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The Sick Project
Brewster, owing its beginnings to the completion of the Nevada ShortLine, and the fact that the railroad builders designated it as adivision headquarters, had grown into city-charter size and importancewith the opening of the gold-mines in the Gloria district, and thetransformation of the surrounding park grass-lands into cultivatedranches. To the growth and prosperity of the intermountain city a summerhotel on the shore of Lake Topaz--reached only by stage fromBrewster--had added its influence; and since the hotel brought peoplewith well-lined pocketbooks, there was a field for the enthusiasticreal-estate promoters whose offices filled all the odd corners in theHophra House block.
In one of these offices, on the morning following Smith's first dinnerat Hillcrest, a rather caustic colloquy was in progress between the manwhose name appeared in gilt lettering on the front windows and one ofhis unofficial assistants. Crawford Stanton, he of the window name, wasa man of many personalities. To summer visitors with money to invest, hewas the genial promoter, and if there were suggestions of iron hardnessin the sharp jaw and in the smoothly shaven face and flinty eyes, therewas also a pleasant reminder of Eastern business methods and alertnessin the promoter's manner. But Lanterby, tilting uneasily in the"confidential" chair at the desk-end, knew another and more biting sideof Mr. Stanton, as a hired man will.
"Good Gad! do you sit there and tell me that the three of them let thathobo of Williams's push them off the map?" Stanton was demandingraucously. "I thought you had at least sense enough to last youovernight. I told you to pick out a bunch with sand--fellows that couldhang on and put up a fight if they had to. And you say all this happenedthe day before yesterday: how does it come that you are just nowreporting it?"
The hard-faced henchman in the tilting chair made such explanations ashe could.
"Boogerfield and his two partners 've been hidin' out somewhere; I allowthey was plumb ashamed to come in and tell how they'd let one man run'em off. You'd think that curly-whiskered helper o' Williams's was aholy terror, to hear Boogerfield talk. They'd left their artillery inthe chuck-wagon, and they say he come at 'em barehanded--with thecolonel's girl settin' in the ortamobile a-lookin' on. Boogerfield wantsto know who's goin' to pay him for them two Winchesters that HisWhiskers bu'sted over the wagon-wheel."
Mr. Crawford Stanton was carelessly unconcerned about the claim-jumpers'loss, either in gear or skin.
"Damn the Winchesters!" he said morosely. "What do you know about thisfellow Smith? Who is he, and where did he come from?"
Lanterby told all that was known of Smith, and had no difficulty incompressing it into a single sentence. Stanton leaned back in his chairand the lids of the flinty eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
"There's a lot more to it than that," he said incisively at the end ofthe reflective pause. Then he added a curt order: "Make it your job tofind out."
Lanterby moved uneasily in his insecure seat, but before he could speak,his employer went on again, changing the topic abruptly, but stillkeeping within the faultfinding boundaries.
"What sort of a screw has gone loose in your deal with the railroadmen? I thought you told me you had it fixed with the yard crews so thatWilliams's material would have a chance to season a while in theBrewster yards before it was delivered. They got two cars of cement andone of steel the day before yesterday, and the delivery was made withinthree hours after the stuff came in from the East."
Again Lanterby tried to explain.
"Dougherty, the yardmaster, took the bank roll I slipped him, all rightenough, and promised to help out. But he's scared of Maxwell. He told methis mornin' that Colonel Baldwin has been kickin' like blazes toMaxwell about the delays."
"Maxwell is a thick-headed ass!" exploded the faultfinder. "I've doneeverything on earth except to tell him outright in so many words thathis entire railroad outfit, from President Brewster down, is lined up onthe other side of the fight. But go on with your dickering. JerkDougherty into line and tell him that nothing is going to happen to himif he doesn't welsh on us. Hint to him that we can pull a longer stringthan Dick Maxwell can, if it comes to a show-down. Now go out and findShaw. I want him, and I want him right now."
The hard-faced man who looked as if he might be a broken-down gamblerunjointed his leg-hold upon the tilted chair and went out; and a fewminutes later another of Stanton's pay-roll men drifted in. He was ayoung fellow with sleepy eyes and cigarette stains on his fingers, andhe would have passed readily for a railroad clerk out of a job, whichwas what he really was.
"Well?" snapped Stanton when the incomer had taken the chair latelyvacated by Lanterby.
"I shadowed the colonel, as you told me to," said the young man. "Hewent up to Red Butte to see if he couldn't rope in some of theold-timers on his ditch project. He was trying to sell some treasurystock. His one-horse company is about out of money. Mickle, a clerk inKinzie's bank, tells me that the ditch company's balance is drawn downto a few thousand dollars, with no more coming in."
