dropping the three cubes into his pocket. “We owe all of our hard
luck, excepting the blown-up boiler, which may have been due to its
own rottenness, to the C. C. & I., with Thaxter pulling the strings
and Sawyer doing the actual dirty work. Isn’t that the way you have it
figured out?”
“That’s about the way it _ort_ to stack up,” said the foreman. “But
somehow it don’t gee all the way ’round. You’d say it’s mighty near
a dead cinch that Sawyer was the one that doped the drill-hole with
these here slow-’em-downs; but right there the vein pinches out. Them
two times that the walkin’-beam fell down, Sawyer was the man that
stood the best chance o’ gettin’ his head bu’sted. Then you an’ Mr.
Carfax both saw the man that put the dannymite into the old b’iler, an’
I hain’t heerd neither one of you a-sayin’ it was Sawyer. You’d ’a’
knowed him, wouldn’t you?”
“It wasn’t Sawyer,” said Tregarvon definitively. “Sawyer has a beard,
and that man was smooth-faced.”
“Jes’ so,” nodded the foreman. Then he drew his own conclusion. “I been
knowin’ the C. C. & I. crowd, off an’ on, ever sence they took holt
here in the Wehatchee. I reckon they’d rough-house you in a holy minute
if they thought that was the easiest way to get the best o’ you in some
business fight. I wouldn’t even put the dannymitin’ a-past ’em. But
they wouldn’t go at it in no such a bunglesome way; n’r they wouldn’t
put skulls in your fire-box, n’r any such fool monkeyshines as that.
Them things don’t fit in.”
Again Tregarvon bestowed the meed of praise where praise was due.
“Tryon, you have a pretty level head. I am beginning to suspect that
we made a mistake in not calling you in as chief detective in this
muddle. But you still think that Thaxter and Sawyer worked the
drill-dulling scheme, don’t you?”
“Ez I say, that part of it proves up toler’ble plain. If there was
ar’ reason, now, why they’d want to be holdin’ you back for a little
spell----”
“There is a reason. They are trying to buy me out.”
“Now you’re talkin’!” said the foreman sagely. “Maybe you’ve got coal
here under your feet, ’r maybe you hain’t. _You_ don’t know, yet, an’
maybe _they_ don’t know. But they’d just as soon you wouldn’t find out
for sure whilst the dickerin’ ’s goin’ on. They’d like as not call it
‘good business’ to hold you up for a spell, wouldn’t they?”
“Quite likely,” Tregarvon was glancing at his watch. The call upon
Hartridge had now become a necessity, if only for apologetic and
explanatory reasons. True, it was still possible that the professor
had been in collusion with the planter of steel cubes on the night
of surprises, but these later developments seemed to exonerate him
handsomely. “I must go,” he told the foreman. “Rucker will relieve you
here in time for you to go to your supper. If Sawyer should happen to
turn up, just keep your own counsel about what we have discovered.
We’ll deal with him--and his bosses--when the time comes.”
A few minutes beyond this, Tregarvon was at Highmount, inquiring for
Professor Hartridge. The young woman who answered his ring told him
that the professor had gone over to the McNabb neighborhood to see a
sick child. Not wishing to let his opportunity escape, Tregarvon set
out to walk through the forest, taking a path leading in the general
direction of the sunken mountain-top valley known locally as the
“Pocket”; this on the chance of meeting Hartridge and walking back to
the school with him.
Now it so chanced that Tregarvon had never visited the “Pocket,”
and though he knew, from Carfax’s description of the locality, that
it could not be more than a mile or two beyond Highmount, he was
not aware that the path he had chosen was not the right one. Having
plenty of other things to think about, he paid little attention to his
surroundings until, at the end of a half-hour, he found that the path,
which had been growing indistinct, had disappeared entirely, leaving
him in a region of deep ravines with their slopes heavily wooded;
hollows boulder-strewn, in which the old-growth timber stood thickly,
with only a fallen and rotting trunk here and there to show where the
tan-bark gatherers had slain some monarch of the forest for the paltry
stripping of its outer skin--mute testimony to the waste of a nation.
It was not until after he had covered distance enough, as he
thought, to have taken him all the way across from Highmount to the
western brow of the mountain, that he saw a man--whom he took to be
Hartridge--sitting upon a flat stone in the shadow of a great boulder
on the opposite side of a small mountain brook. Just as he was about
to call out and make his presence known, the man sprang to his feet
suddenly, as if in alarm, and whipped a weapon from his pocket.
