Harold Titus

“ I don't know much about men except what my father has told me, but a girl doesn't have to be told, I guess. It isn't what they say or do; it's the way they look at you. I knew what that meant before my father said anything. Any girl could understand that without being told. Some times, lately, it's seemed like I couldn't stand it another day. So long as my father was here, I felt sort of safe—until to-night, when Mosseau grabbed me, and now I know I'm not safe even with my father. ”

“ A flash like cold fire swept beneath her eyes as the Frenchman's knife came out, naked and ready. The watchers surged into the corners with a staccato'd stamping. Some one shouted a warning—and Eve realized that it had been her voice.
The knife hand whipped back; the blade poised almost beneath her chin; the arm swept forward in a quick arc—and a chair, gathered with a backward sweep of the trader's big hand, met and turn it and flew on, crashing into Mosseau's chest. ”

“ It is a good thing you came so early. Perhaps we can understand each other. Let it be the last time you come to my island, Red Jenny; let to-night be the last time you ever hope to see Eve. Men here will tell you I'm not to be fooled with, and I will tell you this: She is life to me; she is the object in keeping on. ”

“ I went out to your boat last night, because I knew you were alone and all gone and couldn't hurt me, and I—it seemed I couldn't go another day without seeing somebody and talking to somebody. He's warned me about men ever since I was little, and tells me the only way to be safe is to expect they're going to hurt me and be ready for it—and he keeps me in the store when I'm more afraid all the time. He's right. If I let the men think I was afraid, nothing could stop them. I know that. Whenever my father thinks I'm wanting to talk to other people, it makes him mad. ”

“ The impulse to keep away from the men who worked on the island was a newer thing than this loneliness. When she was a little girl, it had been her father's warnings that had kept her to herself, but after she developed and passed that divide which brought her into womanhood, she needed no warning other than that in her heart. She had to meet them in the store, and that was all her courage could bear.
Perhaps there was little danger from most of them, but her distrust of all men had grown lately.
Particularly of one, a Frenchman, Jean Mosseau. ”

“ I suppose every trader knows them.”
“Stories! So I need stories, Eldred?” the man flashed, and King Norman spread his feet as if to steady himself to a blow. “Do I need to listen to others?” He approached, thrusting his face close. “No; I don't have to tell you who I am!” Eldred stared back at him for the space of a slow breath, and then gave his head the slightest shake of negation. “That's truth, anyhow. You knew when you first looked at me. Did you think a ghost had come to haunt you?”
“You are rash. Your attitude will not help to an amiable understanding.” ”

“ They would sit about the stove in cold weather, on the steps in fair, and yarn and expound and argue, while behind the counter the girl stood, outwardly indifferent to them, outwardly cool and collected, outwardly contemptuous and with something like her father's detached assurance. Those things the men saw and, knowing that she was backed by Eldred's strength, none seemed curious to look further. A more careful observer, however—such as Mosseau had been—could have seen indications of misgiving. ”

“ He did not fail anywhere, unless one considers his relations with other men and believes that respect and friendship are desired possessions. The next spring found him with another boat and more luck, and his fortune with fishing held until his fleet numbered six, and thirty men lived in the slab shacks he built behind his net-reels. These men were called the scum of the lakes, and they were no more than just that—hard men only would work for King Norman, and that seemed to feed his strange pride; he wanted only hard and rough men. ”

“ She saw his leering mirth and heard his laugh.
“'Ten years of happiness, thank God!'” he quoted. “And now, for another ten, you can thank Norman Eldred!”
“Lask——”
“Eldred!”
“Eldred, then”—weakly. “What are you driving at?”
“At your secret, which you betray so clumsily.” He chuckled, toying with a watch-charm fashioned from a Petoskey agate in the shape of a fish. “You never were a good liar, Jenny; you bluster too easily when you try to deceive. You've told him everything, eh?”
“Everything”—in a whisper, catching at the desk corner. ”

