Part 15 (1/2)
as well as I think I do. So now I want to hire you in the discouragin'
business--you understand it fairly well. I need an a.s.sistant discourager. And here's my proposition! I'll give ye five thousand dollars bonus smack down in your fist and promise you in the name of the Lumbermen's a.s.sociation a steady job. We're goin' to build three big dams along the West Branch and a four-mile ca.n.a.l cut-off at headwaters.
You'll find work enough, if that's what you're lookin' for.”
”And you'll be looking for me to sell out your interests at my first opportunity,” said Parker.
”Ours is a different proposition--a different proposition,” blurted Ward earnestly. ”Your men ain't got any right to be here on our own stamping ground--not as bus'ness men. We ain't goin' down where they are to bother them. They hadn't ought to be up here. If you leave 'em and come with us we'll consider that it's showin' that you understand what a square deal in bus'ness matters means. And furthermore,” he said with a certain air as tho he had reserved his trump card, ”we'll make our trade in black and white for a ten years' contract at a third more wages than your railroad people are paying and tip you off regular on timber deals where you can make an extry dollar. I don't mind tellin' ye, Parker, that I've had ye looked up and I know that we ain't buyin' any gold brick.” This with a certain cordiality.
”I must say, Colonel Ward, that you have taken a rather peculiar method of getting me interested in your enterprises.” Parker's tone was a bit resentful, but the old man believed he could understand that resentment, and grew more cheerful and confident.
”You had to be discouraged,” chuckled the colonel. ”Didn't I tell you that you had to be discouraged? Why, if you hadn't been shown what kind of a proposition you were up against you might have kept on thinkin'
that the P. K. &. R. railroad company was the biggest thing in the world. All young men want to work for the biggest folks. But I reckon by this time you have found out that Gideon Ward and the Lumbermen's a.s.sociation come pretty near bein' lord of all they survey in this country. There, young man! The cards are down. Look at 'em! I'm pretty rough and I'm pretty tough and I play the game for all that's in me. But when it's over you won't find any cards up my sleeve nor down the back of my neck--and you can't always say that of your smooth city chaps.”
Parker sat with his elbows on his knees, looking down at the floor, his forehead wrinkled. He was a pretty st.u.r.dy young American in principles and conduct, but at the same time he had all of young America's appreciation of the main chance. And the main chance in these days lies along the road where the dollars are sprinkled thickest. He reflected that the building of the little bob-tail railroad had been tossed at him as a rather silly and secret escapade of two big men who were already half ashamed of the whole business. He realized that in their present frame of mind they would be inclined to close out the whole thing in disgust as soon as they received news of the destruction of the property.
When he got back to town he would simply remind them of a mutual failure to accomplish, and the history of such reminders is that they have been side-tracked in some places where their presence could not remind.
”You know there isn't goin' to be any hurry about your givin' up your present job--not till spring has got well opened and the ice is out of Spinnaker,” said Colonel Ward slyly, breaking in on the young man's meditations. ”There's always a right time for re-signin' and we'll discover that time. But your five thousand will be put to your credit in Kenduskeag Bank the next day after you sign our papers, and your salary with us will begin the minute the ink is dry. You'll have double pay for a while, but I reckon you'll be earnin' it.” He chuckled once more.
Parker, surveying his red cheek k.n.o.bs, his cruel gray eyes narrowed now in evil mirth, recollected with a photographic flash of memory of the details of that story the postmaster at Sunkhaze had told him. This was the same man who had coolly stolen wife and property from his own brother and then had jeered at him, probably with that same expression puckering about his evil, gray eyes. In the sudden revulsion of his feelings Parker wondered if he really had been tempted by the bait held out to him. At least, he had been weighing the chances. He remembered cases where other men who had stopped to weigh advantages had ended in becoming disloyal. He promptly forgot with a mental wrench the bribe that had been offered. It was a coaxing bait and he bravely owned that it had tempted for a moment. He was honest enough to own to himself that, offered by another, it might have won him--and he felt a little quiver of fear at the thought.
But when he pictured himself as the a.s.sociate of this old harpy who sat leering at him, hands on his knees, and already swelling with a sense of proprietors.h.i.+p, he almost forgot his personal wrongs in the hot flush of his indignation on behalf of the cheated brother.
”That's a proposition that sort of catches ye, hey?” inquired Ward, misunderstanding the nature of the flush that sprung to Parker's cheeks.
”I'm going to be honest enough to say that it did catch me for a moment,” replied the young man.
”Oh, I know all about what temptation is to any men--especially a young man,” said the colonel blandly.
”But I'll bet you a hundred dollars to a toothpick you never knew what it was to resist temptation,” shouted Parker. ”And I'm going to tell you now and here that I'd no more accept your offer and take a job with you than I'd poison myself with paris green.” He flung himself back in his chair and glared at his tempter with honest indignation.
For a little while Ward stared at him, open-mouthed. His surprise was greater, for he believed that he had landed his fish.
”And don't you make me any more offers. I've no use for them or for you, either,” cried the young man, his voice trembling.
”I've read about such critters as you be,” said the colonel slowly, ”but it was in a dime novel and it was a good many years ago and I didn't believe it. I believe it said in the novel that the young man died young and went to heaven--the only one of his kind. P'raps I'm wrong and he didn't die--went to heaven jest as he stood in his shoes and co't and pants.”
Parker merely scowled back at the biting irony of this rejoinder.
”There's no dime novel or any other kind of a novel to this affair, Colonel Ward. I'm not especially fitted to be the hero of a book. Nor to be one of your hired men, either.”
”Then ye've made up your mind to straddle out your legs and play Branscome's mule, hey?”
”What was his special characteristic?”
The question was drawled coolly.
”He kicked when ye tried to drive him with a whip and he bit and squealed when ye tried to coax him along with sweet apples. So if ye won't neither lead nor drive, then out with it man fas.h.i.+on.”