THE ULTIMATUM
Winter creeping down from the high peaks held the whole valley fast in
its icy grip when Mrs. Thomas Savine, who was seldom daunted by the
elements, went up from Vancouver to persuade her niece to seek
sheltered quarters on the sunny coast until spring. Her visit was,
however, in this respect a failure, for Julius Savine insisted upon
remaining within touch of the reclamation works. Though seldom able to
reach them, he looked eagerly forward to Geoffrey's brief visits, which
alone seemed to arouse him from his lethargy.
Mrs. Savine and Helen sat in the general living-room at the ranch one
day when her brother-in-law came in leaning heavily upon his partner's
arm. Geoffrey had set his carpenters to build a sleigh, and from one
hill shoulder bare of timber it was possible, with good glasses, to see
what went on in the canyon. Savine was listening with evident
satisfaction to the tall, frost-bronzed man who led him towards the
room that he delighted to call his office, and Mrs. Savine, noticing
it, smiled gratefully upon Geoffrey. Worn by anxious watching, Helen
was possibly a little out of humor that afternoon, and the sight awoke
within her a certain jealousy. She had done her best, and had done it
very patiently, but she had failed to arouse her father to the
animation he showed in Geoffrey's presence.
"I haven't felt so well since I saw you last," observed Savine,
oblivious for the moment of his daughter. "You won't fail to come back
as soon as ever you can--say the day after to-morrow?"
Geoffrey glanced towards Helen, who made no sign, and Mrs. Savine
noticed that for a moment his face clouded. Then, as he turned towards
his partner, he seemed to make an effort, and his expression was
confident again.
"I am afraid I cannot leave the works quite so often. Yes--we are
progressing at least as well as anyone could expect," he said. "I will
come and consult you whenever I can. In fact, there are several points
I want your advice upon."
"Come soon," urged Savine, with a sigh. "It does me good to talk to
you--after the life I've lived, this everlasting loafing comes mighty
hard to me. I believe once I knew we were victorious I could let go
everything and die happy."
Helen heard, and, overwrought as she was by nights of assiduous care,
the speech both pained and angered her. Geoffrey's answer was not
audible, as they passed on. He came back alone, off his guard for a
moment, looking worn and weary, and Mrs. Savine said:
"You are tired, Geoffrey, and if you don't appear more lively next time
I will attend to you. No--don't get scared. It is not physic I'm
going to prescribe now. Take this lounge and just sit here where it's
cosy. Talk to Helen and me until supper's ready."
Thurston had been crawling over ice-crusted rocks and wading knee-deep
in water most of the preceding night. The chair stood temptingly
between the two ladies and near the stove. He glanced towards it and
Helen longingly. Some impulse tempted the girl to say:
"Mr. Thurston has usually so little time to spare that it would be
almost too much to hope that he could devote an hour to us."
The tone was ironical, and Geoffrey, excusing himself, went out. He
sighed as he floundered down the snow-cumbered trail. There was
indignation in the elder lady's voice as she declared:
"I am ashamed of you, Helen. The poor man came in too late, for
dinner, and he must be starving. If you had just seen how he looked at
you! You'd feel mean and sorry if they found him to-morrow frozen hard
in the snow."
Helen could not fancy Geoffrey overcome by such a journey because he
had missed two meals, and she smiled at her aunt's dismal picture,
answering her with a flippancy which increased the elder lady's
indignation, "Mr. Thurston is not a cannibal, auntie."
"I can't figure why you are fooling with that man if you don't want
him," said Mrs. Savine. "Oh, yes; you're going to sit here and listen
to some straight talking. Isn't he good enough for you?"
Helen's face was flushed with angry color. "You speak with unpleasant
frankness, but I will endeavor to answer you," she responded. "I have
told Mr. Thurston--that is, I have tried to warn him that he was
expecting the impossible, and what more could I do? He is my father's
partner, and I cannot refuse to see him. I----"
Mrs. Savine, leaning forward, took her niece's hands in her own, saying
gravely, "Are you certain it is quite impossible?"
