The traveler who is wise, going from Grand Cañon Hotel to Tower Falls,
will pass over Mount Washburn--and he starts early. He starts early that
he may take with him the memory of the Upper and Lower Falls wrapped in
the mist which they and night have wrought together, and which the
nocturnal calm has perhaps left hanging wraith-like over the tremendous
slot so filled with the roar of many waters. And he starts early, too,
that he may make the ten-mile climb to Washburn's summit before the
day-wind rises and sweeps the mountain's head with that gale which so
tears the trees and twists them into a permanent declination, like
vegetable dipping needles.
The Seven Wonderers pursued the way of wisdom, and so they startled deer
and elk from their night beds along the road to Cascade Creek; and began
the climb of Washburn before sunrise. The tops of Dunraven and Hedges
Peaks were rosy with morning when the rested cayuses pulled over the
first rugged spurs of these peaks, and it was morning with the perfect
trees, that stood like spires about them, morning with the columbine and
the larkspur, the forget-me-nots and the asters, the flea-bane and the
paint-brush--and all the wild flowers that enameled the wayside. For
many days they had been in the heart of the Rockies, and yet the scenery
had not seemed like real mountain scenery. Here for the first time, it
became alpine. They threaded Dunraven Pass in the early forenoon, and
took the high road straight over the summit. The team leaned hard into
the squeaking collars, and frequent stops that the horses might breathe
made the tourists glad. Every stop and every turn brought the eye new
delights. The great lake came into view again, like a distant splash of
silver; and as if for another good-by, away off to the south stood Mount
Sheridan, with the three Tetons to the right of it, solemnly overlooking
the Park of which they are a part to the eye only.
"Oh! Oh!" said the Bride, gasping. "There's the Grand Cañon, like a
crack in the floor!"
"And," said the Poet, "there's the ghost of wasted power, mistily
brooding over the falls, just as when we left."
"Ghost of wasted power!" repeated the Groom. "That's not half bad,
Poet."
Another turn, and the Absarakas notched the eastern horizon; and the
whole huge valley, with titanic slopes as its farther wall, and the
zigzag trench of the cañon as its central drain, lay at their feet. The
air was cooler, now, and the breath came short, as lungs labored for
more of the rare atmosphere. At their feet lay green meadows and open
parks, on which they might have expected to see grazing herds of shaggy
black Highland cattle.
Again a few starts and stops, and as if turned into view by machinery,
came the northwest quarter of the Park, with all the country they had
traversed--Electric Peak, in whose shadow they had entered upon their
journey, Sepulcher Mountain, with its grave and the monuments at head
and foot no longer to be made out, the valley of Carnelian Creek at
their feet, and beyond it the jagged range, of which Prospect, Folsom
and Storm Peaks are the culminations.
"That's something you don't always see," said Aconite, pointing to
something away off to the northwest. "That thing is the Devil's Slide."
"And we saw his Inkstand yesterday," said the Hired Man. "He seems to've
preëmpted a lot of this here region."
"Well," remarked the Colonel sardonically, "isn't the Park dedicated to
the enjoyment, as well as the benefit of the people?"
"It started as 'Colter's Hell,'" suggested the Groom.
"In Old Jim Bridger's time," said Aconite, "it rained fire up here in
these hills one year."
"I don't doubt it," assented the Artist. "And we've either seen or are
promised a view of Hell Roaring Creek, Hell Broth Springs, Hell's Half
Acre, Satan's Arbor, and a lot of other infernal real estate."
"It's heavenly up _here_!" said the Bride.
Once at the summit the Park lay under their eyes like a map--all these
and a thousand other features to be taken in by merely turning about.
The land was sown with every variety of all that is wild and beautiful
and strange; the sky was filled with peaks. Here they had mountains to
spare. They looked, and looked, and grew tired of looking--and then
gazed again. The wind blew up and whipped their faces; and the sun was
far past the meridian, passing south through the silvery splotch of
Yellowstone Lake, when Aconite literally loaded them into the surrey,
and drove down the mighty flanks of Washburn, northwardly, until he
found a place where a fire could be builded and luncheon prepared.
"You folks mustn't fergit," said he, "that scenery ain't so fillin' f'r
them as looks it every little while, as it is f'r the tenderfoot."
