Part 4

His head was still hurting, but not with that first keen pain; it was now the dulled, deadened hurt of an old bruise. It no longer dominated him. He had wakened alert, with full memory of what had passed; he was, in short, pretty much himself, except for the cold anger that possessed him. A burning thirst consumed him, but anger dominated it.

And when Bob Bowen was angry to the bottom of his soul, he was not the man to pause over half-way measures, or to ask himself what might happen. He knew what would happen if he got the chance!

“He ain’t wise to the world yet,” said the voice of Cheadle. “Want to stir him up?”

“No,” the more biting tones of Henderson made response. “No time for that now. Let it wait until to-night.”

“Well, what then?” Cheadle was evidently impatient. “I’m tired o’ being a door-mat, Henderson. I want to know how the big stroke is comin’, and why; and about this poor boob—what’s going to happen to him and us. No more obeying orders till I know why, boss.”

The ugly note in that voice was manifest even to Bowen. Henderson replied quickly.

“Him? Oh, leave him till to-night. I’m not going to hurt him any more; just let him know he mustn’t butt into _my_ games after this. We’ll scatter some whisky on his clothes and take him over to the Mission and leave him. He isn’t the sort of fool who spills all he knows to the police; he’s too wise to buy chips in a stacked game! He’ll take his lesson.

“And now come along and we’ll sit in at the big game.”

Footsteps and silence. Then the two voices again, less clear this time, but quite intelligible, and a scrape of chairs.

Bowen opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor of a disordered bedroom, lighted by a dingy window. Three feet from him a curtain closed an old-style double doorway; the doors were not pulled to, and in the other room were Henderson and Cheadle. The former telephoned to some unknown “Charley,” and gave orders to be kept in touch with every move of Apex Crown. Then he and Cheadle fell into conversation, earnest and low-voiced.

Though he caught only scraps of that conversation, Bowen listened in astounded incredulity. Before him the two speakers unfolded a deeper and craftier knavery than he had ever dreamed; schooled as he was in the tricky mining game, the former agent of Dickover was now springing something unrivaled in his experience for audacity and duplicity! From the muttered voices Bowen was enabled to piece together the following scheme of things:

Cheadle was the superintendent in charge of the Apex Crown development.

Two months previously, Dickover had received private information that a chemical process for treating zinc-silver ore economically was being perfected. He had at once sent Henderson on a private trip to pick up low-grade silver properties and form a gigantic combination; for as soon as news of the chemical process reached the market, low-grade silver would soar. Henderson had found from Cheadle that the Apex Crown was petering out. The vein had been worked to death, and there was no promise of picking up anything beyond. Whereupon Henderson had conceived a plan amazingly bold and clever, Cheadle being his accessory and abettor.

Henderson had sent Dickover a glowing report on the Apex Crown. Cheadle had sent his stockholders news that a twenty-five-foot vein was opening up. Therefore Dickover had issued orders to add Apex Crown to his low-grade holdings. Henderson had quietly bought for himself.

“So we now own some two hundred thousand shares,” went on the voice of Henderson. Bowen drank in every word. He felt a cold sweat trickling down his spine as he realized that Apex Crown was worthless.

“Sure,” rejoined Cheadle. “But I don’t get this highbrow play with Dickover! Why bust things off with him?”

“To make him hate me.” Henderson laughed silkily. “The day before Dickover came to town, I went to this Ferguson girl, made her a big offer for her stock, and then made her mad with some bullying. I figured she’d go to Dickover or some of his brokers for advice. Instead, she went to this boob, Bowen. You see? Bowen did the rest. He tipped off Dickover that I was crooked; Dickover fired me, hating me like hell! Now, Apex Crown was at nine and a half this morning—hello! There’s a report.”

The telephone rang.

“Sell?” rasped Henderson, a fighting edge to his voice. “Sell? You sell when I tell you to, and not before! No! You’ll not sell—till I give the order!”

He slammed up the receiver and emitted an oath.

