AT BUFFALO POINT
To Gordon's mind Hazel Mallinsbee attached far greater importance to
her father's presence on the veranda than the incident warranted. It
did not seem to him that there was the least necessity for his being
there at all. Truth to tell, the matter appeared to him to be a
perfect nuisance. He had rather liked Silas Mallinsbee when he had met
him under somewhat distressing circumstances in the town. Now he felt
a positive dislike for him. His strong, keen, benevolent face made no
appeal to his sympathies now whatsoever.
Besides, it did not seem right that any man who claimed parentage of
such a delightful daughter as the girl at his side should slouch about
in a pair of old trousers tucked into top-boots and secured about his
waist by a narrow strap. And it seemed positively indecent that he
should display no other upper garment than a cotton shirt of such a
doubtful hue that it was impossible to be sure of its sanitary
condition.
However, he allowed none of these feelings betrayal, and replied
appropriately to Hazel's excited announcement. He was glad, later, he
had exercised such control, for their arrival at the house was the
immediate precursor of an invitation to share their midday meal, which
had already been placed on the table by the silent, inscrutable
Hip-Lee, the Chinese cook and general servitor in this temporary abode.
The horses had been housed and fed in the temporary stable at the back
of the house, and a committee of three had sat upon Sunset's injury and
prescribed for and treated it. Now they were indoors, ready for the
homely meal set out for them.
Hip-Lee moved softly about setting an additional place at the table for
the visitor. Silas Mallinsbee was lounging in the doorway, looking out
across the veranda. Hazel was superintending Hip-Lee's efforts.
Gordon was endeavoring to solve the problem of the rapid and unexpected
happenings which had befallen him since his arrival, and at the same
time carry on a conversation with the rumbling-voiced originator of
Snake's Fall boom.
"At one time I guessed I'd bumped right into the hands of the
Philistines," he said. "That's when I was--er arriving. Since then a
Samaritan got busy my way and dumps me right down in the heart of the
Promised Land, which just now seems to be flowing with milk and honey.
I set out to view the dull black mountains of industry, and instead I
arrive at the sparkling plains of delightful ease. Mr. Mallinsbee, you
certainly have contrived to put me under enormous obligation."
Gordon's eyes were pleasantly following the movements of the girl's
graceful figure about the plain but neat parlor. "I suppose all
offices in the West are not like this, because----"
Mallinsbee rumbled a pleasant laugh.
"Office?" he said, without turning. "That's jest how Hazel calls it.
Guess she's got notions since she finished off her education at Boston.
She's got around with a heap of 'em, includin' that suit she's wearin'.
Y'see, she's my foreman hoss-breaker, and reckons skirts and things
are--played out. Office? Why, it's just a shack. Some time you must
get around out an' see the ranch house. It's some place," he added
with simple pride.
Hazel went up to her father and pretended to threaten him by the neck.
"See, Daddy, you can just quit telling about my notions to--folks.
Anyway"--she turned her back to Gordon--"I appeal to you, Mr. Van
Henslaer, isn't an office a place where folks transact big deals and
make fortunes?"
"That's how folks reckon when they rent them," said Gordon. "Of
course, I've known folks to sleep in 'em. Others use 'em as a sort of
club smoking lounge. Then they've been known to serve some men as a
shelter from--home. I used to have an office."
Silas Mallinsbee turned from his contemplation of the horizon. He was
interested, and his shrewd eyes displayed the fact.
Hazel clapped her hands.
"And what did you use it for?" she demanded quizzically.
"I--oh, I--let's see. Well, mostly an address from which to have word
sent to folks I didn't want to see that--I was out. I used to find it
useful that way."
Mallinsbee's chuckle amused Gordon, but Hazel assumed an air of
judicial severity.
"A spirit not to be encouraged." Then, at the sound of her father's
chuckle, "My daddy, you are as bad as he. Now food's ready, so please
sit in. We can talk easier around a table than when people are
dreaming somewhere in the distance on the horizon, or walking about a
room that isn't bigger than the bare size to sit in. Anyway, Mr. Van
Henslaer, this office is for business. I won't have it disparaged by
my daddy, or--or anyone else. It serves a great purpose so far as
we're concerned." Then she added slyly, "You see, we're in the throes
of the great excitement of making a huge pile, for the sheer love of
making it. Aren't we, Daddy, dear?"
Silas Mallinsbee looked up from the food he was eating with the air of
a man who only eats as a matter of sheer necessity.
