For the Allinson Honor

Joe had heard nobody approach and he was startled; but the next moment he became cool and intent. A man was moving toward the Allinson corner post. He had his hands on it when Joe sprang forward. But he was too late to surprise the fellow. Joe closed with him in a savage grapple; but he could not throw him, and glancing sideways at a sound, he saw that he would shortly have to deal with a second enemy. Another man was running hard toward them.

It was obvious that he would be overpowered unless he could disable the fellow he had seized before his confederate arrived; and with a tense effort he drove him backward. Clutching each other, they staggered a few yards through the darkness, until Joe felt the ground slant sharply beneath his feet. Then, using all his force, he flung off his adversary. The man disappeared and there was a splash in the creek below. Then Joe turned breathlessly to meet the other man.

He was near at hand, but, instead of attacking him, the fellow stopped and cried out. This, however, did not trouble Joe, because the shout would bring his companions upon the scene as well as the other party. Moving cautiously in search of clearer ground on which to meet the rush he expected, his foot caught in his blanket, which had fallen off, and he swiftly picked it up. He had hardly done so when the fellow ran at him, and Joe, meeting him with a staggering blow, flung the heavy blanket over his head. He stumbled, unable to see, and Joe, leaping upon him, bore him to the ground. There he had the advantage of being uppermost; and, getting his knee on the other's chest, managed to hold him down. This was satisfactory, so far as it went, but he did not know what to do with his captive, and shouts now broke out in the darkness. The rest of Scaith's friends were evidently coming to the rescue, but he could hear Watkins' voice, and wondered anxiously which would arrive first.

He spent a minute or two holding the fellow down and thumping him as a hint to keep still, while hurrying footsteps rapidly drew nearer. A voice he did not know reached him, and he remembered that although there was a rifle in camp he was unarmed and, if he stuck to his prisoner, there would be two of his friends to four of Scaith's. That was long odds; it looked as if he must be driven off the field, but he determined to give the other side all the trouble he could.

A moment or two later a man appeared.

"Scaith!" he called, and the fellow under the blanket struggled as if he had heard.

"Quit it!" warned Joe, striking him hard; and then shouted: "Stand off before you get hurt!"

The newcomer stopped, no doubt trying to make out the meaning of what he indistinctly saw, and Joe, hearing two or three more running, did not get up. If the fellow attacked him, he would resist, but he wished to keep his captive out of action as long as possible. They waited, both expecting help, until Watkins and the third of Joe's party came upon the scene. Behind them appeared three others, and both parties paused. In the darkness it was difficult to discover what was going on.

"Where's our boss?" the first of the strangers asked.

"I can't say," Joe answered. "One of your crowd's in the gulch, and I've another here who'll sure get damaged if he don't keep still. I don't know which is which."

Scaith's friends seemed disconcerted at the news.

"What's to be done about it, Joe?" Watkins broke in.

"Well," said Joe coolly, "I guess we'll give them a chance to quit." He addressed the opposite party. "You had better look for your partner, boys. There'll be no stakes pulled up to-night."

"We can wipe you out!" was the answer. "We've got a gun!"

"So've we," replied Watkins. "I've got something else that will fix you as quick. Get a hustle on; we've no use for jumpers!"

Nobody stirred. Joe knew that he must confine himself to a defensive course; Scaith's was the stronger party, but they were apparently daunted by the loss of their leader.

"You want to be reasonable," argued one. "What we're out for has nothing to do with you. This isn't your claim."

"We're going to watch it," Joe said.

"Run them off!" cried one of the others. "We've talked enough!"

They seemed ready for a rush, and Watkins quickly struck a match in the shelter of his jacket. The next moment a slight hissing became audible and he held up something which emitted small red sparks.

"I guess you know what this is," he remarked. "The fuse is pretty short and there's a stick of giant-powder at the end of it. You had better quit before I pitch it into the midst of you." He added sharply: "Get up, Joe!"

