CHAPTER XII
Joe Clark, Bully
With the advent of Monday morning, the Golden Crescent Trading Company, in charge of George Bremner, handyman, store-clerk, bookkeeper, buyer and general superintendent,—opened its doors for business.
I was not overburdened with customers, for which I was not sorry, as I had lots to do fixing the prices of my stock and setting it to rights.
But the arrival of the mail by the Tuesday steamer brought Neil Andrews, Doolan, Gourlay and the stern, but honest-faced old Scot, Andrew Clark, all at different times during the afternoon. Not one of them could resist the temptation and go away without making some substantial purchases.
I held religiously to the Rev. William Auld's list, but I found, in most cases, that my customers were prepared to pay for their first orders, at any rate, in cash; and, of course, I did not discourage them.
On Wednesday, a launch, with three men in her, put in from No. 1 camp at Susquahamma, bearing an order as long as my arm, duly endorsed in a business-like way and all according to requirements.
It took me most of the afternoon to put that order up. The men did not seem to mind, as they reckoned the going and returning to camp a well-nigh all-day job for them. They made Jake's shack their headquarters, spending all of the last two hours of their time in his cabin.
Thursday brought another launch, this time from Camp No. 3, and the same process was gone through as with No. 1, including the visit of the visitors to Jake's shack.
In an ordinary case, I would have been beginning to fear that that shack had become a common shebeen, but I knew Jake was not the man to accept money from any of his fellow creatures in exchange for any hospitality it might be in his power to offer. A few days later came a repeat order from No. 1 Camp, then a request from the Cannery, which I was able to fill only in part, as many things required by them had not been included in the original orders given to the Vancouver wholesalers.
I was beginning to wonder where Camp No. 2 was getting its supplies from, when, one day, about two weeks after my opening, they showed up.
Two men came over in a fast-moving launch of a much better type than those in use by the other camps. The men were big and burly fellows. One of them was unmistakably Irish; the other looked of Swedish extraction.
"You the man that looks after this joint?" asked the Swede.
"I am," I answered.
He looked me up and down, for I was on the same side of the counter as they. Then he turned to his Irish companion with a grin.
"Say, mister,—where's your hoss?" he asked, addressing me.
Both laughed loudly.
At first I failed to see the point of hilarity.
"What is the joke?" I asked.
"Guess you are!" said the Swede. And the two men laughed louder than ever.
"Look here!" I cried, my blood getting up, "I want you two to understand, first go off, that I am not in the habit of standing up to be grinned at. What do you want? Speak out your business or get out of here and tumble back into your boat."
"Ach!—it's all right, matey," put in the Irishman. "Just a bit av fun out av yer breeches and leggings. We Canucks don't wear breeches and leggings in grocery stores. Do we, Jan?"
"Guess nit," said Jan. And they both laughed again.
I cooled down, thinking if that were all their joke they were welcome to it, for I had already found my breeches and leggings mighty handy for getting through the bush with and for tumbling in and out of leaky rowing boats.
I grinned. "All right, fellows," I cried, "laugh all you want and I'll leave you a legging each as a legacy when I die."
"Say, sonny,—you're all right!" he exclaimed.
Good humour returned all round.
"We're from No. 2 Camp at Cromer Bay and we want a bunch of stuff."
"Where is your list and I'll try to fill it?" I inquired.
The Swede handed over a long order, badly scrawled on the back of a paper bag. The order was unstamped and unsigned, and not on the company's order form.
"This is not any good," I said. "Where is the company's order?"
The Swede looked blankly at the Irishman, and the Irishman gazed dreamily at the Swede.
"Guess that's good enough. Ain't it, Dan?"
"Shure!" seconded Dan.
"It can't be done, boys," I said. "Sorry,—but I have my instructions and they must be followed out."
I handed back the list.
The Swede stared at it and then over at me.
"Ain't you goin' to fill this?"
"No!"
"Well, I'll be gosh-dinged! Say! sonny,—there'll be a hearse here for you to-morrow. The boss wrote this."
"How am I to know that?" I retorted.
"Damned if I know," he returned, scratching his forelock. "But it'll be merry hell to pay if we go back without this bunch of dope."
"And it might be the devil to pay, if I gave you the goods without a proper order," I followed up.
"Some of this stuff's for to-morrow's grubstake," put in the Swede, "and most of the hardware's wanted for a job first crack out of the box in the morning."
"Sorry to disoblige you, fellows," I said sincerely, "but your boss should not have run so close to the wind. Further, I am going to work this store right and that from the very beginning."
