RODERICK WARFIELD’S election to a seat on the board of directors of
the Encampment Mine and Smelter Company had for him a series of most
unexpected consequences. He had had no knowledge that Uncle Allen
Miller and a number of his financial followers in Iowa were now large
stockholders in the corporation. Nor had he been aware that Major Buell
Hampton, after his journey to New York, had visited the Keokuk banker.
The Major had learned from his brokers in Wall Street that Allen Miller
was on the market for this particular stock and had already acquired a
considerable holding. Hence his flying business visit to Keokuk, which
had resulted in the combination of forces that had gained the control
and ousted Grady, Carlisle, and their pawns on the old directorate.
Major Hampton had since been in continuous correspondence with the
banker, but had never for a moment associated the names of Allen Miller
and Roderick Warfield as having any possible connection by relationship
or otherwise. The selection of the new board had been left entirely in
Buell Hampton’s hands after the banker had given his assent to the
profit-sharing scheme. That assent had not been won without considerable
argument. The plan upset all the banker’s old theories about
industrial enterprises. At the same time the shrewd old man of finance
was reading the signs of the times, and had long since come to realize
that a readjustment of the relations between capital and labor was
inevitable. He was all the more inclined to make this experiment, in the
first place because he was not going to be bothered with the working out
of the practical details, and in the second place because the magnetic
personality of Buell Hampton had at once inspired him with confidence
both in his ability to do things and in his integrity. Therefore the
shrewd old banker had fallen in with the Major’s plans, and given him
a free hand when entrusting him with the powers of attorney for himself
and the other Iowan stockholders.
In point of fact there was another secret motive animating Allen Miller
to this line of action. Unless he cooperated with Buell Hampton, the
control would remain with W. B. Grady and his associates. And it was
Grady whom the banker was after—Grady, the financial shark who had
robbed his lifelong friend, General John Holden, of his underlying bonds
in the original and now defunct smelter company, at the time when the
amalgamation scheme had been devised to freeze out the first founders
of the enterprise. General Holden had been the chief victim of this
rapacious trick of financial jugglery, and Allen Miller was working
secretly to undo the wrong. But the banker was animated not only by
reasons of friendship. He had another incentive almost as strong. He
wanted to satisfy his keen sense of personal pride toward Roderick
Warfield. For the vital cause of quarrel between the old banker and the
youth he loved yet had disowned was the unnamed girl he had thrust upon
Roderick as a suitable bride because of her fortune. And this fortune
had been proved to be illusory on the very day succeeding the rupture
that had culminated in Roderick’s fine display of scorn and anger,
when he had flung himself out of the banker’s room and started off for
parts unknown to fight his own way in the world.
It was the financial disaster which had overtaken General Holden that
had opened Allen Miller’s eyes to the truth that he had been utterly
wrong in his attempted methods of managing a headstrong, and as the
old guardian had thought at the time a wayward, youth like Roderick
Warfield. He had bitterly regretted the harsh words that had dared the
offender to play football with the world and, as he now realized, had
by their sarcastic bitterness driven the high-mettled young man from his
boyhood home. He had never doubted Roderick’s prowess to make a way
for himself by his own unaided efforts, and, despite the quarrel, had
always felt sure of the lad’s affection. So Roderick one day would
come back, to find the latchstring hanging outside the door of his home,
the promised place in the bank still awaiting him, and—the pride and
dogged determination of the old man would not yield the point—the
rich, attractive, and in every way highly eligible bride still
available. The only flaw in the program was Gail Holden’s fall from
fortune, and to repair this had been the object of the banker’s
continuous and strenuous endeavor.
He had grabbed at the chance of lending money on the Mine and Smelter
Company bonds standing in the name of W. B. Grady, which bonds he
considered were by moral right really the property of General Holden.
But he had lent discreetly, postponing any big advance while he held the
documents and nosed around for information that might give some valid
reason to dispute their ownership. And in course of time he had made one
surprising discovery. Obtaining from General Holden all correspondence
with Grady, he had found one sentence in which the sponsor for the new
amalgamation scheme had guaranteed the withdrawal of all underlying
bonds in the old smelter company before the scheme would be put through.
Yet this condition had not been complied with, for Allen Miller had, in
the course of tracing every old bond, discovered that five were still in
existence and had never been surrendered. They belonged to a widow away
back in Pennsylvania who had gone to Europe and whose whereabouts at the
time Grady apparently had not been able to ascertain. But the persistent
old banker had followed the trail and through his agents in France had
purchased this particular parcel of bonds at a high figure. They were
few in number and insignificant in face value, but to Allen Miller they
were priceless, for these underlying bonds put W. B. Grady in his power
and could be made the means eventually of compelling restitution to
General Holden of the fortune that had been filched from him. Grady
would have to make good or face the criminal charge of a fraudulent
transaction.