"Did the colonel succeed in making a raise in Red Butte?"
"Nary," said the spy nonchalantly. "Drake, the banker up there, was hisone best bet; but I got a man I know to give Drake a pointer, and hecurled up like a hedgehog when you poke it with a sharp stick."
"That's better. The colonel came back yesterday, didn't he?"
"Yesterday afternoon. His wife and daughter met him at therailroad-station with the automobile, and told him something or otherthat made him hire old man Shuey to drive the women out home while hetook the roadster and went up to the dam."
"You went along?" queried Stanton.
"As soon as I could find somebody to drive me; yes. That wasn't rightaway, though; and when I got there I had to leave my buzz-wagon back inthe hills a piece and walk into camp. When I inquired around I foundthat the colonel was shut up in Williams's office with a fellow namedSmith. They were finishing up whatever they'd been talking about when Igot a place to listen in; but I heard enough to make me suspect thatsomething new had broken loose. Just as they were getting ready to quit,the colonel was saying: 'That settles it, Smith; you've got to come overinto'--I didn't catch the name of the place--'and help us. Williamstells me you refused him, but you can't refuse me.' There was more ofit, but they had opened the door and I had to skin out. A little laterthey drove off together in the colonel's car, coming on through town togo out to the ranch, I suppose, because Smith didn't show up any moreat the camp."
Again the gentleman with the sharp jaw took time for narrow-eyedreflection.
"You'll have to switch over from the colonel to this fellow Smith forthe present, Shaw," he decided, at length. "Lanterby is supposed to beon that part of the job, but he's altogether too coarse-handed. I wantto know who Smith is, and where he hails from, and how he comes to bebutting in. Lanterby said at first, and says yet, that he is just acommon hobo tumbling in from the outside. It's pretty evident thatLanterby has another guess coming. You look him up and do it quick."
The young man glanced up with a faint warming of avarice in his sleepyeyes. "It'll most likely run into money--for expenses," he suggested.
"For graft, you mean," snapped Stanton. Then he had it out with thissecond subordinate in crisp English. "I'm onto you with both feet, Shaw;every crook and turn of you. More than that, I know why you were firedout of Maxwell's office; you've got sticky fingers. That's all rightwith me up to a certain point, but beyond that point you get off.Understand?"
Shaw made no answer in direct terms, but if his employer had beenwatching the heavy-lidded eyes he might have seen in them the shadow ofa thing much more dangerous than plain dishonesty: a passing shadow ofthe fear that makes for treachery when the sharp need forself-protection arises.
"I'll try to find out about the hobo," he said, with fair enoughlip-loyalty, and after he had rolled a fresh cigarette he went away tobegin the mining operations which might promise to unearth Smith'srecord.
It was ten o'clock when Shaw left the real-estate office in the Hophra
House block. Half an hour earlier Smith had come to town with thecolonel in the roadster, and the two had shut themselves up in thecolonel's private room in the Timanyoni Ditch Company's town office inthe Barker Building, which was two squares down the street from theHophra House. Summoned promptly, Martin, the bookkeeper, had brought inhis statements and balance-sheets, and the new officer, who was as yetwithout a title, had struck out his plan of campaign.
"'Amortization' is the word, Colonel," was Smith's prompt verdict afterhe had gone over Martin's summaries. "The best way to get at it now isto wipe the slate clean and begin over again."
The ranchman president was chuckling soberly.
"Once more you'll have to show me, John," he said. "We folks out here inthe hills are not up in all the Wall Street crinkles."
"You don't know the word? It means to scrap the old machinery to makeroom for the new," Smith explained. "In modern business it is theprocess of extinguishing a corporation: closing it up and burying it inanother and bigger one, usually. That is what we must do with TimanyoniDitch."
"I'm getting you, a little at a time," said the colonel, taking hisfirst lesson in high finance as a duck takes to the water. Then headded: "It won't take much of a lick to kill off the old company, in theshape it's got into now. How will you work it?"
Smith had the plan at his fingers' ends. With the daring of all theperils had come a fresh access of fighting fitness that made him feel asif he could cope with anything.
"We must close up the company's affairs and then reorganize promptlyand, with just as little noise as may be, form another company--which wewill call Timanyoni High Line--and let it take over the old outfit,stock, liabilities, and assets entire. You say your present capitalstock is one hundred thousand dollars; is it all paid in?"
"Every dollar of it except a little for a few shares of treasury stockthat we've been holding for emergencies. As I told you last night, Iwent up to Red Butte and tried to sell that treasury stock to Drake, thebanker; but he wouldn't bite."
