shrieked the castaway, lost now to everything save the biting sense of
his wrongs. "You've put it all over me--knocked my chances with Verda
Richlander and shut me up here in this hell-hole to go mad-dog crazy! If
you let me get out of here alive I'll pay you back, if it's the last
thing I ever do on top of God's green earth! You'll go back to
Lawrenceville with the bracelets on! You'll--" red rage could go no
farther in mere words and he flung himself in feeble fierceness upon
Smith, clutching and struggling and waking the grewsome echoes again
with frantic, meaningless maledictions.
Smith dropped the candle to defend himself, but he did not strike back;
wrapping the madman in a pinioning grip, he held him helpless until the
vengeful ecstasy had exhausted itself. When it was over, and Jibbey had
been released, gasping and sobbing, to stagger back against the tunnel
wall, Smith groped for the candle and found and relighted it.
"Tucker," he said gently, "you are more of a man than I took you to
be--a good bit more. And you needn't break your heart because you can't
handle a fellow who is perfectly fit, and who weighs half as much again
as you do. Now that you're giving me a chance to say it, I can tell you
that Verda Richlander doesn't figure in this at all. I'm not going to
marry her, and she didn't come out here in the expectation of finding
me."
"Then what does figure in it?" was the dry-lipped query.
"It was merely a matter of self-preservation. There are men in Brewster
who would pay high for the information you might give them about me."
"You might have given me a hint and a chance, Monty. I'm not _all_ dog!"
"That's all past and gone. I didn't give you your chance, but I'm going
to give it to you now. Let's go--if you're fit to try it."
"Wait a minute. If you think, because you didn't pull your gun just now
and drop me and leave me to rot in this hole, if you think that squares
the deal----"
"I'm not making any conditions," Smith interposed. "There are a number
of telegraph offices in Brewster, and for at least two days longer I
shall always be within easy reach."
Jibbey's anger flared up once more.
"You think I won't do it? You think I'll be so danged glad to get to
some place where they sell whiskey that I'll forget all about it and let
you off? Don't you make any mistake, Monty Smith! You can't knock me on
the head and lock me up as if I were a yellow dog. I'll fix you!"
Smith made no reply. Linking his free arm in Jibbey's, he led the way
through the mazes, stopping at the tunnel mouth to blow out the candle
and to pick up Jibbey's suitcase. In the open air the freed captive
flung his arms abroad and drank in a deep breath of the clean, sweet,
outdoor air. "God!" he gasped; "how good it is!" and after that he
tramped in sober silence at Smith's heels until they reached the
automobile.
It took some little careful manoeuvring to get the roadster
successfully turned on the railroad embankment, and Jibbey stood aside
while Smith worked with the controls. Past this, he climbed into the
spare seat, still without a word, and the rough four miles over the
rotting cross-ties were soon left behind. At the crossing of the
railroad main track and the turn into the highway, the river, bassooning
deep-toned among its bowlders, was near at hand, and Jibbey spoke for
the first time since they had left the mine mouth.
"I'm horribly thirsty, Monty. That water in the mine had copper or
something in it, and I couldn't drink it. You didn't know that, did
you?--when you put me in there, I mean? Won't you stop the car and let
me go stick my face in that river?"
The car was brought to a stand and Jibbey got out to scramble down the
river bank in the starlight. Obeying some inner prompting which he did
not stop to analyze, Smith left his seat behind the wheel and walked
over to the edge of the embankment where Jibbey had descended. The path
to the river's margin was down the steep slope of a rock fill made in
widening the highway to keep it clear of the railroad track. With the
glare of the roadster's acetylenes turned the other way, Smith could see
Jibbey at the foot of the slope lowering himself face downward on his
propped arms to reach the water. Then, for a single instant, the
murderous underman rose up and laughed. For in that instant, Jibbey,
careless in his thirst, lost his balance and went headlong into the
torrent.
A battling eon had passed before Smith, battered, beaten, and
half-strangled, succeeded in landing the unconscious thirst-quencher on
a shelving bank three hundred yards below the stopped automobile. After
that there was another eon in which he completely forgot his own
bruisings while he worked desperately over the drowned man, raising and
lowering the limp arms while he strove to recall more of the
resuscitative directions given in the Lawrenceville Athletic Club's
first-aid drills.
