"Does she go with you, or with the tongs?" he asked.
"I have decided. I will take her," I said with sudden resolution.
"On the conditions I mentioned this morning?"
"It is late to bargain," said I.
"On the contrary," he said, "it is necessary. It is only with these
conditions of compromise that I can hope to make my peace with the
tongs."
"You have my promise," I said, rising.
"One moment," said Big Sam. "I believe you are a brave man, Mr.
Hampden."
"I really don't know," I replied.
"At least you do not mind hearing a few revolver shots?"
"Not at all."
"They will serve to amuse some of our friends who are on the watch."
The implied information that we were spied upon by sentinels of the
tongs startled me for a moment, though I might have known that they
would not neglect so obvious a precaution.
"If you and your friend wouldn't mind breaking a window and smashing
something and firing a shot or two yourselves and making a good deal of
noise before you carry off the girl, it would oblige me."
"Why should we attract so much attention? Is it not better to slip out
quietly?"
"Do you think to avoid the eyes that are watching?" said Big Sain. "The
bold course is the best. We make sound as of a fight. The watchers of
the two tongs will each believe that the other has made an attack. They
will hasten to the meeting places to summon help. For a minute the road
will be clear. Then you must run for it."
This was more of an enterprise than I had bargained for, and if I had
had time to think I should have got out of Big Sam's net and left him to
carry out his plans through some other agency. But I did not stop to
reflect and acted at the urging of the wily Oriental.
"Take the girl," he said, and spoke to her in brief command. "My men
will assist you to disturb things down-stairs."
I picked my way down the steps, and the soft clack of the Chinese shoe
sounded behind me as the girl followed. Big Sam accompanied me to the
lower floor, and, after making sure that our hack was where we had left
it, he gave orders to his men. I hastily explained the situation to Mr.
Baldwin.
"Ah--a comedy performance," he said with affected carelessness. But I
could see that he cursed himself for a fool for being drawn into the
affair.
"Draw your revolver, but don't fire more than one shot," I said.
Big Sam gave a shout, and in an instant the place was filled with a
medley of voices raised in tones of anger and alarm. A table was
overturned, boxes were flung about, cries of men rose, a dozen revolver
shots followed in quick succession, a woman's scream pierced the air,
and there was an excellent imitation of a highbinder affray on a small
scale. I fired one shot into the breast of a mandarin, whose painted
outlines ornamented a chest, and providently reserved the rest of my
bullets for possible need. Then two of the Chinese lifted a heavy box
and flung it at the closed doors. There was a crash of wood, a jingle
of breaking glass, and the door fell outward.
"Well, I should judge it was time to go," said Mr. Baldwin.
"Come on," I said, seizing the Chinese girl. And we started on the run
for the hack as the lights were extinguished.
We had just reached it when two or three more shots were fired and a
bullet sang uncomfortably close to my head.
"In there, quick!" I said to Mr. Baldwin, as I lifted the girl to her
seat "This place is getting too hot for us."
"Aren't you coming in?" he asked, with a trace of anxiety in his tone.
"No. I'll ride with the driver." I slammed the door and was climbing
to the box when two breathless Chinese ran to the side of the hack and
wrenched open the door with angry exclamations. There was a howl as one
of them staggered back from a blow from Mr. Baldwin's revolver. I gave
the other a kick alongside the head that sent him in a heap on his
fellow.
It was all done in a second.
"Now!" I said to the driver; and with a cut at his horses we dashed away
as cries and shouts and sounds of police whistles began to rise behind
us.
As we lurched around the corner of Sacramento Street, I could see three
policemen turning into Waverly Place from Clay Street and hurrying to
the scene of disturbance. A crowd of shouting Chinese had already
gathered about the entrance to Big Sam's store, and a man was waving his
arm and pointing after us, while half a dozen Chinese had started on the
run in pursuit. Then, the corner turned, the sight was shut out, and we
went down the street on the flying gallop.
We slackened speed as we neared Kearny Street, for a policeman stood on
the corner. If the sounds of battle had reached him he must certainly
have suspected and stopped us. But if he heard anything of the uproar
we had raised he had doubtless placed it to the credit of the
leather-lunged orator and his clamorous hearers who held forth but a
block away. He scarce looked at us, and we swung into Kearny Street on a
swift trot, and were soon in the quiet precincts of the shopping
district.
The hackman had been silent, heeding only my directions; but now he
said:
"I don't know what you've been a-doin', an' it's none of my business.
But I'll want pay for this night's work."
"Make yourself easy," I replied. "We've done nothing against the law."
"Oh, it's not the law I'm botherin' about. There's little law for a
Chaynese; an' it's not me that would be hollerin' murther if you've sent
a dozen of 'em to sup with the divil to-night. But you might have
damaged the hack, an' ye'll pay for that."
I promised him a liberal reward, and we rolled rapidly out Sutter Street
to Van Ness Avenue, and in a few minutes more had drawn up before
Wharton Kendrick's house.
"I am afraid," said Mr. Baldwin as I opened the door to the hack, "that
our charge is hurt. She has been groaning for a while, and now I think
she has fainted."
My nerves had served me without flinching through the dangers of the
escape. But at the apprehension that all our efforts had been in vain,
and that death, not we, had been the rescuer, I fell a-trembling.
"I hope not," I cried. "Perhaps she is only scared. Let us carry her
into the house."