“Charley says the stock is getting shot all to pieces! Some one is unloading in chunks from one to ten thousand—it’s down to seven here, and four at Los Angeles. That’s Dickover’s work. He’s cramming the market down—”

“What!” From Cheadle broke a startled cry. “Then he’s discovered—”

“Shut up!” snarled Henderson. “He’s discovered nothing, I tell you! He’s doing the very thing I’d expected him to do. Don’t you suppose I know Dickover from start to finish? D’you think I’ve been his confidential agent without knowing him like a book?”

“Then why the hell is he unloading?” growled Cheadle.

“To bust me. He thinks I’m trying to get hold of Apex Crown. He’s doing the very thing I knew he would do—I knew it from the day I met you first and got your report of the petering vein! He figures that because I double-crossed him I’ve got a yellow streak. He thinks that I want Apex Crown because I know about that chemical process. And what does he do? He—”

Cheadle broke in with a coarse laugh. “Then he still thinks the ol’ mine is worth hanging on to?”

“Of course. You and I are the only men who know it isn’t worth a damn. Dickover hates me now, hates me bad enough to ruin himself to get my pelt. He’s trying to smash Apex Crown as flat as a pancake, and he’ll do it before noon to-day! He figures that I’ll get scared. He’s dead sure that I’ve got a yellow streak. He’s gambling that when Apex Crown gets away down, I’ll grow scared and unload to save something from the wreck. See?”

“Uhuh! But what _will_ you do? What’s your game? How the devil do we make a killing out of this?”

“We bought our stock at two to five cents, didn’t we?” Henderson laughed. “About noon Apex Crown will be flat. When it is, then I dump over a hundred thousand shares in small lots. Dickover thinks I’ve fully unloaded; he steps in to grab the stock. I help him by grabbing back my hundred thousand shares, and the price goes up. Worse than that, it skyrockets! When it gets to a dollar, which is about the limit, we’ll unload for good. We’ll get rid of the whole thing at between a dollar and fifty—and clean up a hundred thousand odd dollars!”

“Whew!” Cheadle’s whistle of admiration changed and died suddenly. “But say! Ain’t that stock juggling illegal? Ain’t the gov’ment going to investigate?”

“Let ’em!” Henderson laughed scornfully. “If they can ever prove anything on Dickover or me, either, let ’em! Think we are fools? With that hundred thousand, and the low-grade properties I’ve already got, I’ll be fixed for life when news of that chemical process gets into print! And I’ll see that it does get into print before many more days.”

Again the telephone jingled.

“Some boob is buying,” snarled Henderson, reporting to his partner in rascality. “But the price is going down just the same. Four here and two and a half in Los Angeles.”

The voices dropped beyond the hearing of Bowen. But he had heard enough. The irony of the situation was that Henderson did not in the least realize that his clever scheme was utterly ruining the man he hated, Bob Bowen, of Tonopah!

“And he sha’n’t know it if I can help it,” grimly reflected Bowen.

He fought down the panic that gripped him. He felt no satisfaction at having correctly guessed Dickover’s plan of campaign. He felt no delight at having correctly guessed that a chemical process _had_ been perfected. All this was lost in the thought that he had ruined Alice Ferguson. For himself he did not greatly care. He had been broke before, and would be broke again!

But the thought of the girl who had believed in him, hurt and rankled. It must now be getting on toward noon, he concluded. By this time Gus Saunders, through scattered agents, was buying Apex Crown here and in Los Angeles; buying it for Bowen and Ferguson! Dickover was grimly hammering down the stock. Saunders’s buying would be too carefully handled to send it shooting up in a hurry. And when Saunders got all through, according to the orders the partners had given him, they would own a mine that was absolutely worthless!

“As soon as we’ve got in the clear”—Henderson’s chuckling tone came through the muffling curtain with new clearness—“we’ll spring the news about the mine having petered out completely. Then maybe she won’t smash! I tell you what, Cheadle! This manipulation is going to be investigated, all right; you run out and bring up some lunch, will you? While you’re gone, locate somebody you can trust, and have him spread the news that Apex Crown has petered out. Have it done at exactly two o’clock.

