The Rules of the Game Read online

  But Bob was no quitter. The next morning he tramped down to the office, animated by a new courage. Even stupid boys learn, he remembered. It takes longer, of course, and requires more application. But he was strong and determined. He remembered Fatty Hayes, who took four years to make the team—Fatty, who couldn't get a signal through his head until about time for the next play, and whose great body moved appreciable seconds after his brain had commanded it; Fatty Hayes, the "scrub's" chopping block for trying out new men on! And yet he did make the team in his senior year. Bob acknowledged him a very good centre, not brilliant, but utterly sure and safe.

  Full of this dogged spirit, he tackled the day's work. It was a heavy day's work. The mill was just hitting its stride, the tall ships were being laden and sent away to the four winds, buyers the country over were finishing their contracts. Collins, his coat off, his sleeve protectors strapped closely about his thin arms, worked at an intense white heat. He wasted no second of time, nor did he permit discursive interruption. His manner to those who entered the office was civil but curt. Time was now the essence of the contract these men had with life.

  About ten o'clock he turned from a swift contemplation of the tally board.

  "Orde!" said he sharply.

  Bob disentangled himself from his chair.

  "Look there," said the bookkeeper, pointing a long and nervous finger at three of the tags he held in his hand.

  "There's three errors." He held out for inspection the original sealers' report which he had dug out of the files.

  Bob looked at the discrepant figures with amazement. He had checked the tags over twice, and both times the error had escaped his notice. His mind, self-hypnotized, had passed them over in the same old fashion. Yet he had taken especial pains with that list.

  "I happened, just happened, to check these back myself," Collins was saying rapidly. "If I hadn't, we'd have made that contract with Robinson on the basis of what these tags show. We haven't got that much seasoned uppers, nor anything like it. If you've made many more breaks like this, if we'd contracted with Robinson for what we haven't got or couldn't get, we'd be in a nice mess—and so would Robinson!"

  "I'm sorry," murmured Bob. "I'll try to do better."

  "Won't do," said Collins briefly. "You aren't big enough for the job. I can't get behind, checking over your work. This office is too rushed as it is. Can't fool with blundering stupidity."

  Bob flushed at the word.

  "I guess you'd better take your time," went on Collins. "You may be all right, for all I know, but I haven't got time to find out."

  He rang a bell twice, and snatched down the telephone receiver.

  "Hullo, yards, send up Tommy Gould to the office. I want him to help me. I don't give a damn for the scaling. You'll have to get along somehow. The five of you ought to hold that down. Send up Gould, anyhow." He slammed up the receiver, muttering something about incompetence. Bob for a moment had a strong impulse to retort, but his anger died. He saw that Collins was not for the moment thinking of him at all as a human being, as a personality—only as a piece of this great, swiftly moving machine, that would not run smoothly. The fact that he had come under Fox's convoy evidently meant nothing to the little bookkeeper, at least for the moment. Collins was entirely accustomed to hiring and discharging men. When transplanted to the frontier industries, even such automatic jobs as bookkeeping take on new duties and responsibilities.

  Bob, after a moment of irresolution, reached for his hat.

  "That will be all, then?" he asked.

  Collins came out of the abstraction into which he had fallen.

  "Oh—yes," he said. "Sorry, but of course we can't take chances on these things being right."

  "Of course not," said Bob steadily.

  "You just need more training," went on Collins with some vague idea of being kind to this helpless, attractive young fellow. "I learned under Harry Thorpe that results is all a man looks at in this business."

  "I guess that's right," said Bob. "Good-bye."

  "Good-bye," said Collins over his shoulder. Already he was lost in the rapid computations and calculations that filled his hours.

  * * *

  XI

  Bob left the office and tramped blindly out of town. His feet naturally led him to the River Trail. Where the path finally came out on the banks of the river, he sat down and delivered himself over to the gloomiest of reflections.

  He was aroused finally by a hearty greeting from behind him. He turned without haste, surprise or pleasure to examine the new comer.

