It was not difficult to find Henry Kruger in Gadsden. The barkeepers,
those efficient purveyors of information and drinks, knew him as they
knew their thumbs, and a casual round of the saloons soon located him
in the back room of the Waldorf.
"Say," began Bud, walking bluffly up to him, "the proprietor of that
restaurant back there tells me I made a mistake when I insisted on
paying for your meal. I just wanted to let you know--"
"Oh, that's all right, young man," returned Old Henry, looking up
with a humorous smile; "we all of us make our mistakes. I knowed you
didn't mean no offense and so I never took none. Fact is, I liked you
all the better for it. This country is getting settled up with a class
of people that never give a nickel to nobody. You paid for that meal
like it was nothing, and never so much as looked at me. Sit down, sit
down--I want to talk to you!"
They sat down by the stove and fell into a friendly conversation in
which nothing more was said of the late inadvertence, but when Bud rose
to go the old man beckoned him back.
"Hold on," he protested; "don't go off mad. I want to have a talk with
you on business. You seem to be a pretty good young fellow--maybe we
can make some dicker. What are you looking for in these parts?"
"Well," responded Bud, "some kind of a leasing proposition, I reckon.
Me and my pardner jest come in from Mexico, over near the Chihuahua
line, and we don't hardly know what we do want yet."
"Yes, I've noticed that pardner of yours," remarked Henry Kruger dryly.
"He's a great talker. I was listening to you boys out on the street
there, having nothing else to do much, and being kinder on the lookout
for a man, anyway, and it struck me I liked your line of talk best."
"You're easy satisfied, then," observed Bud, with a grin. "I never said
a word hardly."
"That's it," returned Kruger significantly; "this job I've got _calls_
for a man like that."
"Well, Phil's all right," spoke up Bud, with sudden warmth. "We been
pardners for two years now and he never give nothing away yet! He
talks, but he don't forget himself. And the way he can palaver them
Mexicans is a wonder."
"Very likely, very likely," agreed Kruger, and, then he sat a while in
silence.
"We got a few thousand dollars with us, too," volunteered Bud at last.
"I'm a good worker, if that's what you want--and Phil, he's a mining
engineer."
"Um-m," grunted Kruger, tugging at his beard, but he did not come out
with his proposal.
"I tell you," he said at last. "I'm not doing much talking about
this proposition of mine. It's a big thing, and somebody might beat
me to it. You know who I am, I guess. I've pulled off some of the
biggest deals in this country for a poor man, and I don't make many
mistakes--not about mineral, anyway. And when I tell you that this is
rich--you're talking with a man that knows."
He fixed his shrewd, blue eyes on the young man's open countenance and
waited for him to speak.
"That's right," he continued, as Bud finally nodded non-committally;
"she's sure rich. I've had an eye on this proposition for years--just
waiting for the right time to come. And now it's come! All I need is
the man. It ain't a dangerous undertaking--leastwise I don't think it
is--but I got to have somebody I can trust. I'm willing to pay you good
wages, or I'll let you in on the deal--but you'll have to go down into
Mexico."
"Nothin' doing!" responded Bud with instant decision. "If it's in
Arizona I'll talk to you, but no more Mexico for me. I've got something
pretty good down there myself, as far as that goes."
"What's the matter?" inquired Kruger, set back by the abrupt refusal.
"Scared?"
"Yes, I'm scared," admitted Bud, and he challenged the old man with his
eyes.
"Must have had a little trouble, then?"
"Well, you might call it that," agreed Bud. "We been on the dodge for a
month. A bunch of _revoltosos_ tried to get our treasure, and when we
skipped out on 'em they tried to get us."
"Well," continued Kruger, "this proposition of mine is different. You
was over in the Sierra Madres, where the natives are bad. These Sonora
Mexicans ain't like them Chihuahua fellers--they're Americanized.
I'll tell you, if it wasn't that the people would know me I'd go down
after this mine myself. The country's perfectly quiet. There's lots
of Americans down there yet, and they don't even know there _is_ a
revolution. It ain't far from the railroad, you see, and that makes a
lot of difference."
He lowered his voice to a confidential whisper as he revealed the
approximate locality of his bonanza, but Bud remained unimpressed.
"Yes," he said, "_we_ was near a railroad--the Northwestern--and seemed
like them red-flaggers did nothing else but burn bridges and ditch
supply trains. When they finally whipped 'em off the whole bunch took
to the hills. That's where we got it again."
"Well," argued Kruger, "this railroad of ours is all right, and they
run a train over it every day. The concentrator at Fortuna"--he
lowered his voice again--"hasn't been shut down a day, and you'll be
within fifteen miles of that town. No," he whispered; "I could get a
hundred Americans to go in on this to-morrow, as far's the revolution's
concerned. It ain't dangerous, but I want somebody I can trust."
"Nope," pronounced Bud, rising ponderously to his feet; "if it was this
side the line I'd stay with you till the hair slipped, on anything,
but--"
"Well, let's talk it over again some time," urged Kruger, following him
along out. "It ain't often I git took with a young feller the way I
was with you, and I believe we can make it yet. Where are you staying
in town?"
"Up at the Cochise," said Bud. "Come on with me--I told my pardner I'd
meet him there."
They turned up the broad main street and passed in through the polished
stone portals of the Cochise, a hotel so spacious in its interior and
so richly appointed in its furnishings that a New Yorker, waking up
there, might easily imagine himself on Fifth Avenue.
It was hardly a place to be looked for in the West, and as Bud led
the way across the echoing lobby to a pair of stuffed chairs he had
a vague feeling of being in church. Stained-glass windows above the
winding stairways let in a soft light, and on the towering pillars of
marble were emblazoned prickly-pears as an emblem of the West. From
the darkened balconies above half-seen women looked down curiously as
they entered, and in the broad lobby below were gathered the prosperous
citizens of the land.
