102 
American Agriculturist, February 3,1923 
' I' 
The Valley of the Giants —By Peter B. Kyne 
T he fight is on ! Bryce Cardigan, son of the blind old pioneer of Sequoia, takes up his father’s 
battle against the unscrupulous Colonel Seeth Pennington, a newcomer in the redwood country. 
In doing so, he sacrifices his friendship with Shirley Sumner, the Colonel’s niece. 
A visit to the rival camp to thrash Rondeau, a woods-boss who has felled a tree in the Valley 
of the Giants old Cardigan’s sacred grove where his wife lies buried, results in a free-for-all 
fight unfairly’ incited by the Colonel, in which Shirley aids Bryce to escape. But she swears 
they must always be enemies. j, , ,, ■, 
After a visit to his oim camp to discharge the drunken McTavish. Cardigan s old woods- 
boss where he meets the beautiful Moira, Bryce boards the homebound logging tram. 
The train runs away and Bryce manages to cut out the caboose and save the lives of Penning¬ 
ton and Shirley. McTavish. sobered, pleads for another chance, but is refused. 
^‘V’OU’VE been drunk for fifteen days—and I’m paying you for it, Mae.” Bryce 
X reminded him gently. “Don’t leave your check behind. You’ll need it.’ 
With a fine sho-w of contempt and rage, McTavish tore the check into strips 
and thre-w them at Bryce. “I was never a mon to take charity,” he roared, and 
left the office. Bryce called after him a cheerful good-bye, but he did not ans-wer. 
For a month his whereabouts remained a mystery; then one day Mona received 
a letter from him informing her that he had a job knee-bolting in a shingle mill 
in Mendocino County. . , j 
In the interim Bryce had not been idle. From his woods-crew he picked an 
old, experienced hand—one Jabez Curtis—^to take the place of the vanished 
McTavish. Colonel Pennington, having repaired in three days the gap in his 
railroad, wrote a letter informing Bryce that until more equipment could be deliv¬ 
ered to take the place of the rolling stock destroyed in the wreck, the latter would 
have to be content with half-deliveries; whereupon Bryce irritated the Colonel 
profoundly by purchasing a lot of second-hand trucks from a bankrupt sugar- 
pine mill and delivering them to the Colonel’s road via the deck of a steam 
schooner. , „ n 
“That will insure delivery of sufficient logs to get out our orders to file, Bryce 
informed his father. “While we are morally certain our mill will i'un but one 
year longer, I intend that it shall run full capacity for that year. In fact, I’m 
going to run a night-shift.” 
The sightless old man raised both 
hands. “The market won’t absorb it,” 
he protested. 
“Then we’ll stack it in piles to air- 
dry and wait until the market is brisk 
enough,” Bryce replied. 
“Our finances wou’t stand the over¬ 
head,” his father warned. 
“I know we haven’t sufficient cash on 
hand. Dad, but—I’m going to borrow 
some.” 
“From whom? No bank in Sequoia 
will lend us a penny.” 
“Did you sound the Sequoia Bank of 
Commerce?” 
“Certainly not. Pennington owns the 
controlling interest.” 
Bryce chuckled. “I don’t care where 
the money comes from so long as I get 
it, partner. Desperate circumstances 
require desperate measures you know, 
and the day before yesterday, I drifted 
in on the president and casually struck 
him for a loan of one hundred thousand 
dollars.” 
“Bryce! What did he say?” 
“Said he’d give me an answer this 
morning. He asked me, of course, what 
I wanted that much money for, and I 
told him I was going to run a night- 
shift, double my force of men in the 
woods, and buy some more logging- 
trucks. Well, this morning I called for 
my answer—and got it. The Sequoia 
Bank of Commerce will loan me up to 
a hundred thousand, but not in a lump 
sum. I can have enough to buy the 
logging-trucks now, and on the first of 
each month the bank will advance me 
the money to meet my pay-roll.” 
