|WEBSTER'S dreams of bliss had, with very slight variation, come true as
per schedule.
In Salt Lake City he abandoned the beefsteak on his damaged eye for two
businesslike leeches, which quickly reduced the nocturne effect around
his orb, enabling him, the third day, to saunter forth among his
fellowmen. By the end of the week he was a being reincarnated, and so he
packed a huge new wardrobe-trunk with his latest purchases and journeyed
on to Denver. Coincident with his arrival there, we again take up the
thread of our story.
One hour after his trunk arrived the gentleman from Death Valley might
have been observed standing before a cheval glass looking long and
earnestly at the reflection of his middle-aged person, the while he
marked the fit of his new raiment.
Let us describe these habiliments, alleging as an excuse for dwelling
with emphasis upon the subject the fact that John Stuart Webster was all
dressed up for the first time in three long, labour-ridden years, and
was tremendously glad of it. Hark to this inventory. There were the
silken hose and underwear next his well-scrubbed skin; then there was
the white pleated linen shirt--a shirt so expensive and exquisite that
Mr. Webster longed to go somewhere and shoot a game of billiards, in
order that thus he might have an excuse to remove his coat and exhibit
that shirt to the gaze of the multitude. His collar irked him slightly,
but he had been assured by the clerk who sold it to him “that it was
strictly in vogue.” His gray silk Ascot tie was held in a graceful puff
by a scarfpin with a head of perfect crystal prettily shot with virgin
gold; his black afternoon coat enveloped his wide shoulders and flanked
his powerful neck with the perfection of the epidermis on a goose in the
pink of condition; his gray striped trousers broke exactly right over
his new “patent leather” shoes. The _tout ensemble_, as the gentleman
himself might have expressed it had he possessed a working knowledge of
French (which he did not), was perfect.
He “shot” his cuffs and strutted backward and forward, striving to
observe his spinal column over his right shoulder, for he was in
a transport of delight as truly juvenile as that on the
never-to-be-forgotten day when he had attained to the dignity of his
first pair of long trousers. He observed to himself that it was truly
remarkable, the metamorphosis nine tailors and a talkative barber can
make in an old sour-dough.
Presently, convinced that he was the glass of fashion and the mould of
form, Mr. Webster took up a smart lancewood stick and a pair of new
gray suede gloves and descended to the lobby of Denver's most exclusive
hotel. He paused at the cigar stand long enough to fill his case with
three-for-a-half perfectos and permit the young woman in charge to feast
her world-weary eyes on his radiant person (which she did, classifying
and tabulating him instantly as a millionaire mining man from Nevada).
After this he lighted a cigar and stepped forth into Seventeenth Street,
along which he strolled until he came to a certain building into the
elevator of which he entered and was whisked to the twelfth floor, where
he alighted and found himself before a wide portal which bore in gold
letters the words: Engineers' Club.
The Engineers' Club was the closest approach to a home that John Stuart
Webster had known for twenty years, and so he paused just within the
entrance to perform the time-honoured ceremonial of home-coming. Over
the arched doorway leading to the lounge hung a large bronze gong such
as is used in mines, and from the lever of the gong-clapper depended a
cord which Webster seized and jerked thrice--thus striking the signal
known to all of the mining fraternity--the signal to hoist! Only those
members who had been sojourning in distant parts six months or more were
privileged thus to disturb the peace and dignity of the Engineers'
Club, the same privilege, by the way, carrying with it the obligation of
paying for the materials shortly to be hoisted!
Having announced the return of a prodigal, our hero stepped to the door
of the lounge and shouted:
“John Stuart Webster, E. M.”
The room was empty. Not a single member was present to greet the
wanderer and accept of his invitation!
“Home was never like this when I was a boy,” he complained to the
servant at the telephone exchange. “Times must be pretty good in the
mining game in Colorado when everybody has a job that keeps him out of
Denver.”
The servant rose and essayed a raid on his hat and stick, but Mr.
