CHAPTER IV
THE MAN FROM CONNECTICUT
After an excellent dinner, Mrs. Keith took Blanche away, and the menfound a quiet corner in the rotunda, where they sat talking for a while.
"I have an appointment to keep and must go in a few minutes," Blakesaid, glancing at his watch. "Make my excuses to your wife; I shallnot see her again. It would be better: there's no reason why sheshould be reminded of anything unpleasant now. She's a good woman,Bertram, and I'm glad she didn't shrink from me. It would have been anatural thing, but I believe she was sorry and was anxious to make allthe allowances she could."
Challoner was silent for a few moments, his face showing signs ofstrain.
"I don't deserve her, Dick; the thought of it troubles me. She doesn'tknow me for what I really am!"
"Rot!" Blake exclaimed. "It's your misfortune that you're asentimentalist with a habit of exaggerating things; but if you don'tindulge in your weakness too much, you'll go a long way. You showedthe true Challoner pluck when you smoked out that robbers' nest in thehills, and the pacification of the frontier valley was a smart piece ofwork. When I read about the business I never thought you would pull itoff with the force you had. It must have impressed the authorities,and you'll get something better than your major's commission beforelong. I understand that you're already looked upon as a coming man."
It was a generous speech, but it was justified, for Challoner had shownadministrative as well as military skill in the affairs his cousinmentioned. However, he still looked troubled, and his color was higherthan usual.
"Dick," he said, "you know all I owe to you. I wish you would let merepay you in the only way I can. You know------"
"No," Blake interrupted curtly; "it's impossible! Your father made mea similar offer, and I couldn't consent. I suppose I have the Blakes'carelessness about money, but what I get from my mother's littleproperty keeps me on my feet." He laughed as he went on: "It's luckythat your people, knowing the family failing, arranged matters so thatthe principal could not be touched. Besides, I've a plan for adding tomy means."
Bertram dropped the subject. Dick was often rather casual andinconsequent, but there was a stubborn vein in him. When he took thetrouble to think a matter out he was apt to prove immovable.
"Anyway, you will let me know how you get on?"
"I think not. What good would it do? While I'm grateful, it's betterthat the Challoners should have nothing more to do with me. Think ofyour career, keep your wife proud of you--she has good reason for beingso--and let me go my way and drop out of sight again. I'm a commonadventurer and have been mixed up in matters that fastidious peoplewould shrink from--which may happen again. Still, I manage to get agood deal of pleasure out of the life; it suits me in many ways." Herose, holding out his hand. "Good-by, Bertram. We may run across eachother somewhere again."
"I'll always be glad to do so," Challoner said with feeling. "Be sureI won't forget what a generous thing you've done for me, Dick."
Blake turned away, but when he left the hotel his face was sternly set.It had cost him something to check his cousin's friendly advances andbreak the last connection between himself and the life he once had led;but he knew it must be broken, and he felt no pang of enviousbitterness. For many years Bertram had been a good and generousfriend, and Blake sincerely wished him well.
The Challoners left by the Pacific Express the next morning, and thatevening a group of men were engaged in conversation at one end of thehotel rotunda. One was a sawmill owner; another served the Hudson BayCompany in the northern wilds; the third was a young, keen-eyedAmerican, quick in his movements and concise in speech.
"You're in lumber, aren't you?" he said, taking a strip of wood fromhis pocket and handing it to the mill owner. "What would you callthis?"
"Cedar, sawn from a good log."
"That's so; red cedar. You know something about that material?"
"I ought to, considering how much of it I've cut. Been in the businessfor twenty years."
The American took out another strip.
"The same stuff, sir. How would you say it had been treated?"
The sawmill man carefully examined the piece of wood.
"It's not French polish, but I've never seen varnish as good as this.Except that it's clear and shows the grain, it's more like some rareold Japanese lacquer."
"It is varnish. Try to scrape it with your knife."
The man failed to make a mark on it, and the American looked at himwith a smile.
"What would you think of it as a business proposition?"
"If not too dear, it ought to drive every other high-grade varnish offthe market. Do you make the stuff?"
"We're not ready to sell it yet: can't get hold of the raw material inquantities, and we're not satisfied about the best flux. I'll give youmy card."
It bore the address of a paint and varnish factory in Connecticut, withthe words, "Represented by Cyrus P. Harding," at the bottom.
"Well," said the lumber man, "you seem to have got hold of a goodthing, Mr. Harding; but if you're not open to sell it, what has broughtyou over here?"
"I'm looking round; we deal in all kinds of paints, and miss no chanceof a trade. Then I'm going 'way up Northwest. Is there anything doingin my line there?"
"Not much," the Hudson Bay man answered him. "You may sell a few kegsalong the railroad track, but as soon as you leave it you'll find nopaint required. The settlers use logs or shiplap and leave them in theraw. The trip won't pay you."
"Well, I'll see the country, and find out something about theconiferous gums."
"They're soft and resinous. Don't you get the material you make goodvarnish of from the tropics?"
Harding laughed.
"You people don't know your own resources. There's 'most everything awhite man needs right on this American continent, if he'll take thetrouble to look for it. Lumber changes some of its properties with thelocation in which it grows, I guess. We have pines in Florida, butwhen you get right up to their northern limit you'll find a difference."
"There's something in that," the sawmill man agreed.
"If you're going up to their northern limit, you'll see some of theroughest and wildest country on this earth," declared the Hudson Bayagent. "It's almost impossible to get through in summer unless youstick to the rivers, and to cross it in winter with the dog sleds ispretty tough work."