As I put my hand to the girl, however, my fears received a fresh
provocation, for the back of her dress was wet with the sticky wetness
of coagulating blood. We lifted her between us, and carried her up the
steps. We had scarce reached the upper landing when the door was flung
open, and Miss Kendrick peered out.
"Have you brought her?" she cried.
"She is here," I replied, "but--"
"Oh, what is the matter?" interrupted Miss Kendrick in a voice of alarm,
as she saw that we carried a senseless burden.
"She is hurt," I explained as we laid our charge down upon a hall seat.
"There was a row over her, and she got one of the bullets that was meant
for us."
Miss Kendrick grew white, and I looked to see her follow the Chinese
girl by falling in a faint. But her small figure straightened as though
in rebound from a physical shock, and in a moment she was directing
servants to carry the girl to the room that had been prepared for her,
ordering hot water, hot blankets, lint and bandages, and sending me on
the run for the nearest doctor.
*CHAPTER VII*
*IN THE CURRENT*
The Chinese girl's wound proved a desperate matter, and for days she
hung between life and death, dependent for the flickering vital spark
upon the ceaseless ministrations of her self-appointed nurses. Mercy
Fillmore was brought to the house by Mr. Baldwin at an early hour of the
morning that followed the rescue, and took her place as naturally and
unostentatiously as though she had always been one of the family.
"She's a thousand times lovelier than I had expected," confessed Laura
Kendrick, "and when you see her you're to be very nice to her. I'm sure
you owe her that much, after making her all this trouble."
I promised to use all gentleness and courtesy toward Miss Fillmore, but
the full significance of my debt to the young lady did not appear to me
till later. Eventually I found that by some inexplicable freak of logic
I was supposed to be chiefly in fault for the Chinese girl's wound. I
had bungled the enterprise, it seemed; otherwise she must have been
brought safely off. The sense of my delinquency was finally stirred
within me by overhearing the comment of two indignant servants, which
ran something like this:
"Those two big men without ever a scratch on them, and that poor heathen
creature bleeding to death between 'em--that's what I call a shame."
Below stairs, it thus appeared that I shared equally with Mr. Baldwin in
the discredit of the outcome. In my lady's chamber it was different. I
learned that in those sacred realms I had all the blame for my very own.
Mr. Baldwin appeared to be regarded, like the gallant army of Bazaine or
Mack, as merely the unfortunate victim of an incompetent leader. Nothing
of this judgment came to me directly. But it was conveyed delicately,
imperceptibly, intangibly, through the days when the girl's life hung in
suspense, mingled with an unspoken assurance that as I didn't appear to
know any better I should ultimately be forgiven.
All this was galling enough, but it was nothing compared to the
afflictions I suffered from the sight of Mr. Baldwin's airs. He was
possessed of a cold and haughty nature, but the situation roused in him
something approaching an enthusiasm. For my sorrow he was endowed with
an odious gift of competency, and no false modesty restrained him from
exhibiting it to the fullest measure. Whenever I offered to perform a
service, I found that he had already performed it, or was then engaged
upon it, or was just about to perform it, until I was consumed with
regret that the highbinder bullet had not found its billet with Mr.
Baldwin, instead of with the Chinese girl.
I should not go so far as to assert that any one of the self-sufficiency
of Mr. Baldwin would be at a loss for an excuse for following his own
inclinations; yet it struck me that he carried the pretense of devotion
to the interests of the Chinese girl to an extent altogether indecorous.
The prosperity of the firm of Hunter, Fessenden and Baldwin had never
before appealed to my fears or my sympathies, but I was at this period
distressed to observe that its law business appeared to be at a low ebb.
Either that, or the junior partner was grossly neglecting his duties.
Whatever time of day or night I called at the Kendrick house to seek
news of the Chinese girl, and incidentally to enjoy the society of the
ladies, I was sure to find Mr. Baldwin there, or to learn that he had
just gone or was presently expected, until I grew to resent the sound of
his name. Furthermore, his air of proprietorship in Laura Kendrick and
her affairs, which had disturbed me on our first meeting, appeared to
grow more marked. If Miss Kendrick, her uncle, and all things beneath
the roof had been turned over to him in fee simple, the sense of
ownership could not have been shown more clearly in his manner. And,
worst of all, I could not see that his attitude roused resentment in any
breast but my own. Miss Kendrick smiled on him, called him by his first
name, and discussed the theory and practice of surgery with him in a
manner most confidential.
At this day I can confess with freedom that my dislike of Mr. Baldwin
found its root in the fertile soil of jealousy and envy. At the time,
however, I stoutly maintained to myself that I hated him for his faults
alone. In the light of later experience, I am willing to concede that
men are not hated for their faults, or even for their virtues. Had Mr.
Baldwin been an angel of light, instead of a cold and supercilious young
attorney who was receiving an undeserved amount of favor, I should have
disliked him none the less heartily.
Mr. Baldwin returned my dislike with acridity. Whenever possible, he
affected to have forgotten me, had to be assisted to my name when
compelled to speak to me; and when he did decide to remember me, was so
patronizing in his condescensions that I longed to throw him through the
window.
Miss Kendrick was not long in discovering this suppressed hostility; and
at first alarmed by it, she presently found it a source of amusement.
Then she appeared to derive a certain pleasure in blowing the smoldering
coals into a blaze; for she would, with the most innocent air
imaginable, bring forward topics of discussion that served to range us
in hostile argument. As we held opposite views on almost every question
of politics, law, sociology, and the arts, she had usually more
difficulty to close the argument than to inspire it. Yet she handled
the situation with a skill that would have been the admiration of a
diplomat, and had a tact in diversion that enabled us both to retire
from the heat of battle in good order with the conviction that we had
each won a substantial victory.
