XXII
The Megalomaniac
On a day which was only sixty-odd hours short of the expiration of thetime limit fixed by the charter conditions under which the originalTimanyoni Ditch Company had obtained its franchise, Bartley Williams,lean and sombre-eyed from the strain he had been under for many days andnights, saw the president's gray roadster ploughing its way through themesa sand on the approach to the construction camp, and was glad.
"I've been trying all the morning to squeeze out time to get into town,"he told Baldwin, when the roadster came to a stand in front of the shackcommissary. "Where is Smith?"
The colonel threw up his hand in a gesture expressive of completedetachment.
"Don't ask me. John has gone plumb loco in these last two or three days.It's as much as your life's worth to ask him where he has been or wherehe is going or what he means to do next."
"He hasn't stopped fighting?" said the engineer, half aghast at the barepossibility.
"Oh, no; he's at it harder than ever--going it just a shaving toostrong, is what I'd tell him, if he'd let me get near enough to shout athim. Last night, after the theatre, he went around to the _Herald_office, and the way they're talking it on the street, he was aiming toshoot up the whole newspaper joint if Mark Allen, the editor, wouldn'ttake back a bunch of the lies he's been publishing about the High Line.It wound up in a scrap of some sort. I don't know who got the worst ofit, but John isn't crippled up any, to speak of, this morning--only inhis temper."
"Smith puzzles me more than a little," was Williams's comment. "It'sjust as you say; for the last few days he's been acting as if he had agrouch a mile long. Is it the old sore threatening to break outagain?--the 'lame duck' business?"
"I shouldn't wonder," said the colonel evasively. Loyal to the last, hewas not quite ready to share with Williams the half-confidence in whichSmith had admitted, by implication at least, that the waiting youngwoman at the Hophra House held his future between her thumb and finger.
Williams shook his head. "I guess we'll have to stand for the grouch,if he'll only keep busy. He has the hot end of it, trying to stop thestampede among the stockholders, and hold up the money pinch, and keepStanton from springing any new razzle on us. We couldn't very well getalong without him, right now, Colonel. With all due respect to you andthe members of the board, he is the fighting backbone of the wholeoutfit."
"He is that," was Baldwin's ready admission. "He is just what we've beencalling him from the first, Bartley--a three-ply, dyed-in-the-woolwonder in his specialty. Stanton hasn't been able to make a single moveyet that Smith hasn't foreseen and discounted. He is fighting now like aman in the last ditch, and I believe he thinks he is in the last ditch.The one time lately when I have had anything like a straight talk withhim, he hinted at that and gave me to understand that he'd be willing toquit and take his medicine if he could hold on until Timanyoni High Linewins out."
"That will be only two days more," said the engineer, saying it as onewho has been counting the days in keen anxiety. And then: "Stillingstold me yesterday that we're not going to get an extension of the timelimit from the State authorities."
"No; that little fire went out, blink, just as Smith said it would.Stanton's backers have the political pull--in the State, as well as inWashington. They're going to hold us to the letter of the law."
"Let 'em do it. We'll win out yet--if we don't run up against one orboth of the only two things I'm afraid of now: high water, or therailroad call down."
"The water is pushing you pretty hard?"
"It's touch and go every night now. A warm rain in the mountains--well,I won't say that it would tear us up, because I don't believe it would,or could; but it would delay us, world without end."
"And the railroad grab? Have you heard anything more about that?"
"That is what I was trying to get to town for; to talk the railroadbusiness over with you and Stillings and Smith. They've had a gang herethis morning; a bunch of engineers, with a stranger, who gave his nameas Hallowell, in charge. They claimed to be verifying the old survey,and Hallowell notified me formally that our dam stood squarely in theirright of way for a bridge crossing of the river."
"They didn't serve any papers on you, did they?" inquired the colonelanxiously.
"No; the notice was verbal. But Hallowell wound up with a threat. Hesaid, 'You've had due warning, legally and otherwise, Mr. Williams. Thisis our right of way, bought and paid for, as we can prove when thematter gets into the courts. You mustn't be surprised if we takewhatever steps may be necessary to recover what belongs to us.'"
"Force?" queried the Missourian, with a glint of the border-fighter'sfire in his eyes.
"Maybe. But we're ready for that. Did you know that Smith loaded half adozen cases of Winchesters on a motor-truck yesterday, and had them sentout here?"
"No!"
"He did--and told me to say nothing about it. It seems that he orderedthem some time ago from an arms agency in Denver. That fellow foreseeseverything, Colonel."
