Down along the creekbeds back of Hemlock Mountain young Jimmy
Litchfield, a son of old Uncle Jimmy, had been teaming with a
well-boring outfit and his wagon had bogged down in deep mud. He had
failed to extricate himself so he tramped three hard, steep miles and
telephoned for an extra team. While he awaited deliverance he found
himself irked and, to while away the time, set his drill down
haphazard and began to bore.
It would be some hours before help arrived, and when he had worked a
while he had forgotten all about help.
His drill had struck through soft gravel to an oil pool lying close to
the surface, and the black tide gushed crazily.
Young Jimmy sat back watching the dark jet that he had no means of
stemming or containing, and through his simple soul flowed all the
intoxication of triumph.
He was the discoverer of a new--and palpably a rich field!
Hereafter oil men would speak of the Snake Creek field as copper men
spoke of Anaconda or gold men of the Yukon.
And that night word went by wire to the opportunity hound who had
just gone east, that the "fur" side was to the "nigh" side as gold is
to silver.
* * * * *
"What do you make of it?" demanded Harrison, when Spurrier, secure in
his seeming of undaunted assurance, arrived at his office and the
response came smilingly: "I think it means a bluff."
"Read that," snapped the financier as he flung a letter across his
desk.
Spurrier took the sheet of paper and read in a hand, evidently
disguised!
You find yourself in a cul-de-sac. I hold the key to a way out. My
terms are definite and determined in advance. I shall be at your
office at noon, Tuesday. We will do business at that time, or not
at all.
"I repeat," said Spurrier, "that this seems to me a brass-bound bluff.
I make only the request that I be permitted to talk with this brigand
alone; to sound him out with no interference and to shape my policy by
the circumstances. I'm not at all frightened."
Harrison answered snappily:
"I agree to that--but if you fail you fail finally."
So on Tuesday forenoon Spurrier sat cross-legged in Harrison's office
and their discussion had come to its end. Now, he had only to await
the unknown person who was to arrive at noon bearing alleged terms, a
person who claimed to be armed for battle if battle were needed.
At Harrison's left and right sat his favored lieutenants, but Spurrier
himself occupied a chair a little bit apart, relegated to a zone of
probation.
Then a rap sounded on the door, and Spurrier smiled with a ghost of
triumph as he noted that he alone of the small group did not start at
the signal. For all their great caliber and standing, these men were
keyed to expectancy and exasperated nervousness.
The clerk who appeared made his announcement with the calculated
evenness of routine: "A lady is waiting. She says her name doesn't
matter. She has an appointment for twelve."
"A lady!" exclaimed Harrison in amazement. "My God, do we have to
fight this thing out with a woman?"
The tableau of astonishment held, until Spurrier broke it:
"What matter personalities to us?" he blandly inquired. "We are
interested in facts."
The chief lifted his hand and gave curt direction. "Show her in."
Then through the door came a woman whose beauty would have arrested
attention in any gathering. Just now what these men, rising grudgingly
from their chairs, noted first, was the self-possession, the poise,
and the convincing evidence of good breeding and competency which
characterized her.
She was elegantly but plainly dressed, and her manner conveyed a
self-assurance in nowise flustered by the prospect of impending
storm.
No one there, save Spurrier, recognized her, for to Martin Harrison
carrying the one disapproving impression of a mountain girl in patched
gingham, the transformation was complete.
And as for Spurrier himself, after coming to his feet, he stood as a
man might be expected to stand if a specter of death had suddenly
materialized before him.
For the one time in his life all the assumption of boldness, worn for
other eyes, broke and fell away from him, leaving him nakedly and
starkly dumbfounded. He presented the pale and distressed aspect of a
whipped prize fighter, reeling groggily against the ropes, and
defenseless against attack.
It was a swift transformation from audacious boldness to something
which seemed abject, or that at least was the aspect which presented
itself to Martin Harrison and his aides, but back of it all lay
reasons into which they could not see.
It was no crumbling and softening of battle metal that had wrought
this astonishing metamorphosis but a thing much nearer to the man's
heart. At that moment there departed from his mind the whole urgent
call of the duel between business enemies--and he saw only the woman
for whom he had sought and whom he had not found.
