'em a week ago. Never let a man quit--always beat him to it. We could
hold the rough-necks for another two weeks if it wasn't for these
fellows, but they'll go back and start a stampede."
"How many are there?"
"About a dozen."
"I was afraid it was worse. There can't be much owing to them."
"Oh, it's bad enough! They've been letting their wages ride, that's why
they got scared. We owe them about four thousand dollars."
"They must be paid," said Eliza. "It will give Mr. O'Neil another two
weeks--a month, perhaps."
"Doc's got his back up, and he's told the cashier to make 'em wait."
Eliza hesitated, and flushed a little. "I suppose it's none of my
business," she said, "but--couldn't you boys pay them out of your own
salaries?"
Mr. Slater grinned--an unprecedented proceeding which lent his face an
altogether strange and unnatural expression.
"Salary! We ain't had any salary," he said, cheerfully--"not for
months."
"Dan has drawn his regularly."
"Oh, sure! But he ain't one of us. He's an outsider."
"I see!" Eliza's eyes were bright with a wistful admiration. "That's
very nice of you men. You have a family, haven't you, Uncle Tom?"
"I have! Seven head, and they eat like a herd of stock. It looks like a
lean winter for 'em if Murray don't make a sale--but he will. That
isn't what I came to see you about; I've got my asking clothes on, and
I want a favor."
"You shall have it, of course."
"I want a certificate."
"Of what?"
"Ill health. Nobody believes I had the smallpox."
"You didn't."
"Wh-what?" Tom's eyes opened wide. He stared at the girl in hurt
surprise.
"It was nothing but pimples, Tom."
"Pimples!" He spat the word out indignantly, and his round cheeks grew
purple. "I--I s'pose pimples gave me cramps and chills and backache and
palpitation and swellings! Hunh! I had a narrow escape--narrow's the
word. It was narrower than a knife-edge! Anything I get out of life
from now on is 'velvet,' for I was knocking at death's door. The grave
yawned, but I jumped it. It's the first sick spell I ever had, and I
won't be cheated out of it. Understand?"
"What do you want me to do?" smiled the girl.
"You're a writer: write me an affidavit--"
"I can't do that."
"Then put it in your paper. Put it on the front page, where folks can
see it."
"I've quit The Review. I'm doing magazine stories."
"Well, that'll do. I'm not particular where it's printed so long as--"
Eliza shook her head. "You weren't really sick, Uncle Tom."
At this Mr. Slater rose to his feet in high dudgeon.
"Don't call me 'Uncle,'" he exclaimed. "You're in with the others."
"It wouldn't be published if I wrote it."
"Then you can't be much of a writer." He glared at her, and slowly,
distinctly, with all the emphasis at his command, said: "I had
smallpox--and a dam' bad case, understand? I was sick. I had miseries
in every joint and cartage of my body. I'm going to use a pick-handle
for a cane, and anybody that laughs will get a hickory massage that'll
take a crooked needle and a pair of pinchers to fix. Thank God I've got
my strength back! You get me?"
"I do."
He snorted irately and turned to go, but Eliza checked him.
"What about those shift bosses?" she asked.
Slater rolled his eyes balefully. "Just let one of 'em mention
smallpox," he said, "and I'll fill the hospital till it bulges."
"No, no! Are you going to pay them?"
"Certainly not."
Eliza considered for a moment. "Don't let them see Dr. Gray," she said,
at length. "He has enough to worry him. Meet them at the train and
bring them here."
"What for? Tea?"
"You boys have done all you can; I think it's time Dan and I did
something."
Tom stared. "Are YOU going to pay 'em?" he asked, gruffly.
"Yes. Mr. O'Neil needs time. Dan and I have saved four thousand
dollars. I'd offer it to Dr. Gray--"
"He wouldn't take it."
"Exactly. Send Dan up here when you see him."
"It doesn't seem exactly right." Tom was obviously embarrassed. "You
see, we sort of belong to Murray, and you don't, but--" He shook his
head as if to rid himself of unwelcome emotion. "Women are funny
things! You're willing to do that for the chief, and yet you won't
write me a little affidavit!" He grunted and went away, still shaking
his head.
When Eliza explained her plan to Dan she encountered an opposition that
shocked and hurt her.
"I won't do it!" he said, shortly.
"You--WHAT?"
"We can't build the S. R.
"Yes, and made you love him, too," said Dan, roughly. "I can see that."
Eliza lifted her head and met his eyes squarely.