There were cattlemen, still wearing their boots and overalls, the
better to attend to their shipping; mining men, just as they had come
from the hills; and others more elegantly dressed--but they all had
a nod for Henry Kruger. He was a man of mark, as Bud could see in a
minute; but if he had other business with those who hailed him he let
it pass and took out a rank brier pipe, which he puffed while Bud
smoked a cigarette.
They were sitting together in a friendly silence when Phil came out of
the dining-room, but as he drew near the old man nodded to Bud and went
over to speak to the clerk.
"Who was that oldtimer you were talking to?" inquired Phil, as he sank
down in the vacant chair. "Looks like the-morning-after with him, don't
it?"
"Um," grunted Bud; "reckon it is. Name's Kruger."
"What--the mining man?"
"That's right."
"Well," exclaimed Phil, "what in the world was he talking to you about?"
"Oh, some kind of a mining deal," grumbled Bud. "Wanted me to go down
into Mexico!"
"What'd you tell him?" challenged the little man, sitting up suddenly
in his chair. "Say, that old boy's got rocks!"
"He can keep 'em for all of me," observed Bud comfortably. "You know
what I think about Mexico."
"Sure; but what was his proposition? What did he want you to do?"
"Search me! He was mighty mysterious about it. Said he wanted a man he
could trust."
"Well, holy Moses, Bud!" cried Phil, "wake up! Didn't you get his
proposition?"
"No, he wasn't talking about it. Said it was a good thing and he'd pay
me well, or let me in on the deal; but when he hollered Mexico I quit.
I've got a plenty."
"Yes, but--" the little man choked and could say no more. "Well, you're
one jim dandy business man, Bud Hooker!" he burst out at last. "You'd
let--"
"Well, what's the matter?" demanded Hooker defiantly. "Do _you_ want to
go back into Mexico? Nor me, neither! What you kicking about?"
"You might have led him on and got the scheme, anyway. Maybe there's
a million in it. Come on, let's go over and talk to him. I'd take a
chance, if it was good enough."
"Aw, don't be a fool, Phil," urged the cowboy plaintively. "We've got
no call to hear his scheme unless we want to go in on it. Leave him
alone and he'll do something for us on this side. Oh, cripes! what's
the matter with you?"
He heaved himself reluctantly up out of his chair and moved over to
where Kruger was sitting.
"Mr. Kruger," he said, as the old man turned to meet him, "I'll make
you acquainted with Mr. De Lancey, my pardner. My name's Hooker."
"Glad to know you, Hooker," responded Kruger, shaking him by the hand.
"How'do, Mr. De Lancey."
He gave Phil a rather crusty nod as he spoke, but De Lancey was
dragging up another chair and failed to notice.
"Mr. Hooker was telling me about some proposition you had, to go down
into Mexico," he began, drawing up closer while the old man watched him
from under his eyebrows. "That's one tough country to do business in
right now, but at the same time--"
"The country's perfectly quiet," put in Kruger--"perfectly quiet."
"Well, maybe so," qualified De Lancey; "but when it comes to getting in
supplies--"
"Not a bit of trouble in the world," said the old man crabbedly. "Not a
bit."
"Well," came back De Lancey, "what's the matter, then? What is the
proposition, anyway?"
Henry Kruger blinked and eyed him intently.
"I've stated the proposition to Hooker," he said, "and he refused it.
That's enough, ain't it?"
De Lancey laughed and turned away.
"Well, yes, I guess it is." Then, in passing, he said to Bud: "Go ahead
and talk to him."
He walked away, lighting a cigarette and smiling good-naturedly, and
the oldtimer turned to Bud.
"That's a smart man you've got for a pardner," he remarked. "A smart
man. You want to look out," he added, "or he'll get away with you."
"Nope," said Bud. "You don't know him like I do. He's straight as a
die."
"A man can be straight and still get away with you," observed the
veteran shrewdly. "Yes, indeed." He paused to let this bit of wisdom
sink in, and then he spoke again.
"You better quit--while you're lucky," he suggested. "You quit and come
with me," he urged, "and if we strike it, I'll make you a rich man. I
don't need your pardner on this deal. I need just one man that can keep
his head shut. Listen now; I'll tell you what it is.
"I know where there's a lost mine down in Mexico. If I'd tell you the
name you'd know it in a minute, and it's free gold, too. Now there's
a fellow that had that land located for ten years, but he couldn't
find the lead. D'ye see? And when this second revolution came on he let
it go--he neglected to pay his mining taxes and let it go back to the
government. And now all I want is a quiet man to slip in and denounce
that land and open up the lead. Here, look at this!"
He went down into his pocket and brought out a buckskin sack, from
which he handed over a piece of well-worn quartz.
"That's the rock," he said. "She runs four hundred dollars to the ton,
and the ledge is eight inches wide between the walls. Nice ore, eh? And
she lays between shale and porphyry."
His eyes sparkled as he carefully replaced the specimen, and then he
looked up at Bud.
"I'll let you in on that," he said, "half and half--or I'll pay two
hundred dollars a month and a bonus. You alone. Now how about it?"
For a moment Hooker looked at him as if to read his thoughts, then he
shook his head and exhaled his smoke regretfully.
"Nope," he said. "Me and Phil are pardners. We work together."
"I'll give you three hundred!" cried Kruger, half rising in his chair.
"Nope," grunted Bud, "we're pardners."
"Huh!" snorted the mining man, and flung away in disgust. But as he
neared the door a new thought struck him and he came as quickly back.
"You can do what you please about your pardner," he said. "I'm talking
to _you_. Now--will you think about it?"
"Sure!" returned Hooker.
"Well, then," snapped Kruger, "meet me at the Waldorf in an hour!"