Williams was driving it strenuously. Each twenty-four hours, with the
recurring night rise from the melting snows, the torrenting river
reached a higher water-mark, and three times in as many weeks the
engineer had changed from a quick-setting cement to a still quicker,
time-saving and a swift piling-up of the great dike wall being now the
prime necessities.
Returning from the dam site quite late in the evening, Smith spent a
hard-working hour or more at his desk in the Kinzie Building offices;
and it was here that Starbuck found him.
"What?" said the new secretary, looking up from his work when Starbuck's
wiry figure loomed in the doorway, "I thought you were once more a
family man, and had cut out the night prowling."
Starbuck jack-knifed himself comfortably in a chair.
"I was. But the little girl's run away again; gone with her
sister--Maxwell's wife, you know--to Denver to get her teeth fixed; and
I'm foot-loose. Been butting in a little on your game, this evening,
just to be doing. How's tricks with you, now?"
"We're strictly in the fight," declared Smith enthusiastically. "We
closed the deal to-day for the last half-mile of the main ditch right of
way, which puts us up on the mesa slope above the Escalante Grant. If
they knock us out now, they'll have to do it with dynamite."
"Yes," said the ex-cow-man, thoughtfully; "with dynamite." Then: "How is
Williams getting along?"
"Fine! The water is crawling up on him a little every night, but with no
accidents, he'll be able to hold the flood rise when it comes. The only
thing that worries me now is the time limit."
"The time limit?" echoed Starbuck. "What's that?"
"It's the handicap we inherit from the original company. Certain State
rights to the water were conveyed in the old charter, on condition that
the project should be completed, or at least be far enough along to turn
water into the ditches, by a given date. This time limit, which carries
over from Timanyoni Ditch to Timanyoni High Line, expires next week.
We're petitioning for an extension, but if we don't get it we shall
still be able to back the water up so that it will flow into the lower
level of ditches by next Thursday; that is, barring accidents."
"Yes; with no accidents," mused Starbuck. "Can't get shut of the 'if,'
no way nor shape, can we? So that's why the Stanton people have been
fighting so wolfishly for delay, is it? Wanted to make the High Line
lose its charter? John, this is a wicked, wicked world, and I can
sympathize with the little kiddie who said he was going out in the
garden to eat worms." Then he switched abruptly. "Where did you corral
all those good looks you took to the opera-house last night, John?"
Smith's laugh was strictly perfunctory.
"That was Miss Verda Richlander, an old friend of mine from back home.
She is out here with her father, and the father has gone up into the
Topaz country to buy him a gold brick."
"Not in the Topaz," Starbuck struck in loyally. "We don't make the
bricks up there--not the phony kind. But let that go and tell me
something else. A while back, when you were giving me a little song and
dance about the colonel's daughter, you mentioned another woman--though
not by name, if you happen to recollect. I was just wondering if this
Miss Rich-people, or whatever her name is, might be the other one."
Again the new secretary laughed--this time without embarrassment.
"You've called the turn, Billy. She is the other one."
"H'm; chasing you up?"
"Oh, no; it was just one of the near-miracles. She didn't know I was
here, and I had no hint that she was coming."
"I didn't know," commented the reformed cowboy. "Sometimes when you
think it's a cold trail, it's a warm one; and then again when you think
it's warm, it fools you."
"Oh, pshaw!" scoffed the trail-maker, "you make me weary, Billy. We are
merely good friends. No longer ago than last night I had the strongest
possible proof of Miss Richlander's friendship."
"Did, eh? All right; it's your roast; not mine. But I'm going to pull
one chestnut out of the fire for you, even if I do get my fingers
burned. This Miss Rich-folks has had only one day here in Brewster, but
she's used it in getting mighty chummy with the Stantons. Did you know
that?"
"What!" ejaculated Smith.
"Jesso," smiled Starbuck. "She had her luncheon with 'em to-day, and for
an hour or so this evening the three of 'em sat together up in the
Hophra inside-veranda parlor. Does that figure as news to you?"
"It does," said Smith simply; and he added: "I don't understand it."
"Funny," remarked the ex-cow-man. "It didn't ball me up for more than a
minute or two. Stanton fixed it some way--because he needed to. Tell me
something, John; could this Miss Rich-garden help Stanton out in any of
his little schemes, if she took a notion?"
Smith turned away and stared at the blackened square of outer darkness
lying beyond the office window.