Webster, who was impatient at thus finding himself amidst old scenes,
fended him away and said “Shoo fly!” Then he crossed the empty lounge
and ascended the stairs leading to the card room, at the entrance of
which he paused, leaning on his stick--in unconscious imitation of a
Sicilian gentleman posing for his photograph after his first payday in
America--swept that room with a wistful eye and sighed because nothing
had changed in three long years.
Save for the slight job of kalsomining which Father Time had done on the
edges of the close-cropped Websterian moustache, the returned prodigal
might have stepped out of the Club but yesterday. He would not have
taken the short end of a modest bet that even a fresh log had been
placed on the fire or that the domino-players over against the wall had
won or lost a drink or two and then resumed playing--although perchance
there _were_ a few more gray hairs in the thickly thatched head of old
Neddy Jerome, sitting in his favourite seat by the window and turning
the cards in his eternal game of solitaire, in blissful ignorance that
John Stuart Webster stood within the portals of home and awaited the
fatted calf.
“I'll hypnotize the old pelican into looking up,” Webster soliloquized,
and forthwith bent a beetling gaze upon the player. For as many as five
seconds he strove to demonstrate the superiority of mind over solitaire;
then, despairing of success, he struck the upholstery of an adjacent
chair a terrific blow with his stick--the effect of which was to cause
everybody in the room to start and to conceal Mr. Webster momentarily in
a cloud of dust, the while in a bellowing baritone he sang:
His father was a hard-rock miner;
He comes from my home town----
“Jack Webster! The devil's own kin!” shouted Neddy Jerome. He swept
the cards into a heap and waddled across the room to meet this latest
assailant of the peace and dignity of the Engineers' Club. “You old,
worthless, ornery, no-good son of a lizard! I've never been so glad to
see a man that didn't owe me money.” He seized Webster's hand in both
of his and wrung it affectionately. “Jack,” he continued, “I've been
combing the whole civilized world for you, for a month, at least. Where
the devil _have_ you been?”
John Stuart Webster beamed happily upon his friend. “Well, Neddy, you
old stocking-knitter,” he replied quizzically, “since that is the case,
I'm not surprised at your failure to find me. You've known me long
enough to have remembered to confine your search to the _uncivilized_
reaches.”
“Well, you're here, at any rate, and I'm happy. Now you'll settle down.”
“Hardly, Neddy. I'm young yet, you know--only forty. Still a real
live man and not quite ready to degenerate into a card-playing,
eat-drink-and-be-merry, die-of-inanition, sink-to-oblivion, and
go-to-hell fireplace spirit!” And he prodded Jerome in the short ribs
with a tentative thumb that caused the old man to wince. He turned
to greet the halfdozen card-players who had looked up at his noisy
entrance--deciding that since they were strangers to him they were
mere half-baked young whelps but lately graduated from some school of
mines--and permitted his friend to drag him downstairs to the deserted
lounge, where Jerome paused in the middle of the room and renewed his
query:
“Johnny, where have you been?”
“Lead me to a seat, O thou of little manners,” Webster retorted. “Here,
boy! Remove my property and guard it well. I will stay and disport
myself.” And he suffered himself to be dispossessed of his hat, gloves,
and stick. “It used to be the custom here,” he resumed, addressing
Jerome, “that when one of the Old Guard returned, he was obliged to ask
his friends to indicate their poison----”
“Where have you been, I ask?”
“Out in Death Valley, California, trying to pry loose a fortune.”
“Did you pry it?”
John Stuart Webster arched his eyebrows in mock reproach. “And you can
see my new suit, Neddy, my sixteen-dollar, made-to-order shoes, and
my horny hoofs encased in silken hose--and ask that question? Freshly
shaved and ironed and almost afraid to sit down and get wrinkles in
my trousers! Smell that!” He blew a cloud of cigar smoke into Jerome's
smiling face. The latter sniffed. “It smells expensive,” he replied.
