XIII
Flood Tide
Public opinion, skilfully formed upon models fashioned in MayorCortwright's municipal laboratory, dealt handsomely with thelittle group of widely heralded visitors--the "Congressionalcommittee"--penetrating to the Wonder City, not by special train, to besure, but still with creditable circumstance in President Ford's privatecar "Nadia," attached to the regular express from Brewster.
For example, when it was whispered about, some days before theauspicious arrival, that the visiting lawmakers wished for no publicdemonstration of welcome, it was resolved, both in the city council andin the Commercial Club, that the wish should be rigidly respected.
Later, when there filtered out from the same secret source ofinformation a hint to the effect that the committee of investigation,for the better forming of an unbiassed opinion, desired to be regardedmerely as a body of representative citizens and the guests of MayorCortwright, and not as national legislators, this desire, too, wasrespected; and even Harlan, itching to his finger-tips for somethingdefinite to print in the _Spot-Light_, denied himself the bare,journalistic, bread-and-butter necessity of interviewing the lawmakers.
Safeguarded, then, by the loyal incuriosity of an entire city, thevisitors went about freely, were feted, dined, banqueted, andentertained as distinguished citizens of the Greater America; werepersonally conducted over the government work, and were autoed to theQuadjenai placers, to the upper valley, and to the canal diggers' campsin the Buckskin, all without prejudice to the official incognito whichit was understood they wished to preserve.
Hence, after the farewell banquet at the Commercial Club, at which eventhe toasts had ignored the official mission of Mayor Cortwright'sguests, when the "Nadia," reprovisioned and tastefully draped with thenational colors, was coupled to the outgoing train in the Chigringoyards, tingling curiosity still restrained itself, said nothing and didnothing until the train had stormed out on the beginning of its steepclimb to War Arrow Pass. Then the barriers went down. In less than halfan hour after the departure of the visitors, the _Spot-Light_ officewas besieged by eager tip hunters, and the Metropole cafe and lobby werethronged and buzzing like the compartments of an anxious beehive.
Harlan stood the pressure at the newspaper office as long as he could.Then he slipped out the back way and prevailed upon Bongras to smugglehim up to Mr. Cortwright's rooms. Here there was another anxiousdeputation in waiting, but Harlan's card was honored at once.
"News!" gasped the editor, when he had broken into the privacies."They're about to mob us over at the office, and the town will go crazyif it can't be given at least a hint of what the committee's report islikely to be. I tell you, Mr. Cortwright, it's panic, or the biggestboom we ever dreamed of!"
"Sit down, Harlan," said the great man calmly, pushing the open box ofcigars across the desk to the editor; "sit down and get a fresh grip onyour nerves. There will be no panic; of that you can be absolutelycertain. But, on the other hand, we mustn't kick the fat into the firewhen everything is going our way. Naturally, I am under bonds to keep mymouth shut until after the committee has made its report. I can't evengive you the hint you want. But I will say this--and you can put it inan interview if you like: I'm not refusing anything in the shape ofMirapolis realty at ruling prices. That's all I can say at present."
Harlan was hustled out, as he had been hustled in, half dazed and whollyin despair. There was a light in Brouillard's office on the sixth floorof the Niquoia Building, and thither he went, hoping against hope, forlatterly the chief of the Reclamation Service had been more than usuallyreticent.
"What do you know, Brouillard?" was the form his demand took when,finding that the elevator had stopped, he had dragged himself up thefive flights of stairs. "I'm up against it good and hard if I can'tprint something in to-morrow's paper."
"Go to Cortwright," suggested the engineer. "He's your man."
"Just come from him, and I couldn't get a thing there except hisadmission that he is buying instead of selling."
"Well, what more do you want? Haven't you any imagination?"
"Plenty of it, and, by Gad, I'm going to use it unless you put it tosleep! Tell me a few correlative things, Brouillard, and I'll make anoise like going away. Is it true that you've had orders fromWashington within the past few days to cut your force on the dam onehalf?"
