, so his dream was of the things which most appealed.

In the midst of his reflections the drub of the muffled telephone beat
its insistent tattoo. His dream vanished, and his senses became alert.
He leant forward in his chair and picked up the receiver.

"Yes," he said shortly. And it sounded more like the Teutonic, "Ja!"

Putting up the receiver again he leant his clumsy body back in his
chair. His small eyes no longer contained their dreaming light. They
were turned expectantly upon the polished mahogany door.

The door swung silently open.

"Mr. Idepski!" The announcement was made in a carefully modulated tone.

The agent passed into the great man's presence, slim, dark, confident.
Then the door closed without a sound.

"Well?"

There was no cordiality in the greeting. That was not Hellbeam's way
with a paid agent.

Idepski walked across to the chair always waiting to receive a visitor
and sat down.

"May I sit?" he inquired coolly, after the operation had been
performed.

Hellbeam nodded.

"Well?" he repeated.

The agent laid his hat on the ornate desk, and removed his gloves with
care and deliberation.

"I'm just back from Sachigo," he said.

"Hah!"

The financier settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and
returned his cigar to his gross mouth.

"Tell me," he demanded.

"Easy. Things are moving our way."

The dark eyes glanced over the table for the gold cigarette box that
always stood there.

"Help yourself," the banker ordered rather than invited.

Idepski needed no second bidding.

"You got all my code messages?" he asked. "Good," as the Swede nodded.
"Then you know the position of the mill. Say, that feller Harker needs a
sort of apology from me--also from you. The mill's a wonder. And he's
the guy that's fixed it that way. You haven't a thing in Skandinavia
comparable. I'd say you haven't a feller on your side capable of
touching the fringe of that tough's genius for organisation. It's him.
Not Martin--I mean Standing."

"And Standing?"

But Idepski was not to be deflected from his purpose.

"That's all right," he said easily. "I'm coming to him presently. I gave
you, at times, the whole length and breadth, and size, and capacity of
the Sachigo of to-day. You got all that stuff. But I've saved up the
plum. There's a new man come into it. His name's Sternford--Bull
Sternford. Guess it's him I need to tell you about before I pass on to
the other. It's taken me a while to locate all I needed. And I guess I
had luck or I wouldn't have got it all yet."

For once the man's smile reached his eyes.

"What's his position--in Sachigo?" Hellbeam demanded.

"Right on top of the business side of it."

"A financial man?"

The banker's interest was obviously stirred. But Idepski shook his dark
head.

"That's the queer of it," he said. "He's a youngster straight out of the
forest with no sort of record except as a pretty tough fighting
proposition. Here, let me hand it to you in my own way, and I'll answer
any sort of question after. I got men chasing up the forest camps. You
know that. Well, I get their reports right here in this city at my
office. They're read carefully, and anything that looks good is coded,
and sent on to me wherever I am. Well, right after I located this
feller, Sternford, coming into Sachigo, I got word of some stuff
reported from one of your own camps way out north-west of Lake St. Anac.
Guess it's about the farthest north in that direction, and it's cut off
from any other camp by a hundred miles. On the face of it the stuff
didn't seem to need more than a single thought. It was to say my man was
quitting the camp. He'd sifted it right through, but there wasn't a
'jack' in the camp with any sort of story worth wasting paper on. There
wasn't a trace of our man that way, and he proposed drawing another
cover. At the end of his report was one of those notes these boys never
seem able to resist mixing up with their official work. It told me of
one of those scraps that happened in the camps, and he seemed mighty
struck by it. It was between the camp boss, Arden Laval, and a kid
called Sternford. Say, when I read that name I jumped. I felt like
handing my feller promotion right away. Well, his story was good anyway.
It seems this camp boss is about the biggest bluff in the scrap way
known to that country. The kid licked him. They fought nearly two hours,
'rough and tough.' And the kid would have killed his man, but for the
interference of a missionary feller called Father Adam. He broke 'em
loose with a gun, and when he got 'em loose he took the kid right away
so he shouldn't hand out the homicide he reckoned to. This report was
more than two months old when I got it. Anyway I got it after a feller
called Bull Sternford, a queer name by the way, had jumped in on the
Sachigo proposition."

The agent flung away his cigarette and helped himself afresh.

"Well," he went on, smiling, "I guess it didn't take me thinking five
seconds. I set the wires humming asking a description of this fighting
kid. I got it. It was my man. The feller at Sachigo. Well?"

Idepski's smiling interrogation was full of satisfaction.

"Go on." The watchful eyes of the financier seemed to have narrowed.

"Now, by what chance does this feller, Bull Sternford, come straight
from one hell of a scrap in a far-off camp belonging to Skandinavia to
run the business end of Sachigo? What happened after that fool
missionary got him away? And--"

Idepski broke off, pondering. He flicked his cigarette ash without
regard for the carpet.

Hellbeam stirred in his chair impatiently. His lips seemed to become
more prominent. His small eyes seemed to become smaller.