“Yes, and you can bet it tastes expensive, too,” Webster answered,
handing his cigar-case to his friend--who helped himself and said:
“So you've made your pile, eh, Jack?”
“Do you suppose I would have come back to Colorado without money?
Haven't you lived long enough, Neddy, to realize that when a man has
money he never knows where to go to spend it? It's so blamed hard to
make up one's mind, with all the world to choose from, and so the only
place I could think of was the old Engineers' Club in Denver. There,
at least, I knew I would find one man of my acquaintance--an old
granny named Neddy Jerome. Yes, Neddy, I knew I would find you playing
solitaire, with your old heart beating about seven times an hour, your
feet good and warm, and a touch of misery around your liver from lack of
exercise.”
Jerome bit the end of his cigar and spat derisively. “How much have you
made?” he demanded bluntly, “It's none of your business, but I'll tell
you because I love you, Neddy. I've made one hundred thousand dollars.”
“Chicken-feed,” Jerome retorted.
Webster glanced around. “I thought at first nothing had changed in the
old place,” he said, “but I see I was mistaken.”
“Why, what's wrong, Jack?”
“Why, when I was here before, they used to ask a man if he had a
mouth--and now they ask him how much money he's made, where he made it,
and--why, hello, Mose, you black old scoundrel, how do you do? Glad to
see you. Take the order, Mose: some milk and vichy for Mr. Jerome, and
a----”
“Yassuh, yassuh,” Mose interrupted, “an' a Stinger for you, suh.”
“Gone but not forgotten,” breathed Mr. Webster, and walled his eyes
piously after the fashion of one about to say grace before a meal. “How
sweet a thing is life with a club servant like old black Mose, who does
things without an order. I feel at home--at last.”
“Johnny,” Jerome began again, “I've been combing the mineral belt of
North and South America for you for a month.”
“Why this sudden belated interest in me?”
“I have a fine job for you, John----”
“King's X,” Webster interrupted, and showed both hands with the fingers
crossed. “No plotting against my peace and comfort, Neddy. Haven't I
told you I'm all dressed up for the first time in three years, that I
have money in my pocket and more in bank? Man, I'm going to tread the
primrose path for a year before I get back into the harness again.”
Jerome waved a deprecatory hand, figuratively brushing aside such feeble
and inconsequential argument. “Are you foot-loose?” he demanded.
“I'm not. I'm bound in golden chains----”
“Married, eh? Great Scott, I might have guessed it. So you're on your
honeymoon, eh?”
“No such luck, you vichy-drinking iconoclast. If you had ever gotten far
enough from this club during the past fifteen years to get a breath of
real fresh air, you'd understand why I want to enjoy civilization for
a week or two before I go back to a mine superintendent's cabin on some
bleak hill. No, sir-ee. Old Jeremiah Q. Work and I have had a falling
out. I'm going on to New York and attend the opera, see all the good
plays, mush around through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, drink tea,
and learn to tango.” Webster sighed gustily. “Lord, Neddy, how I long
for the fleshpots. I've slept under the desert stars so long I want
electric signs for a change. Bacon and beans and sour dough are
wonderful when one hasn't something better, but I crave an omelette
soufflé drenched in cognac, and the cognac afire. Yes, and I want an
obsequious waiter to hurry in with it and then take a dollar tip from me
afterward for all the world like he was doing me a favour by accepting
it. Dad burn your picture, Neddy, I want some class! I've been listening
to a dago shift-boss playing the accordeon for three years--and he could
only play three tunes. Now I want Sousa's band. I want to hive up in a
swell hotel and leave a call for six o'clock--and then when they call
me, I want to curse them, roll over, and go to sleep again. I've been
bathing in tepid, dirty water in a redwood sluice-box, and now I desire
a steam room and a needle shower and an osteopath. I've been bossing
Greasers and Italians and was forced to learn their language to get
results, and now I want to speak my mother tongue to my old friends. The
last funny story I heard had whiskers on it when Rameses was playing
hop-scotch in Memphis, Egypt, and by thunder I'm going to have a new
deal all around.”