"Which was mighty lucky for us," Smith put in. "It would have queered usbeautifully if he had, and the story had got out that the president ofTimanyoni Ditch had sold a block of treasury stock at thirty-nine."
"Well, he didn't take it," said the colonel. "He was so blame' chillythat I like to froze to death before I could get out of the bank."
"All right; then we'll go on. This new company that I am speaking ofwill be capitalized at, say, an even half million. To the presentholders of Timanyoni Ditch we'll give the new stock for the old, sharefor share, with a bonus of twenty-five shares of the new stock for everytwenty-five shares of the old surrendered and exchanged. This will bepractically giving the present shareholders two for one. Will thatsatisfy them?"
This time Colonel Dexter Baldwin's smile was grim.
"You're just juggling now, John, and you know it. Out here on the woollyedge of things a dollar is just a plain iron dollar, and you can't makeit two merely by calling it so."
"Never you mind about that," cut in the new financier. "The first ruleof investment is that a dollar is worth just what it will earn individends; no more, and equally no less. You know, and I know, that ifwe can pull this thing through there is a barrel of money in it for allconcerned. But we'll skip that part of it and stick to the details. Attwo to one for the amortization of the old company we shall still havesomething like three hundred thousand dollars treasury stock upon whichto realize for the new capital needed, and that will be amply sufficientto complete the dam and the ditches and to provide a fighting fund. Nowthen, tell me this: how near can we come to placing that treasury stockright here in Timanyoni Park? In other words, can the money be had hereat any price?"
"You mean that you don't want to go East to raise it?"
"I mean that we haven't time. More than that, it's up to us to keep thisthing in the family, so to speak; and the moment we go into othermarkets, we are getting over into the enemy's country. I'm not sayingthat the money couldn't be raised in New York; but if we should gothere, the trust would have an underhold on us, right from the start."
"I see," said the colonel, who was indeed seeing many things that hissimple-hearted philosophy had never dreamed of; and then he answered thedirect question. "There is plenty of money right here in the Timanyonis;not all of it in Brewster, perhaps, but in the country among the Gloriaand Little Butte mine owners, smelter men, and the better class ofranchmen. Take Dick Maxwell, the railroad superintendent--he's a mineron the side, you know--he could put ten or twenty thousand more into itwithout turning a hair; and so could some of the others."
Smith nodded. He was getting his second wind now, and the race promisedto be a keen joy.
"But they would have to be 'shown,' you think?" he suggested. "Allright; we'll proceed to show them. Now we can come down to presentnecessities. We've got to keep the work going--and speed it up to thelimit: we ought to double Williams's force at once--put on a night shiftto work by electric light. I took the liberty of telephoning Williamsfrom Hillcrest this morning while you were reading your newspaper. Itold him to wire advertisements for more labor to the newspapers inDenver, offering wages high enough to make the thing look attractive."
The colonel blinked twice and swallowed hard.
"Say, John," he said, leaning across the table-desk; "you've sure gotyour nerve with you. Do you know what our present bank balance happensto be?"
"No; I was just coming to that," said the reorganizer, smiling easily."How much is it?"
"It is under five thousand dollars, and a good part of that is owing tothe cement people!"
"Never mind; don't get nervous," was the reassuring rejoinder. "We aregoing to make it bigger in a few minutes, I hope. Who is your bankerhere?"
"Dave Kinzie, of the Brewster City National."
"Tell me a little something about Mr. Kinzie before we go down to seehim; just brief him for me as a man, I mean."
The colonel was shaking his head slowly.
"He's what you might call a twenty-ton optimist, Dave is; solid, alittle slow and sure, but the biggest boomer in the West, if you canget him started--believes in the resources of the country and all that.But you can't borrow money from him without security, if that's whatyou're aiming to do."
"Can't we?" smiled the young man who knew banks and bankers. "Let's goand see. You never know until you try, Colonel; and even then you're notalways dead certain. Take me around and introduce me to this Mr. DavidKinzie--and, hold on; it may be as well to give me a handle of some sortbefore we begin to talk money with other people. What are you going tocall me in this new scheme of things?"
The big Missourian's laugh was a hearty guffaw.
"Gosh all Friday! the way it's starting out you're the whole works,Smith! Just name your own name, and we'll cinch it for you."
"I suppose you've already got a secretary and treasurer?"
"We had up to a few days ago, before Buck Gardner sold out his stock toCrawford Stanton."
"Haven't you had a board meeting since?"
"Yes; but only to accept Gardner's resignation. We didn't elect anybodyelse--nobody wanted the place; every last man of 'em shied."
"Naturally; not seeing any immediate prospects of having anything totreasure," laughed Smith. "But that will do. You may introduce me toKinzie as your acting financial secretary, if you like. Now one morequestion: what is Kinzie's attitude toward Timanyoni Ditch?"