In good time, after an interval so long that it seemed endless to the
despairing first-aider, the breath came back into the reluctant lungs.
Jibbey coughed, choked, gasped, and sat up. His teeth were chattering,
and he was chilled to the bone by the sudden plunge into the cold snow
water, but he was unmistakably alive.
"What--what happened to me, Monty?" he shuddered. "Did I lose my grip
and tumble in?"
"You did, for a fact."
"And you went in after me?"
"Of course."
"No, by Gad! It wasn't 'of course'--not by a long shot! All you had to
do was to let me go, and the score--your score--would have been wiped
out for good and all. Why didn't you do it?"
"Because I should have lost my bet."
"Your bet?"
"Well, yes. It wasn't exactly a bet; but I promised somebody that I
would bring you back to Brewster to-night, alive and well, and able to
send a telegram. And if I had let you drown yourself, I should have lost
out."
"You promised somebody?--not Verda?"
"No; somebody else."
Jibbey tried to get upon his feet, couldn't quite compass it, and sat
down again.
"I don't believe a word of it," he mumbled, loose-lipped. "You did it
because you're not so danged tough and hard-hearted as you thought you
were." And then: "Give me a lift, Monty, and get me to the auto. I
guess--I'm about--all in."
Smith half led, half carried his charge up to the road and then left him
to go and back the car over the three hundred-odd yards of the
interspace. A final heave lifted Jibbey into his place, and it is safe
to say that Colonel Dexter Baldwin's roadster never made better time
than it did on the race which finally brought the glow of the Brewster
town lights reddening against the eastern sky.
At the hotel Smith helped his dripping passenger out of the car, made a
quick rush with him to an elevator, and so up to his own rooms on the
fourth floor.
"Strip!" he commanded; "get out of those wet rags and tumble into the
bath. Make it as hot as you can stand it. I'll go down and register you
and have your trunk sent up from the station. You have a trunk, haven't
you?"
Jibbey fished a soaked card baggage-check out of his pocket and passed
it over.
"You're as bad off as I am, Monty," he protested. "Wait and get some dry
things on before you go."
"I'll be up again before you're out of the tub. I suppose you'd like to
put yourself outside of a big drink of whiskey, just about now, but
that's one thing I won't buy for you. How would a pot of hot coffee from
the cafe strike you?"
"You could make it Mellin's Food and I'd drink it if you said so,"
chattered the drowned one from the inside of the wet undershirt he was
trying to pull off over his head.
Smith did his various errands quickly. When he reached the fourth-floor
suite again, Jibbey was out of the bath; was sitting on the edge of the
bed wrapped in blankets, with the steaming pot of coffee sent up on
Smith's hurry order beside him on a tray.
"It's your turn at the tub," he bubbled cheerfully. "I didn't have any
glad rags to put on, so I swiped some of your bedclothes. Go to it, old
man, before you catch cold."
Smith was already pointing for the bath. "Your trunk will be up in a few
minutes, and I've told them to send it here," he said. "When you want to
quit me, you'll find your rooms five doors to the right in this same
corridor: suite number four-sixteen."
It was a long half-hour before Smith emerged from his bath-room once
more clothed and in his right mind. In the interval the reclaimed trunk
had been sent up, and Jibbey was also clothed. He had found one of
Smith's pipes and some tobacco and was smoking with the luxurious
enjoyment of one who had suffered the pangs imposed by two days of total
abstinence.
"Just hangin' around to say good night," he began, when Smith showed
himself in the sitting-room. Then he returned the borrowed pipe to its
place on the mantel and said his small say to the definite end. "After
all that's happened to us two to-night, Monty, I hope you're going to
forget my crazy yappings and not lose any sleep about that Lawrenceville
business. I'm seventeen different kinds of a rotten failure; there's no
manner of doubt about that; and once in a while--just _once_ in a
while--I've got sense enough to know it. You saved my life when it would
have been all to the good for you to let me go. I guess the world
wouldn't have been much of a loser if I had gone, and you knew that,
too. Will you--er--would you shake hands with me, Monty?"
Smith did it, and lo! a miracle was wrought: in the nervous grasp of the
joined hands a quickening thrill passed from man to man;, a thrill
humanizing, redemptory, heart-mellowing. And, oddly enough, one would
say, it was the weaker man who gave and the stronger who received.
