Wild Western Tales 2: 101 Classic Western Stories Vol. 2 (Civitas Library Classics)

by Various

  On the tenth of May he received a cablegram in his own official cipher which, translated, read:

  Meet Sir Thomas Drummond, Chairman Royal Barrata Bridge Commission, arriving Cunard Liner Campania, thirteenth, stopping Waldorf. Arrange personally Barrata contract. Caution.

  The cablegram was unsigned, but its address, "Atwylie," betrayed not only its destination, but also the identity of its sender. Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., became tremendously excited. The last word conjured up bewildering possibilities. He was about to consult his associates when it struck him that the greatest caution he could possibly observe would consist of holding his own tongue now and henceforth. They had seen fit to criticize his handling of the matter thus far; he decided he would play safe and say nothing until he had first seen Sir Thomas Drummond and learned the lay of the land. He imagined he might then have something electrifying to tell them. He had "dealt from the bottom" too often, he had closed too many bridge contracts in his time, to mistake the meaning of this visit, or of that last word "caution."

  During the next few days Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., had hard work to hold himself in, and he was at a high state of nervous tension when, on the morning of the fourteenth day of May, he strolled into the Waldorf-Astoria and inquired at the desk for Sir Thomas Drummond.

  There was no Sir Thomas stopping at the hotel, although a Mr. T. Drummond from London had arrived on the Campania the day before. Mr. Jackson Wylie placed the heel of his right shoe upon the favorite corn of his left foot and bore down upon it heavily. He must be getting into his dotage, he reflected, or else the idea of a five-million-dollar job had him rattled. Of course Sir Thomas would not use his title.

  At the rear desk he had his card blown up through the tube to "Mr. T.

  Drummond," and a few moments later was invited to take the elevator.

  Arriving at the sixth floor, he needed no page to guide him; boots pointed his way to the apartment of the distinguished visitor as plainly as a lettered sign-board; boots of all descriptions—hunting-boots, riding-boots, street shoes, lowshoes, pumps, sandals—black ones and tan ones—all in a row outside the door. It was a typically English display. Evidently Sir Thomas Drummond was a personage of the most extreme importance and traveled in befitting style, Mr. Wylie told himself. Nothing was missing from the collection, unless perhaps a pair of rubber hip-boots.

  A stoop-shouldered old man with a marked accent and a port-wine nose showed Mr. Wylie into a parlor where the first object upon which his active eyes alighted was a mass of blue-prints. He knew these drawings; he had figured on them himself. He likewise noted a hat-box and a great, shapeless English bag, both plastered crazily with hotel and steamship labels hailing from every quarter of the world. It was plain to be seen that Sir Thomas was a globe-trotter.

  "Mr. Drummond begs you to be seated," the valet announced, with what seemed an unnecessary accent on the "mister," then moved silently out.

  Mr. Wylie remarked to himself upon the value of discreet servants. They were very valuable; very hard to get in America. This must be some lifelong servitor in his lordship's family.

  There was no occasion to inquire the identity of the tall, florid

  Englishman in tweeds who entered a moment later, a bundle of estimates

  in his hand. "Sir Thomas Drummond, Chairman of the Royal Barrata

  Bridge Commission," was written all over him in large type.

  His lordship did not go to the trouble of welcoming his visitor, but scanned him frigidly through his glasses.

  "You are Mr. Jackson Wylie, Senior?" he demanded, abruptly.

  "That is my name."

  "President of the Atlantic Bridge Company, of Newark, New Jersey?"

  "The same."

  "You received a cablegram from your son in London?"

  "Yes, your lordship."

  Sir Thomas made a gesture as if to forego the title. "Let me see it, please."

  Mr. Wylie produced the cablegram, and Drummond scanned it sharply.

  Evidently the identification was complete.

  "Does any one besides your son and yourself know the contents of this message?"

  "Not a soul."

  "You have not told any one of my coming?"

