THE CONTEMPT OF SLEDGE HUME
The window shades in the study were half drawn so that in the late
afternoon the room was shadowy. From the fireplace crackling flames
cast wavering gleams across the polished oaken table top and the heavy
mission furniture. Leland had not stirred from the chair into which he
had sunk after Wayne Shandon's going. Shandon had been gone an hour;
he had met Garth Conway at the bridge and now Garth was with Leland.
There was no longer in the old man's eye or bearing a hint of the
battle which he had fought all day. He had gone through the hours of
his inner struggle and as it had ended three months ago so had it ended
to-day. He knew that he would not open his mind to consider the
question again. His full piercing eyes were stern and determined.
Purposefully he had set his feet into the path he meant to follow
without swerving. In a moment of hesitation and uncertainty the
supreme argument had come to him; if for no other reason, he must ruin
Shandon to save his own daughter from her folly.
"Garth," he said quietly, his deep voice retaining no trace of the
emotion which had wracked him only an hour ago, "I am very glad that
you have come. I have been expecting you all day."
"I met Wayne," Garth said hastily, watching Leland anxiously. "He was
riding like the very devil. I never saw his face look as it did as he
shot by me. He had been over here?"
"Yes. I had a plain talk with him. I made it clear to him that he was
not again to set foot on my land."
"You didn't tell him--"
"I told him nothing! The man deserves no consideration at my hands.
It is not my affair to tell him." He paused a moment, bending his gaze
thoughtfully upon Conway's troubled face. "You have had time to think.
What are you going to do?"
Garth opened his lips to speak, hesitated and closed them without a
word. The air of uneasiness which he had brought with him into the
room grew more marked. He shifted a little in his chair. Leland,
watching him steadily, waited for him to speak.
"I don't know what to do," Conway blurted out finally. "You were so
sure all the time he'd never come back.--Now if I don't tell him all
about the mortgage and foreclosure there's chance on top of chance
he'll find it out himself before the nine months drag by. And then--"
He flashed a startled glance up at Leland's calm face. "He'd kill me!
What can I do?"
"You can keep your mouth shut," answered Martin tersely. "You still
have his power of attorney, haven't you?"
Garth nodded, his head down again, his fingers nervously busy with his
lip.
"Conway," Leland continued with quiet emphasis, his keen glance
watching for the effect of his words, "in sheer justice you have ten
times more right to be owner of the Bar L-M than that mad fool has.
You have slaved for over a year to make it what it is while he has been
squandering money you had to scrape to send him. Even while Arthur was
alive you were the actual manager. And now all that you have to do is
keep still and you can have the place for a very small fragment of what
it is worth. God knows I wouldn't put foot on it. There is nothing
that the law can touch you for; we have seen to that. Nor will you be
doing a dishonourable thing. It is sheer justice, Garth, that you and
I will be meting out to him."
Conway's cheeks flushed a little, his eyes brightened at the thought of
being some day the owner of the Bar L-M.
"But there's the chance--" he began.
"You are playing for big stakes," Leland reminded him crisply. "Of
course there is a chance. But you exaggerate it. Play the game
through and you will be a rich man before the year is out."
Before Conway could speak there came the clamorous barking of dogs in
the yard and the noise of a horse's shod hoofs. In a moment there was
a heavy booted stride up the steps and along the porch, followed by a
loud rap at the study door. At Leland's nod Garth sprang to his feet
and went quickly to the door, flinging it open.
For a second Sledge Hume's great frame filled the doorway as he paused,
looking in sharply, drawing at his gauntlets. Then, brushing by
Conway, he entered and stood with his back to the fireplace, still
drawing off his gauntlets, his hat still low over his brows.
"Well?" he asked bluntly.
Just the short word, uttered as a command. There would be no wasting
of words before they came straight to business. There was about the
man, emanating apparently from his physical body something oddly like a
materialised aura, bespeaking an aggressive character, a strong,
dominant personality. Conway, alone with Leland, was a school boy in
the presence of his master. Hume, ignoring Garth, challenged that
superiority which Conway's weaker nature acknowledged unconsciously.
The look of his eye, the very carriage of his handsome head, invited
opposition, questioned an authority other than his own. A big, strong
man physically his manner gave the impression that he was a big, strong
man intellectually.
Old Martin did not at once speak but sat very still save for the
restless fingers upon the table top. It was Conway who, after a brief
hesitation, answered.
"We're going to stand pat--"
"I wasn't talking to you, Conway," said Hume coolly. "As far as I am
concerned you aren't even a fifth wheel in this thing and you ought to
know it. I want to know what Leland has got to say."
Garth coloured angrily but made no reply as he turned questioning eyes
to the older man.
"Very well, Mr. Hume," said Leland quietly. "Do you care to sit down
while we thresh things out?"
"No, I'll stand. Go ahead."
"To begin with, Wayne Shandon is back."
"I know he is back," spat out Hume. "That's why I'm here. What are
you going to do now?"
"We are going ahead just as though he weren't here."
"You think that you can put the thing across?"
"Why not?"
"Just because," Hume shot back at him, "it doesn't seem likely that
with the whole country knowing about the foreclosure of the mortgage
somebody isn't going to do some talking."
Leland shook his head.
