Jeremy wondered how Ashley had contrived to move his people in so fast, but it was small matter for wonder: he had brought them all to Tacoma with him. On receiving Whitsett's wire he had alerted them to pack their bags (some of them literal carpetbags) and arranged for their reservations at the lodgings he had assigned them based on rank: either at the hotel, or the boarding house, or the rooms above Lottie Hatfield's saloon. So their arrival was expected, and a crowd was gathered to meet the steamer when it docked. Aaron kept his distance till he had determined that Whitsett was not one of the party, whereupon he made it his business to introduce himself to Ashley, giving off the air of being an important personage (which, to grant him his due, he was), and to offer them all a tour of the town after he had conducted them to their respective accommodations.
    "It's as beautiful as I imagined," said the only woman in the group. Her heart-shaped face reminded Aaron of someone else's, he could not recall whose at the moment.
    "I never could have imagined this," said the man in whose arm hers was resting. "But it certainly is beautiful."
    Ashley slapped himself hard on the neck where a mosquito had just landed. "Yeah, so Whitsett said." Unimpressed as he sounded, he appeared content to accept the claim on faith. He tossed down the cigar he had just smoked down and left it smoldering in the dirt.
    From the moment of their handshake Jason had felt such assurance of the deal going through that even before his unexpected departure for the Waterworths' he had set the bulk of his crew to filling the initial order under the contract, as Ashley had particularized it for him in Portland. So already choppers were felling, sawyers slicing, oxen heaving, and logs toppling, sliding over roads, and shooting down water courses to the mill. The crew at the skid camp Jeremy had lately set up had been reassigned to the Enoch job; Jeremy continued to oversee them while Joshua managed the main part of the camp–filling Jason's shoes, that is, as well as his own. The job so consumed his time that Jeremy was surprised to receive a visit from him in mid-morning, but less than grateful when he found out its purpose: to announce that Ashley's contingent had arrived in town. "Glad I'm up here, then," Jeremy said.
    "I launched a second Enoch crew on the northwest stand. That should enable us to stay ahead of schedule."
    "Wouldn't three be even better?"
    "Full house beats a flush, if you've got the hand. I can't put all the men on it–there are other jobs to be finished. That's the trouble when Jason goes and–" He stopped himself; they had no time now for fits of temper.
    "He'll be back soon," said Jeremy. "I know he will."
    Joshua smiled ruefully at the attempted encouragement. "We both hope."
    His doubts would have been not much relieved could he have witnessed the beginnings of the program Jason had initiated for the Waterworths' improvement. He had been up at dawn milking the cow, slopping the itinerant hog, feeding the chickens (all three), collecting their eggs, and cooking breakfast, which had been but meager. He made a list of what was needed to replenish the larder, mended the sty fence by resetting two corner posts, and appointed with Spoonbread for the afternoon to hunt and forage in the woods. He also found a pile of underdrawers Spoonbread had left out, apparently for cleaning, but at these he drew the line. For each of the other tasks he had planned at first only to give a tutorial demonstration, after which one or the other of the Waterworths was to take it over for his or her own, under Jason's guidance, but always in the event they hung back, mutely inert, and he finished on his own.
    In Jason's normal life he had always been accustomed to pronouncing judgment on everything that attracted his notice, and his pronouncement on the Rigby House upon its opening had been "Too much brass" (a comment to which Aaron Stempel had refrained from making the obvious retort). To Ashley, however, whose tastes were richer, the place had not brass enough. The greater part of their company having been cast ashore at the saloon and the Bridal Veil House, and having practically taken them over by force of numbers (or simply by force), those who remained–which is to say, only the best people–were now collected at the hotel desk register, signing in. The manager ran over each name as it was set down to fix it in memory together with the face of its owner. "Mr. Ashley...Mr. Fiske...Mr. Dean...Mr. and Mrs. Oliver...Mr. and Mrs.–Chadwick? I know a Chadwick, don't I? Yes, lives on the outskirts. May I assume...?" He blinked up at the big square-jawed man.
    "Assume anything you damn please," the man said, turning away.
    Ashley replied more graciously. "Many of us have old acquaintances here." But the smile that followed did not match the spoken sentiment: if anything, it looked rather cruel.
    Mr. Fiske, a trim, precise-looking man, was one without local acquaintances and, whether from that or another cause, the only member of the party to take up Aaron's offer of a tour. He made it known straightway that he had been put in charge of the roads and railroads. "Roads? Railroads?" Aaron echoed. "For a simple lumber contract?"
    "It extends beyond that. Didn't Ashley apprise you of the details?"
    Suddenly realizing that there were details to be apprised of, and that an honest answer would mark him as barred from the councils of the most high, Aaron strove to radiate a nonchalant omniscience. "Oh, only the mere outline, you know. We haven't yet had a chance to sit down and discuss it thoroughly."
    "But you do know the firm will be establishing a branch office here as a base for its northern operations?"
    Aaron's eyes bugged, but only for a second. "Of course, I knew that. But still–ah–roads and railroads?"
    "The firm wants to make sure of its supply routes. My first assignment is to complete the railway extension north of town." This project had been one of Aaron's greatest disappointments; undertaken a few years before, it had fallen into abeyance for want of funds. "I don't suppose the town will object." Aaron shook his head emphatically. "Roads and railroads, Mr. Stempel–those are the keys to progress!" Aaron averred his agreement even more emphatically, and set to the tour with renewed enthusiasm.
    Thus Mr. Fiske. His colleague Mr. Oliver had also no affiliation within the town–no direct affiliation, that is to say, but one of his wife's close relations lived there. Since the engagement he had been hearing all, or nearly all, about her Mrs. Oliver had to tell; now at last he would be meeting her–in fact this very morning. They et out from the hotel before they had fully unpacked, and with enough time to get back before lunch. For the walk was not long (no distance in Seattle's downtown could have been called long by people accustomed to a true city), but on their way to pay the intended call, they spied Mr. Fiske with his human Baedeker's, who was speaking and gesticulating with unusual ardor as he led the traveler from one to another landmark or approximation thereo. "Who's the man with Mr. Fiske?" asked Mrs. Oliver.
    "Jason Bolt. I recognize him from Whitsett's description."
    "Really? Somehow I'd pictured him as larger."
    She could have said the same of her relation's place of business when it met their view. She remained standing in front of it for some moments as if taking it in, though there was not that much to be taken. Even after her husband opened one of the double doors, she stood irresolute. "It's been years since I've heard from her. She may not welcome a visit."
    "Then it's best to find that out at once, isn't it?" He stood holding the door for her till she had little choice but to step through. She had no sooner done so than she saw the woman she had come to see. Mr. Oliver, stepping up alongside her, gave her a sideways nod, a silent command to get the worst over with.
    She swallowed. "Aunt Lottie?" she said quaveringly.
    The saloonkeeper froze. "Katherine?" Her own voice sounded uncertain. She turned to meet a pair of anxious eyes. The women stared at each other as across a canyon.
    "It's wonderful to see you. "I hope...I...." With a mighty surge of willpower she threw off her timidity and ran to wrap Lottie in her embrace. Lottie returned it, almost as it ended. They looked each other up and down in a shared wonder of disbelief. "You look exactly as you did last time I saw you," Katherine said.
    "I can't say the same of you. You're a woman now–and a married one, I understand." Mr. Oliver advanced on his cue. "And this must be–"
    "My husband Quentin–my aunt Lottie."
    Quentin offered his hand. "What a likeness! Why, the two of you could almost be–"
    "Aunt and niece," Katherine said quickly, with a laugh. Lottie laughed, too, but a little nervously. "Aunt, I so hoped you'd attend the wedding. Why didn't you?"
