“Thirty thousand dollars,” said Jim, half expecting the cashier to jump to his feet and call a strong assistant to escort him to the street.
“That’s just inside the limit. Need it right away?”
Mr. Wills fumbled in a pigeonhole and passed Jim a note.
“Make this out, sign it as an officer of your company, and put your personal indorsement on the back. It’s a demand note, you observe. We prefer that kind.”
Jim wasn’t clear just what the difference was between that kind and the other. It didn’t matter. He was going to get the money he needed—without an effort. It was a shock to him. Were money matters arranged thus easily? Was money in considerable sums so easy to come by? He signed the note, and was told the amount would be credited to his accounts as of that day.
After he had chatted a moment, and thanked Mr. Wills as profusely as he believed it wise, he turned away. But a sudden recollection stopped him. Mr. Wills had said Zaanan Frame and Mr. Moran had favored the loan. Did you ever eat cherry pie, delicious cherry pie, and suddenly encounter a pit which the cook had overlooked? Jim felt much the same way.
“What Mr. Moran is on your board?” he asked.
“Why, Michael Moran, of course!” he said.
As Jim turned off the road on to the mill lot, a man two inches shorter than he and four inches broader accosted him.
“You’re Mr. Ashe, ain’t you?” the man asked.
Jim nodded and stopped. The man, who wore a calico shirt that, stout as it was, threatened to rip out at the seams when the big muscles played beneath, was an individual whose life had not fallen in places of ease. Work, hard work, had made him. He had triumphed over it. His will and a splendid body had triumphed, until Jim paid the tribute of his admiration to the result of it.
“I think we can use one in the log-yard. Out of a job?”
“Walked out of it. When I heard Mike Moran was goin’ to run the Diversity Hardwood outfit I quit—sudden.”
“I worked for him three year back on the South Branch.” The man spat savagely in the dust. “Self-respectin’ lumberjack wouldn’t ’a’ stayed twenty-four hours gittin’ what some of them fellers got. Me, it wasn’t so bad. ‘What was the matter?’ says you. ‘Plenty,’ says I. First, he starts in gittin’ rid of as good a crew as ever stuck their legs under a cook-shanty table, and filled up the woods with Polacks and Italians and Hunkies. Just critters with arms and laigs like folks. Grub was rotten—rotten! Them poor foreigners got it comin’ and goin’. Knocked round, fed spoiled meat—and then cheated out of their pay. Oh, foreigners hain’t the only ones that’s been cheated out of their pay in Michigan camps. I wisht I had what was comin’ to me fair, Mr. Ashe. Why, I knowed two Polacks that come out of Moran’s Camp Three, after workin’ from November till April—and they come out owin’ him eighteen dollars!”