XXV
The Pace-Setter
Smith made an early breakfast on the morning following the auto drive to
the abandoned mine, hoping thereby to avoid meeting both Miss Richlander
and Jibbey. The Hophra cafe was practically empty when he went in and
took his accustomed place at one of the alcove tables, but he had barely
given his order when Starbuck appeared and came to join him.
"You're looking a whole heap better this morning, John," said the mine
owner quizzically, as he held up a finger for the waiter. "How's the
grouch?"
Smith's answering grin had something of its former good nature in it.
"To-day's the day, Billy," he said. "To-morrow at midnight we must have
the water running in the ditches or lose our franchise. It's chasing
around in the back part of my mind that Stanton will make his
grand-stand play to-day. I'm not harboring any grouches on the edge of
the battle. They are a handicap, anyway, and always."
"That's good medicine talk," said the older man, eying him keenly. And
then: "You had us all guessing, yesterday and the day before, John. You
sure was acting as if you'd gone plumb locoed."
"I was locoed," was the quiet admission.
"What cured you?"
"It's too long a story to tell over the breakfast-table. What do you
hear from Williams?"
"All quiet during the night; but the weather reports are scaring him up
a good bit this morning."
"Storms on the range?"
"Yes. The river gained four feet last night, and there is flood water
and drift coming down to beat the band. Just the same, Bartley says he
is going to make good."
Smith nodded. "Bartley is all right; the right man in the right place.
Have you seen the colonel since he left the offices last evening?"
"Yes. I drove him and Corona out to the ranch in my new car. He said
he'd lost his roadster; somebody had sneaked in and borrowed it."
"I suppose he told you about the latest move--our move--in the
stock-selling game?"
"No, he didn't; but Stillings did. You played it pretty fine, John; only
I hope to gracious we won't have to redeem those options. It would
bu'st our little inside crowd wide open to have to buy in all that stock
at par."
Smith laughed. "'Sufficient unto the day,' Billy. It was the only way to
block Stanton. It's neck or nothing with him now, and he has only one
more string that he can pull."
"The railroad right-of-way deal?"
"Yes; he has been holding that in reserve--that, and one other thing."
"What was the other thing?"
"Me," said Smith, cheerfully disregardful of his English. "You haven't
forgotten his instructions to the man Lanterby, that night out at the
road-house on the Topaz pike?--the talk that you overheard?"
"No; I haven't forgotten."
"His idea, then, was to have me killed off in a scrap of some sort--as a
last resort, of course; but later on he found a safer expedient, and he
has been trying his level best to work it ever since."
Starbuck was absently fishing for a second cube of sugar in the
sugar-bowl. "Has it got anything to do with the bunch of news that you
won't tell us--about yourself, John?"
"It has. Two days ago, Stanton had his finger fairly on the trigger, but
a friend of mine stepped in and snapped the safety-catch. Last night,
again, he stood to win out; to have the pry-hold he has been searching
for handed to him on a silver platter, so to speak. But a man fell into
the river, and Stanton lost out once more."
Starbuck glanced up soberly. "You're talking in riddles now, John. I
don't _sabe_."
"It isn't necessary for you to _sabe_. Results are what count. Barring
accidents, you Timanyoni High Line people can reasonably count on having
me with you for the next few critical days; and, I may add, you never
needed me more pointedly."
Starbuck's smile was face-wide.
"I hope I don't feel sorry," he remarked. "Some day, when you can take
an hour or so off, I'm going to get you to show me around in your little
mu-zeeum of self-conceit, John. Maybe I can learn how to gather me up
one."
Smith matched the mine owner's good-natured smile. For some
unexplainable reason the world, his particular world, seemed to have
lost its malignance. He could even think of Stanton without bitterness;
and the weapon which had been weighting his hip pocket for the past few
days had been carefully buried in the bottom of the lower dressing-case
drawer before he came down to breakfast.
"You may laugh, Billy, but you'll have to admit that I've been
outfiguring the whole bunch of you, right from the start," he retorted
brazenly. "It's my scheme, and I'm going to put it through with a whoop.
You'll see--before to-morrow night."
"I reckon, when you do put it through, you can ask your own fee," said
Starbuck quietly.
