In another hour the spot where the hotel had stood was marked only by a
shapeless mass of smoking embers.
The citizens of the town went back to their beds. Mrs. Gerry and her
children had recovered consciousness and had found a friendly lodging
for the night.
The rescue performed by Tom and Harry had been a simple enough
achievement.
Shut off from every other means of escape, they remembered the
dumbwaiter that ran from the kitchen up to the floors above.
The two little children were sent down on the dumb-waiter, Harry riding
on the top of the wooden frame. Mrs. Gerry's rescue was delayed until
Harry could send the dumb-waiter up to the third floor, where she and
Tom awaited its return. Aided by Tom, she descended to the kitchen
without accident; then Tom followed, sliding down the rope. It was but
the work of a moment to break through the basement window and pass the
woman and her children out to safety.
Morning found Proprietor Carter somewhat resigned to his loss. True,
the hotel had been destroyed and the embers must be removed, but both
building and contents had been fairly well insured.
“I'm a few thousand out,” said the hotel man philosophically, “but I
have my ground yet, and, the insurance money will allow me to rebuild.,
and put up a more modern hotel. Of course I'll be a few thousand dollars
in debt, to start with, but after a short while I'll have earned the
money that I've lost.”
“Why did you smile when poor Carter was talking about his loss?”
demanded Harry, as the chums strolled away in search of breakfast.
“Did I?” asked Tom, looking suddenly very, sober.
“There was a broad grin on your face?”
“Carter didn't see it, did he?”
“I don't know; but why, the grin, Tom?”
“I'll tell you after I see what answer I receive to a telegram that I've
sent.”
“Tom Reade, you always were provoking!”
“Now I'm doubly so, eh?”
“Oh, well, I don't care,” muttered Harry. “I can wait; I'm not very
nosey.”
By noon General Manager Ellsworth arrived on the scene of the labors of
the young engineers, out at the site of the big quicksand.
“You can run the work here this afternoon, Harry,” Tom declared. “I
shall want to put in my time with Mr. Ellsworth.”
“Was he the answer to your telegram?”
Tom offered no further information, but hurried away to meet the general
manager, who had come out to camp in an automobile hired at Paloma.
Manager and chief engineer now toured slowly toward town, Harry watching
them as long as they were in sight.
“Tom has something big in the wind,” muttered Hazelton. “It must be
something about the hotel fire. What can it be? At any rate, I'll wager
it's something that pleases my chum wonderfully.”
Nor did Tom return until late in the afternoon. He came back alone.
“Well?” demanded Harry.
“Yes,” nodded Tom. “It's well.”
“What is?”
“The game.”
“What is the game?”
“When you hear about it--” Reade began.
“Yes, yes--”
“Then you'll know.”
“Tom Reade, do you know, I believe I'm quite ready and willing to thrash
you?” cried Harry in exasperation.
“Please don't,” Tom begged.
“Then tell me what you've been so mightily mysterious about.”
“I will,” returned Reade. “I'd have told you hours ago, Harry, only I'm
afraid you would have been demoralized with disappointment if the thing
had failed to go through. Harry, to-day I've been meddling in other
people's business. Congratulate me! I put it through without getting
myself thumped or even disliked, by anyone. Both sides to the deal are
'tickled to death,' as the saying runs.”
“You said you were going to tell me,” remarked Hazelton, trying hard to
restrain his curiosity for a minute or two longer.
“Sit down and listen,” Tom urged his chum, handing him a chair in their
little shack of an office.
Then, indeed, Tom did pour forth the whole story. As Harry listened a
broad grin of contentment appeared on his face, for one of Hazelton's
lovable weaknesses was his desire to see other people get ahead.
Just as Tom finished, a figure darkened the doorway.
“I'm ready to go, sir,” announced Tim Griggs.
“Go where?” inquired Harry.
“I've fired Griggs,” observed Tom Reade.
“What! After all that he did for you the other night?” demanded
Hazelton, aghast. “After the man saved your--”
“Oh, I'm quite satisfied to be fired, Mr. Hazelton,” Tim Griggs broke
in. “In fact, I'm very grateful to Mr. Reade. He has certainly given me
a big boost forward in the world.”
“What are you going to do now, Griggs?” Harry asked.
“You'd better address him as 'Mr. Griggs,' Harry,” Tom hinted. “He is a
foreman now, at six dollars a day, and entitled to his Mister.”
