When a man is hit on the back of the head, hard enough to knock him
out without any error, it hurts.
Bob Bowen discovered this fact with a vengeance. He had never before
been hit on the head with malice prepense; and when he came to himself
he was slow in realizing what had happened, and why. He was conscious
of a light, and also of a keenly stabbing headache. There seemed to be
a lump of some consequence behind his right ear.
The light presently made itself clear as coming from a gas-jet against
the wall. Bowen was quite uncertain about his perspective, but finally
decided that he was lying on the floor. Pain in his wrists and ankles
told him that, incredible though it seemed, his wrists and ankles were
lashed together too tightly for comfort.
“Guess I’m not supposed to be comfortable,” he murmured, with the
ghost of a smile.
The murmur produced an effect.
Into the area of gaslight above Bowen appeared a face. It was a plump
but chalky face, the face of Oliver Hazard Perry Cheadle. Gone were
the thick spectacles and the bland, cherubic expression. In the stead
of them there was a leering grin that quite transfigured the erstwhile
mineralogist from Arizona.
“Dropped you!” said Mr. Cheadle, with a complete absence of hesitation
or culture. “You poor fish! Dropped you like a inner-cent babe, I did!
Mebbe Henderson won’t grin when he lamps that mug of yours. But why
you don’t carry more cash in your pocket, I don’t see—”
The voice died away, and the livid face. Bowen felt unconsciousness
swirling upon him; but before his senses lapsed, he realized that
things are seldom what they seem, and that in his first half-amused
judgment of Mr. Cheadle he had made a grievous error. Then he fell
asleep, entirely satisfied on that point.
When he wakened again he saw through half-closed lids that now it was
broad daylight. Hearing the voices of two men in the room, and
recognizing both voices, Bowen did not open his eyes fully. Instead,
he shut them again and kept them shut for a time.
His head was still hurting, but not with that first keen pain; it was
now the dulled, deadened hurt of an old bruise. It no longer dominated
him. He had wakened alert, with full memory of what had passed; he
was, in short, pretty much himself, except for the cold anger that
possessed him. A burning thirst consumed him, but anger dominated it.
And when Bob Bowen was angry to the bottom of his soul, he was not the
man to pause over half-way measures, or to ask himself what might
happen. He knew what would happen if he got the chance!
“He ain’t wise to the world yet,” said the voice of Cheadle. “Want to
stir him up?”
“No,” the more biting tones of Henderson made response. “No time for
that now. Let it wait until to-night.”
“Well, what then?” Cheadle was evidently impatient. “I’m tired o’
being a door-mat, Henderson. I want to know how the big stroke is
comin’, and why; and about this poor boob—what’s going to happen to
him and us. No more obeying orders till I know why, boss.”
The ugly note in that voice was manifest even to Bowen. Henderson
replied quickly.
“Him? Oh, leave him till to-night. I’m not going to hurt him any more;
just let him know he mustn’t butt into _my_ games after this. We’ll
scatter some whisky on his clothes and take him over to the Mission
and leave him. He isn’t the sort of fool who spills all he knows to
the police; he’s too wise to buy chips in a stacked game! He’ll take
his lesson.
“And now come along and we’ll sit in at the big game.”
Footsteps and silence. Then the two voices again, less clear this
time, but quite intelligible, and a scrape of chairs.
Bowen opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor of a disordered
bedroom, lighted by a dingy window. Three feet from him a curtain
closed an old-style double doorway; the doors were not pulled to, and
in the other room were Henderson and Cheadle. The former telephoned to
some unknown “Charley,” and gave orders to be kept in touch with every
move of Apex Crown. Then he and Cheadle fell into conversation,
earnest and low-voiced.
Though he caught only scraps of that conversation, Bowen listened in
astounded incredulity. Before him the two speakers unfolded a deeper
and craftier knavery than he had ever dreamed; schooled as he was in
the tricky mining game, the former agent of Dickover was now springing
something unrivaled in his experience for audacity and duplicity! From
the muttered voices Bowen was enabled to piece together the following
scheme of things:
Cheadle was the superintendent in charge of the Apex Crown
development.