Dexter Baldwin had climbed into his car and was making ready to turn itfor the run back to town.
"If I were you, Bartley, I believe I'd open up those gun boxes and passthe word among as many of the men as you think you can trust with riflesin their hands. I'll tell Smith--and Bob Stillings."
Colonel Baldwin made half of his promise good, the half relating to thecompany's attorney, as soon as he reached Brewster. But the other halfhad to remain in abeyance. Smith was not in his office, and no oneseemed to know where he had gone. The colonel shrewdly suspected thatMiss Richlander was making another draft upon the secretary's time, andhe said as much to Starbuck, later in the day, when the mine ownersauntered into the High Line headquarters and proceeded to roll theinevitable cigarette.
"Not any, this time, Colonel," was Starbuck's rebuttal. "You've missedit by a whole row of apple-trees. Miss Rich-dollars is over at thehotel. I saw her at luncheon with the Stantons less than an hour ago."
"You haven't seen Smith, have you?"
"No; but I know where he is. He's out in the country, somewhere, takingthe air in Dick Maxwell's runabout. I wanted to borrow the wagon myself,and Dick told me he had already lent it to Smith."
"We're needing him," said the colonel shortly, and then he told Starbuckof the newest development in the paper-railroad scheme of obstruction.
From that the talk drifted to a discussion of Kinzie's latest attitude.By this time there had been an alarming number of stock sales by smallholders, all of them handled by the Brewster City National, and it wasplainly evident that Kinzie had finally gone over to the enemy and wasbuying--as cheaply as possible--for some unnamed customer. This had beenStanton's earliest expedient; to "bear" the stock and to buy up thecontrol; and he was apparently trying it again.
"If they keep it up, they can wear us out by littles, and we'll breakour necks finishing the dam and saving the franchise only to turn itover to them in the round-up," said the colonel dejectedly. "I've talkeduntil I'm hoarse, but you can't talk marrow into an empty bone, Billy. Iused to think we had a fairly good bunch of men in with us, but in theselast few days I've been changing my mind at a fox-trot. These hedgers'llpromise you anything on top of earth to your face, and then go straightback on you the minute you're out of sight."
The remainder of the day, up to the time when the offices were closingand the colonel was making ready to go home, passed without incident. InSmith's continued absence, Starbuck had offered to go to the dam tostand a night-watch with Williams against a possible surprise by theright-of-way claimants; and Stillings, who had been petitioning for aninjunction, came up to report progress just as Baldwin was locking hisdesk.
"The judge has taken it under advisement, but that is as far as he wouldgo to-day," said the lawyer. "It's simply a bald steal, of course, andunless they ring in crooked evidence on us, we can show it up in court.But that would mean more delay, and delay is the one thing we can'tstand. I'm sworn to uphold the law, and I can't counsel armedresi
stance. Just the same, I hope Williams has his nerve with him."
"He has; and I haven't lost mine, yet," snapped a voice at the door; andSmith came in, dust-covered and swarthy with the grime of the wind-sweptgrass-lands. Out of the pocket of his driving coat he drew a thickpacket of papers and slapped it upon the drawn-down curtain of Baldwin'sdesk. "There you are," he went on gratingly. "Now you can tell Mr. DavidKinzie to go straight to hell with his stock-pinching, and the moremoney he puts into it, the more somebody's going to lose!"
"My Lord, John!--what have you done?" demanded Baldwin.
"I've shown 'em what it means to go up against a winner!" was thehalf-triumphant, half-savage exultation. "I have put a crimp in thatfence-climbing banker of yours that will last him for one while! I'vesecured thirty-day options, at par, on enough High Line stock to swing aclear majority if Kinzie should buy up every other share there isoutstanding. It has taken me all day, and I've driven a thousand miles,but the thing is done."
"But, John! If anything should happen, and we'd have to make good onthose options.... The Lord have mercy! It would break the last man ofus!"
"We're not going to let things happen!" was the gritting rejoinder."I've told you both a dozen times that I'm in this thing to win! Youtake care of those options, Stillings; they're worth a million dollarsto somebody. Lock 'em up somewhere and then forget where they are. NowI'm going to hunt up Mr. Crawford Stanton--before I eat or sleep!"
"Easy, John; hold up a minute!" the colonel broke in soothingly; andStillings, more practical, closed the office door silently and put hisback against it. "This is a pretty sudden country, but there is somesort of a limit, you know," the big Missourian went on. "What's youridea in going to Stanton?"
