Kindred of the Dust Read online

  KINDRED OF THE DUST

  by

  PETER B. KYNE

  Author of _Cappy Ricks_, _The Valley of the Giants_, _Webster--Man'sMan_, etc.

  Illustrated by Dean Cornwell

  1920

  TO IRENE

  MY DEAR, TYRANNICAL, PRACTICAL LITTLE FOSTER-SISTER

  WITHOUT WHOSE AID AND COMFORT, HOOTS, CHEERS AND UNAUTHORIZED STRIKES,THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF MY ALLEGED LITERARY OUTPUT WOULD BEAPPRECIABLY DIMINISHED, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY

  DEDICATED

  THE ILLUSTRATIONS

  Hector McKaye was bred of an acquisitive race

  She stole to the old square piano and sang for him

  Donald bowed his head, "I can't give her up, father"

  "I'm a man without a home and you've just _got_ to take me in, Nan"

  I

  In the living-room of The Dreamerie, his home on Tyee Head, HectorMcKaye, owner of the Tyee Lumber Company and familiarly known as "TheLaird," was wont to sit in his hours of leisure, smoking and buildingcastles in Spain--for his son Donald. Here he planned the acquisitionof more timber and the installation of an electric-light plant tofurnish light, heat, and power to his own town of Port Agnew; ever andanon he would gaze through the plate-glass windows out to sea andwatch for his ships to come home. Whenever The Laird put his dreamsbehind him, he always looked seaward. In the course of time, hishome-bound skippers, sighting the white house on the headland andknowing that The Laird was apt to be up there watching, formed thehabit of doing something that pleased their owner mightily. When thenorthwest trades held steady and true, and while the tide was still atthe flood, they would scorn the services of the tug that went out tomeet them and come ramping into the bight, all their white sails setand the glory of the sun upon them; as they swept past, far below TheLaird, they would dip his house-flag--a burgee, scarlet-edged, with afir tree embroidered in green on a field of white--the symbol to theworld that here was a McKaye ship. And when the house-flag flutteredhalf-way to the deck and climbed again to the masthead, the soul ofHector McKaye would thrill.

  "Guid lads! My bonny brave lads!" he would murmur aloud, with just atouch of his parents' accent, and press a button which discharged anancient brass cannon mounted at the edge of the cliff. Whenever he sawone of his ships in the offing--and he could identify his ships as faras he could see them--he ordered the gardener to load this cannon.

  Presently the masters began to dip the house-flag when outward bound,and discovered that, whether The Laird sat at his desk in the milloffice or watched from the cliff, they drew an answering salute.

  This was their hail and farewell.

  One morning, the barkentine Hathor, towing out for Delagoa Bay, dippedher house-flag, and the watch at their stations bent their gaze uponthe house on the cliff. Long they waited but no answering salutegreeted the acknowledgment of their affectionate and willing service.

  The mate's glance met the master's.

  "The old laird must be unwell, sir," he opined.

  But the master shook his head.

  "He was to have had dinner aboard with us last night, but early in theafternoon he sent over word that he'd like to be excused. He's sick atheart, poor man! Daney tells me he's heard the town gossip about youngDonald."

  "The lad's a gentleman, sir," the mate defended. "He'll not disgracehis people."

  "He's young--and youth must be served. Man, I was young myselfonce--and Nan of the Sawdust Pile is not a woman a young man wouldlook at once and go his way."

  * * * * *

  In the southwestern corner of the state of Washington, nestled in theBight of Tyee and straddling the Skookum River, lies the littlesawmill town of Port Agnew. It is a community somewhat difficult tolocate, for the Bight of Tyee is not of sufficient importance as aharbor to have won consideration by the cartographers of the Coast andGeodetic Survey, and Port Agnew is not quite forty years old.Consequently, it appears only on the very latest state maps and in thesmallest possible type.

  When Hector McKaye first gazed upon the bight, the transcontinentallines had not yet begun to consider the thrusting of their tentaclesinto southwestern Washington, and, with the exception of those regionswhere good harbors had partially solved the problem of transportation,timber in Washington was very cheap. Consequently, since Hector McKayewas one of those hardy men who never hesitate to take that which noman denies them, he reached forth and acquired timber.

  A strip of land a quarter of a mile wide and fronting the beach wasbarren of commercial timber. As grazing-land, Hector McKaye wasenabled to file on a full section of this, and, with its acquisition,he owned the key to the outlet. While "proving up" his claim, heoperated a general store for trading with the Indians and trappers,and at this he prospered. From time to time he purchased timber-claimsfrom the trappers as fast as they "proved up," paying for thesestumpage-prices varying from twenty-five to fifty cents per thousand.

