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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.
"Thanks," said Orde gloomily. "I have Heinzman's contract all drawn," said Newmark the next morning, "and I think I'll go around with you to the office." At the appointed time they found the little German awaiting them, a rotund smile of false good-nature illuminating his rosy face. Orde introduced his partner. Newmark immediately took charge of the interview.
"Hullo there, commodore! what is it?" replied the tug captain. The red-faced figure glared down for a moment. "They want a tug up there at Heinzman's. Can you go?" "Sure!" cried Marsh, choking. The LUCY BELLE sheered off magnificently. "What do you think of that?" Marsh asked Orde. "The commodore always acts as if that old raft was a sixty-gun frigate," was Orde's non-committal answer.
Everything: his property, his social position, his daughter's esteem, which the old fool holds higher than any of them. You could put me in the pen, perhaps with Heinzman's testimony. But the minute Heinzman appears on the stand, I'll land him high and dry and gasping, without a chance to flop." He paused a moment to puff at his cigar.
For instance, at one spot where he had boomed the deeper channel from the rocks on either side, he shunted as many of Heinzman's logs as came by handily through an opening he had made in the booms. There they grounded on the shallows more work for the men following.
"Where was she exposed?" "Down at Heinzman's. You know or perhaps you don't that old Heinzman is the worst sort of anti-vaccination crank. Well, he's reaped the reward." "Has he smallpox?" asked Orde. "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.
"Come back and tell us!" yelled one of the crew. "You bet I will!" Orde shouted back. He drove the team and buckboard down the marsh road to Heinzman's mill. There he found evidences of the wildest excitement. The mill had been closed down, and all the men turned in to rescue logs. Boats plied in all directions. A tug darted back and forth.
He had long since taken Heinzman's measure, as, indeed, he had taken the measure of every other man with whom he did or was likely to do business. "Heinzman," said he abruptly, "my partner wants to raise seventy-five thousand dollars for his personal use. I have agreed to get him that money from the firm." Heinzman sat immovable, his round eyes blinking behind his big spectacles.
Lambert, secretly overjoyed at this opportunity of exercising an unaccustomed and 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.
One day, however, the chore boy, who had been over to Spruce Rapids after mail, reported that an additional crew of twenty had been sent in to Heinzman's drive. This was gratifying. "We're making him scratch gravel, boys, anyway," said Orde. The men entered into the spirit of the thing. In fact, their enthusiasm was almost too exuberant. Orde had constantly to negative new and ingenious schemes.
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