|THE morning following his decision to play the rôle of angel to Billy
Geary's mining concession in Sobrante, John Stuart Webster, like Mr.
Pepys, was up betimes.
Nine o'clock found him in the office of his friend Joe Daingerfield,
of the Bingham Engineering Works, where, within the hour, he had in
his characteristically decisive fashion purchased the machinery for a
ten-stamp mill and an electric light plant capability of generating
two hundred and fifty horsepower two electric hoists with cable, half a
dozen steel ore buckets, as many more ore-cars with five hundred feet
of rail, a blacksmithing outfit, a pump, motors, sheet steel to line the
crushing-bins and form shovelling platforms for the ore in the workings,
picks, shovels drills, and so forth. It was a nice order and Dangerfield
fwas delighted.
“This is going to cost you about half your fortune, Jack,” he informed
Webster when the order was finally made up.
Webster grinned. “You don't suppose I'm chump enough to pay for it now,
do you, Joe?” he queried.
“You'll pay at least half, my son. We love you, Jack; we honour and
respect you; but this stuff is going to Central America, and in the
event of your premature demise, we might not get it back. They have wars
down there, you know, and when those people are war-mad, they destroy
things.”
“I know. But I'm going first to scout the country, Joe, and in the
meantime keep all this stuff in your warehouse until I authorize you by
cable to ship, when you can draw on me at sight for the entire invoice
with bill of lading attached. If, upon investigation, I find that this
mine isn't all my partner thinks it is, I'll cable a cancellation, and
you can tear that nice fat order up and forget it. I don't intend to
have you and that gang of penny-pinching card-room engineers up at the
Engineers' Club remind me of the old adage that a fool and his money are
soon parted.”
From Daingerfield's office Webster went forth to purchase a
steamer-trunk, his railway ticket and sleeping-car reservation--after
which he returned to his hotel and set about packing for the journey.
He sighed regretfully as he folded his brand-new raiment, packed it
in moth balls in his wardrobe-trunk, and ordered the trunk sent to a
storage warehouse.
“Well, I was a giddy old bird of paradise for one night, at least,” he
comforted himself, as he dressed instead in a suit of light-weight olive
drab goods in which he hoped to enjoy some measure of cool comfort until
he should reach Buenaventura and thus become acquainted with the foibles
of fashion in that tropical centre.
The remainder of the afternoon he spent among his old friends of the
Engineers' Club, who graciously tendered him a dollar table d'hote
dinner that evening and saw him off for his train at ten o'clock,
with many a gloomy prophecy as to his ultimate destiny--the prevailing
impression appearing to be that he would return to them in a neat long
box labelled: _This Side Up--With Care--Use No Hooks_.
Old Neddy Jerome, as sour and cross as a setting hen,' accompanied him
in the taxicab to the station, loth to let him escape and pleading to
the last, in a forlorn hope that Jack Webster's better nature would
triumph over his friendship and boyish yearning for adventure. He clung
to Webster's arm as they walked slowly down the track and paused at
the steps of the car containing the wanderer's reservation, just as a
porter, carrying some hand-baggage, passed them by, followed by a girl
in a green tailor-made suit. As she passed, John Stuart Webster looked
fairly into her face, started as if bee-stung, and hastily lifted
his hat. The girl briefly returned his scrutiny with sudden interest,
decided she did not know him, and reproved him with a glance that even
passé old Neddy Jerome did not fail to assimilate.
[Illustration:ustration: 0075]
“Wow, wow!” he murmured. “The next time you try that, Johnny Webster, be
sure you're right----”
“Good land o' Goshen, Neddy,” Webster replied. “Fry me in bread-crumbs,
if that isn't the same girl! Come to think of it, the conductor who gave
me her name told me her ticket called for a stop-over in Denver! Let me
go, Neddy. Quick! Good-bye, old chap. I'm on my way.”
“Nonsense! The train doesn't pull out for seven minutes yet. Who is
she, John, and why does she excite you so?” Jerome recognized in
his whimsical friend the symptoms of a most unusual malady--with
Webster--and so he held the patient fast by the arm.
“Who is she, you ancient horse-thief? Why, if I have my way--and I'm
certainly going to try to have it--she's the future Mrs. W.”
“Alas! Poor Yorick, I knowed him well,” Jerome answered. “Take a tip
from the old man, John. I've been through the mill and I know. Never
marry a girl that can freeze you with a glance. It isn't safe, and
remember, you're not as young as you used to be. By the way, what's the
fair charmer's name?”