"That's true! But why not? Can't I love him? Isn't it my privilege to
help him if I want to? If I had two million dollars instead of two
thousand I'd give it to him, and--and I wouldn't expect him to care for
me, either. He'll never do that. He couldn't! But--oh, Danny, I've been
miserable--"
Dan felt a certain dryness of the throat which made speech oddly
difficult. "I don't see why he couldn't care for you," he said, lamely.
Eliza shook her head hopelessly. "I'm glad it happened," she
said--"glad. In writing these articles I've tried to make him
understood; I've tried to put my whole soul into them so that the
people will see that he isn't, wouldn't be, a thief nor a grafter. I've
described him as he is--big, honorable, gentle--"
"I didn't know you were writing fiction," said her brother, impatiently.
"I'm not. It's all true. I've cried over those articles, Dan. I've
petted them, and I've kissed his name--oh, I've been silly!" She smiled
at him through a sudden glimmer of tears.
Dan began to wonder if his sister, in spite of her exemplary conduct in
the past, were after all going to have hysterics. Women were especially
likely to, he reflected, when they demanded the impossible. At last he
said, uncomfortably: "Gee, I thought I was the dippy member of the
family!"
"It's our chance to help him," she urged. "Will you--?"
"No! I'm sorry, Sis, but my little bit wouldn't mean anything to him;
it means everything to me. Maybe that's selfish--I don't care. I'm as
mad over Natalie as you seem to be over him. A week's delay can't make
any difference now--he played and lost. But I can't afford to lose.
He'll make another fortune, that's sure--but do you think I'll ever
find another Natalie? No! Don't argue, for I won't listen."
He left the house abruptly, and Eliza went into the white bedroom which
O'Neil had fitted up for her. From the remotest corner of her lowest
bureau drawer she drew a battered tin box, and, dividing the money it
contained into two equal parts, placed one in the pockets of her
mannish jacket.
It was dark when Tom Slater arrived, at the head of a group of soiled
workmen whom he ushered into the parlor of the bungalow.
"Here's the bunch!" he announced, laconically.
As the new-comers ranged themselves uncomfortably about the wall Dan
Appleton entered and greeted them with his customary breeziness.
"The pay-master is busy, and Doc Gray has a surgical case," he said,
"so I'll cash your time-checks. Get me the box, will you, Sis?"
He had avoided Eliza's eyes upon entering, and he avoided them now, but
the girl's throat was aching as she hurried into her bedroom and
hastily replaced the rolls of greenbacks she had removed from the tin
box.
When he had finished paying off, Dan said, brusquely:
"Now we mustn't have any loafing around town, understand?"
"We can't get back to-night," said one of the men.
"Oh yes, you can. I ordered an engine out."
"We hear--there's talk about quitting work," another ventured. "Where's
O'Neil?"
"He's in the States buying a steamship," answered Dan, unblushingly.
"We can't get stuff fast enough by the regular boats."
"Good! That sounds like business. We don't want to quit."
"Now hurry! Your parlor-car is waiting."
When he and Eliza were alone he turned to her with a flush of
embarrassment. "Aren't we the darnedest fools, Sis? I wouldn't mind if
we had done the chief any good, but we haven't." He closed the lid of
the tin box, which was nearly empty now, and pushed it away from him,
laughing mirthlessly. "Hide that sarcophagus where I can't see it," he
commanded. "It makes me sick."
Eliza flung her arm about his neck and laid her cheek against his.
"Poor Danny! You're a brick!"
"It's the bread-line for us," he told her.
"Never mind. We're used to it now." She laughed contentedly and
snuggled her face closer to his.
It was on the following morning that O'Neil's cablegram announcing the
result of his interview with Illis reached Omar. Dr. Gray brought the
news to the Appleton bungalow while Dan and his sister were still at
breakfast. "Happy Tom" came puffing and blowing at his heels with a
highly satisfied I-told-you-so expression on his round features.
"He made it! The tide has turned," cried the doctor as he burst in
waving the message on high. "Yes!" he explained, in answer to their
excited questions. "Murray got the money and our troubles are over. Now
give me some coffee, Eliza. I'm all shaky."
"English money!" commented Slater. "The same as we used on the North
Pass."
"Then he interested Illis!" cried Dan.
"Yep! He's the white-winged messenger of hope. I wasn't worried for a
minute," Tom averred.
