Chapter 27

WITHOUT COUNTING THE COST

There had been a revival of speculation in industrial enterprise, and it was unusually late at night when Miss Townshead rose wearily from the table she had been busy at. Her eyes ached, her fingers and arms were cramped, but that did not distress her greatly, for Townshead needed many comforts, and she was earning what would have been considered in England a liberal salary. It was very quiet in the room at the top of the towering building, where, however, another young woman, who as it happened was jealous of her companion's progress, still sat writing, and a light blinked in the adjoining one across the passage in which one of the heads of the firm would probably remain most of the night. Trade is spasmodic in the West, and those who live by it work with feverish activity when the tide is with them.

"You're through?" said Miss Holder. "Well, if you can wait ten minutes I'll come along with you."

Nellie Townshead was not especially fond of her companion, but at that hour the streets were lonely, and she sat down again when she had put on her hat and jacket. While she waited a little bell began to ring, and Miss Holder rose with an impatient exclamation.

"Get your pencil, Nellie," she said, as she took the telephonic receiver down from the hook.

Miss Townshead took a sheet of paper from a case, and waited until her companion spoke again. "Oh, yes, I'm here. A little late to worry tired folks, isn't it? No. Mr. Hallam's away just now. Wire from Somasco just come in--and we're to let him have it as soon as we can. Oh, yes, I understand you. 'Platinum, galena, cyanide, Alton, oxide. In a vise.' You've got that, Nellie? Do I know when Hallam will get it? No, I don't. Good-night."

Now a man would probably have at once enclosed the message in an envelope, but a Western business lady not infrequently takes a kindly interest in the private concerns of her employer, especially if they are not quite clear to her. Accordingly Miss Holder sat down and read over the message, after which she shook her head.

"I wonder what it's all about, and I don't like that Hallam," she said. "He's an insect. A crawling one with slimy feet, and to pin a big diamond in front of one as he does is horrible taste. Give me the book, Nellie. It reads like our cypher. Oh, yes. 'Instructions to hand. No legal improvements done and claim unrecorded. Will relocate.' Now we've nothing that silver stands for, and it reads quite straight. 'Will relocate the silver claim as soon as prospecting is possible. Alton cannot take action.' He means he's got him in a vise."

Miss Holder crossed the landing and tapped at the door of the adjoining room, while Nellie Townshead walked to the window and looked down on the city. It stretched away before her, silent for once under its blinking lights, sidewalk and pavement lying empty far down beneath the mazy wires and towering buildings, but she saw little of it as she glanced towards the block where the Somasco Consolidated had their offices. The message had troubled her, for she recalled many kindnesses shown to her and her father by the owners of Somasco ranch. She also owed one of them a reparation, for she had seen the man who miscarried the message in Vancouver, and knew that the delay, when the ranch was sold, was not Alton's fault. Nor had she forgiven Hallam for the greed and cunning which had effected her father's ruin, and now it seemed that he held Alton of Somasco and his partner in his grip. That there was treachery at work she felt sure, and grew hot with indignation as she determined that if she could prevent it neither Alton--nor his partner--should suffer.

It might have occurred to a man that what she contemplated implied a breach of confidence, but Nellie Townshead was a high-spirited girl, and only realized that Hallam was about to wrong her friends just then.

There would also be no difficulty in warning him, for Alton had taken over the office of the Somasco Consolidated on his arrival at Vancouver, and while she considered the question a voice came out of the adjoining room.

"Hallam's at Westminster, and it will have to wait until he comes round in the morning. Don't stay any longer, and take Miss Townshead with you. It's later than I fancied."

Five minutes afterwards the two girls went out into the silent streets, and Miss Townshead, who left her companion at the corner of one of them, turned round again and walked back somewhat slowly part of the way she had come. She did not notice that Miss Holder had also turned and was watching her, for she realized for the first time that what she was about to do admitted of misconception. Still, remembering how Hallam had tricked her father, she went on, and only stopped for a moment when she entered the great building in the upper part of which was the office of the Somasco Consolidated. It was very silent. The rooms which had hummed with voices all day long were shut, and one blinking light emphasized the darkness of the big empty corridor. Scarcely a sound reached her from the city, but she had seen that two windows high up were lighted, and went up the stairway resolutely. The warning could be delivered in less than a minute, and she fancied that Alton would not be alone, while she knew that the conventionalities as understood in England are almost unknown in the West.

