Fourteen days later found Ralph in the metropolis of the Pacific.
During the interim he had made the fifteen hundred miles swing around
the country as laid out by David Cranston, except that instead of
leaving the transcontinental train at Yewcroft and heading north for
Fort Edward, he had come through to the coast. Here he meant to
indulge himself in buying the gift for Nahnya. He had likewise
supplies to lay in for the journey back to her. All the days and
nights of the way out he had little to do but plan the details of the
return trip. By this time all the meagre details of the published maps
of that country were transferred to his brain.
Ralph's first act in town was to visit the government assay office.
His dust amounted to close on two thousand dollars. Thereafter in his
peregrinations through the streets a pair of sharp eyes followed his
every movement. When Ralph made purchases in a store the eyes affected
to be examining goods at a nearby counter; when he ate a meal in a
restaurant the eyes watched him over the top of a menu card from the
table behind; when he returned to the railway station and bought a
ticket for Yewcroft and a berth on next day's train, the eyes next in
line bought the same kind of ticket and booked a berth in the same car.
Not until they had satisfied themselves that Ralph was safe in his
hotel room for the night did the eyes relax their watch on him. Then
they looked for a taxi-cab. These eyes were what is known as mouse
colour, which is not the colour of any breed of mouse, but a kind of
yellowish gray. They were fixed in the head of a little nervous man
with a sickly complexion of a lighter yellowish gray; mouse-coloured
hair that stuck out in different directions, and a moustache to match,
with drooping ends, ragged from being gnawed.
He had himself carried in the taxicab to an imposing residence in the
west end of town. The name that he sent in was John Stack. After a
certain wait the owner of the residence received him in his library.
This was a Captain of Industry, rosy with fat living and nonchalant
with money.
"Well, Stack, what do you want at this time o' night?" he said with
good-natured insolence.
Stack's obsequiousness supplied the complement to his insolence. His
smile was painfully ingratiating. "I flushed a good lead to-day," he
said, with a queer imitation of the other's off-hand air.
"Heard that before," said the financier, attending to his nails.
"But I never started anything like this."
"What is it?"
"I've been watching the assay office," Stack said eagerly. "It was my
own idea. We all know there's plenty of gold waiting to be found up
North. Well, I haven't got the money to spend staking prospectors, and
in bribing and wheedling the miners. So I watch the assay office.
Everything that comes out is bound to go there."
"Well, what then?" asked the financier.
"No one knows the game better than me," Stack continued, with a little
red spot in either sickly cheek. "I'm acquainted with all the known
mines and diggings. I know all the old-timers in the field, and all
the agents here in town. To-day a new man came in with a sweet little
bag of dust. A youngster of twenty-five with the tan of high altitudes
still on his skin. He was green; didn't know where to go with his
dust. It was in a mooseskin bag, Indian made--nearly two thousand. He
hasn't a friend here. I haven't let him out of my sight!"
"Suppose he has something good up there, how do you expect to get in on
it? What do you want me to do?"
"Stake me to five hundred so I can follow him back to his claim," said
Stack breathlessly.
To his relief the other man did not flout him. "How do you know he's
going back?" he asked.
"He bought a folding canvas boat," said Stack eagerly; "a rifle, a
revolver, and a shelter tent. He took ticket and berth to Yewcroft on
to-morrow's train."
"H'm! What did he do with the two thousand?"
"Spent the whole of it on a necklace, an emerald pendant, the finest
stone in town."
"A woman in the case, eh? Ain't you afraid to risk your skin among
these rough guys?"
"He's a nice, decent young fellow," said Stack. "I'll make up to him.
We'll be good friends before we get to Fort Edward."
"What did you come to me for?" demanded the man of money with a steely
look.
The little man cringed and fawned. "You and me has turned more than
one trick together," he said in a scared and silky voice. "I've been
useful to you in the past. Now I got a chance to help myself. I
thought maybe----"
"What do you offer me?"
"Half. I take all the risk."
It never occurred to the guileless Ralph that any one in town had any
interest in his affairs. It is doubtful if during the whole of the two
days he spent there he ever looked behind him. Not until he took his
place in the stage at Yewcroft and sized up his fellow-passengers did
he observe the small, mouse-coloured man with the insinuating smile.
Ralph was not particularly impressed in his favour, but he had to have
some one to talk to on the four days' trip to Lecky's Creek. Of the
other passengers--a promoter and his flamboyant lady, another
splendidly attired lady travelling alone, a boastful tenderfoot, and an
alcoholic miner--none was at all to his taste.
At the first stopping-house the two gravitated together. Stack made it
easy to make friends. Ralph, overjoyed to be clear of the city and to
have his face at last turned north where his heart was, was suffering
for the lack of some one to unburden himself to. When the stage went
on Stack secured the place next to him.
"Fine country," he said.
It opened the floodgates. "Fine!" cried Ralph. "It's God's own
country! And the farther you get from the cities, the finer it
becomes! The air is purer and the people are honester! Up in the
woods a man faces facts. How any young fellow with blood in his veins
can be content to mess around in cities beats me!"
Stack encouraged him to talk himself out. Ralph's enthusiasm was
merely general. Stack, reflecting that he had plenty of time, made no
attempt to draw him. During the first day he avoided all reference to
what he desired to know.
On the second day Ralph began to squirm and fidget on his seat. "Lord!
what a tedious trip!" he complained. "You sit here till you lose the
use of your limbs! Give me a canoe!"
"You've made this trip before?" said Stack carelessly.
"I came in for the first at the beginning of May," Ralph said.
Stack thought: "Two thousand dollars in two months! What a strike!"
Aloud he said: "I suppose you're going to Fort Edward, like the rest of
us."
"That's my headquarters," said Ralph.
Stack talked wisely about the real-estate business in Fort Edward, in
which he designed to interest himself.
"Better leave it alone," said Ralph indifferently. "It's rotten!"
Stack insisted on the advantages of the city that was to be.
Ralph listened with growing impatience. "What do you want to make
another city for?" he demanded. "Aren't there enough cities fouling
the streams?"