The Riverman

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Riverman

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"It's all right," said the doctor in answer to Orde's agonised
expression. "Your wife was exposed to smallpox and is at my house
to avoid the danger of spreading contagion. She is not ill."

Having thus in one swift decisive sentence covered the ground of
Orde's anxiety, he turned to the sniffling servant.

"Mary," said he sternly, "la stuff might be worth saving any way we could
figure it."

"Worth saving!" snorted Newmark, whirling in his chair.

"Well; and
to the bookkeeper who answered he said: "John, bring me those
Newmark and Orde papers."

Orde heard the clang of the safe door. In a moment the clerk
returned and handed to Lambert a long manilla envelope. Lambert
opened this quite deliberately, spread its contents on his knee, and
assumed a pair of round spectacles.

"Note for seventy-five thousand dollars with interest at ten per
cent. Interest paid to January tenth. MortI'm ashamed of you! What kind of an
exhibition is this? Go out to the kitchen and cook us some lunch!"
He watched her depart with a humourous quirk to his thin lips.
"Fool Irish!" he said with a Scotchman's contempt. "I meant to head
you off before you got home, but I missed you. Come in and sit
down, and I'll tell you about it."

"You're quite sure Mrs. Orde is well?" insisted Orde.

"Absolutely. Never better. As well a. "Why, I thought I remembered seeing
him up river only the other day."

"No; his daughter."

"Mina?"

"Yes. Lord knows where she got it. But get it she did. Mrs. Orde
happened to be with her when she was taken with the fever and
distressing symptoms that begin the disease. As a neighbourly deed
she remained with the girl. Of course no one could tell it was
smallpox at that time. Next day, however, the characteristic rash
appeared on the thighs and armpits, and I diagnosed the case." Dr.
McMullen laughed a little bitterly. "Lord, you ought to have seen
them run! Servants, neighbours, friends--they all skedaddled, and
you coudn't have driven them back with a steam-roller! I
telegraphed to Redding for a nurse. Until she came Mrs. Orde stayed
by, like a brick. Don't know what I should have done without her.
There was nobody to do anything at all. As soon as the nurse came
Mrs. Orde gave up her post. I tell you," cried Doctor McMullen with
as near an approach to enthusiasm as he ever permitted himself,
"there's a sensible woman! None of your story-book twaddle about
nursing through the illness, and all that. When her usefulness was
ended, she knew enough to step aside gracefully. There was not much
danger as far as she was concerned. I had vaccinated her myself,
you know, last year. But she MIGHT take the contagion and she
wanted to spare the youngster. Quite right. So I offered her
quarters with us for a couple of weeks."

"How long ago was this?" asked Orde, who had listened with a warm
glow of pride to the doctor's succinct statement.

"Seven days."

"How is Mina getting on?"

"She'll get well. It was a mild case. Fever never serious after
the eruption appeared. I suppose I'll have old Heinzman on my
hands, though."

"Why; has he taken it?"

"No; but he will. Emotional old German fool. Rushed right in when
he heard his daughter was sick. Couldn't keep him out. And he's
been with her or near her ever since."

"Then you think he's in for it?"

"Sure to he," replied Dr. McMullen. "Unless a man has been
vaccinated, continuous exposure means infection in the great
majority of cases."

"Hard luck," said Orde thoughtfully. "I'm going to step up to your
house and see Mrs. Orde."

"You can telephone her," said the doctor. "And you can see her if
you want to. Only in that case I should advise your remaining away
from Bobby until we see how things turn out."

"I see," said Orde. "Well," he concluded with a sigh, after a
moment's thought, "I suppose I'd better stay by the ship."

He called up Dr. McMullen's house on the telephone.

"Oh, it's good to hear your voice again," cried Carroll, "even if I
can't see you! You must promise me right after lunch to walk up
past the house so I can see you. I'll wave at you from the window."

"You're a dear, brave girl, and I'm proud of you," said Orde.

"Nonsense! There was no danger at all. I'd been vaccinated
recently. And somebody had to take care of poor Mina until we could
get help. How's Bobby?"

XLIV

After lunch Orde went downtown to his office where for some time he
sat idly looking over the mail. About three o'clock Newmark came
in.

"Hullo, Joe," said Orde with a slight constraint, "sorry to hear
you've been under the weather. You don't look very sick now."

"I'm better," replied Newmark, briefly; "this is my first
appearance."

"Too bad you got sick just at that time," said Orde; "we needed
you."