"She could, Billy--but she won't," he answered.
"You can dig up your last dollar and bet on that, can you?"
"Yes, I think I can."
"H'm; that's just what I was most afraid of."
"Don't be an ass, Billy."
"I'm trying mighty hard not to be, John, but sometimes the ears will
grow on the best of us--in spite of the devil. What I mean is this: when
a woman thinks enough of a man to keep his secrets, she's mighty likely
to think too much of him to keep those same secrets from spreading
themselves on the bill-boards when the pinch comes."
"I'm no good at conundrums," said Smith. "Put it in plain words."
"So I will," snapped Starbuck, half morosely. "Two nights ago, when you
were telling me about this Miss Rich-acres, you said there was nothing
to it, and I said you never could tell, when there was a woman in it. I
saw you two when you came out of the Hophra dining-room together last
night, and I saw the look in that girl's eyes. Do you know what I said
to myself right then, John? I said: 'Oh, you little girl out at the
Hillcrest ranch--good-by, you!'"
Smith's grin was half antagonistic. "You _are_ an ass, Billy," he
asserted. "I never was in love with Verda Richlander, nor she with me."
"Speak for yourself and let it hang there, John. You can't speak for the
woman--no man ever can. What I'm hoping now is that she doesn't know
anything about you that Stanton could make use of."
Again the High Line's new secretary turned to stare at the black
backgrounded window.
"You mean that she might hear of--of Miss Corona?" he suggested.
"You've roped it down, at last," said the friendly enemy. "Stanton'll
tell her--he'll tell her anything and everything that might make her
turn loose any little bit of information she may have about you. As I
said a minute ago, I'm hoping she hasn't got anything on you, John."
Smith was still facing the window when he replied. "I'm sorry to have to
disappoint you, Starbuck. What Miss Richlander could do to me, if she
chooses, would be good and plenty."
The ex-cowboy mine owner drew a long breath and felt for his
tobacco-sack and rice-paper.
"All of which opens up more talk trails," he said thoughtfully. "Since
you wouldn't try to take care of yourself, and since your neck happens
to be the most valuable asset Timanyoni High Line has, just at present,
I've been butting in, as I told you. Listen to my tale of woe, if you
haven't anything better to do. Besides the Miss Rich-ranches episode
there are a couple of others. Want to hear about 'em?"
Smith nodded.
"All right. A little while past dinner this evening, Stanton had a hurry
call to meet the 'Nevada Flyer.' Tailed onto the train there was a
private luxury car, and in the private car sat a gentleman whose face
you've seen plenty of times in the political cartoons, usually with
cuss-words under it. He is one of Stanton's bosses; and Stanton was in
for a wigging--and got it. I couldn't hear, but I could see--through the
car window. He had Stanton standing on one foot before the train pulled
out and let Crawford make his get-away. You guess, and I'll guess, and
we'll both say it was about this Escalante snap which is aiming to be
known as the Escalante fizzle. Ain't it the truth?"
Again Smith nodded, and said: "Go on."
"After Number Five had gone, Stanton broke for his auto-cab, looking
like he could bite a nail in two. I happened to hear the order he gave
the shover, and I had my cayuse hitched over at Bob Sharkey's joint.
Naturally, I ambled along after Crawford, and while I didn't beat him
to it, I got there soon enough. It was out at Jeff Barton's road-house
on the Topaz trail, and Stanton was shut up in the back room with a sort
of tin-horn 'bad man' named Lanterby."
"You listened?" said Smith, still without eagerness.
"Right you are. And they fooled me. Two schemes were on tap; one
pointing at Williams and the dam, and the other at you. These were both
'last resorts'; Stanton said he had one more string to pull first. If
that broke--well, I've said it half a dozen times already, John: you'll
either have to hire a body-guard or go heeled. I'm telling you right
here and now, that bunch is going to get you, even if it costs money!"
"You say Stanton said he had one more string to pull: he didn't give it
a name, did he?"
"No, but I've got a notion of my own," was the ready answer. "He's
trying to get next to you through the women, with this Miss Rich-pasture
for his can-opener. But when everything else fails, he is to send a
password to Lanterby, one of two passwords. 'Williams' means dynamite
and the dam: 'Jake' means the removal from the map of a fellow named
Smith. Nice prospect, isn't it?"
