The Plunderer Page 15

  CHAPTER XV

  "MR. SLOAN SPEAKS"

  "Wow! Somethin' seems to have kind of livened up the gloom of thisdump, seems to me," exclaimed Bill on the following morning, whenreturning from his regular trip underground, he stamped into theoffice, threw himself into a chair, and hauled off one of his rubberboots preparatory to donning those of leather.

  Dick had been bent over the high desk, with plans unrolled before him,and a sheet of paper on which he made calculations, whistling as hedid so.

  "First time I've heard you whistle since we left the Coeur d'Alenes,"Bill went on, grinning slyly, as if secretly pleased. "What're you upto?"

  "Finding out if by sinking we couldn't cut that green lead about twohundred feet farther down."

  "Bully boy! I'm with you!" encouraged the older miner, throwing thecumbersome boots into the corner, and coming over behind Dick, wherehe could inspect the plans across the angle of the other's broadshoulder. "How does she dope out?"

  "We cut the green lead on the six-hundred-foot, at a hundred and tenfeet from the shaft, didn't we? Well, the men before us cut on thefive-hundred at a hundred and seventy from the shaft, and attwo-twenty from the shaft on the four-hundred-foot level, where theystoped out a lot of it before concluding it wouldn't pay to work. Itwas a strong but almost barren ledge when they first came into it onthe two-hundred-foot level. The Bonanza chute made gold because theyhappened to hit it at a crossing on the four-hundred-foot level. Atthe six-hundred, as we know, it was almost like a chimney of ore thatis playing out as we drift west. If the mill had not been put out ofbusiness, we were going to stope it out, though, and prove whether itwas the permanent ledge, weren't we?"

  "Right you are, pardner."

  "Well, then, at the same angle, we would have to drift less thanseventy feet on the seven-hundred-foot level to cut it again, and atthe eight-hundred-foot we'd just about have it at the foot of theshaft. Well, I'm sinking, regardless of expense."

  "It might be right, boy, it might be right," Bill said, thoughtfullyscowling at the plans, and going over the figures of the dip. "Butyou're the boss. What you say goes."

  "But don't you think I'm right?"

  "Yes," hesitatingly, "or, anyway, it's worth takin' a chance on. Bellsused to say the mines around here all had to get depth, and that mostof the ledges came in stronger as they went down. The Cross ain'tshown it so far, but eight hundred feet ought to show whether that'sthe right line of work."

  "How is the sump hole under the shaft?" Dick asked.

  "Must be somewhere about seventy or eighty feet of water in it; but wecan pump that out in no time. She isn't makin' much water. Almost adry mine now, for some reason I don't quite get. Looks as if it leakedaway a good deal, somewhere, through the formation. There wouldn't beno trouble in sinkin' the shaft."

  "And thirty feet, about, would bring us to the seven-hundred-footmark?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I'll tell you what I want to do: I want you to shift the crew sothat there is a day and a night shift. The rebuilding of the dam canbe put off for a while, except for such work as the millmen areagreeable to take on. I want to sink! I don't want to waste any timeabout it. I want to go down just as fast as it can be done, and whenwe get to the seven-hundred-foot, one gang must start to drift for thegreen lead, and the others must keep going down."

  He was almost knocked over the desk by a rousing, enthusiastic slap onthe back.

  "Now you're my old pardner again!" Bill shouted. "You're the lad againthat was fresh from the schools, knew what he wanted, and went afterit. Dick, I've been kind of worried about you since we came here," theveteran went on, in a softer tone of voice. "You ain't been like theold Dick. You ain't had the zip! It's as if you were afraid all thetime of losing Sloan's money, and it worried you. And sometimes--now,I don't want you to get sore and cuss me--it seemed to me as if yourmind wa'n't altogether on the job! As if the Cross didn't meaneverything."

  He waited expectantly for a moment, as if inviting a confidence; then,observing that the younger man was flushed, and not looking at him,grinned knowingly, and trudged out of the office, calling back as hewent: "There'll be sump water in the creek in half an hour."

  As if imbued with new energy, he ordered one of the idle millmen toact as stoker, if he cared to do so, which was cheerfully done, hadthe extra pump attached, saw the fire roaring from another boiler, andby noon the shaft rang with the steady throb of the pistons poundingand pulling the waste water upward. The last of the unwatering of theCross was going forward in haste. By six o'clock in the evening hereported that soundings showed that the map had not been checked up,and that the shaft was seven hundred and ten feet deep, and that theywould commence a drift on the seven-hundred-foot mark the next day.