“Dickover will get the wires hot in five minutes, and you can arrange for him to discover the truth at Tonopah. Wire somebody there that the mine’s busted and you are in Frisco.”

“What’s the matter with your own men doing all this?” growled Cheadle suspiciously.

“I’m doing the operating; I’ll be the first man under investigation. Can’t afford to take the risk, even to put a hole in Dickover’s bank-account, blast him! But you can do it. Put on those glasses and that line of talk you can assume, and you’ll get by. Don’t you know any one you can trust?”

There was a moment of silence, then a chair was scraped back.

“I know a guy,” returned Cheadle. “I guess it can be done safe enough. Two o’clock, eh?”

Cheadle came through the curtained doorway and, without glancing at the prostrate Bowen, opened a wall-cabinet, took out his thick spectacles, and donned them. Then, as he took a step, he stumbled over Bowen’s feet. Catching at the wall to save himself from falling, he dislodged the wall-cabinet and sent a shower of toilet articles over the floor.

Mr. Oliver Hazard Perry Cheadle cursed heartily and fluently. He even kicked the man from Tonopah in the ribs, but Bowen merely grunted and kept his eyes closed. Then Cheadle passed back into the next room.

“Two o’clock, eh?” he repeated surlily. “Sure we’ll be clear by then?”

“Leave that part of it to me,” said Henderson sharply. “We’ll be clear. But be sure to have the trick turned at two sharp! That ’ll give Dickover plenty of time to find the report is true, and to unload. I want to see him get a crimp, the big toad!”

“Then at two she busts,” said Cheadle. “And hurry back here with the lunch. I’m getting hungry.”

Cheadle grunted and a door slammed behind him.

Bowen lay motionless, his head twisted so that he could idly survey the wreckage caused by Cheadle’s stumble. This final move of Henderson’s had removed his last hope. At three o’clock that afternoon Apex Crown would be known to all men as worthless—and the Apex Crown would be the property of Bob Bowen, of Tonopah!

But it was Alice Ferguson that Bowen was chiefly thinking. Whose fault but his that her little patrimony would be wiped out?

VIII—THE SMASH OF APEX CROWN.

Slowly anger uprose again in Bowen’s soul. After all, the disaster that was upon him and upon Alice Ferguson was not primarily his own fault! It was due to the machinations, the fraud and trickery of Henderson.

“We’re simply meshed in the net he has woven,” thought Bowen. “And there’s no way out! Great Jehu, if I could only get my hands free for five minutes!”

But he could not, and gave up the instinctive effort. His hands and feet were numb and swollen by reason of the tight lashings. The thirst that racked him was unbearable. He kept silent, however. Ask Henderson for a drink? Beg Henderson for mercy? Not yet!

Time passed.

Through the curtain Bowen could hear Henderson answering the telephone, but not in any manner to supply further information. He knew that the man was smoking, could smell the tobacco: it wakened the craving within him and intensified his thirst. Once Charley called up, and presumably demanded permission to sell, for Henderson answered savagely:

“I told you once before that I’d give orders! Now shut up. You sell when I tell you to sell, and not before. Get that? I’m giving the orders in this deal, and not you! You tell me when that stock climbs to ninety—what? Never mind your predictions; I know what’s doing! When it touches ninety, call me, that’s all. But don’t you dare sell until I give you the word!”

Again the scratch of a match, followed by silence. Bowen’s eyes were caught by a metallic glint on the threadbare carpet, two feet from his head—just about opposite his elbow. He stared at it for a moment without recognition. Then suddenly his gray eyes widened a little.

The object had been spilled with the other things from the wall-cabinet. It was rusty and had evidently been long discarded, forgotten. It was the slender steel blade of a safety-razor!

“Great Jehu!” muttered Bowen. “Great Jehu! If I only could!”

