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Page 9
IV
Like daughter like father. Tom, too, had been irresistible. All the
world still called to him, and strange men came from time to time with
its messages. Never had there been such visitors to the Travers home.
Some came with the reminiscent roll of the sea in their gait. Others
were black-browed ruffians; still others were fever-burnt and sallow;
and about all of them was something bizarre and outlandish. Their talk
was likewise bizarre and outlandish, of things to Frederick unguessed
and undreamed, though he recognised the men for what they were--soldiers
of fortune, adventurers, free lances of the world. But the big patent
thing was the love and loyalty they bore their leader. They named him
variously?--Black Tom, Blondine, Husky Travers, Malemute Tom,
Swiftwater Tom--but most of all he was Captain Tom. Their projects and
propositions were equally various, from the South Sea trader with the
discovery of a new guano island and the Latin-American with a nascent
revolution on his hands, on through Siberian gold chases and the
prospecting of the placer benches of the upper Kuskokeem, to darker
things that were mentioned only in whispers. And Captain Tom regretted
the temporary indisposition that prevented immediate departure with
them, and continued to sit and drowse more and more in the big chair. It
was Polly, with a camaraderie distasteful to her uncle, who got these
men aside and broke the news that Captain Tom would never go out on the
shining ways again. But not all of them came with projects. Many made
love-calls on their leader of old and unforgetable days, and Frederick
sometimes was a witness to their meeting, and he marvelled anew at the
mysterious charm in his brother that drew all men to him.
"By the turtles of Tasman!" cried one, "when I heard you was in
California, Captain Tom, I just had to come and shake hands. I reckon
you ain't forgot Tasman, eh?--nor the scrap at Thursday Island.
Say--old Tasman was killed by his niggers only last year up German New
Guinea way. Remember his cook-boy?--Ngani-Ngani? He was the ringleader.
Tasman swore by him, but Ngani-Ngani hatcheted him just the same."
"Shake hands with Captain Carlsen, Fred," was Tom's introduction of his
brother to another visitor. "He pulled me out of a tight place on the
West Coast once. I'd have cashed in, Carlsen, if you hadn't happened
along."
Captain Carlsen was a giant hulk of a man, with gimlet eyes of palest
blue, a slash-scarred mouth that a blazing red beard could not quite
hide, and a grip in his hand that made Frederick squirm.
A few minutes later, Tom had his brother aside.
"Say, Fred, do you think it will bother to advance me a thousand?"
"Of course," Frederick answered splendidly. "You know half of that I
have is yours, Tom."
And when Captain Carlsen departed, Frederick was morally certain that
the thousand dollars departed with him.
Small wonder Tom had made a failure of life--and come home to die.
Frederick sat at his own orderly desk taking stock of the difference
between him and his brother. Yes, and if it hadn't been for him, there
would have been no home for Tom to die in.
Frederick cast back for solace through their joint history. It was he
who had always been the mainstay, the dependable one. Tom had laughed
and rollicked, played hooky from school, disobeyed Isaac's commandments.
To the mountains or the sea, or in hot water with the neighbours and the
town authorities--it was all the same; he was everywhere save where the
dull plod of work obtained. And work was work in those backwoods days,
and he, Frederick, had done the work. Early and late and all days he had
been at it. He remembered the season when Isaac's wide plans had taken
one of their smashes, when food had been scarce on the table of a man
who owned a hundred thousand acres, when there had been no money to
hire harvesters for the hay, and when Isaac would not let go his grip on
a single one of his acres. He, Frederick, had pitched the hay, while
Isaac mowed and raked. Tom had lain in bed and run up a doctor bill with
a broken leg, gained by falling off the ridge-pole of the barn--which
place was the last in the world to which any one would expect to go to
pitch hay. About the only work Tom had ever done, it seemed to him, was
to fetch in venison and bear-oil, to break colts, and to raise a din in
the valley pastures and wooded canyons with his bear-hounds.
Tom was the elder, yet when Isaac died, the estate, with all its vast
possibilities would have gone to ruin, had not he, Frederick, buckled
down to it and put the burden on his back. Work! He remembered the
enlargement of the town water-system--how he had manoeuvred and
financed, persuaded small loans at ruinous interest, and laid pipe and
made joints by lantern light while the workmen slept, and then been up
ahead of them to outline and direct and rack his brains over the
raising of the next week-end wages. For he had carried on old Isaac's
policy. He would not let go. The future would vindicate.
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