  Dick was awakened at an early hour, and found Bill missing. Hewent over to the hoist house, where a sleepy night man, new to thehours, grinned at him with a pleasant: "Looks like we're busy,just--the--same, Mr. Townsend! The old man"--the superintendent of amine is always "the old man," be he but twenty--"left orders lastnight that when the water was clear at seven hundred feet he was to becalled. He kicked up two of the drill men at four this mornin',and they're down there puttin' the steel into the rock ever since.Hear 'em? He's makin' things hump!"

  Dick leaned over the unused compartment of the shaft, and heard thesteady, savage chugging of the drills. Bill was "makin' things hump!"with a vengeance.

  A man who had been sent to the camp for the semi-weekly mail arrivedwhile the partners were at breakfast, and the first letter laid beforethem was one with a New York postmark, which Dick read anxiously. Itwas from Sloan, who told him that he had been unexpectedly called tothe Pacific coast on a hurried trip, and that, while he did not havetime to visit the Croix d'Or, he very earnestly hoped that Dick wouldarrange, on receipt of the letter, to meet him in Seattle, and named adate.

  "Whe-e-w! You got to move some, ain't you? Let's see, if you want tomeet him you'll have to be hittin' the trail out of here in an hour,"said Bill, laying down his knife and fork. "What do you s'pose is up?Goin' to tie the poke strings again?"

  Dick feared something was amiss. And he continued to think of thisafter he had written a hasty note to Joan, telling her of his abruptabsence, and that he expected to return in a week. He pondered for amoment whether or not to add some note of affection, but decided thathe was still under her ban, and so contented himself with the closingline:

  "I am following your advice. We are sinking!"

  He had to run, bag in hand, to catch the stage from Goldpan, and as itjolted along over the rough passes and rugged inclines had a medley ofthought. Sometimes he could not imagine why Sloan had been so anxiousto talk with him, and in the other and happier intervals, he thoughtof Joan Presby, daughter of the man whom he had come to regard asantagonistic in many ways.

  The confusion of mind dwelt with him persistently after he had boardedthe rough "accommodation" that carried him to the main line, where hemust wait for the thunderous arrival of the long express train thatwas to carry him across the broad and splendid State of Washington.Idaho and Oregon were left behind. The magnificent wheat belt spreadfrom horizon to horizon, and harvesters paused to wave their hats atthe travelers. The Western ranges of the Olympics, solid, dignified,and engraved against the sky with their outline of peak and forest,came into view, and yet his perturbation continued.

  He saw the splendid panorama of Puget Sound open to his view, and thetrain, at last, after those weary hours of jolting, rattled into thelong sheds that at that time disgraced the young giant city of theNorth-west. It was the first time he had even entered its shadows, andas he turned its corner he looked curiously at the stump of a treethat had been hollowed into an ample office, and was assailed by thestrident cries of cabmen.

  "The Butler House," he said, relinquishing his bag into the hands ofthe first driver who reached him, and settled back into the cushionswith a sense of bewilderment, as if something long forgotten had beenrecalled. He knew what it was as
he drove along in all that clamor ofsound which issues from a great and hurrying city. It was New York,and he was in the young New York of the North-west, with greatskeleton structures uprearing and the turmoil of building. Only herewas a difference, for side by side on the streets walked men clad inthe latest fashion, and men bound to or coming from the arctic fieldsof gold-bound Alaska. Electric cars tearing along at a reckless speed,freight wagons heavily laden, newsboys screaming the call of extras,and emerging from behind log wagons, and everything betokening thatclash of the old and the intensely new.

  At the Butler House the man behind the desk twirled the registertoward him, and assigned him a room.

  "Sloan?" he replied to Dick's inquiry. "Oh, yes. He's the old chapfrom New York who said he was expecting someone, and to send him rightup. I suppose you're the man. Here, boy, show Mr. Townsend tofive-fifty. Right that way, sir."

  And before his words were finished he had turned to a new arrival.

  The clamor of the streets, busy as is no other city in the world busywhen the season is on, was still in his ears, striking a familiar notein his memory, and the modernity of the elevator, the brass-buttonedboy, and the hotel itself brought back the last time he had seen Mr.Sloan, and the day he had parted from his father in that office onWall Street. He found the Wall Street veteran grayer, much older, andmore kindly, when he was ushered into the room to receive hisgreeting. He subsided into a chair, but his father's old-time friendprotested.

  "Stand up!" he commanded, "and turn around, young fellow, so I can seewhether you have filled out. Humph! You'll do, I guess, physically. Idon't think I should want to have any trouble with you. You look as ifyou could hold your own most anywhere. I'm glad. Now, sit down, andtell me all about the mine."