    "Too many–" She stopped herself. "–irons in the fire," she concluded weakly. "But what are you doing in Seattle?" Then she realized the likely answer. "Part of the new migration?"
    "Shrewd surmise, aunt," said Quentin. Both women noticed how quick he was to call her so. "All will be revealed over supper. You'll be our guest, of course." Lottie endeavored to turn the invitation about. "I insist. Till then, you ladies may catch up on your respective histories. I mean to horn in on Mr. Bolt's tour."
    "Whose?" asked Lottie.
    Quentin paused at the doors. "Jason Bolt. He's showing our Mr. Fiske the sights."
    "Yes, I was one of them. But that isn't Jason. It's Aaron Stempel."
    "You're sure?"
    Lottie laughed. "I've known them both longer than either would care to admit."
    Quentin shook his head. "They must often be mistaken for each other."
    As he was leaving, his wife sent him a long-distance kiss, to which he returned a smile more boyish than his manner. His newly met in-law did not notice; she was still puzzling over the last comment. "I've never heard of it...."
    Elsewhere off the main street, Ben Perkins was restocking the shelves in his shop when a man entered, unseen and unheard. He remained so for a few minutes while he appraised the inventory and then he called out to Ben by name. Ben turned to discover a slightly built stranger with a big-city smile, in a big-city suit of the latest cut: no one he would be likely to know. But the placid presumption of that smile was familiar to him from somewhere–not Seattle; some place farther back in his experience. He searched among his recollections as if they were goods on his shelves. At last he had it–but still he could hardly believe it. "Hamlin? Hamlin Dean?" If a measure of worry seeped through his effort at heartiness, he hid it. "Gee whiz, if this ain't one for the books!"
    His wife entered from the backroom with an armload of merchandise for putting out. Ben greeted her with what looked very much like relief, though his manner remained jolly. "Emily, what do you know? It's Hamlin Dean!"
    "Is it?" Emily laid her burden on the counter and offered the stranger her hand. He gave it a squeeze which she regarded as over-personal, and she quickly pulled it away.
    "I've told you about him!"
    "I don't believe so, Ben."
    "Sure! We were partners out in the gold fields before I settled here. He like to saved my life once."
    "You'd'a' done the same for me, wouldn't you? We all did in those days. And what days they were!"
    Emily noticed that her husband refrained from seconding that opinion. "How much gold did you find there?"
    Dean pulled on his upper lip, baring his teeth, which he thrust toward her. Emily had to brace herself to keep from recoiling. "See that little one in the back? Had it made from my half, with naught left to spare." He broke into a laugh which was no more attractive than his smile had been. Emily believed she quite disliked him. He had a ratlike look, if rats could have stood upright. "Partner," he said, with a jerk of his thumb toward the shelves, "I reckon you've come up in the world. Hear you're the closest thing this town has to a bank."
    "I guess," Ben admitted, and then caught himself. "I mean, not really. Not what you'd call a bank."
    Dean could read his mind; but the task had never been difficult. "Ben, you see these duds? I'm not here for a handout. I've come up in the world, too. You've heard of the Enoch Line, ain't you?"
    "The ones that give Jason the big contract?"
    "Hellfire! Does everybody and their brother know about that?"
    "I should guess they do! In a lumber town?"
    "Lumber and shipping, now the firm's landed." The confidence of this assertion did not please Emily in the least. "That's the reason I came. I've got a proposition for you that will make you one of this burg's most respected citizens."
    Emily clasped his arm. "He already is."
    Dean did not take up the challenge; or not then. "Tell you more over supper," he promised Ben, and manufactured a smile of apology for his wife. "It'll be just us menfolk tonight." Obviously he wanted Ben all to himself. Emily stared at him in frank distrust.
    Old acquaintance was brought to mind once more that morning–at the house of Nigel Chadwick, where Nigel was sharing a late breakfast with Valerie from the boarding house. He had been rather surprised by her acceptance of the invitation, which he had extended doubtfully; for her part, she hoped it would not be the last. "Orange marmalade?" she guessed as she took an exploratory bite of toast.
    Nigel gave a happy nod. "Perkins imports it specially for me. Good man, Perkins, in his way. Do you fancy it?"
    "I've never tried it before. It's lovely." Her voice sank to a whisper. "You should have heard the other girls when Dreire brought round your invitation. Tillie was convinced it was from the Governor."
    "No, only me–alas." He lowered his eyes, hesitating. "I do beg your pardon for my discourtesy to you the other evening. I'm afraid I was...overcome."
    "Are you often overcome in that way?"
    "Often enough," he confessed.
    Valerie looked across the long room that occupied the front of the house, the kitchen and bedrooms being tucked away at the back. It was a ranch house redone to approximate as nearly as possible, within Nigel's always precarious means, an English manor. "How did you manage to shore up in Seattle, of all places? Wouldn't you have been happier–well...?"
    "With my own kind?" He stared off into a time that had been, or might possibly have been. "Law of primogeniture, you see." He made it sound like a law of nature. "Elder son inherits, younger son must seek his fortune as best he may. Seattle, I chose–on your account, really."
    "Me?" She was flattered but disbelieving.
    "You and the other 'brides.' Read about you in the Times. Made the Territories sound jolly cheerful. No want of the female graces, eh?"
    "But what can have induced you to go into lumbering?" Thanks to Hawser, the stories of his various embarrassments, such as his attempt to roll a log by hand, had become common currency thereabouts. "If you'll excuse my saying so, you don't seem to take to it particularly well."
    "Oh, but I do. Quite. It's logging that doesn't take to me. Though lately I had been wondering if I oughtn't to pursue another line. Start a cannery. Make a welcome change from sawdust, I can tell you. Salt breeze in me nostrils–"
    Valerie forgot her manners far enough to laugh at this. "You'd have the smell of fish in your nostrils! And on your person. I know. We've had salmon packers stay at the house. No, thank you very much."
    "Ah, now I've one for you. Why are you still boarding and not partnered off like your steerage-mates?"
    "I did have a beau, but I gave him the mitten."
    "Whatever for?"
    She had always had trouble explaining. "Put it this way–if I'd married him I might never have tasted marmalade." She smiled at Nigel over her coffee.
    Before he could take up the tenuous promise of the thread whose tip had thus shown itself, a knock came at the door, and a minute later Dreire re-appeared at the table to bring the announcement "Mr. Chadwick? Mr. Chadwick," he announced, rather confusing his hearers till he explained, "Mr. Raynor Chadwick. And Mrs. Chadwick."
    "The devil!" muttered Nigel. Valerie rose to leave. Nigel rose, too. "No," he said, "please."
    His front hall–if it could be called that–being of a dwarf species, no more than two strides brought the elder Chadwick past the entry arch into the room, and he came on without awaiting further preliminary, brashly greeting his younger brother. Nigel, despite a strong reluctance, was obliged to introduce his other guest. She recalled to Raynor the person he had left at the archway. "Thora!" he snapped. "Approach and make yourself known, my girl. You're not being presented to a grand duchess, you know. It's only old Nigel."
    Thora's advance was clothed in a dignity of which her husband's manner of address had not yet wholly divested her. As Nigel's eyes met hers, Valerie divined that the distance separating the two of them had not only been geographical. In fact they had not spoken since the publishing of Thora's betrothal announcement sixteen years before. "I gather you and Nigel are old friends," said Valerie.
    Thora smiled faintly. "Quite. And I take it you and he are new ones." Valerie's cheeks reddened, and she looked away.
    "What are you doing here?" Nigel asked Raynor, who had just helped himself to some marmalade on toast.
