CHAPTER 7. BACK FROM ARCADIA
The president of the Mesa Ore-producing Company stepped from theparlor-car of the Limited at the hour when all wise people are takinglife easy after a good dinner. He did not, however, drive to his club,but took a cab straight for his rooms, where he had telegraphed Eatonto meet him with the general superintendent of all his properties andhis private secretary, Smythe. For nearly a week his finger had beenoff the pulse of the situation, and he wanted to get in touch again assoon as possible. For in a struggle as tense as the one between him andthe trust, a hundred vital things might have happened in that time. Hemight be coming back to catastrophe and ruin, brought about while hehad been a prisoner to love in that snow-bound cabin.
Prisoner to love he had been and still was, but the business men whomet him at his rooms, fellow adventurers in the forlorn hope he hadhitherto led with such signal success, could have read nothing of thisin the marble, chiseled face of their sagacious general, so indomitableof attack and insatiate of success. His steel-hard eyes gave no hint ofthe Arcadia they had inhabited so eagerly a short twenty-four hoursbefore. The intoxicating madness he had known was chained deep withinhim. Once more he had a grip on himself; was sheathed in a cannonproofplate armor of selfishness. No more magic nights of starshine,breathing fire and dew; no more lifted moments of exaltation stinginghim to a pulsating wonder at life's wild delight. He was again theinexorable driver of men, with no pity for their weaknesses any morethan for his own.
The men whom he found waiting for him at his rooms were all youngWesterners picked out by him because he thought them courageous,unscrupulous and loyal. Like him, they were privateers in the seas ofcommerce, and sailed under no flag except the one of insurrection hehad floated. But all of them, though they were associated with him andhoped to ride to fortune on the wave that carried him there, recognizedthemselves as subordinates in the enterprises he undertook. They weremerely heads of departments, and they took orders like trusted clerkswith whom the owner sometimes unbends and advises.
Now he heard their reports, asked an occasional searching question, andswiftly gave decisions of far-reaching import. It was past midnightbefore he had finished with them, and instead of retiring for the sleephe might have been expected to need, he spent the rest of the nightinspecting the actual workings of the properties he had not seen forsix days. Hour after hour he passed examining the developments,sometimes in the breasts of the workings and again consulting withengineers and foremen in charge. Light was breaking in the sky beforehe stepped from the cage of the Jack Pot and boarded a street-car forhis rooms. Cornishmen and Hungarians and Americans, going with theirdinner-buckets to work, met him and received each a nod or a word ofgreeting from this splendidly built young Hermes in miners' slops, whowas to many of them, in their fancy, a deliverer from the slavery whichthe Consolidated was ready to force upon them.
Once at his rooms, Ridgway took a cold bath, dressed carefully,breakfasted, and was ready to plunge into the mass of work which hadaccumulated during his absence at the mining camp of Alpine and thesubsequent period while he was snowbound. These his keen, practicalmind grasped and disposed of in crisp sentences. To his privatesecretary he rapped out order sharply and decisively.
"Phone Ballard and Dalton I want to see them at once. Tell Murphy Iwon't talk with him. What I said before I left was final. WriteCadwallader we can't do business on the terms he proposes, but add thatI'm willing to continue his Mary Kinney lease. Dictate a letter toRiley's lawyer, telling him I can't afford to put a premium onincompetence and negligence; that if his client was injured in the JackPot explosion, he has nobody but himself to blame for it. Otherwise, ofcourse, I should be glad to pension him. Let me see the letter beforeyou send it. I don't want anything said that will offend the union.Have two tons of good coal sent up to Riley's house, and notify hisgrocer that all bills for the next three months may be charged to me.And, Smythe, ask Mr. Eaton to step this way."