For a moment Helen looked startled, and her eyes fell. Then, raising
her head, she answered: "Have I not told you so? I have been anxious
about my father lately and do not feel myself to-day. Surely you have
no wish further to torment me."
"No, but I mean to finish what I have to say. Do you know all that man
is doing for you? He has----" But Mrs. Savine ceased abruptly,
remembering she had in return for her husband's confidence promised
secrecy.
"Yes. I think I know everything," replied Helen, with something
suspiciously like a sob, while her aunt broke her pledge to the extent
of shaking her head with a gesture of negation. "It--it makes it worse
for me. I dare not bid him go away, and I grow horribly ashamed
because--because it hurts one to be conscious of so heavy a debt.
Besides, he is consoling himself with Mrs. Leslie!"
"Geoffrey Thurston would be the last man to consider you owed him
anything, and as to Mrs. Leslie--pshaw! It's as sure as death,
Geoffrey doesn't care two bits for her. He would never let you feel
that debt, my dear, but the debt is there. From what Tom has told me
he has declined offer after offer, and you know that, if he carries
this last scheme through, the credit and most of the money will fall to
your father."
"I know." The moisture gathered in Helen's eyes. "I am grateful, very
grateful--as I said, ashamed, too; but my father comes first. I tried
to warn Geoffrey, but he would not take no. I feel almost frightened
sometimes lest he will force me to yield against my will, but you know
that would be a wrong to him--and what can I do?"
Helen, unclasping her hands from her aunt's, looked straight before
her, and Mrs. Savine answered gently: "Not that. No--if you can't like
him it would not be fair to him. Only try to be kind, and make quite
sure it is impossible. It might have been better for poor Geoffrey if
he had never mixed himself up with us. You, with all your good points,
are mighty proud, my dear, but I have seen proud women find out their
mistake when it was too late to set things straight. Wait, and without
the help of a meddlesome old woman, it will perhaps all come right some
day."
"Auntie," said Helen, looking down, some minutes later. "Though you
meant it in kindness, I am almost vexed with you. I have never spoken
of these things to anyone before, and though it has comforted me, you
won't remind me--will you?"
"No." The older woman smiled upon the girl. "Of course not! But you
are pale and worried, and I believe that there is nothing that would
fix you better than a few drops of the elixir. I think I sent you a
new bottle."
Then, though her eyes were misty, Helen laughed outright, as she
replied:
"It was very kind of you, but I fear I lost the bottle, and have wasted
too much time over my troubles. What can I tempt my father with for
supper?"
When Geoffrey returned to camp, Halliday, who had arrived that day from
Vancouver, had much to tell him.
"I've sold your English property, and the value lies to your credit in
the B. O. M. agency. All you have to do is to draw upon your account,"
he said. "As you intend to sink the money in these works I can only
wish you the best of good luck. Now, I'm starting for home to-morrow,
and there's the other question--how to protect the interests of Mrs.
Leslie. Anthony Thurston made a just will, and her share, while enough
to maintain her, is not a large one, but I don't see yet just how it's
to be handled. It was the testator's special wish that you should join
the trustees, and that her husband should not lay his hands upon a
dollar. From careful inquiries made in Vancouver, I judge he's a
distinctly bad lot. Anyway, you'll have to help us in the meantime,
Geoffrey, and in opening a small bank account I made your signature
necessary on every check."
"It's a confoundedly unpleasant position under the circumstances. What
on earth could my kinsman have been thinking of when he forced it upon
me of all men?" Geoffrey responded with a rueful face. "Still, I owe
him a good deal, and suppose that I must cheerfully acquiesce to his
wishes."
"I cannot take upon myself to determine what the testator thought," was
the dry answer. "He said the estimable Mr. Leslie might either shoot
or drink himself to death some day. The late Anthony Thurston was a
tenacious person, and you must draw your own conclusions."