"So I hear. You may rest assured I'd have been there if possible."

"Sure thing," said Orde, heartily, his slight resentment
dissipating, as always, in the presence of another's personality.
"Well, we had a lively time, you bet, all right; and got through
about by the skin of our teeth." He arose and walked over to
Newmark's desk, on the edge of which he perched. "It's cost us
considerable; and it's going to cost us a lot more, I'll have to get
an extension on those notes."

"What's that?" asked Newmark, quickly.

Orde picked up a paper knife and turned it slowly between his
fingers.

"I don't believe I'll be able to meet those notes. So many things
have happened--"

"But," broke in Newmark, "the firm certainly cannot do so. I've
been relying on your assurance ell, keep your hair on," said Orde, on whom
Newmark's manner was
beginning to have its effect, as Newmark intended it should. "You
have my Boom Company stock as security."

"Pretty security for the loss of a tract like the Upper Peninsula
timber!"

"Well, it's the security you asked for, and suggested," said Orde.

"I thought you'd surely be able to pay it," retorted Newmark, now
secure in the position he desired to take, that of putting Orde
entirely in the wrong.

"Well, I expected to pay it; and I'll pay it yet," rejoined Orde.
"I don't think Heinzman will stand in his own light rather than
renew the notes."

He seized his hat and departed. Once in the street, however, his
irritation passed. As was the habit of the man, he began more
clearly to see Newmark's side, and so more emphatically to blame
himself. After all, when he got right down to the essentials, he
could not but acknowledge that Newmark's anger was justified. For
his own private ends he had jeopardised the firm's property. More
of a business man might have reflected that Newmark, as financial
head, should have protected the firm against all contingencies;
should have seen to it that it met Heinzman's notes, instead of
tying up its resources in unnecessary ways. Orde's own delinquency
bulked too large in his eyes to admit his perception of this. By
the time he had reached Heinzman's office, the last of his
irritation had vanished. Only he realised clearly now that it would
hardly do to ask Newmark for a renewal of the personal note on which
depended his retention of his Boom Company stock unless he could
renew the Heinzman note also. This is probably what Newmark
intended.

"Mr. Heinzman?" he askedage deed on certain
lands described herein."

"That's it," said Orde.

Lambert looked up over his spectacles.

"I want to renew the note for another year," Orde explained.

"Can't do it," replied L briefly of the first clerk.

"Mr. Heinzman is at home ill," replied the bookkeeper.

"Already?" said Orde. He drummed on the black walnut rail
thoughtfully. The notes came due in ten days. "How bad is he?

The clerk looked up curiously. "Can't say. Probably won't be back
for a long time. It's smallpox, you know."

"True," said Orde. "Well, who's in charge?"

"Mr. Lambert. You'll find him in the private office."

Orde passed through the grill into the inner room.

"Hullo, Lambert," he addressed the individual seated at Heinzman's
desk. "So you're the boss, eh?"

Lambert turned, showing a perfectly round face, ornamented by a dot
of a nose, two dots of eyes set rather close together, and a pursed
up mouth. His skin was very brown and shiny, and was so filled by
the flesh beneath as to take the appearance of having been inflated.

"Yes, I'm the boss," said he non-committally.

Orde dropped into a chair.

"Heinzman holds some notes due against our people in ten days," said
he. "I came in to see about their renewal. Can you attend to it?"

"Yes, I can attend to it," replied Lambert. He struck a bgambert, removing and
folding the glasses.

"Why not?"

"Mr. Heinzman gave me especial instructions in regard to this matter
just before his daughter was taken sick. He told me if you came
when he was not here--he intended to go to Chicago yesterday--to
tell you he would not renew."

"Why not?" asked Orde blankly.

"I don't know that."

"But I'll give him twelve per cent for another year."

"He said not to renew, even if you offered higher interest."

"Do you happen to know whether he intends anything in regard to this
mortgage?"

"He instructed me to begin suit in foreclosure immediately."

"I don't understand this," said Orde.

Lambert shook his head blandly. Orde thought for a moment.

"Where's your telephone?" he demanded abruptly.

He tried in vain to get Heinzman at his house. Finally the
telephone girl informed him that although messages had come from the
stricken household, she had been unable to get an answer to any of
her numerous calls, and suspected the bell had been removed.
Finally Orde left the office at a loss how to proceed next.
Lambert, secretly overjoyed at this opportunity of exercising an
unaccustomed andow
you'd better get home where you can be taken care of. You're sick."