Obeying the instinct of self-preservation in pure automatism, Tregarvon
dropped silently behind the nearest boulder on his own side of the
stream. When he looked again he saw that the man was not Hartridge;
he was a much younger man; a handsome young fellow, well-built and
athletic-looking, with nothing in his appearance to connect him with
the mountain and its natives. The attitude of strained anxiety into
which the quick leap afoot had thrown him lasted only for a moment.
While Tregarvon looked, a warbling bird whistle rose shrill and clear
on the windless air. The watcher saw the young man hastily pocket the
pistol and heard him whistle a reply. Almost at the same instant the
figure of a woman appeared at the buried up-hill heel of the great
boulder. She stood for a moment in the yellow light of the westering
sun, long enough for Tregarvon to recognize her beyond any question
of doubt. Then she ran, slipping and sliding, down the leaf-carpeted
hazard slope, to be caught in the arms of the waiting man.
For a little time Tregarvon sat with his back to the sheltering
boulder, trying to surround this latest and newest development in the
maze of mysteries. Slowly it came to him that this was the explanation
of Richardia’s attitude; the reason why she had slipped aside, masking
the true state of affairs and rebuffing him by seeming to accept the
attentions of Carfax. One by one the corroborative inferences fell into
place, each fitting with exact nicety: Richardia’s piquant reticences;
her half-confidences which had always stopped short of revealment;
her little flights to the shelter of detachment whenever the talk
threatened to lean toward sentiment; all these were signs which might
have been read--which were plainly readable now in the light of the
small tableau staging itself in the shadow of the great rock on the
opposite hillside.
Tregarvon peeped again. It was most obviously a lovers’ meeting.
The young man had drawn the judge’s daughter to a seat beside him
on the flat stone, and he still had his arm about her. They were
talking eagerly in low tones; Tregarvon could hear only a murmur of
voices, but Richardia’s face was toward him, and in it he re-read his
complete effacement. In a series of revealing flashes more of the
corroborative fragments whisked into place; he had been blind not to
see the pointing of certain playful allusions made now and then at the
Caswells’ dinner-table and aimed at the music teacher. Doubtless, to
the small world of the mountain top, these Sunday-afternoon trysts in
the forest were an old story. But why were they clandestine? The answer
fitted itself promptly. By all accounts Judge Birrell was a person of
shrewd prejudices; quite possibly he disapproved of this young man who
had stolen his daughter’s heart; and perhaps the disapproval was not
entirely without reason. Tregarvon recalled the signs of perturbation
and the sudden pistol drawing which had preceded Richardia’s appearance.
In deference to a prompting which took its color more from complete
and hopeless chagrin than from any charitable scruples, Tregarvon
squared his back against the concealing boulder and refused to look
any more. While the pair across the streamlet kept their places, it
was impossible for him to retreat undiscovered. The waiting interval
was not unduly long. When he could no longer distinguish the murmur of
voices he ventured to peep again. The flat-stone seat was empty and
they were gone.
The sun had dropped behind the mountain, and Tregarvon was tramping
soberly through the lengthening wood shadows toward Highmount, when the
frock-coated figure of the professor of mathematics loomed suddenly in
the path ahead. At Tregarvon’s call, Hartridge stopped and waited.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” said the schoolmaster, with his genial
smile. “Are you walking my way?”
“Very pointedly,” said Tregarvon. “They told me at the college that
you had gone to one of the McNabbs’, and I came out on the chance of
meeting you.”
“That was neighborly, I’m sure,” returned the master of arts, catching
the step. “Am I to infer that you are going to let me be of some
service to you?”
Tregarvon’s laugh was a trifle strained. “It’s a little that way,” he
confessed. “But first I wish to say that I believe we have been doing
you an injustice--Carfax and I.”
“About the small cube of the metal known commercially as steel?” was
the gentle inquiry.
“Precisely. I’m sorry we were not broad-minded enough to take your word
in explanation.”
“Then you have discovered the real culprit?”
For answer Tregarvon briefed the story of Tryon’s findings.
“Ah!” said the listener; “then my own impression wasn’t at fault, after
all. I saw the man under the drill derrick: I thought it was Sawyer,
but I couldn’t be certain. I assume you don’t need to be told why he
did it, or who bribed him to do it?”