Stephen Eaton, an alert, clear-eyed young fellow who served as fidusAchates to Ridgway, and was the secretary and treasurer of the MesaOre-producing Company, took the seat Smythe had vacated. He wasgood-looking, after a boyish, undistinguished fashion, but one disposedto be critical might have voted the chin not quite definite enough. Hehad been a clerk of the Consolidated, working for one hundred dollars amonth, when Ridgway picked him out and set his feet in the way offortune. He had done this out of personal liking, and, in return, thesubordinate was frankly devoted to his chief.
"Steve, my opinion is that Alpine is a false alarm. Unless I guesswrong, it is merely a surface proposition and low-grade at that."
"Miller says--"
"Yes, I know what Miller says. He's wrong. I don't care if he is thebiggest copper expert in the country."
"Then you won't invest?"
"I have invested--bought the whole outfit, lock, stock and barrel."
"But why? What do you want with it if the property is no good?" askedEaton in surprise.
Ridgway laughed shortly. "I don't want it, but the Consolidated does.Two of their experts were up at Alpine last week, and both of themreported favorably. I've let it leak out to their lawyer, O'Malley,that Miller thought well of it; in fact, I arranged to let one of theirspies steal a copy of his report to us."
"But when they know you have bought it?"
"They won't know till too late. I bought through a dummy. It seemed apity not to let then have the property since they wanted it so badly,so this morning he sold out for me to the Consolidated at a profit of ahundred and fifty thousand."
Eaton grinned appreciatively. It was in startling finesse of this sorthis chief excelled, and Stephen was always ready with applause.
"I notice that Hobart slipped out of town last night. That is where hemust have been going. He'll be sick when he learns how you did him."
Ridgway permitted himself an answering smile. "I suppose it willirritate him a trifle, but that can't be helped. I needed that money toget clear on that last payment for the Sherman Bell."
"Yes, I was worried about that. Notes have been piling up against usthat must be met. There's the Ransom note, too. It's for a hundredthousand."
"He'll extend it," said the chief confidently.
"He told me he would have to have his money when it came due. I'venoticed he has been pretty close to Mott lately. I expect he has anarrangement with the Consolidated to push us."
"I'm watching him, Steve. Don't worry about that. He did arrange tosell the note to Mott, but I stopped that little game."
"How?"
"For a year I've had all the evidence of that big government timbersteal of his in a safety-deposit vault. Before he sold, I had a fewwords with him. He changed his mind and decided he preferred to holdthe notes. More, he is willing to let us have another hundred thousandif we have to have it."
Eaton's delight bubbled out of him in boyish laughter. "You're awonder, Waring. There's nobody like you. Can't any of them touchyou--not Harley himself, by Jove."
"We'll have a chance to find that out soon, Steve."
"Yes, they say he's coming out in person to run the fight against you.I hope not."
"It isn't a matter of hoping any longer. He's here," calmly announcedhis leader.
"Here! On the ground?"
"Yes."
"But--he can't be here without us knowing it."
"I'm telling you that I do know it."
"Have you seen him yourself?" demanded the treasurer incredulously.
"Seen him, talked with him, cursed him and cuffed him," announcedRidgway with a reminiscent gleam in his eye.
"Er--what's that you say?" gasped the astounded Eaton.
"Merely that I have already met Simon Harley."
"But you said--"
"--that I had cursed and cuffed him. That's all right. I have."
The president of the Mesa Ore-producing Company leaned back with histhumbs in the armholes of his fancy waistcoat and smiled debonairly athis associate's perplexed amazement.
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"Did you say--CUFFED him?"
"That's what I meant to say. I roughed him around quite abit--manhandled him in general. But all FOR HIS GOOD, you know."
"For his good?" Eaton's dazed brain tried to conceive the situation ofa billionaire being mauled for his good, and gave it up in despair. IfSteve Eaton worshipped anything, it was wealth. He was a bornsycophant, and it was partly because his naive unstinted admiration hadcontributed to satisfy his chief's vanity that the latter had made ofhim a confidant. Now he sat dumb before the lese-majeste of layingforcible hands upon the richest man in the world.