The engineer was playing with the paper-knife, absently marking littlecircles and ellipses on his desk blotter, and the ash on his cigar grewa full quarter of an inch before he replied:
"Not for publication, Harlan, I'm sorry to say."
"But you have the order?"
"Yes."
"Do you know the reason why it was given?"
"I do."
"Is it a good reason?"
"It is a very excellent reason, indeed."
"Does the order cover more than the work on the dam?"
"Yes; it extends to the canal diggers in the Buckskin."
"Good. Then I'll ask only one more question, and if you answer it at allI know you'll tell me the truth: are you, individually, buying orselling on the Real Estate Exchange? Take your time, Brouillard, but,for God's sake, don't turn me down."
Brouillard did take time, plenty of it. Over and over the point of thepaper-knife traced the creased circles and ellipses, and the ash on theslowly burning cigar grew longer. Harlan was a student of men, but hispresent excitement was against him. Otherwise he could not have staredso long and so intently at Brouillard's face without reading therein therecord of the soul struggle his final question had evoked. And if he hadread, he would have interpreted differently the quick flinging down ofthe paper-cutter, and the sudden hardening of the jaw muscles whenBrouillard spoke.
"I'm buying, Harlan; when I sell it is only to buy again."
The newspaper man rose and held out his hand.
"You're a man and a brother, Brouillard, and I'm your friend for life.With only a fraction of your chance at inside information, I've stayedon the up-hill side, straight through, myself. And I'll tell you why.I've banked on you. I've said to myself that it was safe for me to wadearound in the edges if you could plunge out in the sure-enoughswimming-hole. I'm going to stay until you give me the high sign tocrawl out on the bank. Is that asking too much?"
"No. If the time ever comes when I have anything to say, I'll say it toyou. But don't lose sight of the 'if,' and don't lean too hard on me.I'm a mighty uncertain quantity these days, Harlan, and that's thetruest thing I've told you since you butted in. Good-night."
Mirapolis awoke to a full sense of its opportunities on the morningfollowing the departure of its distinguished guests. Though the_Spot-Light_ was unable to say anything conclusively definite, Harlanhad made the most of what he had; and, trickling in from a dozenindependent sources, as it seemed, came jubilant confirmation of the_Spot-Light's_ optimistic editorials.
In such a crisis all men are liars. Now that the visiting delegation wasgone, there were scores of witnesses willing to testify that theHonorable Tom, Dick, or Harry had dropped the life-giving word; andthough each fictionist knew that his own story was a fabrication, it wasonly human to believe that of the man with whom he exchanged thewhispered confidence.
To the lies and the exaggerations was presently added a most convincingtruth. By ten o'clock it was the talk of the lobbies, the club, and theexchanges that the Reclamation Service was already abandoning the workon the great dam. One half of the workmen were to be discharged at once,and doubtless the other half would follow as soon as the orders couldcome from Washington.
Appealed to by a mob of anxious inquirers, Brouillard did not deny thefact of the discharges, and thereupon the city went mad in a furor ofspeculative excitement in comparison with which the orgy of the golddiscoverers paled into insignificance. "Curb" exchanges sprang intobeing in the Metropole lobby, in the court of the Niquoia Building, andat a dozen street corners on the Avenue. Word went to the placers, andby noon the miners had left their sluice-boxes and were pouring intotown to
buy options at prices that would have staggered the wildestplunger otherwhere, or at any other time.
Brouillard closed his desk at one o'clock and went to fight his waythrough the street pandemonium to Bongras's. At a table in the rear roomhe found David Massingale, his long, white beard tucked into the closelybuttoned miner's coat to be out of the way of the flying knife and fork,while he gave a lifelike imitation of a man begrudging every second oftime wasted in stopping the hunger gap.
Brouillard took the opposite chair and was grimly amused at the lengthof time that elapsed before Massingale realized his presence.
"Pity a man has to stop to eat on a day like this, isn't it, Mr.Massingale?" he laughed; and then: "I wouldn't hurry. There's anotherday coming; or if there isn't, we'll all be in the same boat. How isSteve?"