* * * * *
The Professor was evidently pleased when his name came from the Stetson
for the second time. He seemed to have something on his mind. Fully a
mile short of Tower Falls, which they planned to visit in the early
morning, they camped in dense forest, with a party of sight-seers just
so far away as to seem neighborly without intrenching on privacy.
"This is the best camp we've had," said the Bride, hooking her hands
over her knee, and gazing into the fire.
"Sure," said Billy. "Every camp is the best in life, for me, honey!
Listen to the Professor, now--nobody heard!"
THE FEDERAL IMP COMPANY
THE PROFESSOR'S SECOND TALE
I can not bring myself to think lightly of devils and imps. Neither can
I believe that the consensus of the opinions of so many millions of
mankind associating eternal punishment with fire can be neglected by the
student of ethnology or theology. These are filled with haunts of
devils--if the opinions of those who named them are worth anything. In
addition to those localities which have been mentioned, I have in my
notes the following:
The Devil's Frying Pan,
The Devil's Slide,
The Devil's Kitchen,
The Devil's Punch Bowl,
The Devil's Broiler,
The Devil's Bath Tub,
The Devil's Den,
The Devil's Workshop,
The Devil's Stairway,
The Devil's Caldron,
The Devil's Well,
The Devil's Elbow,
The Devil's Thumb,
and I know not how many of the members of His Satanic Majesty--all in
this Park! And yet we say there is no devil, no brood of imps set upon
the capture of human souls?
I shall tell you a story that seems worth considering as evidence on the
other side. It is the story of something that occurred when I was
journeying by a branch railway to take the main line to Washington,
after a visit to the Boggses' ancestral farm in Pennsylvania. I had been
at Boston as an attendant upon the sessions of the National Teachers'
Association; with what recognition of my own small ability as an
educator I have already mentioned. I boarded an old-fashioned,
branch-line sleeping-car, and there met the being whose utterances and
actions have so impressed me that I shall never forget them, never. I
feel that this creature, so casually met, may be one of the actors in a
series of events of the most appalling character, and cosmic scope.
When the porter came snooping about as if desiring to make up my berth,
I went into the smoking compartment. I do not smoke; but it was the only
place to go. I found there a person of striking appearance who told me
the most remarkable story I ever heard in my life, and one which I feel
it my duty to make public.
He had before him a bottle of ready-mixed cocktails, a glass, and a
newspaper. With his bags and the little card table on which he rested
his elbows, he was occupying most of the compartment. I sidled in
hesitatingly, in that unobtrusive way which I believe to be the
unfailing mark of the retiring and scholastic mind, and for want of a
place to sit down, I leaned upon the lavatory. He was gazing fixedly at
the half-empty bottle, his sweeping black mustaches curling back past
his ears, his huge grizzled eyebrows shot through with the gleam of his
eyes. He looked so formidable that I confess I was daunted, and should
have escaped to the vestibule; but he saw me, rose, and with extreme
politeness began tossing aside baggage to make room.
"I trust, Sir," said he with a capital S, "that you will pardon my
occupancy of so much of a room in which your right is equal to mine! Be
seated, I beg of you, Sir!"
I sat down; partly because, when not aroused, I am of a submissive
temperament; and partly because he had thrown the table and grips across
the door.
"Don't mention it," said I. "Thank you."
"Permit me, Sir," said he, "to offer you a drink."
"I hope you will excuse me," I replied, now slightly roused, for I
abhor alcohol and its use. "I never drink!"
"It is creditable to any man, Sir," said he, "to carry around with him a
correct estimate of his weaknesses."
This really aroused in me that indignation which sometimes renders me
almost terrible; but his fixed and glittering gaze seemed to hold me
back from making the protest which rose to my lips.
"Permit me, Sir," said he, "to offer you a cigar."
It was a strong-looking weed; but although I am not a smoker, I took and
lighted it. He resumed his attention to his bottle and paper.
"Will you be so kind," said he, breaking silence, "as to read that item
as it appears to you?"
"'Federal Improvement Company,'" I read. "'Organized under the laws of
New Jersey, on January 4th, with a capital of $1,000,000. Charter powers
very broad, taking in almost every field of business. The incorporators
are understood to be New York men.'"
