XVIII
A Chance to Hedge
With all things moving favorably for Timanyoni High Line up to the nightof fiascos, the battle for the great water-right seemed to take a suddenslant against the local promoters, after the failure to cripple Stantonby the attempt to suppress two of his subordinates. Early the next daythere were panicky rumors in the air, all pointing to a possibleeleventh-hour failure of the local enterprise, and none of themtraceable to any definite starting-point.
One of the stories was to the effect that the Timanyoni dam had faultyfoundations and that the haste in building had added to its insecurity.By noon bets were freely offered in the pool-rooms that the dam wouldnever stand its first filling; and on the heels of this came clamorouscourt petitions from ranch owners below the dam site, setting forth theflood dangers to which they were exposed and praying for an injunctionto stop the work.
That this was a new move on Stanton's part, neither Smith nor Stillingsquestioned for a moment; but they had no sooner got the nervous ranchmenpacified by giving an indemnity bond for any damage that might be done,before it became evident that the rumors were having another and stillmore serious effect. It was a little past one o'clock when Kinzie sentup-stairs for Smith, and Smith wondered why, with the telephone at hiselbow, the banker had sent the summons by the janitor.
When the newly elected secretary had himself shot down the elevator, hewas moved to wonder again at the number of people who were waiting tosee the president. The anteroom was crowded with them; and when thejanitor led him around through the working room of the bank to come atthe inside door to Kinzie's room, Smith thought the detour was mademerely to dodge the waiting throng.
There was a crude surprise lying in wait for Smith when the door of thepresident's room swung open to admit him. Sitting at ease on Kinzie'sbig leather-covered lounge, with a huge book of engraving samples on hisknees, was a round-bodied man with a face like a good-natured fullmoon. Instantly he tossed the book aside and sprang up.
"Why, Montague!" he burst out, "if this doesn't beat the band! Is itreally you, or only your remarkably healthy-looking ghost? By George!but I'm glad to see you!"
Smith shook hands with Debritt, and if the salesman's hearty greetingwas not returned in kind, the lack was due more to the turmoil ofemotions he had stirred up than to any studied coolness on the part ofthe trapped fugitive. Fortunately, the salesman had finished showingKinzie his samples and was ready to go, so there was no time for anyawkward revelations.
"I'm at the Hophra, for just a little while, Montague, and you must lookme up," was Debritt's parting admonition; and Smith was searching thesalesman's eyes keenly for the accusation which ought to be in them;searching and failing to find it.
"Yes; I'll look you up, of course, Boswell. I'm at the Hophra, myself,"he returned mechanically; and the next moment he was alone with Kinzie.
"You sent for me?" he said to the banker; and Kinzie pointed to achair.
"Yes; sit down and tell me what has broken loose. I've been trying toget Baldwin or Williams on the wire--they're both at the dam, Iunderstand--but the 'phone seems to be out of service. What has gonewrong with you people?"
Smith spread his hands. "We were never in better shape to win out thanwe are at this moment, Mr. Kinzie. This little flurry about newer andbigger damage suits to be brought by the valley truck-gardeners doesn'tamount to anything."
"I know all about that," said the president, with a touch of impatience."But there is a screw loose somewhere. How about that time limit in yourcharter? Are you going to get water into the ditches within your charterrestrictions?"
"We shall clear the law, all right, within the limit," was the promptreply. But the banker was still unsatisfied.
"Did you notice that roomful of people out there waiting to see me?" heasked. "They are High Line investors, a good many of them, and they arewaiting for a chance to ask me if they hadn't better get rid of theirstock for whatever it will bring. That's why I sent for you. I want toknow what's happened. And this time, Mr. Smith, I want the truth."
Smith accepted the implied challenge promptly, though in his heart heknew that a net of some kind was drawing around him.
"Meaning that I haven't been telling you the truth, heretofore?" heasked hardily.
"Meaning just that," responded the banker.
"Name the time and place, if you please."
"It was the first time you came here--with Baldwin."
"No," said Smith. "I gave you nothing but straight facts at that time,Mr. Kinzie. It was your own deductions that were at fault. You jumped tothe conclusion that I was here as the representative of Eastern capital,and I neither denied nor affirmed. But that is neither here nor there.We have made good in the financing, and, incidentally, we've helped thebank. You have no kick coming."