  Bob saw surveying him a man well above sixty, heavy-bodied, burly, big, with a square face, heavy-jowled and homely, with deep blue eyes set far apart, and iron gray hair that curled at the ends. With the quick, instinctive sizing-up developed on the athletic field, Bob thought him coarse-fibred, jolly, a little obtuse, but strong—very strong with the strength of competent effectiveness. He was dressed in a slouch hat, a flannel shirt, a wrinkled old business suit and mud-splashed, laced half-boots.

  "Well, bub," said this man, "enjoying the scenery?"

  "Yes," said Bob with reserve. He was in no mood for casual conversation, but the stranger went on cheerfully.

  "Like it pretty well myself, hereabouts." He filled and lighted a pipe. "This is a good time of year for the woods; no mosquitos, pretty warm, mighty nice overhead. Can't say so much for underfoot." He lifted and surveyed one foot comically, and Bob noticed that his shoes were not armed with the riverman's long, sharpened spikes. "Pretty good hunting here in the fall, and fishing later. Not much now. Up here to look around a little?"

  "No, not quite," said Bob vaguely.

  "This ain't much of a pleasure resort, and a stranger's a pretty unusual thing," said the big man by way of half-apology for his curiosity. "Up buying, I suppose—or maybe selling?"

  Bob looked up with a beginning of resentment against this apparent intrusion on his private affairs. He met the good-humoured, jolly eyes. In spite of himself he half smiled.

  "Not that either," said he.

  "You aren't in the company's employ?" persisted the stranger with an undercurrent of huge delight in his tone, as though he were playing a game that he enjoyed.

  Bob threw back his head and laughed. It was a short laugh and a bitter one.

  "No," said he shortly, "—not now. I've just been fired."

  The big man promptly dropped down beside him on the log.

  "Don't say!" he cried; "what's the matter?"

  "The matter is that I'm no good," said Bob evenly, and without the slightest note of complaint.

  "Tell me about it," suggested the big man soberly after a moment. "I'm pretty close to Fox. Perhaps----."

  "It isn't a case of pull," Bob interrupted him pleasantly. "It's a case of total incompetence."

  "That's a rather large order for a husky boy like you," said the older man with a sudden return to his undertone of bantering jollity.

  "Well, I've filled it," said Bob. "That's the one job I've done good and plenty."

  "Haven't stolen the stove, have you?"

  "Might better. It couldn't be any hotter than Collins."

  The stranger chuckled.

  "He is a peppery little cuss," was his comment. "What did you do to him?"

  Bob told him, lightly, as though the affair might be considered humorous. The stranger became grave.

  "That all?" he inquired.

  Bob's self-disgust overpowered him.

  "No," said he, "not by a long shot." In brief sentences he told of his whole experience since entering the business world. When he had finished, his companion puffed away for several moments in silence.

  "Well, what you going to do about it?" he asked.

  "I don't know," Bob confessed. "I've got to tell father I'm no good. That is the only thing I can see ahead to now. It will break him all up, and I don't blame him. Father is too good a man himself not to feel this sort of a thing."

  "I see," said the stranger. "Well, it may come
out in the wash," he concluded vaguely after a moment. Bob stared out at the river, lost in the gloomy thoughts his last speech had evoked. The stranger improved the opportunity to look the young man over critically from head to foot.

  "I see you're a college man," said he, indicating Bob's fraternity pin.

  "Yes," replied the young man listlessly. "I went to the University."

  "That so!" said the stranger, "well, you're ahead of me. I never got even to graduate at the high school."

  "Am I?" said Bob.

  "What did you do at college?" inquired the big man.

  "Oh, usual classical course, Greek, Latin, Pol Ec.----"

  "I don't mean what you learned. What did you do?"

  Bob reflected.

  "I don't believe I did a single earthly thing except play a little football," he confessed.

  "Oh, you played football, did you? That's a great game! I'd rather see a good game of football than a snake fight. Make the 'varsity?"

  "Yes."

  "Where did you play?"

  "Halfback."