In the anxious days through which the Chinese girl's life hung by a
thread, I learned that Laura Kendrick's characterization of Mercy
Fillmore was no example of feminine exaggeration. Miss Fillmore proved
to be a young woman of about twenty-five, a little above the average
height, a little fuller in outline than was demanded by the rules of
proportion, a little slow in her movements. Her face was round, and
though lacking in color gave a distinct impression of prettiness. But
her chief characteristic was a certain calm sweetness in expression and
manner, a certain gentle tact that made her presence as soothing as a
strain of sweet music. It was on the evening following the rescue that
Miss Kendrick introduced us.
"I am glad to meet you," she said in a voice that was low and melodious.
"I am glad to find a man who is not afraid to do the right thing because
somebody is going to laugh at him."
Miss Fillmore gave me her hand, and I found that her touch had the same
soothing quality that was manifest in her voice and presence.
I professed myself gratified at her approval, and murmured that any one
would have done the same in the circumstances.
"No, indeed," said Miss Fillmore earnestly. "It isn't every one who
would have followed Mr. Baldwin to that den and risked his life to
rescue a poor Chinese slave girl."
Mr. Baldwin's part in the affair had evidently lost nothing in Mr.
Baldwin's telling of it, and Miss Fillmore's imagination had filled out
the blanks in his narrative in a way to make him the promoter of the
enterprise.
He was quick to see the peril of his situation, and said stiffly:
"Oh, if there's any credit to the affair, it belongs to Mr. Hampden
alone. He discovered the distressed damsel, and is entitled to all the
rewards."
Laura Kendrick gave him a pleased look and a gracious nod, which
afflicted me with a pang of unwarranted resentment.
"I claim all the credit myself," she said, with a little air of
importance. "I seem to remember two rather reluctant knights who were
anything but pleased to be sent out to storm the ogre's castle at the
call of beauty in distress."
"It was well done, whoever was responsible for it," said Miss Fillmore
gently. "It is a noble thing to have rescued Moon Ying."
"Moon Ying!" cried Mr. Baldwin. "Is that the creature's name?"
"I never thought to ask it," I said.
"So like a man!" sighed Miss Kendrick.
"I want you to tell me," said Mercy Fillmore, "how you came to find Moon
Ying, and be interested in her. How long have you known her?"
"She's a very recent acquaintance. I first saw her yesterday morning."
And then I gave in detail the story of my visit to Chinatown, and the
adventures that came of it.
"And that is all you know about her?" asked Miss Fillmore, in a voice
that imported disappointment. "I had hoped that you knew more. She is
so much above the type of Chinese girls that we meet at the Mission that
she has interested me particularly."
"Big Sam gave me the idea that except for her beauty, which I understand
to be of a sort highly considered among her countrymen, she is not above
the girls you find at the Mission."
"Well, then, it's only another romance spoiled," said Miss Fillmore.
"Oh, you needn't despair. Big Sam appeared to be dealing frankly with
me, but that proves nothing. Big Sam is an accomplished diplomat and
would tell any story that suited his purpose, and tell it so neatly that
you couldn't distinguish it from the truth. For all I know, she may be
the daughter of the Empress of China."
"Nothing so interesting, I fear," said Miss Fillmore, with a sober shake
of the head.
"Well, then, let's make believe. She shall be a princess of the blood
royal, and shall have a story suited to her dignity."
Miss Fillmore smiled dubiously, as though she were not quite certain
whether I was in jest or earnest.
"It isn't necessary," she said, her practical mind refusing to descend
to frivolity. "Whatever her origin, we must see that she has a better
fate than the one that threatens her."
"Yes, so far as it can be done within the conditions laid down by Big
Sam."
Miss Fillmore's forehead drew into a knot of lines in which could be
read a mingling of disapproval and anxiety.
"I have been thinking," she said, with an apologetic reproach in her
voice, "that you didn't do quite right to make those conditions. Can't
they be--" she was going to say "evaded" but after a moment's debate
with a feminine conscience changed it to "modified."
"I'm afraid I didn't make myself clear," I said. "Those were the only
conditions on which the girl could have the opportunity to escape.
Unless Big Sam can arrange better terms with the tongs, we have no
choice but to live up to them."
Miss Fillmore was silent at this, and I wondered whether I had not, on
my side, given too strong an emphasis to the reminder that we were
discussing a question of good faith.
"Well," said Miss Kendrick with decision, "we'll leave all that till
Moon Ying is quite well, and then I'll see Big Sam and the highbinders
myself, if Mr. Hampden can't get them to listen to decency and reason."
"Good heavens!" cried Mr. Baldwin, with chilling protest in his tone.
"You surely can't mean to do anything of that sort. You don't suppose
that those creatures are open to reason and decency, do you?"
"Oh, indeed," said Miss Kendrick, straightening her small figure and
tip-tilting her small nose, "I consider Big Sam an interesting man, and
I'm sure I should like to talk with him. And as for reason, I have no
doubt he's quite as open to conviction as the rest of his sex. I shan't
have the slightest hesitation in appealing to him, or even to those
explosive highbinders, if it's necessary to Moon Ying's interests."
