CHAPTER XIII

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*THE PRESSURE OF THE THUMB-SCREW*

The following night Forrest was seated near the open fire in his room off the store. His journal and ledger were on the table before him, and opposite Kingsley tilted his chair comfortably, and clasping his hands at the back of his head, lifted his glance to the lamp-lighted ceiling. He was smoking and looked a trifle bored.

"It amounts to this," said Forrest; "lumber has dropped to eight dollars a thousand and we've simply got to cut down expenses." He paused with his hands on the arms of his chair, his body slightly inclined forward, and looked at Philip with clear, stern eyes. "I am running the lightest possible force; I have dispensed with a bookkeeper and am doing his work nights. But here are still unpaid bills for machinery, saw-logs and towing; some weeks it even comes to a question of the wages of the men. I could, though, have met these demands better if I hadn't been so handicapped. For instance, in the matter of the _Corona_. I made out the bills of lading; I relied on the funds at a certain time and gave promises of payment. And then found out you had received the checks and had them cashed, and put most of the money to personal use. It not only places me in a difficult position but weakens the credit, the standing of the mills."

"I suppose so," said Kingsley, knocking the ashes carefully from his cigar. "I suppose so; I hadn't looked at it in that way. But the _Enterprise_ will be here in a few days and her shipment ought to make things straight."

"Temporarily, yes. But see here, why can't you limit yourself to a salary? Say two hundred a month? If you could do this, and devote a definite time to work, I should know what to depend on, and we could pull through the year without calling on the Judge."

"Two hundred a month?" repeated Philip, and laughed.

"Yes. You know the Judge advised a regular salary."

"You seem to forget I have practically a half interest in this property."

"On the other hand, it is that I remember," answered Forrest dryly. "If the mills should go under it would bar me, of course, from another position of trust; but for you it would mean financial ruin."

Kingsley smoked for a brief interval in silence. Then he said, "I don't see the necessity of all this. There's Stratton, now, talks differently. He thinks I have a sure thing; that another year or two will see the opening of a great lumber traffic with the Orient. He calls Puget Sound the Gateway of the Pacific. I wish you could hear him."

"I have heard him," answered Forrest, again dryly. "But with me, his opinion doesn't count for much. To hold my faith a man has got to do the things he talks about. And Stratton isn't a man who works. In short, it's a problem where he gets his money. My friend Bates, of the Customs Service, has been in Victoria a good deal; he knows something about Stratton's family. His father, before he died, made a fortune in the fur trade, but his mother, who lived a rather smart life over there, spent it faster. Stratton is like her."

"He has taken up his father's business," said Kingsley warmly. "He is building a fine coasting schooner, now, to carry on an extensive trade, northward, with the Indians."

Forrest shook his head. "That's just it. A man dabbling spasmodically in furs, and living extravagantly most of the time about town, is hardly expected to have capital to invest in a fine steam-schooner."

Philip watched a puff of smoke rise and expand in blue haze above him. "I know what you're driving at," he said. "You're referring to his possible connection with a smuggling ring. Stratton told me all about it. There's nothing in it. Bates happens to have a grudge against him."

"Bates is hardly the man to satisfy a personal grudge in that way. He merely answered a question or two I asked him." Forrest paused and went on in a slightly deepened tone. "It seems to me incredible that you should let a fellow like Stratton manage you."

"Manage?" The Captain's chair came down abruptly on its front legs. "See here, even you can't say that, Paul. Stratton is my friend; I'm fond of him, but I do as I damn please."

Forrest was silent.

Kingsley rose to his feet and threw his cigar in the fire. "It's time I went up to the house," he said. "The crowd will be ready to go on to town, soon, and I've hardly seen Louise."

Forrest pushed back his chair and rose. "You agree, then, to the two hundred," he said quietly.

"Oh, come, you are worse than thumb-screws." He laughed a short, constrained laugh and looked at his watch.

"The Judge, you remember, takes it for granted."

"Oh, well,"--he ran his fingers swiftly through his close-cropped hair, and repeated the movement,--"I don't see how I can do it--but--I suppose so for awhile--yes."

He picked up his cap and started out through the store. Forrest followed him to the outer door. But there Philip stopped. "Come up to the house with me," he said, "and bring your violin. I've been telling them about you."

He stood jingling his keys in his pockets, and whistling in snatches, much like a schoolboy who tries to forget, yet remembers the unpleasant ending of a scrape, while Forrest went back to his room for the instrument.

It was a moonless night, but in the direction of the mills the burning slabpile brought out the lines of the bluff. It lighted the upper wharf and the great piles of finished or rough lumber. The whitewashed walls of the cabins reflected the glare. Everywhere, in the open doorways, seated on timbers or blocks in the vicinity of the fire, wherever there was protection from the north wind, or the flames threw heat, groups of workmen loitered. Suddenly Kingsley said, "I would like to see the whole thing dumped into that slabfire."