  "Pretty heavy for a 'half,' ain't you?"

  "Well—I train down a little—and I managed to get around."

  "Play all four years?"

  "Yes."

  "Like it?"

  Bob's eye lit up. "Yes!" he cried. Then his face fell. "Too much, I guess," he added sadly.

  For the first time the twinkle, in the stranger's eye found vocal expression. He chuckled. It was a good, jolly, subterranean chuckle from deep in his throat, and it shook all his round body to its foundations.

  "Who bossed you?" he asked, "—your captain, I mean. What sort of a fellow was he? Did you get along with him all right?"

  "Had to," Bob grinned wryly; "you see they happened to make me captain."

  "Oh, they happened to, did they? What is your name?"

  "Orde."

  The stranger gurgled again.

  "You're just out then. You must have captained those big scoring teams."

  "They were good teams. I was lucky," said Bob.

  "Didn't I see by the papers that you went back to coach last fall?"

  "Yes."

  "I've been away and couldn't keep tab. How did you come out?"

  "Pretty well."

  "Win all your games?"

  "Yes."

  "That's good. Thought you were going to have a hard row to hoe. Before I went away the papers said most of the old men had graduated, and the material was very poor. How did you work it?"

  "The material was all right," Bob returned, relaxing a trifle in the interest of this discussion. "It was only a little raw, and needed shaking into shape."

  "And you did the shaking."

  "I suppose so; but you see it didn't amount to much because I'd had a lot of experience in being captain."

  The stranger chuckled one of his jolly subterranean chuckles again. He arose to his feet.

  "Well, I've got to get along to town," said he.

  "I'll trot along, too," said Bob.

  They tramped back in silence by the River Trail. On the pole trail across the swamp the stranger walked with a graceful and assured ease in spite of his apparently unwieldy build. As the two entered one of the sawdust-covered streets, they were hailed by Jim Mason.

  "Why, Mr. Welton!" he cried, "when did you get in and where did you come from?"

  "Just now, Jim," Welton answered. "Dropped off at the tank, and walked down to see how the river work was coming on."

  * * *

  XII

  Toward dusk Welton entered the boarding house where Bob was sitting rather gloomily by the central stove. The big man plumped himself down into a protesting chair, and took off his slouch hat. Bob saw his low, square forehead with the peculiar hair, black and gray in streaks, curling at the ends.

  "Why don't you take a little trip with me up to the Cedar Branch?" he asked Bob without preamble. "No use your going home right now. Your family's in Washington; and will be for a month or so yet."

  Bob thought it over.

  "Believe I will," he decided at last.

  "Do so!" cried Welton heartily. "Might as well see a little of the life. Don't suppose you ever went on a drive with your dad when you were a kid?"

  "No," said Bob, "I used to go up to the booms with him—I remember them very well; but we moved up to Redding before I was old enough to get about much."

  Welton nodded his great head.

  "Good old days," he commented; "and let me tell you, your dad was one of the best of 'em. Jack Orde is a name you can scare fresh young rivermen with yet," he added with a laugh. "Well, pack your turkey to-night; we'll take the early train to-morrow."

  That evening Bob laid out what he intended to take with him, and was just about to stuff it into a pair of canvas bags when Tommy Gould, the youngest scaler, pushed open the door.

  "Hello!" he smiled engagingly; "where are you going? Been transferred from the office?"

  "On drive," said Bob, diplomatically ignoring the last question.

  Tommy sat down on the edge of the bed and laughed until he was weak. Bob stared at him.

  "Is there anything funny?" he inquired at last.

  "Did you say on drive?" inquired Tommy feebly.

  "Certainly."

  "With that?" Tommy pointed a wavering finger at the pile of duffle.

  "What's the matter with it?" inquired Bob, a trifle uncertainly.

  "Oh, it's all right. Only wait till Roaring Dick sees it. I'd like to see his face."

  "Look here, Tommy," said Bob with decision, "this isn't fair. I've never been on drive before, and you know it. Now tell me what's wrong or I'll wring your fool neck."