"If there was one thing which more than another tempted me to refuse
you every scrap of assistance it was the conclusion I arrived at," said
Geoffrey. "However, I'll try to keep faith with the dead man, and
Heaven send me sense sufficient to steer clear of difficulties."
"I can trust your honesty any way," remarked Halliday. "There's a
heavy load off my mind at last. You are a good fellow, Geoffrey, and,
excuse the frankness, even in questions beyond your usual scope not so
simple as you sometimes look."
A day or two before this conversation took place, Henry Leslie, sitting
at his writing-table in the villa above the inlet, laid down his pen
and looked up gratefully at his wife, who placed a strip of stamped
paper before him. Millicent both smiled and frowned as she noticed how
greedily his fingers fastened upon it.
"It is really very good of you. You don't know how much this draft
means to me," he said. "I wish I needn't take it, but I am forced to.
It's practically the whole of the first dole your skinflint trustee
made you, isn't it?"
"It is a large share," was the answer. "Almost a year's allowance, and
I'm going to pay off our most pressing debts with the rest. But I am
glad to give it to you, Harry, and we must try to be better friends,
and keep on the safe side after this."
"I hope we shall," replied the man, who was touched for once. "It's
tolerably hard for folks like us, who must go when the devil drives, to
be virtuous, but I got hold of a few mining shares, which promise to
pay well now, for almost nothing; and if they turn up trumps, I'd feel
greatly tempted to throw over the Company and start afresh."
He hurriedly scribbled a little note, and Millicent turned away with a
smile that was not far from a sigh. She had returned from England in a
repentant mood, and her husband, whose affairs had gone smoothly, was
almost considerate, so that, following a reconciliation, there were
times when she cherished an uncertain hope that they might struggle
back to their former level. It was on one of the occasions when their
relations were not altogether inharmonious that she had promised to
give him a draft to redeem the loan Director Shackleby held like a whip
lash over him. Had Leslie been a bolder man, it is possible that his
wife's aspirations might have been realized, for Millicent was not
impervious to good influences.
Unfortunately for her, however, a free-spoken man called Shackleby, who
said that he had been sent by his colleagues who managed the Industrial
Enterprise Company, called upon Thurston and Savine together in their
city offices. He came straight to the point after the fashion of
Western business men.
"Julius Savine has rather too big a stake in the Orchard Valley for any
one man," he said. "It's ancient history that if, as usual with such
concerns as ours, we hadn't been a day or two too slow, we would have
held the concessions instead of him. Neither need I tell you about the
mineral indications in both the reefs and alluvial. Now we saw our way
to rake a good many dollars out of that valley, but when Savine got in
ahead we just sat tight and watched him, ready to act if he found the
undertaking too big for him. It seems to me that has happened, which
explains my visit to-day. We might be open to buy some of those
conditional lands from you."
"They may never be ours to sell, though I hope for the contrary,"
Geoffrey replied.
"Exactly," said the other. "That is why we're only ready to offer you
out-district virgin forest value for the portions colored blue in this
plan. In other words, we speculate by advancing you money on very
uncertain security."
Geoffrey laughed after a glance at the plan. "You have a pretty taste!
After giving you all the best for a tithe of its future value, where do
we come in?"
"On the rest," declared Shackleby, coolly. "We would pay down the
money now, and advance you enough on interest to place you beyond all
risks in completing operations. Though you might get more for the
land, without this assistance, you might get nothing, and it will be a
pretty heavy check. I suppose I needn't say it was not until lately
that we decided to meet you this way."
"By your leave!" broke in Thomas Savine, who had been scribbling
figures on a scrap of paper, which he passed to Geoffrey. It bore a
few lines scrawled across the foot of it: "Value absurdly low, but it
might be a good way to hedge against total loss, and we could level up
the average on the rest. What do you think?"
Geoffrey grasped a pen, and the paper went back with the brief answer,
"That it would be a willful sacrifice of Miss Savine's future."
