"You helped Gasper Farrington rob my father!" exclaimed Ralph.
"Yes," answered Gibson unhesitatingly.
Ralph wondered how he could make the admission thus boldly and
unblushingly. Gibson, however, acted like a man who had taken a
desperate stand with an important end to attain, and for the time being
at least had set aside all questions of sentiment and conscience.
"It will be brief," said Gibson, after a pause. "When the Great
Northern was on its first boom and everybody gone wild to invest in its
bonds, I caught the fever too. My wife had died and I had no children,
and converting my land into cash I came up to Stanley Junction with
thirty thousand dollars in my pocket. I was always stuck on
railroading. I fancied myself a director, riding in the president's car
and distributing free passes to my friends. In a black moment in my
life I ran afoul of Gasper Farrington. He took me under his wing and
encouraged my visionary ideas. At that time your father had twenty
thousand dollars in Great Northern bonds. They were not all paid for,
but nearly so. They were, in fact, held by a bank as trustee in what is
known as escrow--that is, subject to his call on payment of the small
sum still due on them. Your father had great confidence in Farrington.
So had I. I put my capital in his hands."
Gibson became so wrought up in his recital that he could not sit still.
He got up and paced the floor.
"If we had kept to a straight investment, your father and I," proceeded
Gibson, "we would have been all right. But Farrington dazzled us with
his stock-jobbing schemes. He actually did let us into a deal where by
dabbling in what is called margins we increased our pile considerably.
In about a month, however, he had us where he wanted us. That is, he
had our affairs so mixed up and complicated that neither of us knew just
where we stood, and didn't dare to make a move without his advice. For
some time we had all been dabbling in Midland Central securities. One
day, after he had got me to buy a big block of that stock, the market
broke. I was a pauper."
"Had Mr. Farrington lost too?" inquired Ralph.
"He pretended that he had, but later I found that he was the very person
who was manipulating the stocks on the sly, and trimming us. We had a
bitter quarrel. Then he said all was fair in war and business. I was
desperate, lad, about my money, and when he set up a plan to get hold of
your father's bonds, I went into it. I am sorry now. I was crazy those
days, I guess, money-mad!"
The man's candor vouched for his sincerity, but Ralph looked sad and
disturbed.
"Anyway, he got your father in a tight corner, and I helped him do it.
It was a complicated deal. I can't say that Farrington stole those
bonds outright, but in a roundabout way they finally came into his
possession. If the transaction was ever ripped up, I don't believe it
would stand in law. But I don't know that positively. Your father lost
his bonds, and I got nothing out of the transaction. But there is
something else that I want to get at. A little later, never doubting
Farrington's honesty, your father gave him a mortgage on his homestead.
It was done to protect your mother--that is, feeling himself getting
involved, your father wished to be sure that she had at least a shelter
over her head. There was no consideration whatever in the deal. It was
merely put temporarily in the shape of a mortgage until affairs had
cleared somewhat, when it was to be deeded to a third party, and then
direct to your mother."
"Then Mr. Farrington never had a right to collect that interest money,"
said Ralph.
"He wasn't entitled to a cent of it. Farrington then got me into
another deal. I had borrowed one thousand dollars from my brother. He
got me to take security for it, as he called it. In some way he had got
hold of the old Short Line charter here. At that time it was treated as
a joke, and considered worthless. I didn't know it. He got my thousand
dollars, claimed to lose it in a deal, and I was flat broke."
"And later?" suggested Ralph, recalling in an instant what he had heard
from Big Denny about Gibson.
"Well, I got hard pressed. I saw a chance to get even with him. We
were in a deal together. I canceled it to get a few hundred dollars,
and signed our joint names as a firm. Later I learned that I had a
right only to sign my own name. I went to his house. He threatened to
have me arrested for forgery the next day, showed me the forged paper,
as he called it, and a warrant he had sworn out. We had a fearful row.
I beat him up good and proper, smashed some windows, and, disgusted with
life and mankind, fled to this wilderness."
It was a vivid recital, running like some romance. Gibson took breath,
and concluded:
"A man can't sit forever eating out his heart in loneliness. I knew
that Farrington would not hesitate to send me to jail. I located here.
One day, yonder faithful fellow, Van Sherwin, came along. He was an
orphan outcast, I took him in. His company gave a new spur to
existence. I got casting up accounts. I rarely ventured to the towns,
but I sent him to a relative, who loaned me a few hundred dollars. I
investigated the Short Line business, even paid a lawyer to look it up.
I found I had something tangible, and that for a certain date, then two
months ahead, provided I did some work each day except Sunday
thenceforward on the right of way, I could hold the franchise
indefinitely, unimpaired. Since then, Van and I have been at the
grading work, as you see."
"And why did you write to my father? inquired Ralph.
"My hard, bad nature has changed since Van came here to cheer me with
his loyal companionship," said Gibson. "I always felt I had wronged
your father. I wrote to him, thinking him still alive, to come and see
me. Instead, you come as his representative. Very well, this is what I
want to say: I am willing to make the statements in writing that I have
given to you verbally. That, you may say, is of no practical benefit to
you. But here is something that is: My sworn statement that the
mortgage was in reality a trust will cancel everything. That means
something for you, doesn't it?"
"It means a great deal--yes, indeed," assented Ralph.
"Very well," said Gibson. "You go and use the information I have given
you, the threat to expose Farrington, to get him to destroy that forged
note he holds against me, so that I can come out into the daylight a
free man to put my railroad project on foot, and I will give to you a
sworn statement that in any court of law will compel him to surrender to
your mother, free and clear, your home. And I won't say right now what
I will be glad to do for the widow and son of John Fairbanks, when the
Short Line is an assured fact and a success."