“No. For some reason best known to themselves, the C. C. & I. people do
not wish me to drill that test-hole in the old burying-ground. Do you
know the reason, Professor Hartridge?”
It was too nearly dark for Tregarvon to see the quizzical smile which
this query evoked, but he knew it was there.
“You are asking me as man to man, Mr. Tregarvon?”
“I am--just that. I have been condemning you unjustly, and you now have
a most excellent chance to heap coals of fire upon my head.”
“You are making it impossible for me to hold malice,” was the genial
response. “I wish I could answer your question definitely; but I
cannot. I do _not_ know why Thaxter should wish to prevent you from
drilling that particular test-hole.”
“You mean that I am not going to find the paying vein of coal under the
old burying-ground?”
“I am practically certain that you are not.”
“Would you mind giving me your reasons?”
“They are geological--and conclusive. The strata under the glade are
precisely the same as those occurring at your tramhead. Moreover, if
you will take the trouble to examine the ground at the foot of the
cliff below your present location you will find the coal outcrop: a
single vein, not over twenty inches thick. A little lower down you will
find another, still thinner.”
Tregarvon laughed mirthlessly. “I asked you for bread, and you have
given me a stone,” he protested. “Am I to assume that Consolidated Coal
is better informed than you are, professor?”
Hartridge’s reply was guarded. “No man is infallible, Mr. Tregarvon. I
speak only of the things I know.”
“Then there is a chance that, in spite of your geological deduction,
Thaxter and the men he represents have more accurate data?”
This time the professor’s rejoinder was fairly cryptic. “The earth
holds many secrets. During the long interval in which the Ocoee
properties were allowed to lie idle and uncared for, it was anybody’s
privilege to investigate them. I am violating no confidence in saying
that the people who are now trying to induce you to sell have made a
number of surveys. They probably know your ground foot by foot.”
Once more Tregarvon found himself confronted by the dead wall of
Hartridge’s reservations. That the professor was making reservations
he did not doubt for an instant. There was still some bar to perfect
frankness, and he seemed powerless to break it down. In sheer
desperation he shunted the talk to the field of the obstacles.
“It seems to be conclusively proved that the drill-dulling is
chargeable to Thaxter, acting through the man Sawyer,” he said. “But
Tryon refuses to believe that the other harassings have been inspired
by the trust.”
They had reached the Highmount boundary, and Hartridge paused with his
hand on the gate latch.
“I am entirely at one with your foreman in that belief, Mr. Tregarvon,”
he rejoined. “Now that we are again upon amicable terms, I may
confess that I have been greatly interested in the problem which
these harassments have presented--the solving of problems being one
of my small recreations. Did you leave an enemy at home who would be
vindictive enough to follow you here?”
Tregarvon shook his head. “So far as I know, I hadn’t an enemy in the
wide world when I came here.”
“Then you have developed one _in situ_, as it were, and a very
unscrupulous one. Have you formed any theory of your own?”
“None that is worth considering. At first, I suspected the McNabbs,
fancying that their enmity might be a holdover on account of the old
lawsuit about the land titles. That was before I knew that I had two of
them working for me in the drill-gang. Later--I am ashamed to confess
it--I thought that possibly Judge Birrell might have passed the word
that I was to be driven out. That was a pure absurdity, of course.”
“Quite so,” said the professor. “The judge is entirely incapable of
doing such a thing, bitter as some of his prejudices are. It need not
be denied that he was prejudiced against you at first. One evening,
when he was driving with his daughter, he visited your drilling plant
and was greatly incensed at finding it in the old Westwood slave
burying-ground. But now you and Mr. Carfax have met him and have eaten
at his table, and this, to a man of his characteristics, salves all
wounds. Besides, as a matter of fact, you owe the help which enabled
you to place your new power-plant directly to the judge. It was he who
sent word to the mountain-folk to turn out with their teams.”
“You surprise me!” said Tregarvon. “How did he know?”
Hartridge smiled amiably. “You are not wholly in Mr. Carfax’s
confidence, it would seem. On the evening when you had the trouble with
the valley farmers, he and Miss Richardia drove over to Westwood House
in your car while we waited dinner for them here at the school. And the
next morning, presto! you had your help.”
“You are guessing at this?”
“Not wholly. I have just been to the ‘Pocket’ to see Sill McNabb’s
little daughter, who is sick--doctoring people being another of my
small recreations. When I pressed him, Sill told me that the order to
help you came from Judge Birrell, and that it was put upon the score of
common neighborliness.”