"Say, Mr. Van Henslaer," he said in his deep tones, "I've been a
rancher all my life. Cattle, to me, are just about the only things in
the world worth while, 'cept horses. I've never had a care or thought
outside 'em, till one day I got busy worrying what was under the ground
instead of keeping to the things I understood above the ground. Y'see,
the trouble was two things," he went on, smiling tenderly in his
daughter's direction. "One was I'd fed the ranch stoves with surface
coal that you could find almost anywheres on my land, and the other was
the fates just handed me the picture of a daughter who caught the
dangerous disease of 'notions' way down east at school in Boston.
Since she's come along back to us I've had coal, coal, coal all chasin'
through my head, an' playing baseball with every blamed common-sense
idea that ever was there before. Wal, to tell things quick, I made a
mighty big pile out of that coal just to please her. We didn't need
it, but she guessed it was up to me to do this. But that didn't finish
it. This gal here couldn't rest at that. She guessed that pile was
made and done with. She needs to get busy in another direction. Well,
she gets to work, and has all my land on the railroads staked out into
a township, and reckons it's a game worth playing. The other was too
dead easy. This time she reckons to measure her brains and energy
against a railroad! She reckons to show that we can match, and beat,
any card they can play. That's the reason of this office."
Hazel laughed and raised an admonishing finger at the smiling face and
twinkling eyes of her father.
"What did I tell you, Mr. Van Henslaer?" she cried. "Didn't I say he
was just a scallywag? Oh, my great, big daddy, I'm dreadfully,
dreadfully ashamed and disappointed in you. I'm going to give you
away. I am, surely. There, there, Mr. Van Henslaer, sits the wicked
plotter and schemer. Look at him. A big, burly ruffian that ought to
know better. Look at him," she went on, pointing a dramatic finger at
him. "And he isn't even ashamed. He's laughing. Now listen to me.
I'm going to tell you my version. He's a rancher all right, all right.
He's been satisfied with that all his life, and prosperity's never
turned him down. Then one day he found coal, and did nothing. We just
used to talk of it, that was all. Then another day along comes a
friend, a very, very old friend and neighbor, whom he's often helped.
He came along and got my daddy to sell him a certain patch of
grazing--just to help him out, he said. He was a poor man, and my
big-hearted daddy sold it him at a rock-bottom price to make it easy
for him. Three months later they were mining coal on it--anthracite
coal. That fellow made a nice pile out of it. He'd bluffed my daddy,
and my daddy takes a bluff from no man. Well, say, he just nearly went
crazy being bested that way, and he said to me--these were his words:
'Come on, my gal, you and me are just goin' to show folks what we're
made of. If there's money in my land we're going to make all we need
before anyone gets home on us. I'm goin' to show 'em I'm a match for
the best sharks our country can produce--and that's some goin'.' There
sits the money-spinner. There! Look at him; he's self-confessed. I'm
just his clerk, or decoy, or--or any old thing he needs to help him in
his wicked, wicked schemes!"
Mallinsbee sat chuckling at his daughter's charge, and Gordon, watching
him, laughed in chorus.
"I'm kind of sorry, Mr. Mallinsbee, to have had to listen to such a
tale," he said at last, with pretended seriousness, "but I guess you're
charged, tried, convicted and sentenced. Seeing there's just two of
you, it's up to me to give the verdict Guilty!" he declared. "Have you
any reason to show why sentence should not be passed upon you? No?
Very well, then. I sentence you to make that pile, without fail, in a
given time. Say six months. Failing which you'll have the
satisfaction of knowing that you have assisted in the ruin of an
innocent life."
In the midst of the lightness of the moment Gordon had suddenly taken a
resolve. It was one of those quick, impulsive resolves which were
entirely characteristic of him. There was nothing quite clear in his
mind as to any reason in his decision. He was caught in the enthusiasm
of his admiration of the fair oval face of his hostess, whose
unconventional camaraderie so appealed to his wholesome nature; he was
caught by the radiance of her sunny smile, by the laughing depths of
her perfect hazel eyes. Nor was the manner of the man, her father,
without effect upon his responsive, simple nature.
But his sentence on Silas Mallinsbee had caught and held both father's
and daughter's attention, and excited their curiosity.
"Why six months?" smiled Hazel.
"Say, it's sure some time limit," growled Mallinsbee.
Gordon assumed an air of judicial severity.
"Is the court to be questioned upon its powers?" he demanded. "There
is a law of 'contempt,'" he added warningly.
But his warning was without effect.
"And the innocent's ruin?" demanded Hazel.
The answer came without a moment's hesitation.
"Mine," said Gordon. And his audience, now with serious eyes, waited
for him to go on.