“Very well, Jack. Don't excite yourself. I'll give you exactly thirty
days to sicken of it all--and then I shall come and claim my property.”
“Neddy, I'll not work for you.”
“Oh, yes, you will, John.”
“No, sir, I'm mad. I won't play.”
“You're it. I just tagged you.”
“I require a rest--but unfold your proposition, Neddy. I was born a
poor, weak vessel consumed with a curiosity that was ever my undoing. I
can only protest that this is no way to treat a friend.”
“Nonsense! My own brother wants this job, and I have refused to give it
to him. Business is business--and I've saved it for you.”
Jerome leaned forward and laid his finger confidentially on Webster's
knee; whereat the lighthearted wanderer carefully lifted the finger,
brushed an imaginary speck of dirt from it, and set it down again. “Be
serious, you ingrate,” Jerome protested. ''Listen! I've been working
for two years on a consolidation up near Telluride, and I've just put it
across. Jack, it's the biggest thing in the country----
Webster closed his eyes and crooned:
“I'm dying for some one to love me;
I'm tired of living alone;
I want to be somebody's darling,
To be queen upon somebody's throne.”
“Well, you'll be king on the throne of the Colorado Consolidated Mines
Company, Limited. English capital, Jack. Pay 'em 6 per cent, and they'll
call you blessed. There's twenty-five thousand a year in it, with a
house and a good cook and an automobile and a chauffeur, and you
can come to town whenever you please, provided you don't neglect the
company's interests--and I know you're not that kind of an engineer.”
“Do I have to put some money into it, Neddy?”
“Not necessarily, although I should advise it. I can let you in on
the ground floor for that hundred thousand of yours, guarantee you a
handsome profit and in all probability a big clean-up.”
“I feel myself slipping, Neddy. Nevertheless, the tail goes with
the hide. I'm not in the habit of asking my friends to guarantee my
investments, and if you say it's all right, I'll spread what I have left
of the hundred thousand when I report for duty. What's the news around
this mortuary, anyhow? Who's dead and who's alive?”
“It's been a tremendous job getting this consolidation over, Jack.
When----”
“In pity's name! Spare me. I've heard all I want to hear about your
confounded consolidation. News! News! Give me news! I had to beg for a
drink----”
“I might remind you that your manners have not improved with age, Jack
Webster. You haven't thanked me for that job.”
“No--nor shall I. Mose, you black sinner, how dare you appear before me
again without that stinger?”
Mose, the aged coloured porter of the Engineers' Club, flashed a row of
ivories and respectfully re-turned the democratic greeting.
“Letter for you, suh. The secretary told me to give it to you, Mistah
Webster.”
“Thank you, Mose. Speak up, Neddy, and tell me something. Ever hear
anything of Billy Geary?” He was tearing the edge of the envelope the
while he gazed at Jerome, who was rubbing his fat hands together after
the fashion of elderly men who are well pleased with themselves.
“You have a chance to become one of the greatest and richest mining
engineers in the world, Jack,” he answered, “now that you've cut loose
from that young crook Geary. I don't know what's become of him, and
neither does anybody else. For that matter, nobody cares.”
“I do--and you can take the brief end of that bet for your last white
chip. Don't let me hear you or anybody else say anything against Billy
Geary. That boy goes for my money, every turn in the box. Don't make any
mistakes about that, old-timer.”
Webster's face suddenly was serious; the bantering intonation in his
voice was gone, and a new, slightly strident note had crept into it. But
Jerome, engrossed in his own affairs, failed to observe the menace
in that swift transition of mood in his companion. He waved his hand
soothingly.
“All right, old Johnny Pepper-box, have it your own way. Nevertheless,
I'm a little mystified. The last I knew of you two, you had testified
against him in the high-grader trials at Cripple Creek, and he had
pulled out under a cloud, even after his acquittal.”
“Give a dog a bad name, and it will stick to him,” Webster retorted.