Two months previously, Dickover had received private information that
a chemical process for treating zinc-silver ore economically was being
perfected. He had at once sent Henderson on a private trip to pick up
low-grade silver properties and form a gigantic combination; for as
soon as news of the chemical process reached the market, low-grade
silver would soar. Henderson had found from Cheadle that the Apex
Crown was petering out. The vein had been worked to death, and there
was no promise of picking up anything beyond. Whereupon Henderson had
conceived a plan amazingly bold and clever, Cheadle being his
accessory and abettor.
Henderson had sent Dickover a glowing report on the Apex Crown.
Cheadle had sent his stockholders news that a twenty-five-foot vein
was opening up. Therefore Dickover had issued orders to add Apex Crown
to his low-grade holdings. Henderson had quietly bought for himself.
“So we now own some two hundred thousand shares,” went on the voice of
Henderson. Bowen drank in every word. He felt a cold sweat trickling
down his spine as he realized that Apex Crown was worthless.
“Sure,” rejoined Cheadle. “But I don’t get this highbrow play with
Dickover! Why bust things off with him?”
“To make him hate me.” Henderson laughed silkily. “The day before
Dickover came to town, I went to this Ferguson girl, made her a big
offer for her stock, and then made her mad with some bullying. I
figured she’d go to Dickover or some of his brokers for advice.
Instead, she went to this boob, Bowen. You see? Bowen did the rest. He
tipped off Dickover that I was crooked; Dickover fired me, hating me
like hell! Now, Apex Crown was at nine and a half this morning—hello!
There’s a report.”
The telephone rang.
“Sell?” rasped Henderson, a fighting edge to his voice. “Sell? You
sell when I tell you to, and not before! No! You’ll not sell—till I
give the order!”
He slammed up the receiver and emitted an oath.
“Charley says the stock is getting shot all to pieces! Some one is
unloading in chunks from one to ten thousand—it’s down to seven here,
and four at Los Angeles. That’s Dickover’s work. He’s cramming the
market down—”
“What!” From Cheadle broke a startled cry. “Then he’s discovered—”
“Shut up!” snarled Henderson. “He’s discovered nothing, I tell you!
He’s doing the very thing I’d expected him to do. Don’t you suppose I
know Dickover from start to finish? D’you think I’ve been his
confidential agent without knowing him like a book?”
“Then why the hell is he unloading?” growled Cheadle.
“To bust me. He thinks I’m trying to get hold of Apex Crown. He’s
doing the very thing I knew he would do—I knew it from the day I met
you first and got your report of the petering vein! He figures that
because I double-crossed him I’ve got a yellow streak. He thinks that
I want Apex Crown because I know about that chemical process. And what
does he do? He—”
Cheadle broke in with a coarse laugh. “Then he still thinks the ol’
mine is worth hanging on to?”
“Of course. You and I are the only men who know it isn’t worth a damn.
Dickover hates me now, hates me bad enough to ruin himself to get my
pelt. He’s trying to smash Apex Crown as flat as a pancake, and he’ll
do it before noon to-day! He figures that I’ll get scared. He’s dead
sure that I’ve got a yellow streak. He’s gambling that when Apex Crown
gets away down, I’ll grow scared and unload to save something from the
wreck. See?”
“Uhuh! But what _will_ you do? What’s your game? How the devil do we
make a killing out of this?”
“We bought our stock at two to five cents, didn’t we?” Henderson
laughed. “About noon Apex Crown will be flat. When it is, then I dump
over a hundred thousand shares in small lots. Dickover thinks I’ve
fully unloaded; he steps in to grab the stock. I help him by grabbing
back my hundred thousand shares, and the price goes up. Worse than
that, it skyrockets! When it gets to a dollar, which is about the
limit, we’ll unload for good. We’ll get rid of the whole thing at
between a dollar and fifty—and clean up a hundred thousand odd
dollars!”
“Whew!” Cheadle’s whistle of admiration changed and died suddenly.
“But say! Ain’t that stock juggling illegal? Ain’t the gov’ment going
to investigate?”
