GORDON SPENDS A BUSY EVENING
Paget smoked placidly, but the heart within him was troubled. It looked
as if Selfridge had made up his mind to frame Gordon for a prison
sentence. The worst of it was that he need not invent any evidence
or take any chances. If Macdonald came through on the stand with an
identification of Elliot as one of his assailants, the young man would
go down the river to serve time. There was enough corroborative
testimony to convict St. Peter himself.
It all rested with Macdonald--and the big Scotch-Canadian was a very
uncertain quantity. His whole interests were at one in favor of getting
Elliot out of the way. On the other hand--how far would he go to save
the Kamatlah claims and to remove this good-looking rival from his path?
Peter could not think he would stoop to perjury against an innocent man.
"I'm just telling you what he said," Diane explained. "And it worried
me. His smile was cynical. I couldn't help thinking that if he wants to
get even with Gordon--"
Mrs. Paget stopped. The maid had just brought into the room a visitor.
Diane moved forward and shook hands with him. "How do you do, Mr.
Strong? Take this big chair."
Hanford Strong accepted the chair and a cigar. Though a well-to-do
mine-owner, he wore as always the rough clothes of a prospector. He came
promptly to the object of his call.
"I don't know whether this is where I should have come or not. Are you
folks for young Elliot or are you for Selfridge?" he demanded.
"If you put it that way, we're for Elliot," smiled Peter.
"All right. Let me put it another way. You work for Mac. Are you on his
side or on Elliot's in this matter of the coal claims?"
Diane looked at Peter. He took his time to answer.
"We hope the coal claimants will win, but we've got sense enough to see
that Gordon is in here to report the facts. That's what he is paid for.
He'll tell the truth as he sees it. If his superior officers decide on
those facts against Macdonald, I don't see that Elliot is to blame."
"That's how it looks to me," agreed Strong. "I'm for a wide-open Alaska,
but that don't make it right to put this young fellow through for a
crime he didn't do. Lots of folks think he did it. That's all right.
I know he didn't. Fact is, I like him. He's square. So I've come to tell
you something."
He smoked for a minute silently before he continued.
"I've got no evidence in his favor, but I bumped into something a little
while ago that didn't look good to me. You know I room next him at the
hotel. I heard a noise in his room, and I thought that was funny, seeing
as he was locked up in jail. So I kinder listened and heard whispers and
the sound of some one moving about. There's a door between his room and
mine that is kept locked. I looked through the keyhole, and in Elliot's
room there was Wally Selfridge and another man. They were looking
through papers at the desk. Wally put a stack of them in his pocket and
they went out locking the door behind them."
"They had no business doing that," burst out Diane. "Wally Selfridge
isn't an officer of the law."
Strong nodded dryly to her. "Just what I thought. So I followed them.
They went to Macdonald's offices. After awhile Wally came out and left
the other man there. Then presently the lights went out. The man is
camped there for the night. Will you tell me why?"
"Why?" repeated Diane with her sharp eyes on the miner.
"Because Wally has some papers there he don't want to get away from
him."
"Some of Gordon's papers, of course."
"You've said it."
"All his notes and evidence in the case of the coal claims probably,"
contributed Peter.
"Maybe. Wally has stole them, but he hasn't nerve enough to burn them
till he gets orders from Mac. So he's holding them safe at the office,"
guessed Strong.
"It's an outrage," Diane decided promptly.
"Surest thing you know. Wally has fixed it to frame him for prison and
to play safe about his evidence on the coal claims."
"What are you going to do about it?" Diane asked her husband sharply.
Peter rose. "First I'm going to see Gordon and hear what he has to say.
Come on, Strong. We may be gone quite a while, Diane. Don't wait up for
me if you get through your stint of nursing."
Roused from sleep, Gopher Jones grumbled a good deal about letting the
men see his prisoner. "You got all day, ain't you, without traipsing
around here nights. Don't you figure I'm entitled to any rest?"
But he let them into the ramshackle building that served as a jail, and
after three dollars had jingled in the palm of his hand he stepped
outside and left the men alone with his prisoner. The three put their
heads together and whispered.
"I'll meet you outside the house of Selfridge in half an hour, Strong,"
was the last thing that Gordon said before Jones came back to order out
the visitors.
As soon as the place was dark again, Gordon set to work on the flimsy
framework of his cell window. He knew already it was so decrepit that he
could escape any time he desired, but until now there had been no reason
why he should. Within a quarter of an hour he lifted the iron-grilled
sash bodily from the frame and crawled through the window.