Buell Hampton had been told nothing about this—it was sufficient for
Allen Miller’s immediate purpose to have the company control wrested
without delay out of Grady’s hands. This would render litigation
easier, perhaps avoid it altogether—the better alternative, for
the law’s harassing delays and heart-sickening uncertainties are
proverbial. So when Buell Hampton had come to Keokuk in the cause of
humanity, to fight for the toilers at the smelter and in the big mine,
he had been agreeably surprised to find in the old banker such a ready
listener to his philanthropic arguments. The alliance had been
struck, with the result that Buell Hampton had been able to swing the
stockholders’ meeting exactly as he desired.
Up to the very eve of that meeting the Major had kept his counsel and
held his hand. The merest hint of the power he possessed might have
given time for so astute a knave as Grady to devise some means more or
less unscrupulous of repelling the attack. Therefore Buell Hampton had
not dropped one word of what he intended to do until he had spoken to
Roderick in his home on the night before the stockholders’ meeting.
Little did either of them know at that time how vitally and directly
Roderick was interested in the outcome of the Major’s fight for the
downtrodden poor.
After the eventful meetings of stockholders and directors it had been
Buell Hampton’s first duty to send a full report of the proceedings
to Allen Miller of Keokuk, whose power of attorney had enabled him to
effect the coup deposing Grady and giving a share of the profits to the
actual toilers at the furnaces and in the mine. In the course of this
report the names of the new directors were set forth. Judge of the
old banker’s utter amazement when his eyes fell upon the name
of—Roderick Warfield. Surprise quickly yielded to joy and delight. The
news was telephoned to Aunt Lois. The old banker could not leave town
at the moment—an issue of city bonds required his close attention. But
that very night an envoy was dispatched to Wyoming in the person of his
bright and trusted young clerk, Whitley Adams.
And the first of the series of surprises for Roderick Warfield, one
afternoon a few days after the sleigh ride, was the sight of his old
college chum tumbling out of a bob-sled which, in default of coaching
facilities, had brought him over from the railroad at Rawlins. Whitley
had stopped the sled in the main street along which, in the crisp
sunshine that had followed the heavy snowfall, Roderick happened to be
strolling.
“Hello, old scout,” cried the new arrival with all the ease of a
veteran globe-trotter.
“Where in thunder did you drop from!” exclaimed Roderick, clutching
at his hand.
“From Iowa’s sun-kissed cornfields to Wyoming’s snow-capped
hills,” laughed Whitley, humming the tune of the hymn he was
parodying.
“What has brought you here?”
“Lots of things. A letter for you, to begin with.”
“From whom?”
“Your Uncle Allen Miller.”
“But he doesn’t know I’m here, does he?”
“The whole world knows you’re here, dear boy,” replied Whitley,
pulling the latest issue of the Encampment Herald out of his pocket.
“Why, you’ve become famous—a director of the great smelting
corporation.” And he flourished the journal aloft.
“Who sent you that paper?”
“Major Buell Hampton, of course. At least he sent it to your uncle.”
“Get out. You’re kidding, Whitley.”
“No kidding about me, old man. Those irresponsible days are now
over.” Whitley drew himself up with great dignity. “If Buell Hampton
hasn’t told you that he came to Keokuk and made the acquaintance of
Banker Allen Miller, well, that’s his affair, not mine. Where shall we
have dinner? I’m as hungry as a grizzly.”
“Wait a moment, Whitley. Do you mean to tell me Uncle Allen knows the
Major?”
“Sure. They’ve been as thick as thieves—or rather I should say
as close as twins—Oh, that reminds me. How are dear Barbara and
Dorothy?”
“Shut up—stop your nonsense. What were you going to say?”
“Oh, just this, that ever since the Major paid us a visit at Keokuk,
letters have been passing nearly every week between him and the banker.
I’ve seen all the correspondence.”
“I have known nothing about this,” said Roderick, in great
perplexity.
“Well, doubtless you are not in the same confidential position as I
occupy,” replied Whitley airily. “But of course now that you are a
director of the company you’ll come to know—or at least should
know; that’s part of your duties—that Allen Miller is a big
stockholder.”
There flashed to Roderick’s mind Buell Hampton’s vague reference, on
the night preceding the stockholders’ meeting, to some new friend,
a professional man of finance, with whom he held joint control of the
company’s stock.
“A true friend of humanity,” he murmured, recalling the Major’s
words. “Great Scott, that’s about the last identification tag I
would have expected for Uncle Allen.”
