The Promise Read online

  CHAPTER XXIII

  HEAD-LINES

  The brute in Moncrossen held subservient the more human emotions, elsehe must surely have betrayed his surprise when, twelve hours ahead ofschedule, the greener swung the long-geared tote team to a stand infront of the office door.

  Not only had he made the trip without mishap, but accomplished theseemingly impossible in persuading Daddy Dunnigan to cook for a logcamp, when in all reason the old man should have scorned theproposition in a torrent of Irish profanity.

  Moncrossen dealt only in facts. Speculation as to cause and effectfound no place in his mental economy. His plan had miscarried. For thatCreed must answer later. The fact that concerned him now was that thegreener continued to be a menace to his scheme.

  Had Creed in some manner bungled the job? Or had he passed it up? Hemust find out how much the greener knew. The boss guessed that if theother had unearthed the plot, he would force an immediate crisis.

  And so he watched narrowly, but with apparent unconcern, while Billclimbed from the sled, followed by Daddy Dunnigan. On the hard-packedsnow of the clearing the two big men faced each other, and theexpression of each was a perfect mask to his true emotions.

  But the greener knew that the boss was masking, while Moncrossenaccepted the other's guileless expression at its face value, and hispendulous lips widened into a grin of genuine relief as he greeted thearrivals.

  "Hullo! You back a'ready? Hullo, Dunnigan! I'm sure glad you come;we'll have some real grub fer a change.

  "Hey, LaFranz!" he called to the passing Frenchman. "Put up this teaman' pack the gear to the bunk-house."

  As the man drove away in the direction of the stable, Moncrossenregarded the others largely.

  "Come on in an' have a drink, boys," he invited, throwing wide thedoor. "How's the foot?"

  "Better," replied Bill. "It will be as good as ever in a week."

  "I'm glad of that, 'cause I sure am cramped fer hands. I'll let Fallonbreak you into sawin' an put Stromberg to teamin'; he's too pot-guttedfer a sawyer."

  Moncrossen produced a bottle as the others seated themselves.

  "What--don't drink?" he exclaimed, as Bill passed the bottle toDunnigan. "That's so; b'lieve I did hear some one say you didn't use nobooze. Well, every man to his own likin'. Me--about three good, stiffjolts a day, an' a big drunk in the spring an' fall, is about my gait.Have a _see_gar." Bill accepted the proffered weed and bit off the end.

  "How!" he said, with a short sweep of the arm; then, scratching a matchon the rung of his chair, lighted the unsavory stogie.

  Thus each man took measure of the other, and Daddy Dunnigan tilted thebottle and drank deep, the while he took shrewd measure of both.

  * * * * *

  It was in the early afternoon of the following day that Bill Carmodytossed aside his magazine and yawned drowsily. Alone in the bunk-house,his glance roved idly over the room, with its tiers of empty bunks andracks of drying garments.

  It rested for a moment upon his bandaged foot propped comfortably uponFallon's bunk, directly beneath his own, and strayed to the floor wherejust under its edge, still wrapped in the soiled newspaper, sat thegallon jug that Fallon suggested in case the greener saw fit to heedhis warning.

  Bill smiled dreamily. Unconsciously his lips spelled out the words ofsome head-lines that stared at him from the rounded surface of the jug:

  POPULAR MEMBERS OF NEW YORK'S FOUR HUNDRED TO WED.

  "Wonder who?" thought Bill. Reaching for his crutch, he slipped the endthrough the handle of the jug and drew it toward him. He raised it tohis lap and the words of the succeeding line struck upon his brain likean electric shock:

  _Engagement of Miss Ethel Manton and Gregory St. Ledger Soon to be Announced._

  Feverishly his eyes devoured the following lines of the extendedheading:

  _Time of Wedding Not Set. Will Not Take Place Immediately, 'Tis Said. Prospective Bridegroom to Sail for Europe in Spring._

  And then the two lines of the story that appeared at the very bottom,where the paper folded under the edge of the jug:

  NEW YORK, February 1. (Special to _Tribune_.)--As a distinct surprise in elite circles will come the announcement of the engage

  He tilted the jug in frenzied eagerness to absorb every detail of thebitter news, and was confronted by the rough, stone bottom which hadworn through the covering, leaving mangled shreds of paper, whoserolled and mutilated edges were undecipherable.

  Vainly he tried to restore the tattered remnants, but soon abandonedthe hopeless task and sat staring at the head-lines.

  Over and over again he read them as if to grasp their significance, andthen, with a full realization of their import, he closed his eyes andsat long amid the crumbled ruin of his hopes.

  For he had hoped. In spite of the scorn in her voice as she dismissedhim, and the bitter resentment of his own parting words, he loved her;and upon the foundation of this love he had builded the hope of itsfulfillment.

  A hope that one day he would return to her, clean and strong in thestrength of achievement, and that his great passion would beat down thebarrier and he would claim her as of right.

  Suddenly he realized that as much as upon the solid foundation of hisown great love, the hope depended upon the false substructure of herlove for him.