"Why, my dear young lady," protested Mr. Baldwin in his most superior
manner, "you surely can't be thinking of going down to Chinatown and
talking to those fellows. It's altogether absurd."
"Well, if you consider it absurd to try to save a girl's life or
happiness, I don't," said Miss Kendrick tartly. And for the rest of the
evening Mr. Baldwin sat under a cloud, and I enjoyed a brief period of
sunshine.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CAUSE*
I confess that, despite all discouragements, I spent as much time as I
could spare from my duties in haunting the Kendrick house; yet I found
the pursuit of Peter Bolton, and the oversight of the Council of Nine, a
more exacting task than I had expected.
On Peter Bolton's ultimate purposes I could secure no direct light
whatever. For the time he appeared to have suspended relations with the
Council of Nine, yet his activities in conferring with bankers, brokers,
merchants, lawyers, and men of no classification, were so various and
bewildering that I was compelled to keep watch in many directions.
Twice Parks and Waldorf, the president of the Council of Nine, visited
his office, and were turned away without seeing him, though on at least
one of these visits he was within. His plans appeared to have taken
another direction than the schemes of the Council, yet there was nothing
in his movements that revealed whatever designs he might have against
Wharton Kendrick's property or life.
Nevertheless I took the precaution to station a number of watchmen about
Wharton Kendrick's house, masqueraded as gardeners and stable-men. The
episode of the spy had shown plainly that Peter Bolton's emissaries had
no scruples about invading the premises. Furthermore, Big Sam's
assurance that the highbinders would never dare to attack the white
man's place, confirmed as it was by the history of San Francisco's
Chinese population, did not justify me in neglecting precautions. Even
a highbinder might have an exception to his rules, especially when more
than one tong was interested in the recovery of Moon Ying. Therefore I
kept two men on guard in the daytime and four at night.
One effect of Peter Bolton's activities was easy to discover. His
contribution to the cause had inspired a marvelous activity among the
agents of the Council of Nine. Clubs were organized, a few for the
propagation of radical ideas, but most of them for the ostensible
purpose of driving the Chinese from the city. The intent of the Council
was to make the revolutionary clubs the main strength of their
organization, but it soon became evident that the anti-Chinese movement
had outrun their plans. "The Chinese Must Go," was so popular a cry
that it was taken up by elements over which the Council had no control.
But outwardly the Council was prospering, and the meetings inaugurated
by Parks and Kearney down by the Old City Hall soon attracted such
crowds that they were encouraged to seek a larger forum on the sand-lots
by the New City Hall. The plans for driving out the Chinese were seized
upon eagerly by the thousands of unemployed workmen, as well as by the
disorderly elements of the city's population. Multitudes attended the
meetings that were held nightly and on Sundays, and sporadic outbreaks
of hoodlums, who beat Chinamen and plundered wash-houses, were
frequently reported. The newspapers began to pay attention to the
meetings, and as a genuine interest was shown in them by the working-men
of the city, there was soon a hot rivalry to see which paper should
attract the largest sales by the fullest accounts of the speeches and
the most extended reports of the growth of the anti-Chinese propaganda.
Under the stimulus of publicity the movement spread with startling
rapidity, the politicians began to count upon it as a force to be
reckoned with, and serious-minded citizens were shaking their heads over
the possibilities of disorder that it covered.
These possibilities were increased by the threatening condition of
affairs in the eastern States. There was a rapidly increasing tension
in the relations between capital and labor, and a railroad strike was
organizing that would paralyze industry from the Atlantic to the
Mississippi. It was felt that the spark of Eastern example might
furnish the torch for San Francisco.
With matters in this state, Clark came to me one day with every mark of
perturbation and alarm.
"The Council of Nine is in funds," he gasped.
"That's an enviable situation," I replied. "Where did they get them,
and what are they going to do with them? Hold a smoker at the House of
Blazes?"
Clark looked a little vexed at the bantering tone.
"They've bought guns with them, sir."
"Bought guns?" I said. "How many? A dozen?"
"Guess again," said Clark, with an aggrieved air at my declination to
take his information seriously. "If you'd say a thousand you'd come
nearer to it."
"A thousand!" I cried, rousing at last to the gravity of his
information. "How could they do that?"
"Easy enough," said Clark. "They got thirty thousand dollars night
before last, and yesterday they cleaned out all the gun stores in town."
"Thirty thousand dollars!" I exclaimed. "Whew! Is this old Bolton's
second contribution?"
"I reckon he's the one that give it," said Clark, "but I can't be sure.
There ain't any one else with that much money that's interested in the
cause. Habernicht was trying to tell me that it came from the
International Treasury, but I'm willing to bet my boots that the
International Treasury never had thirty thousand cents in it, let alone
thirty thousand dollars."
It was Peter Bolton, beyond doubt, who had taken the role of fairy
godfather for the Council of Nine, and I raked my imagination in vain to
conceive the purpose that had inspired this amazing generosity.
"I reckon," continued Clark, "that they've got a corner on everything
that'll shoot, except what's in the arsenals, and they're counting on
getting those when the time comes to rise."
"Well," said I, "I don't see just how this affects Colonel Kendrick, for
they could get him with one rifle just as well as with a thousand. But
whatever the game is, we can block it right now. Just give me the
number of the building where they have stored those guns, and I'll see
the Chief of Police."
"Good God!" cried Clark, seizing my arm. "Do you want to get me
killed?"
"Why," I argued, "you aren't the only man who knows about them. There
must be dozens if not hundreds of men in the scheme, and there would be
no more reason to put the blame on you than on the others."