Forrest put his hand on Philip's shoulder. Both stopped and the light shone on the manager's face. The laugh lurked in his eyes, and the lines about his mouth softened. "And you'd like to see me at the bottom of the heap."

"I'm sick of these mills," said Philip petulantly. "I hate the place."

"And me. Come, say so."

"Well, then, yes, and you, since you are determined to put me through." He threw off Forrest's hand, and seeing the old watchman approaching on the branch walk, went a step to meet him. "I want you to go over to the cookhouse, Mason," he said, "and tell Sing to bring a little supper up. Take him down to the _Phantom_ and get a dozen of champagne from the port cabin locker. Here's the key."

He rejoined Forrest and they finished the distance in silence. But when they entered the parlor, where Kingsley's friends awaited him, his manner changed. "You must blame Paul for keeping me," he said lightly; "he was determined to talk. When he has a point to gain he has the grip of a vise; never lets go. You've simply got to yield through sheer weariness."

Every one laughed, and he crossed the room to seat himself beside the girl with a small blond head, who had accompanied him the previous day with a banjo. But his glance moved again and again to his wife. For the first time it nettled him to see another man interested in her. And Stratton was interested; Stratton, who was undeniably hard to please. It is the way of some men to appraise their wives according to the value placed on them by other men, and Kingsley began to make an inventory of her points; that was a nice flush in her cheeks, and he had nearly forgotten about that lighting of her dark eyes. And, too, that was a pretty way she wore her hair. Then he remembered how splendid it was unbound, for it rippled to her knees, and was soft as a black velvet cloak. And when she sang, presently, to the accompaniment of Forrest's violin, the Captain told himself she had never been in better voice. He resolved to be at the mills oftener; on the whole, if he had not just been forced into that miserable limit of two hundred dollars, he would like to set up an establishment over in town.

When she went from the room to consult Sing about that little supper, Philip followed her. She believed he had come to look in at little Silas, and she quietly threw open the inner door. The light streamed into the dark interior, showing the small white bed, the charming face of the sleeping child. There was a rosy glow on the round cheek, and one stout, dimpled arm, bared to the elbow, encircled his curly head.

Kingsley stood watching him a silent moment, then he put his arm around his wife and said softly, "He's all right; yes, he's fine. But he's been growing since I saw him; I hadn't thought it was so long. I must get home oftener. Do you know you were in great voice to-night; I never heard you sing so well."

"Yes?" she answered, smiling, "I am glad you think so. I sang for you."

"And this color in your cheeks; is it for me, too?"

"You know that I am glad to have you home."

He bent and kissed her. Her head rested an instant on his breast; he brushed his cheek against her hair. "You miss me, then, when I'm away?"

"Yes." She lifted her face. An intensity of expression that he had seen rarely, and always disliked, came over it; the force in her low voice jarred. Why couldn't she stay pleasant, as she had been there in the crowd. "I would do anything to keep you at home, Philip. Anything, if you would spend your evenings with me; your nights, as you used to."

His arm fell. "I thought you understood the outside business would keep me away," he said coolly. "I explained it at the first when you wanted to live here at the mills."

She moved a step away. Her heart cried, "It is not the business," but she said aloud, turning to him again with a smile, "A woman doesn't often reason; she only feels."

"That's the trouble; you feel too much; more than most women. When you are not serious, though, you are a very attractive woman."

She stood quite still, with her slender fingers locked, and that intensity growing in her eyes. "Do you know, Philip, sometimes I wonder how you ever could have cared for me; for the best that is in me is what you have overlooked. I should think,"--she paused and forced again that brave little smile,--"I should think that you might be--happier, if you had married a different kind--of woman."

At this he laughed. So she was a little jealous, that explained things, and of that flyaway, there in the other room. "There's the woman one marries," he answered lightly, "and the woman with whom one has a good time; they are seldom alike."

She was silent. There is nothing so cuts a proud and refined woman as the enforced knowledge of her husband's coarser grain; but her disappointment finds no expression; she covers her shame.

"But I don't blame you," he went on, still lightly, "I don't blame you; I don't deny you've had cause. I'm coming home oftener, after this, though; or, perhaps, before long, I can arrange to take a house in town. You would like that?"

"Yes. The loneliness is harder than I believed it could be; it wears on me. And I can't grow accustomed to the mill people. Last evening I saw a strange face at the window. It haunts me. I woke up in the night time, seeing it. It was--terrible. I have never been a brave woman, Philip. I am--afraid."

Her whole body trembled, overcome by the recollection of that face. But Kingsley laughed again. "Well, I don't wonder. For sheer physical ugliness, this crew Forrest has picked up might, almost to a man, dispute the palm. But Alice is coming; she'll show you pluck; she has it to spare. And we'll have that cruise through the islands. We'll make it a small family affair and take along little Si. Meantime Paul must see that the night watchman gives the house special attention, and I'll ask him to come in oftener with his violin."

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