Massingale nodded. "The boy's comin' along all right now; he allows tobe out in another week 'r two." Then the inevitable question: "They'resayin' on the street that you're lettin' out half o' your men--that so?"
Brouillard laughed again.
"I've heard it so often that I've come to believe it myself," headmitted, adding: "Yes, it's true." After which he asked a question ofhis own: "Have you been doing something in real estate this morning, Mr.Massingale?"
"All I could," mumbled the old man between mouthfuls. "But I cayn't domuch. If it ain't one thing, it's another. 'Bout as soon as I got thattangle with the Red Butte smelter straightened out, the railroad hitme."
"How was that?" queried Brouillard, with quickening interest comingalive at a bound.
"Same old song, no cars; try and get 'em to-morruh, and to-morruh it'llbe next day, and next day it'll be the day after. Looks like they don't_want_ to haul any freight _out_ o' here."
"I see," said Brouillard, and truly he saw much more than DavidMassingale did. Then: "No shipments means no money for you, and moredelay; and delay happens to be the one thing you can't stand. When dothose notes of yours fall due?"
"Huh?" said Massingale. He was a close-mouthed man, by breeding and byhabit, and he was quite sure he had never mentioned the "Little Susan"entanglement to the young engineer.
Brouillard became more explicit. "The notes covering your indebtednessto the bank for the money you've been putting into development work andimprovements--I asked when they would become due."
The old man's heavy white eyebrows bent themselves in a perplexed frown.
"Amy hadn't ort to talk so much," he objected. "Business is business."
Brouillard's smile was a tacit denial of the implication.
"You forget that there were several other parties to the transaction andthat any man's business is every man's in this crazy town," hesuggested. "But you haven't answered my question about the due date. Ididn't ask it out of idle curiosity, I assure you."
Massingale was troubled, and his fine old face showed it plainly.
"I ain't much of a man to holler when I've set the woods afire myself,"he answered slowly. "But I don't know why I shouldn't yip a little toyou if I feel like it. To-day is the last day on them notes, and I'dabout made up my mind that I was goin' up the spout on a sure thing forthe fourth time since I hit the mount'ins, when this here new excitementbroke out."
"Go on," said Brouillard.
"I saw a chance--about a one-to-a-hundred shot. I'd been to see Hardwickat the bank, and he gave me the ultimaytum good and cold; if I couldn'tlift the paper, the bank'd have to go back on my indorser, John Wes. Ihad a little over five thousand left out o' the borray, and I took itand broke for the Real Estate Exchange. Been there for three solidhours, turnin' my little stake over like a flapjack on a hot griddle;but it ain't any use, I cayn't turn it fast enough, 'r often enough,betwixt now and three o'clock."
One of Bongras's rear-room luxuries was a portable telephone for everygroup of tables. Brouillard made a sign to the waiter, and the desk setwas brought to him. If David Massingale recognized the number asked for,he paid no attention; and, since a man may spend his life digging holesin the ground and still retain the instincts of a gentleman--if hehappens to have been born with them--he was equally oblivious to thedisjointed half of the telephone conversation he might have listened to.
"Hello! Is that Boyer--Niquoia National?... This is Brouillard. Can yougive me my present figure?... Not more than that?... Oh, yes; you saythe Hillman check is in; I had overlooked it. All right, thank you."
When the waiter had removed the desk set, the engineer leaned toward histable companion:
"Mr. Massingale, I'm going to ask you to tell me frankly what kind of adeal it was you made with Cortwright and the bank people."
"It was the biggest tom-fool razzle that any livin' live man out of alunatic 'sylum ever went into," confessed the prisoner of fate. "I wasto stock the 'Susan' for half a million--oh, she's worth it, everydollar of it; you might say the ore's in sight for it right now"--thisin deference to Brouillard's brow-lifting of surprise. "They was to putin a hundred thousand cash, and I was to put in the mine and the ore onthe dump, just as she stood."
The engineer nodded and Massingale went on.