“I've got it down in my memorandum book, but I can't recall it this
minute--Spanish name.”
“John, my dear boy, be careful,” Neddy Jerome counseled. “Stick to your
own kind of people----”
“I'll not. That girl is as trim and neat and beautiful as a newly minted
guinea. What do I want with a Scotch lassie six feet tall and a believer
in hell-fire and infant damnation?”
“Is this--a--er--a nice girl, John?”
“How do I know--I mean, how dare you ask? Of course she's nice. Can't
you see she is? And besides, why should you be so fearful----”
“I'll have you understand, young man, that I have considerable interest
in the girl you're going to marry. Drat it, boy, if you marry the wrong
girl she may interfere with my plans. She may be a spoil-sport and
not want to live up at the mine--after you return from this wild-goose
chase, dragging your fool tail behind you. By the way, where did you
first meet this girl? Who introduced you?”
“I haven't met her, and I've never been introduced,” Webster complained,
and poured forth the tale of his adventure on the train from Death
Valley. Neddy was very sympathetic.
“Well, no wonder she didn't recognize you when you saluted her
to-night,” he agreed. “Thought you were another brute of a man trying
to make a mash. By thunder, Jack, I'm afraid you made a mistake when you
shed your whiskers and buried your old clothes. You don't look nearly so
picturesque and romantic now, and maybe she'll refuse to believe you're
the same man!”
“I don't care what she thinks. I found her, I lost her, and I've found
her again; and I'm not going to take any further chances. I wired
a detective agency to pick her up in Salt Lake and trail her to New
Orleans and get me all the dope on her, while I was in temporary
retirement with my black eye. Brainless fellows, these amateur
detectives. I'll never employ one again. I described her
accurately--told them she was beautiful and that she was wearing a green
tailor-made suit; and will you believe me, Neddy, they reported to me
next day that their operative failed to pick her up at the station? He
said three beautiful women got off the train there, and that none of
them wore a green dress.”
“Well, it's just barely possible she may have another dress,” Jerome
retorted slyly. “Women are funny that way. They change their dresses
about as often as they change their minds.”
“Why, that's so,” Webster answered innocently. “I never thought of
that.”
The porter, having delivered his charge's baggage in her section, was
returning for another tip. Webster reached out and accosted him.
“Henry,” he said, “do you want to earn a dollar?”
“Yes, sah. Yes indeed, sah.'
“Where did you stow that young lady's hand-baggage?”
“Lower Six, Car Nine, sah.”
“I have a weakness for coloured boys who are quick at figures,” Webster
declared, and dismissed the porter with the gratuity. He turned
to Jerome. “Neddy, I feel that I am answering the call to a great
adventure,” he declared solemnly.
“I know it, Jack. Good-bye, son, and God bless you. If your fit of
insanity passes within ninety days, cable me; and if you're broke, stick
the Colorado Con' for the cable tolls.”
“Good old wagon!” Webster replied affectionately. Then he shook
hands and climbed aboard the train. The instant he disappeared in the
vestibule, however, Neddy Jerome waddled rapidly down the track to Car
Nine, climbed aboard, and made his way to Lower Six. The young lady in
the green tailor-made suit was there, looking idly out the window.
“Young lady,” Jerome began, “may I presume to address you for a moment
on a matter of very great importance to you? Don't be afraid of me, my
dear. I'm old enough to be your father, and besides, I'm one of the
nicest old men you ever met.”
She could not forbear a smile. “Very well, sir,” she replied.
Neddy Jerome produced a pencil and card. “Please write your name on
this card,” he pleaded, “and I'll telegraph what I want to say to you.
There'll be a man coming through this car in a minute, and I don't want
him to see me here--besides which, the train leaves in half a minute,
and I live in Denver and make it a point to be home and in bed not later
than ten each night. Please trust me, young lady.” ^
The young lady did not trust him, however, although she wrote on the
card. Jerome thanked her and fled as fast as his fat old legs could
carry him. Under the station arc he read the card.
“'Henrietta Wilkins,'” he murmured. “By the gods, one would never
suspect a name like that belonged to a face like that. I know that name
is going to jar Jack and cause him to seethe with ambition to change it.
He'll trim the _Henrietta_ down to plain _Retta_, and change _Wilkins to
Webster!_ By jingo, it _would_ be strange if that madman persuaded
her to marry him. I hope he does. If I'm any judge of character, Jack
Webster won't be cruel enough to chain that vision to Sobrante; and
besides, she's liable to make him decide who's most popular with
him--Henrietta or Billy Geary. If she does, I'll play Geary to lose.