  On his frequent trips to the outer world, McKaye extolled theopportunities for acquiring good timber-claims down on the Skookum; headvertised them in letters and in discreet interviews with the editorsof little newspapers in the sawmill towns on Puget Sound and GraysHarhor; he let it be known that an honest fellow could secure creditfor a winter's provisions from him, and pay for it with pelts in thespring.

  The influx of homesteaders increased--single men, for the most part,and poor--men who labored six months of the year elsewhere and livedthe remaining six months in rude log huts on their claims down on theSkookum. And when the requirements of the homestead laws had beencomplied with and a patent to their quarter-section obtained from theLand Office in Washington, the homesteaders were ready to sell andmove on to other and greener pastures. So they sold to the onlypossible purchaser, Hector McKaye, and departed, quite satisfied witha profit which they flattered themselves had been the result of theirown prudence and foresight.

  Thus, in the course of ten years, Hector McKaye' acquired ten thousandacres of splendid Douglas fir and white cedar. But he had not beensuccessful in acquiring claims along the south bank of the Skookum.For some mysterious reason, he soon found claims on the north bankcheaper and easier to secure, albeit the timber showed no variance inquantity or quality. Discreet investigations brought to light the factthat he had a competitor--one Martin Darrow, who dwelt in St. Paul,Minnesota. To St. Paul, therefore, journeyed Hector McKaye, andsought an audience with Martin Darrow.

  "I'm McKaye, from the Skookum River, Washington," he announced,without preamble.

  "I've been expecting you, Mr. McKaye," Darrow replied. "Got aproposition to submit?"

  "Naturally, or I wouldn't have come to St. Paul. I notice you have aweakness for the timber on the south bank of the Skookum. You'veopposed me there half a dozen times and won. I have also observed thatI have a free hand with claims north of the river. That's fair--andthere's timber enough for two. Hereafter, I'll keep to my own side ofthe river."

  "I see we're going to come to an understanding, Mr. McKaye. What willyou give me to stick to my side of the river?"

  "An outlet through the bight for your product when you commencemanufacturing. I control the lower half-mile of the river and the onlyavailable mill-sites. I'll give you a mill-site if you'll pay half theexpense of digging a new channel for the Skookum, and changing itscourse so it will emerge into the still, deep water under the lee ofTyee Head."

  "We'll do business," said Martin Darrow--and they did, although it wasmany years after Hector McKaye had incorporated the Tyee LumberCompany and founded his town of Port Agnew before Darrow beganoperations.

  True to his promise, McKaye deeded him a mill-and town-site, and hefounded a settlement on the eastern edge of Port Agnew, but quitedistinct from it, and calle
d it Darrow, after himself. It was not acommunity that Hector McKaye approved of, for it was squalid andunsanitary, and its untidy, unpainted shacks of rough lumber harboredsouthern European labor, of which Hector McKaye would have none. InDarrow, also, there were three groggeries and a gambling-house, withthe usual concomitant of women whose profession is the oldest and thesaddest in the world.

  Following his discovery of the Bight of Tyee, a quarter of a centurypassed. A man may prosper much in twenty-five years, and HectorMcKaye, albeit American born, was bred of an acquisitive race. Whenhis Gethsemane came upon him, he was rated the richest lumberman inthe state of Washington; his twenty-thousand board-feet capacity perday sawmill had grown to five hundred thousand, his ten thousand acresto a hundred thousand. Two thousand persons looked to him and hisenterprise for their bread and butter; he owned a fleet of half adozen steam-schooners and sixteen big wind-jammers; he owned a townwhich he had called Port Agnew, and he had married and been blessedwith children. And because his ambition no longer demanded it, he wasno longer a miser.

  HECTOR MCKAYE WAS BRED OF AN ACQUISITIVE RACE.]

  In a word, he was a happy man, and in affectionate pride and as atribute to his might, his name and an occasional forget-me-not ofspeech which clung to his tongue, heritage of his Scotch forebears,his people called him "The Laird of Tyee." Singularly enough, hischaracter fitted this cognomen rather well. Reserved, proud,independent, and sensitive, thinking straight and talking straight, aman of brusque yet tender sentiment which was wont to manifest itselfunexpectedly, it had been said of him that in a company of a hundredof his mental, physical, and financial peers, he would have stoodforth preeminently and distinctively, like a lone tree on a hill.

