Part 14 (1/2)
”Ba'teese watch one, two, t'ree night. Nothin' happen. Ba'teese think about his lost trap. He think mebbe there is one place where he have not look'. He say to Golemar he will go for jus' one, two hour.
n.o.body see, he think. So he go. And he come back. Blooey! Eet is done! Ba'teese have fail!”
”But what, Ba'tiste? It wasn't your fault. Don't feel that way about it? Has anything happened to Agnes?”
”No. The mill.”
”They've--?”
”Look!”
They had reached the top of the rise. Below them lay something which caused Barry Houston to leap to his feet unmindful of the jolting wagon, to stand weaving with white-gripped hands, to stare with suddenly deadened eyes--
Upon a blackened, smoldering ma.s.s of charred timbers and twisted machinery. The remainder of all that once had been his mill!
CHAPTER X
Words would not come for a moment. Houston could only stare and realize that his burden had become greater than ever. In the wagons behind him were twenty men, guaranteed at least a month of labor, and now there was nothing to provide it. The mill was gone; the blade was still hanging in its sockets, a useless, distempered thing; the boiler was bent and blackened, the belting burned; the carriages and muley saws and edgers and trimmers were only so much junk. He turned at last to Ba'tiste, to ask tritely what he knew could not be answered:
”But how did it happen, Ba'tiste? Didn't any one see?”
The Canadian shrugged his shoulders.
”Ba'teese come back. Eet is done.”
”Let's see Agnes. Maybe she can tell us something.”
But the woman, her arms about Houston's neck, could only announce hysterically that she had seen the mill burning, that she had sought help and had failed to find it.
”Then you noticed no one around the place?”
”Only Ba'tiste.”
”But that was an hour or so before.”
The big French-Canadian had moved away, to stand in doleful contemplation of the charred ma.s.s. The voice of Agnes Jierdon sank low:
”I don't know, Barry. I don't want to accuse--”
”You don't mean--”
”All I know is that I saw him leave the place and go over the hill.
Fifteen minutes later, I saw the mill burning and ran down there. All about the place rags were burning and I could smell kerosene. That's all I saw. But in the absence of any one else, what should a person think?”
Houston's lips pressed tight. He turned angrily, the old grip of suspicion upon him,--suspicion that would point in time of stress to every one about him, suspicion engendered by black days of hopelessness, of despair. But in an instant, it all was gone; the picture of Ba'tiste Renaud, standing there by the embers, the honesty of his expression of sorrow, the slump of his shoulders, while the dog, unnoticed, nuzzled its cold nose in a limp hand, was enough to wipe it all out forever. Houston's eyes went straight to those of Agnes Jierdon and centered there.
”Agnes,” came slowly, ”I want to ask a favor. No matter what may happen, no matter what you may think personally, there is one man who trusts me as much as you have trusted me, and whom I shall trust in return. That man is Ba'tiste Renaud, my friend. I hope you can find a friend in him too; but if you can't, please, for me, never mention it.”
”Why, of course not, Barry.” She laughed in an embarra.s.sed manner and drew away from him. ”I just thought I'd tell you what I knew. I didn't have any idea you were such warm comrades. We'll forget the whole incident.”
”Thank you.” Then to Ba'tiste he went, to bang him on the shoulder, and with an effort to whirl him about. ”Well!” he demanded, in an echo of Ba'tiste's own thundering manner, ”shall we stand here and weep?