"No, no, my friend," said Heinzman, vigourously shaking his ' autocratic power,
refused to see beyond his
instructions. Heinzman's attitude puzzled Orde. A foreclosure
could gain Heinzman no advantage of immediate cash. Orde was forced
to the conclusion that the German saw here a good opportunity to
acquire cheap a valuable property. In that case a personal appeal
would avail little.

Orde tramped out to the end of the pier and back, mulling over the
tangled problem. He was pressed on all sides--by the fatigue after
his tremendous exertions of the past two weeks; by his natural
uneasiness in regard to Carroll; and finally by this new
complication which threatened the very basis of his prosperity.
Nevertheless the natural optimism of the man finally won its
ascendency.

"There's the year of redemption on that mortgage," he reminded
himself. "We may be able to do something in that time. I don't
know just what," he added whimsically, with a laugh at himself. He
became grave. "Poor Joe," he said, "this is pretty tough on him.
I'll have to make it up to him somehow. I can let him in on that
California deal, when the titles are straightened out."

XLV

Orde did not return to the office; he felt unwilling to face Newmark
until he had a little more thoroughly digested the situation. He
spent the rest of the afternoon about the place, picking up the tool
house, playing with Bobby, training Duke, the black and white setter
dog. Three or four times he called up Carroll by telephone; and
three or four times he passed Dr. McMullen's house to shout his half
of a long-distance and fragmentary conversation with her. He ate
solemnly with Bobby at six o'clock, the two quite subdued over the
vacant chair at the other end of the table. After dinner they sat
on the porch until Bobby's bed-time. Orde put his small son to bed,
and sat talking with the youngster as long as his conscience would
permit. Then he retired to the library, where, for a long time, he
sat in twilight and loneliness. Finally, when he could no longer
distinguish objects across the room, he arose with a sigh, lit the
lamp, and settled himself to read.

The last of the twilight drained from the world, and the window
panes turned a burnished black. Through the half-open sashes sucked
a warm little breeze, swaying the long lace curtains back and forth.
The hum of lawn-sprinklers and the chirping of crickets and tree-
frogs came with it.

One by one the lawn-sprinklers fell silent. Gradually there
descended upon the world the deep slumbrous stillness of late night;
a stillness compounded of a thousand and one mysterious little
noises repeated monotonously over and over until their identity was
lost in accustomedness. Occasionally the creak of timbers or the
sharp scurrying of a mouse in the wall served more to accentuate
than to break this night silence.

Orde sat lost in reverVy you do dot to the peoples dot safe your Mina?'
And ven she look at me, her eyes say it; and in the night everything
cry out at me; and I get sick, and I can't stand it no longer, and I
don't care if he send me to prison or to hell, no more."

His excitement died. He sat listless, his eyes vacant, his hands
between his knees.
ie, his book in his lap. At stated intervals
the student lamp at his elbow flared slightly, then burned clear
again after a swallow of satisfaction in its reservoir. These
regular replenishments of the oil supply alone marked the flight of
time.

Suddenly Orde leaned forward, his senses at the keenest attention.
After a moment he arose and quietly walked toward the open window.
Just as he reached the casement and looked out, a man looked in.
The two stared at each other not two feet apart.

"Good Lord! Heinzman!" cried Orde in a guarded voice. He stepped
decisively through the window, seized the German by the arm, and
drew him one side.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

Heinzman was trembling violently as though from a chill.

"Dake me somewheres," he whispered hoarsely. "Somewheres quick. I
haf broke quarantine, and dey vill be after me."

"The place for you is at your own house," said Orde, his anger
rising. "What do you mean by coming here and exposing my house to
infection?"

Heinzman began to blubber; choked, shivered all over, and cried
aloud with an expression of the greatest agony:

"You must dake me somewheres. I must talk with you and your goot
wife. I haf somedings to say to you." He in his turn grasped Orde
by the arm. "I haf broke quarantine to gome and tell you. Dey are
dere mit shotguns to kill me if I broke quarantine. And I haf left
my daughter, my daughter Mina, all alone mit dose people to come and
tell you. And now you don't listen."

He wrung his hands dramatically, his soft pudgy body shaking.

"Come with me," said Orde briefly.

He led the way around the house to the tool shed. Here he lit a
lantern, thrust forward one nail keg, and sat down on another.

Heinzman sat down on the nail keg, almost immediately arose, walked
up and down two or three times, and resumed his seat.