"I was to have two thirds of the stock and they was to have one third.The hundred thousand for development we'd get at the bank, on my notes,because I was president and the biggest stockholder, with John Wes. asindorser. Then, to protect the bank accordin' to law, they said, we'dput the whole bunch o' stock--mine and their'n--into escrow in the handsof Judge Williams. When the notes was paid, the judge'd hand the stockback to us."
"Just a moment," interrupted Brouillard. "Did you sign those notespersonally, or as president of the new company?"
"That's where they laid for me," said the old man shamefacedly. "We madethe money turn before we _was_ a company--while we was waitin' for thecharter."
"Of course," commented Brouillard. "And they rushed you into it on theplea of saving time. But you say the stock was to be released when thenotes were paid--what was to happen if they were not paid?"
"Right there is where John Wes.'s ten-dollar-a-bottle sody-pop stuff wewas soppin' up must 'a' foolished me plumb silly; I don't just rightlyrecollect _what_ the judge was to do with the stock if I fell down. Iknow it was talked all 'round Robin Hood's barn, up one side and downthe other, and they made it look like I couldn't slip up if I tried to.And they made the borray at the bank look fair enough, too."
"Well, why wasn't it fair?" Brouillard wanted to know.
"Why, sufferin' Moses! don't you see? It hadn't ort to 've been needed._They_ was to put in a hundred thousand, and they wasn't doin' it. Itfiggered out this-a-way in the talk: they said, what's the use o' takin'the money out o' one pocket and puttin' it into the other? Let the bankcarry the development loan and let the mine pay it. Then we could evenup when it come to the dividends."
"So it amounts to this: you have given them a clean third of the 'Susan'for the mere privilege of borrowing one hundred thousand dollars on yourown paper. And if you don't pay, you lose the remaining two thirds aswell."
"That's about the way it stacks up to a sober man. Looks like I needed ajanitor to look after my upper story, don't it? And I reckon mebby Ido."
"One thing more," pressed the relentless querist. "Did you really handlethe hundred-thousand-dollar development fund yourself, Mr. Massingale?"
"Well, no; not exactly. Ten thousand dollars of what they called a'contingent fund' was put in my name; but the treasurer handled most ofit--nachurly, we bein' a stock company."
"Who is your treasurer?"
"Feller with just one share o' stock--Parker Jackson."
"Humph! Cortwright's private secretary. And he has spent ninety thousanddollars on the 'Little Susan' in sixty days? Not much! What has yourpay-roll been?"
"'Bout five hundred a week."
"That is to say between three and four thousand dollars for the twomonths--call it five thousand. Now, let's see--" Brouillard took out hispencil and began to make figures on the back of the _menu_ card. He knewthe equipment of the "Little Susan," and his specialty was the maki
ng ofestimates. Hence he was able to say, after a minute or two of figuring:
"Thirty thousand dollars will amply cover your new equipment: powerdrills, electric transfers, and the cheap telpherage plant. Have youever seen any vouchers for the money spent?"
"No. Had I ort to?"
"Well, rather--as president of the company."
Massingale tucked the long white beard still farther into the buttonedcoat. "I been tellin' you I need a mule-driver to knock a little senseinto me," he offered.
"It's a bad business any way you attack it," said Brouillard after areflective pause. "What you have really got for yourself out of the dealis the ten-thousand-dollar deposit to your personal account, and nothingmore; and they'll probably try to make you a debtor for that. Takingthat amount and a fair estimate of the company's expenditures todate--say thirty-five thousand in round numbers, which is fairlychargeable to the company's assets as a whole--they still owe you aboutfifty-five thousand of the original hundred thousand they were to putin. If there were time--but you say this is the last day?"
"The last half o' the last day," Massingale amended.
"I was going to say, if there were time, this thing wouldn't stand thelight of day for a minute, Mr. Massingale. They wouldn't go within ahundred miles of a court of law with it. Can't you get an extension onthe notes?--but of course you can't; that is just the one thingCortwright doesn't want you to have--more time."
"No; you bet he don't."