"'Imp,'" said he, "isn't it? not 'Improvement.'"
"I take it, sir," said I, "that the omission of the period is a
printer's error, and that i-m-p means Improvement.'"
He leaned forward, grasped my wrist and peered like a hypnotist into my
face.
"Just as badly mistaken," said he, "as if you had lost--as could be! It
means 'Imp' just as it says 'Imp.' Have another drink!"
This time I really did not feel free to refuse him. He seemed greatly
pleased at my tasting.
"Sit still," said he, "and I'll tell you the condemdest story you ever
heard. That corporation means that we are now entering a governmental
and sociological area of low pressure that will make the French
Revolution look like a cipher with the rim rubbed out. In the end you'll
be apt to have clearer views as to whether or not 'i-m-p' spells
improvement'!"
This he seemed to consider a very clever play upon words, and he sat for
some time, laughing in the manner adopted by the stage villain in his
moments of solitude. His Mephistophelean behavior, or something, made me
giddy. His manner was quite calm, however, and after a while we lapsed
back into the commonplace.
"Ever read a story," said he, "named _The Bottle Imp_?"
"Stevenson's _Bottle Imp_?" I exclaimed, glad to find a topic of common
interest, and feeling that it could not be a dangerous thing to be shut
into the same smoking compartment with any man who loved such things, no
matter how Captain-Kiddish he might appear. "Why, yes, I have often read
it. I am a teacher of literature and an admirer of Stevenson. He
possesses--"
"Who? Adlai?" he said. "Did he ever have it?"
"I mean Robert Louis," said I. "He wrote it, you know."
"Oh!" said my companion meditatively, "he did, did he? Wrote it, eh?
It's as likely as not he did--I know _Adlai_. Met him once, when I was
putting a bill through down at Springfield: nice man! Well about this
Bottle Imp. You know the story tells how he was shut up in a bottle--the
Imp was--and whoever owned it could have anything he ordered, just like
the fellow with the lamp--"
"Except long life!" said I, venturing to interrupt.
"Of course, not that!" replied my strange traveling companion. "If the
thing had been used to prolong life, where would the Imp come in? His
side of the deal was to get a soul to torture. He couldn't be asked to
give 'em length of days, you understand. It couldn't be expected."
I had to admit that, from the Imp's standpoint, there was much force in
this remark.
"And that other clause in the contract that the owner could sell it," he
went on. "That had to be in, or the Imp never could have found a man
sucker enough to take the Bottle in the first place."
The cases of Faust, and the man who had the Wild Ass's Skin seemed to me
authorities against this statement; but I allowed the error to pass
uncorrected.
"On the other hand," he went on, "it was nothing more than fair to have
that other clause in, providing that every seller must take less for it
than he gave. Otherwise they'd have kept transferring it just before the
owner croaked, and the Imp would never have got his victim. But with
that rule in force the price just had to get down so low sometime that
it couldn't get any lower, and the Imp would get his _quid pro quo_."
"You speak," said I indignantly, for it horrified me to hear the loss of
a soul spoken of in this light manner; "you speak like a veritable
devil's advocate!"
"When I've finished telling you of this Federal Imp Company that's just
been chartered," said he, "you'll have to admit that there's at least
one devil that's in need of the best advocate that money'll hire!"
Here he gave one of his sardonic chuckles, long-continued and rumbling,
and peered into the bottle of cocktails, as if the prospective client of
the advocate referred to had been confined there.
"When it doesn't cost anything," he added, "there's no harm in being
fair, even with an Imp."
I failed to come to the defense of my position, and he went on.