In the cumulative force and impact of their heart-breaking sequence
there rushed back on him all the memories that had been haunting him,
intensified to unspeakable degree at the sight of her face--and if he
thought of the business awaiting them at all, it was only with a
stabbing pain of realization that he had met Glory again only in the
guise of an enemy.
Harrison gave him one contemptuous glance and remarked brutally:
"Madam, this gentleman was to talk with you, but he seems scarcely
able to conduct any affair of moment."
Glory was looking at the broken man, too, and into her splendid eyes
stole a pity that had tenderness back of it.
Old memories came in potent waves, and she closed her lids for a
moment as though against a painful glare, but with quick recovery she
spoke.
"It is imperative, gentlemen, that I have a few words first--and
alone--with Mr. Spurrier."
"If you insist, but----" Harrison's shoulders stiffened. "But we do
not guarantee that we shall abide by his declarations."
"I do insist--and I think you will find that it is I who am in the
position to dictate terms."
Harrison gave a sharply imperative gesture toward the door through
which the others filed out, followed by the chief himself, leaving the
two alone.
Then John Spurrier rose, and supported himself by hands pressed upon
the table top. He stood unsteadily at first and failed in his effort
to speak. Then, with difficulty, he straightened and swept his two
hands out in a gesture of surrender.
"I'm through," he said. "I thought there was still one fight left in
me--but I can't fight you."
She did not answer and, after a little, with a slight regaining of his
self-command, he went on again:
"Glory! What a name and what a fulfillment! You have always been Glory
to me."
Out of his eyes slowly went the apathy of despair and another look of
even stronger feeling preempted its place: a look of worship and
adoration.
"I didn't know," admitted Glory softly, "that I was to meet you here.
I didn't know that the fight was to be between us."
"You have ruined me," he answered. "I'm a sinking ship now, and those
rats out there will leave me--but it's worth ruin to see you again. I
want you to take this message with you and remember it. All my life
I've gambled hard and fought hard. Now I fail hard. I lost you and
deserved to lose you, but I've always loved you and always shall."
Her eyes grew stern, repressing the tenderness and pity that sought to
hold them soft.
"You abandoned me," she said. "You sought to plunder my people. I took
up their fight, and I shall win it."
Spurrier came a step toward her and spread his hands in a gesture of
surrender, but he had recovered from the shock that had so unnerved
him a few minutes ago and there was now a certain dignity in his
acceptance of defeat.
"I break my sword across my knee," he declared, "and since I must do
it, I'm glad you are the victor. I won't ask for mercy even from
you--but when you say I abandoned you, you are grievously wrong.
"When you say I sought to plunder your people, you speak the truth
about me--as I was before I came to love you. From that time on I
sought to serve your people."
"Sought to serve them?" she repeated in perplexity, "The record shows
nothing of that."
"And since the record doesn't," he answered steadily, "any assertions
and protestations would be without proof. I've told you, because my
heart compelled me. I won't try to convince you. At all events, since
I failed, my motives don't matter."
"Your motives are everything. I took up the fight," she said, "because
I thought a Spurrier had wronged them. I wanted a Spurrier to make
restitution."
"At first I saw only the game, dear heart," he confessed, "never the
unfairness. I'm ready to pay the price. Ruin me--but in God's name,
believe that I love you."
Her hand came out waveringly at that, and for a moment rested on his
shoulder with a little gesture of tenderness.
"I thought I hated you," she said. "I tried to hate you. I've
dedicated myself to my people and their rights--but if you trust me
enough, call them in and let me talk with them."
"Trust you enough!" he exclaimed passionately, then he caught her to
him, and, when he let her go, he stood again transformed and
revivified into the man he had seemed before she appeared in the
doorway. It was as though the touch of her lips had given him the fire
from which he rose phoenixlike.
With an unhesitant step he went to the door and opened it, and the men
who had gone out trooped back and ranged themselves again about the
table.
"Mr. Spurrier did all in your interests that a man could do," said
Glory. "He failed to secure your charter and he failed to secure the
one tract that serves as the key. I am a mountain woman seeking only
to protect my people. I hold that tract as trustee for Bud Hawkins. I
mean to do business, but only at a fair price. It's for you to
determine whether I deal with you or your competitors."