    "Come to pay you a visit, old man." He surveyed the room approvingly, more or less. "The rest can wait till...." He frowned pointedly at Valerie. "...till supper. We're invited, I presume?" And on the presumption, however ill it might have accorded with Nigel's wish, invited they were.
    This and the other engagements planned for the evening went forward in defiance one of those sudden storms to which, the newcomers now discovered, Seattle was prone. Wind and water spiraled together through the streets, and hosts and guests alike battled their ways from wherever they had dressed to wherever they had to be. Later, flares of lightning and drumrolls of thunder made an ominous counterpoint to the table conversations.
    Not for Jason: the flat in the hills where he suppered lay free of wind and rain. On the other hand, he liked wind and rain; much better than he liked the Waterworths' cabin or (now that he was getting to know them) the Waterworths. The rabbits he had that day snared–and skinned, quartered, and seasoned–he had finally cooked also. "Won't you try?" he had exhorted Zanie. "Just try!" But all she had done was to stare stupidly, as had her husband while Jason mended their hogpen, and their coop, and their barn. The couple seemed uncommonly resistant to improvement.
    Harbored safely from the elements without at The Angels, Seattle's best restaurant, Hamlin Dean treated his old associate to a meal whose likes he assumed, rightly, that a grocer could not have been accustomed. During the soup a woman they did not see and Dean would not have recognized peered around a pillar at them and strained to overhear their conversation and others' while jotting down their gist as notes for her social column, but left ahead of the entrée, and ahead of being asked to by the management. All she had gotten from Dean's table was references to old times, incomprehensible to her, who had not been there; Dean's business proposition was saved for the after-dinner port. "A bank?" Ben repeated, once it had been put to him. "You did say a bank?"
    "Seattle's first–not counting your safe, that is." He laughed, a little snidely.
    "What put the notion in your head?"
    "It was the firm's notion, not mine. They need one in these parts. Asked me to get it started for them."
    "Why you? You're no banker." Then Ben realized he did not know that. "Are you?"
    Dean sucked at his wine. "Chief reason I was hired, if you want to know, was my acquaintance with you." He sounded a bit put out by it.
    "Aw, why'd you want to go telling them about that?"
    "I didn't! Ashley already knew. He seems to know everything. Keeps Pinkertons on is payroll–so they say."
    "But why me?"
    "The people here trust you. If your name's on the bank, its success will be a sure deal."
    Ben recalled a few other sure deals from their prospecting days. Then he heard his name spoken by a voice he knew better than any other and looked up to find its owner standing over them. Feeling guilty, he could not have said why, he set down his wine glass. "Where's little Ben?"
    "I left him with Candy at the dor–the boarding house–while I balanced the ledger. Now I've come to collect my two Benjamins and shepherd them home. But I don't want to spoil your evening."
    "Naw, time I turned in." Emily had been hoping he would say that. He turned to Dean, a little abashed. "Us shopkeepers have to get up with the roosters." He found it unexpectedly tricky to get up at all; the port, and the burgundy preceding it, had gone to his head.
    His host, however, rose without difficulty. "Bankers keep more congenial hours," he said. Emily repeated the first word as a question; but Dean continued to address Ben alone. "Remember, you'll be the first. Like you said–one for the books." Emily could see her husband was drawn by the prospect, though she did not yet know what it was–let alone what its end might be.
    The supper at The Angels was closely rivaled by the one at the Rigby House, where Lottie and the Olivers had just begun on theirs–a late supper, to be sure, but two of them (and so the third) were used to that. The recording angel from the restaurant appeared again here, employing herself as before, and again flew off to forestall expulsion. She departed just as Katherine was concluding a summary history of the relations between her aunt and herself. "Once in a while I'd get a present, and then once in a very long while she'd pay us a visit." She looked over at her. "Till she stopped visiting altogether."
    Lottie smiled gently and shook her head. "You never knew the difference."
    "I did!"
    "The last time you saw me, you paid me no mind at all." Katherine began to object, and then some flash of memory cut the objection short. "Not that I could blame you," Lottie allowed. "At your age–"
    "She was only being a thoughtful daughter," Quentin interjected.
    Both women looked sharply at him. "What makes you say that?" asked Katherine.
    "You sensed your mother was becoming jealous of–of the other–and so you kept your distance. That was the mark of a caring nature, surely."
    "Oh, I hope not! Lottie, do you think she felt that way?" Lottie shrugged; she looked a little confused. Katherine considered further. "I do remember, one Christmas when I was looking for you to come, she explained you had both agreed you shouldn't. That it'd be too much–"
    "Like having two mothers?" Quentin suggested. He stared across at Lottie, a second too long, before returning his attention to his fowl. Lottie felt a sharp cold stab of alarm. She worked not to show it, but in any case Katherine was paying her little notice, being too busy just then in pondering her responsibilities as a niece and a daughter to do much toward fulfilling them; and the rest of the meal offered no further grounds for disquiet–unless Quentin's seemingly deliberate failure to meet Lottie's eyes again could be so construed. Either way she could do nothing but wait for him to reveal all, as he had promised. And perhaps she had only imagined the hints he had seemed to drop, like acorns, in her path. But she believed she had not.
    Because Nigel's family was receiving, rather than bestowing, supper a sensible observer might have expected his brother to postpone additional demands on his good nature till afterward; but such an observer would not have known Raynor. He had laid bare his offer even before the soup, apparently expecting Nigel to leap at it wholeheartedly, but Nigel, with Thora's abetting, had channeled the conversation into another course, and did not return to the subject again; not there, or later in the parlor (which was only the other half of the big front room) after the brandy, at his direction, had been left for himself to pour. Instead he taxed his brother with having been too hard on Dreire at table. "What was your precise objection to the salmon, if one may ask?"
    "Oh, it was passable enough," Raynor admitted with a chuckle. "Just putting the fellow on his guard, you know. I never let 'em sneak second best by me."
    "Remember, Raynor, we're guests here," Thora said quietly. "And in an unfamiliar country."
    "Bah! Servants are the same everywhere. They want the iron hand to preserve them from their own iniquities. Trouble with Nigel is, he's too soft on 'em. Always has been. Haven't you, old man?" He turned an imperious eye on him. "But come, you've not given me your answer yet. Out with it!" Nigel crossed to the fireplace, where there was no fire, and stood there with his hands behind him, perplexity written on his face.
    "It's too sudden," said Thora. "Give him a little time."
    "Time's what we've not got." Raynor leaned back in his chair. "The firm requires a headquarters, this property's perfectly suited. And after all, it's no use to you."
    "It's my home! And where my business is situated."
    "But you haven't made a go of it, have you, old man? So as far as you're concerned one place is as good as another. We'll set you up anywhere you like."
    "Would you be staying on here?"
    "Expect so."
    "Then I don't see why I can't do the same. We're brothers, aren't we?"
    Raynor's tone became all at once less cordial. "The house isn't big enough for the two of us. Build yourself another."
    "But I'm happy in this! And happy in the business. I admit it hasn't met with great good fortune, but young Bolt has promised his assistance, and really, all in all, I'm quite content as I am. No, Raynor, I'm afraid I can't see my way clear to selling to you now or at any time in the foreseeable future. But I thank you for the offer."
    Raynor's smile vanished. His hand, which had been lying atop Thora's wrist, gripped it so tightly she had to master herself to keep from crying out, but she did so readily, as if from long practice. "Well," her husband said, with seeming ease, "we may persuade you yet."
    Ben Perkins had not been persuaded, either, exactly, but he had been sorely tempted. He turned over the temptation in his mind as he and Emily walked down to the boarding house to collect Ben, Junior. The storm had ended, or was enjoying a lull; time alone would tell which. "It wouldn't really be your bank, would it?" Emily challenged him. "It would belong to Enoch Navigation. Isn't that so?"
