"MR. SLOAN SPEAKS"
"Wow! Somethin' seems to have kind of livened up the gloom of this
dump, seems to me," exclaimed Bill on the following morning, when
returning from his regular trip underground, he stamped into the
office, threw himself into a chair, and hauled off one of his rubber
boots preparatory to donning those of leather.
Dick had been bent over the high desk, with plans unrolled before him,
and a sheet of paper on which he made calculations, whistling as he
did so.
"First time I've heard you whistle since we left the Coeur d'Alenes,"
Bill went on, grinning slyly, as if secretly pleased. "What're you up
to?"
"Finding out if by sinking we couldn't cut that green lead about two
hundred feet farther down."
"Bully boy! I'm with you!" encouraged the older miner, throwing the
cumbersome boots into the corner, and coming over behind Dick, where
he could inspect the plans across the angle of the other's broad
shoulder. "How does she dope out?"
"We cut the green lead on the six-hundred-foot, at a hundred and ten
feet from the shaft, didn't we? Well, the men before us cut on the
five-hundred at a hundred and seventy from the shaft, and at
two-twenty from the shaft on the four-hundred-foot level, where they
stoped out a lot of it before concluding it wouldn't pay to work. It
was a strong but almost barren ledge when they first came into it on
the two-hundred-foot level. The Bonanza chute made gold because they
happened to hit it at a crossing on the four-hundred-foot level. At
the six-hundred, as we know, it was almost like a chimney of ore that
is playing out as we drift west. If the mill had not been put out of
business, we were going to stope it out, though, and prove whether it
was the permanent ledge, weren't we?"
"Right you are, pardner."
"Well, then, at the same angle, we would have to drift less than
seventy feet on the seven-hundred-foot level to cut it again, and at
the eight-hundred-foot we'd just about have it at the foot of the
shaft. Well, I'm sinking, regardless of expense."
"It might be right, boy, it might be right," Bill said, thoughtfully
scowling at the plans, and going over the figures of the dip. "But
you're the boss. What you say goes."
"But don't you think I'm right?"
"Yes," hesitatingly, "or, anyway, it's worth takin' a chance on. Bells
used to say the mines around here all had to get depth, and that most
of the ledges came in stronger as they went down. The Cross ain't
shown it so far, but eight hundred feet ought to show whether that's
the right line of work."
"How is the sump hole under the shaft?" Dick asked.
"Must be somewhere about seventy or eighty feet of water in it; but we
can pump that out in no time. She isn't makin' much water. Almost a
dry mine now, for some reason I don't quite get. Looks as if it leaked
away a good deal, somewhere, through the formation. There wouldn't be
no trouble in sinkin' the shaft."
"And thirty feet, about, would bring us to the seven-hundred-foot
mark?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll tell you what I want to do: I want you to shift the crew so
that there is a day and a night shift. The rebuilding of the dam can
be put off for a while, except for such work as the millmen are
agreeable to take on. I want to sink! I don't want to waste any time
about it. I want to go down just as fast as it can be done, and when
we get to the seven-hundred-foot, one gang must start to drift for the
green lead, and the others must keep going down."
He was almost knocked over the desk by a rousing, enthusiastic slap on
the back.
"Now you're my old pardner again!" Bill shouted. "You're the lad again
that was fresh from the schools, knew what he wanted, and went after
it. Dick, I've been kind of worried about you since we came here," the
veteran went on, in a softer tone of voice. "You ain't been like the
old Dick. You ain't had the zip! It's as if you were afraid all the
time of losing Sloan's money, and it worried you. And sometimes--now,
I don't want you to get sore and cuss me--it seemed to me as if your
mind wa'n't altogether on the job! As if the Cross didn't mean
everything."
He waited expectantly for a moment, as if inviting a confidence; then,
observing that the younger man was flushed, and not looking at him,
grinned knowingly, and trudged out of the office, calling back as he
went: "There'll be sump water in the creek in half an hour."
As if imbued with new energy, he ordered one of the idle millmen to
act as stoker, if he cared to do so, which was cheerfully done, had
the extra pump attached, saw the fire roaring from another boiler, and
by noon the shaft rang with the steady throb of the pistons pounding
and pulling the waste water upward. The last of the unwatering of the
Cross was going forward in haste. By six o'clock in the evening he
reported that soundings showed that the map had not been checked up,
and that the shaft was seven hundred and ten feet deep, and that they
would commence a drift on the seven-hundred-foot mark the next day.