"So I've heard." said Harding. "Well, I'm going to take a smoke. Willyou come along?"
They declined, and when he left them one smiled at the other.
"They're smart people across the frontier, but to send a man into thenorthern timber belt looking for paint trade openings or resin they canmake varnish of is about the limit to commercial enterprise."
Harding was leaning back in his chair in the smoking-room with a frownon his face when Blake joined him. He had a nervous, alert look, andwas dressed with fastidious neatness.
"So you have come along at last!" he remarked in an ironical tone."Feel like getting down to business, or shall we put it off again?"
"Sorry I couldn't come earlier," Blake replied. "Somehow or other Icouldn't get away. Things kept turning up to occupy me."
"It's a way they seem to have. Your trouble is that you're toodiffuse; you spread yourself out too much. You want to fix your mindon one thing; and that will have to be business as soon as we leavehere."
"I dare say you're right. My interest's apt to wander; but if you takeadvantage of every opportunity that offers, you get most out of life.Concentration's good; but if you concentrate on a thing and then don'tget it, you begin to think what a lot of other things you've missed."
"That may be all right," said Harding dubiously; "but we're going toconcentrate on business right now. I have a wife, and I don't forgetit. Marianna--that's Mrs. Harding--is living in a two-room tenement,making her own dresses and cooking on a gasoline stove, so's to give memy chance for finding the gum. And I'm here in an expens
ive hotel,where I've made about two dollars' commission in three days. We havegot to pull out as soon as possible. Did you get any information fromthe Hudson Bay man?"
"I learned something about our route through the timber belt, and thekind of camp outfit we'll want; the temperature's often fifty below inwinter. Then I was in Revillons', looking at their cheaper furs, andin a store where they supply especially light hand-sleds, snowshoes,and patent cooking cans. We must have these things good, and Iestimate they'll cost about six hundred dollars."
"Six hundred dollars will make a big hole in our capital."
"I'm afraid so, but we can't run the risk of freezing to death; and wemay have to spend all winter in the wilds."
"That's true; I don't go back until I find the gum."
Harding's tone was resolute, and when he leaned forward, musing, withknitted brows, Blake gave him a sympathetic glance. Harding hadentered the paint factory when a very young man, and had studiedchemistry in his scanty spare time, with the object of understandinghis business better. He found the composition of varnishes aninteresting subject, and as the best gums employed came from thetropics and were expensive he began to experiment with the exudationsfrom American trees. His employers hinted that he was wasting histime, but Harding continued, trying to test a theory that the textureand hardness of the gums might depend upon climatic temperature. Bychance, a resinous substance which had come from the far North fellinto his hands, and he found that, when combined with an African gum,it gave astonishing results. Before this happened, however, hisemployers had sent him out on the road; and as they were scepticalabout his discovery and he would not take them fully into hisconfidence, they merely promised to keep his place open for a time.Now he was going to search for the gum at his own expense.
"We'll order the outfit in the morning," he said presently, glancingtoward a man who sat across the room. "Do you think that fellow Clarkecan hear? I've a notion that he's been watching us."
"Does it matter?"
"You must bear in mind that we have a valuable secret; and I understandthat he lives somewhere in the country we are going through."
As he spoke, the Hudson Bay agent came in and walked over to Clarke.
"That was good stuff you gave me a dose of last night," he said to him."It cured my ague right off."
"It's a powerful drug," Clarke answered, "and must be used withdiscretion. If you feel you need it, I'll give you another dose. It'san Indian remedy; I learned the secret up in the timber belt, but ISpent some time experimenting before I was satisfied about itsproperties."
"Then you get on with Indians?"
"Yes," Clarke said shortly. "It isn't difficult when you grasp theirpoint of view. You ought to know something about that. On the whole,the Hudson Bay people treat the Indians well; there was a starving ladyou picked up suffering from snow-blindness near Jack-pine River andsent back safely to his tribe."
"That's so; but I don't know how you knew. I'm sure I haven't talkedabout it, and my clerk has never left the factory. There wasn'tanother white man within a week's Journey."
Clarke smiled.
"I heard, all the same. You afterward had some better furs than usualbrought in."
The agent looked surprised.
"Some of these people are grateful, but although I've been in thecountry twelve years I don't pretend to understand them."
"They understand you. The proof of it is that you can keep yourfactory open in a district where furs are rather scarce, and you havehad very few mishaps. You can take that as a compliment."
Blake noticed something significant in Clarke's tone.
"Then you know the Jack-pine?" the agent asked.
"Pretty well, though it's not easy to reach. I came down it one winterfrom the Wild-goose hills. I'd put in the winter with a band ofStonies."
"The Northern Stonies? Did you find them easy to get on with?"
"They knew some interesting things," Clarke answered dryly. "I wentthere to study."
"Ah!" said the agent. "What plain folk, for want of a better name,call the occult. But it's fortunate that there's a barred door betweenwhite men and the Indian's mysticism."
"It has been opened to a white man once or twice."
"Oh, yes! He stepped through into the darkness and never came outagain. There was an instance I could mention."
"Civilized people would have no use for him afterward," Harding brokein. "We want sane, normal men on this continent. Neurotics, hoodoosand fakirs are worse than the plague; there's contagion in theirfooling."
"How would you define them? Those who don't fit in with your ideas ofthe normal?" Clarke sneered.
"I know a clean, straight man when I meet him, and that's enough forme," Harding retorted.
"I imagine that cleverer people are now and then deceived," saidClarke, moving away as he spoke.
"That's a man I want to keep clear of," Harding declared. "There'ssomething wrong about him; he's not wholesome!"