    In many ways she had a better business sense than Ben did, and Ben, aware of this, tended to wriggle under her questioning. "Hamlin didn't say so."
    "This Hamlin–how much do you know about him?"
    "I told you, we go 'way back."
    "As a businessman, I mean."
    "I know one thing. I'd trust him with my life."
    When they reached the steps of the boarding house Ben, Junior ran down to them with the cry "Daddy!" His father picked him up, and Emily watched the two of them together. "I hope your trust is well placed," she said. "Because if you go ahead with this, that's what you will be doing. And little Ben's, too."
    While he wrestled with her advice, like Jacob with the angel, Lottie continued to wait as she had been waiting since supper for the other shoe to drop. She was too smart herself to suppose that Quentin, or the people who had sent him (she hoped Katherine was not a part of it), were only tormenting her on a whim with no foreseen object. As Quentin saw her to the doors of her saloon while his wife waited, on his instruction, at a little distance, Lottie took the bull by the horns. "You know," she said. "I don't know how, but you do. You may as well tell me what it is you want."
    Quentin shot her a disarming smile, but she had seen too many of those in her day to put any stock in them. "Why, nothing sinister, aunt." As he said the word this time he placed it between quotation marks. "And it has nothing to do with Katherine–or not more than a little. I want you to consider taking on the firm as a partner. With us in the lead, the town's sure to start growing." It's been growing just fine without you, Lottie thought. "You have a chance to grow with it. We can smooth your way–guarantee you the best stock at the best prices. Consider: what have you to lose?"
    "It depends," she said, "on what you have to gain."
    "No mystery in that, either. Yours is the most popular establishment in town. That's obvious to anyone with half an eye. If the firm's connected with it, people are apt to feel the same way about the firm."
    Lottie shook her head. "I'm used to being on my own."
    "Was that by choice, or...?" The question and the insinuating look accompanying it came near enough to being rude so that she felt like shutting the door on him. But curiosity stopped her, as he had gambled it would. "You never felt you were respectable enough for her–even now. The firm is nothing if not respectable. We can help you build your establishment into the most elegant emporium on the Sound. You'll be received in the best society. A woman any niece"–again quotation marks were indicated–"would be proud to acknowledge." She fought to resist the lure bobbing before her, but her face could not hide the yearning inside her that now made itself felt anew. "I don't say it counts for much," Quentin admitted, and in this he was being truthful. "But I think it does to you."
    "I...." She found she could not dismiss the promise, or its companion threat whose existence he denied. "I'll consider your offer."
    Katherine, whom Quentin had acquainted beforehand with the proposal he had been instructed to bring (but not the matter that concerned her more directly), had predicted Lottie would turn it down flat. As the two of them walked back along the dark, half-paved street–not what they were accustomed to in San Francisco–he informed her of her error, not without a certain measure of smugness. Katherine listened solemnly. "You must have been very persuasive."
    "Just called her attention to a few facts, was all."
    "Is that Ashley talking?"
    "No," Quentin said firmly. They had discussed this subject before. "He was after me to push her, hard. I told him no, one doesn't do that to family."
    "Only to other people?" Katherine asked mildly.
    "They do it, too, Kath. Everyone does."
    "Not everyone." She looked back to see Lottie watching them from the window of her room above the saloon. The two women exchanged waves, and the couple walked on.
    Lottie drew her chintz curtains, took a ring of keys from her bedstand drawer, and used two of them to open a cedar chest against the wall and an iron cash box hidden inside under a stack of linens. The box contained a few daguerrotypes, a collection of letters tied with ribbon, and a pair of baby's shoes long outgrown by a wearer who had never seen them, and probably never would. Lottie lifted them out and pressed them tightly to her cheek.
    Much later in the night, Emily awoke. Her first thought was that she must have heard little Ben crying. Yet all was still. His father, then? She turned over to find him sitting up beside her in the bed, staring at the join of wall and ceiling. He knew she was watching him–she could tell–but he did not turn his head. "You want this so much, then?" she said after a little.
    "Get to wear a suit every day, just like in the tailors' books, with a vest and a derby hat. Hamlin says the firm'd pay for it. Everybody that'd see me pass, they'd say, 'There goes Mr. Ben Perkins. He's some punkins in this town.'"
    Emily slid over and lay her head on his shoulder. "And what do they say now?"
    "How would I know that?"
    "I'll tell you. They say, 'There goes Ben. He's a good friend of mine.' Don't forget them–after you and Mr. Ham-and-Beans open this bank of yours."
    He turned his head at that. "You don't mind?"
    Emily told herself she did not: not so much, anyway. "Not if the company will buy me a new dress to match your suit. After all"–she tickled his nose; he shooed her hand away–"I'll be the wife of a pumpkin!" It took Ben a moment to get the joke. She laughed at his slowness and kissed him for it, then settled her head on his chest, and went back to sleep.
    Nigel had not slept at all, though Raynor–unchanging, unchangeable, unwelcome Raynor–had fallen off long since. But it was not about him that his brother sat brooding. He had just poured himself a last, or second-to-last, brandy when he heard a rustling–Dreire, he thought–and looked up to find Thora at his arm. She had her traveling cloak draped about her with seeming carelessness, revealing a little of the nightdress beneath. "Mrs. Chadwick. What could possibly draw you from your bed at this hour?" He drained his brandy and lifted the bottle toward her. "The need of a drink, perhaps?" She stared at it for a long time before shaking her head. With a shrug Nigel poured himself another.
    Thora knelt by his chair. "Don't reject Raynor's offer too quickly. It can be a way out for you."
    "Is that what your mamma told you, all those years ago?"
    For a moment her eyes lost the steadiness she habitually labored to maintain. "It doesn't matter any more." Nigel silently begged leave to differ. "It's you I'm thinking of now."
    "You are? Or Raynor?"
    "You weren't cut out for this life. You know that."
    "Does one ever know with certainty what one was cut out for? In my youth I'd have sworn I was cut out for you." He gazed into the empty grate. "One learns how appearances deceive."
    "You think I deceived you?" He did not answer, or look at her. "I married your brother for the estate. He's seen after my family and been...reasonably generous to me. But that's all. We have no children–no marriage. Nigel, we sleep apart. And once he's retired...." She laid a hand on his arm. "...he's innocent of how I choose to pass the time till morning." Nigel remained immobile. "Nigel, did you hear me?"
    He half-smiled. "I was only thinking. If you were set the task of persuading me to leave, you've miscarried it. You've just given me the strongest possible inducement to stay."
    For a second the muscles of her face tightened in what might have been panic. "No!" she insisted. "This place is too small for secrets. But if you took another, at a walking distance from it"–she reached up to stroke his cheek–"you might find the arrangement to your...liking."
    She saw, and felt, the change in his countenance, and he shook off her touch as if it had been a fly's. "Nigel?" she said, her voice quavering.
    Nigel had never held his own morals in high esteem, but hers had been the standard by which he had judged them deficient. "D'you remember how we used to stroll in the garden, arm in arm, and watch the red roses grow redder as the sun set?"
    "I remember." A thunderclap punctuated the reflection; so the storm had not done with them yet, after all. "It's pulled down now."
    "Yes," he said, "so I find." His voice was cold, adamantine. With a convulsion he hurled his glass onto the hearth, where it shattered. He rose, looking taller than Thora had ever seen him–though he seemed somehow to have collapsed inside–and she found herself trembling before him for the first time. "Very well, I accept the offer–Raynor's, I mean. Tell him...." He looked at her, or through her. "Tell him you persuaded me." And he left. If Thora remained there for some while after, weeping over the bargain that had taken her youth, he never knew, and her husband never inquired.