Clark shook his head, and his white face showed the fierce grip of
terror.
"I'm a dead man if you go to the police," he said huskily, gulping down
the lump that rose in his dry throat. And no repetition or variation of
my argument could move him. So at last I promised to keep the
information from the police, and sought Wharton Kendrick's office to lay
this perplexing information before my client.
Kendrick was not at his desk.
"He went out some time ago, Mr. Hampden," said a clerk.
"Where would I be likely to find him? It's quite important."
"He didn't say, and I got the idea that he wasn't likely to be back
to-day."
I wrote a note giving information of the armament, and leaving it on his
desk, turned to go, when the door opened and General Wilson bustled in.
His round red face glowed in the frame of his short, yellow-gray
side-whiskers even more fiercely by day than by night, and his
self-importance was even more scintillant than when he had bustled into
Kendrick's library.
"What! Kendrick not in?" he cried explosively. "Why, I don't see how
you San Franciscans do any business. I haven't found a man in his
office this morning. Why, God bless me, is this you, Ham--Hamfer--"
"Hampden," I said, assisting him to the name. "I'm glad to see you,
General Wilson."
"Exactly--Hampden--Hampden," said the general, shaking hands. "I never
forget a name or a face. It's a trick you ought to cultivate, my boy.
You'll find it of more importance than half your legal learning, when it
comes to the practical business of the law. There's nothing better in
managing clients and jurors and court officials. It's likely to be
worth anything to you to come on a man you haven't met for twenty years
and call him by his name. The beggar always beams with
satisfaction--thinks you've been doing nothing all those years but carry
his name and face in your mind, and is ready to do you a good turn if it
comes his way."
"Very true," I said, as General Wilson paused for breath.
"Now I remember," he continued, with a wave of his arm, "that I won one
of my hardest fought cases by that little talent of being able to call a
man's name after I have once heard it. 'Twas when the Rockland and
Western was suing the R. D. & G. about the right of way into St. Louis.
The matter was worth a trifle of two or three million dollars, and we
had a jury trial, and it was a damned ticklish business. 'It's two to
one on the other side,' said the president of the Rockland and Western,
'and if you pull us out, Wilson, you're a wonder.' 'God knows what a
jury will do,' I told him, 'but if it's in the power of mortal man I'll
get you out with honors.' I talked to cheer him up, but I didn't feel
half as hopeful as I let on to be. My unprofessional opinion was that
we were in for a licking. I'll bet you the price of this building,
Hampden, that we would have had to take our medicine if it hadn't been
for an old acquaintance of mine. I used to know him when we were young
fellows in Ohio. He was clerking in a grocery store while I was dusting
the books in Lawyer Boker's office. Now, what was his name?
Oh,--ah--yes, I remember--Westlake, or something like that. Well, as he
came into the court, I saw him, and by the look on his face I was sure
he was called in the case. I knew him in an instant and I hurried up to
him, shook him by the hand, and said 'Westburn'--yes, it was Westburn,
not Westlake--I said 'Westburn, God bless you, it's thirty-five years
since the night we dropped that watermelon, and I haven't got over
mourning the loss of it yet.' By Jove, Hampden, you ought to have seen
the fellow beam to think that the big lawyer from Chicago had remembered
him all that time, and we had a five-minute chat that turned out to be
worth everything to my clients. He got on the jury, and there wasn't a
point or an argument I made that was lost on him. He told me afterward
that he never heard a speech to beat the one I delivered in closing for
my side. Well, the jury was out nearly two days, but on the strength of
that speech my old friend talked the last of them over and we got
judgment. So there, my boy, you see what it's worth to call up names.
It's one of the tricks of trade that we share with statesmen and kings."
"And hotel clerks," I added irreverently, with something of envy for the
general's talent at finding cause for self-congratulation.
General Wilson flushed a little deeper red, and looked at me doubtingly.
I hastened to add an expression of complete agreement with the
conclusions he had announced.
"Well, God bless us," he cried, "I can't be waiting here all day for
Kendrick. I want to talk over that tule land proposition with him, but
as he isn't here I'm going over to talk on the same business with a
miserly old curmudgeon named Bolton. As it concerns Kendrick, in a way,
maybe you'd like to come along as his representative." And with a
commanding gesture General Wilson intimated his desire for my company,
and linked arms with me in the affectation of deepest confidence.
I had for several days been meditating on the problem of an interview
with Peter Bolton, and, accepting General Wilson's offer of a convoy as
a gift of benignant chance, was soon climbing the stair to the
curmudgeon's office to the boom-boom of General Wilson's gasconades, and
wondering how I might surprise the secret of Peter Bolton's plans.
*CHAPTER IX*
*PETER BOLTON*
Peter Bolton's office conformed to the first principles of art. It
supplied an appropriate frame for Peter Bolton himself. The outer room
presented to the eye of the visitor four bare and grimy walls that had
once been white, a bare and worn board floor, two kitchen chairs and a
rickety desk. There was, however, nothing shrinking or apologetic about
this meager display of furnishing. It smacked not of poverty, but of an
inclement disposition in its owner. In the inner room the walls and
floor were as bare and grimy as those of the outer office, but the
furnishing was a little less disregardful of personal comfort, for it
held five solid chairs, a solid safe that made a show of bidding
defiance to burglars, and a solid desk, behind which sat Peter Bolton
himself.