The breakfast which followed was of a somewhat hysterical and
fragmentary nature, for Eliza felt her heart swelling, and the faithful
Gray was all but undone by the strain he had endured. "That's the first
food I've tasted for weeks," he confessed. "I've eaten, but I haven't
tasted; and now--I'm not hungry." He sighed, stretched his long limbs
gratefully, and eyed the Appletons with a kindly twinkle. "You were up
in the air, too, weren't you? The chief will appreciate last night's
affair."
Eliza colored faintly. "It was nothing. Please don't tell him." At the
incredulous lift of his brows she hastened to explain: "Tom said you
men 'belonged' to Mr. O'Neil and Dan was an outsider. That hurt me
dreadfully."
"Well, he can't say that now; Dan is one of Murray's boys, all right,
and you--you must be his girl."
At that moment Mellen and McKay burst into the bungalow, demanding the
truth behind the rumor which had just come to their ears; and there
followed fresh explanations and rejoicings, through which Eliza sat
quietly, thrilled by the note of genuine affection and loyalty that
pervaded it all. But, now that the general despondency had vanished and
joy reigned in its place, Tom Slater relapsed into his habitual gloom
and spoke forebodingly of the difficulties yet to be encountered.
"Murray don't say how MUCH he's raised," he remarked. "It may be only a
drop in the bucket. We'll have to go through all this again, probably,
and the next time he won't find it so easy to sting a millionaire."
"We'll last through the winter anyhow--"
"Winter!" Slater shook his bald head. "Winter is hard on old men like
me."
"We'll have the bridge built by spring, sure!" Mellen declared.
"Maybe! I hope so. I wish I could last to see it, but the smallpox
undermined me. Perhaps it's a mercy I'm so far gone; nobody knows yet
whether the bridge will stand, and--I'd hate to see it go out."
"It won't go out," said the engineer, confidently.
"Maybe you're right. But that's what Trevor said about his breakwater.
His work was done, and ours isn't hardly begun. By the way, Murray
didn't say he HAD the money; he just said he expected to get it."
"Go out and hang your crepe on the roundhouse," Dan told him; "this is
a jubilee. If you keep on rejoicing you'll have us all in tears." When
the others had gone he turned to Eliza. "Why don't you want O'Neil to
know about that money, Sis?" he asked, curiously. "When I'm a hero I
like to be billed as one."
"Please!" She hesitated and turned her face away. "You--you are so
stupid about some things."
On the afternoon of this very day Curtis Gordon found Natalie at a
window staring out across the sound in the direction of Omar. He laid a
warm hand upon her shoulder and said:
"My dear, confess! You are lonesome."
She nodded silently.
"Well, well! We mustn't allow that. Why don't you run over to Omar and
see your friend Miss Appleton? She has a cheerful way with her." "I'm
afraid things aren't very gay over there," said Natalie, doubtfully.
"Quite probably. But the fact that O'Neil is on his last legs needn't
interfere with your pleasure. A change will do you good."
"You are very kind," she murmured. "You have done everything to make me
happy, but--it's autumn. Winter is coming. I feel dull and lonely and
gray, like the sky. Are you sure Mr. O'Neil has failed?"
"Certainly. He tried to sell his holdings to the Trust, but they
refused to consider it. Poor fellow!" he continued, unctuously. "Now
that he's down I pity him. One can't dislike a person who has lost the
power of working harm. His men are quitting: I doubt if he'll dare show
his face in this country again. But never mind all that. There's a boat
leaving for Omar in the morning. Go; have a good time, return when you
will, and tell us how they bear up under their adversity." He patted
her shoulder affectionately and went up to his room.
It was true enough that Natalie had been unhappy since returning to
Hope--not even her mother dreamed how she rebelled at remaining here.
She was lonely, uninterested, vaguely homesick. She missed the intimate
companionship of Eliza; she missed Dan's extravagant courting and
O'Neil's grave, respectful attentions. She also felt the loss of the
honest good-fellowship of all those people at Omar whom she had learned
to like and to admire. Life here was colorless, and was still haunted
by the shadow of that thing from which she and her mother had fled.
Gordon, indeed, had been generous to them both. Since his marriage his
attitude had changed entirely. He was polite, agreeable, charmingly
devoted: no ship arrived without some tangible and expensive evidence
of his often-expressed desire to make his wife and stepdaughter happy;
he anticipated their slightest wish. Under his assiduous attentions
Natalie's distrust and dislike had slowly melted, and she came to
believe that she had misjudged him. There were times when he seemed to
be overdoing the matter a bit, times when she wondered if his courtesy
could be altogether disinterested; but these occasions were rare, and
always she scornfully accused herself of disloyalty. As for Gloria, she
was deeply contented--as nearly happy, in fact, as a woman of her
temperament could be, and in this the daughter took her reward.
