Chapter XII. In Which Miss Wayland is of Two Minds - Page 2

helped him get back to the States."

Marsh's eyes gleamed at this welcome intelligence for certain misgivings had preyed upon him since that night of the encounter. He turned to the girl with the explanation:

"This fellow we speak of is a queer, unbalanced savage who nurses an insane hatred for me. I employed him once, but had to discharge him for incompetence, and he has threatened my life repeatedly. You may imagine the start it gave me to stroll into a cafe, at this distance from Kalvik, and find him seated at a near-by table."

"How strange!" Miss Wayland observed. "What did he do?"

"Mr. Emerson prevented him from making a scene. Only for his interference I might have been forced to--protect myself."

In spite of himself Boyd could not but wonder if Marsh were really the sort of man he had been painted; or if, as might appear sufficiently credible, he had been maligned through Cherry's prejudice and George Balt's hatred. To-night he seemed the most kindly and courteous of men.

Under Mildred's skilful direction the conversation had drifted into other channels by the time Mr. Wayland returned. Now, all at once, Boyd beheld the magnate in a new guise. Until to-night he had seen in him nothing more than a prospective father-in-law, a stubborn, dominant old fellow whose half-contemptuous toleration, unpleasant enough at times, never really amounted to active enmity. Now, however, he recognized in Wayne Wayland a commercial foe, and his knowledge of the man's character gave sufficient assurance that he might expect no mercy or consideration from him one moment after it transpired that their financial interests were in conflict.

So far the two had never seriously clashed, but sooner or later the capitalist must learn the truth; and when he did, when that iron-jawed, iron-willed autocrat once discovered that this youth whom he had taken into his home with so little thought of possible harm had actually dared to oppose him, his indignation would pass all bounds.

And then, for the first time, Emerson realized the impropriety of his own present position. He was here under false pretences; they had bared to him secrets not rightly his, with which he might arm himself. When this, too, became known to the financier, he would regard him not only as a presumptuous enemy, but as a traitor. Boyd knew the old tyrant too well to doubt his course of action; thenceforth there would be war to the hilt.

The enterprise which an hour ago had seemed so certain of success, the enterprise which he had fathered at such cost of labor and suffering, now seemed entirely hopeless. The futility of trying to oppose these men, equipped as they were with limitless means and experience, struck him with such force as to make him almost physically faint and sick. Even had his canning plant been open and running, he knew that they would never