  "No, sir!"

  "Very well." Sir Thomas appeared to breathe easier; he deliberately tore the cablegram into small bits, then tossed the fragments into a wastepaper basket before waving his caller to a chair. He still remained very cold, very forceful, although his stiff formality had vanished.

  "Do you understand all about this bridge?" he inquired.

  Wylie senior took the cue of brusqueness and nodded shortly.

  "Can you build it in the time specified?"

  "With ease."

  "Have you submitted your bid?"

  "Not yet. I—"

  "What is the amount of your proposal?"

  The president of the Atlantic Bridge Company gasped. This was the boldest, the coldest work he had ever experienced. Many times he had witnessed public officials like Sir Thomas Drummond approach this delicate point, but never with such composure, such matter-of-fact certainty and lack of moral scruple. Evidently, however, this Englishman had come to trade and wanted a direct answer. There was no false pose, no romance here. But Jackson Wylie, Sr., was too shrewd a business man to name a rock-bottom price to begin with. The training of a lifetime would not permit him to deny himself a liberal leeway for hedging, therefore he replied, cautiously:

  "My figures will be approximately £1,400,000 sterling." It was his longest speech thus far.

  For what seemed an hour to the bridge-builder Sir Thomas Drummond gazed at him with a cold, hard eye, then he folded his papers, rolled up his blue-prints, placed them in the big traveling-bag, and carefully locked it. When he had finished he flung out this question suddenly:

  "Does that include the Commissioners?"

  Up to this point Mr. Jackson Wylie had spoken mainly in monosyllables; now he quit talking altogether; it was no longer necessary. He merely shook his head in negation. He was smiling slightly.

  "Then I shall ask you to add £200,000 sterling to your price," his lordship calmly announced. "Make your bid £1,600,000 sterling, and mail it in time for Wednesday's boat. I sail on the same ship. Proposals will be opened on the twenty-fifth. Arrange for an English indemnity bond for ten per cent. of your proposition. Do not communicate in any manner whatsoever with your son, except to forward the sealed bid to him. He is not to know of our arrangement. You will meet me in London later; we will take care of that £200,000 out of the last forty per cent. of the contract price, which is payable thirty days after completion, inspection, and acceptance of the bridge. You will not consult your associates upon leaving here. Do I make myself clear? Very well, sir. The figures are easy to remember: £1,600,000; £1,400,000 to you. I am pleased with the facilities your plant offers for doing the work. I am confident you can complete the bridge on time, and I beg leave to wish you a very pleasant good day."

  Jackson Wylie, Sr., did not really come to until he had reached the street; even then he did not know whether he had come down the elevator or through the mail-chute. Of one thing only was he certain: he was due to retire in favor of his son. He told himself that he needed a trip through the Holy Land with a guardian and a nursing-bottle; then he paused on the curb and stamped on his corn for a second time.

  "Oh, what an idiot I am!" he cried, savagely. "I could have gotten £1,600,000 to start with, but—by gad, Sir Thomas is the coldest-blooded thing I ever went against! I—I can't help but admire him."

  Having shown a deplorable lack of foresight, Mr. Wylie determined to make up for it by an ample display of hindsight. If the profits on the job were not to be so large as they might have been, he would at least make certain of them by obeying instructions to the letter. In accordance with this determination, he made out the bid himself, and he mailed it with his own hand that very afternoon. He put three blue stamps on the envelope, although it required but two. Then he called u
p an automobile agency and ordered a foreign town-car his wife had admired. He decided that she and the girls might go to Paris for the fall shopping—he might even go with them, in view of that morning's episode.

  For ten days he stood the pressure, then on the morning of the twenty-fourth he called his confrères into the directors' room, that same room in which young Hanford had made his talk a number of years before. Inasmuch as it was too late now for a disclosure to affect the opening of the bids in London, he felt absolved from his promise to Sir Thomas.

