CHAPTER XXV
We both cleaned up a bit and went out to dinner. I found he had done a good deal of planning. He knew what he wanted but did not know exactly how to get it. He was firm in the plan of getting the saw-mill we had seen in the unclaimed freight house onto the deck of the Fearsome and going up the river for the double purpose of making lumber from the "floaters," but most of all to have an excuse for getting into Becker & Co.'s plant. He was very sober most of the time, even morose, but occasionally his youthful buoyancy and humor would break out in the most surprising and delightful way.
We canvassed the details of using the motor to run the saw, and decided that we would try it the next day.
"But, Hiram, suppose the timber people insist on your going back for another load? They can force you."
"They know, or think, we are still tied up with litigation. Besides—can't you explain to some one—a few days will turn the trick," he reasoned. "After we get Becker we may want to see them as badly as they want to see us," he added, with an eye for the main chance.
"Hiram, have you seen or heard from Anna Bell Morgan?" I asked suddenly to surprise him.
"No, I haven't—but as the time approaches—and you know it is coming—when I can go back to her with clean hands, I feel as though I can hardly contain myself. That's what keeps me up and doing; of course, I want to make out the Gold-Beater as a damned poor prophet about my future, but the main thing is her. Do you know, I actually feel her beside me urging me on and making me do things. It will be my happiest day when I can go back to her clean—actually clean." While he spoke he was digging away at the remnants of the great steak he had consumed, and for the first time I saw the harbingers of real manhood as he looked at me through eyes unabashed and unashamed.
The next day was a very busy one. He collected his freight and we moved the Fearsome to dock near the unclaimed freight house. I arranged with Superintendent Kitchell by telephone to take the sawmill, and by night it was bolted to the deck, with power from the motor applied. A derrick with outrigging, so that a log could be grappled and brought to the deck by power, and laid on the saw carriage to be solidly locked down for its terrible shining fangs that become invisible in full career, moving through a dirty, slimy log.
"Yes," Superintendent Kitchell had said to me when I asked him about my clerk, "I have taken Miss Bascom into my private office and found work for her there—perfectly safe any time you want her," he assured me, after getting a brief account of our progress.