“ Gam Gallagher, who had worked late on his crippled motor, called in Ned Borden for help, and the sound of metal striking metal came early from the Kititiwake. The keeper's wife appeared on her boat, shaking out the skirt of her suit with petulant mutterings for the wrinkles.
The trader had been busy on the deck of his hooker since the stars faded, and as Jen Borden watched, he slung a line between the spars and hung a half-dozen freshly washed garments to dangle limply in the early sunlight.
“A man's heart,” she said to herself, “is only as clean as his shirt. ”

“ All people who come here know who I am, and you always were—discreet.”
“King Norman Eldred!" she scoffed. “Yes; we know each other. There ain't any mistake.”
A pause, while she eyed him, breathing rapidly. Then he put down his pen and clasped his white, hair-tufted hands in his lap, sitting back in the chair with a sardonic smile.
“Red Jenny," he said ever so softly, and laughed, lifting his chin a bit. “Red Jenny, with the red gone to silver now—the faded rose, with age dulling its judgment!” The woman stirred and moistened her lips. ”

“ Who asked for it, Eldred? Plain understandin' suits me, an' that's what we've got. You called me up here to make your offer. Eldred, tell me this: Do you want the Annabelle so badly now that you know her master?”
Eldred's red lips stirred, showing a gleam of white teeth.
“Knowing her master, and having him come this way, defiant and prejudiced, makes me want his hooker twice as badly.” The trader sniffed. “But you have mentioned stories; you have listened to them, and perhaps that is as well. Things have happened to men who come here as you have come—insolently, looking for trouble. ”

“ It was likely, if one accepted the character which Eldred's men gave to Eve, and it dovetailed with the story that Jode's helper left behind him when he fled from Garden Island and to the mainland, to get as far away as he could from the spirit he had seen flaming in Eldred's eyes that night on the beach, with the surf roaring in across the reef and wreckage coming ashore. ”

“ I don't even know what you mean.”
“Don't know?” he burst out savagely. “You don't remember what happened to my father here?”
“Oh, yes”—very lowly, and nodding. “I remember that. I walked the beach for days, thinking he might come back—all right. I cried every night for so long. He was my only friend; he used to take me on the lake with him sometimes, and he talked to me in the evenings and told me about you—and your sister.” ”

“ That so? Yes; I thought so. Now, I've got this to say to you: Be careful, King Norman; be damned awful careful!”
He emphasized his last words by a leveled finger, and not until the hand had sunk slowly to his side did Eldred reply.
“Good! We quite understand one another, which makes everything simple and easy. Day after to-morrow, probably, you can start. Until then——”
For another moment they faced one another, but without speaking, and then the trader turned and walked deliberately out, without looking back. As the door closed, he began whistling a light, gay, happy little tune. ”

“ She wanted to keep fresh the thrill which he had given her, wanted to keep it unblemished, wanted this so much that she found herself growing half indignant that any man—even the trader—should rob her of the gift which he had bestowed. ”

“ Strange men have sought the goodly seclusion offered. Lore has endured; fictions have become fact; generation has given way to generation without developing the impulse to change the Beavers. And King Norman has ruled on Garden Island. ”

“ Otherwise, they kept away from her because, whenever a new man came to work, Eldred gave him but one instruction: “You will talk to my family only when spoken to. Dimmock will give you other orders.” But when they did meet Eve in the store, she showed hostility, a coldness, a superior indifference. With a girl of her beauty on the one hand and men such as they on the other, there could not help being danger, and it was to forestall this that Eldred made the rule which gave men no opportunity to be sly. ”

“ I'm just curious about that girl.”
Borden took up a lantern.
“She must be a queer one,” he said, as he struck a match. “Seems like everybody hates her without any reason, unless just because she's Eldred's daughter. 'Course, there's that story about her and the beacons, and that's— Sounds far fetched to me; but all the others they tell seem to be moonshine. There's a lot of wickedness in the world for sure, but when people tell stories such as they tell about this girl. I'm always a doubter.” ”

“ He studied her face a moment and then let go her wrist.
“They say that's a woman's right,” he said sarcastically. “It's higher, I expect, than an owner's right to know who prowls round his boat after dark.”
THE irony in tone and manner started a warmth flooding through the girl; that was her pride stirring—when she had thought it dead! He believed she had something to hide, and she had nothing—except that bruise on her pride. ”