"Suppose we refuse?" he asked, and Shackleby stroked his mustache
meditatively before he made answer:
"Don't you think that would be foolish? You see, we were not unanimous
by a long way on this policy, and several of our leaders agree with me
that we had better stick to our former one. It's a big scheme, and
accidents will happen, however careful one may be. Then there's the
risk of new conditions being imposed upon you by the authorities.
Besides, you have a time limit to finish in, and mightn't do it,
especially without the assistance we could in several ways render you.
You can't have a great many dollars left either--see?"
"I do," said Geoffrey, with an ominous glitter in his eyes. "You
needn't speak more plainly. Accidents, no doubt of the kind you refer
to, have happened already. They have not, however, stopped us yet, and
are not going to. I, of course, appreciate your delicate reference to
your former policy; I conclude it was your policy individually. I
don't like threats, even veiled ones, and nobody ever succeeded in
coercing me. Accordingly, when we have drained it, we'll sell you all
the land you want at its market value. You can't have an acre at
anything like the price you offer now."
"That's your ultimatum. Yes? Then I'm only wasting time, and hope you
won't be sorry," returned Shackleby. When he went out Geoffrey turned
to Thomas Savine.
"A declared enemy is preferable to a treacherous ally," he observed
dryly. "That man would never have kept faith with us."
"I don't know," was the answer. "Of course, he's crooked, but he has
his qualities. Anyway, I'd sooner trust him than the invertebrate
crawler, Leslie."
A day or two later Shackleby called upon Leslie in his offices and with
evident surprise received the check Millicent had given to her husband.
"I wasn't in any hurry. Have some of your titled relatives in the old
country left you a fortune?" he inquired ironically.
"No," was the answer. "My folks are mostly distinctly poor commoners.
I, well--I have been rather fortunate lately."
"Here's your receipt," said Shackleby, with an embarrassing stare,
adding when Leslie, after examining it carefully, thrust the paper into
the glowing stove, "Careful man! Nobody is going to get ahead of you,
but can't you see that blame paper couldn't have made a cent's worth of
difference between you and me. Well, if you still value your
connection with the Company, I have something to tell you. That
infernal idiot Thurston won't hear of making terms, and, as you know,
there's a fortune waiting if we can corral the valley."
"I can see the desirability, but not the means of accomplishing it,"
replied Leslie.
"No!" and the speaker glanced at him scornfully. "Well, Thurston must
finish by next summer, or his conditional grants are subject to
revision, while it's quite plain he can only work in the canyon in
winter. Something in the accident line has got to happen."
"It failed before." Shackleby laughed.
"What's the matter with trying again, and keeping on trying? I've got
influence enough to double your salary if Thurston doesn't get through.
It will be tolerably easy, for this time I don't count on trusting too
much to you. I'll send you along a man and you'll just make a bet with
him--we'll fix the odds presently and they'll be heavy against us--that
Thurston successfully completes the job in the canyon. The other man
bets he doesn't. When it appears judicious we'll contrive something to
draw Thurston away for a night or two."
"But if you know the man, and it's so easy, why not make the bet
yourself?" Shackleby smiled pleasantly.
"Because I'm not secretary hoping to get my salary doubled and a land
bonus. There are other reasons, but I don't want to hurt your feelings
any more than I wish to lacerate those of my worthy colleagues.
They'll ask no questions and only pass a resolution thanking you for
your zealous services. Nothing is going to slip up the wrong way, but
if it did you could only lose your salary, and I'd see you safe on the
way to Mexico with say enough to start a store, and you would be no
worse off than before, because I figure you'd lose the berth unless you
chip in with me."
Leslie realized that this might well be so, but he made a last attempt.
"Suppose in desperation I turned round on you?"
"I'd strike you for defamation and conspiracy, publish certain facts in
your previous record, and nobody would believe you, or dare to say so.
Besides, you haven't got grit enough in you by a long way, and that's
why I'm taking your consent for granted. By the way, I forgot to
mention that confounded Britisher raked an extra hundred dollars out of
me. Said I'd got to pay for his traveling and hotel expenses. I'm not
charging you, Leslie, and you ought to feel grateful to me."