  "Gentlemen, I have the honor to inform you," he began, pompously, "that the Barrata Bridge is ours! We have the greatest structural steel job of the decade." His chest swelled with justifiable pride.

  "How? When? What do you mean?" they cried.

  He told them of his mysterious but fruitful interview at the Waldorf ten days previously, enjoying their expressions of amazement to the full; then he explained in considerable detail the difficulties he had surmounted in securing such liberal figures from Sir Thomas.

  "We were ready to take the contract for £1,300,000, as you will remember, but by the exercise of some diplomacy"—he coughed modestly—"I may say, by the display of some firmness and independence, I succeeded in securing a clean profit of $500,000 over what we had expected." He accepted, with becoming diffidence, the congratulations which were showered upon him. Of course, the news created a sensation, but it was as nothing to the sensation that followed upon the receipt of a cablegram the next day which read:

  ATWYLIE,

  Newark, New Jersey.

  Terrible mistake somewhere. We lost. Am coming home to-day.

  Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., also went home that day—by carriage, for, after raving wildly of treachery, after cursing the name of some English nobleman, unknown to most of the office force, he collapsed, throwing his employees into much confusion. There were rumors of an apoplectic stroke; some one telephoned for a physician; but the president of the Atlantic Bridge Company only howled at the latter when he arrived.

  What hit the old man hardest was the fact that he could not explain to his associates—that he could not even explain to himself, for that matter. He could make neither head nor tail of the affair; his son was on the high seas and could not be reached; the mystery of the whole transaction threatened to unseat his reason. Even when his sorrowing heir arrived, a week after the shock, the father could gather nothing at first except the bare details.

  All he could learn was that the Royal Barrata Bridge Commission had met on the twenty-fifth day of May, for the second time in its history, with Sir Thomas Drummond in the chair. In the midst of an ultra-British solemnity the bids had been opened and read—nine of them—two Belgian, one German, two French, one English, one Scottish, and two American.

  The only proposals that conformed to the specifications in every respect were the last named. They were perfect. The Atlantic Bridge Company, of Newark, New Jersey, offered to do the work as specified for £1,600,000 sterling. The Patterson Bridge Company, through its authorized agent, Mr. Henry Hanford, named a price of £1,550,000. The rest was but a matter of detail.

  Having concluded this bald recital, Jackson Wylie, the Second, spread his hands in a gesture of despair. "I can't understand it," he said, dolefully. "I thought I had it cinched all the time."

  "You had it cinched!" bellowed his father. "You! Why, you ruined it all! Why in hell did you send him over here?"

  "I? Send who? What are you talking about?"

  "That man with the boots! That lying, thieving scoundrel, Sir Thomas

  Drummond, of course."

  The younger Wylie's face showed blank, uncomprehending amazement. "Sir Thomas Drummond was in London all the time I was there. I saw him daily," said he.

  Not until this very moment did the president of the Atlantic Bridge Company comprehend the trap he had walked into, but now the whole hideous business became apparent. He had been fooled, swindled, and in a way to render recourse impossible; nay, in a manner to blacken his reputation if the story became public. He fell actually ill from the passion of his rage and not even a long rest from the worries of business completely cured him. The bitter taste of defeat would not down. He might never have understood the matter thoroughly had it not been for a missive he received one day through the mail. It was a bill from a London shoe-store for twelve pairs of boots, of varying styles, made out to Henry Hanford, and marked "paid."

  Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., noted with unspeakable chagrin that the last word was heavily under-scored in ink, as if by another hand. Hanford's bill was indeed paid, and with interest to date.

  Contents

  THE SPIRIT OF THE RANGE

  By B.M. Bower

  Cal Emmett straightened up with his gloved hand pressed tight against the small of his back, sighed "Hully Gee!" at the ache of his muscles and went over to the water bucket and poured a quart or so of cool, spring water down his parched throat. The sun blazed like a furnace with the blower on, though it was well over towards the west; the air was full of smoke, dust and strong animal odors, and the throaty bawling of many cattle close-held. For it was nearing the end of spring round-up, and many calves were learning, with great physical and mental distress, the feel of a hot iron properly applied. Cal shouted to the horse-wrangler that the well had gone dry--meaning the bucket--and went back to work.