Kinzie wheeled in his chair and pointed an accusing finger at Smith.
"Mr. Smith, before we do any more business together, I want to know whoyou are and where you come from. If you can't answer a few plainquestions I shall draw my own inferences."
Smith leaped up and towered over the thick-set elderly man in thepivot-chair.
"Mr. Kinzie, do you want me to tell you what you are? You're atrimmer--a fence-climber! Do you suppose I don't know what hashappened? Stanton has started this new scare, and he has been here withyou! You've thought it all over, and now you want to welsh and go overto what you think is going to be the winning side! Do it, if you feellike it--and I'll transfer our account to the little Savings concernup-town!"
There was fire in his eye and hot wrath in his tone; and once moreKinzie found his conclusions warping.
"Oh, don't fly off the handle so brashly, young man," he protested."You've been in the banking business, yourself--you needn't deny it--andyou know what a banker's first care should be. Sit down again and let'sthresh this thing out. I don't want to have to drop you."
Being fairly at bay, with Debritt in town and Josiah Richlander due tocome back to Brewster at any moment, Smith put his back to the wall andignored the chair.
"You are at liberty to do anything you see fit, so far as I amconcerned," he rapped out, "and whatever you do, I'll try to hand itback to you, with interest."
"That is good strong talk," retorted the banker, "but it doesn't tell mewho you are, or why you are so evidently anxious to forget your past,Mr. Smith. I'm not asking much, if you'll stop to consider. And you'llgive me credit for being fair and aboveboard with you. I might have heldthat engraving salesman and questioned him; he knows you--knows yourother name."
Smith put the entire matter aside with an impatient gesture. "Leave mypast record out of it, if you please, Mr. Kinzie. At the present momentI am the financial head of Timanyoni High Line. What I want to know isthis: do you continue to stand with us? or do you insist upon theprivilege of seesawing every time Stanton turns up with a fresh scare?Let me have it, yes or no; and then I shall know what to do."
The gray-haired man in the big chair took time to think about it,pursing his lips and making a quick-set hedge of his cropped mustache.In the end he capitulated.
"I don't want to break with you--or with Dexter Baldwin," he said, atlength. "But I'm going to talk straight to you. Your little local crowdof ranchmen and mining men will never be allowed to hold that dam andyour ditch right of way; never in this world, Smith."
"If you are our friend, you'll tell us why," Smith came back smartly.
"Because you have got too big a crowd to fight; a crowd that can spendmillions to your hundreds. I didn't know until to-day who was behindStanton, though I had made my own guess. You mustn't be foolish, and youmustn't pull Dexter Baldwin in over his head--which is what you aredoing now."
Smith thrust his hands into his pockets and looked away.
"What do you advise, Mr. Kinzie?" he asked.
"Just this. At the present moment you seem to have a strangle-hold onthe New York people that it will take a good bit of money to break.They'll break it, never fear. A Scotch terrier ma
y be the bravest littledog that ever barked, but he can't fight a mastiff with any hope ofsaving his life. But there is still a chance for a compromise. Turn thismuddle of yours over to me and let me make terms with the New Yorkers.I'll come as near to getting par for you as I can."
Smith, still with his hands in his pockets, took a turn across the room.It was a sharp temptation. No one knew better than he what it would meanto be involved in a long fight, with huge capital on one side and onlyjustice and a modest bank balance on the other. To continue would be toleave Colonel Baldwin and Maxwell and Starbuck and their local followinga legacy of strife and shrewd battlings. He knew that Kinzie's offer wasmade in good faith. It was most probably based on a tentative proposalfrom Stanton, who, in turn, spoke for the great syndicate. By letting gohe might get the local investors out whole, or possibly with some smallprofit.
Against the acceptance of this alternative every fibre of the new-foundmanhood in him rose up in stubborn protest. Had it indeed come to a passat which mere money could dominate and dictate, rob, steal, oppress, andride roughshod over all opposition? Smith asked himself the question,and figured the big Missouri colonel's magnificent anger if it should beasked of him. That thought and another--the thought of what Corona wouldsay and think if he should surrender--turned the scale.
"No, Mr. Kinzie; we'll not compromise while I have anything to say aboutit; we'll fight it to a finish," he said abruptly; and with that he wentout through the crowded anteroom and so back to his desk in theup-stairs offices.
The Real Man Page 18