Smith was jabbing his paper-knife absently into the desk-blotter. "And
yet we go on calling this a civilized country!" he said meditatively.
Then with a sudden change of front: "I'm in this fight to stay until I
win out or die out, Billy; you know that. As I have said, Miss Verda can
kill me off if she chooses to; but she won't choose to. Now let's get to
work. It's pretty late to rout a justice of the peace out of bed to
issue a warrant for us, but we'll do it. Then we'll go after Lanterby
and make him turn state's evidence. Come on; let's get busy."
But Starbuck, reaching softly for a chair-righting handhold upon Smith's
desk, made no reply. Instead, he snapped his lithe body out of the chair
and launched it in a sudden tiger-spring at the door. To Smith's
astonishment the door, which should have been latched, came in at
Starbuck's wrenching jerk of the knob, bringing with it, hatless, and
with the breath startled out of him, the new stenographer, Shaw.
"There's your state's evidence," said Starbuck grimly, pushing the
half-dazed door-listener into a chair. "Just put the auger a couple of
inches into this fellow and see what you can find."
Measured by any standard of human discomfort, Richard Shaw had an
exceedingly bad quarter of an hour to worry through when Smith and
Starbuck applied the thumbscrews and sought by every means known to
modern inquisitorial methods to force a confession out of him.
Caring nothing for loyalty to the man who was paying him, Shaw had,
nevertheless, a highly developed anxiety for his own welfare; and
knowing the dangerous ground upon which he stood, he evaded and shuffled
and prevaricated under the charges and questionings until it became
apparent to both of his inquisitors that nothing short of bribery or
physical torture would get the truth out of him. Smith was not willing
to offer the bribe, and since the literal thumbscrews were out of the
question, Shaw was locked into one of the vacant rooms across the
corridor until his captors could determine what was to be done with him.
"That is one time when I fired and missed the whole side of the barn,"
Starbuck admitted, when Shaw had been remanded to the makeshift cell
across the hall. "I know that fellow is on Stanton's pay-roll; and it's
reasonably certain that he got his job with you so that he could keep
cases on you. But we can't prove anything that we say, so long as he
refuses to talk."
"No," Smith agreed. "I can discharge him, and that's about all that can
be done with him. We can't even tax him with listening. You heard what
he said--that he saw the light up here from the street, and came up to
see if I didn't need him."
"He is a pretty smooth article," said Starbuck reflectively. "He used to
be a clerk in Maxwell's railroad office, and he was mixed up in some
kind of crookedness, I don't remember just what."
Smith caught quickly at the suggestion.
"Wait a minute, Billy," he broke in; and then: "There's no doubt in your
mind that he's a spy?"
"Sure, he is," was the prompt rejoinder.
"I was just thinking--he has heard what was said here to-night--which is
enough to give Stanton a pretty good chance to outfigure us again."
"Right you are."
"In which case it would be little short of idiotic in us to turn him
loose. We've got to hold him, proof or no proof. Where would we be apt
to catch Maxwell at this time of night?"
"At home and in bed, I reckon."
"Call him up on the 'phone and state the case briefly. Tell him if he
has any nip on Shaw that would warrant us in turning him over to the
sheriff, we'd like to know it."
"You're getting the range now," laughed the ex-cow-man, and instead of
using the desk set, he went to shut himself into the sound-proof
telephone-closet.
When he emerged a few minutes later he was grinning exultantly. "That
was sure a smooth one of yours, John. Dick gave me the facts. Shaw's a
thief; but he has a sick sister on his hands--or said he had--and the
railroad didn't prosecute. Dick says for us to jug him to-night and
to-morrow morning he'll swear out the necessary papers."
"Good. We'll do that first; and then we'll go after this fellow
Lanterby. I want to get Stanton where I can pinch him, Billy; no,
there's nothing personal about it; but when a great corporation like the
Escalante Land Company gets down to plain anarchy and dynamiting, it's
time to make somebody sweat for it. Let's go and get Shaw."
Together they went across the corridor, and Smith unlocked the door of
the disused room. The light switch was on the door-jamb and Starbuck
found and pressed the button. The single incandescent bulb hanging from
the ceiling sprang alive--and showed the two men at the door an empty
room and an open window. The bird had flown.
Starbuck was grinning again when he went to look out of the window. The
roof of the adjoining building was only a few feet below the sill level,
and there was a convenient fire-escape ladder leading to the ground.