They were startled by his cold-blooded daring, and though it may have been discharged by accident, a pistol flashed. Then, as Joe sprang to his feet, Watkins yelled in mockery and flung the dynamite cartridge into the air. A train of sparks marked its flight, but the others did not wait, and while Joe and his comrades ran off there was a flash and a detonation.

It was followed by a shout some distance off and a sound of men running hard. Joe called his friends back. It was not Scaith's party he heard: the footsteps were too numerous.

"What's the trouble?" somebody shouted.

"Jumpers!" Joe answered, and turned to his companions. "It's the first of the boys up from the settlement."

In a minute or two the newcomers arrived and Joe explained the matter.

"We were making for your fire when we heard the shot and hastened on our fastest hustle," said one. "Now we'll go along and bounce the blamed jumpers out."

Dawn was breaking when they reached Scaith's camp. They found several men very busy, but they stopped a moment when the party came up.

"You have to get off the ground!" ordered one of the men from the Landing. "The sooner you quit the better for you!"

"We're going," was the sullen answer. "I reckon we know when you've got the best of us."

"Then," said the other man, "we'll wait till you start – and we won't wait long!"

Shortly afterward Scaith's party took the trail to the south, and as there were six of them Joe concluded that his first assailant had not been seriously damaged by his fall into the ravine. When they had gone, one of the new arrivals turned to Joe.

"Carnally and Graham should be here before night," he said. "They were getting ready to come up when we left. Jake allowed he wanted to be on the ground."

CHAPTER XXX

THE EVE OF BATTLE

It was evening when the big liner which had left Montreal at daybreak steamed slowly past the ramparts of Quebec, the roar of her whistle echoing among the rocks. The tide which had floated her across the shoals of Lake St. Peter was running low, the great river was unruffled, and Andrew leaned on her saloon-deck rails, watching the city open up as she swung inshore with the slack stream. Behind the wharves and warehouses at the waterside old buildings and loftier modern ones, stores, banks and churches, rose in picturesque confusion, tier above tier, to the heights girdled by Dufferin Avenue, and the huge Frontenac Hotel. It struck him as a beautiful city, viewed from the river, but it bore an exotic stamp. In spite of the sooty smoke of the locomotives and the rattle of steamboat winches, it had a stronger resemblance to the old romantic towns of France than the business centers of essentially modern Canada.

A feeble scream answered the sonorous whistle, and the engines stopped for a few minutes as a tug steamed out from the wharf. She brought a dozen passengers besides a number of mailbags, and when she cast off the screw throbbed again and the liner forged ahead. It was with mixed feelings that Andrew watched the city drop behind and the white thread of Montmorency Falls disappear behind a long green island. Beyond it the river widened, the shores were falling back, and dusk was creeping across the oily water. Open sea was still far away, but Andrew felt that he had parted from Canada, and though he was going home with his work successfully done, the thought filled him with wistful regret. In spite of many hardships and difficulties, he had been happy in the northern wilds, and happier with Geraldine by the Lake of Shadows. He meant to come back when he had finished his fight for Allinson's and he thrilled as he wondered how Geraldine would welcome him. She had given him a gracious farewell and her sincere good wishes; but she had with gentle firmness prevented his making any direct appeal. This he determined should not be the same again. When he returned she should hear him out; but there was still much to be done before he could prove his right to claim her, for the possibility of ignominious failure confronted him.

Before the next few weeks had passed he might be beaten and discredited – jeered at as a rash fool who, undertaking a task beyond his powers, had brought disaster upon those he meant to benefit and wrecked an honored firm. But apart from such considerations, he knew that he had turned his back upon the strenuous life of the wilderness. Even if he returned to the lode for a month or two, he would travel by well-marked roads, surrounded by some degree of civilized comfort. There would be no more of the zest of the unknown trail; the charm of the lonely North would be broken by the crash of machinery and the voices of busy men.