Dick was awakened at an early hour, and found Bill missing. He
went over to the hoist house, where a sleepy night man, new to the
hours, grinned at him with a pleasant: "Looks like we're busy,
just--the--same, Mr. Townsend! The old man"--the superintendent of a
mine is always "the old man," be he but twenty--"left orders last
night that when the water was clear at seven hundred feet he was to be
called. He kicked up two of the drill men at four this mornin',
and they're down there puttin' the steel into the rock ever since.
Hear 'em? He's makin' things hump!"
Dick leaned over the unused compartment of the shaft, and heard the
steady, savage chugging of the drills. Bill was "makin' things hump!"
with a vengeance.
A man who had been sent to the camp for the semi-weekly mail arrived
while the partners were at breakfast, and the first letter laid before
them was one with a New York postmark, which Dick read anxiously. It
was from Sloan, who told him that he had been unexpectedly called to
the Pacific coast on a hurried trip, and that, while he did not have
time to visit the Croix d'Or, he very earnestly hoped that Dick would
arrange, on receipt of the letter, to meet him in Seattle, and named a
date.
"Whe-e-w! You got to move some, ain't you? Let's see, if you want to
meet him you'll have to be hittin' the trail out of here in an hour,"
said Bill, laying down his knife and fork. "What do you s'pose is up?
Goin' to tie the poke strings again?"
Dick feared something was amiss. And he continued to think of this
after he had written a hasty note to Joan, telling her of his abrupt
absence, and that he expected to return in a week. He pondered for a
moment whether or not to add some note of affection, but decided that
he was still under her ban, and so contented himself with the closing
line:
"I am following your advice. We are sinking!"
He had to run, bag in hand, to catch the stage from Goldpan, and as it
jolted along over the rough passes and rugged inclines had a medley of
thought. Sometimes he could not imagine why Sloan had been so anxious
to talk with him, and in the other and happier intervals, he thought
of Joan Presby, daughter of the man whom he had come to regard as
antagonistic in many ways.
The confusion of mind dwelt with him persistently after he had boarded
the rough "accommodation" that carried him to the main line, where he
must wait for the thunderous arrival of the long express train that
was to carry him across the broad and splendid State of Washington.
Idaho and Oregon were left behind. The magnificent wheat belt spread
from horizon to horizon, and harvesters paused to wave their hats at
the travelers. The Western ranges of the Olympics, solid, dignified,
and engraved against the sky with their outline of peak and forest,
came into view, and yet his perturbation continued.
He saw the splendid panorama of Puget Sound open to his view, and the
train, at last, after those weary hours of jolting, rattled into the
long sheds that at that time disgraced the young giant city of the
North-west. It was the first time he had even entered its shadows, and
as he turned its corner he looked curiously at the stump of a tree
that had been hollowed into an ample office, and was assailed by the
strident cries of cabmen.
"The Butler House," he said, relinquishing his bag into the hands of
the first driver who reached him, and settled back into the cushions
with a sense of bewilderment, as if something long forgotten had been
recalled. He knew what it was as he drove along in all that clamor of
sound which issues from a great and hurrying city. It was New York,
and he was in the young New York of the North-west, with great
skeleton structures uprearing and the turmoil of building. Only here
was a difference, for side by side on the streets walked men clad in
the latest fashion, and men bound to or coming from the arctic fields
of gold-bound Alaska. Electric cars tearing along at a reckless speed,
freight wagons heavily laden, newsboys screaming the call of extras,
and emerging from behind log wagons, and everything betokening that
clash of the old and the intensely new.
At the Butler House the man behind the desk twirled the register
toward him, and assigned him a room.
"Sloan?" he replied to Dick's inquiry. "Oh, yes. He's the old chap
from New York who said he was expecting someone, and to send him right
up. I suppose you're the man. Here, boy, show Mr. Townsend to
five-fifty. Right that way, sir."
And before his words were finished he had turned to a new arrival.
The clamor of the streets, busy as is no other city in the world busy
when the season is on, was still in his ears, striking a familiar note
in his memory, and the modernity of the elevator, the brass-buttoned
boy, and the hotel itself brought back the last time he had seen Mr.
Sloan, and the day he had parted from his father in that office on
Wall Street. He found the Wall Street veteran grayer, much older, and
more kindly, when he was ushered into the room to receive his
greeting. He subsided into a chair, but his father's old-time friend
protested.
"Stand up!" he commanded, "and turn around, young fellow, so I can see
whether you have filled out. Humph! You'll do, I guess, physically. I
don't think I should want to have any trouble with you. You look as if
you could hold your own most anywhere. I'm glad. Now, sit down, and
tell me all about the mine."