The outer office was empty, save for the uninviting chairs and the
rickety desk, and General Wilson, with a quick jerk, opened the inner
door and bustled into the room.
"Ha-ha, Bolton!" he cried, "I catch you with your washee-washee man, eh?
That's right, that's right. Cleanliness next to godliness, you
know--though you can't always be sure that the Chinese washman is to be
recommended on either count. Hey, John, you trot along now. I want to
talk to Mr. Bolton."
Glancing over General Wilson's head I saw the thin, sour face of Peter
Bolton, and behind the mask of its dry expression I thought I recognized
a passing flash of mental disturbance that suggested fear, or even
consternation. Then a sardonic smile tightened and drew down the
corners of the mouth, and his hard, nasal voice twanged out a grudging
word of recognition.
At the same moment the "washee-washee" man stepped to the doorway, and I
was startled to find myself looking into the face of Big Sam. He was
dressed in the coarse blue jeans and trousers of the Chinese
working-man, his hat was drawn down over his eyes, and his face was of a
darker hue than I remembered it. But the man shone through his disguise
as plainly as the sun shines through colored glass.
I recovered from my surprise in an instant, and halted him in the outer
room.
"This is a lucky meeting," I said. "I have been wondering whether I
ought to report to you about your ward. She is badly hurt, but is now
out of danger."
The man glanced at me with expressionless eye.
"I no sabby you," he said with the true coolie accent. "What you wan'?"
"Oh," I returned, repressing my amusement at this preposterous attempt
to deceive me, "if Kwan Sam Suey, sometimes known as Big Sam, doesn't
want to hear what I have to say, I am in no hurry to say it."
"No sabby Big Sam," said the Chinaman gruffly.
"And I should really like to know," I said, lowering my voice, "what Big
Sam is doing with Mr. Bolton."
"I no sabby Missah Bolton," growled the Oriental.
"You don't 'sabby' the man you've just been talking with?"
"I no sabby him name. I no sabby you' name. I sabby him one man--I
sabby you 'nothe' man. I come sell him lotte'y ticket. You likee buy
lotte'y ticket?"
This appeared to be an excellent chance to trap the wily Oriental. I
replied that I would risk twenty-five cents on his game, and waited with
a smile for the excuse that would be invented to put me off. But Big Sam
had made up for his part with more attention to detail than I had
supposed. At my word he calmly drew forth from his capacious sleeve a
blank ticket and a marking brush.
"I make you good ticket," he said gravely, marking ten of the squares.
"You sabby Kwan Luey?"
"Yes, I sabby Kwan Luey." He was one of the big merchants of Chinatown,
and among other things did a brisk banking and lottery business among
his countrymen.
"Dlawing to-mollow," said the Chinaman. "You take 'em ticket Kwan Luey
you get 'em heap big money." And with a brusk nod he was gone.
I stared after him in perplexity. My eyes were never more certain of
anything than of the identity of this man with Big Sam. And yet he had
carried off his imposture with such assurance that, for a moment after
he had disappeared, I was shaken in my conviction. But it was only for
a moment. With a glance at the paper in my hand and with a recollection
of his parting words, certainty returned, and I was convinced that the
ticket was an order on Kwan Luey for money. Was Big Sam trying to bribe
me, or was he attempting thus to provide for the expenses of the Chinese
girl? Nothing had been said on the delicate point of meeting her
charges for food, care and lodging. Possibly he had chosen this
eccentric way of putting the money in my hands.
There was, however, another question more perplexing than that of money.
What were the relations between Bolton and Big Sam? Here for the second
time I had evidence that they were in secret alliance. The business of
supplying coolie workmen was not of such disrepute that it had to be
conducted in disguise. Could it be possible that Big Sam was one of
Bolton's agents in the plot to overthrow Wharton Kendrick? And if so,
was the Chinese girl brought under the Kendrick roof as a part of Peter
Bolton's tortuous policy?
As there was no answer to my questions to be had by studying the ticket
Big Sam had given me, I thrust it into my pocket and followed General
Wilson into Peter Bolton's private den.
There are certain natures whose approach brings an access of mental or
physical repulsion. A man may conform to all the sanitary laws, and yet
appeal quite as objectionably to the inner spirit as the Eskimo reeking
of spoiled blubber appeals to the physical senses.
To approach Peter Bolton was like putting your hand on the spider to
which current metaphor compared him. If you liked spiders, he was
doubtless a pleasant enough companion. But as for me, I share the
popular prejudice against the arachnidae, and found myself at once in
mental antagonism to Mr. Bolton.
General Wilson had plunged into a brisk but one-sided conversation with
his curmudgeon. The first words I had missed in the encounter with Big
Sam, but as I crossed the threshold he was holding forth in his most
coruscating style.
"By George, Bolton, I wish I had time to show you how it ought to be
done, but I've got to think of getting back to New York toward the end
of the month. Why, this is my vacation time, and I'm carrying on five
trades that count up to three or four million dollars. Of course, I
couldn't afford to touch 'em under ordinary circumstances, but one has
to do these little things for one's friends. I took a run down to New
York just before I came out here, and we had a little dinner at the
club--oh, there were only a dozen of us, or so--but big men all of them.