As it happened Alton, who, though Miss Townshead did not know this, lived in the room adjoining his office, was busy about the stove just then. In those days, when Vancouver had more inhabitants than it could well find room for and its hotels overflowed, single men taking their meals in the public restaurants lived as best they could, over their stores and offices, or in rude cabins and shanties flung up anywhere on the outskirts of the city, while it is not improbable that a good many of them live in much the same fashion now. Alton had, however, missed the six o'clock supper, for reasons which the sheaf of papers on his desk made plain, and was then engaged in cooking something in a frying-pan. A portable cedar partition partly shrouded the little table set out with a few plates, and the stove, while his old worked-deerhide slippers and loose jacket indicated that the man was just then not so much in his place of business as at home. He had been busy in the city and at his desk for ten hours that day, for the Somasco products were becoming known, and men had been toiling in the valley, driving roads, and building a new sawmill in the frost and snow. Part of Alton's business in the city was to raise the money that was needed to maintain them, and already he could foresee that if the time of prosperity was delayed it might go hardly with the Somasco Company.

He had laid down the frying-pan and was shaking a pot of strong green tea when there was a tapping at the door, which opened while he wondered whether there would be time for him to alter his attire. Then he stood up with the teapot in his hand, and made a little whimsical gesture of dismay as Miss Townshead stood before him. She coloured a trifle, but took courage at Alton's soft laugh, for it was clear that he was as yet only concerned about the plight in which she had found him. Alton, she remembered, had not been brought up conventionally in England, and she knew his wholesome simplicity.

"I'm very glad to see you, but if I'd known who was there I'd have fixed the place up before you got in," he said. "Sit right down beside the stove."

Nellie Townshead stood still a moment, but she was tired and the night was cold, so she took the chair he drew forward, and then shook her head as he laid a cup before her.

"It's Horton's tea, and bad at that, but it will help us to fancy ourselves back in the bush," he said. "Your father is keeping all right?"

The girl made a little gesture of impatience. "Yes," she said. "I am almost afraid I am doing wrong, but I felt I must warn you. Now don't ask me any questions, but take it as a fact that Hallam has sent up somebody to locate your silver as soon as it can be done. He seems to consider he has you at a disadvantage because you have not put in your legal improvements."

Alton thrust his chair back and clenched one hand, while the girl noticed with relief that he had almost forgotten her.

"Hallam," he said, and stopped a moment, while his voice was harsh as he continued, "going to restake my claim. Well, there is time still in hand and he can't do it yet. Now----"

The girl stopped him with a gesture. "You must ask me nothing," she said. "You can understand what I told you?"

A slow glow crept into Alton's eyes. "Oh, yes, it's all quite plain," he said. "When you find a mineral claim you have got to record it in fifteen days, or it goes back to the Crown, and I couldn't do that, you see, because I was lying for weeks at Somasco. Well, while the claim is unrecorded anybody can jump it, but I couldn't get back up there through the snow, and didn't figure Hallam's man knew just where to find it. Now you've told me we'll get in ahead of him yet, and the man he sends up there will have his journey for nothing. Do you know that what you have done means just everything to Somasco?"

Alton stopped suddenly, and there was consternation in the girl's face as she glanced at him.

"I think there's somebody coming," he said slowly.

Now there was still just time for Alton to have shut the outer door, but he remembered for the first time that the girl's visit at that hour might be considered unusual, and it appeared probable that she would not approve of the action, while having as yet only dealt with men, his usual quick decision deserted him. He glanced once from his companion to the partition and the door of the inner room, and shook his head. Then he sprang forward towards the outer door, forgetting that he was lame. That, however, did not alter the fact, and as he stumbled a little the tray on the table he struck went down with a crash, scattering its contents about the room, while before he reached the door it swung open and a man stood smiling in the opening.

"Hello! I seem to have scared you," he said. "Got anything you don't want folks to know about in here?"

The stranger moved forward another step, and then stopped abruptly with a little gasp as his glance took in the overturned tray, scattered crockery, and the rigid figure of the girl standing with a flushed face beside the stove. Then he glanced at Alton, and noticing the old jacket and deerhide slippers, appeared to have some difficulty in checking a smile, for this was a young man who knew nothing of the simple strenuous life of the bush, but a good deal about the under-side of that of the cities.

"I'll come back in business hours to-morrow," he said. "Sorry to disturb you, but I hadn't a minute all day, and there was a question I figured we could best talk over quietly."

"Then you had better start in with it," said Alton quietly. "This lady, who came here on business, is just going."

"Of course," said the stranger. "I think I have had the pleasure of meeting her."

He turned with a little smile which broadened into a grin Alton found intolerable, for there was a patter of feet on the stairway, and when he looked round except for himself and Alton the room was empty.

"The fact is I'm awfully sorry," he said. "But how was I to know?"

The veins were swollen on Alton's forehead, and his eyes half-closed. "Now," he said sternly, "I don't want to hear any more of that. I think I told you the lady you saw here came in a few minutes ago on an affair of business."

It was unfortunate that Alton had a difficult temper and his visitor no discretion, for there are men in whom Western directness degenerates into effrontery.