"I'm going to; and the size of it will astonish you, Billy. I shall turn
over the little block of stock you folks have been good enough to let me
carry, give you and the colonel and the board of directors a small
dinner in the club-room up-stairs and--vanish. But let's get down to
business. This is practically Stanton's last day of grace. If he can't
get some legal hold upon us before midnight to-morrow night, or work
some scheme to make us lose our franchise, his job is gone."
"Show me," said the mine owner succinctly.
"It's easy. With the dam completed and the water running in the ditches,
we become at once a going concern, with assets a long way in advance of
our liabilities. The day after to-morrow--if we pull through--you won't
be able to buy a single share of Timanyoni High Line at any figure. As
a natural consequence, public sentiment, which, we may say, is at
present a little doubtful, will come over to our side in a land-slide,
and Stanton's outfit, if it wants to continue the fight, will have to
fight the entire Timanyoni, with the city of Brewster thrown in for good
measure. Am I making it plain?"
"Right you are, so far. Go on."
"On the other hand, if Stanton can block us before to-morrow night; hang
us up in some way and make us lose our rights under the charter; we're
gone--snuffed out like a candle. Listen, Billy, and I'll tell you
something that I haven't dared to tell anybody, not even Colonel
Baldwin. I've been spending the company's money like water to keep in
touch. The minute we fail, and long before we could hope to reorganize a
second time and apply for a new charter, Stanton's company will be in
the field, with its charter already granted. From that to taking
possession of our dam, either by means of an enabling act of the
Legislature, or by purchase from the paper railroad, will be only a
step. And we couldn't do a thing! We'd have no legal rights, and no
money to fight with!"
Starbuck pushed his chair away from the table and drew a long breath.
"Good Lord!" he sighed; "I wish to goodness it was day after to-morrow!
Can you carry it any further, John?"
"Yes; a step or two. For a week Stanton has been busy on the
paper-railroad claim, and that is what made me buy a few cases of
Winchesters and send them out to Williams: I was afraid Stanton might
try force. He won't do that if he can help it; he'll go in with some
legal show, if possible, because our force at the dam far outnumbers any
gang he could hire, and he knows we are armed."
"He can't work the legal game," said Starbuck definitively. "I've known
Judge Warner ever since I was knee-high to a hop-toad, and a squarer man
doesn't breathe."
"That is all right, but you're forgetting something. The paper railroad
is--or was once--an interstate corporation, and so may ask for relief
from the federal courts, thus going over Judge Warner's head. I'm not
saying anything against Lorching, the federal judge at Red Butte. I've
met him, and he is a good jurist and presumably an honest man. But he is
well along in years, and has an exaggerated notion of his own
importance. Stanton, or rather his figurehead railroad people, have
asked him to intervene, and he has taken the case under advisement.
That is where we stand this morning."
Starbuck was nodding slowly. "I see what you mean, now," he said. "If
Lorching jumps the wrong way for us, you're looking to see a United
States marshal walk up to Bartley Williams some time to-day and tell him
to quit. That would put the final kibosh on us, wouldn't it?"
Smith was rising in his place.
"_I'm_ not dead yet, Billy," he rejoined cheerfully. "I haven't let it
get this far without hammering out a few expedients for our side. If I
can manage to stay in the fight to-day and to-morrow----"
A little new underclerk had come in from the hotel office and was trying
to give Starbuck a note in a square envelope, and Starbuck was saying:
"No; that's Mr. Smith, over there."
Smith took the note and opened it, and he scarcely heard the clerk's
explanation that it had been put in his box the evening before, and that
the day clerk had been afraid he would get away without finding it. It
was from Verda Richlander, and it had neither superscription nor
signature. This is what Smith read:
"My little ruse has failed miserably. Mr. K's. messenger found my
father in spite of it, and he--the messenger--returned this evening: I
know, because he brought a note from father to me. Come to me as early
to-morrow morning as you can, and we'll plan what can be done."
Smith crushed the note in his hand and thrust it into his pocket.
Starbuck was making a cigarette, and was studiously refraining from
breaking in. But Smith did not keep him waiting.
"That was my knock-out, Billy," he said with a quietness that was almost
overdone. "My time has suddenly been shortened to hours--perhaps to
minutes. Get a car as quickly as you can and go to Judge Warner's house.
I have an appointment with him at nine o'clock. Tell him I'll keep it,
if I can, but that he needn't wait for me if I am not there on the
minute."