  He listened while Dick went into details of the work, sparing none ofthe misfortunes and disappointments, and telling of the new methodemployed. He was interrupted now and then by a shrewd question, anexclamation, or a word of assent, and, after he had finished theaccount, said: "Well, that is all there is to report. What do youthink?"

  "Who is Thomas W. Presby?" Sloan's question was abrupt.

  "The owner of the Rattler, the mine next to us."

  "He is?" the question was explosive. "Ah, ha! The moth in the closet,eh? So that accounts for it! I spent a hundred dollars, then, to goodpurpose, it seems to me!"

  Dick looked an intent and wondering question.

  "An agent here in Seattle wrote me that they had written you, makingan offer of sixty thousand dollars for the property--yes--the same oneyou wrote me about. He said they had reason to believe I was thefinancial backer for the mine, and that they now wished to deal withme, inasmuch as you might be carried away by youthful enthusiasm tosquandering my hard-earned cash. I wrote back that your judgmentsatisfied me. Then, just before I left, I got a flat offer of ahundred thousand dollars for the property in full, or seventy-fivethousand for my share alone. It set me to thinking, and wondering ifsome one wasn't trying to cut your feet from under you. So, havingbusiness in Portland, I came on up here, and got after this agent."

  Dick had a chill of apprehension. He knew before the loyal old man hadproceeded half-way what to expect.

  "It cost me a hundred dollars in entertainment, and a lot of apparentreadiness to talk business, to get him confidential with me. Then Igot the name of the would-be purchaser, under injunctions of secrecy,because those were the agent's positive instructions. The man whowants to buy is Presby!"

  For one black, unworthy instant, Dick looked out of the window,wondering if it were possible that Joan had known of her father'sefforts, and had withheld the information. Then the memory of thatgentle face, the candid eyes, her courageous advice, and--last ofall--the kiss and prayer on her lips, made him mentally reproachhimself for the thought. But he remembered that he still owedaffection and deference to the stanch old man who sat before him, whohad been his benefactor in an hour of need, and backed faith withmoney.

  "Well, sir," he said, turning to meet the kindly eyes, "what do youthink of it?"

  "Think of it? Think of it?" Sloan replied, raising his voice. "I'lltell you my answer. 'You sit down,' I said, 'and write this man Presbythat I knew no one in connection with the Croix d'Or but the son ofthe man who many times befriended me, in desperate situations when Ineeded it! That I was paying back to the son what I was unfortunatelyprevented from paying back to the father--a constant gratitude! ThatI'd see him or any other man in their graves before I'd sell RichardTownsend out in that way. That I'd back Dick Townsend on the Croixd'Or as long as he wanted me to, and that when he gave that up, I'dstill back him on any other mine he said was good!' That's what Isaid!"

  He had lost his calm, club poise, and was again the virulent businessman of that Wall Street battle, waged daily, where men must have forceor fail to survive. Dick saw in him the man who was, the man who attimes had shaken the financial world with his desperate bravery anddaring, back in the days when giants fought for the beginnings ofsupremacy. He felt very inexperienced and young, as he looked at thisveteran with scars, and impulsively rose to his feet and held out hishand. He was almost dumb with gratitude.

  "I shouldn't have asked you to say so much," he said. "I am--well--Iam sort of down and out with it all! I feel a little bit as I did whenthe Cornell eleven piled on top of me in the annual, when I playedhalf-back."

  "Hey! And wasn't that a game!" the old man suddenly enthused, withsparkling eyes. "And how your father and I did yell and howl and beatthe heads of those in front! Gad! I remember the old man had a silkhat, and he banged it up and down on a bald head in front until therewas nothing but a rim left, and then looked as sheepish as a boycaught stealing apples when he realized what he had done. Oh, but yourDaddy was a man, even if he did have a temper, my boy!"

  His eyes sparkled with a fervid love of the game of his college days,and he seemed to have dismissed the Croix d'Or from his mind, as if itwere of no importance. Nor did he, during the course of that visit,refer to it again. He made exception, when he shook hands with Dick atthe train.

  "Don't let anybody bluff you," he said. "Remember that a brave frontalone often wins. If you fail with the Croix the world is still big,and--well--you're one of my legatees. Good-by. Good luck!"

  Again Dick endured the rumbling of trains through long hours, thechange from one to another at small junctions, the day and night in astage coach whose springs seemed to have lost resiliency, and thediscourse of two drummers, Hebraic, the chill aloofness of asupercilious mining expert new to the district, and the heateddiscussions of two drill runners, veterans, off to a new field, andcelebrating the journey with a demijohn. The latter were union men,and long after he was tired of their babel they broached aconversation which brought Dick to a point of eager listening.