Orde looked at him curiously. He was half dressed, without a
collar, his thin hair unkempt. The usual bright colour of his
cheeks had become livid, and the flesh, ordinarily firm and elastic,
had fallen in folds and wrinkles. His eyes burned bright as though
from some internal fire. A great restlessness possessed him.
Impulsively Orde leaned forward to touch his hand. It was dry and
hot.

"What is it, Heinzman?" he asked quietly, fully prepared for the
vagaries of a half delirium.

"Ach, Orde!" cried the German, "I am tortured mit HOLLENQUALLE--what
you call?--hell's fire. You, whose wife comes in and saves my Mina
when the others runs away. You, my best friends! It is
SCHRECKLICH! She vas the noblest, the best, the most kindest--"

"If you mean Mrs. Orde's staying with Mina," broke in Orde, "it was
only what any one should have done, in humanity; and I, for one, am
only too glad she had the chance. You mustn't exaggerate. And nhead.
"She might take the disease. She might die. It vas noble." He
shuddered. "My Mina left to die all alone!"

Orde rose to his feet with decision.

"That is all right," said he. "Carroll was glad of the chance. Now
let me get you home."

But Heinzman's excitement had suddenly died.

"No," said he, extending his trembling hand; "sit down. I want to
talk business."

"You are in no condition to talk business," said Orde.

"No!" cried Heinzman with unexpected vigour. "Sit down! Listen to
me! Dot's better. I haf your note for sefenty-five t'ousand
dollars. No?"

Orde nodded.

"Dot money I never lent you. NO! I'm not crazy. Sit still! I
know my name is on dot note. But the money came from somewheres
else. It came from your partner, Joseph Newmark."

Orde half rose from his keg.

"Why? What?" he asked in bewilderment.

"Den ven you could not pay the note, I vas to foreclose and hand
over dot Northern Peninsula land to Joseph Newmark, your partner."

"Impossible!" cried Orde.

"I vas to get a share. It vas a trick."

"Go on," said Orde grimly.

"Dere is no go on. Dot is all."

"Why do you come to tell me now?"

"Because for more than one year now I say to mineself, 'Carl
Heinzman, you vas one dirty scoundrel. You vas dishonest; a sneak;
a thief'; I don't like to call myself names like dose. It iss all
righdt to be smart; but to be a thief!"

"Why didn't you pull out?" asked Orde.

"I couldn't!" cried Heinzman piteously. "How could I? He haf me
cold. I paid Stanford five hundred dollars for his vote on the
charter; and Joseph Newmark, he know dot; he can PROVE it. He tell
me if I don't do what he say, he put me in jail. Think of dot! All
my friends go back on me; all my money gone; maybe my daughter Mina
go back on me, too. How could I?"

"Well, he can still put you in prison," said Orde.

"Vot I care?" cried Heinzman, throwing up both his arms. "You and
your wife are my friends. She save my Mina. DU LIEBER GOTT! If my
daughter had died, vot good iss friends and money? Vot good iss
anything? I don't vant to live! And ven I sit dere by her always
something ask me:
"Vell, I go," he said at last.

"Have you that note?" asked Orde.

"Joseph Newmark, he keeps it most times," replied Heinzman, "but now
it is at my office for the foreclosure. I vill not foreclose; he
can send me to the penitentiary."

"Telephone Lambert in the morning to give it to me. No; here.
Write an order in this notebook."

Heinzman wrote the required order.

"I go," said he, suddenly weary.

Orde accompanied him down the street. The German was again light-
headed with the fever, mumbling about his daughter, the notes,
Carroll, the voices that had driven him to righteousness. By some
manoeuvring Orde succeeded in slipping him through the improvised
quarantine without discovery. Then the riverman with slow and
thoughtful steps returned to where the lamp in the study still
marked off with the spaced replenishments from its oil reservoir the
early morning hours.

XLVI

Morning found Orde still seated in the library chair. His head was
sunk forward on his chest; his hands were extended listless, palms
up, along the arms of the chair; his eyes were vacant and troubled.
Hardly once in the long hours had he shifted by a hair's breadth his
position. His body was suspended in an absolute inaction while his
spirit battered at the walls of an impasse. For, strangely enough,
Orde did not once, even for a single instant, give a thought to the
business aspects of the situation--what it meant to him and his
prospects or what he could do about it. Hurt to the soul he stared
at the wreck of a friendship. Nothing will more deeply sicken the
heart of a naturally loyal man than to discover baseless his faith
in some one he has thoroughly trusted.