"It's us for that road-house out on the Topaz trail before the news gets
around to Stanton and Lanterby," he said definitely; and they lost no
time in securing an auto for the dash.
But that, too, proved to be a fiasco. When they reached Barton's
all-night place on the hill road, the bar was still open and a card game
was running in an up-stairs room. Starbuck did the necessary
cross-questioning of the dog-faced bartender.
"You know me, Pug, and what I can do to you if I have to. We want Hank
Lanterby. Pitch out and show us where."
The barkeeper threw up one hand as if he were warding off a blow.
"You c'd have him in a holy minute, for all o' me, Billy; you sure
could," he protested. "But he's gone."
"On the level?" snapped Starbuck.
"That's straight; I wouldn't lie to you, Billy. Telephone call came from
town a little spell ago, and I got Hank outa bed t' answer it. He
borra'd Barton's mare an' faded inside of a pair o' minutes."
"Which way?" demanded the questioner.
"T' the hills; leastways he ain't headin' f'r town when he breaks from
here."
Starbuck turned to Smith with a wry smile.
"Shaw beat us to it and he scores on us," he said. "We may as well hike
back, 'phone Williams to keep his eye on things up at the dam, and go to
bed. There'll be nothing more doing to-night."
XVIII
A Chance to Hedge
With all things moving favorably for Timanyoni High Line up to the night
of fiascos, the battle for the great water-right seemed to take a sudden
slant against the local promoters, after the failure to cripple Stanton
by the attempt to suppress two of his subordinates. Early the next day
there were panicky rumors in the air, all pointing to a possible
eleventh-hour failure of the local enterprise, and none of them
traceable to any definite starting-point.
One of the stories was to the effect that the Timanyoni dam had faulty
foundations and that the haste in building had added to its insecurity.
By noon bets were freely offered in the pool-rooms that the dam would
never stand its first filling; and on the heels of this came clamorous
court petitions from ranch owners below the dam site, setting forth the
flood dangers to which they were exposed and praying for an injunction
to stop the work.
That this was a new move on Stanton's part, neither Smith nor Stillings
questioned for a moment; but they had no sooner got the nervous ranchmen
pacified by giving an indemnity bond for any damage that might be done,
before it became evident that the rumors were having another and still
more serious effect. It was a little past one o'clock when Kinzie sent
up-stairs for Smith, and Smith wondered why, with the telephone at his
elbow, the banker had sent the summons by the janitor.
When the newly elected secretary had himself shot down the elevator, he
was moved to wonder again at the number of people who were waiting to
see the president. The anteroom was crowded with them; and when the
janitor led him around through the working room of the bank to come at
the inside door to Kinzie's room, Smith thought the detour was made
merely to dodge the waiting throng.
There was a crude surprise lying in wait for Smith when the door of the
president's room swung open to admit him. Sitting at ease on Kinzie's
big leather-covered lounge, with a huge book of engraving samples on his
knees, was a round-bodied man with a face like a good-natured full
moon. Instantly he tossed the book aside and sprang up.
"Why, Montague!" he burst out, "if this doesn't beat the band! Is it
really you, or only your remarkably healthy-looking ghost? By George!
but I'm glad to see you!"
Smith shook hands with Debritt, and if the salesman's hearty greeting
was not returned in kind, the lack was due more to the turmoil of
emotions he had stirred up than to any studied coolness on the part of
the trapped fugitive. Fortunately, the salesman had finished showing
Kinzie his samples and was ready to go, so there was no time for any
awkward revelations.
"I'm at the Hophra, for just a little while, Montague, and you must look
me up," was Debritt's parting admonition; and Smith was searching the
salesman's eyes keenly for the accusation which ought to be in them;
searching and failing to find it.
"Yes; I'll look you up, of course, Boswell. I'm at the Hophra, myself,"
he returned mechanically; and the next moment he was alone with Kinzie.
"You sent for me?" he said to the banker; and Kinzie pointed to a
chair.
"Yes; sit down and tell me what has broken loose. I've been trying to
get Baldwin or Williams on the wire--they're both at the dam, I
understand--but the 'phone seems to be out of service. What has gone
wrong with you people?"
Smith spread his hands. "We were never in better shape to win out than
we are at this moment, Mr. Kinzie. This little flurry about newer and
bigger damage suits to be brought by the valley truck-gardeners doesn't
amount to anything."
"I know all about that," said the president, with a touch of impatience.
