IX
Bedlam
It was between two and three o'clock in the afternoon of theday in which Mirapolis went placer mad when word came to theReclamation-Service headquarters that the power was cut off and thatthere were no longer men enough at the mixers and on the forms to keepthe work going if the power should come on again.
Handley, the new fourth assistant, brought the news, dropping heavilyinto a chair and shoving his hat to the back of his head to mop hisseamed and sun-browned face.
"Why the devil didn't you fellows turn out?" he demanded savagely ofLeshington, Anson, and Grislow, who were lounging in the office and verypointedly waiting for the lightning to strike. "Gassman and I have doneeverything but commit cold-blooded murder to hold the men on the job.Where's the boss?"
Nobody knew, and Grislow, at least, was visibly disturbed at thequestion. It was Anson who seemed to have the latest information aboutBrouillard.
"He came in about eleven o'clock, rummaged for a minute or two in thatdrawer you've got your foot on, Grizzy, and then went out again. Anybodyseen him since?"
There was a silence to answer the query, and the hydrographer rightedhis chair abruptly and closed the opened drawer he had been utilizingfor a foot-rest. He had a long memory for trifles, and at the mention ofthe drawer a disquieting picture had flashed itself upon the mentalscreen. There were two figures in the picture, Brouillard and himself,and Brouillard was tossing the little buckskin sack of gold nuggets intothe drawer, where it had lain undisturbed ever since--until now.
Moreover, Grislow's news of Brouillard, if he had seen fit to publishit, was later than Anson's. At one o'clock, or thereabout, the chief hadcome into the mapping room for a glance at the letters on his desk. Oneof the letters--a note in a square envelope--he had thrust into hispocket before going out.
"It looks as if the chief had gone with the crowd," said Leshington whenthe silence had grown almost portentous, "though that wouldn't be likehim. Has anybody found out yet who touched off the gold-mountedsky-rocket?"
Grislow came out of his brown study with a start. "Levy won't tell whogave him those nuggets to put in his window. I tried him. All he willsay is that the man who left the sample is perfectly reliable and thathe dictated the exact wording of the placard that did the business."
"I saw Harlan, of the _Spot-Light_, half an hour ago," cut in Anson."He's plumb raving crazy, like everybody else, but there is somethingfaintly resembling method in his madness. He figures it that wegovernment people are out of a job permanently; that with the discoveryof these placers--or, rather, with the practically certain rediscoveryof them by the mob--Mirapolis will jump to the front rank as a goldcamp, and the Reclamation Service will have to call a halt on theBuckskin project."
Leshington's long, plain-song face grew wooden. "You say 'practicallycertain.' The question is: Will they be rediscovered? Bet any of you abox of Poodles's Flor de near Havanas that it's some new kind of aflip-flap invented by J. Wesley and his boomers. What do you say?"
"Good Lord!" growled Handley. "They didn't need any new stunts. Theyhad the world by the ear, as it was."
"That's all right," returned Leshington; "maybe they didn't. I heard athing or two over at Bongras's last night that set me guessing. Therewas a piece of gossip coming up the pike about the railroad pulling outof the game, or, rather, that it had already pulled out."
Once more silence fell upon the group in the mapping room, and this timeit was Grislow who broke it.
"I suppose Harlan is getting ready to exploit the new sensation right?"he suggested, and Anson nodded.
"You can trust Harlan for that. He's got the valley wire subsidized, andhe is waiting for the first man to come in with the news of the surething and the location of it. When he gets the facts he'll touch off thefireworks, and the world will be invited to take a running jump for thenew Tonopah." Then, with sudden anxiety: "I wish to goodness Brouillardwould turn up and get busy on his job. It's something hideous to bestranded this way in the thick of a storm!"
"It's time somebody was getting busy," snarled Handley. "There are ahundred tons of fresh concrete lying in the forms, just as they weredumped--with no puddlers--to say nothing of half as much more freezingto solid rock right now in the mixers and on the telphers."
Grislow got up and reached for his coat and hat.
"I'm going out to hunt for the boss," he said, "and you fellows hadbetter do the same. If this is one of Cortwright's flip-flaps, andBrouillard happened to be in the way, I wouldn't put it beyond J. Wesleyto work some kind of a disappearing racket on the human obstacle."
The suggestion was carried out immediately by the three to whom it wasmade, but for a reason of his own the hydrographer contrived to be thelast to leave the mapping room. When he found himself alone he returnedhastily to the desk and pulled out the drawer of portents, rummaging init until he was fully convinced that the little buckskin bag of nuggetswas gone. Then, instead of following the others, he took a field-glassfrom its case on the wall and went to the south window to focus it uponthe Massingale cabin, standing out clear-cut and distinct in theafternoon sunlight on its high, shelf-like bench.
The powerful glass brought out two figures on the cabin porch, a womanand a man. The woman was standing and the man was sitting on the step.Grislow lowered the glass and slid the telescoping sun tubes home with asnap.
"Good God!" he mused, "it's unbelievable! He deliberately turns thisthing loose on us down here and then takes an afternoon off to go andmake love to a girl! He's crazy; it's the seven-year devil he talksabout. And nobody can help him; nobody--unless Amy can. Lord, Lord!"
The City of Numbered Days Page 9