"But, of course, you're only joking," he finally decided.
"You haven't been back twelve hours. Where COULD you have seen him?"
"Nevertheless I have met him and been properly introduced by his wife."
"His wife?"
"Yes, I picked her out of a snow-drift."
"Is this a riddle?"
"If it is, I don't know the answer, Steve. But it is a true one,anyhow, not made to order merely to astonish you."
"True that you picked Simon Harley's wife out of a snow-drift andkicked him around?"
"I didn't say kicked, did I?" inquired the other, judicially. "But Irather think I did knee him some."
"Of course, I read all about his marriage two weeks ago to Miss AlineHope. Did he bring her out here with him for the honeymoon?"
"If he did, I euchred him out of it. She spent it with me alone in aminer's cabin," the other cried, malevolence riding triumph on his face.
"Whenever you're ready to explain," suggested Eaton helplessly. "You'vepiled up too many miracles for me even to begin guessing them."
"You know I was snow-bound, but you did not know my only companion wasthis Aline Hope you speak of. I found her in the blizzard, and took herto an empty cabin near. She and her husband were motoring fromAvalanche to Mesa, and the machine had broken down. Harley had gone forhelp and left her there alone when the blizzard came up. Three dayslater Sam Yesler and the old man broke trail through from the C B Ranchand rescued us."
It was so strange a story that it came home to Eaton piecemeal.
"Three days--alone with Harley's wife--and he rescued you himself."
"He didn't rescue me any. I could have broken through any time I wantedto leave her. On the way back his strength gave out, and that was whenI roughed him. I tried to bullyrag him into keeping on, but it was nogo. I left him there, and Sam went back after him with a relief-party."
"You left him! With his wife?"
"No!" cried Ridgway. "Do I look like a man to desert a woman on asnow-trail? I took her with me."
"Oh!" There was a significant silence before Eaton asked the questionin his mind. "I've seen her pictures in the papers. Does she look likethem?"
His chief knew what was behind the question, and he knew, too, thatEaton might be taken to represent public opinion. The world would castan eye of review over his varied and discreditable record with women.It would imagine the story of those three days of enforced confinementtogether, and it would look to the woman in the case for an answer toits suspicions. That she was young, lovely, and yet had sold herself toan old man for his millions, would go far in itself to condemn her; andhe was aware that there were many who would accept her very childishinnocence as the sophistication of an artist.
Waring Ridgway put his arms akimbo on the table and leaned across withhis steady eyes fastened on his friend.
"Steve, I'm going to answer that question. I haven't seen any picturesof her in the papers, but if they show a face as pure and true as theface of God himself then they are like her. You know me. I've got noapologies or explanations to make for the life I've led. That's mybusiness. But you're my friend, and I tell you I would rather be hackedin pieces by Apaches than soil that child's white soul by a singleunclean breath. There mustn't be any talk. Do you understand? Keep thestory out of the newspapers. Don't let any of our people gossip aboutit. I have told you because I want you to know the truth. If any oneshould speak lightly about this thing stop him at once. This is the onepoint on which Simon Harley and I will pull together. Any man who joinsthat child's name with mine loosely will have to leave this camp--andsuddenly."
"It won't be the men--it will be the women that will talk."
"Then garble the story. Change that three days to three hours, Steve.Anything to stop their foul-clacking tongues!"
"Oh, well! I dare say the story won't get out at all, but if it doesI'll see the gossips get the right version. I suppose Sam Yesler willback it up."
"Of course. He's a white man. And I don't need to tell you that I'll bea whole lot obliged to you, Stevie."
"That's all right. Sometimes I'm a white man, too, Waring," laughedSteve. Ridgway circled the table and put a hand on the younger man'sshoulder affectionately. Steve Eaton was the one of all his associatesfor whom he had the closest personal feeling.
"I don't need to be told that, old pal," he said quietly.
Ridgway of Montana (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) Page 7