  "I betche we won't git through in time for no picnic," predicted Happy Jack gloomily, getting the proper hold on the hind leg of a three-months-old calf. "They's three hundred to decorate yet, if they's one; and it'll rain--"

  "You're batty," Cal interrupted. "Uh course we'll get through--we've got to; what d'yuh suppose we've been tearing the bone out for the last three weeks for?"

  Chip, with a foot braced against the calf's shoulder, ran a U on its ribs with artistic precision. Chip's Flying U's were the pride of the whole outfit; the Happy Family was willing at any time, to bet all you dare that Chip's brands never varied a quarter-inch in height, width or position. The Old Man and Shorty had been content to use a stamp, as prescribed by law; but Chip Bennett scorned so mechanical a device and went on imperturbably defying the law with his running iron--and the Happy Family gloated over his independence and declared that they would sure deal a bunch of misery to the man that reported him. His Flying U's were better than a stamp, anyhow, they said, and it was a treat to watch the way he slid them on, just where they'd do the most good.

  "I'm going home, after supper," he said, giving just the proper width to the last curve of the two-hundredth U he had made that afternoon. "I promised Dell I'd try and get home to-night, and drive over to the picnic early to-morrow. She's head push on the grub-pile, I believe, and wants to make sure there's enough to go around. There's about two hundred and fifty calves left. If you can't finish up to-night, it'll be your funeral."

  "Well, I betche it'll rain before we git through--it always does, when you don't want it to," gloomed Happy, seizing another calf.

  "If it does," called Weary, who was branding--with a stamp--not far away, "if it does, Happy, we'll pack the bossies into the cook-tent and make Patsy heat the irons in the stove. Don't yuh cry, little boy--we'll sure manage somehow."

  "Aw yes--you wouldn't see nothing to worry about, not if yuh was being paid for it. They's a storm coming--any fool can see that; and she's sure going to come down in large chunks. We ain't got this amatoor hell for nothing! Yuh won't want to do no branding in the cook-tent, nor no place else. I betche--"

  "Please," spoke up Pink, coiling afresh the rope thrown off a calf he had just dragged up to Cal and Happy Jack, "won't somebody lend me a handkerchief? I want to gag Happy; he's working his hoodoo on us again."

  Happy Jack leered up at him, consciously immune--for there was no time for strife of a physical nature, and Happy knew it. Everyone was working his fastest.

  "Hoodoo nothing! I guess maybe yuh can't see that bank uh thunderheads. I guess your sight's poor, straining your eyes towards the Fourth uh July ever since Ch
ristmas. If yuh think yuh can come Christian Science act on a storm, and bluff it down jest by sayin' it ain't there, you're away off. I ain't that big a fool; I--" he trailed into profane words, for the calf he was at that minute holding showed a strong inclination to plant a foot in Happy's stomach.

  Cal Emmett glanced over his shoulder, grunted a comprehensive refutation of Happy Jack's fears and turned his whole attention to work. The branding proceeded steadily, with the hurry of skill that makes each motion count something done; for though not a man of them except Happy Jack would have admitted it, the Happy Family was anxious. With two hundred and fifty calves to be branded in the open before night, on the third day of July; with a blistering sun sapping the strength of them and a storm creeping blackly out of the southwest; with a picnic tugging their desires and twenty-five long prairie miles between them and the place appointed, one can scarce wonder that even Pink and Weary--born optimists, both of them--eyed the west anxiously when they thought no one observed them. Under such circumstances, Happy Jack's pessimism came near being unbearable; what the Happy Family needed most was encouragement.