Читать книгу Joan of Arc of the North Woods - Holman Day - Страница 4

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IN New York young Latisan plunged straight at his business.

The home office of the Comas Consolidated Company was in a towering structure in the metropolis’s financial district. On the translucent glass of many doors there was a big C with two smaller C’s nested. In the north country everybody called the corporation The Three C’s.

After a fashion, the sight of the portentous monogram made Ward feel more at home. Up where he lived the letters were familiar. Those nested C’s stood for wide-flung ownership along the rivers of the north. The monogram was daubed in blue paint on the ends of countless logs; it marked the boxes and barrels and sacks of mountains of supplies along the tote roads; it designated as the property of the Comas Company all sorts of possessions from log camps down to the cant dog in the hands of the humblest Polack toiler. Those nested C’s were dominant, assertive, and the folks of the north were awed by the everlasting reduplication along the rivers and in the forests.

Ward, indignantly seeking justice, resolved not to be awed in the castle of the giant. He presented himself at a gate and asked to see the president. The president could not be seen except by appointment, Latisan learned.

What was the caller’s business? Latisan attempted to explain, but he was halted by the declaration that all details in the timber country were left to Rufus Craig, field manager!

When Ward insisted that his previous talks with Craig had only made matters worse for all concerned, and when he pleaded for an opportunity to talk with somebody—anybody—at headquarters, he finally won his way to the presence of a sallow man who filmed his hard eyes and listened with an air of silent protest. He also referred Latisan back to Craig. “We don’t interfere with his management of details in the north.”

Evidently Mr. Craig had been attending to his defenses in the home office.

Ward’s temper was touched by the listener’s slighting apathy. “I’ve come here to protest against unfair methods. Our men are tampered with—told that the Latisans are on their last legs. We are losing from our crews right along. We have been able to hire more men to take the places of those who have been taken away from us. But right now we are up against persistent reports that we shall not be able to get down our cut in the spring. Sawmill owners are demanding bonds from us to assure delivery; otherwise they will cancel their orders.”

“Do you know any good reason why you can’t deliver?” probed the Comas man, showing a bit of interest.

“Your Mr. Craig seems to know. I blame him for these stories.”

“I’m afraid you’re laboring under a delusion, Mr. Latisan. Why don’t you sell out to our company? Most of the other independents have found it to their advantage—seen it in the right light.”

“Mr. Craig’s tactics have driven some small concerns to see it that way, sir. But my grandfather was operating in the north and supplying the sawmills with timber before the paper mills began to grab off every tree big enough to prop a spruce bud. Villages have been built up around the sawmills. If the paper folks get hold of everything those villages will die; all the logs will be run down to the paper mills.”

“Naturally,” said the sallow man. “Paper is king these days.”

Then he received a handful of documents from a clerk who entered, again referred Ward to Mr. Craig, advised him to treat with the latter in the field, where the business belonged, and hunched a dismissing shoulder toward the caller.

Ward had not been asked to sit down; he swung on his heel, but he stopped and turned. “As to selling out, even if we can bring ourselves to that! Mr. Craig has beaten independents to their knees and has made them accept his price. It’s not much else than ruin when a man sells to him.”

“Persecutional mania is a dangerous hallucination,” stated the sallow man. “Mr. Craig has accomplished certain definite results in the north country. We have used the word Consolidated in our corporation name with full knowledge of what we are after. We assure stable conditions in the timber industry. You must move with the trend of the times.”

Latisan had been revolving in his mind certain statements which he proposed to make to the big men of the Comas. He had assorted and classified those statements before he entered the castle of the great corporation. With youth’s optimism he had anticipated a certain measure of sympathy—had in some degree pictured at least one kindly man in the Comas outfit who would listen to a young chap’s troubles.

Walking to the door, standing with his hand on the knob, he knew he must go back to the woods with the dolorous prospect of being obliged to fight to hold together the remnants of the Latisan business. He set his teeth and opened the door. He would have gone without further words, but the sallow man snapped a half threat which brought Ward around on his heels.