"At first it was all kinds of friendly; he is a stockholder in a smallway, and he's heart and soul for anything that promises to build up thecountry, as I told you. But after a while he began to cool down alittle, and now--well, I don't know; I hate to think it of Dave, but I'mafraid he's leaning the other way, toward these Eastern fellows. Littlethings he has let fall, and this last deal in which he tried to coverStanton's tracks in the stock-buying from Gardner and Bolling; they allpoint that way."
"That is natural, too," said Smith, whose point of view was alwaysunobscured in any battle of business. "The big company would b
e a bettercustomer for the bank than your little one could ever hope to be. Iguess that's all for the present. If you're ready, we'll go down andface the music. Take me to the Brewster City National and introduce meto Mr. Kinzie; then you can stand by and watch the wheels go round."
"By Janders!" said the colonel with an open smile; "I believe you'd justas soon tackle a banker as to eat your dinner; and I'd about as soontake a horsewhipping. Come on; I'll steer you up against Dave, but I'mtelling you right now that the steering is about all you can count onfrom me."
It was while they were crossing the street together and turning downtoward the Alameda Avenue corner where the Brewster City National Bankwindows looked over into the windows of the Hophra House block opposite,that Mr. Crawford Stanton had his third morning caller, a thick-setbarrel-bodied man with little pig-like eyes, closely cropped hair, abristling mustache, and a wooden leg of the home-made sort--a peg with ahollowed bowl for the bent knee and a slat-like extension to go up theoutside of the leg to be stapled to a leathern belt. Across one of theswarthy cheeks there was a broad scar that looked, at first sight, likea dash of blue paint. It was a knife slash got in the battle withMexican Ruiz in which the thick-set man had lost his leg. After theMexican had brought him down with a bullet, he had added his mark as hehad said he would; laying the big man's cheek open and rubbing thepowder from a chewed cartridge into the wound. Afterward, the men of thecamps called the cripple "Pegleg" or "Blue Pete" indifferently, thoughnot to his face. For though the fat face was always relaxed in agood-natured smile, the crippled saloon-keeper was of those who killwith the knife; and since he could not pursue, he was fain to cajole theprey within reach.
Stanton looked up from his desk when the pad-and-click of the cripple'sstep came in from the street.
"Hello, Simms," he said, in curt greeting. "Want to see me?"
"Uh-huh; for a minute or so. Busy?"
"Never too busy to talk business. Sit down."
Simms threw the brim of his soft hat up with a backhanded stroke andshook his head. "It ain't worth while; and I gotta get back to camp. Iblew in to tell y'u there's a fella out there that needs th' sand-bag."
"Who is it?"
"Fella name' Smith. He's showin' 'em how to cut too manycorners--pace-settin', he calls it. First thing they know, they'll getthe concrete up to where the high water won't bu'st it out."
Stanton's laugh was impatient.
"Don't make any mistake of that sort, Simms," he said. "_We_ don't wantthe dam destroyed; we'd work just as hard as they would to prevent that.All we want is to have other people think it's likely to go out--thinkit hard enough to keep them from putting up any more money. Let that go.Is there any more fresh talk--among the men?" Stanton prided himself alittle upon the underground wire-pulling which had resulted in puttingSimms on the ground as the keeper of the construction-camp canteen. Itwas a fairly original way of keeping a listening ear open for the campgossip.
"Little," said the cripple briefly. "This here blink-blank fella Smith'sbeen tellin' Williams that I ort to be run off th' reservation; says th'booze puts the brake on for speed."
"So it does," agreed Stanton musingly. "But I guess you can stay a whilelonger. What do the men say about Smith?"
"Whole heap o' things. The best guess is that he's a jail-break' fromsomewheres back in the States. He ain't no common 'bo; that's a deadcinch. Gatrow, the quarry foreman, puts it up that he done something hehad to run for."
"Get him drunk and find out," suggested Stanton shortly.
"Not him," said the round-faced villain, with the ingratiating smilewrinkling at the corners of the fat-embedded eyes. "He's thetake-a-drink-or-let-it-alone kind."
"Well, keep your eye on him and your ears open. I have a notion thathe's been sent here--by some outfit that means to buck us. If he hasn'tany backing----"
The interruption was the hurried incoming of the young man with sleepyeyes and the cigarette stains on his fingers, and for once in a way hewas stirred out of his customary attitude of cynical indifference.
"Smith and Colonel Baldwin are over yonder in Kinzie's private office,"he reported hastily. "Before they shut the door I heard Baldwinintroducing Smith as the new acting financial secretary of the TimanyoniDitch Company!"
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