  "Yes, you see," one of the men asserted; "they got the goods on him.Thompson had been a good delegate until he got the finger itch, thenhe had an idea he could use the miners' union to scratch 'em. He heldup one or two small mines before the big guns got wise. That got himto feelin' his oats, and he went for bigger game."

  "But how did they get him?" the other runner insisted.

  "They got him over here to where we're goin--Goldpan. He held up somefellers that's got a mine called the Craw Door, or somethin' likethat. Fetched three of his pals from Denver with him. They called'emselves miners! God! Miners nothin'! They'd worked around CrippleCreek long enough to get union cards, but two of 'em was prizefighters, and the other used to be bouncer at the old Alcazar when shewas the hottest place to lose money that ever turned a crooked card. Iremember there one time when----"

  "Nobody asked you about that," growled the other man. "What I'minterested in is about this big stiff, Thompson."

  "Him? Oh, yes. Where was I? Well, he fixed things for a hold-up. Wasgoin' to get these fellers at the Craw Door to untie their pokes, butthey don't stand for it. He packs a meetin' with a lot of swampersthat don't know nothin' about the case, and before they gets done theyvotes a strike, and an old
feller from this Craw Door gets his time.Gets kicked to death, the same as they uster in Park City when theCousin Jacks from the Ontario cut loose on one another. The Denvercouncil takes cawgnizance of this, and investigates. It snoops aroundtill it gets the goods. Then--_wow! bing!_ goes this here Thompson.They sue him themselves, and now he's up in Canon City, a-lookin'plaintive like through these things."

  He held his knotted, rough fingers open before his face, and jerkedhis head sideways, simulating a man peering through penitentiarybars. Then, with a roar, he started in to bellow, "The unionforever--hooraw, boys hooraw!" in which his companion, forgetting allthe story, joined until it was again time to tilt the wicker-coveredjug.

  And so that was the end of Thompson and presumably the strike, Dickthought, as he settled back into the corner he had claimed. And it waseasy to see, with this damning evidence to be brought forward, thatBells Park's murderers would pay, to the full, the penalty. For them,on trial, it meant nothing less than life. He was human enough to beglad.

  The stage rattled into Goldpan, and, stiff and sore from his journey,he began his tramp toward the trail of the cut-off leading homeward:He stopped but once. It was in front of the High Light, where a smallscrap of paper still clung to the plate glass. On it was written, in ahurried, but firm and womanly, handwriting:

  This place is closed for good. It is not for sale. It has held hell. Hereafter it shall hold nothing but cobwebs.

  LILY MEREDITH.

  The date was that of the tragic night, the night when Bells Park,fighting for those on whom he had bestowed a queer, distortedaffection, had been kicked to death by the ruffians now cowering in adistant jail!

  Verily the camp and the district had memories for him as he trudgedaway from its straggling shanties, and filled his lungs with thefresh, free air from the wide, rugged stretches beyond. When he camethrough the borders of the Rattler he looked eagerly, insistently, fora glimpse of his heart's desire, and thought, with annoyance, that hedid not so much as know the cabin which she called home. But he wasnot rewarded. It was still the same, with no enlivening touch of formor color, the same spider-web tramways debouching into the top of themill, the same sullen roar and rumble of falling stamps, the samecolumns of smoke from tall chimney and humble log structure, alike,and the same careless clash of the breakers.

  Bill came hurrying down the trail to meet him, waving his hat, andshouting a welcome. Up at the yard the smith held a black hand andmuscled arm up to shade his eyes from the last sunlight, and thenshook a hammer aloft. From the door of the engine room the man who hadbeen Bells' assistant bawled a greeting, and the fat cook shook aladle at him through the mess-house window. It all gave him an immenseand satisfactory warmth of home-coming, and the Croix d'Or, with itssteadfast, friendly little colony, was home in truth!

  "We're in sixty feet on the seven-hundred-foot," Bill grinned, withthe air of one giving a pleasant surprise, "and say, boy, we've hitthe edge of ore. You were all right. The green lead is still there,only she looks better to me than she did before, and I know rock,some."

  There was nothing wanting in the pleasure of his return, and the lastaddition to that satisfactory day was a note he found, lying on thevery top of other letters awaiting him. It was from Joan Presby, andBill, starting to enter the office, saw his partner's face in thelight of the lamp, smiled affectionately, and then tiptoed away intothe darkness, as if to avoid intrusion at such a time.