    But the farthest-reaching incident of the night, which did not appear so at the time, took place at the flour mill, where Joshua was up late, as he always was these nights, setting type which he found maddeningly small–the opposite of their mountain–and ignoring the booms of thunder that penetrated from the outside world, when he glanced toward the door and found it standing open, framing a stocky figure. A dagger of light stabbed at the street behind, dispersing an eerie glow; seconds later the thunder pounded again. "Joshua Bolt?" hazarded the visitor.
    "That's me." He recognized Ashley from Jason's description but waited for him to introduce himself (and then had to decline his hand because his own was smudged with ink). "My brothers told me about you."
    "They didn't tell me about you." Ashley pulled out his leather case. "Cigar?"
    "I don't."
    "I do." Joshua grimaced but said nothing as the acrid billows engulfed them both. Between puffs Ashley perused a handbill he was carrying, which Joshua recognized as one he had enlisted Biddie to circulate: an advertisement for the Gazette designed to solicit subscriptions. He was aware it was less than ideal: too brief (he had tired of the typesetting sooner than he had expected to) and riddled with errors (he had learned too late that "n"s looked like "u"s and "p"s like "d"s); but it had communicated its message well enough to draw Ashley there.
    He began to read aloud from it: "'The Gazette looks forward to chronicling the achievements of Seattle's newest, biggest, and brightest light, the bellwether of a golden era.' You're a clear-sighted young man, unlike your brothers. Not to say anything against them," he added hastily, "but the younger one hasn't had enough experience–dreaming of the future–and the older one's had too much–stuck in the past. You're living in the present hour." He picked up the sheet of handwritten text from which Joshua was setting. "I assume your first edition will further promote the firm's interests?"
    Joshua grabbed the sheet back. "You'll find out along with everyone else when it reaches the street."
    Ashley's frustration showed, but he waved it away. "Doesn't matter. I know your mind. And I promise you, you've picked the winning side."
    "I write as I think. Wasn't aware it had to do with winning or losing."
    "It's to do with climbing on board or drowning in the tide–the tide of progress. Papers like yours are essential weapons, providing knowledge of what's happening on a weekly basis, or a daily. Some day it will be hourly, and then...."
    He did not strike Joshua as a disinterested seeker after truth. "Then what? What does a man do with all this knowledge?"
    "Same as the great generals of history–strike first." I might have guessed, thought Joshua. "The firm believes this strongly. It also believes your faith in our enterprise deserves repayment in kind, and it is prepared to back your newspaper to every extent necessary."
    "We're not worth your trouble." (The "we" meant himself, Biddie, and the hand press.) "We only have three subscribers."
    "We'll expand it to three thousand."
    "There aren't that many people in Seattle!"
    "Are about the territory. That's how far we'll spread your paper, and with it news of the firm's accomplishments. How does the prospect strike you?"
    "I'll be free to write as I please?"
    Ashley smiled, a little too hungrily. "You're a sharp boy. I trust you to be sensible."
    Joshua already shared Jeremy's dislike of the man. But he strove to keep in mind the argument of his own handbill and of the leading article in the edition he was putting to press; the economic advantages to be gained from Enoch's presence in town outweighed the personal failings of a single representative. "We can give it a try," said Joshua. "If either of us finds he dislikes the arrangement, he's free to terminate it with no hard feelings. All right?"
    "Leaving yourself an escape route. Very wise. The generals knew about that, too." He pulled out a roll of bills and slapped it into Joshua's hand. "Consider this a down payment." Joshua stared at it. "What's the matter? Never seen so much money at once?"
    The sneer was so blatant, it made Joshua smile. "A sight more than this. But always before, I knew what I'd done to earn it." Ashley gave what on someone else's lips would have been a laugh and, after extracting a last mouthful from his cigar, threw it down and crushed it hard underfoot.
    True, the Gazette was not much of a paper, and so it freely admitted: "Not as big as a barn door," its motto read, "but big enough for all the news big enough to print." Still, it was a paper, and many people in Seattle were eager to see the first issue, which Joshua, by dint of tireless–and almost sleepless–effort, succeeded in delivering himself of before the end of the week. He gave Biddie a stack to distribute to his subscribers, whose number had swelled to more than a hundred. The first three on the list were Lottie Hatfield and, by joint subscription, Katherine and Quentin Oliver.
    Biddie found all of them in front of the saloon watching the erection of a new sign–shinily painted, and bigger than the old, but reading the same except for the legend in the corner: "Enoch Navigation Co." Biddie doled out their copies with a refrain of "Get your paper! Get your paper right here!" and, after pointing out the social news on the back page (the paper having only two pages in all), hurried away to make her next delivery, leaving the charter subscribers to discover what they had signed for sight unseen.
    "It's all about the firm," said Quentin, "and how much good it will do Seattle."
    His wife read with him over his shoulder. "Sounds as if Ashley wrote it himself. Did he?"
    "Wouldn't put it past him," Quentin admitted.
    The first benefit the writer, whoever he was, had adduced was the new Perkins and Dean bank, whose opening day was even then going forward. The bank was housed in a brick building (the first in town, like the bank itself) which seemed to have been put up overnight. This morning Ben was stationed inside to sign up the depositors, and Dean was out front managing the queue, which stretched for most of a city block. Most of the prospective clients were holding, or dragging, canvas bags extracted from Ben's five-sided safe. Late morning–round about eleven o'clock–found one of these prospects hotly arguing with the smart-alecky dude at the door who had barred him from passing through. "Sign up there says you're a bank. Are you or ain'tcha?"
    "I'll explain it once more," said Dean, less nicely than when their exchange had begun, "and this time try to pay attention. You don't qualify–"
    "Qualify! Qualify! Who says youqualify? Answer me that!"
    Ben, who had heard the raised voices, came out to see what the matter was. He was attired in his new suit, vest, and derby hat. Young Tom gave a whoop and a whistle. "My, ain't you the city slicker!" Ben felt embarrassed, but also pleased, by the attention. "This here dude says I cain't tuck my stake with you. What do you say?"
    Ben smiled tolerantly. "I'll vouch for Tom. One of my oldest customers."
    Dean motioned Ben a few feet aside. "We can't afford him. Our minimum–which you agreed to, you remember–is twice what he's carrying in that old sack."
    "Looks like the ones you and me used to tote."
    Dean did not care to be reminded of that. "He doesn't qualify! If we start making special allowances for his kind of riffraff–"
    "Some of them riffraff's my neighbors."
    "Of course. Sorry. What I meant–"
    "Listen, is this bank half mine or isn't it?"
    The answer was more complicated than Dean could do justice to in the space available to him. "Sure, Ben, sure it is."
    "Then I say we let Tom in."
    His partner saw he was fortified against argument. "Go on," he told Tom. The saying of it felt like a jab to his ribs.
    "Now that's more like it!" said Tom; and he did jab him. "You want to listen to Ben, young feller. He'll l'arn you how to do things!" Watching them go inside, Dean felt like kicking them both, but there were too many others about. One day, he promised himself.
    At the same hour Jeremy was on his way to Chadwick's. He had escaped camp on the pretext of determining whether he might farm out some of the Enoch job to the smaller lumbermen, but his real intent was to make sure Nigel was safe, from himself as well as his neighbors. As he reached the fence he saw a group of workmen–Nigel's, he presumed–preparing to take the saw to a stand of slender trees. Jeremy jumped the rails and ran across to them, shouting. "Stop, there! What do you think you're doing?"