Natalie arrived at Omar in time to see the full effect of the good news
from New York, and joined sincerely in the general rejoicing. She
returned after a few days, bursting with the tidings of O'Neil's
victory.
Gordon listened to her with keenest attention; he drew her out
artfully, and when he knew what he had sent her to learn he gave voice
to his unwelcome surprise.
"Jove!" he snarled. "That beggar hoodwinked the Heidlemanns, after all.
It's their money. What fools! What fools!"
Natalie looked up quickly.
"Does it affect your plans?" she asked.
"Yes--in a way. It consolidates my enemies."
"You said you no longer had any ill feeling toward Mr. O'Neil."
Gordon had resumed his usual suavity. "When I say enemies," he
qualified, "of course, I mean it only in a business sense. I heard that
the Trust had withdrawn, discouraged by their losses, but, now that
they re-enter the field, I shall have to fight them. They would have
done well to consult me--to buy me off, rather than be bled by O'Neil.
They shall pay well for their mistake, but--it's incredible! That man
has the luck of the devil."
That evening he and Denny sat with their heads together until a late
hour, and when they retired Gordon had begun to whip new plans into
shape.
XX
HOW GORDON CHANGED HIS ATTACK
O'Neil's return to Omar was triumphal. All his lieutenants gathered to
meet him at the pier and the sincerity of their welcome stirred him
deeply. His arrangements with Illis had taken time; he had been delayed
at Seattle by bridge details and the placing of steel contracts. He had
worked swiftly, and with such absorption that he had paid little heed
to the rumors of Gordon's latest activities. Of the new venture which
his own success had inspired he knew only the bare outline. He had
learned enough, however, to arouse his curiosity, and as soon as the
first confusion of his arrival at the front was over he asked for news.
"Haven't you read the papers?" inquired "Happy Tom." He had attached
himself to O'Neil at the moment of his stepping ashore, and now
followed him to headquarters, with an air of melancholy satisfaction in
mere physical nearness to his chief.
"Barely!" O'Neil confessed. "I've been working twenty hours a day
getting that steel under motion."
Dr. Gray said with conviction: "Gordon is a remarkable man. It's a pity
he's crooked."
"I think it's dam' lucky," declared Tom. "He's smarter than us, and if
he wasn't handicapped by a total lack of decency he'd beat us."
"After the storm," explained Gray, "he moved back to Hope, and we
thought he'd made his last bow, but in some way he got the idea that
the Trust was back of us."
"So I judged from the little I read."
"Well, we didn't undeceive him, of course. His first move was an attack
through the press in the shape of a broadside against the Heidlemanns.
It fairly took our breaths. It appeared in the Cortez Courier and all
over the States, we hear--a letter of defiance to Herman Heidlemann. It
declared that the Trust was up to its old tricks here in Alaska had
gobbled the copper; had the coal tied up under secret agreements, and
was trying to get possession of all the coast-range passes and
defiles--the old story. But the man can write. That article caused a
stir."
"I saw it."
"Naturally, the Cortez people ate it up. They're sore at the Trust for
leaving their town, and at us for building Omar. Then Gordon called a
mass-meeting, and some of us went up to watch the fireworks. I've never
seen anything quite like that meeting; every man, woman, and child in
the city was there, and they hissed us when we came in. Gordon knew
what he was about, and he was in fine voice. He told them Cortez was
the logical point of entry to the interior of Alaska and ought to have
all the traffic. He fired their animosity toward the Trust, and accused
us of basely selling out to it. Then he broached a project to build, by
local subscription, a narrow-gauge electric line from Cortez, utilizing
the waterfalls for power. The idea caught on, and went like wild-fire:
the people cheered themselves hoarse, and pledged him over a hundred
thousand dollars that night. Since then they have subscribed as much
more, and the town is crazy. Work has actually begun, and they hope to
reach the first summit by Christmas."
Slater broke in: "He's a spell-binder, all right. He made me hate the
Heidlemanns and detest myself for five minutes. I wasn't even sure I
liked YOU, Murray."