He listened while Dick went into details of the work, sparing none of
the misfortunes and disappointments, and telling of the new method
employed. He was interrupted now and then by a shrewd question, an
exclamation, or a word of assent, and, after he had finished the
account, said: "Well, that is all there is to report. What do you
think?"
"Who is Thomas W. Presby?" Sloan's question was abrupt.
"The owner of the Rattler, the mine next to us."
"He is?" the question was explosive. "Ah, ha! The moth in the closet,
eh? So that accounts for it! I spent a hundred dollars, then, to good
purpose, it seems to me!"
Dick looked an intent and wondering question.
"An agent here in Seattle wrote me that they had written you, making
an offer of sixty thousand dollars for the property--yes--the same one
you wrote me about. He said they had reason to believe I was the
financial backer for the mine, and that they now wished to deal with
me, inasmuch as you might be carried away by youthful enthusiasm to
squandering my hard-earned cash. I wrote back that your judgment
satisfied me. Then, just before I left, I got a flat offer of a
hundred thousand dollars for the property in full, or seventy-five
thousand for my share alone. It set me to thinking, and wondering if
some one wasn't trying to cut your feet from under you. So, having
business in Portland, I came on up here, and got after this agent."
Dick had a chill of apprehension. He knew before the loyal old man had
proceeded half-way what to expect.
"It cost me a hundred dollars in entertainment, and a lot of apparent
readiness to talk business, to get him confidential with me. Then I
got the name of the would-be purchaser, under injunctions of secrecy,
because those were the agent's positive instructions. The man who
wants to buy is Presby!"
For one black, unworthy instant, Dick looked out of the window,
wondering if it were possible that Joan had known of her father's
efforts, and had withheld the information. Then the memory of that
gentle face, the candid eyes, her courageous advice, and--last of
all--the kiss and prayer on her lips, made him mentally reproach
himself for the thought. But he remembered that he still owed
affection and deference to the stanch old man who sat before him, who
had been his benefactor in an hour of need, and backed faith with
money.
"Well, sir," he said, turning to meet the kindly eyes, "what do you
think of it?"
"Think of it? Think of it?" Sloan replied, raising his voice. "I'll
tell you my answer. 'You sit down,' I said, 'and write this man Presby
that I knew no one in connection with the Croix d'Or but the son of
the man who many times befriended me, in desperate situations when I
needed it! That I was paying back to the son what I was unfortunately
prevented from paying back to the father--a constant gratitude! That
I'd see him or any other man in their graves before I'd sell Richard
Townsend out in that way. That I'd back Dick Townsend on the Croix
d'Or as long as he wanted me to, and that when he gave that up, I'd
still back him on any other mine he said was good!' That's what I
said!"
He had lost his calm, club poise, and was again the virulent business
man of that Wall Street battle, waged daily, where men must have force
or fail to survive. Dick saw in him the man who was, the man who at
times had shaken the financial world with his desperate bravery and
daring, back in the days when giants fought for the beginnings of
supremacy. He felt very inexperienced and young, as he looked at this
veteran with scars, and impulsively rose to his feet and held out his
hand. He was almost dumb with gratitude.
"I shouldn't have asked you to say so much," he said. "I am--well--I
am sort of down and out with it all! I feel a little bit as I did when
the Cornell eleven piled on top of me in the annual, when I played
half-back."
"Hey! And wasn't that a game!" the old man suddenly enthused, with
sparkling eyes. "And how your father and I did yell and howl and beat
the heads of those in front! Gad! I remember the old man had a silk
hat, and he banged it up and down on a bald head in front until there
was nothing but a rim left, and then looked as sheepish as a boy
caught stealing apples when he realized what he had done. Oh, but your
Daddy was a man, even if he did have a temper, my boy!"
His eyes sparkled with a fervid love of the game of his college days,
and he seemed to have dismissed the Croix d'Or from his mind, as if it
were of no importance. Nor did he, during the course of that visit,
refer to it again. He made exception, when he shook hands with Dick at
the train.
"Don't let anybody bluff you," he said. "Remember that a brave front
alone often wins. If you fail with the Croix the world is still big,
and--well--you're one of my legatees. Good-by. Good luck!"
Again Dick endured the rumbling of trains through long hours, the
change from one to another at small junctions, the day and night in a
stage coach whose springs seemed to have lost resiliency, and the
discourse of two drummers, Hebraic, the chill aloofness of a
supercilious mining expert new to the district, and the heated
discussions of two drill runners, veterans, off to a new field, and
celebrating the journey with a demijohn. The latter were union men,
and long after he was tired of their babel they broached a
conversation which brought Dick to a point of eager listening.