    He was blocked by a burly man he had never seen before: a new foreman evidently. "Doin'? Tell you what you're doin', boy–trespassin', that's what. Like it says on the gate."
    Jeremy had seen the sign but had dismissed it as another crotchet of Nigel's. At the big man's nod, some of the other men began to move toward him. Jeremy stepped back. "What's the matter with you? I'm friends with your boss. Whatever new scheme he's hatched–"
    The foreman turned and called toward the rear of the stand. "Mr. Chadwick! Fella here claims to be a friend of yours."
    In a moment or two a man in business trousers emerged from the trees; Jeremy had never seen him before, either. "You're not Chadwick."
    "Rory," the man said, "bring Nigel." He introduced himself as Nigel's brother, but with no attempt at hospitality.
    "Did you give the order to cut these trees?"
    "I did, if it's any concern of yours. It's what we do here, cut trees. Perhaps you were unaware of that."
    "These are just saplings. They won't be ready for another ten or fifteen years."
    Raynor had no idea who his visitor thought he was to issue such a decree, nor did he care. "That's up to us to decide. They're our property, after all."
    "Yours and Nigel's, you mean?"
    "Nigel!" Raynor gave a short laugh. "It's nothing to do with him any more. All this belongs to the firm."
    "Guess I don't have to ask which one."
    They spoke no further till Nigel was brought. His brother's next words seemed to be mainly for his benefit, though they were addressed to Jeremy. "I've no desire to be rude. But if you interfere with my people again I shall be forced to take measures." He thrust a finger at Nigel. "See he leaves the property and doesn't come back. There's a good chap." Then he returned to Rory and the others.
    "What's he like when he is being rude?" asked Jeremy as Nigel escorted him to the gate. Nigel shrugged apologetically. "You sold out to the company, then?"
    "Yes, gave up the ghost at last. No more than a ghost of a ghost, really. I'm to reside at the boarding house for the nonce–Raynor's idea." He sighed. "Perhaps I will open that cannery. Fish smell be damned."
    Jeremy had not known about the cannery. But he was not listening anyhow. "Why would they cut down green trees?"
    "Not a clue, old boy. Never did understand the business myself."
    "Bet you five dollars Ashley's behind it." Nigel asked who Ashley was, and Jeremy told him, deliberately omitting from the account his own dread of a re-encounter–which so far he had luckily escaped.
    Joshua was less lucky. Ashley seemed to have singled him out to be his protege, or hireling, and made a point of looking in on him at the mill nearly every night. Tonight he began with a vigorous expression of approval for the "line" the paper was taking, but soon got round to what he claimed to be the real object of the visit: to give Joshua notice that a foreman appointed by the firm was expected the following morning; and that Ashley himself would be showing him up to the camp. Joshua felt as if he had begun a serial story in Frank Leslie's only to discover he had missed the first installment. "Foreman of what, exactly?"
    "The work you contracted for. What else?"
    Joshua's ire rose. "We can manage our men without anybody's help."
    "I should think so. Otherwise we wouldn't have entrusted you with the work. But the old man likes to have one of his own on hand to insure all's done according to his timetable. I hope you won't object too much?"
    If Joshua's countenance suggested he did, Jeremy's, after he was informed of the imposition the following morning, left no doubt. "Look at it this way," Joshua said, as positively as he could. "It may spare us work."
    "Who asked to be spared? We don't need outsiders poking in and telling us our business!" He turned to find himself facing the men they were expecting, who had just arrived; so, awkwardly, he met his bugbear at last. There was silence for a moment as they stared across at each other.
     Ashley grinned, after his fashion. "Mr. Bolt. Been a long time."
    "Not long en–" Joshua elbowed him in the side to hush him.
    Ashley introduced the newcomer as Wolf Ulrich. "Wolf?" Jeremy queried. Ulrich unsheathed a grin of his own which made up for Ashley's, and then some. "Wolf," Jeremy affirmed. Whatever Ulrich may have been, he was no logger; a hunter of some sort, Jeremy guessed–whether of buffalo or bounty, it made little difference. "Jason wouldn't like this," he muttered.
    "Then he should be here to say so" was Joshua's rejoinder.
    Jeremy fervently wished that he were, and that Joshua–in Jason's absence his best hope of an ally–had not instead become Enoch's chief apostle. His own misgivings about the takeover (for such it amounted to in his eyes) grew daily. All his instincts rose against it, though he could not give them shape in words, and could find nobody who admitted to sharing them. But then, he had not spoken to Miss Essie, whose immediate judgment, openly expressed, on first hearing of Enoch's coming had been that it did not sound right to her at all.
    On an evening not long after this, as Jeremy was entering town, to which he had repaired seeking a drink (and he was not normally a drinking man), a ruckus from the boarding house diverted him from his course. He reached the fence to find two of the road men playing tag (as one might have said) with Valerie and Tillie, just returned from their evening constitutional. Biddie was peering around the trellis taking notes. "Get Candy out here!" Jeremy ordered.
    "No time right now. I'm recording the incident for the Gazette." Her face gleamed as a new thought struck her. "And you can be my eyewitness! Sir, what is your feeling about–?"
    "Not now, Biddie." He ran into the yard. At the same time Nigel appeared from the house, where he had begun boarding three days earlier, and together they pulled the men away. "Leave off, ruffians!" Nigel enjoined them. One blow was enough to fell him, Jeremy felled the assailant in turn, and then met a renewed attack by his partner.
    "Stop!" came a commanding shout from the porch. The manager had shown herself at last, having completed the business that had delayed her (specifically, the extrication of another bride from a petticoat in which she had become entangled), and had turned a fiery eye on the road men. "Didn't I warn you about harassing the other guests? I want both of you packed and out of here tonight."
    "Who'll make us?" one of them asked. At a look from Jeremy, his attitude changed to one of petulance. "But where can we go?"
    "Mule barn up the street," said Jeremy, "if the mules will have you." The two men did not argue further. One of them retrieved his hat from where it had fallen, and they silently passed inside.
    Nigel sat up with a grunt as Valerie knelt beside him. "I hope you're all right," he said.
    "Are you, though?"
    He shook his head. "I've made a muddle of things again."
    "It was very heroic," she said kindly.
    "To be knocked down? All my efforts in this town seem to conclude with my being knocked down."
    "But you get up again. That's what matters."
    She helped him do so now, and they went in together, leaving Jeremy and Candy to themselves. They stood with a space between them, he looking down, she looking away. "Much of that going on?" he asked.
    "Too much. And that's only the half of it. You should hear the stories Miss Essie's been telling me since these people moved in."
    "Like what?"
    "Oh, I don't know. They–they're–" She hunted for the proper words. "–they're just not very nice. You know?" Her eyes searched his. From a different girl Jeremy would have been inclined to laugh at the phrase, but not from Candy. And her feeling reinforced his own suspicion that Enoch was not the Aladdin's lamp the town had been looking for; it might be a Trojan horse; they had to know which. "I'm not the one who needs to hear them," Jeremy said, "but I'll tell you who is." Candy agreed with his advice, and put it to Essie, who agreed also. Therefore, the following night, she presented herself to the editor of the Gazette to report some of what she had heard.
    "You know I can't print rumors," he said. The response was less than she had hoped for.
    "They're no such thing. They're first-hand testimony."
    "You know"–Joshua sounded as if he had been the schoolteacher–"when a company's successful, it's natural for people to be envious, to try and find chinks in its armor."
    "Instead of dismissing the accounts out of hand, a proper journalist would investigate for himself." He had no answer for that, and Essie did not wait for one. "Good evening," she said with all the curtness she could muster, which was considerable.