“Let ’em!” Henderson laughed scornfully. “If they can ever prove
anything on Dickover or me, either, let ’em! Think we are fools? With
that hundred thousand, and the low-grade properties I’ve already got,
I’ll be fixed for life when news of that chemical process gets into
print! And I’ll see that it does get into print before many more
days.”
Again the telephone jingled.
“Some boob is buying,” snarled Henderson, reporting to his partner in
rascality. “But the price is going down just the same. Four here and
two and a half in Los Angeles.”
The voices dropped beyond the hearing of Bowen. But he had heard
enough. The irony of the situation was that Henderson did not in the
least realize that his clever scheme was utterly ruining the man he
hated, Bob Bowen, of Tonopah!
“And he sha’n’t know it if I can help it,” grimly reflected Bowen.
He fought down the panic that gripped him. He felt no satisfaction at
having correctly guessed Dickover’s plan of campaign. He felt no
delight at having correctly guessed that a chemical process _had_ been
perfected. All this was lost in the thought that he had ruined Alice
Ferguson. For himself he did not greatly care. He had been broke
before, and would be broke again!
But the thought of the girl who had believed in him, hurt and rankled.
It must now be getting on toward noon, he concluded. By this time Gus
Saunders, through scattered agents, was buying Apex Crown here and in
Los Angeles; buying it for Bowen and Ferguson! Dickover was grimly
hammering down the stock. Saunders’s buying would be too carefully
handled to send it shooting up in a hurry. And when Saunders got all
through, according to the orders the partners had given him, they
would own a mine that was absolutely worthless!
“As soon as we’ve got in the clear”—Henderson’s chuckling tone came
through the muffling curtain with new clearness—“we’ll spring the news
about the mine having petered out completely. Then maybe she won’t
smash! I tell you what, Cheadle! This manipulation is going to be
investigated, all right; you run out and bring up some lunch, will
you? While you’re gone, locate somebody you can trust, and have him
spread the news that Apex Crown has petered out. Have it done at
exactly two o’clock.
“Dickover will get the wires hot in five minutes, and you can arrange
for him to discover the truth at Tonopah. Wire somebody there that the
mine’s busted and you are in Frisco.”
“What’s the matter with your own men doing all this?” growled Cheadle
suspiciously.
“I’m doing the operating; I’ll be the first man under investigation.
Can’t afford to take the risk, even to put a hole in Dickover’s
bank-account, blast him! But you can do it. Put on those glasses and
that line of talk you can assume, and you’ll get by. Don’t you know
any one you can trust?”
There was a moment of silence, then a chair was scraped back.
“I know a guy,” returned Cheadle. “I guess it can be done safe enough.
Two o’clock, eh?”
Cheadle came through the curtained doorway and, without glancing at
the prostrate Bowen, opened a wall-cabinet, took out his thick
spectacles, and donned them. Then, as he took a step, he stumbled over
Bowen’s feet. Catching at the wall to save himself from falling, he
dislodged the wall-cabinet and sent a shower of toilet articles over
the floor.
Mr. Oliver Hazard Perry Cheadle cursed heartily and fluently. He even
kicked the man from Tonopah in the ribs, but Bowen merely grunted and
kept his eyes closed. Then Cheadle passed back into the next room.
“Two o’clock, eh?” he repeated surlily. “Sure we’ll be clear by then?”
“Leave that part of it to me,” said Henderson sharply. “We’ll be
clear. But be sure to have the trick turned at two sharp! That ’ll
give Dickover plenty of time to find the report is true, and to
unload. I want to see him get a crimp, the big toad!”
“Then at two she busts,” said Cheadle. “And hurry back here with the
lunch. I’m getting hungry.”
Cheadle grunted and a door slammed behind him.
Bowen lay motionless, his head twisted so that he could idly survey
the wreckage caused by Cheadle’s stumble. This final move of
Henderson’s had removed his last hope. At three o’clock that afternoon
Apex Crown would be known to all men as worthless—and the Apex Crown
would be the property of Bob Bowen, of Tonopah!
But it was Alice Ferguson that Bowen was chiefly thinking. Whose fault
but his that her little patrimony would be wiped out?