"Well," said he, "do you remember the Bottle Imp's history that this man
Stevenson gives us? Cæsar had it once, and wished himself clear up to
the head of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne, Napoleon, and a good many of
the fellows who had everything coming their way, owed their successes to
the Bottle Imp, and their failures to selling out too soon: got scared
when they got a headache, or on the eve of battle, or something like
that. It was owned in South Africa, and Barney Barnato and Cecil Rhodes
both had it. That accounts for the way _they_ got up in the world. Then
the Bottle and Imp went to the Nob Hill millionaire who bought it for
eighty dollars and sold it to Keawe the Kanaka for fifty. The price was
getting dangerously low, now, and Keawe was mighty glad when he had
wished himself into a fortune and got rid of the thing. Then, just as he
was about to get married, he discovered that he had leprosy, hunted up
the Bottle, which he found in the possession of a fellow who had all
colors of money and insomnia, both of which he had acquired by
purchasing the Bottle Imp for two cents, you remember, and was out
looking for a transferee, and about on the verge of nervous prostration
because he couldn't find one,--not at that price! Keawe became so
desperate from the danger of going to the leper colony and the loss of
his sweetheart, that he bought the Bottle for a cent, in the face of the
fact that, so far as he knew, a cent was the smallest coin in the world,
and the bargain, accordingly, cinched him as the Imp's peculiar
property, for all eternity. I'll be--hanged--if I know whether to
despise him for his foolishness or to admire him for his sand!"
"You recall," said I, "that his wife directed his attention to the
_centime_--"
"Yes," said he, "she put him on. And they threw away one transfer by
placing it on the market at four _centimes_. They might just as well
have started it at five."
"I don't see that," said I.
"Because you haven't figured on it," said he. "You haven't been
circulating in Imp circles lately, as I have, where these things are
discussed. Listen! A _centime_ is the hundredth part of a franc, and a
franc is about nineteen cents. A cent, therefore, is a fraction more
than five _centimes_. But they started it at four, the chocolate-colored
idiots, after getting rid of their leprosy! When I think how that Bottle
Imp has been mismanaged, I am driven--"
He illustrated that to which he was driven, by a gesture with the bottle
on the table. He coughed, and took up his _résumé_ of the story.
"Let that pass. They put it up at four _centimes_, and without Keawe's
knowledge that she had anything to do with it, Keawe's wife got an old
man to buy it, and she took it off his hands at three. The Kanaka soon
found out that he was now carrying his eternal damnation in his wife's
name, and he procured an old skipper or mate, or some such fellow in a
state of intoxication, to buy it of her for two, on the agreement that
he would take it again for one. Here they were, frittering away untold
fortunes, each trying to go to perdition to save the other--it makes me
tired! But the old bos'n or whatever he was, said he was going, you know
where, anyhow, and figured that the Bottle was a good thing to take with
him, and kept it. And there's where the Kanakas got out of a mighty
tight place--"
"And the Bottle disappeared and passed into history!" I broke in. I was
really absorbed in the conversation, in spite of a slight vertigo, now
that we had got into the field of literature where I felt at home.
"Passed into--nothing!" he snorted. "Passed into the state of being the
Whole Thing! Became It! Went on the road to the possession of the
Federal Imp Company as the sole asset of the corporation. Folks'll see
now pretty quick, whether it passed into history or not! Yes, I should
say so!"
"Who's got it now?" I whispered. I was so excited that I found myself
sitting across the table, and us mingling our breaths like true
conspirators. He had a good working majority in the breaths, however.
"Who's the Charlemagne, the J. Cæsar, the Napoleon of the present day?"
he whispered in reply, after looking furtively over his shoulder. "It
don't need a Sherlock Holmes to tell that, does it?"
"Not," said I, "not J. P.--"
"No," said he, "It's John D.--"
But before he finished the name he crept to the door and peered down the
aisle, and then whispered it in my ear so sibilantly that I felt for a
minute as I used to do when I got water in my ear when swimming. But I
noticed it very little in my astonishment at the fact he had imparted to
me. I felt that I was pale. He rose again and prowled about as if for
eavesdroppers. I felt myself a Guy Fawkes, an Aaron Burr, an--well,
anything covert and dangerous.
"He bought this Bottle Imp," my companion went on, resuming his seat,
"of the old sailing-master, or whatever he was--the man with the
downward tendency and the jag. What J. D. wanted was power, just as
Cæsar and Napoleon wanted it in their times. But the same kind of power
wouldn't do. Armies were the tools of nations then; now they are the
playthings. Now nations are the tools of money, and wealth runs the
machine. This emperor of ours chose between having the colors dip as he
went by, and owning the fellows that made 'em dip. He gave the
grand-stand the go-by, and took the job of being the one to pull the
string that turned on the current that moved the ruling force that
controlled the power back of the power behind the throne. D'ye
understand?"