    Once outside, she followed the wall of the building to the street with teacherish precision. As she came up with the corner, Ashley stepped out into her path. He had been waiting for her. He was bigger than she had thought him. A few minutes earlier he had been about to look in again on what he regarded already as his firm's house organ but, hearing Essie's voice inside, had held back and leaned listening at the door. Now he wagged a finger at her in mocking primness. "I'd be careful if I was you, little schoolmarm."
    "And of what am I to be careful, please?"
     "The tales you tell around. Else you might find school out of session sooner than you anticipate."
    "Is that a threat?"
    "A prediction, based on experience."
    Essie rose to her full height, such as it was. "I'm not scared of you!" she announced, though the tremble in her voice told otherwise.
    "Aren't you?" He lunged at her. She jumped back with a cry. For some reason Ashley found that immensely funny. "Don't be, then. See where it gets you when you're locking up nights." He pretended to search his memory. "You live at the rectory, don't you? Right up the street." He left her to ponder the implications of this knowledge. Apprehensive, as he had intended, but refusing to surrender to her apprehensions, she marched home valiantly, but with a look about her now and again, and later when she locked up.
    Behind the door, which had been standing ajar, Joshua had been listening in his turn, ready to go to Essie's aid, only the conversation had ended too soon. Now he stepped out and watched her small form disappear into the night. He was beginning to believe her. If she was right, he had led his neighbors down the garden path, or worse. He had to find out–which was just what she had said he should do. He would start at once; he had to.
    Thus he was not present to witness what befell at camp the next morning. Nor was Jeremy, at first, having gone off an hour before to scout a new chance higher up. This had proved a disappointment, and he was returning down the hill sooner than he had promised when he spied a column of loggers, almost his whole skid gang, marching out of camp with Ulrich in the lead. Jeremy yelled to them from the hill, but Ulrich either did not hear or did not heed him; the men glanced briefly at him and kept walking. When he reached the bottom he ran out in front of them–the last few, that is–and held up his palms to signal them to stop, but they only walked around him; few were willing to meet his eyes.
    The last in the line was Billy Sawdust. Determined to get an answer from him, at any rate, Jeremy dodged right and left as he did, forcing him eventually to halt. Jeremy asked point blank where he thought he was going. "Quit," said Billy. He started around him like the others.
    "Wait! Billy, if you got a grievance, tell me."
    "No grievance. Found a better deal's all. In town they're payin' four bucks a day."
    "Four bucks! Nobody can afford to pay that much!"
    "They can!"
    "Who says so?"
    "Ulrich."
    "You trust him more than us?"
    "He's payin' more than you!"
    Jeremy could not beat that logic, and so he could do nothing else but watch as the men continued on their way. He feared the exodus to have been campwide, and on returning to the base camp found it had been so indeed, with only Corky, Swede, and a handful of other loyalists remaining.
    Joshua had spent the morning in town asking questions. Most of the people he met had had no close dealings with Enoch and were still in its corner, as he had himself been till last night. He found only two dissenters–or, to be accurate, he found one of them and the other found him. The first was Nigel Chadwick; the second, Aaron Stempel. Both were eager to tell how their eyes had been opened. This was Nigel's account:
    On the evening previous he had gone to Lottie's by himself, his hangers-on having exhausted their interest in him for this quarter. They did not know, and he doubted whether he would tell them, that he would soon be able to indulge them regularly for a long time–that is, after Enoch paid him the rest of what it owed him for his property; so far he had received only a small binder from Raynor. As he was standing alone at the bar, Hawser and a few other men–not Hawser's own, Nigel saw, but other property holders from the strip–made a circle at his back, crowding him in. He turned and faced them, uncowed: he had long ago ceased to consider himself worthy of serious bullying by anyone other than Raynor. "Where's your brother?" Hawser demanded.
    "At home, I fancy. I don't exercise myself over his comings and goings. Why should you?"
    Hawser stepped close enough to smell the whiskey on his breath. "You're a liar. You and him are in this together."
    "And what may 'this' allude to, pray?"
    Hawser looked ready to throttle him, but for some reason refrained. "Like you don't know. Our property, that's what! Land we worked with our own hands. Which you wouldn't know about."
    "Your property? Every one of you?"
    "Every man on the strip." Nigel shook his head, trying to make sense of it. "Say, maybe you didn't know."
    "He simply stole it? I find that hard to believe even of Raynor."
    "Oh, we signed bills of sale, all right. Had no choice. He said if we didn't he'd report us as squatters and we'd lose the land anyhow, with nothing to show for it. Got little enough as it was."
    Nigel felt dizzy, but not from what he had drunk. Raynor had dealt generously enough with him, or had seemed to–but perhaps that had only been to avoid exciting suspicion. "He said they needed my property. Mine, not every bloody inch! What on earth can it be in aid of?" He downed the rest of his glass. "By God, I'll have the answer."
    The others, surprised by his resolve, watched with curiosity as he stormed out. "You never know," said Hawser. "Might be there's some part of a man in there, after all."
    The rain had returned in force. Nigel felt as though the weight of his clothes would sink him into the earth as he stood rattling the gate that before had always gone unlocked outside the house that had so recently been his. "Raynor, you cad!" he yelled over the downpour. "Come out and face me, man to man!"
    The house gained a patch of light, with a shadow figure in it–Thora, he could tell, even at that distance. She came out to the gate, heedless of the wet, though she lacked cloak or coat of any kind. When she spoke her speech was slurred–or was that his own? "You can shush now. Shush, shush. He's out to supper with Ashley. Ash, ley. Thick as thie–" She laughed, a burbling kind of laugh. "Ha! The shoe fits."
    "And what ought one to call you?"
    "Nigel...." Her voice sounded infinitely weary.
    She lay a hand on the top bar of the gate. Nigel thought he saw a dark blot on the wrist. When he made to reach for it, to see it better, she quickly moved it away. "Is that why? Because he forced you to it?" Thora did not answer, but her face answered for her. "Why didn't you stand up to him?"
    "I might have. But he'd have won in the end. He always wins. Always, always. You were boys together. Don't you remember?"
    Nigel chose not to remember. He reapplied himself to his purpose. "What do they want with the strip? Do you know?"
    "The strip?" Thora echoed vaguely.
    "The land! This land! Has Raynor said?"
    She shook her head. "All I know is who gives the orders."
    "Ashley, you mean?"
    Thora stared at him in surprise. "You know Ashley?"
    "Not personally. But I know someone who does–quite well, evidently."
    That was Nigel's account. The question it raised–the question Thora could not answer–unsettled the hearer as it had the teller. Yet even more unsettling to Joshua was Aaron's narrative, which reached his ears soon after; unsettling because Aaron blamed him for part of what had happened, which was this:
    For a period that had begun to expand from days to weeks, the lumber milled for Enoch had been amassing on the pier plank by plank, spar by spar, till the floor groaned and bowed under the weight. And the ships did not come; however long Aaron watched and paced and prayed, still they did not come. Ashley observed his discomfiture for several days, till one morning–that same morning–he strolled out to join him, and broached the subject with a blitheness which the circumstances, from Aaron's viewpoint, did not warrant. "Could I be mistaken, or do I perceive a man with a fretful air?"
    The confidential discussion between them that Aaron had looked forward to had never materialized; perhaps this was it at last. "You perceive fear, not frets. The pier wasn't built to take a load like this. If your ships don't arrive by the week's end–"
    "They won't," Ashley said blandly. He drew out his case. "Cigar?"
    "What do you mean, they won't?"
    Ashley took his time cutting and lighting his panetella. "I mean, not without certain undertakings on your part."