“Well, old chap,” interposed Whitley, “don’t mumble in
conundrums. You take it from me that Buell Hampton and your uncle are
financial pals—associates might be the more dignified word. That’s
no doubt why the Major nominated you for the board of directors.”
Roderick paled.
“By God, if that’s the case, I’ll resign tomorrow. I’ve been
standing on my own feet here. I owe nothing to Uncle Allen.”
“There now, put all that touchy pride in your pocket, Roderick. By
jingo, you’re worse than Banker Miller himself. But I took the old
gentleman down a few pegs the afternoon he learned that you were in
Wyoming,” Whitley rambled on, laughing. “He declared that I must
have known your hiding place all the time.”
“And you answered?”
“Owned up at once, of course. Told him that others besides himself
could be trusted with a confidence—that neither he nor anybody else
could have bulldosed me into betraying a client. A client—that’s
what I called you, old man. Oh, you can’t give me business points
nowadays. What do you think he said in reply?”
“Ordered you out of the room, I suppose.”
“Not on your life! Commended my sagacity, my trustworthiness; told
me again that I was a born banker, one after his own heart. And to show
that he meant what he said, he raised my salary five dollars a week, and
handed me over fifty dollars extra spending money for this trip. What do
you think of that?”
“I can’t express a thought—I’m too much surprised over the whole
train of events.”
“Oh, I suppose he knew I’d have to buy a few boxes of candy for the
beautiful Wyoming girls,” Whitley went on. “I had told him after
my first trip here that they were regular stunners—that they had been
buzzing about me like flies around a pot of honey. Oh, he laughed all
right. I know how to manage the old fellow—was half afraid he’d be
coming along himself instead of sending me this time. But he bade me
tell you he couldn’t possibly get away from Keokuk just now. Which
reminds me—here’s your letter, old man; and one, too, from Aunt
Lois. She saw me off at the train, and gave me a kiss to pass on to
you.” Whitley, a bunch of letters in his hand, made a movement as if
to bestow upon Roderick the osculatory salute with which he had been
entrusted. But Roderick, smiling in spite of himself, pushed him back.
“You irrepressible donkey: Hand over my letters.”
“Oh, yes, the letters.” Whitley began to sort the bunch of
correspondence. “This is for Buell Hampton. And this is for Ben
Bragdon. I suppose he’s in town?”
“Yes. But he’s pretty busy.”
“Won’t be too busy to attend to me, I reckon. Then W. B.
Grady”—he was fingering a neatly folded, legal looking document “I
hope that Grady hasn’t cleared out from Encampment yet.”
“Not that I’ve heard. In fact I saw him on the street this morning.
You seem to have business with everyone in town.”
“Just about hits it, old man. And General John Holden. Ah, yes, that
reminds me,” Whitley suspended his sorting of the letters, and looked
up. “How’s the college widow, old man?”
Roderick reddened.
“That’s all off,” he answered stiffly.
“I guessed that’s just what would happen. Best so, by a long chalk,
So Stella Rain is free again. Guess I’ll stop off on my way home, and
take a run to Galesburg. Nice girl, you know, Stella. No saying but I
might make an impression now she is”—
“Stella Rain is married,” interrupted Roderick, speaking sharply and
shortly.
“You don’t say? Too bad.”
“Happily married, I tell you—to some rich fellow.”
“Oh, then, she threw you over, did she? Ho, ho, ho! But that’s all
right, old fellow. Saves all complications. And Gail, how’s Gail? Oh,
she’s a pipit pin.
“By gad, Whitley, you shut up. Come and have your dinner. But you
haven’t given me my letters yet.”
“Ah, I forgot Well this one is for General Holden. I’ve got to see
him at once.”
“What about?”
“Confidential business, my friend. Ask no questions for I want to be
spared the pain of refusing you the slightest information. Great
guns, Rod, we financial men, you know, hold more secrets than a father
confessor. We’ve got to keep our mouths shut all the time, even to our
best friends. This is my letter of credit to your local bank—no
limit, mind you, on my sight drafts on Keokuk. Ah, yes, here are your
letters—one from Aunt Lois, the other from your old guardian. Hope he
has put a fat check inside.”
“I don’t need his checks—if there’s any check here, you can take
it back.” And Roderick ripped open the envelope.
But there was no offending slip of colored paper enclosed, and he thrust
both the letters unread into his pocket.
“Now we’ll dine,” he said.
“A moment, please.” And Whitley turned to the driver of the bob-sled
waiting in the middle of the road.