"Let me sum up the case for you," he said. "Arthur Shandon, the day
before his death, mortgaged the Bar L-M to me for twenty-five thousand.
When time for foreclosure came three months ago Wayne Shandon would
have been notified if he had been here. As it was the notice went to
his legal representative, Garth Conway. Conway allowed the Bar L-M to
go under the hammer and at the sheriff's sale Conway himself bought it
in--"
"For you," interjected Hume.
"Yes, for me. But who knows that? People who paid any attention to
the transaction came to understand that it had been because of Wayne
Shandon's known shiftlessness that the property was allowed to be sold,
they knew that Conway was his agent, and that Conway bought it in.
There is not a man living who knows anything about the matter who does
not believe that Conway bought at Shandon's orders and with Shandon's
money; and that the Bar L-M is Shandon's now and was never in any real
danger from me. Is it likely then, that any man who believes this is,
after this length of time, even going to think to mention the matter to
Shandon?"
"You've got the chance to get by with it," said Hume slowly. "And it's
a damned good chance."
"We all know the sort Shandon is," continued Leland. "I shall be
surprised if he doesn't tire of the life here in six weeks, put through
a sale of cattle, take the money and go again. With him away our
chance becomes a certainty. In any case, I am going ahead with our
work. I have had Garth look into the title of the Dry Lands and he
finds that it is perfect."
"Yes. The land is mine and is clear."
"All we need now is the water and we are going to have that in another
nine months when I shall have a clear deed to the Bar L-M. Garth and
myself have gone ahead as I told you that we would, taking options on
every acre we could get in Dry Valley. Before many days we shall
virtually control the whole of the valley, just the three of us.
Between us Garth and I have expended upwards of fifty thousand dollars
in the last five weeks in options and out-right purchases."
"Let me see the papers," said Hume shortly.
Leland went to the safe and taking out a number of papers, handed them
to Hume.
"All right as far as it goes," Hume said when at length he had finished
his careful examination of the documents and had tossed them to the
table. "You haven't got the Norfolk place nor the Ettinger place.
What's the matter? They are more important to us than all the rest put
together. Did they smell a rat?"
"I don't know. I am confident of closing with Norfolk in a few days,
although I may have to pay him five dollars an acre more than I offered
any one else. Ettinger is holding out for seventy-five thousand
dollars, cash."
"Then he does smell a rat!" Hume's fist came crashing down upon the
mantelpiece. "By God, somebody's been talking too much!"
"Mr. Hume," Leland reminded him sternly, "may I call to your attention
the fact that nobody knows a thing about this matter excepting
yourself, Garth and me? I haven't so much as told my wife--"
"You?" cried Hume hotly. "Who said that you had? You've got brains
enough to hold your tongue. That's why I came to you in the first
place. But Conway here--"
He swung suddenly upon Garth, his eyes flaming, his face distorted with
wrath. Before either of the two men had guessed his purpose he strode
swiftly across the room, and gripping Conway's shoulders with his two
big hands jerked him to his feet.
"Conway," he snarled, his face close to the others, his eyes burning,
his breath hot in Garth's blanched face, "you queer this deal with your
infernal gab and I'll--"
He broke off sharply, flinging Conway backward from him so that the
smaller man's body crashed against the wall.
"Hume!" cried Leland angrily. "I'll have no quarrelling in my house.
If you can't act--"
"I haven't come here to-day for a love feast," sneered Hume, already
forgetting Conway as he whirled upon Martin. "What I've got to say
I'll say my way whether you and your cursed white rat like it or not.
I say that somebody has been talking too damned much! That place of
Ettinger's as it is, without the water, isn't worth twenty-five
thousand. He'd have sold it for that a month ago and glad of the
chance to unload. Now he holds out for seventy-five thousand! What's
the answer? You've dragged Conway into this thing; I haven't. I
wanted no man in it but you and Arthur Shandon and myself. You because
you had the money, Arthur Shandon because he had the lake and the
river. I didn't want Conway. He's your pet, not mine. Now, muzzle
him if you can."
Garth's angry retort, the first word he had said since Hume sprang
unexpectedly upon him, was lost in the low rumble of Martin Leland's
heavy voice.
"You've said what you wanted to say, Mr. Hume. We've heard it. We
understand each other. I can vouch for Conway's discretion. If you
are as careful yourself we are all right. I'll attend to both Ettinger
and Norfolk. I shall also see that at the end of the nine months the
Bar L-M is mine and that we have the water for Dry Valley."
Hume laughed. Without again looking toward Conway he stooped, picked
up the gauntlets he had let fall, and turned to the door.
"You are nobody's fool, Leland," he said patronisingly. "You are
taking a chance in freezing Red Shandon out but the law can't go after
you. And you stand to win a wad of money."
"Mr. Hume," interposed Leland sternly. "I am not taking over the Bar
L-M because there happens to be money in it. I am simply using the
weapon of retribution which God has seen fit to put into my hands--"
"Oh, rot!" grunted Hume sneeringly. "Don't come trying to square your
conscience with me. I say, go to it, if you can get across with it."
He jerked the door open and then stopped suddenly his hand still on the
knob.
"If you do slip up," he said bluntly, "if Red Shandon does hear about
it and gets busy, let me know. If he starts making trouble I can put
him where he'll be out of the way!"
The door closed loudly behind him.