Why, the men around that table could have signed a joint note for three
hundred million--and got it discounted, too, if there was a bank big
enough to do the business. Young Vanderbilt was there--I suppose we
must call him Old Van, now the Commodore is gone--Astor, Belmont, and
the rest of that crowd. Jay Gould couldn't come, because he and
Vanderbilt don't speak. I was telling them that I was going to make a
flying trip out here, when Vanderbilt pipes up, and says, 'General
Wilson, you're just the man we want. There are good bargains to be
picked up out there, and you must keep your eye out for them.' And the
others chimed in and said, 'Yes, you must do some business for us while
you are out there.' 'Hold on, gentlemen,' I said; 'I'm going out for a
vacation, and I can't burden my mind with business.' But it was no use.
The more I protested, the warmer they got over it--insisted that I could
get lots more fun out of the trip if I did business than I could if I
didn't--said it was like a man going for a walk--if he's just out for
exercise it's confounded stupid work, and he gets tired in no time; but
put a gun on his shoulder and turn him out to look for deer and he will
tramp all day and think he's had no end of fun. Well, at last I had to
give in. What can you do when you've got three hundred million against
you? So I said, 'Gentlemen, let's have everything regular. Get up a
syndicate--make it a blind pool--and I'll guarantee to bring you back
something worth while.' Well, they jumped at that idea like cats at a
mouse, and in ten minutes they had made up a five-million-dollar pool.
So I expect to put in at least three million before I leave. I closed
one big trade with Governor Stanford last night, and I've got three or
four others on the books now."
Peter Bolton's gaunt sallow face, with its projecting jaw, lost none of
its sourness, but a sardonic smile tightened his thin lips and drew down
the corners of his mouth.
"Well," he drawled in his cracked nasal tone, "you can have that tract
of mine for six hundred thousand."
"Couldn't think of it," said General Wilson bruskly. "Two hundred
thousand would be a fancy figure for it. I don't want it, anyhow,
unless I can get that piece of Kendrick's just above it."
Bolton's thin lips tightened once more, and a slight flush passed over
his sallow face.
"Kendrick's place?" he said, the sarcastic drawl quickening a little.
"I shouldn't think you'd want to show yourself again in New York if
you'd 'a' bought that swamp. What'd he ask you for it?"
"A stiff figure, a stiff figure," said General Wilson with a wave of his
arm, as if Bolton's question were a missile that he was fending aside.
"It's swampy enough, and needs any quantity of leveeing and draining.
But it's rich land. I've been over it all. I don't say I'll buy it,
but I might, if I can get it at a reasonable price."
"You can get My Land at My Price," drawled the sarcastic voice of Peter
Bolton, audibly putting capital letters to his words and making the
possessive pronoun appear very large. "I said six hundred thousand,
didn't I? Well, it's had a raise since then. It's seven hundred
thousand now. I shouldn't be surprised if it went to eight hundred
thousand before you got out."
General Wilson appeared to regard this as an excellent piece of
pleasantry.
"It looks to a man up a tree," he said good-humoredly, "as though you
didn't want me to buy Kendrick's land."
Bolton's lips drew into a sneer.
"I don't know why I should want you to buy Kendrick's land," he said.
"You can have My Land at My Price," he repeated, the sneer deepening on
his face. "My price is nine hundred thousand now."
"Well," said General Wilson with a chuckle, "I've been in Chicago
through some pretty exciting times, and I've had real-estate deals in
nearly every part of the country, but I never saw property go up so fast
as that piece of yours out in the San Joaquin swamps." Then, changing
his tone suddenly, he asked: "Why do you want to stop the trade on
Kendrick's tract? I see that you're nobody's fool, and you know as well
as I do that we've got to have your place if we take his. Now, what's
your game?"
A look of malevolent shrewdness came over Bolton's face, and he pursed
up his mouth as though he was afraid his thoughts were going to escape.
"If you would like to know," he drawled at last, "you might ask
Kendrick's young man standing over there by the door."
I was startled at this sudden attack. Peter Bolton had to this minute
given no sign that he was aware of my existence, and I was filled with
wonder to know how he had discovered that I was in Kendrick's employ.
There was nothing to do but to put up a bold front on the matter, and I
said:
"The only thing I could tell about the trouble is that the Council of
Nine has plenty of money and is spending it like water."
A covering of gray ashes appeared to spread over the sallow face of
Peter Bolton, and caused General Wilson to spring to his feet with the
exclamation:
"Good God, what's the matter?"
Peter Bolton waved him back to his seat, and with an effort gasped out:
"The Council of Nine! What do you mean by that nonsense? I never heard
of such damned foolery before!"
"Oh, yes," said I, pressing my advantage. "Waldorf was up here night
before last, you remember, and got thirty thousand dollars. I thought
you would like to know that your contribution was being spent with a
liberal hand."
Peter Bolton's face assumed a gray-green tint, and he cried out:
"I don't know what you're talking about. You've gone crazy--" Then, as
if he feared that I would take offense at the words, he fell from the
attitude of protest to one of cringing obsequiousness. "No, I don't
mean that--I mean that I want you to do some business for me."
The man appeared carried away with fright; his claw-like hands worked
convulsively, and a perspiration started on his forehead. I saw in his
eyes a foretaste of the terrors of unsuccessful crime, and that as he
remembered the purposes that lay behind those rifles in the Council's
armory, his conscience conjured up the vision of the police and the
hangman stretching forth their hands to seize him.
"Good God, Bolton!" cried General Wilson again. "What have you been
doing? You couldn't look more upset if you had murdered your
grandmother and Hampden had uncovered the corpse."
"It's nothing--nothing," gasped Bolton, recovering himself with an
effort; "just a little joke we have--just a little joke." And he framed
his thin lips into the semblance of a ghastly smile.