  And the false substructure had crumbled at the test. She loved another;had suddenly become as unattainable as the stars--and was lost to himforever.

  The discovery brought no poignant pain, no stabbing agony of a freshheart-wound; but worse--the dull, deep, soul-hurt of annihilation; thehurt that damns men's lives.

  He smiled with bitter cynicism as his thoughts dwelt upon the littlelove of women, the shifting love, that rests but lightly on the heart,to change with the changing moon. And upon the constancy of such lovehe had dared to build his future!

  "Fool!" he cried, and laughed aloud, a short, hard laugh--the laughthat makes God frown. From the water-pail at his side he drew thelong-handled dipper and removed the cork from the jug and tilted thejug, and watched the red liquor splash noisily from its wide mouth.

  From that moment he would play a man's game; would smash Moncrossen andhis bird's-eye men; would learn logs and run camps, and among the bigmen of the rough places would win to the fore by the very force andabandon of him.

  He had beaten the whisky game; had demonstrated his ability to bestJohn Barleycorn on his own terms and in his own fastnesses.

  And now he would drink whisky--much whisky or little whisky as he sawfit, for there was none to gainsay him--and in his life henceforth nowoman could cause him pain.

  He raised the dipper to his lips, and the next instant it rang upon thefloor, and over the whole front of him splashed the raw liquor, and inhis nostrils was the fume and reek of it.

  Unmindful of his injury, he leaped to his feet and turned to face DaddyDunnigan, who was returning his crutch to his armpit.

  "Toimes Oi've yanked Captain Fronte from th' road av harm," the old manwas saying, and the red-rimmed, rheumy eyes shone bright; "wanst fromin front av a char-rge av the hillmen an' wanst beyant Khybar. But Oi'mthinkin' niver befoor was Oi closter to th' roight place at th' roighttoime thin a minit agone.

  "Whisky is made to be dhrank fer a pastime av enj'ymint--not alone--wida laugh loike that. Ye've got th' crayther on th' run, but ye must giveno quarter. Battles is won not in th' thruse, but in th' foightin'.

  "No McKim iver yit raised th' white flag, an' none iver died wid hisback to th' front. Set ye down, lad, an' think it over."

  He finished speaking and hobbled toward the door, and, passing out,closed it behind him. Alone in the bunk-house Bill Carmody turned againto the jug and fitted the cork to its mouth, and with his crutch pushedit under the edge of Fallon's bunk.

  Hours later, when the men stamped in noisily to the wash-bench, he wassitting there in the dark--thinking.

  * * * *
*

  The results of Daddy Dunnigan's cooking were soon evident in the BloodRiver camp. Men no longer returned to the bunk-house growling andcursing the grub, and Moncrossen noted with satisfaction that the dailycut was steadily climbing toward the eighty-thousand mark.

  The boss added a substantial bonus for each day's "top cut," and in thelengthening days an intense rivalry sprang up between the sawyers; notinfrequently Bill and Fallon were "in on the money."

  It was nearly two weeks after the incident, that Creed came toMoncrossen with his own story of what happened that night at Melton'sNo. 8, and the boss knew that he lied.

  As they talked in the little office the greener, accompanied by Fallon,passed close to the window.

  At the sight of the man the spotter's face became pasty, and he shranktrembling and wide-eyed, as from the sight of a ghost, and Moncrossenknew that his abject terror was not engendered by physical fear.

  He flew into a rage, cursing and bullying the craven, but failedutterly to dispel the unwholesome fear or to shake the other's repeatedstatement that at a few minutes past ten o'clock that night he had seenthe greener lying hopelessly drunk upon the floor of the shack with theflames roaring about him, and at six o'clock the next evening had seenhim hobble into Burrage's store, forty miles to the southward, freshand apparently unharmed save for his injured foot.

  Moncrossen's hatred of the greener rested primarily upon the fear thatone day he would expose him to Appleton; added to this was a mightyjealousy of his rapid rise to proficiency and the rankling memory ofthe scene of their first meeting in the grub-shack.

  But his fear of him was a physical fear--a fear born of the certainknowledge that, measured by his own standards, the greener was thebetter man.

  And now came the perplexing question as to how the man had reachedHilarity when Creed was known to have arrived there with the team eighthours after the burning of the shack.

  The boss had carefully verified so much of Creed's story by a guardedpumping of Dunnigan, and the crafty old Irishman took keen delight inso wording his answers, and interspersing them with knowing winks andquirks of the head, as to add nothing to the boss's peace of mind.

  While not sharing Creed's belief in the greener's possession of uncannypowers, nevertheless he knew that, whatever happened that night, thegreener knew more than he chose to tell, and as his apprehensiondeepened his rage increased.

  Hate smoldered in the swinish eyes as, in the seclusion of the office,he glowered and planned and rumbled his throaty threats.

  "The drive," he muttered. "My Bucko Bill, you're right now picked forthe drive, an' I'll see to it myself that you git yourn in the river."