"It's a little complex," said I, "the way you state it, but--"
"It'll all be clear in the morning," he said. "Anyway, that's what he
chose. And what is he? The Emperor of Coin. He was a modest business man
a few years ago. Suddenly the wealth of a continent began flowing into
his control. It rolled in and rolled in, every coin making him stronger
and stronger, until now the business of the world takes out insurance
policies on his life and scans the reports of his health as if the very
basis of society were John D. You-Know-Who. Emperors court his favor,
and the financial world shakes when he walks. You don't think for a
minute that this could be done by any natural means, do you?"
"But the price of the bottle was one _centime_!" said I, my altruism
coming uppermost once more. "One _centime_: and he is no longer young!"
"Exactly," he answered, "and he's got to sell it, or go to--Well, he's
just about got to sell it!"
"But how?" I queried. "What coin is there smaller than a _centime_--what
he paid?"
"All been figured out," said he airily. "Who solved the puzzle I don't
know; but I guess it was Senator Depew. Know what a mill is?"
"A mill? Yes," said I. "A factory? A pugilistic encounter? A money of
account?"
"Yes," said he, "a 'money of account.' Never coined. One-tenth of a
cent. _One-half a centime!_ Have you heard of Senator Aldrich's currency
bill, S. F. 41144? It's got a clause in it providing for the coinage of
the mill. And there's where I come in. I'm an unelected
legislator--third house, you know. Let the constructive statesman bring
in their little bills. I'm satisfied to put 'em through! S. F. 41144 is
going to be put through, and old J. D.'ll sell his Bottle, Imp and all.
Price, one mill. When this grip epidemic started in, he got a touch of
it, and I'll state that a sick man feels a little nervous with that Imp
in stock. So they wired for me. It's going to be a fight all right!"
"Why, who will oppose the bill?" said I. "No one will know its object."
"Lots of folks will oppose it," said he. "Every association of clergymen
in the country is liable to turn up fighting it tooth and nail. There
are too many small coins now for the interests of the people who depend
on contribution boxes. The Sunday-schools will all be against it. And
the street-car companies won't want the cent subdivided. Then it'll be
hard to convince Joe Cannon; he's always looking for a nigger in the
fence, and there _is_ one here, you understand. But the mill's going to
be coined, all the same!"
"But," said I, "who will buy the diabolical thing for a mill? If Keawe
and his wife had such trouble selling it for a _centime_, it will be
impossible to dispose of it for a mill, absolutely impossible! It's the
irreducible minimum!"
"I take it, Sir," said he, with a recurrence of the capital S, "that you
are not engaged in what Senator Lodge in our conference last night
called 'hot finance'?"
"No," I admitted, for in spite of the orthoëpic error, I understood him.
"No, I am not--exactly."
"I inferred as much from your remark," said he. "When there's anything
to be done, too large for individual power, or dangerous in its nature,
or, let us say, repugnant to some back-number criminal law, or, as in
this case, dangerous to the individual's soul's salvation, what do you
do? Why you organize a corporation, if you know your business, and turn
the whole thing over to it--and there you are. The Federal Imp Company
will take over the Bottle Imp at the price of one mill. Mr. R. won't own
it any more. His stock will be non-assessable, and all paid up by the
transfer of the Imp, and there can't be any liability on it. He can
retain control of it if he wants to--and you notice he generally wants
to, and can laugh in the Imp's face. We've got all kinds of legal
opinions on _that_. And whoever controls that company will rule the
world. That Imp is the greatest corporate asset that ever existed. All
that's needed is for the president of the corporation to wish for
anything, or the board of directors to pass a resolution, and the thing
asked for comes a-running. The railways, steamships, banks, factories,
lands--everything worth having--are just as good as taken over.
"Why it's the Universal Merger, the Trust of Trusts! The stock-holders of
the Federal Imp Company will be the ruling class of the world, a
perpetual aristocracy; and the man with fifty-one per cent. of the
stock, or proxies for it, will be Emperor, Czar, Kaiser, Everything!"
"But this is stupendous!" I exclaimed: for, being a student of political
economy--"economics," they call it now--I at once perceived the
significance of his statements. "This is terrible! It is revolution! It
is the end of democracy! Can't it be stopped?"