“Of course I testified against him. As engineer for the Mine Owners'
Association, I had to. The high-grade ore was found in his assay office,
and the circumstantial evidence was complete, and I admit Billy was
acquitted merely because I and others could not swear positively that
the ore came from any certain mine. It was the same old story, Neddy.
It's become history in all mining camps. You can be morally certain that
high-grade ore has been stolen from your mine, but unless you catch
the ore thief in the act, how can you prove it? High-grade ore is blind
goods and is not confined to any certain man-owned spot on this wicked
earth--so there you are! I suppose you read the newspaper reports and
believed them, just as everybody else does.”
“Well, forget it, Jack. It's all over long ago, and forgotten.”
“It wasn't all over so long ago as you seem to think. I suppose you knew
the Holman gang was afterward sent to the penitentiary for those same
high-grade operations?”
“Yes.”
“But I'll bet my new plug hat you never knew I was the _Hawkshaw_ that
sent them there! You bet I was! Billy Geary's acquittal didn't end my
interest in the case--not by a jugful! I fought the case against the
friends of the Holman crew _among the mine owners themselves_; and
it cost me my good job, my prestige as a mining engineer, and thirty
thousand dollars of money that I'd slaved to get together. They squeezed
me, Neddy--squeezed me hard like a lemon, and threw me away, but I got
them! I should tell a man! Of course you never knew this, Neddy, and
for that matter, neither does Geary. I wish he did. We were good friends
once. I certainly was mighty fond of that boy.”
He drew the letter from the envelope and slowly opened it, his mind not
upon the letter, but upon Billy Geary.
“And you never heard what became of Geary?”
“Not a word. I was too busy wondering what was to become of me. I
couldn't get a job anywhere in Colorado, and I moved to Nevada. Made a
million in Goldfield, dropped it in the panic of 1907, and had to start
again----”
“What have you been doing lately?”
“Borax. Staked a group of claims down in Death Valley. Bully ground,
Neddy, and I was busted when I located them. Had to borrow money to
pay the filing fees and incorporation, and did my own assessment work.
Look!” Webster held up his hands, still somewhat grimy and calloused.
“How did you get by with your bluff?”
“In the only way anybody ever got by on no pair. I was a brave dog
and went around with an erect tail, talking in millions and buying my
tobacco on jawbone. The Borax Trust knew I was busted, but they never
could quite get over the fear that I'd dig up some blacking and give
them a run--so they bought me out. Two weeks ago I got a belated
telegram, telling me there was a hundred thousand dollars in escrow
against deeds and certificate of title in a Salt Lake City bank--so here
I am.”
“Somebody told me Geary had gone to Rhodesia,” Jerome continued
musingly, “or maybe it was Capetown. I know he was seen somewhere in
South Africa.”
“He left the Creek immediately after the conclusion of his trial. Poor
boy! That dirty business destroyed the lad and made a tramp of him,
I guess. I tell you, Neddy, no two men ever lived who came nearer to
loving each other than Billy Geary and his old Jack-pardner. We bucked
the marts of men and went to sleep together hungry many a time during
our five-year partnership. Why, Bill was like my own boy! Do you know,
Neddy, now that I've rounded the forty-pole, I get thinking sometimes,
and wish I could have married when I was about twenty years old; I might
have had a son to knock around with now, while I'm still in the shank of
my own youth. And if I had been blessed with a son, I would have wanted
him to be just like Billy. You know, Bill tied onto me when he was about
eighteen. He's rising twenty-six now. He came to me at the Bonnie Claire
mine fresh from high school, and I staked him to a drill; but he didn't
stick there long. I saw he was too good a boy to be a mucker all his
days.”
Webster smiled reminiscently and went on: “I'll never forget the day
Billy challenged a big Cornish shift-boss that called him out of his
name. The Cousin Jack could fight, too, but Billy walked around him like
a cooper around a barrel, and when he finished, I fired the Cousin Jack
and gave Billy his job!”