  Although The Laird loved his town of Port Agnew, because he hadcreated it, he had not, nevertheless, resided in it for some yearsprior to the period at which this chronicle begins. At the very apexof the headland that shelters the Bight of Tyee, in a cuplikedepression several acres in extent, on the northern side and ideallysituated two hundred feet below the crest, thus permitting the howlingsoutheasters to blow over it, Hector McKaye, in the fulness of time,had built for himself a not very large two-story house of white stonenative to the locality. This house, in the center of beautiful andwell-kept grounds, was designed in the shape of a letter T, with thecombination living-room and library forming the entire leg of the Tand enclosed on all three sides by heavy plate-glass French windows.

  Thus, The Laird was enabled to command a view of the bight, with PortAgnew nestled far below; of the silver strip that is the Skookum Riverflowing down to the sea through the logged-over lands, nowchecker-boarded into little green farms; of the rolling back countrywith its dark-green mantle of fir and white cedar, fading in thedistance to dark blue and black; of the yellow sandstone bluffs of thecoast-line to the north, and the turquoise of the Pacific out to thehorizon.

  This room Hector McKaye enjoyed best of all things in life, with theexception of his family; of his family, his son Donald was nearest anddearest to him. This boy he loved with a fierce and hungry love,intensified, doubtless, because to the young Laird of Tyee, McKayewas still the greatest hero in the world. To his wife, The Laird wasno longer a hero, although in the old days of the upward climb, whenhe had fiercely claimed her and supported her by the sweat of hisbrow, he had been something akin to a god. As for Elizabeth and Jane,his daughters, it must be recorded that both these young women hadlong since ceased to regard their father as anything except anunfailing source of revenue--an old dear who clung to Port Agnew,homely speech, and homely ways, hooting good-naturedly at thepretensions of their set, and, with characteristic Gaelicstubbornness, insisting upon living and enjoying the kind of life thatappealed to him with peculiar force as the only kind worth living.

  Indeed, in more than one humble home in Port Agnew, it had been saidthat the two McKaye girls were secretly ashamed of their father. Thisbecause frequently, in a light and debonair manner, Elizabeth and Janeapologized for their father and exhibited toward him an indulgentattitude, as is frequently the case with overeducated andsupercultured young ladies who cannot recall a time when theirslightest wish has not been gratified and cannot forget that the goodfairy who gratified it once worked hard with his hands, spoke thelanguage and acquired the habits of his comrades in the battle forexistence.

  Of course, Elizabeth and Jane would have resented this analysis oftheir mental attitude toward their father. Be that as it may, however,the fact remained that both girls were perfunctory in theirexpressions of affection for their father, but wildly extravagant inthem where their mother was concerned. Hector McKaye liked it so. Hewas a man who never thought about himself, and he had discovered thatif he gave his wife and daughters everything they desired, he was notapt to be nagged.

  Only on one occasion had Hector McKaye declared himself master in hisown house, and, at the risk of appearing paradoxical, this was beforethe house had been built. One day, while they still occupied theirfirst home (in Port Agnew), a house with a mansard roof, two towers,jig-saw and scroll-work galore, and the usual cast-iron mastiffs anddeer on the front lawn, The Laird had come gleefully home from a tripto Seattle and proudly exhibited the plans for a new house.

  Ensued examination and discussion by his wife and the young ladies.Alas! The Laird's dream of a home did not correspond with that of hiswife, although, as a matter of fact, the lady had no ideas on thesubject beyond an insistence that the house should be "worthy of theirstation," and erected in a fashionable suburb of Seattle. Elizabethand Jane aided and abetted her in clamoring for a Seattle home,although both were quick to note the advantages of a picturesquecountry home on the cliffs above the bight. They urged their father tobuild his house, but condemned his plans. They desired a house somethree times larger than the blue-prints called for.

  Hector McKaye said nothing. The women chattered and argued amongthemselves until, Elizabeth and Jane having vanquished their mother,all three moved briskly to the attack upon The Laird. When they hadtalked themselves out and awaited a reply, he gave it with the simpledirectness of his nature. It was evident that he had given his answerthought.

  "I can never live in Seattle until I retire, and I cannot retireuntil Donald takes my place in the business. That means that Donaldmust live here. Consequently, I shall spend half of my time with youand the girls in Seattle, mother, and the other half with Donald here.When we built our first home, you had your way--and I've lived in thisarchitectural horror ever since. This time, I'm going to have my ownway--and you've lived with me long enough to know that when I declarefor a will of my own, I'll not be denied. Well I realize you and thegirls have outgrown Port Agnew. There's naught here to interest you,and I would not have woman o' mine unhappy. So plan your house inSeattle, and I'll build it and spare no expense. As for this house onthe headland, you have no interest in it. Donald's approved the plans,and him only will I defer to. 'Twill be his house some day--his andhis wife's, when he gets one. And there will be no more talk of it, mydears. I'll not take it kindly of ye to interfere."