"Yes, you see," one of the men asserted; "they got the goods on him.
Thompson had been a good delegate until he got the finger itch, then
he had an idea he could use the miners' union to scratch 'em. He held
up one or two small mines before the big guns got wise. That got him
to feelin' his oats, and he went for bigger game."
"But how did they get him?" the other runner insisted.
"They got him over here to where we're goin--Goldpan. He held up some
fellers that's got a mine called the Craw Door, or somethin' like
that. Fetched three of his pals from Denver with him. They called
'emselves miners! God! Miners nothin'! They'd worked around Cripple
Creek long enough to get union cards, but two of 'em was prize
fighters, and the other used to be bouncer at the old Alcazar when she
was the hottest place to lose money that ever turned a crooked card. I
remember there one time when----"
"Nobody asked you about that," growled the other man. "What I'm
interested in is about this big stiff, Thompson."
"Him? Oh, yes. Where was I? Well, he fixed things for a hold-up. Was
goin' to get these fellers at the Craw Door to untie their pokes, but
they don't stand for it. He packs a meetin' with a lot of swampers
that don't know nothin' about the case, and before they gets done they
votes a strike, and an old feller from this Craw Door gets his time.
Gets kicked to death, the same as they uster in Park City when the
Cousin Jacks from the Ontario cut loose on one another. The Denver
council takes cawgnizance of this, and investigates. It snoops around
till it gets the goods. Then--_wow! bing!_ goes this here Thompson.
They sue him themselves, and now he's up in Canon City, a-lookin'
plaintive like through these things."
He held his knotted, rough fingers open before his face, and jerked
his head sideways, simulating a man peering through penitentiary
bars. Then, with a roar, he started in to bellow, "The union
forever--hooraw, boys hooraw!" in which his companion, forgetting all
the story, joined until it was again time to tilt the wicker-covered
jug.
And so that was the end of Thompson and presumably the strike, Dick
thought, as he settled back into the corner he had claimed. And it was
easy to see, with this damning evidence to be brought forward, that
Bells Park's murderers would pay, to the full, the penalty. For them,
on trial, it meant nothing less than life. He was human enough to be
glad.
The stage rattled into Goldpan, and, stiff and sore from his journey,
he began his tramp toward the trail of the cut-off leading homeward:
He stopped but once. It was in front of the High Light, where a small
scrap of paper still clung to the plate glass. On it was written, in a
hurried, but firm and womanly, handwriting:
This place is closed for good. It is not for sale. It has held
hell. Hereafter it shall hold nothing but cobwebs.
LILY MEREDITH.
The date was that of the tragic night, the night when Bells Park,
fighting for those on whom he had bestowed a queer, distorted
affection, had been kicked to death by the ruffians now cowering in a
distant jail!
Verily the camp and the district had memories for him as he trudged
away from its straggling shanties, and filled his lungs with the
fresh, free air from the wide, rugged stretches beyond. When he came
through the borders of the Rattler he looked eagerly, insistently, for
a glimpse of his heart's desire, and thought, with annoyance, that he
did not so much as know the cabin which she called home. But he was
not rewarded. It was still the same, with no enlivening touch of form
or color, the same spider-web tramways debouching into the top of the
mill, the same sullen roar and rumble of falling stamps, the same
columns of smoke from tall chimney and humble log structure, alike,
and the same careless clash of the breakers.
Bill came hurrying down the trail to meet him, waving his hat, and
shouting a welcome. Up at the yard the smith held a black hand and
muscled arm up to shade his eyes from the last sunlight, and then
shook a hammer aloft. From the door of the engine room the man who had
been Bells' assistant bawled a greeting, and the fat cook shook a
ladle at him through the mess-house window. It all gave him an immense
and satisfactory warmth of home-coming, and the Croix d'Or, with its
steadfast, friendly little colony, was home in truth!
"We're in sixty feet on the seven-hundred-foot," Bill grinned, with
the air of one giving a pleasant surprise, "and say, boy, we've hit
the edge of ore. You were all right. The green lead is still there,
only she looks better to me than she did before, and I know rock,
some."
There was nothing wanting in the pleasure of his return, and the last
addition to that satisfactory day was a note he found, lying on the
very top of other letters awaiting him. It was from Joan Presby, and
Bill, starting to enter the office, saw his partner's face in the
light of the lamp, smiled affectionately, and then tiptoed away into
the darkness, as if to avoid intrusion at such a time.