"And you're not goin' to fill the boss's own caligeography, or whatever you call it?" reiterated the Irishman.
"No!"
"Wouldn't that rattle ye?" exclaimed Dan to his friend.
"It do," conceded the Swede, who put his hand into his pocket and tossed fifteen cents on to the counter.
"Well,—give us ten cents chewing tobacco, and a packet of gum."
I filled this cash order and immediately thereafter the two walked out of the store and sailed away without another word or even a look behind them.
I was worried over the incident, for I did not like to think myself in any way instrumental in depriving the men of anything they might require for their supper, and it was farthest from my desires to stop or even hamper the work at Camp No. 2. But I had been warned that there was only one way to operate a business and that was on business lines, according to plan, so my conscience would not permit of any other course than the one I had taken.
Had the store been my own, I might have acted differently, but it was merely held by me in trust, which was quite another matter.
Next forenoon, a tug blew her whistle and put into the Bay, coming-to on the far side of Rita's Isle. A little later, as I stood behind the counter writing up some fresh orders to the wholesalers, to replenish my dwindling stock, a dinghy, with one man at the oars and another sitting in the stern, appeared round the Island and pointed straight for the wharf.
The oarsman ran the nose of the boat on the beach and remained where he was. The man who had been sitting in the stern sprang out and came striding in the direction of the store.
He stopped at the door and looked around him, ignoring my presence the while.
What a magnificent specimen of a man he was! Never in my life had I seen such a man, and, with all the sight-seeing I have done since, I have never met such another.
I fancied, with my five feet eleven inches, that I was of a good height; but this giant stood six feet four inches, if he stood an inch. He looked quite boyish; not a day older than twenty-two. His hair was very fair and wavy, and he had plenty of it.
He was cleanly shaven and cleanly and neatly dressed. His eyes were big and sky blue in colour. They were eyes that could be warm or cold at will. Just then, they were passively cold.
His was a good face, reflecting strength and determination, while honesty, straight-forwardness and absolute fearlessness lent a charm to it that it otherwise would have lacked.
After all, it was the glory of his stature that attracted me, as he stood, framed by the door, dressed in his high logging boots, with khaki-coloured trousers and a shirt to match; a soft felt hat on the back of his head set a little sportily to one side.
Myself an admirer of the human form, a lover of muscle and sinew, strength, agility and virility, it always was the physique of a person that arrested my attention.
What a man this was for a woman to love! flashed the thought through my mind. Gazing at him, I could not help feeling my own insignificance in comparison, although, far down inside of me, there was a hungry kind of longing to match my agility and science against his tremendous brute strength, a wondering what the outcome would be. It was, however, merely a feeling of friendly antagonism.
But this was the fancy of a passing moment, for I was waiting for the big fellow to speak.
He did speak, and rather spoiled the impression.
"What'n the hell kind of a dump is this anyway?" he exploded.
I was hit as with a brickbat, but I tried not to show it.
"This is the Golden Crescent Trading Company," I answered quietly and, if anything, with an assumption of meekness which I was far from feeling;—just to see how much rope this big fellow would take to hang himself with.
I suppose my tone made him think that his verbal onslaught had been as effective as it had been short.
He turned his eyes on me for the first time. They fixed on mine, and never once flickered.
"You—don't—say!" he returned, in measured words.
Then he flared up again.
"Say!—who's the boss here?"
"I am," I retorted, getting warm.
He came over to the middle of the floor.
"And where'n the hell do I come in?" he asked.
"Don't know, I'm sure, mister; and I don't care very much either. But I have an idea that you or I will go out, quick, if you don't cool down."
"Here!—you cut that stuff out." He came up to the counter, clenching his huge hands. "I'm Joe Clark,—see."
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Clark. I'm George Bremner."
"Who'n the hell's George Bremner?" he burst out.
"That's just what I was wondering in regard to Joe Clark," I retorted, returning glare for glare. "But look you here,—whoever you may be, you may get off with this sort of language elsewhere, but it doesn't have any effect on the man who is running the Golden Crescent Trading Company."
He tried hard to hold himself together.
"Guess you're one of them new-broom-sweep-clean smart Alicks," he said.
"About as smart as you are civil, Mr. Clark."
"Well, Mister Man, supposin' you and me gets down to brass tacks, right now. I'm the Superintendent of No. 2 Camp, with a say in the management of Camps No. 1 and No. 3. I own three tugs operatin' on the coast here."