He found Paget and Strong waiting for him in the shadows of a pine
outside the yard of Selfridge.
"To begin with, you walk straight home and go to bed, Peter," the young
man announced. "You're not in this. You're not invited to our party. I
don't have to tell you why, do I?"
The engineer understood the reason. He was an employee of Macdonald, a
man thoroughly trusted by him. Even though Gordon intended only to right
a wrong, it was better that Paget should not be a party to it.
Reluctantly Peter went home.
Gordon turned to Strong. "I owe you a lot already. There's no need for
you to run a risk of getting into trouble for me. If things break right,
I can do what I have to do without help."
"And if they don't?" Strong waved an impatient hand. "Cut it out,
Elliot. I've taken a fancy to go through with this. I never did like
Selfridge anyhow, and I ain't got a wife and I don't work for Mac. Why
the hell shouldn't I have some fun?"
Gordon shrugged his shoulders. "All right. Might as well play ball and
get things moving, then."
The little miner knocked at the door. Wally himself opened. Elliot, from
the shelter of the pine, saw the two men in talk. Selfridge shut the
door and came to the edge of the porch. He gave a gasp and his hands
went trembling into the air. The six-gun of the miner had been pressed
hard against his fat paunch. Under curt orders he moved down the steps
and out of the yard to the tree.
At sight of Gordon the eyes of Wally stood out in amazement. Little
sweat beads burst out on his forehead, for he remembered how busy he had
been collecting evidence against this man.
"W-w-what do you want?" he asked.
"Got your keys with you?"
"Y-yes."
"Come with us."
Wally breathed more freely. For a moment he had thought this man had
come to take summary vengeance on him.
They led him by alleys and back streets to the office of the Macdonald
Yukon Trading Company. Under orders he knocked on the door and called
out who he was. Gordon crouched close to the log wall, Strong behind
him.
"Let me in, Olson," ordered Selfridge again.
The door opened, and a man stood on the threshold. Elliot was on top of
him like a panther. The man went down as though his knees were oiled
hinges. Before he could gather his slow wits, the barrel of a revolver
was shoved against his teeth.
"Take it easy, Olson," advised Gordon. "Get up--slowly. Now, step back
into the office. Keep your hands up."
Strong closed and locked the door behind them.
"I want my papers, Selfridge. Dig up your keys and get them for me,"
Elliot commanded.
Wally did not need any keys. He knew the combination of the safe and
opened it. From an inner drawer he drew a bunch of papers. Gordon looked
them over carefully. Strong sat on a table and toyed with a revolver
which he jammed playfully into the stomach of his fat prisoner.
"All here," announced the field agent.
The safe-robbers locked their prisoners in the office and disappeared
into the night. They stopped at the house of the collector of customs, a
genial young fellow with whom Elliot had played tennis a good deal, and
left the papers in his hands for safe-keeping. After which they returned
to the hotel and reached the second floor by way of the back stairs used
by the servants.
Here they parted, each going to his own room. Gordon slept like a
schoolboy and woke only when the sun poured through the window upon his
bed in a broad ribbon of warm gold.
He got up, bathed, dressed, and went down into the hotel dining-room.
The waiters looked at him in amazement. Presently the cook peered in
at him from the kitchen and the clerk made an excuse to drop into the
room. Gordon ate as if nothing were the matter, apparently unaware of
the excitement he was causing. He paid not the least attention to the
nudging and the whispering. After he had finished breakfast, he lit a
cigar, leaned back in his chair, and smoked placidly.
Presently an eruption of men poured into the room. At the head of them
was Gopher Jones. Near the rear Wally Selfridge lingered modestly. He
was not looking for hazardous adventure.
"Whad you doing here?" demanded Gopher, bristling up to Elliot.
The young man watched a smoke wreath float ceilingward before he turned
his mild gaze on the chief of police.
"I'm smoking."
"Don't you know we just got in from hunting you--two posses of us been
out all night?" Gopher glared savagely at the smoker.
Gordon looked distressed. "That's too bad. There's a telephone in my
room, too. Why didn't you call up? I've been there all night."
"The deuce you have," exploded Jones. "And us combing the hills for you.
Young man, you're mighty smart. But I want to tell you that you'll pay
for this."
"Did you want me for anything in particular--or just to get up a poker
game?" asked Elliot suavely.
The leader of the posse gave himself to a job of scientific profanity.
He was spurred on to outdo himself because he had heard a titter or
two behind him. When he had finished, he formed a procession. He, with
Elliot hand-cuffed beside him, was at the head of it. It marched to the
jail.