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Updated: June 22, 2025
"I'll nae deny I take a wee drappie now an' then," the woods-boss admitted frankly, albeit there was a harried, hangdog look in his eyes. Bryce sat down at his desk, lighted his pipe, and looked McTavish over soberly. The woods-boss was a big, raw-boned Scotsman, with a plentiful sprinkling of silver in his thick mane of red hair, which fell far down on his shoulders.
"I'm sore distressed for you, sir," the woods-boss answered. "We'd a whisper in the camp yesterday that the lass was like to be in a bad way." Cardigan scuffed with his foot a clear space in the brown litter. "Take two men from the section-gang, McTavish," he ordered, "and have them dig her grave here; then swamp a trail through the underbrush and out to the donkey-landing, so we can carry her in.
"No pitiful human being can pay in dollars and cents for the wanton destruction of God's handiwork. You wanted that burl and when my father was blind and could no longer make his Sunday pilgrimage up to that grove, your woods-boss went up and stole that which you knew you could not buy." "That will be about all from you, young man. Get out of my office.
"You threw me at him. Now I throw him at you. You damned, thieving, greedy, hypocritical scoundrel, if it weren't for your years and your gray hair, I'd kill you." The helpless hulk of the woods-boss descended upon the Colonel's expansive chest and sent him crashing earthward. Then Bryce, war-mad, turned to face the ring of Laguna Grande employees about him. "Next!" he roared.
His blows had not, apparently, had the slightest effect on the woods-boss. Crouched low and with his arms wrapped around his head, Rondeau still came on unfalteringly, and Bryce was forced to give way before him; to save his hands, he avoided the risk of battering Rondeau's hard head and sinewy arms.
Bryce stepped in, feinted for Rondeau's jaw with his right, and when the woods-boss quickly covered, ripped a sizzling left into the latter's midriff. Rondeau grunted and dropped his guard, with the result that Bryce's great fists played a devil's tattoo on his countenance before he could crouch and cover. "This is a tough one," thought Bryce.
Rondeau shrugged contemptuously, turned, and with a sweep of his great arm indicated to his men that they were to go; then, without a backward glance to see that they followed, the woods-boss strode away in the direction of the Laguna Grande mill. Arrived at the mill-office, he entered, took down the telephone, and called up Shirley Sumner. "Mademoiselle," he said, "Jules Rondeau speaks to you.
I really ought to pension him after his long years in the Cardigan service, but I'll be hanged if we can afford pensions any more particularly to keep a man in booze; so the best our old woods-boss gets from me is this shanty, or another like it when we move to new cuttings, and a perpetual meal-ticket for our camp dining room while the Cardigans remain in business.
Until then, however, you're as popular with me that is, in a business way as a wet dog." "Ye're nae the man yer faither was," the woods-boss half sobbed. "Ye hae a heart o' stone." "You've been drunk for fifteen days and I'm paying you for it, Mac," Bryce reminded him gently. "Don't leave your check behind. You'll need it."
The week that ensued was remarkable for the amount of work Bryce accomplished in the investigation of his father's affairs also for a visit from Donald McTavish, the woods-boss. Bryce found him sitting in the private office one morning at seven o'clock. "Hello, McTavish," he saluted the woods-boss cheerfully and extended his hand for a cordial greeting.
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