"But there is a screw loose somewhere. How about that time limit in your
charter? Are you going to get water into the ditches within your charter
restrictions?"
"We shall clear the law, all right, within the limit," was the prompt
reply. But the banker was still unsatisfied.
"Did you notice that roomful of people out there waiting to see me?" he
asked. "They are High Line investors, a good many of them, and they are
waiting for a chance to ask me if they hadn't better get rid of their
stock for whatever it will bring. That's why I sent for you. I want to
know what's happened. And this time, Mr. Smith, I want the truth."
Smith accepted the implied challenge promptly, though in his heart he
knew that a net of some kind was drawing around him.
"Meaning that I haven't been telling you the truth, heretofore?" he
asked hardily.
"Meaning just that," responded the banker.
"Name the time and place, if you please."
"It was the first time you came here--with Baldwin."
"No," said Smith. "I gave you nothing but straight facts at that time,
Mr. Kinzie. It was your own deductions that were at fault. You jumped to
the conclusion that I was here as the representative of Eastern capital,
and I neither denied nor affirmed. But that is neither here nor there.
We have made good in the financing, and, incidentally, we've helped the
bank. You have no kick coming."
Kinzie wheeled in his chair and pointed an accusing finger at Smith.
"Mr. Smith, before we do any more business together, I want to know who
you are and where you come from. If you can't answer a few plain
questions I shall draw my own inferences."
Smith leaped up and towered over the thick-set elderly man in the
pivot-chair.
"Mr. Kinzie, do you want me to tell you what you are? You're a
trimmer--a fence-climber! Do you suppose I don't know what has
happened? Stanton has started this new scare, and he has been here with
you! You've thought it all over, and now you want to welsh and go over
to what you think is going to be the winning side! Do it, if you feel
like it--and I'll transfer our account to the little Savings concern
up-town!"
There was fire in his eye and hot wrath in his tone; and once more
Kinzie found his conclusions warping.
"Oh, don't fly off the handle so brashly, young man," he protested.
"You've been in the banking business, yourself--you needn't deny it--and
you know what a banker's first care should be. Sit down again and let's
thresh this thing out. I don't want to have to drop you."
Being fairly at bay, with Debritt in town and Josiah Richlander due to
come back to Brewster at any moment, Smith put his back to the wall and
ignored the chair.
"You are at liberty to do anything you see fit, so far as I am
concerned," he rapped out, "and whatever you do, I'll try to hand it
back to you, with interest."
"That is good strong talk," retorted the banker, "but it doesn't tell me
who you are, or why you are so evidently anxious to forget your past,
Mr. Smith. I'm not asking much, if you'll stop to consider. And you'll
give me credit for being fair and aboveboard with you. I might have held
that engraving salesman and questioned him; he knows you--knows your
other name."
Smith put the entire matter aside with an impatient gesture. "Leave my
past record out of it, if you please, Mr. Kinzie. At the present moment
I am the financial head of Timanyoni High Line. What I want to know is
this: do you continue to stand with us? or do you insist upon the
privilege of seesawing every time Stanton turns up with a fresh scare?
Let me have it, yes or no; and then I shall know what to do."
The gray-haired man in the big chair took time to think about it,
pursing his lips and making a quick-set hedge of his cropped mustache.
In the end he capitulated.
"I don't want to break with you--or with Dexter Baldwin," he said, at
length. "But I'm going to talk straight to you. Your little local crowd
of ranchmen and mining men will never be allowed to hold that dam and
your ditch right of way; never in this world, Smith."
"If you are our friend, you'll tell us why," Smith came back smartly.
"Because you have got too big a crowd to fight; a crowd that can spend
millions to your hundreds. I didn't know until to-day who was behind
Stanton, though I had made my own guess. You mustn't be foolish, and you
mustn't pull Dexter Baldwin in over his head--which is what you are
doing now."
Smith thrust his hands into his pockets and looked away.
"What do you advise, Mr. Kinzie?" he asked.
"Just this. At the present moment you seem to have a strangle-hold on
the New York people that it will take a good bit of money to break.
They'll break it, never fear. A Scotch terrier may be the bravest little
dog that ever barked, but he can't fight a mastiff with any hope of
saving his life. But there is still a chance for a compromise. Turn this
muddle of yours over to me and let me make terms with the New Yorkers.
I'll come as near to getting par for you as I can."