“But the idea of helping me originated with the judge’s daughter,”
Tregarvon put in soberly. “Why should she wish to return good for evil,
Professor Hartridge?”
This time Hartridge’s smile was less amiable.
“Miss Richardia’s motives are not to be questioned by either of us,
Mr. Tregarvon. But why should you call her interest in your affair
returning good for evil?”
Tregarvon fought away from the edge of the pit into which his
incorrigible ingenuousness was about to precipitate him.
“Oh, there isn’t any reason why she should consider me. Within the past
hour I have had the best possible proof of that.”
Hartridge was silent for a moment. Then he said: “Mr. Tregarvon, I
trust you are a gentleman in all that the much-misused word implies.”
“A man may hardly assert that of himself,” was the quick retort. “But
why?”
“What you have just said implies a knowledge of a secret which has been
most carefully guarded by Miss Richardia’s friends. I am not in her
confidence, but I shall take it upon myself to say that whatever she
does is right.”
“Who is the man?” Tregarvon asked bluntly.
“That is a question which Miss Richardia herself will doubtless answer
at the proper time. Until she chooses to answer it, neither you nor I
have any right to ask it.”
Tregarvon was turning away to continue his walk to Coalville. But at
the leave-taking instant he faced about for a final word.
“Has it ever occurred to you, Professor Hartridge, that this is a hell
of a world?” he asked gloomily.
“It has--many times. Won’t you stop and take pot-luck with us at the
faculty table? No? Then I wish you a pleasant walk to the valley. Good
night.”
XXV
The Mangling of Poictiers
Upon leaving Highmount, Tregarvon took the short-cut path down the
mountain, and was only a few minutes late for the dinner for two served
by Uncle William in the office dining-room at Coalville. Though he had
plenty of thought material of his own to work upon, he could hardly
help observing that Carfax ate abstractedly and was unusually silent.
While the old negro was coming and going, the talk, what little there
was of it, touched lightly upon the visit to Westwood House; but after
the table was cleared Carfax got up to stand with his back to the open
fire and the commonplaces were thrust aside.
“When is it to be?” he asked abruptly.
Tregarvon, who was still dallying with the black coffee, looked up with
a crooked smile.
“When is what to be?” he asked.
“You know what I mean. We gave you your chance with Elizabeth--Miss
Richardia and I. I hope you’re not going to tell me that you flunked
it.”
The wry smile broke into a short laugh. “Oh, no; I didn’t flunk it. But
it’s all over, Poictiers. I’m down and out.”
Carfax was trying to light a cigarette, but the match went black and he
did not seem to realize that he had no fire.
“So your crime has found you out, has it?” he said, and the gentle tone
seemed to accentuate rather than to soften the accusing assumption.
Tregarvon shook his head. “It was the other way about. Elizabeth came
down here for the express purpose of asking my permission to fall in
love with some other fellow--no names named.”
“_Wh-what!_”
“It is even so.”
“And--and you believed her? You didn’t have sense enough in that thick
head of yours to know that she was merely trying to save your face?”
“Oh, no; you’re off on the wrong foot altogether. She didn’t get that
letter I wrote her from Chattanooga, and she hadn’t given me a chance
to tell her about Richardia. It was perfectly straight. She has simply
found the other man--the right man--and she is honest enough to say so.”
“Do you mean to say that you didn’t tell her anything about your
crookedness down here?”
“Oh, yes; we talked about that later on, though, again, there were no
names named. She jumped to the conclusion that my ‘crookedness’, as you
call it, was with one of the pretty undergraduates at Highmount, and
I let it go at that. There was no use of making a bad matter worse by
dragging Richardia’s name into it.”
Carfax took a pacing turn up and down the room, broke it to go and
stand for a full minute staring out of a window at Uncle William’s
cook-house, and then faced about to say, almost pleadingly: “You are
_sure_ she meant it, Vance?”
“Of course she meant it. She wouldn’t tell me much about the other
fellow, except to say that it was some one whom I knew, and who was too
decent to try to break in while our engagement still held good.”
“And she--she really would give the--the other fellow a chance, if--if
he had the nerve to ask for it?”
“It would be something better than ‘a chance’, I should say.”
Again Carfax took a pacing turn, coming back from it to drop into the
chair opposite Tregarvon.