He thumped his fist on the counter,—"and anything I have a hand in, my word goes,—understand."
"You are a lucky man," I answered. "But your word won't go here unless it coincides with mine, Mister Clark.
"Now," I added briskly, "tell me your business, or get out. I have other work to do."
He raised his hand and leaned across the counter, as if to clutch me by the throat, and a terrible paw of a hand it was, too. But, evidently, he thought better of it.
Not that I fancied for a moment that he was afraid of me at all, because I knew quite well that he was not.
He sat down on a box and watched me closely, sizing me up at every angle as I busied myself adjusting some tins on the shelves that were in no way in need of adjustment.
"Guess you think I pay men to take picnics for the good of their health down to this one-horse outfit."
"I have not wasted any thoughts on you at all, so far, Mr. Clark," I replied.
"Why'n the hell didn't you fill my order yesterday?"
"Was it your order?"
"'Course it was. Wrote it out myself, every bit of it."
"Well,—you're a rotten writer, Mr. Clark."
"Oh!—can it. What kind of a tin-pot way of doin' business was that? What was this damned place started for anyway, if not for the convenience of the Camps?"
"I suppose you think I ought to know your writing?" I asked. "Well,—Mr. Clark, even if I had known it, I would not have accepted the order as it was. My positive instructions are that all camp orders have to be filled only on receipt of a stamped and signed document on the Company's business form for that purpose. And that's the only way goods will go out from here, whether for Joe Clark or for any one else."
"And what if I ain't got an order with me now? Guess you'll turn me down same as you did the others yesterday?"
"That is just what I would have to do."
"The hell you would!" He put his hand into his pocket and brought out some papers, one of which he threw on the counter. "There's your blasted order. Get a wiggle on, for I ain't here on a pleasure jaunt,—not by a damn sight. I'll be back in an hour for them goods."
"Better make it an hour and a half. It's a big order and it will not be ready a minute sooner."
"Gosh!" he growled, as he strode out, "some store-clerk,—-I don't think."
I filled the requirements of Camp No. 2 to the best of my ability, packing up the goods and making everything as secure as necessary for the boat trip. I had the stuff all piled nicely on the veranda and was sitting on the steps contemplating and admiring the job, when the dinghy came back with Joe Clark in the stern as before.
"Hi, there!—you with the breeches and the leggings,—ain't you got that order of mine ready yet?"
"It is all here waiting for you," I shouted back, striking a match on my much maligned breeches and lighting my briar pipe leisurely.
"Well,—why'n the devil don't you bring it aboard?"
"Why don't you come and fetch it?" I cried. "I'm a store-keeper, Mister Joe Clark,—not a delivery wagon. I sell f.o.b. the veranda." And I smoked on.
He jumped out of the boat and rushed up the beach like a madman. I sat still, smoking away dreamily, but with a weather eye on him.
He stood over me, rolled up his sleeves and contemplated me, then he turned and shouted to his man:
"Hi, Plumbago! Come on and lend a hand with this cargo. No use wasting any time on this tom-fool injun."
To say I was surprised, was to put it mildly, for I was sure a quarrel was about to be precipitated.
Joe Clark and his man set to, carrying the boxes, and bundles, and packages piecemeal from the veranda to the boat, while I smoked and smoked as if in complete ignorance of their presence.
I knew I was acting aggravatingly, but then, I had been very much aggravated.
In an ordinary circumstance I would have been only too pleased to lend a hand if asked and, possibly, without being asked,—although there was nothing calling for me to do so,—but when ordered,—well,—how would any other fellow with a little pride in him have acted? Still, I must give Joe Clark his due. He made two trips to that dinghy against his helper's one and he always tackled the heaviest and the most unwieldy packages.
When he came for the last box, I rose to go into the house. As I turned, he caught me by the arm.
"Here!" he shouted.
I whipped round.
"Take your hands off me," I cried angrily, jerking my arm in an old wrestling trick and throwing my weight on him at an unbalanced angle, freeing myself and sending him back against the partition.
He recovered himself and we stood facing each other defiantly.
"God!" he growled, "but I'd like to kill you. You think you've won this time. Maybe you have, but, by God! you won't be in this store a month from now. I'll hound you out, or kick you out,—take it from me."
"And I'll stand by," I replied, "and take it all quietly like the simple little lamb I'm not."
I went into the house and closed the door, and the last I saw of Joe Clark that day was through the window as he packed his last box and pushed off in the dinghy.