A look of consternation spread over the faces of the lesser men, but
Harrison inquired with a grim smile:
"Madam, haven't I seen you somewhere before to-day?"
"Once before--down in the hills."
"Then you are this man's wife! Was this dramatic incident prearranged
between you?"
She raised an imperative hand, and her voice admitted no question of
sincerity.
"Make no such mistake. Mr. Spurrier knew nothing of this. He was loyal
enough--to you. From him I never even learned the nature of his
business. Without his knowledge _I_ was loyal to my people."
Then for ten minutes she talked clearly, forcefully, and with the ring
of indubitable sincerity giving fire to voice and manner. She told of
the fight she and her father had made to keep heart in mountain folk,
enraged by what they believed to be the betrayal by a man they had
trusted and attacked by every means of coercion at the disposal of
American Oil and Gas.
She told of small local reservoirs, mysteriously burned by unknown
incendiaries; of neighborhood pipe lines cut until they spilled out
their wealth again into the earth; of how she herself had walked these
lines at night, watching against sabotage.
As she talked with simple directness and without self-vaunting, they
saw her growing in the trust of these men whose wrath had been, in the
words of old Cappeze, "Like that of the wolf-bitch robbed a second
time of her whelps." They recognized the faith that had commissioned
her to speak as trustee, and to act with carte-blanche powers.
Harrison and his subordinates were not susceptible men, easily swayed
by a dramatic circumstance, so they cross-examined and heckled her
with shrewd and tripping inquiries, until she reminded them that she
had not come as a supplicant, but to lay before them terms, which they
would, at their peril, decline to accept.
The realization was strong in them that she had spoken only the truth
when she declared that she held the key. When they were convinced that
she realized, in full, the strength of her position, they had no wish
to antagonize longer.
The group of financiers drew apart, but after a brief consultation
Harrison came forward and offered his hand.
"Mrs. Spurrier," he announced crisply, "we have gone too far to draw
back. After all, I think you come rather as a rescue party than an
attacker. Spurrier, you have married a damned brilliant woman."
Glory accepted the extended hand of peace, and Harrison, with a jerk
of his head to the door, led his followers out, leaving them alone
again.
Then Glory held out her arms, and into the bright depths of her eyes
flashed the old bewitching merriment.
"Thar's a lavish of things I needs ter know, Jack," she said. "You've
got to l'arn 'em all ter me."
"I come now, not as teacher but as pupil, dear heart," he declared,
"and I come humbly."
Then her face grew serious and her voice vibrant with tenderness.
"I have another gift for you, Jack, besides myself, I can give you
back an untarnished name."
THE END
* * * * *
Transcribers Note
Typographical inconsistencies have been changed and are listed below.
Hyphenation standardized.
Other archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is preserved,
including the author's use of eying and eyeing, Quizote, Otello, and
langour.
Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.
Transcriber Changes
The following changes were made to the original text:
Page 86: Was sterterously (he sat there breathing =stertorously=
while the untended fire died away)
Page 90: Was plausiblity (One explanation only presented itself with
any color of =plausibility=)
Page 96: Was mistly (there was a dreamy violet where it merged
=mistily= with the skyline ridges)
Page 118: Was there ("It is well established by the evidence befo'
=ther= co'te")
Page 120: Was impusively (the girl broke out =impulsively=)
Page 124: Removed extra quote (Still Spurrier cursed himself for a
careless =fool=)
Page 162: Was it's (you'll recall that =its= longer name is _Datura
stramonium_)
Page 180: Was inperceptible (pair of shoulders that hunched slowly
forward with almost =imperceptible= movement)
Page 208: Guessed at missing text (the latter inquired gravely:
="Did they play one= of them royalty games")
Page 208: Was single quote (I ain't playin' no more of them royalty
=games"=)
Page 263: Was pacink ("Before God," cried Harrison, =pacing= his
floor like a lion)
Page 301: Was personalties ("What matter =personalities= to us?")
End of Project Gutenberg's The Law of Hemlock Mountain, by Hugh Lundsford