Evening star., 1939-12-31
Il Short Story Complete IN This Issue


RYE WENT through doorways sidewise 50 he
wouldn't knock out the jambs. He car
. ID ried no jack in his old puddle jumper
OF car, because it was quicker to lift the end
of the axle up on rock or something His hips
looked like clenched fist, and his legs like
steel hawsers. His name was Alfred Kenneth
Maroon; but no one knew it. People called
him A. K.
A. X. stood just now on the end of the
mile-long dock at Port Pulp. Behind him on
the dock Diesel locomotive hauled string
of flats to receive the cargo of the freighter
which had tied up last night. Loaded flats
were waiting to be hauled along the dock to
shore, and just back of the shore lowered the
solid face of a precipice on the top of which
the paper mills and the storage warehouse
and the hotel and bank and hospital were
building. A. X was building the town and
the railway and the dock He was building
them with three thousand men and million
and half dollars of company money; but
chiefly A. K was building them with his hands.
His hands were like mauls. Just to look
at one of them made your jaw ache. A. K.
seldom needed to hit anyone. There were
rumors that he had in his time hit two men,
The first had fallen arches ever after; but that
had happened when A. K. was STRIPPING,
before he got his growth He used an uppercut
on the second, and the doctors spliced an extra
vertebra in the mans neck to take up the
slack
At least that was what people said A. X.
weighed two hundred and eighteen pounds,
and all the fat on him would not have creased
griddle to fry fly. Wherever men cut pulp
in Canada he was legend. Port Pulp was
his creation, and when it was finished, tract
of timber two hundred miles square would
feed it forever with spruce for the mills. So
A. X. might have been forgiven for looking at
Port Pulp with certain pride.
But just now he gave the town and the
dock and the scores of men at their tasks
around him not glance He was watching the
little steamer from Rimouski come in toward
the dock. His feet were 50 widespread, his
legs so IMPLANTED, that you thought if a
tractor had run into him it would have
rebounded.
But as matter of fact A. K. s knees were
shaking; for on the steamer yonder, Pete was
coming A. X. hadn't seen his son for eight
or nine years. Pete was fourteen when his
mother died and A. X. sent him away to
school. He had been thin, spindling young
sprig; but he would be twenty-five or three
now and as big as his father.
At least A. K. hoped he would, but A. K.
was scared. Pete had done some strange
things He had played a game called squash.
A. K never told anyone that. 1t sounded like
woman's game, something to do with vege-
tables In his two years out of college, Pete
had made a lot of money in some business in
volving bonds. A. K. distrusted anyone who
made money quickly. Also Pete spent great
deal of time riding horses for fun, playing
game called polo - and he played golf!
Take it all in all, A. K had his doubts
about Pete Pete might be pretty bad! But
two weeks in the buck brush and the burnt
lands would smut him up some. They we're
going back into the wilderness to shoot a
moose or two and get acquainted; and A. K.
meant to do job on Pete.
A. K didn't even like the tone of Petes
letters. They were written on typewriter.
and spelled right; they began Dear Father"
and ended Your affectionate son." A. K.
blushed at the thought of those letters. This
moose hunt was Petes idea. Pete had shot