“Mr. Latisan, I hope you will carry away with you the conviction that fighting the Comas company will not get you anything.”

Ward choked for a moment. Old John was stirring in him. A fettered yelp was bulging in his throat, and the skin of the back of his head tingled as if the hair were rising. But he spoke quietly when he allowed his voice to squeeze past the repressed impulse. “There’s a real fight ready to break in the north country, sir.”

“Do you propose to be captain?”

“I have no such ambition. But your Mr. Craig is forcing the issue. No company is big enough to buck the law in our state.”

“Look here, my good fellow!” The sallow man came around in his chair. Ward immediately was more fully informed as to the personage’s status. “I am one of the attorneys of this corporation. I have been attending to the special acts your legislature has passed in our behalf. We are fully protected by law.”

“The question is how much you’ll be protected after facts are brought out by a fight,” replied Ward, stoutly. “I know the men who have been sent down to the legislature from our parts and how they were elected. But even such men get cold feet after the public gets wise.”

“That’ll be enough!” snapped the attorney. He turned to his desk again.

“Yes, it looks like it,” agreed young Latisan; he did not bang the door after him; he closed it softly.

The attorney was obliged to look around to assure himself that his caller was not in the room. Then he pushed a button and commanded a clerk to ask if Mr. Craig was still in the president’s office. Informed that Mr. Craig was there, the attorney went thither.

“I have just been bothered by that young chap, Latisan, from the Tomah region,” reported Dawes, the attorney. “He threatens a fight which will rip the cover off affairs in the north country. How about what’s underneath, provided the cover is ripped off, Craig?”

“Everything sweet as a nut! Any other kind of talk is bluff and blackmail. So that’s young Latisan’s latest move, eh?” he ejaculated, squinting appraisingly at Dawes and turning full gaze of candor’s fine assumption on Horatio Marlow, the president.

“Just who is this young Latisan?” inquired Marlow.

“Oh, only the son of one of the independents who are sticking out on a hold-up against us. Did he name his price, Dawes?”

“He didn’t try to sell anything,” acknowledged the attorney. “Craig, let me ask you, are you moving along the lines of the law we have behind us in those special acts I steered through?”

“Sure thing!” asserted the field director, boldly.

“We’ve got to ask for more from the next legislature,” stated the lawyer.

The president came in with a warning. “Credit is touchy these days, Mr. Craig. We’re going into the market for big money for further development. It’s easy for reports to be made very hurtful.”

“I’m achieving results up there,” insisted Craig, doggedly.

“We’re very much pleased with conditions,” agreed the president. “We’re able to show capital a constantly widening control of properties and natural advantages. But remember Achilles’s heel, Mr. Craig.”

“I haven’t been able to fight ’em with feathers all the time,” confessed the field director. “There wasn’t much law operating up there when I grabbed in. I have done the best I could, and if I have been obliged to use a club once in a while I have made the fight turn something for the corporation.” He exhibited the pride of the man who had accomplished.

The attorney warned Craig again. “We can’t afford to have any uproar started till we get our legislation properly cinched. Tomah seems to be attended to. But we need some pretty drastic special acts before we can go over the watershed and control the Noda waters and pull old Flagg into line. He’s the last, isn’t he?—the king-pin, according to what I hear.”

“I’ll attend to his case all right,” declared Craig, with confidence. “I’ll tackle the Noda basin next. Flagg must be licked before he’ll sell. He’s that sort. A half lunatic on this independent thing. I reckon you’ll leave it to me, won’t you?”

“We’ll leave all the details of operation in the field to you, Craig,” promised the president. “But you must play safe.”

“I’ll take full responsibility,” affirmed Craig, whose pride had been touched.

“Then we shall continue to value you as our right bower in the north,” said Marlow. “The man on the ground understands the details. We don’t try to follow them here in the home office.”

Craig walked out with Dawes.

“That talk has put the thing up to you square-edged, Craig.”

Craig had been heartened and fortified by the president’s compliments. “Leave it to me!”