“ You always could guess what was in folk's minds. I—I'll trade with you. Las—Eldred; I'll keep on keeping my mouth shut. I'll keep our secret, yours and mine. Listen, Eldred; what would 'ave become of Eve if I hadn't loved her first? If it hadn't been for me— Why, I might 'ave had her now with me with nothing to hide. If she's been the one thing in life for you, ain't I got any rights? ”

“ ELDRED'S store resembled more the van of a lumber camp than any other establishment, although the scattered Indian farmers and fishermen from further down the island made their purchases there, it was maintained primarily for the men of the fishing crew, not for their convenience but for Eldred's profit. And perhaps there was a deeper motive behind the establishment of that store, because, as has been recorded earlier in this narrative, it was here that Eve was forced to face those men. ”

“ Eve was always stimulated there, keyed to a point of maintaining her show of superiority, and this forcing of a manner which her heart did not share was evidenced in an uneven poise, a curtness when curtness was not necessary, a uniform coldness which she used when dealing with the most presumptuous of the men and with the weakest alike. ”

“ That ended their talk, but twice more Ned Borden lifted his head to stare in the direction of his wife, and for long lay awake himself, wondering.
Outside one of the shacks, Eldred stood talking cautiously to Dimmock. He had come to his man instead of sending for him an unusual happening. He turned to go.
“I saw the look,” mumbled Dimmock, “I thought it was him.”
Eldred halted.
“Two of us know—you and I. That is enough. If the men guess and the story starts, stop it! Bad enough to have it spread round the other islands, as it will. For Eve—it's as forbidden as—other happenings.” ”

“ Before he pulled out of the harbor, Gam Gallagher went aboard the hooker and talked. The master of the Annabelle was amiable, he found, and the Irishman lingered for the better part of an hour. Among other things, he learned that the trader had arranged to work for Eldred, and after that statement had been made, a considerable silence followed.
“I s'pose you know about him,” Gam said finally, and the other laughed, which put a look of concern in the older man's eyes. “He ain't to be monkeyed with, for no reason. ”

“ I guess I got along on and around and over and through these blasted lakes for forty years without a guardian, and I don't intend starting in to be a weak and leaning stalk now. Stick your blessed nose back into the news of two weeks back Thursday. I'm going to give this corner of hell a look at a righteous woman!”
She lumbered up the steps of the companion-ladder then, while the man watched her go with a twinkle in his eyes. When she had closed the door, he craned his neck to see her walk along the dock toward shore, scanning the beach thoroughly. ”

“ Luck was good here, in the beginnin'; you were on the island, livin' in the house he'd built years before, an' he let you alone an' lived aboard his boat with his helper. Your father's luck wasn't much good, I guess, an' maybe that made him jealous. It was good enough when he started liftin' our nets; it made the beginnin' of his—kingdom. What do you remember about beacons?”
“They fixed some,” she replied. “Jode used to be out late, and sometimes we were, too. The reef was always bad, so they fixed the beacons so that a boat holding on them would have enough water.” ”

“ She had wanted friendship so badly! She had waited for it so long. And now a man would fight for her, but would scorn her while he fought.
Why? If there was a reason for it, she had a right to know, had she not? ”

“ We've all learned that. There was Olaf Erickson, from Harbor Springs; he tried to stand up for his rights an' Eldred rammed him with his steam tug an' sunk Olaf's boat in forty fathom, an' when they had him up, his crew lied him out of it There was an Injun poacher, too, who speared out of Eldred's pound-nets, an' what happened to him was a-plenty. He couldn't walk for over a month, an' his body's twisted to this day. That's what he does to them that crosses him, an' it's little better if you try to deal with him in business. He'll stop at nothin' when it's to his advantage. ”

“ They stood so for a fraction of a moment only, and then Eldred spoke to Jen Borden.
“We understand one another”—stiffly. “It is unfortunate your time has been wasted. Good-evening.”
She turned to confront him once more, fresh courage in her heart and words bursting at her lips, but she read in his face such a blazing fury, such a destroying threat that her heart failed and she drew away, frightened and beaten. Eve had stopped in the center of the room, and as the woman moved toward the door she gave one more long look at the girl ”