Rodburd Ide, fresh-arrived from Castonia in hot haste, saw well to it that he and Dwight Wade were safe from interruption in the wangan camp. He even drove a sliver from the wood-box over the latch of the door. Wade, summoned down from the chopping by a breathless cookee to meet his partner, gazed upon these nervous, eager precautions in some alarm.
“Now, brace your feet, and get hold of something and hang on hard,” advised the “Mayor of Castonia.”
“Good Heavens, Mr. Ide, what has happened to her?” gasped the young man. His trembling hands clutched at the edge of the splint table, hallowed by Elva Barrett’s smiles of love across it.
“Her!” snorted the little man, in indignant astonishment. “You don’t think I’ve whaled up here hell-ti-larrup on a jumper to sit down and talk about women, do you?”
“But Miss Barrett—” gulped Wade.
“Miss Barrett—” Ide checked himself, discreet even in his impatience. “Miss Barrett is all right, and the girl is all right, and—say, look-a-here, my boy, don’t you think of a girl, don’t you look at a girl, don’t you even dream of a girl, for the next two months!” He drove his hard little fist upon the sacred table.
He leaned forward, and his very beard bristled at the young man. “Forget your mother, forget your grandmother, forget that there is anything to you except grit and muscle. For if ever two men had a man’s work cut out for ’em we’re the ones. If ever two men found themselves on the outside of a ripe cheese and needed teeth to gnaw in, we’re the men. Money! I can’t see anything but dollar bills hangin’ from those spruce-trees. But you’ve got to put on brad-boots and climb to get them. You’ve got to walk over men to get ’em!” He was striding about the little room. “I reckon I seem a little excited,” he added, with a catch in his voice. “But by the priest that hammered the tail for the golden calf, I’ve got reasons to be excited. I’ve smelt it comin’ for two years, son! I ’ain’t said anything. I didn’t say anything to you when I took you into partnership; I didn’t dare to. But I smelt it all the time. I ’ain’t watched the comin’s and goin’s of certain men at Castonia for nothin’! Let ’em bring guns and fishin’-poles! They can’t fool me. I smelt it comin’. And now, by ——, it’s come!” Again he banged his fist on the table and glared down on his partner.
The partner stared back at him with so much dismay and reproachful inquiry that Ide blew off his superfluous excitement in one vigorous “Poof!” and sat down.
“The sum and substance of it is, those old Hullin’ Machine falls ain’t goin’ to bellow away all them thousands of hoss-power in empty noise any longer. But they’ve made a noise big enough to reach the crowd that’s organized to fight the paper trust. See now?”
Wade’s eyes gleamed in swift comprehension.