“Go and get your dinner, my man,” he called out. “Then hitch fresh
horses in that sled, and come to my hotel, the Bonhomme; that’s the
best place in town, if I remember right, Roderick,” he said with
a glance at his friend. Then he continued to the driver: “Charge
everything to me, and don’t be longer than a couple of hours. Now come
along, Roderick. You dine with me—oh, I have an ample expense fund.
But I’m sorry I’ll have to leave you immediately after dinner.”
Roderick was overwhelmed by all this grandiloquence. He hardly dared to
take his old chum’s arm as they walked along the street. But at last
he stopped, burst out laughing, and slapped the man of affairs squarely
between the shoulders.
“Whitley, old chap, you’re a wonder. You play the part to
perfection.”
“Play the part?” protested Whitley, with a fine assumption of
dignity. “I am the part—the real thing. I’m your rich old
uncle’s right hand man, and don’t you forget it. Would a little
ready cash now be a convenience?”
Then Whitley’s arm went round his comrade’s neck, and with a
simultaneous whoop of laughter they passed into the hotel.
But during the next twenty-four hours Roderick saw very little of
his college chum. And during the same period the said college chum
accomplished some very remarkable things. Immediately after dinner the
bob-sled sped out to Conchshell ranch, and General Holden signed the
legal papers that attached, as a measure of precaution, the bonds
standing in the name of W. B. Grady and now in the custody of the bank
at Keokuk as security for a loan. And for half the night Attorney Ben
Bragdon and Whitley Adams were closeted with W. B. Grady in a private
parlor of the hotel, and the fight was fought out for legal possession
of the fraudulently acquired bonds—a fight that put the issue squarely
up to Grady whether he would accept Banker Allen Miller’s terms of
surrender or face a criminal charge. It was in the grey of the breaking
dawn that the vanquished Grady crept out of the hotel, wiping the beads
of cold sweat from his brow, while Whitley was quietly folding up the
properly signed transfers that gave back to General Holden bonds of
equal value to those of which he had been robbed by false pretences and
promises never fulfilled.
In the morning Whitley was again at the Conchshell ranch, and
breakfasted with the General and his daughter. It was the latter who
bound him to secrecy—to the solemn promise that neither he nor Mr.
Bragdon should divulge to anyone the story of this restored family
fortune. Gail declared that she was going to make good with her dairy
cattle venture, that neither she nor her father wanted to return to
the old life of fashion and society at Quincy, that they had no wish to
appear as rich folks. Whitley listened to all the arguments, understood,
and promised. And that the transfer of the bonds should not be connected
with General Holden’s name it was agreed that for the present they
should pass to Banker Allen Miller as family trustee.
Whitley’s chest had expanded fully two inches when he drove away, the
trusted emissary for the carrying into effect of these decrees. He had
had a few minutes alone with Gail and, introducing the name of Roderick
Warfield in a casual way, had assured her that he, like everyone else,
would know nothing about these strictly family affairs. She had blushed
a little, reiterated her thanks, and at parting had, he could have
sworn, given him an extra friendly pressure of her dainty little
fingers.
Whitley drove straight to Ben Bragdon’s office, and took the
precaution of adding to the professional seal of secrecy a direct
expression from the General of his wishes in the matter.
During the afternoon the young banker from Keokuk personally delivered
the letter from Allen Miller addressed to Major Buell Hampton. Whitley
had insisted upon Roderick accompanying him. The relationship between
Roderick and Banker Miller was now revealed. The Major received the news
without much surprise.
“In the loom of life,” he said, with great solemnity, “the shuttle
of destiny weaves the threads of individual lives into a pattern
which is only disclosed as time goes on. Thus are the destinies of men
interwoven without their knowing either the how or the why. Roderick, my
dear fellow, from this day on we are simply more closely bound to each
other than ever.”
The evening was spent at the Shields ranch. Whitley congratulated
Barbara on her engagement to Ben Bragdon, and then took Dorothy’s
breath away by congratulating her and the absent Grant Jones as well.
Dorothy blushed furiously, and disowned the soft impeachment; to which
Whitley replied that unless her sweetheart got busy promptly and toed
the line, he himself was coming back to Encampment to cut out so tardy
a wooer. “Tell Grant Jones from me,” he said, “that it’s taking
chances to leave the tempting peach upon the tree.” She slapped his
hand playfully for his audacity, and Roderick hurried the flippant
financier out of the room.
At midnight, in the bright moonlight, Whitley departed for Rawlins
to catch his train. Nothing could persuade him to prolong his
visit—Banker Miller would be hopping around like a cat on hot bricks,
the bank going to wreck and ruin if he did not hurry back, the girls of
Keokuk growing quite jealous of the beauties of Wyoming.
Like a whiff of sweet perfume the joyous youth was gone.