  "You can't take all that stuff," Tommy explained, wiping his eyes. "Why, if everybody had all that mess, how do you suppose it would be carried?"

  "I've only got the barest necessities," objected Bob.

  "Spread out your pile," Tommy commanded. "There. Take those. Now forget the rest."

  Bob surveyed the single change of underwear and the extra socks with comical dismay. Next morning when he joined Welton he discovered that individual carrying a tooth brush in his vest pocket and a pair of woolen socks stuffed in his coat. These and a sweater were his only baggage. Bob's "turkey," modest as it was, seemed to represent effete luxury in comparison.

  "How long will this take?" he asked.

  "The drive? About three weeks," Welton told him. "You'd better stay and see it. It isn't much of a drive compared with the old days; but in a very few years there won't be any drives at all."

  They boarded a train which at the end of twenty minutes came to a stop. Bob and Welton descended. The train moved on, leaving them standing by the track.

  The remains of the forest, overgrown with scrub oak and popple thickets pushed down to the right of way. A road, deep with mud and water, beginning at this point, plunged into the wilderness. That was all.

  Welton thrust his hands in his pockets and splashed cheerfully into the ankle-deep mud. Bob shouldered his little bag and followed. Somehow he had vaguely expected some sort of conveyance.

  "How far is it?" he asked.

  "Oh, ten or twelve miles," said Welton.

  Bob experienced a glow of gratitude to the blithe Tommy Gould. What would he have done with that baggage out here in this lonesome wilderness of unbroken barrens and mud?

  The day was beautiful, but the sun breaking through the skin of last night's freezing, softened the ground until the going was literally ankle-deep in slush. Welton, despite his weight, tramped along cheerfully in the apparently careless indifference of the skilled woods walker. Bob followed, but he used more energy. He was infinitely the older man's superior in muscle and endurance, yet he realized, with respect and admiration, that in a long or difficult day's tramp through the woods Welton would probably hold him, step for step.

  The road wound and changed direction entirely according to expedient. It was a "tote road" merely, cutting across these barrens by the directest possible route.
Deep mire holes, roots of trees, an infrequent boulder, puddles and cruel ruts diversified the way. Occasional teeth-rattling stretches of "corduroy" led through a swamp.

  "I don't see how a team can haul a load over this!" Bob voiced his marvel, after a time.

  "It don't," said Welton. "The supplies are all hauled while the ground is frozen. A man goes by hand now."

  In the swamps and bottom lands it was a case of slip, slide and wallow. The going was trying on muscle and wind. To right and left stretched mazes of white popples and willows tangled with old berry vines and the abattis of the slashings. Water stood everywhere. To traverse that swamp a man would have to force his way by main strength through the thick growth, would have to balance on half-rotted trunks of trees, wade and stumble through pools of varying depths, crawl beneath or climb over all sorts of obstructions in the shape of uproots, spiky new growths, and old tree trunks. If he had a gun in his hands, he would furthermore be compelled, through all the vicissitudes of making his way, to hold it always at the balance ready for the snap shot. For a ruffed grouse is wary, and flies like a bullet for speed, and is up and gone almost before the roar of its wings has aroused the echoes. Through that veil of branches a man must shoot quickly, instinctively, from any one of the many positions in which the chance of the moment may have caught him. Bob knew all about this sort of country, and his pulses quickened to the call of it.

  "Many partridge?" he asked.

  "Lots," replied Welton; "but the country's too confounded big to hunt them in. Like to hunt?"

  "Nothing better," said Bob.

  After a time the road climbed out of the swamp into the hardwoods, full of warmth and light and new young green, and the voices of many creatures; with the soft, silent carpet of last autumn's brown, the tiny patches of melting snow, and the pools with dead leaves sunk in them and clear surfaces over which was mirrored the flight of birds.

  Welton puffed along steadily. He did not appear to talk much, and yet the sum of his information was considerable.

  "That road," he said, pointing to a dim track, "goes down to Thompson's. He's a settler. Lives on a little lake.