He chuckled softly at the remembrance. “Too bad!” he continued. “That
boy had brains and grit and honour, and he shouldn't have held that
trial against me. But Billy was young, I suppose, and he just couldn't
understand my position. It takes the hard old years to impart common
sense to a man, and I suppose Billy couldn't understand why I had to be
true to my salt. He should have known I hadn't a leg to stand on when
I took the stand for the prosecution--not a scintilla of evidence to
present, except that the high-grade had been found in his assay office.
Jerome, I curse the day I took that boy out from underground and put
him in the Bonnie Claire assay office to learn the business. How could I
know that the Holman gang had cached the stuff in his shack?”
“Well, it's too bad,” Jerome answered dully. He was quite willing that
the subject of conversation should be changed. “I'm glad to get the
right dope on the boy, anyhow. We might be able to hand him a good job
to make up for the injustice. Have another drink?”
“Not until I read this letter. Now, who the dickens knew I was headed
for Denver and the Engineers' Club? I didn't tell a soul, and I only
arrived this morning.”
He turned to the last page to ascertain the identity of his
correspondent, and his facial expression ran the gamut from surprise to
a joy that was good to see.
It was a long letter, and John Stuart Webster read it deliberately.
When he had read it once, he reread it; after which he sat in silent
contemplation of the design of the carpet for fully a minute before
reaching for the bell. A servant responded immediately.
“Bring me the time-tables of all roads leading to New Orleans,” he
ordered, “--also a cable blank.”
Webster had reread the letter before the servant returned with the
time-tables. He glanced through them. “Henry,” he announced, “your name
is Henry, isn't it?”
“No, sir--George, sir.”
“Well, August, you go out to the desk, like a good fellow, and ask the
secretary to arrange for a compartment for me to New Orleans on the Gulf
States Limited, leaving at ten o'clock to-morrow night.” He handed the
servant his card. “Now wait a minute until I write something.” He seized
the cable blank, helped himself, uninvited, to Neddy Jerome's fountain
pen, and wrote:
William H. Geary,
Calle de Concordia No. 19,
Buenaventura,
Sobrante, C. A.
Salute, you young jackass! Just received your letter. Cabling thousand
for emergency roll first thing to-morrow. Will order machinery. Leaving
for New Orleans to-morrow night, to arrive Buenaventura first steamer.
Your letter caught me with a hundred thousand. We cut it two ways and
take our chances. Keep a light in the window for your old Jack Pardner.
“That's a windy cablegram,” Neddy Jerome remarked as the servant bore it
away. “Why all this garrulity? A cablegram anywhere generally costs at
least a dollar a word.”
“'That's my delight of a shiny night, in the season of the year,'”
quoted John Stuart Webster; “and why the devil economize when the boy
needs cheering up?”
“What boy?”
“Billy Geary.”
“Broke?”
“I should say so. Rattles when he walks.”
“Where is he?”
“Central America.”
Neddy Jerome was happy. He was in an expansive mood, for he had, with
the assistance of a kindly fate, rounded up the one engineer in all the
world whom he needed to take charge of the Colorado Consolidated. So he
said:
“Well, Jack, just to celebrate the discovery of your old pal, I'll tell
you what I'll do. I'll O. K. your voucher for the expense of bringing
young Geary back to the U. S. A., and when we get him here, it will be
up to you to find a snug berth for him with Colorado Consolidated.”
“Neddy,” said John Stuart Webster, “by my hali-dom, I love thee. You're
a thoughtful, kindly old stick-in-the-mud, but----”
“No _ifs_ or _but's_. I'm your boss,” Jerome interrupted, and waddled
away to telephone the head waiter at his favourite restaurant to reserve
a table for two.
Mr. Webster sighed. He disliked exceedingly to disappoint old Neddy,
but---- He shrank from seeming to think over-well of himself by
declining a twenty-five-thousand-dollar-a-year job with the biggest
mining company in Colorado, but----
“Rotten luck,” he soliloquized. “It runs that way for a while, and then
it changes, and gets worse!”