XXVI
The Colonel's "Defi"
Though it was only eight o'clock, Smith sent his card to Miss
Richlander's rooms at once and then had himself lifted to the mezzanine
floor to wait for her. She came in a few minutes, a strikingly beautiful
figure of a woman in the freshness of her morning gown, red-lipped,
bright-eyed, and serenely conscious of her own resplendent gifts of face
and figure. Smith went quickly to meet her and drew her aside into the
music parlor. Already the need for caution was beginning to make itself
felt.
"I have come," he said briefly.
"You got my note?" she asked.
"A few minutes ago--just as I was leaving the breakfast-table."
"You will leave Brewster at once--while the way is still open?"
He shook his head, "I can't do that; in common justice to the men who
have trusted me, and who are now needing me more than ever, I must stay
through this one day, and possibly another."
"Mr. Kinzie will not be likely to lose any time," she prefigured
thoughtfully. "He has probably telegraphed to Lawrenceville before
this." Then, with a glance over her shoulder to make sure that there
were no eavesdroppers: "Of course, you know that Mr. Stanton is at the
bottom of all this prying and spying?"
"It is Stanton's business to put me out of the game, if he can. I've
told you enough of the situation here so that you can understand why it
is necessary for him to efface me. His time has grown very short now."
Again the statuesque beauty glanced over her shoulder.
"Lawrenceville is a long way off, and Sheriff Macauley is enough of a
politician--in an election year--to want to be reasonably certain before
he incurs the expense of sending a deputy all the way out here, don't
you think?" she inquired.
"Certainty? There isn't the slightest element of uncertainty in it.
There are hundreds of people in Brewster who can identify me."
"But not one of these Brewsterites can identify you as John Montague
Smith, of Lawrenceville--the man who is wanted by Sheriff Macauley," she
put in quickly. Then she added: "My father foresaw that difficulty. As
I told you in my note, he sent me a letter by Mr. Kinzie's messenger.
After telling me that he will be detained in the mountains several days
longer, he refers to Mr. Kinzie's request and suggests----"
The fugitive was smiling grimly. "He suggests that you might help Mr.
Kinzie out by telling him whether or not he has got hold of the right
John Smith?"
"Not quite that," she rejoined. "He merely suggests that I may be asked
to identify you; in which case I am to be prudent, and--to quote him
exactly--'not get mixed up in the affair in any way so that it would
make talk.'"
"I see," said Smith. And then: "You have a disagreeable duty ahead of
you, and I'd relieve you of the necessity by running away, if I could.
But that is impossible, as I have explained."
She was silent for a moment; then she said: "When I told you a few days
ago that you were going to need my help, Montague, I didn't foresee
anything like this. Have you any means of finding out whether or not Mr.
Kinzie has sent his wire to Lawrenceville?"
"Yes, I think I can do that much."
"Suppose you do it and then let me know. I shall breakfast with the
Stantons in a few minutes; and after nine o'clock ... if you could
contrive to keep out of the way until I can get word to you; just so
they won't be able to bring us face to face with each other----"
Smith saw what she meant; saw, also, whereunto his wretched fate was
dragging him. It was the newest of all the reincarnations, the one which
had begun with Jibbey's silent hand-clasp the night before, which
prompted him to say:
"If they should ask you about me, you must tell them the truth, Verda."
Her smile was mildly scornful.
"Is that what the plain-faced little ranch person would do?" she asked.
"I don't know; yes, I guess it is."
"Doesn't she care any more for you than that?"
Smith did not reply. He was standing where he could watch the comings
and goings of the elevators. Time was precious and he was chafing at the
delay, but Miss Richlander was not yet ready to let him go.
"Tell me honestly, Montague," she said; "is it anything more than a case
of propinquity with this Baldwin girl?--on your part, I mean."
"It isn't anything," he returned soberly. "Corona Baldwin will never
marry any man who has so much to explain as I have."
"You didn't know this was her home, when you came out here?"
"No."
"But you had met her somewhere, before you came?"
"Once; yes. It was in Guthrieville, over a year ago. I had driven over
to call on some people that I knew, and I met her there at a house where
she was visiting."
"Does she remember that she had met you?"
"No, not yet." He was certain enough of this to answer without
reservations.
"But you remembered her?"
"Not at first."
"I see," she nodded, and then, without warning: "What was the matter
with you last night--about dinner-time?"
"Why should you think there was anything the matter with me?"