“Bryce, I am amazed.” 
AM not. Pennington is only play- 
X ing safe—which is why the bank 
declined to give me the money in a 
lump sum. If we run a night-shift, 
Pennington knows that we can’t dispose 
of our excess output under present 
market conditions. It’s a safe bet our 
lumber is going to pile up on the mill 
dock; hence, when the smash comes and 
the' Sequoia Bank of Commerce calls 
our loan and we cannot meet it, the 
lumber on hand will prove security for 
the loan, will it not? In fact, it will 
be worth two or three dollars per thou¬ 
sand more then than now, because it 
will be air-dried. And inasmuch as all 
the signs point to Pennington’s gob¬ 
bling us anyhow, it strikes me as a 
rather good business on his part to give 
us sufficient rope to insure a thorough 
job of hanging.” 
“But what idea have you got back of 
such a procedure, Bryce?” 
“Merely a forlorn hope. Dad. Some¬ 
thing might turn up. The market may 
take a sudden spurt and go up three or 
four dollars.” 
“Yes—and it may take a sudden 
spurt and drop three or four dollars,” 
his father reminded him. 
Bryce laughed. “That would be 
Pennington’s funeral. Dad. It costs us 
nothing to make the experiment.” 
John Cardigan sighed. But he ad¬ 
vanced no objection, and the follo’wing 
day the agreement was entered into 
with the bank. Bryce closed by wire 
for the extra logging-equipment and 
immediately set about rounding up a 
crew for the woods arid for the night- 
shift in the mill. 
CHAPTER XIX 
F or a month Bryce was as busy as 
the proverbial one-armed paper- 
hanger with the itch, and during all 
that time he did not see Shirley Sumner ' 
or hear of her, directly or indirectly, 
Only at frequent intervals did he think 
of her, for he was striving to forget, 
and the memory of his brief glirnpse of 
paradise was always provocative of 
pain. 
Moira McTavish, in the meantime, 
had entered upon her duties in the mill 
office. The change from her dull, drab 
life, the opportunity for companionship 
with people of greater mentality and 
refinement than she had been used to, 
quickly brought about a swift transi¬ 
tion in the girl’s nature. With the pass¬ 
ing of the coarse shoes and calico 
dresses and the substitution of the kind 
of clothing all women of Moira’s in¬ 
stinctive refinement and natural beauty 
long for, the girl became cheerful and 
animated. Old Sinclair discovered that 
Moira’s efforts lightened liis own la¬ 
bors in exact proportion to the knowl¬ 
edge of the business which she assimi¬ 
lated from day to day. 
Moira worked in the general office, 
and except when Bryce desired to look 
at the books or Moira brought some 
document into the private office, there 
were days during which his pleasant 
“Good morning, Moira,” constituted the 
extent of their conversation. To John 
Cardigan, however, Moira was a min¬ 
istering angel. Gradually she relieved 
Bryce of the care of the old man. She 
made a cushion for his easychair in the 
office; she read the papers to him, and 
the correspondence, and discussed with 
him the receipt and delivery of orders, 
the movements of the lumber-fleet, the 
comedies and tragedies of his people, 
which had become to him matters of 
the utmost importance. Whenever 
Bryce was absent in the woods or in 
San Francisco, it fell to her lot to lead 
the old man to and from the house on 
the hill. To his starved heart her 
sweet womanly attentions were tre¬ 
mendously welcome, and gradually he 
formed the habit of speaking of her, 
half tenderly, half jokingly, as “my 
girl.” 
B ryce had been absent in San Fran¬ 
cisco for ten days. He had planned 
to stay three weeks, but finding his busi¬ 
ness consummated in less time, he re¬ 
turned to Sequoia unexpectedly. Moira 
was standing at the tall bookkeeping 
desk, her beautiful dark head bent over 
the ledger, when he entered the office 
and S 3 t his suitcase in the corner. 
“Is that you, Mr. Bryce?” she 
queried. 