"You ask that, yes? You?" he snorted. "A child may answer that thing.
You think? Oh, yes, you think." The hand supporting his cigar made a
gesture that implied everything disparaging. "Our man--this Martin--has
gone out of Sachigo because--of you? I tell you, no! Does a man give up
the money, the big plan he makes, at the sight of an--agent? He took you
in his hand and sent you to the swine life of the forest where he could
have crushed you like that." He gripped the empty air. "Then he
goes--where? You say he fears and quits. What does he fear? You?" The
man shook his head till his cheeks were shaken by the violence of his
movement. "He goes somewhere. But he does not quit. That is clear. Oh,
yes. The mill goes on. It grows and prospers. The man Harker remains.
Where comes the money for Sachigo to grow? Trade? Yes, some. But not
all. I know these things. The mill goes on--the same as with Martin
there. So Martin does not quit. He--just goes. Then who sets this Bull
Sternford in the mill? Why? He says, 'This man can do the things I
need.' Well? Say quick to your man, 'Do not leave this camp of
Skandinavia.' Martin is there, or near by. He must know this Father
Adam, too. He must be in touch with him. Maybe he watches the
Skandinavia work. Maybe he plays his game so. Maybe he goes from Sachigo
for that reason. Yes?"

The financier's undisguised contempt left the agent apparently
undisturbed.

"That's the simple horse sense of it," Idepski retorted promptly. "I get
all that. But you're wrong when you say, Martin's playing any other game
than lying low because of one hell of a scare. I know him. You think you
know him because you can't get away from judging a man from your end.
However, that don't matter a shuck. I've told that man of mine to stop
around. Don't worry. I told him that right away. I told him to watch
this missionary." He shook his head. "Nothing doing. The missionary has
quit. As I said, I'm right back from Sachigo. I didn't come back just to
hand you this stuff. I'm on my way up to this camp of yours. We've been
hunting this guy eight years--blind. Now there's a streak of daylight.
I'm going for that streak myself. Anyway, it's liable to be pleasanter
work than lumbering in the booms at Sachigo, and wondering when that
feller Bat Harker, was going to locate me through a lumber-jack's
outfit. And while I'm up there I mean to learn all I can of this Father
Adam. I don't look for much that way. He's just a missioner that every
feller in the forest's got a good word for, and anyway, it don't seem to
me the feller who jumped in on you, and touched your bank roll is the
sort to pass his time handlin' out tracts to the bums of the forest. I
came in on my way to pass you these things. I go north again to-night.
I'll be away quite a while, and, shut off up there, you'll not be likely
to get word easy. But you'll hear things when I've got anything to hand
you."

A sardonic light crept into Hellbeam's eyes as he listened to the final
assurance.

"So," he ejaculated with a nod.

The agent rose to go.

"Meanwhile," he said, leaning over the desk, "it might be well for you
to get a grip on the fact that Sachigo's going right on. It's the
greatest groundwood proposition in the world. I know enough of Harker to
realise his capacity to make it do just what he needs. And as for that
other--this Sternford kid--why, I gather he's a pretty live wire that's
set there for a reason. The slogan up there's much what it was, only the
words are changed."

Hellbeam sucked his cigar and removed it from his lips.

"Changed? How?" he demanded, without suspicion.

"It was 'Canadian trade for the Canadians,'" Idepski said, his dark eyes
snapping maliciously. "It's more personal since the fighting kid came
along. It reminds me of the German slogans of the war. It's 'To hell
with the Swedes, we'll drive 'em _into_ the sea.'"

The financier nodded. His armour was impenetrable.

"The Germans said much," he said.

"That's all right, these folks aren't Germans," came the prompt retort,
as Idepski picked up his hat and gloves.

"No." Hellbeam remained seated. It was not his way to speed a departing
visitor. "I'm glad. Oh, yes." He smiled into the other's face, and his
meaning was obvious. "You go to this camp. You find this missionary.
That's work for you. The other--" his eyes dropped to the papers on the
desk before him--"this mill, this Sachigo is for me. It is much nearer
to the sea than the Skandinavia. Oh, yes."

CHAPTER V

THE PROGRESS OF NANCY

The girl reached out a hand in response to the ring of the telephone. It
was slim and white; and her finger nails displayed that care which
suggests a healthy regard for the niceties of a woman's life.

"Hullo! Yes?"

She remained silently intent upon the rapidly spoken message coming down
to her over the wire. Her deep, hazel eyes were soberly regarding the
blotting pad, upon which an idle pencil was describing a number of
meaningless diagrams.

"Yes," she replied, after a while. "Oh, yes. All reports are in. I've
gone through them all, and my summary is being prepared now. They're a
pretty bad story. Yes. What's that? How? Oh, yes. Some of the camps are
in pretty bad shape, I'd say. Output's fallen badly. Output! Yes. All
sorts of reasons and--" she laughed, "--to me, none quite satisfactory.
I think I've my finger on the real trouble, and fancy I've seen all this
coming quite a while back. Very well. I'll be right up. Yes, I'll bring
my rough notes if the summary isn't ready."

Nancy McDonald thrust the receiver back in its place and sat for a
moment gazing at it. She knew she had committed herself. She had
intended to. She knew that she had reached one of the important
milestones in her career. In her youth, in the springtime energy
abounding in her, she meant to pit her opinion against the considered
policy of those who formed the management of the great Skandinavia
Corporation she served. She understood her temerity. A surge of nervous
anticipation thrilled her. But she was resolved. Her ambition was great,
and her youthful courage was no less.

The brazen clack of typewriters beyond the glass partitions of her
little private office left her unaffected. It was incessant. She would
have missed it had it not been there. She would have lost that sense of
rush which the tuneless chorus of modern commercialism inspired. And, to
a woman of her temperament, that would have been a very real loss.

The great offices of the Skandinavia Corporation, in the heart of the
city of Quebec, with their machine-like precision of life, their
soulless method, their passionless progress towards the purpose of their
organisation, meant the open road towards the fulfilment of her desires
for independence and achievement.

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