Hip-Lee had brought in the sweet, and vanished again in his silent
fashion. Then Gordon raised his eyes from his plate and glanced at his
host. They wandered across to and lingered for a moment on the strong
young face of the girl. Then they came back to his plate, and he
sighed.
"Say, if there's one thing hurts me it's to hear everybody telling a
yarn, and my not having one to throw back at 'em," he said, smiling
down at the simple baked custard and fruit he was devouring. "Just now
I'm not hurt a thing, however, so that remark don't apply. You see, my
yarn's just as simple and easy as both of yours, and I can tell it in a
sentence. My father's sent me out in the world with a stake of my own
naming to make one hundred thousand dollars in six months!"
He was surprised to witness, the dramatic effect of his announcement.
Hazel's astonishment was serious and frankly without disguise. But her
father's was less marked by outward expression. It was only obvious
from the complete lack of the smile which had been in his shrewd eyes a
moment before.
"One hundred thousand dollars in six months!" Hazel exclaimed. She had
narrowly escaped scalding herself with the coffee Hip-Lee had just
served. She set her cup down hastily.
"Guess your father's takin' a big chance," said Mallinsbee thoughtfully.
But their serious astonishment was too great a strain for Gordon. He
began to laugh.
"It's my belief life's too serious to be taken seriously, so the chance
he's taken don't worry me as, maybe, it ought," he said. "You see, my
father's a good sportsman, and he sees most things the way every real
sportsman sees 'em--where his son's concerned. Morally I owe him one
hundred thousand dollars. I say morally. Well, I guess we talked
together some. I--well, maybe I made a big talk, like fellows of my
age and experience are liable to make to a fellow of my father's age
and experience. Then I sort of got a shock, as sometimes fellows of my
age making a big talk do. In about half a minute I found a new meaning
for the word 'bluff.' I thought I'd got its meaning right before that.
I thought I could teach my father all there was to know about bluff.
You see, I'd forgotten he'd lived thirty-three more years than I had.
Bluff? Why, I'd never heard of it as he knew it. The result is I've
got to make one hundred thousand dollars in six months or forfeit my
legitimate future." Then he added with the gayest, most buoyant laugh,
"Say, it's a terrible thing to think of. It's dead serious. It's as
serious as an inter-university ball game."
The lurking smile had returned to Mallinsbee's eyes, and Hazel frankly
joined in Gordon's laugh.
"And you've come to Snake's Fall to--to make it?" she cried.
"I can't just say that," returned Gordon.
"No." Mallinsbee shook his head, and the two men exchanged meaning
glances. Then the old man went on with his food and spoke between the
mouthfuls. "You had an office?"
"Sure. You see, I was my father's secretary."
"Secretary?" Mallinsbee looked up quickly.
Gordon nodded.
"That's what he called me. I drew the salary--and my allowance. It
was an elegant office--what little I remember of it."
The old man's regard was very nearly a broad laugh.
"Say, you made a talk about an 'innocent's' life gettin' all mussed up?"
Gordon nodded with profound seriousness.
"Sure," he replied. "Mine. I don't guess you'll deny my innocence."
Mallinsbee shook his head. "Good," Gordon went on; "that makes it
easy. If you don't make good I lose my chance. I'm going to put my
stake in your town plots."
The rancher regarded him steadily for some moments. Then--
"Say, what's your stake?" he inquired abruptly.
Gordon had nothing to hide. There was, it seemed to him, a fatal
magnetism about these people. The girl's eyes were upon him, full of
amused delight at the story he had told; while her father seemed to be
driving towards some definite goal.
"Five thousand dollars. That and a few hundred dollars I had to my
credit at the bank. It don't sound much," he added apologetically,
"but perhaps it isn't quite impossible."
"I don't guess there's a thing impossible in this world for the feller
who's got to make good," said Mallinsbee. "You see, you've got to make
good, and it don't matter a heap if your stake's five hundred or five
thousand. Say, talk's just about the biggest thing in life, but it's
made up of hot air, an' too much hot air's mighty oppressive. So I'll
just get to the end of what I've to say as sudden as I can. I guess my
gal's right, I'm just crazy to beat the 'sharps' on this land scoop,
and I'm going to do it if I get brain fever. Now it's quite a
proposition. I've got to play the railroad and all these ground
sharks, and see I get the juice while they only get the pie-crust. I'm
needing a--we'll call him a secretary. Hazel is all sorts of a bright
help, but she ain't a man. I need a feller who can swear and scrap if
need be, and one who can scratch around with a pen in odd moments.