"I mean to give him twelve hours in which to pack his trunk and get outof Brewster and the Timanyoni. If he hasn't disappeared by to-morrowmorning----"
Stillings was signalling in dumb show to Baldwin. He had quietly openedthe door and was crooking his finger and making signs over his shouldertoward the corridor. Baldwin saw what was wanted, and immediately shothis desk cover open and turned on the lights.
"That last lot of steel and cement vouchers was made out yesterday,John," he said, slipping the rubber band from a file of papers in thedesk. "If you'll take time to sit down here and run 'em over, and putyour name on 'em, I'll hold Martin long enough to let him get the checksin to-night's mail. Those fellows in St. Louis act as if they areterribly scared they won't get their money quick enough, and I've beenholding the papers for you all day. I'll be back after a little."
Smith dragged up the president's big swing-chair and planted himself init, and an instant later he was lost to everything save the columns offigures on the vouchers. Stillings had let himself out, and when thecolonel followed him, the lawyer cautiously closed the door of theprivate office, and edged Baldwin into the corridor.
"We've mighty near got a madman to deal with in there, Colonel," hewhispered, when the two were out of ear-shot. "I was watching his eyeswhen he said that about Stanton, and they fairly blazed. I meant to tellyou more about that racket last night in the _Herald_ office; I heardthe inside of it this afternoon from Murphey. Smith went in and held thewhole outfit up with a gun, and Murphey says he beat Allen over the headwith it. He's going to kill somebody, if we don't look out."
Baldwin was shaking his head dubiously.
"He's acting like a locoed thoroughbred that's gone outlaw," he said."Do you reckon he's sure-enough crazy, Bob?"
"Only in the murder nerve. This deal with the options shows that he'sall to the good on the business side. That was the smoothest trickthat's been turned in any stage of this dodging fight with the bigfellows. It simply knocks Kinzie's rat-gnawing game dead. If there wereonly somebody who could calm Smith down a little and bring him toreason--somebody near enough to him to dig down under his shell and getat the real man that used to be there when he first took hold withus----"
"A woman?" queried Baldwin, frowning disapproval in anticipation of whatStillings might be going to suggest.
"A woman for choice, of course. I was thinking of this young woman overat the Hophra House; the one he has been running around with so muchduring the past few days. She is evidently an old flame of his, andanybody can see with half an eye that she has a pretty good grip on him.Suppose we go across the street and give her an invitation to come anddo a little missionary work on Smith. She looks level-headed andsensible enough to take it the way it's meant."
It is quite possible that the colonel's heart-felt relief at Stillings'ssuggestion of Miss Richlander instead of another woman went some littledistance toward turning the scale for the transplanted Missourian.Stillings was a lawyer and had no scruples, but the colonel had them injust proportion to his Southern birth and breeding.
"I don't like to drag a woman into it, any way or shape, Bob," heprotested; and he would have gone on to say that he had good reason tobelieve that Miss Richlander's influence over Smith might not be at allof the meliorating sort, but Stillings cut him short.
"There need be no 'dragging.' The young woman doubtless knows thebusiness situation as well as we do--he has probably told her all aboutit--and if she cares half as much for Smith as she seems to, she'll beglad to chip in and help to cool him down. We can be perfectly plain andoutspoken with her, I'm sure; she evidently knows Smith a whole lotbetter than we do. It's a chance, and we'd better try it. He's good forhalf an hour or so with those vouchers."
Two minutes later, Colonel Dexter Baldwin, with Stillings at his elbow,was at the clerk's desk in the Hophra House sending a card up to MissRichlander's rooms. Five minutes beyond that, the boy came back to saythat Miss Richlander was out auto-driving with Mr. and Mrs. Stanton. Theclerk, knowing Baldwin well, eyebrowed his regret and suggested a waitof a few minutes.
"They'll certainly be in before long," he said. "Mrs. Stanton has neverbeen known to miss the dinner hour since she came to us. She is aspunctual as the clock."
Baldwin, still ill at ease and reluctant, led the way to a pair ofchairs in the writing alcove of the lobby; two chairs commanding a clearview of the street entrance. Sitting down to wait with what patiencethey could summon, neither of the two men saw a gray automobile, drivenby a young woman, come to a stand before the entrance of the KinzieBuilding on the opposite side of the street. And, missing this, theymissed equally the sight of the young woman alighting from the machineand disappearing through the swinging doors opening into the bankbuilding's elevator lobby.
The Real Man Page 22