"That being the case, there is no help for it; you'll have to take yourmedicine and pay the notes. Do that, take an iron-clad receipt from thebank--I'll write it out for you--and get the stock released. After that,we'll give them a whirl for the thirty-three and a third per cent theyhave practically stolen from you."
The old man's face, remindful now of his daughter's, was a picture ofdismayed incertitude.
"I reckon you're forgettin' that I hain't got money enough to lift oneedge o' them notes," he said gently.
Brouillard had found a piece of blank paper in his pocket and wasrapidly writing the "iron-clad" receipt.
"No, I hadn't forgotten. I have something over a hundred thousanddollars lying idle in the bank. You'll take it and pay the notes."
It was a bolt out of a clear sky for the old man tottering on the brinkof his fourth pit of disaster, and he evinced his emotion--and the tensestrain of keyed-up nerves--by dropping his lifted coffee-cup with acrash into his plate. The little accident was helpful in its way,--itmade a diversion,--and by the time the wreck was repaired speech waspossible.
"Are you--are you _plumb_ sure you can spare it?" asked the debtorhuskily. And then: "I cayn't seem to sort o' surround it--all in abunch, that way. I knowed J. Wesley had me down; knowed it in less 'n aweek after he sprung his trap. He wanted the 'Little Sue,' wanted itworse 'n a little yaller dog ever wanted his supper. Do you know why? Ican tell you. After you get your dam done, and every dollar of themake-believe money this cussed town's built on has gone to the bottom o'the Dead Sea, the 'Susan' will still be joggin' along, forty dollars tothe ton. It's the only piece o' real money in this whole blamedfree-for-all, and J. Wes. knows it."
Brouillard looked at his watch. "When you're through we'll go around tothe bank and fix it up. There's no hurry. I've got to ride down to theBuckskin camps, but I don't care to start much before two."
Massingale nodded, but his appetite was gone, and speech with it, theone grateful outburst having apparently drained the well. But after theyhad made their way through the excited sidewalk exchanges to the bank,and Brouillard had written his check, the old man suddenly found hisvoice again.
"You say you're goin' down to the Buckskin right away? How 'm I goin' tosecure you for this?"
"We can talk about that later on, after I come back. The thing to donow is to get those notes cancelled and that stock released beforebank-closing time."
Still David Massingale, with the miraculously sent bit of rescue paperin his hand, hesitated.
"There's one other thing--and I've got to spit it out before it'severlastedly too late. See here, Victor Brouillard--Amy likesyou--thinks a heap of you; a plumb blind man could see that. But say,that little girl o' mine has just natchurly _got_ to have a free handwhen it comes to pairin' up, and she won't never have if she finds outabout this. You ain't allowin' to use it on her, Victor?"
Brouillard laughed.
"I'll make a hedging bet and break even with you, Mr. Massingale," hesaid. "That check is drawn to my order, and I have indorsed it. Let mehave it again and I'll get the cash for you. In that way only the two ofus need know anything about the transaction; and if I promise to keepthe secret from Miss Amy, you must promise to keep it from Mr. J. WesleyCortwright. Will you saw it off with me that way?--until you've made theturn on the ore sales?"
David Massingale shook hands on it with more gratitude, colored thistime with a hearty imprecation. "Dad burn you, Victor Brouillard,you're a man--ever' single mill-run of you!" he burst out. ButBrouillard shook his head gravely.
"No, Mr. Massingale, I'm the little yellow dog you mentioned a whileback," he asserted, and then he went to get the money.
The check cashed and the transfer of the money made, Brouillard did notwait to see Massingale astonish the Niquoia National cashier. Nor did heremark the curious change that came into the old man's face at thepocketing of the thick sheaf of bank-notes. But he added a word ofcomment and another of advice before leaving the bank.
"The day fits us like a glove," was the comment. "With all the moneythat is changing hands in the street, Hardwick won't wonder at yoursudden raise or at my check." Then he put in the word of warning: "Isuppose you'll be dabbling a little in Mirapolis options after you getthis note business out of the way? It's all right--I'd probably do itmyself if I didn't have to leave town. But just one word in your ear,Mr. Massingale: buy and _sell--don't hold_. That's all. Good-by, andgood luck to you."