"Of course!" said the latter. "My dear fellow, you needn't protest. Considering the connection between her employers and Hallam, who is scarcely a friend of yours, that is especially likely."

Alton stood very straight, looking at the speaker in a fashion which would have warned any one who knew him. "I figure you can't help being a fool, but I want to hear you admit that you're sorry for it," he said.

He spoke very quietly, but it was unfortunate for both of them that the other man, who was growing slightly nettled, did not know when to stop.

"I told you I was sorry--I looked in at an inopportune time--already, and I'll forget it right off," he said. "Now that should content anybody, because there are folks who would think the story too good to be lost."

He got no further, because Alton stepped forward and seized him by the collar, which tore away in his grasp. Then there was a brief scuffle, a scattering of papers up and down the room, and Alton stood gasping in the doorway, while his visitor reeled down the first flight of stairs and into the wall at the foot of it. Alton glanced down at him a moment, and seeing he was not seriously hurt, flung the door to with a bang that rolled from corridor to corridor through the great silent building, before he turned back into the disordered room with a little laugh.

"I've fixed that fellow, anyway, and now I'd better go through those plans until I simmer down," he said.

He picked up the overturned table and his scattered supper, while it was characteristic of him that when an hour later he rolled up a sheet of mill-drawings in a survey plotting of the Somasco valley, he had forgotten all about the incident, which was, however, not the case with the other man. In another twenty minutes he was also fast asleep, and because men commence their work betimes in that country, had disposed of several car-loads of Somasco produce before he breakfasted next morning. During the day he noticed that some of the younger men he met smiled at him curiously, but attached no especial meaning to it. Alton had taught himself to concentrate all his faculties upon his task, and he worked in the city as he had done in the bush, with the singleness of purpose and activity that left no opportunity of considering side issues. He had also, as usual, a good deal to do: buyers of dressed lumber, cattle, and ranching produce to interview; shippers of horses to bargain with: railroad men and politicians to obtain promises of concessions from, and men who had money to lend to interest. The latter was the most difficult task, and now and then his face grew momentarily grave as he remembered the burdens he had already laid upon his ranch and the Somasco Consolidated.

"Still, what we're working for is bound to come, and we'll hold on somehow until it does," he said to Forel, who occasionally remonstrated with him. "When you've helped me to put the new loan through I'll bring Charley or the other man down, and go up and relocate the claim. After the late snowfall nobody could get through the ranges now, but Tom and I could make our way when it wouldn't be possible to any of Hallam's men."

Possibly because he had been successful hitherto, Alton was slightly over-sanguine, and apt to make too small allowance in his calculations for contingencies in which human foresight and tenacity of purpose may not avail. It happened in the meanwhile, though he was, of course, not aware of this, that Deringham had an interview with Hallam in the smoking-room of the big C.P.R. hotel. They did not enter it together, for Deringham was sitting there when Hallam came in, about the time the Atlantic express was starting, which accounted for the fact that there was nobody else present. Deringham appeared a trifle too much at his ease, though his face was pale, for he had not departed from veracity when he informed Forel that his heart had troubled him after listening to Seaforth's story. He nodded to Hallam, and picked out a fresh cigar from the box upon the table before he spoke.

"It is fine weather," he said.

"Oh, yes," said Hallam dryly. "Still, I guess you didn't ask me to come here and talk about the climate."

"No," and Deringham glanced at his cigar. "I meant to tell you that the little speculation you recently mentioned does not commend itself to me. In fact, I have decided that we can have no more dealings of any description together."

"No?" said Hallam, with a little brutal laugh. "Dollars running out?"

Deringham glanced at him languidly. "As you know, that is not the reason. Now I do not ask for a return of the money you obtained from me--but I want the thing stopped immediately."

Hallam poured out a glass of wine. "You will have to put it straight."

"Well," said Deringham, "if you insist. I am sincerely sorry I ever saw or heard of you. You, of course, remember the conditions on which I made that deal with you. I desired Mr. Alton kept away from Somasco--for a time, and now I want a definite promise from you that he will be free from any further molestation."

"Then," said Hallam, with a grin, "what's your programme if I don't agree? You would put the police on to me?"

"No," said Deringham, making the best play he could, though he realized the weakness of his hand. "That would not appear advisable--or necessary. It would be simpler to warn my kinsman."

Hallam laid his hand upon the table, and Deringham noticed that it was coarse and ill-shaped, but suggested a brutal tenacity of grasp.

"Bluff, with nothing behind it. You don't take me that way," he said. "Now I'll put my cards right down in front of you. Alton is not a fool, and you couldn't tell him anything he doesn't know already. The trouble is, he can prove nothing. He has a tolerably short temper, and one day he 'most hammered the life out of another man in the Somasco