“Vance, _I_ am the ‘other fellow,’” he said softly. “You didn’t
suspect it, did you? It began last summer when we were at Lake Placid
together. I thought it was all on my side of the house; I didn’t dream
that she wasn’t in love with you in the--in the way she ought to have
been. But----”
The interruption was the entrance of a softly padding Uncle William,
bearing a neatly tied packet of letters.
“Dey’s for dat lily-white missy fr’m de Norf what’s staying with Miss
Dick up at de ol’ place,” he explained. “Mistoo Tait, he brung ’em
over, an’ ast would you-all gemmen please to send ’em up when you had
de chanst.”
Tregarvon had found the wry smile again by the time the old negro had
shuffled away.
“I suppose I ought to congratulate you, Poictiers, but I can’t just
now; I’m too new a widower. You’ll have to hug your happiness alone for
the present. You’ll excuse me, won’t you? But, see here--how about this
little side-play with Richardia? You’re not going to be allowed to play
fast and loose with her--not while I’m here to prevent it.”
Carfax was absently fingering the packet of letters.
“Hold on, Vance,” he broke in, “you’ve been saying, all along, that
this last attack of yours--with Richardia--was the real thing; that
there was no sentiment between you and Elizabeth.”
“That’s all very well,” said the attacked one, in a fresh thrill of
self-pityings; “but I’m like the little kiddie who dropped his candy to
reach for another piece and lost both. Just the same, it seems that you
are due to get yours, too; you’ve proposed to one woman when you were
in love with another. What did Richardia say to you when you asked her
to marry you? That’s what I want to know now.”
The cherubic smile which was waiting for its chance in Carfax’s eyes
turned slowly into an impish grin.
“As nearly as I can recall it, she said: ‘Most certainly not. Why
should I?’ Of course, you have guessed that I asked her merely to give
you a chance to be decently loyal to Elizabeth. Miss Richardia took it
as it was meant, and we have been very good friends, playing the game
at odd moments for your benefit when you seemed to be needing a bit of
help.”
“Oh, yes; you were very kind; you are all very kind. But that doesn’t
mend any broken bridges for me now. Do you want me to tell you why
Richardia turned you and your ridiculous fortune down so easily? I can,
you know,” and with that he told the story of his chance surprising of
Miss Birrell’s secret.
Carfax heard him through patiently and did not seem unduly surprised at
the new development.
“That accounts for a good many things,” he commented. “I have had
a feeling for some time that Miss Richardia had something on her
mind--something not altogether joyous. Once or twice she has seemed on
the verge of confiding in me. It’s a case of the obdurate father, isn’t
it?”
“I suppose so; though Hartridge didn’t hint at anything of that sort.”
“So Hartridge knows, too, does he?”
“They all know at Highmount, I fancy. And that reminds me: I’ve done
it again--talked too much, as usual. I met Hartridge after I had seen
the pair of them together, and we spoke of the love affair. Hartridge
said it was Richardia’s secret, and that her friends had been carefully
keeping it for her. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“It is safe enough with me, as you ought to know: you will be the one
to go and tell it all over the lot,” was the unkind retort. And then:
“These letters of Elizabeth’s; she ought to have them, don’t you think?
Do you suppose I might----?”
Tregarvon waved him away.
“The letters will be all the excuse you will need for making two calls
in the same half-day. Take the car and go and do what you’re aching to
do. After you have sung your little song, you may give Elizabeth my
love and my blessing. No, don’t stop to talk any more; just make your
little bow and vanish, before I get to thinking too pointedly of all
the things you’ve done to me.”
Carfax took his cue promptly, and before Tregarvon had finished filling
his pipe the roar of the yellow car’s motor told him that the golden
youth had begun his flight to the mountain top. A short half-hour
later, at a second filling of the pipe, the motor roar was repeated,
and while the solitary smoker was wondering what had brought Carfax
back so soon, the dining-room door opened to admit Wilmerding.
“You are responsible,” said the young superintendent, explaining the
motor-car clamor. “You gave me the fever, flaunting that big yellow
devil of yours in my face, and I was obliged to go and buy. Want to
take a little spin in the new wagon to see how she handles?”
Tregarvon pushed a chair into the fire-warmed semicircle for his
visitor and shook his head.
“Some other time--if you’ll be good enough to let the invitation hang
over. To-night I’d rather sit here before the fire with you and have a
little heart-to-heart talk, Wilmerding. Will you indulge me?”
“Sure,” was the ready response. “The joy-ride can wait. Can you find me
another pipe?”