However, if that confirmed old bachelor wants to chase rainbows, I might
as well help him out, since whichever way the cat jumps I can't lose.
It's to my interest to have him marry that girl, or any girl, for that
matter, because she'll have something to say about the advisability of
kicking aside what amounts, approximately, to thirty thousand a year,
in order to sink the family bankroll in a wildcat mine in the suburbs
of hell. Well! Needs must when the devil drives.” And he entered the
station telegraph office and commenced to write.
An hour later Miss Dolores Ruey, alias Henrietta Wilkins, was handed
this remarkably verbose and truly candid telegram:
Denver, Colo., Aug. 7, 1913. Miss Henrietta Wilkins,
Lower 6, Car 9,
On board train 24.
Do you recall the bewhiskered, ragged individual you met on the S.P.,
L.A. & S.L. train in Death Valley ten days ago? He thrashed a man who
annoyed you, but owing to a black eye and his generally unpresentable
appearance, he remained in his stateroom the remainder of the trip
and you did not see him again until to-night. He lifted his hat to you
to-night, and you almost killed him with a look. It did not occur to him
that you would not recognize him disguised as a gentleman, and he lifted
his hat on impulse. Do not hold it against him. The sight of you again
set his reason tottering on its throne, and he told me his sad story.
This man, John Stuart Webster, is wealthy, single, forty, fine, and
crazy as a March hare. He is in love with you.
You might do worse than fall in love with him. He is the best mining
engineer in the world, and he is now aboard the same train with you,
en route to New Orleans, thence to take the steamer to Buenaventura,
Sobrante, C. A., where he is to meet another lunatic and finance a hole
in the ground. He has just refused a thirty-thousand-dollar-a-year job
from me to answer the call of a mistaken friendship. I do not want him
to go to Sobrante. If you marry him, he will not. If you do not marry
him, you still might arrange to make him listen to reason. If you can
induce him to come to work for me within the next ninety days, whether
you marry him or not, I will give you five thousand dollars the day he
reports on the job. Please bear in mind that he does not know I am doing
this. If he did, he would kill me, but business is business, and this
is a plain business proposition. I am putting you wise, so you will know
your power and can exercise it if you care to earn the money. If
not, please forget about it. At any rate, please do me the favour to
communicate with me on the subject, if at all interested.
Edward P. Jerome.
President Colorado Consolidated Mines, Limited.
Care Engineers' Club.
The girl read and reread this telegram several times, and presently a
slow little smile commenced to creep around the corners of her adorable
mouth, for out of the chaos of emotions induced by Ned Jerome's amazing
proposition, the humour of the situation had detached itself to the
elimination of everything else.
“I believe that amazing old gentleman is absolutely dependable,” was the
decision at which she ultimately arrived, and calling for a telegraph
blank, she wired the old schemer:
Five thousand not enough money. Make it ten thousand and I will
guarantee to deliver the man within ninety days. I stay on this train to
New Orleans.
Henrietta.
That telegram arrived at the Engineers' Club about midnight, and
pursuant to instructions, the night barkeeper read it and phoned the
contents to Neddy Jerome, who promptly telephoned his reply to the
telegraph office, and then sat on the edge of his bed, scratching his
toes and meditating.
“That's a remarkable young woman,” he decided, “and business to her
finger-tips. Like the majority of her sex, she's out for the dough.
Well, I've done my part, and it's now up to Jack Webster to protect
himself in the clinches and breakaways.”
About daylight a black hand passed Neddy Jerome's reply through the
berth-curtains to Dolores Ruey. She read:
Accept. When you deliver the goods, communicate with me and get your
money.
Jerome.
She snuggled back among the pillows and considered the various aspects
of this amazing contract which she had undertaken with a perfect
stranger. Hour after hour she lay there, thinking over this.
As she passed, John Stuart Webster looked fairly into her face, v
started as if bee-stung, and hastily lifted his hat preposterous
situation, and the more she weighed it, the more interesting and
attractive the proposition appeared. But one consideration troubled her.
How would the unknown knight manage an introduction? Or, if he failed to
manage it, how was she to overcome that obstacle?
“Oh, dear,” she murmured, “I do hope he's brave.”
She need not have worried. Hours before, the object of her thought had
settled all that to his own complete satisfaction, and as a consequence
was sleeping peacefully and gaining strength for whatever of fortune,
good or ill, the morrow might bring forth.