"It's a wild scheme, of course," continued the doctor, "but he's
putting it over. The town council has granted him a ninety-nine-year
lease covering every street; the road-bed is started, and things are
booming. Lots have been staked all over the flats, property values are
somersaulting, everybody is out of his head, and Gordon is a god. All
he does is organize new companies. He has bought a sawmill, a wharf, a
machine shop, acres of real estate. He has started a bank and a new
hotel; he has consolidated the barber shops; and he talks about roofing
in the streets with glass and making the town a series of arcades."
Slater half smiled--evidence of a convulsive mirth within.
"They've picked out a site for a university!" he said, bitterly.
"Cortez is going to be a seat of learning and culture. They're planning
a park and a place for an Alaskan World's Fair and a museum and a
library. I've always wondered who starts public libraries--it's 'nuts.'
But I didn't s'pose more than one or two people got foolish that way."
O'Neil drew from his pocket a newspaper five days old, which he
unfolded and opened at a full-page advertisement, headed:
CORTEZ HOME RAILWAY
"This is running in all the coast papers," he said, and read:
"OUR PLATFORM:
No promotion shares. No construction profits.
No bonds. No incompetence.
No high-salaried officials. No monopoly.
No passes or rebates. No graft.
"OF ALASKA, BY ALASKA, FOR ALASKA."
There was much more of a similar kind, written to appeal to the
quick-profit-loving public, and it was followed by a violent attack
upon the Trust and an appeal to the people of Seattle for assistance,
at one dollar per share.
"Listen to this," O'Neil went on:
"Among the original subscribers are the following:
"Hotels and saloons of Cortez ..... $17,000
City Council .......................15,000
Prospectors......................... 7,000
Ladies' Guild of Cortez .............. 740
School-children of Cortez............. 420"
Tom grew red in the face and gave his characteristic snort. "I don't
mind his stringing the City Council and the saloons, and even the
Ladies' Guild," he growled, "but when he steals the licorice and
slate-pencils from the kids it's time he was stopped."
Murray agreed. "I think we are about done with Gordon. He has led his
ace."
"I'm not sure. This is a kind of popular uprising, like a camp-meeting.
If I went to Cortez now, some prattling school-girl would wallop me
with her dinner-bucket. We can't shake Gordon loose: he's a regular
splavvus."
"What is a splavvus, Tom?" inquired Dr. Gray.
"It's a real peculiar animal, being a cross between a bulldog and a
skunk. We have lots of 'em in Maine!"
O'Neil soon found that the accounts he had received of Gordon's last
attempt to recoup his fortunes were in no way exaggerated. Cortez, long
the plaything of the railroad-builders, had been ripe for his touch: it
rose in its wounded civic pride and greeted his appeal with frantic
delight. It was quite true that the school-children had taken stock in
the enterprise: their parents turned their own pockets inside out, and
subscriptions came in a deluge. The price of real estate doubled,
quadrupled, and Gordon bought just enough to establish the price
firmly. The money he paid was deposited again in his new bank, and he
proceeded to use it over and over in maintaining exorbitant prices and
in advancing his grandiose schemes. His business took him often to
Seattle, where by his whirlwind methods he duplicated his success in a
measure: his sensational attack upon the money powers got a wide
hearing, and he finally secured an indorsement of his scheme by the
Businessmen's Association. This done, he opened splendid offices and
began a wide-spread stock-flotation campaign. Soon the Cortez Home
Railway became known as a mighty, patriotic effort of Alaskans to throw
off the shackles of oppression.
Gordon perfectly understood that something more than vague accusations
were necessary to bring the public to his support in sufficient numbers
to sweep him on to victory, and with this in mind he laid crafty plans
to seize the Heidlemann grade. The Trust had ceased active work on its
old right-of-way and moved to Kyak, to be sure, but it had not
abandoned its original route, and in fact had maintained a small crew
at the first defile outside of Cortez, known as Beaver Canon. Gordon
reasoned shrewdly that a struggle between the agents of the Trust and
the patriotic citizens of the town would afford him precisely the
advertising he needed and give point to his charge of unfair play
against the Heidlemanns.
It was not difficult to incite his victims to this act of robbery. On
the contrary, once he had made the suggestion, he had hard work to
restrain them, until he had completed his preparations. These
preparations were simple; they consisted in writing and mailing to
every newspaper of consequence a highly colored account of the railroad
struggle. These mimeographed stories were posted from Seattle in time
for them to reach their destinations on the date set for the seizure of
the grade.
It was an ingenious publicity move, worthy of a theatrical press-agent,
and it succeeded beyond the promoter's fondest expectations--too well,
in fact, for it drove the Trust in desperation to an alliance with the
S. R. & N.