This thing is a big fight, and the man who's got the biggest heart and
best wind's going to win through. My wind's sound, and I ain't heard
of any heart trouble in my family. Now you ken come in in town plots
so that when the boom comes they'll net you that one hundred thousand
dollars. You don't need to part with that stake--yet. The deal shall
be on paper, and the cash settlement shall come at the finish.
Meanwhile, if need be, for six months you'll put in every moment you've
got on the work of organizing this boom. Maybe we'll need to scrap
plenty. But I don't guess that'll come amiss your way. We'll hand
this shanty over for quarters for you, and we'll share it as an office.
This ain't philanthropy; it's business. The man who's got no more
sense than to call a bluff to make one hundred thousand dollars in six
months is the man for me. He'll make it or he won't. And, anyway,
he's going to make things busy for six months. You ain't a 'sharp'
now--or I wouldn't hand you this talk. But I'm guessin' you'll be
mighty near one before we're through. We've got to graft, and graft
plenty, which is a play that ain't without attractions to a real bright
feller. You see, money's got a heap of evil lyin' around its
root--well, the root of things is gener'ly the most attractive. Guess
I've used a deal of hot air in makin' this proposition, but you won't
need to use as much in your answer--when you've slept over it. Say, if
food's through we'll get busy, Hazel."
Mrs. James Carbhoy was in bed when she received her morning's mail.
Perhaps she and her millionaire husband were unusually old-fashioned in
their domestic life. Anyway, James Carbhoy's presence in the great
bedstead beside her was made obvious by the heavy breathing which, in a
less wealthy man, might have been called snoring, and the mountainous
ridge of bedclothes which covered his monumental bulk.
A querulous voice disturbed his dreams. He heard it from afar off, and
it merged with the scenes he was dwelling upon. A panic followed. He
had made a terrible discovery. It was his wife, and not the president
of a rival railroad, who was stealing the metals of a new track he was
constructing as fast as he could lay them.
He awoke in a cold sweat. He thought he was lying in the cutting
beside the track. His wife had vanished. He rubbed his eyes. No, she
hadn't. There she was, sitting up in bed with a sheaf of papers in her
hand. He felt relieved.
Now her plaint penetrated to his waking consciousness.
"For goodness' sake, James," she cried, "quit snoring and wake up. I
wish you'd pay attention when I'm speaking. I'm all worried to death."
The multi-millionaire yawned distressingly.
"Most folks are worried in the morning. I'm worried, too. Go to
sleep. You'll feel better after a while."
"It's nothing to do with the morning," complained his wife.
"It's--it's a letter from Gordon. The poor boy writes such queer
letters. It's all through you being so hard on him. You never did
have any feeling for--for anybody. I'm sure he's suffering. He never
talked this way before. Maybe he don't get enough to eat; he don't say
where he is either. Perhaps he's just nowhere in particular. You'd
better ring up an inquiry bureau----"
"For goodness' sake read the letter," growled the drowsy man. "You're
making as much fuss as a hen with bald chicks."
Mrs. Carbhoy withered her husband with a glance that fell only upon the
back of his great head. But she had her way. She meant him to share
in her anxiety through the text of the, to her, incomprehensible
letter. She read slowly and deliberately, and in a voice calculated to
rivet any wandering attention.
"DEAREST MUM:
"There's folks who say that no man knows the real meaning of luck, good
or bad, till he takes to himself a wife. This may be right. My
argument is, it's only partially so. There may be considerable luck
about matrimony. For instance, if any fool man came along and married
our Gracie he'd be taking quite a chance. Her native indolence and
peevishness suggest possibilities. Her tongue is vitriolic in one so
young, as I have frequently had reason to observe. This would
certainly be a case where the man would learn the real meaning of luck.
But there wouldn't be a question. His luck would be out--plumb out.
Jonah would have been a mascot beside him.
"This is by the way.
"I argue luck can be appreciated fully through channels less worrying.
When luck gets busy around its coming is kind of subtle. It's sudden,
too; kind of butts in unnoticed, sometimes painfully, and generally
without shouting. Maybe it happens with a bump or a jar. Personally
I'm betting on the 'bump' play. A bump of that nature got busy my way
when I arrived here. I now have a full appreciation of luck. Quite as
full an appreciation as the man would who married our Gracie. But in
my case I guess it's good luck. This isn't going to tell you all
that's in my mind, but, seeing I haven't fallen for fiction yet, I
guess I won't try to be more explicit. Luck, in my present position,
means the coming responsibility of success. You might hand this on to
the old Dad.
"Talking of the old Dad, it seems to me that, for a delicate digestion,
baked custard and fruit have advantages over ice-cream as a sweet.
This again is by the way.