“Foreman?” Harry repeated, while Gregg's grin broadened.
“Yes,” Tom continued. “Mr. Griggs is to be foreman on the new job that
I've just been telling you about in town. After this, if Mr. Griggs is
careful to behave himself, he's likely always to be a foreman on some
job or other for the A., G. & N. M.”
Harry sprang forward, seizing the hand of Tim Griggs and shaking it with
enthusiasm.
“Bully old Griggs! Lucky old Griggs!” Hazelton bubbled forth. “Mr.
Griggs, you'll believe from now on what I've always believed--that it's
a great piece of luck in itself to be one of Tom Reade's friends.”
“It surely has been great luck for me, sir,” Griggs answered. “The best
part of all,” he added, with a husky note in his voice, “is what it
means to that little girl of mine. When I get into town to-night I in
going to sit down and write that little daughter a long letter all about
the grand news. She'll be proud of her dad's good luck! She's only eight
years old, but she's a great little reader, and she writes me letters
longer than my own.”
“If you'll wait a minute, Mr. Griggs,” proposed Tom, “we'll be able to
give you a ride into town. The general manager gave me authority to rent
and use an automobile after this. It's out there waiting now.”
The new foreman gratefully accepted the invitation. Within five minutes
the chauffeur had stopped the car in Paloma and Tim Griggs got out to go
to his new boarding place in the town.
“God bless you, Mr. Reade!” he said huskily, holding out his band.
“You've done a lot for me--and my little girl!”
“No more than you've done for me,” smiled Tom. “Anyway, you haven't
received more than you deserve, and you never will in this little old
world of ours.”
“I don't know about that,” replied the new foreman, a sudden flush
rising to his weather-beaten face. “It all seems too good to be true.”
“You'll find it to be true enough when you draw your next pay, Griggs,”
laughed Tom. “Then you'll realize that you aren't dreaming. In the
meantime your dinner is getting cold at your boarding place. Don't let
your new job spoil your appetite.”
When Tom and Harry rode into town at noon the following day they beheld
a scene of great activity at the site of the destroyed Cactus House. All
the blackened debris had been carted away during the morning by a
large force of men. Now, derricks lay in place, to be erected in
the afternoon. A steam shovel had been all but installed and a large
stationary engine rested on nearly completed foundations.
George Ashby, proprietor of the Mansion House, who had dared, during the
last two days, to show himself a little more openly on the streets of
Paloma, halted just as Tom and Harry stepped out of the automobile to
look over the scene of Foreman Griggs's morning labors.
“Looks as if the Cactus House might be rebuilt,” remarked Ashby, burning
with curiosity.
“No,” said Tom briefly.
“Carter is going to change the name?” inquired Ashby.
“No. Carter doesn't own this land any more.”
“He doesn't own the land?” Ashby asked. “What's going to be put up here,
then? A business block?”
For a moment Ashby thrilled with joy. Of late the Cactus House had
seriously cut in on the profits of the Mansion House. Ashby had,
in fact, been running behind. Now, if the Mansion House were to be
henceforth the only hotel in town, Ashby saw a chance to prosper on a
more than comfortable scale.
“Ashby,” Tom went on, rather frigidly, “I won't waste many words, for
I'm afraid I don't like you well enough to talk very much to you. The
A., G. & N. M. has bought this land from Mr. Carter. The railroad is
going to erect here one of the finest hotels in this part of Arizona. It
will have every modern convenience, and will make your hotel look like a
mill boarding house by contrast. When the new hotel is completed it will
be leased to Mr. Carter. With his insurance money, and the price of
the land in bank, Carter will have capital for embarking in the hotel
business on a scale that will make this end of Arizona sit up and do
some hard looking.”
As he listened Proprietor Ashby's jaw dropped. His color came and went.
He swallowed hard, while his hands worked convulsively. With the fine
new hotel that was coming to Paloma the owner of the Mansion House saw
himself driven hopelessly into the background. “Reade, this new hotel
game is some of your doings,” growled the hotel man.
“I'm proud to say that it is partly my doing,” Tom admitted, with a
smile. “Harry, let's go along to the restaurant. I'm hungry.”
As the two young engineers stepped into the car and were driven away,
Ashby dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands.
“So I'm to be beaten out of the hotel game here, am I!” the hotel man
asked himself, gritting his teeth. “I'm to be driven out by Reade, the
fellow whom I once kicked out of my hotel! Oh--well, all right!”