The dinner bugle broke his reverie, and when he was leaving the saloon a steward gave him a letter the tender had brought. Recognizing Carnally's writing, he opened it eagerly in a quiet corner of the smoking-room, and as he read it he felt a faint envy of his comrade who was using pick and powder in the wilds. This, however, gave place to more practical considerations. Carnally related the jumpers' defeat, which he described as Mappin's last attempt to trouble them. The claims, he said, were safe from any fresh attack, and there was a marked improvement in the ore as they opened up the lode. He thought Andrew could devote himself to his English business with undisturbed confidence.

Andrew realized that the latter would need all his attention, and during the short voyage he had little to say to his fellow-passengers. Revolving schemes in his mind, he found weak points in all of them, for it was a serious problem he had to attack. He could see several ways of regulating the Rain Bluff Company's affairs, if Leonard would agree, and he could bring charges against his brother-in-law which would cost him his relatives' support; but this course was not admissible. Leonard must be deprived of all control over Allinson's but it must be done without suspicion being cast upon the integrity of the firm. That would be difficult. Then Florence's position required thought. Andrew wished the unraveling of the matter had been left to somebody else with more tact and acuteness, but it was his duty and he must do the best he could.

On landing he traveled straight to London, and after taking a room at a hotel went on foot to the Allinson offices. It was a sultry day with rain at intervals; the streets were miry, and smoke thickened the listless air. As he walked eastward along the Strand the roar of traffic jarred on his ears and he noticed the streaky grime on the wet buildings; but it was the intent, pallid faces of the passers-by that impressed him most when he approached the city. Some were pinched and hungrily eager, some were gross and fleshy, but the steady, direct frankness of the Canadian glance was missing, and there was a more marked difference in the movements of Andrew's city countrymen. All were in a hurry, bolting into and out of dingy offices, but they had not the free virile grace of the men who followed the lonely Canadian trails. Nor had they, so far as their expressions hinted, the optimistic cheerfulness that is common in the West.

Though he was glad to be at home, Andrew was sensible of a faint depression. The people he saw about him were those he would henceforward work among; he must change the drill and canoe paddle for the pen, and breathe the close air of offices instead of the fragrance of the pines. Had the option been his, he would have turned away from the city; but, as the head of Allinson's, he was not free to choose. Doggedly, as when he had followed the frozen trail on a morsel of food, he held on eastward past the Law Courts.

At the office he learned that Leonard was away at a German health resort, but would be back in a few days, and that Florence was staying at Ghyllside. Andrew was sorry for Florence and felt guilty when he thought of her. Though she had always taken her husband's view and refused to consider him a person of any importance, she was his eldest sister. Had she been less prejudiced, she might have helped him to come to some understanding with Leonard which would have prevented a direct conflict, but he feared he could look only for opposition and bitterness. Next he learned that the Rain Bluff shareholders' meeting, which he had suggested, had been fixed for an unexpectedly early date. He surmised that Leonard, having his plans ready, meant to get them adopted before his own were prepared.

Summoning Sharpe, the elderly chief accountant who had served his father, Andrew spent some hours with him, mastering so far as possible the state of the firm's affairs. With a few exceptions, they were prospering; there was no doubt that, in a sense, Leonard had done his work well. In particular, the returns from foreign ventures were excellent, and though Sharpe could not tell him precisely how the profits had been made, Andrew with wider knowledge on some points could guess. He feared that a full explanation would not redound to the honor of the firm. He knew of lands to which Allinson's money had been sent, where the high interest was wrung out of subject races with fiendish cruelty.

At last, when the electric lights were burning in the lavishly-decorated office, Sharpe closed his books.

"I think that is all I can tell you, Mr. Allinson," he said. "On the whole, I venture to believe you must find our position eminently satisfactory. The one weak point, if I may say so, is the Rain Bluff mine. You will have seen that the shares are quoted down."

"I've noticed it. What's the reason? The directors wouldn't let any information that might have a depressing effect leak out."

"There has been some selling," Sharpe answered with a shrug. "It's possible that things have been kept too close. A little encouraging news given to the press now and then goes a long way, but silence tends to uneasiness." He hesitated. "I suppose I must not ask about the Company's prospects until you have met the Board?"

"You have been investing?"

Sharpe admitted it.