"In my last letter I gave you a few first impressions on arrival at my
destination. Now, if you'll permit, I'll add what I might call the
maturer reflections of a mind wide awake to life as it really is, and
to the inner meaning of those things which are so carefully hidden from
one brought up in luxury, as I have been. One of the 'dead snips' this
way is that cleverness and wisdom are often confused by the ignorant.
Cleverness don't mean wisdom, and--vice versa. For instance, loafing
idly down a main street six inches deep in a dust that would shame a
blizzard when the wind blows, with a blazing sun scorching the marrow
of the spine till it's ready to be spread out on toast, escorted by an
army of disgusting flies moving in massed formation, and not knowing
better than to drive your soul to perdition through the channel of
extreme bad language, don't suggest cleverness. Yet there may surely
be a deal of wisdom in it if it only keeps you from doing something a
heap more foolish. Maybe this don't sound altogether bright, but
there's quite a deal in it. Think it out. Another thought is that
learning's quite a sound proposition. For instance, a superficial
knowledge of geology may come mighty handy at unexpected moments. A
knowledge of this served me at a critical moment only to-day. So you
see an intimate acquaintance with sharp flints, collected--the
acquaintance, not the flints--during my time as the possessor of an
automobile, which the Dad provided me with and for the upkeep of which
he so kindly paid, has likely had more influence upon my future life
than the best talk ever handed out by a Fifth Avenue preacher ever
would have done. I have no thought of being irreverent. I am merely
handing you a fact. People say that missed opportunities always make
you hate to think of them in after life. For my part, I've generally
figured this to be the philosophic hot air of a man who's getting old
and hates to see youth around him, or else the chin mush of some fool
man who's never had any opportunities, talking through the roof of his
head. I kind of see it different now. You gave me the opportunity of
studying all the beauties of the world seen through an artist's life.
I guessed at the time that would be waste of precious moments that
might be spent chasing athletics. It's only to-day I've got wise to
what a heap I've lost in twenty-four years. Colors just seemed to me
messy mixtures only fit to spoil paper and canvas with. Well, to-day
I've hit on something in the way of color that's just about set me
crazy to see it all the time. It's a sort of yellowy, greeny brown.
That don't sound as merry as it might, but to me it talks plenty. It's
just the dandiest color ever. I discovered it out on a 'long, lone
trail'--that's how folks talk in books--where the surroundings weren't
any improvement on just plain grass. Say, Mum, I guess that color is
great. It gets a grip on you so you don't seem to care if a local
freight train comes along and dissects your vitals, and chews them up
ready for making a delicatessen sausage. When I die I'll just have to
have my shroud dyed that color, and my coffin fixed that way, too.
"This isn't so much of a passing thought as the others. Guess some
folks might figure it to be a disease. Maybe the old Dad would. Well,
I shan't kick any if I die of it.
"Talking of Art, I'm just beginning to get a notion that curves are
wonderful, wonderful things. These days of mechanical appliances I've
always regarded drawing such things by hand as positively ridiculous.
I don't think that way now. If I could only draw the wonderful curves
I have in mind now, why, I guess I'd go right on drawing them till the
birds roosted in my beard and my bones were right for a tame ancestral
skeleton.
"The daylight of knowledge is sort of creeping in.
"I've learned that frame houses have got Fifth Avenue mansions beat a
mile, and the smell of a Chinee can become a dollar-and-a-half scent
sachet in given circumstances. I've learned that real sportsmanship
isn't confined to athletics by any means, and a lame chestnut horse can
be a most friendly creature. I've discovered that one man of purpose
isn't more than fifty per cent. of two, when both are yearning one way.
I'm learning that life's a mighty pleasant journey if you let it alone
and don't worry things. It's no use kicking to put the world to
rights. It's going to give you a whole heap of worry, and, anyway, the
world's liable to retaliate. Also I'd like to add that, though I guess
I'm gathering wisdom, I don't reckon I've got it all by quite a piece.
"Having given you all the news I can think of I guess I'll close.
"Your affectionate son,
"GORDON.
"P.S.--My remarks about Gracie are merely the privileged reflections of
a brother. When she grows up I dare say she'll be quite a bully girl.
It takes time to get sense.
"G."
"I don't understand it, anyway," sighed Gordon's mother, as she laid
the letter aside. "You'll have to get him back to home, James. He's
suffering. We'll send out an inquiry----"
She broke off, glancing across at the mass of humanity so peacefully
snoring at the far side of the bed, and, after a brief angry moment,
resigned herself to the reflection that men, even millionaires, were
perfectly ridiculous and selfish creatures who had no right whatever to
burden a poor woman's life with the responsibility of children.