    "Undertakings? What sort of undertakings?" He squared off opposite his newly revealed adversary. Whatever hint of threat was contained in the move, the one so threatened seemed oblivious to it, replying as blandly as before. "Such as–oh–an undertaking to make the firm a controlling partner in your milling operation."
    "That will never be."
    "Then the vessels will never come." Ashley watched with an abstract interest as the cloud that emanated from his lips dissolved in the salt air.
    "But you need the lumber!"
    "You need your pier. Difference is, we can afford to wait."
    "This is blackmail! I'll have you up before a judge!" He started off for the mill.
    "Will you–Mr. Jason Bolt?" Aaron stopped. "Yes, yes, I know about your little imposture. Knew soon as my man told me. I'd say there are enough accusations to go around, wouldn't you?" Aaron was trapped and he knew it–and showed it. "On the other hand, I see no point in succumbing to avarice. The old man can afford to pay fairly. And I want you as a colleague, not an enemy. We're men of the same stripe, you and I."
    "Oh, are we?"
    "What do you say to..." Ashley pretended to work out a figure he had settled on. "...fifteen thousand dollars for a sixty-five-percent interest?"
    Aaron was silent for a long time before giving his answer. "I say, for twenty-five you can have the whole thing stem to stern."
    "You'd pull out of a business you built up yourself? You surprise me."
    "Never been much good at following orders, other than my own."
    Ashley wondered if they were so much alike, after all. "Then it's agreed. I'll have the papers drawn up." Aaron started off again. "And by the bye, in case you take it into your head to start up another mill in competition with this" (Aaron had already, as it happened) "I should advise you to try a new line. Soon there will be no other mills." Considering the prospect and everything it implied, Aaron said he would take that cigar, after all. The two men exchanged smiles, which were false on both sides. Aaron simply did not like Ashley, in spite of his heartless tactics–nor the cigar, though it had been free. It was like the man himself, coarse and obvious, bragging up its qualities without having any that a man of taste would judge worth the brag.
    As they stood there smoking, voices broke out somewhere–voices strident, hot, implacable. "Sounds like a riot," said Aaron.
    "A bank run, perhaps," Ashley suggested.
    His prescience was astounding, for when they followed the clamnor to its source this proved indeed to be what the town's older residents could not bring themselves to call anything other than "the brick building." A mob was gathered at the doors, and Ben–of all the unlikely Rolands–was holding them at bay single-handed. "I ain't got your money, I tell you! Hamlin's vamoosed with the whole caboodle!" Aaron peered behind him and discovered that Ashley, with whom he had set out, had fallen away at some point between their starting point and their destination. Shortly he re-appeared, now flanked by a pair of men who looked like bodyguards. Aaron wondered whether he kept them always on call, or whether they had been standing ready for the present crisis–in which case perhaps....
    Ashley stepped to the doors of the bank next to Ben and faced the mob bravely, with only professional strong-arm men between it and himself. He addressed it in a tone of straightforward reasonableness. "Gentlemen," he began, "–and ladies–Mr. Perkins is only telling you the plain truth. I can confirm it from my personal knowledge." Aaron wondered how this was possible since he had been at the pier all morning–unless perhaps.... "Mr. Dean has absconded for parts unknown. But have no fear. The firm, in consideration of the commonweal, is prepared to make good your losses–to a degree. There is one condition, however."
    "Certain undertakings," Aaron muttered.
    "What's the conditions?" asked Young Tom, who was among the crowd.
    "That Mr. Perkins sign over the assets of this institution, and his general store, to the Enoch Navigation Company."
    Everyone's eyes turned to Ben. "Well, Ben?" asked Tom. The question was picked up by some of the others.
    Aaron watched sadly as Ben flopped about like a caught pike. "It'll mean the end for me," he said. "You all know that."
    "No such thing," Ashley said suavely. "The firm expects and desires you to continue in its employ. You're not to be blamed for the regrettable state of affairs. Your only fault lay in over-trusting Mr. Dean. But we were all of us guilty there."
    "Looks like I got no choice," Ben said at last. "If I ever see that Hamlin again...."
    "I think I can promise you won't."
    That statement and the look–almost a smirk–that had accompanied it had confirmed Aaron's suspicion to a bare degree short of what the law required. He had gone hunting for Joshua to tell him (and blame him) and had run him to ground at the schoolhouse, where he was sitting in conference with Essie and Nigel. Essie had sent the class home early so the three of them could confer the better. Aaron recognized at once the seed of an opposition movement, and declared himself a member on the spot. "I knew it," said Essie, after he had finished his narrative. "Knew it all along. I should have spoken up before. And you see what's happened? Now they're in a fair way to owning the whole town. They've taken over the bank, the mercantile, the saloon–"
    "The mill," Aaron put in.
    "And you know what that will mean."
    Aaron certainly did, and if the others did not they found out soon enough; to be exact, the next day, when the prices of every necessary doubled: twenty cents for coffee, ten for sugar, a dollar for whiskey. The extent of the resulting displeasure, Joshua was able to observe for himself when he stopped in at the saloon for a drink (and he was not normally a drinking man, either). He found Quentin installed there in a capacity very like a manager's; some of the regulars had wondered why Lottie would put up with it, but others thought they understood: he was family, by marriage at least, and she had a well-known soft spot for family. Since he seemed to be the man to complain to, complain they did, and all bringing the same complaint: "Four bits! 'tweren't four bits yesterday."
    "This isn't yesterday" was the answer Quentin gave them. But after the complaint had cost his aunt's saloon a number of sales, and perhaps as many customers, he began to regard the sudden rise in prices as a tactical error, and ventured to wonder aloud if Ashley really knew what he was doing. He did not say it to anyone in particular, but Joshua was the one standing closest to him. "This was Ashley's idea?" he said.
    "Everything that's happened here was Ashley's idea. Didn't you know that?"
    Joshua had not, and now for the first time that he should have. Jason would have; Jeremy had. He was the only one of them to have been taken in, and by nothing more substantial than soap, sawdust, and smoke (especially smoke). But not any more; no, sir. With his usual inability to restrain himself once a burr had got under his saddle, he determined to tell Ashley so.
    This morning Ashley was at the sawmill, reviewing the slate that had announced the new price schedule. "They won't stand for it," Harv warned him, as he had warned him before. "We're losing trade already."
    "Not the Bolts, I hope?"
    "Not yet. No other mill's of a size to take their jobs."
    "Good. It's the Bolts I'm after."
    "I thought as much," said Joshua. He had approached them unheard from the rear. Ashley showed only the faintest surprise at seeing him. "We're the town's biggest customer, and you know your overcharging will hurt us the most. What's your game? If you're trying to force a deal–"
    This time Ashley did not bother to mask his rancor with even a semblance of courtesy. "I'm no longer interested in dealing with the Bolts–two of them, anyway. Might still find a place for you, if you're not too swell-headed to take orders."
    "From you? Not likely. I stand with my brothers."
    "You won't stand long, any of you. We'll drive you into the ground!"
    "Not before I expose what you're up to in my paper."
    "Our paper! We bought you body and soul."
    Joshua smiled ruefully. "I heard only the Devil buys souls." He took out the small quantity of cash he carried with him and flung it at Ashley's feet. "There, I just unbought myself."
    "With that?"
    "You'll get the rest."
    As he walked away Ashley spat after him, and would have spat on him if he could; him and the whole passel of Bolts. "I'll have more than that out of you," he said. "You just wait." Joshua was too far away to hear, but Ashley did not care. The last stage of their campaign was at hand, and not all the Bolts in Christendom would have the power to resist them. Devils or not, it was all one: soon they would be the new Bolts.

Part Three

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