Orde had liked Newmark. He had admired heartily his clearness of
vision, his financial skill, his knowledge of business intricacies,
his imperturbable coolness, all the abilities that had brought him
to success. With a man of Orde's temperament, to admire is to like;
and to like is to invest with all good qualities. He had
constructed his ideal of a friend, with Newmark as a basis; and now
that this, which had seemed to him as solid a reality as a brick
block, had dissolved into nothing, he found himself in the necessity
of refashioning his whole world. He was not angry at Newmark. But
he was grieved down to the depths of his being.

When the full sun shone into the library, he aroused himself to
change his clothes. Then, carrying those he had just discarded, he
slipped out of the house and down the street. Duke, the black and
white setter dog, begged to follow him. Orde welcomed the animal's
company. He paused only long enough to telephone from the office
telling Carroll he would be out of town all day. Then he set out at
a long swinging gait over the hills. By the time the sun grew hot,
he was some miles from the village and in the high beech woods.
There he sat down, his back to a monster tree. All day long he
gazed steadily on the shifting shadows and splotches of sunlight; on
the patches of blue sky, the dazzling white clouds that sailed
across them; on the waving, whispering frond that over-arched him,
and the deep cool shadows beneath. The woods creatures soon became
accustomed to his presence. Squirrels of the several varieties that
abounded in the Michigan forests scampered madly after each other in
spirals around the tree trunks, or bounded across the ground in long
undulating leaps. Birds flashed and called and disappeared
mysteriously. A chewink, brave in his black and white and tan
uniform, scratched mightily with great two-footed swoops that threw
the vegetable mould over Orde's very feet. Blazoned butterflies--
the yellow and black turnus, the dark troilus, the shade-loving
nymphalis--flickered in and out of the patches of sunlight. Orde
paid them no attention. The noon heat poured down through the
forest isles like an incense. Overhead swung the sun, and down the
slope until the long shafts of its light lifted wand-like across the
tree trunks.

At this hint of evening Orde shook himself and arose. He was little
nearer the readjustment he sought than he had been the previous
night.

He reached home a little before six o'clock. To his surprise he
found Taylor awaiting him. The lawyer had written nothing as to his
return.

"I had things pretty well in shape," he said, after the first
greetings had been exchanged, "and it would do no good to stay away
any longer."

"Then the trouble is over?" asked Orde.

"I wouldn't say that," replied Taylor; "but you can rest easy as to
the title to your lands. The investigation had no real basis to it.
There may have been some small individual cases of false entry; but
nothing on which to ground a ???? attack."

"When can I borrow on it?"

"Not for a year or two, I should say. There's an awful lot of red-
tape to unwind, as there always is in such cases."

"Oh," said Orde in some disappointment.

Taylor hesitated, removed his eye-glasses, wiped them carefully, and
replaced them. He glanced at Orde sidelong through his keen, shrewd
eyes.

"I have something more to tell you; something that will be painful,"
said he.

Orde looked up quickly.

"Well; what is it?" he asked.

"The general cussedness of all this investigation business had me
puzzled, until at last I made up my mind to do a little
investigating on my own account. It all looked foolish to me.
Somebody or something must be back of all this performance. I was
at it all the time I was West, between times on regular business, of
course. I didn't make much out of my direct efforts--they cover
things up well in those matters--but at last I got on a clue by
sheer accident. There was one man behind all this. He was--"

"Joe Newmark," said Orde quietly.

"How did you know that?" cried Taylor in astonishment.

"I didn't know, Frank; I just guessed."

"Well, you made a good guess. It was Newmark. He'd tied up the
land in this trumped-up investigation so you could not borrow on
it."

"How did he find out I owned any land?" asked Orde.

"That I couldn't tell you. Must have been a leak somewhere."

"Quite likely," said Orde calmly.

Taylor looked at his principal in some wonder.

"Well, I must say you take it coolly enough," said he at last.

Orde smiled.

"Do I?" said he.

"Of course," went on Taylor after a moment, "we have a strong
presumption of conspiracy to get hold of your Boom Company stock,
which I believe you put up as security. But I don't see how we have
any incontestable proof of it."

"Proof? What more do we want?"

"We'd have no witness to any of these transactions; nor have we
documentary proofs. It's merely moral certainty; and moral
certainty isn't much in a court of law. I'll see him, if you say
so, though, and scare him into some sort of an arrangement."

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