“The identical individual, Moira. 
How did you guess it?” 
She looked up at him then, and her 
wonderful dark eyes lighted with a 
flame Bryce had not seen in them here¬ 
tofore. “I knew you were coming,” she 
replied simply. 
“But ho'W' could you know? I didn’t 
telegraph because I wanted to surprise 
my father, and the instant the boat 
touched the dock, I went overside and 
came directly here.” 
“That is quite right, Mr. Bryce. No¬ 
body told me you were coming, but I 
just knew, when I heard the Noyo 
whistling as she made the dock, that 
you were aboard, and I didn’t look up 
when you entered because I wanted to 
verify my—my suspicion.” 
“You had a hunch, Moira. Do you 
get those telepathic messages very 
often?” He was crossing the office to 
shake her hand. 
“I’ve never noticed particularly — 
that is, until I came to work here. But 
I always know when you are returning 
after a considerable absence.” She 
gave him her hand. ‘I’m so glad you’re 
“Why?” he demanded bluntly. 
She flushed. “I — I really don’t know, 
Mr. Bryce.” 
“Well, then,” he persisted, “what do 
you think makes you glad?” 
“I had been thinking how nice it 
would be to have you back, Mr. Bryce. 
When you enter the office, it’s like a 
breeze rustling the tops of the Red¬ 
woods. And your father misses you so; 
he talks to me a great deal about you. 
Why, of course we miss you; anybody 
would.” 
As he held her hand, he glanced down 
at it and noted how greatly it had 
changed during the past few months. 
The skin was no longer rough and 
brown, and the fingers, formerly stiff 
and swollen from hard work, were 
growing more shapely. From her hand 
his glance roved over the girl, noting 
the improvements in her dress, and the 
way the thick, wavy black hair was 
piled on top of her shapely head. ' 
“It hadn’t occurred to me before, 
Moira,” he said with a bright imper¬ 
sonal smile that robbed his remark of 
all suggestion of masculine flattery, 
“but it seems to me I’m unusually glad 
to see you, also. You’ve been fixing 
your hair different.” 
T he soft lambent glow leaped again 
into Moira’s eyes. He had noticed her 
—particularly. “Do you like my hair 
done that way?” she inquired eagerly. 
“I don’t know whether I do or not. 
It’s unusual—for you. You look mighty 
sweetly old-fashioned with it coiled in 
back. Is this new style the latest in 
Sequoia?” 
“I think so, Mr. Bryce. I copied it 
from Colonel Pennington’s niece. Miss 
Sumner.” 
“Oh,” he replied briefly. “You’ve met 
her, have you? I didn’t know she was 
in Sequoia still.” 
“She been away, but she came back 
last week. I went to the Valley of the 
Giants last Saturday afternoon-” 
Bryce interrupted. “You didn’t tell 
my father about the tree that was cut, 
did you?” he demanded sharply. 
“No.” 
“Good girl! He mustn’t know. Go 
on, Moira. I interrupted you.” 
“I 'met Miss Sumner up there. She 
was lost; she’d followed the old trail 
into the timber, and when the trees 
shut out the sun, she lost all sense of 
direction. She was terribly frightened 
and crying when I found her and 
brought her home.” 
“Well, I swan, Moira! What was 
she doing in our timber?” 
“She told me that once, when she was 
a little girl, you had taken her for a 
ride on your pony up to your mother’s 
grave. And it seems she had a great 
curiosity to see that spot again and 
started out without saying a word to 
any one. Poor dear! She was in a 
sad state when I found her.” 
“How fortunate you found her! I’ve 
met Miss Sumner three or four times. 
That was when she first came to Se¬ 
quoia. She’s a stunning girl, isn’t she?” 
“Perfectly, Mr. Bryce. She’s the first 
lady I’ve ever met. She’s different.” 
“No doubt! Her kind are not a prod" 
uct of homely little communities like 
Sequoia. And for that matter, neither 
is her wolf of an uncle. What did Miss 
Sumner have to say to you, Moira?” 