General Wilson's red face grew redder yet as an angry color swept over
it.
"Well, you've got too many jokes to suit me, and a damned queer taste in
humor--that's all I've got to say about it. I came to talk business,
and you've been wasting my time with your tomfoolery." And with an
angry wave of his hand he got to his feet and strode out.
Almost before General Wilson had reached the hall, Bolton had turned
eagerly to me.
"Come in and shut the door," he said with a quavering voice. "That
gilded ass may stop to listen."
He was silent a minute as I obeyed him, and I surmised that he was
turning over in his mind the possible plans by which I might be gagged.
And as he motioned me to a seat his calculating eye was taking my
measure with all the coolness of a butcher estimating the value of a
steer.
"You are a young man," he began with an insinuating drawl.
I admitted the charge, but offered him the consolation to be drawn from
the theory that I should probably get over it in time. He paid no
attention to my flippant suggestion, but continued in a slow tone of
ironic emphasis:
"You are old enough, though, to know that you have got to look out for
your own Interests. That's what every Man must do, if he wants to keep
in Business." Peter Bolton's sarcastic drawl punctuated his important
words with capitals. "If you don't think enough of your Interests to
look out for Yourself, nobody is going to look out for them for you."
"If you want to do me a good turn," I said with strategic frankness,
"you might tell me what your business is with Big Sam."
He was not to be caught off his guard again. He paid no attention to my
words, but continued with more of propitiation in his voice than I had
considered possible.
"Now, you're a Man of the World--young as you are--and you have seen
something of Business. You have seen the man who has given his best
years to making money for the other fellow turned adrift as soon as the
other fellow finds somebody who can make more money for him. That's the
Gratitude of Business, young man--the Gratitude of Business. I've seen a
man who made fifty thousand dollars for his employer in a trade turned
out inside of six months because somebody offered to work for
twenty-five dollars less a month. That's what you get when you look out
for your Employer's interests instead of your Own." The depth of
sarcasm in Peter Bolton's drawl was portentous.
I did not know whether to be amused or indignant at this attempt to
teach me the folly of loyalty and the essential respectability of
treachery. So I gave a nod of comprehension, which he took for
encouragement, and he continued:
"Now, I'm a plain-speaking old fellow, and I won't talk nonsense to you
about Gratitude or Friendship. I won't say a word about the things I'll
do for you Some day. I'll just talk Cash in Hand to you, with no back
bills to be paid with promises on either side."
"Very good," I replied, "but I'd rather you would answer the questions
about Big Sam and the Council of Nine."
Bolton gave me a cunning look.
"I want you to take up some private business for me," he said slowly,
"and I'll give you ten thousand dollars for sixty days' work."
"What work?" I asked sharply, my indignation getting the better of my
amusement.
"Confidential work," said Bolton deliberately. "I want a representative
in Kendrick's office, and you're the best man I know for the job."
My repressed indignation broke forth at this brazen proffer of a bribe,
and I jumped to my feet and shook my fist in Peter Bolton's face.
"You old scoundrel!" I cried. "If you were a younger man, I'd thump the
breath out of you!"
"You are a bigger Fool than I thought," said Bolton in his most
sarcastic voice. And he threw back his head and opened his mouth in
silent laughter.
"I give you warning," I continued, "that I shall tell Colonel Kendrick
of your offer."
The unabashed Bolton drew down the corners of his mouth in a sarcastic
smile, and his sarcastic voice followed me as I opened the door:
"If Kendrick offers you eleven thousand, come back and I'll see if I can
do better."
*CHAPTER X*
*A COUNCIL OF WAR*
"No," said Laura Kendrick, in her piquant voice, "uncle isn't at home,
but he sent word he would be back at nine o'clock. You look very
important, but I'm sure it's something that will wait an hour."
"It is a bit important," I replied, thinking grimly of the
thirty-thousand-dollar contribution to the Council of Nine, the thousand
rifles, and Peter Bolton's self-revelations in his attempt to bribe me.
"I've been hunting Mr. Kendrick all day about it. But it has kept
without spoiling for eight or nine hours already, so another sixty
minutes will do no harm."
"Well, then," said Miss Kendrick, "I won't keep you standing in the
hall. I came out when your name was announced, to let you know that Mr.
Baldwin is in the library, and Mercy will be down in a few minutes. So
you can have your choice of waiting in there, or you can find an easy
chair in uncle's den."
"Oh, if that is the choice, give me the library, by all means."
"You may think your tone is complimentary, but I'll tell you I don't
consider it so. He's a very agreeable man, and you had better be very
civil, or I shall banish you to the den, after all." Then she changed
her half-bantering tone to one of earnestness, and halted me at the
library door. "What is it you are about?" she asked. "Is uncle in
danger?"
"I believe not," I replied.
She laid her hand upon my arm.
"You would not answer so unless he were. What is it that you fear?"
And her brown eyes looked anxiously up into mine.
"There is no danger that I can learn of that threatens your uncle. I
believe he is perfectly safe."
She threw my arm aside with a gesture of irritation.
"Do you think I have not the right to know?" she exclaimed. "Do you
think I could be of no use? Do you think I ought to be shut up in the
dark, wondering what is going to happen?"
"You are worrying yourself without need," I said. "You can hold me
responsible for his safety."
"It is the trouble with old Mr. Bolton, is it not?" she asked after a
pause.