Left alone in the small retiring room of the bank where the business hadbeen transacted, David Massingale took the sheaf of bank-notes from hispocket with trembling hands, fondling it as a miser might. The billswere in large denominations, and they were new and stiff. He thumbed theend of the thick packet as one runs the leaves of a book, and the flyingsuccession of big figures seemed to dazzle him. There was an outer doorto the customers' room giving upon the side street; it was the onethrough which Brouillard had passed. Twice the old man made as if hewould turn toward the door of egress, and the light in his gray-blueeyes was the rekindling flame of a passion long denied. But in the endhe thrust the tempting sheaf back into the inner pocket and wentresolutely to the cashier's counter window.
Expecting to have to do with Hardwick, the brusque and business-likecashier, Massingale was jarred a little aside from his own predeterminedattitude by finding Schermerhorn, the president, sitting at thecashier's desk. But from the banker's first word the change seemed to bealtogether for the better.
"How are you, Mr. Massingale? Glad to see you. How is the boy gettingalong? First rate, I hope?"
Massingale was looking from side to side, like a gray old hawkdisappointed in its swoop. It would have been some satisfaction tobuffet the exacting Hardwick with the fistful of money. But withSchermerhorn the note lifting would figure as a mere bit of routine.
"I've come to take up them notes o' mine with John Wes.'s name on 'em,"Massingale began, pulling out the thick sheaf of redemption money.
"Oh, yes; let me see; are they due to-day?" said the president, runningover the note portfolio.
Massingale nodded.
"H'm, yes, here they are. Brought the cash, did you? The 'Little Susan'has begun to pan out, has it? I didn't know you had commenced shippingore yet."
"We haven't." David Massingale made the admission and regretted it inone and the same breath.
"You've borrowed to meet these notes?" queried the president, looking upquickly. "That won't do, Mr. Massingale; that won't do at all. We can'tafford to lose an old customer that way. What's the matter with
ourmoney? Doesn't it look good to you any more?"
Massingale stammered out something about Cashier Hardwick's peremptorydemand of a few hours earlier, but he was not permitted to finish.
"Of course, that is all right from Hardwick's point of view. He wasmerely looking out for the maturing paper. How much more time will youneed to enable you to get returns from your shipments? Sixty days? Allright, you needn't make out new notes; I'll indorse the extension on theback of these, and I'll undertake to get Cortwright's approval myself.No; not a word, Mr. Massingale. As long as you're borrowing, you must beloyal and borrow of us. Good afternoon. Come again when we can help youout."
David Massingale turned away, dazed and confused beyond the power ofspeech. When the mists of astoundment cleared he found himself in thestreet with the thick wad of bank-notes still in his pocket. Suddenly,out of the limbo into which two years of laborious discipline andself-denial had pushed it stalked the demon of the ruling passion,mighty, overpowering, unconquerable. The familiar street sights dancedbefore Massingale's eyes, and there was a drumming in his ears like thefall of many waters. But above the clamor rose the insistent voice ofthe tempter, and the voice was at once a command and an entreaty, agnawing hunger and a parching thirst.
"By Gash! I'd like to try that old system o' mine jest one more time!"he muttered. "All it takes is money enough to foller it up and _stay_.And I've _got_ the money. Besides, didn't Brouillard say I was to get anextension if I could?"
He grabbed at his coat to be sure that the packet was still there, tooktwo steps toward the bank, stopped, turned as if in the grasp of aninvisible but irresistible captor, and moved away, like a man walking inhis sleep, toward the lower Avenue.
It was the doorway of Haley's Place, the Monte Carlo of the Niquoia,that finally halted him. Here the struggle was so fierce that thebartender, who knew him, named it sickness and led the stricken one to acard-table in the public bar-room and fetched him a drink. A singleswallow of whiskey turned the scale. Massingale rose, tossed a coin tothe bar, and passed quickly to the rear, where a pair of baize doorsopened silently and engulfed him.
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