“She told me all about herself—and 
she said a lot of nice things about you, 
Mr. Bryce, after I told her I worked 
for you. And she insisted that I should 
walk home with her. So I did—and the 
butler served us with tea and toast and 
marmalade. Then she showed me all 
her wonderful thing.s—and gave me 
some of them. Oh, Mr. Bryce, she’s 
so sweet. She had her maid di’ess my 
hair in half a dozen different styles 
until they could decide on the right 
one, and-” 
“And that’s it—eh, Moira?” 
She nodded brightly. 
“I can see that you and Miss Sum¬ 
ner evidently hit it off just right with 
each other. Are you going to call on 
her again?” 
“Oh, yes! She begged me to. She 
says she’s lonesome.” 
‘‘T^ELL, her choice of a pal is ri trib- 
VV ute to the brains I suspected her 
of possessing. I’ve no doubt you find 
life a little lonely sometimes, too.” 
“Sometimes, Mr. Bryce.” 
“How’s my father?” 
“Splendid., I’ve taken good care of 
him for you.”- 
“Moira, you’re a sweetheart of a girl. 
I don’t know how we ever managed to 
wiggle along without you.” Fraternally 
—almost paternally—he gave her radi¬ 
ant cheek t^iree light little pats as he 
strode past her to the private office. On 
his desk lay a pile of letters and orders, 
and a moment later he was deep in 
them, oblivious to the fact that ever and 
anon the girl turned upon him her 
brooding. Madonnalike glance. 
That night Bryce and his father, re¬ 
paired to the library, where the bustling 
Mrs. Tully served their coffee. This 
good soul, after the democratic fashion 
in vogue in many Western communi¬ 
ties, had for a quarter of a century 
served father and son their meals and 
then seated herself at the table with 
them. This arrangement had but one 
drawback, although this did not pres¬ 
ent itself until after Bryce’s return to 
Sequoia. For Mrs. Tully had a failing 
common to many of her sex: she pos¬ 
sessed for other people’s business an 
interest absolutely incapable of satis¬ 
faction—and ’she was, in addition, gar¬ 
rulous beyond belief. The library was 
the one spot in the house which John 
Cardigan had indicated to Mrs. Tully 
as sanctuary for him and his; hence, 
having served the coffee, the amiable 
creature withdrew, although not with¬ 
out a pang as she reflected upon the 
probable nature of their conversation. 
No sooner had Mrs. Tully departed 
than Bryce rose and closed the door be¬ 
hind her. John Cardigan opened the 
conversation with a contented grunt: 
“Plug the keyhole, son,” he con¬ 
tinued. “I believe you have some¬ 
thing on your mind—and you know 
how Mrs. Tully resents the closing of 
that door. Estimable soul that she is, 
I have known her to eavesdrop.” 
B ryce dipped a cigar and held a 
lighted match while his father 
“smoked up.” Then he slipped into the 
easy-chair beside the old man. 
“Well, John Cardigan,” he began 
eagerly, “fate ripped a big hole in our 
dark cloud the other day and showed 
me some of the silver lining. I’ve been 
making bad medicine for Colonel 
Pennington.” 
“What’s in the wind, boy?” 
“We’re going to parallel Pennington’s 
logging-road.” 
“Inasmuch as that will cost close to 
three quarters of a million dollars, I’m 
of the opinion that we’re not going to 
do anything of the sort.” 
“Perhaps. Nevertheless, if I can 
demonstrate to a certain party that it 
will not cost more than three quarters 
of a million, he’ll loan me the money.” 
The old man shook his head. “I don’t be¬ 
lieve it, Bryce. Who’s the crazy man?” 
“His name is Gregory. He’s Scotch.” 
“Now I know he’s crazy. When he 
hands you the money, you’ll find its 
Confederate greenbacks.” 
{Continued next week) 