"M'h'm," said he quietly, evidently assenting to my rather excited
statement; and then in reply to my question, he added with another
chuckle, "Stop nothing! Federal injunction won't do it: presidential
veto won't do it: nor calling out the militia: nor anything else. For
the Imp controls the courts, the president, _and_ the army; and J. D. R.
runs the Imp--fifty-one per cent. of the Imp stock! The socialists will
go out campaigning in favor of the government's taking over the Federal
Imp Company, but the Imp controls the government--and the socialists,
too, when you come down to brass nails. Oh, it's a cinch, a timelock,
leadpipe cinch! The stuff's off with everybody else, if we can get this
bill through!"
I was shocked into something like a cataleptic state, and sat dazed for
a while. Either this or the strong cigar, or something, so affected me
that, as he passed the flask to me for the fourth time, the smoking
compartment seemed to swim about me as the train rolled thunderously
onward through the night. To steady myself I gazed fixedly at my
extraordinary fellow traveler as he sat, his now well-nigh empty bottle
before him, peering into it from time to time as if for some potent
servant of his own. Suddenly he leaned back and laughed more
diabolically than ever.
"Ha, ha, ha!" he roared. "You ought to have been with us last night in
his library! Aldrich and Depew and some of the others were there, and we
were checking over our list of sure votes in the House. The old man had
the grip, as I said a while ago, and privately, I'll state I think he's
scared stiff; for every fifteen minutes we got a bulletin from his
doctors and messages from him to rush S. F. 41144 to its passage,
regardless, or he'd accept a bid he'd got for the Bottle Imp from Sir
Thomas Lipton, who wants it for some crazy scheme regarding lifting the
Cup. All the while, there stood the Bottle with the Imp in it. When the
grip news was coming in there was nothing doing with his Impship. But
whenever we began discussing his transfer to the Company, the way
business picked up in that bottle was a caution! Why, you could hear
him stabbing the stopper with his tail, and grinding his horns against
the sides of the bottle, and fighting like a weasel in a trap, in such a
rage that the Bottle glowed like a red-hot iron. It was shameful! One of
the lawyers took the horrors, and had to be taken home in a
carriage--threw a conniption fit every block! Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!
Oh! it was great stuff!"
"I don't see--" I began.
"No? Don't you?" he queried, between the satanic chuckles. "Well, by
George, the Imp saw, all right! He saw that modern financial ingenuity
has found a way to flimflam the devil himself. He saw, Sir (here his
voice assumed an oratorical orotund, and the capital S came in again),
that our corporation lawyers have found a spoon long enough so that we
can safely sup with Satan! Why, let me ask you once, what did the Imp go
into the Bottle deal for in the first place? To get the aforesaid soul.
You can see how he'd feel, now that the price is down to the last notch
but one, to have it sold to a corporation, with no more soul than a
rabbit! If--that--don't beat the--the devil, what does?"
It all dawned upon me now. The reasonableness of the entire story
appealed to me. I reached for the paper. There it was: "Federal Imp
Company: Charter powers very broad, taking in almost the entire field of
business." I looked at the lobbyist. He had dropped asleep with his head
on the table beside the empty cocktail bottle. Again things seemed to
swim, and I lapsed into a state of something like coma, from which I was
aroused by some one shaking me by the shoulder.
"Berth's ready, suh," said the porter, and passed to my companion.
"Hyah's Devil's Gulch Sidin', suh," said he, rousing the slumbering
lobbyist. "You get off, hyah, suh!"
He passed out of the door with a Chesterfieldian bow and good night. I
passed a sleepless and anxious night. The shock, or something, made me
quite ill. I have not yet recovered my peace of mind. An effort which I
made to place the matter before Doctor Byproduct, the president of the
university of which I am an alumnus, led to such a stern reproof that I
was forced to subside. The doctor said that the story was a libel upon a
great and good man who had partially promised the university an
endowment of ten millions of dollars. I am ready, however, to appear
before any congressional committee which may be appointed to investigate
the matter, or before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and to testify
to the facts as above written, if it costs me my career.
* * * * *
"By gad, sir!" shouted the Colonel, breaking a long silence. "That
infernal scheme would work!"
The party went one by one to their tents. Soon no one but the Colonel
and the Hired Man were left.
"It sounds to me," remarked the Hired Man oracularly.