He was lying half on one side, half on his arms, which were bound behind his back. Carefully he moved his numbed limbs, moved his aching body. Inch by inch he moved it, sidling up and along until he judged that his lashed hands were about level with the bit of rusted steel. Gropingly he felt for it. A moment later his searching fingers came in contact with the razor-blade.

Bowen relaxed, a deep breath of achievement swelling his chest. He lay quiet, half fearing lest his movements had been heard by Henderson. But no sign came from the other room.

As the possibilities unfolded, a desperate inspiration flashed upon Bowen’s brain.

After all, there was still a chance, more than a chance, of retrieving the disaster! That bit of rusted steel placed hope between his hands! How late it was, he could not tell, but it must be long past noon, although Cheadle had not yet returned with the luncheon. Bowen smiled at the thought. If he could but free his feet and wrists! If he could but down those two scoundrels! If he could but telephone to Gus Saunders before two o’clock! Then the market for Apex Crown would be at its height, and Saunders could unload before the crash!

Bowen had dreamed of millions, when he believed the mine to be good. Now that it was a question of at best getting out from under, there was still hope of cleaning up a tidy fortune. But he would have to phone Gus Saunders before two o’clock!

Cautiously holding the edged blade in his almost senseless fingers, Bob Bowen fumbled with it for the cord that bound his wrists behind him. He could not make the keen blade reach. Just as he realized this, just as he realized that the job was not going to be so easy as it had seemed, he heard Cheadle enter the adjoining room.

“Done it, Henderson!” Cheadle apparently set down a basket, for there was a rattle of dishes. “There’s lunch.”

“You fixed it all right? Sure it’s safe?” demanded the eager voice of Henderson.

“Safe as shootin’, pardner! At two o’clock the storm busts, and Lord help us if we ain’t somewheres else!”

“Leave that to me. What’s this you got to drink—milk! You’re a nice one, you are! Bringing me milk to drink—”

“It’s all you get. I mean that you shall keep a clear head to-day, pardner. No booze in yours until we’ve cashed in! Now lay out the grub. Have you looked at _him_ in there? Has he waked up yet?”

“Don’t know and don’t care,” grunted Henderson.

Cheadle came striding through the doorway. Forewarned, Bowen closed his hand over the bit of rusty steel in his palm. He looked up at Cheadle, who bent over and examined his bonds.

“Don’t I get something to eat?” hoarsely demanded Bowen. “Give me a drink at least—”

“You shut up.” Cheadle bestowed upon him a gentle kick. “You’re blamed lucky to get off at all!”

Cheadle strode back to his partner in crime. Henderson began retailing reports that had come over the phone, but now Bowen paid no heed to the mumble of voices.

Working frantically, Bowen strove to reach his wrist-cords with the edged steel. At first he found it practically impossible. Twice the blade slipped in his numbed fingers and struck into his flesh. Fearful lest he sever a wrist-artery, he took more caution.

At length he got a grip that held upon the thin steel, and to his keen joy felt the tip of the blade touch a cord. Slowly it bit through. A slight tug told him that the strand had parted. Dropping the blade, he worked his arms until the severed cord loosened. Scarce sensible of the motion, scarce able to make his brain control the congested members, Bowen drew his arms from beneath him.

He was free—but for the moment, helpless. He could not move his hands; they were swollen and purpled, quite without feeling.

For a while he lay, content to slowly chafe the life back into his fingers. With an effort he sat up, found the razor-blade where he had dropped it, and freed his ankles. Still he could do no more than strive to bring the banished blood back into hands and feet. Motion intensified his thirst, which seemed burning the throat out of him! But he made no sound.

Slowly strength and control came back to his hands. He clenched them with a grim smile; they were pretty good hands after all—quite equal to the work that lay ahead! And suddenly, as he cautiously tried to gain his feet without noise, he heard a chair scraped back in the adjoining room.

“Confound that grapefruit!” It was Henderson who spoke, with irritation. “I’m going across the hall to the toilet and wash up. Call me if Charley rings up.”

“Sure,” responded Cheadle.

The door slammed after Henderson. The next instant Bowen heard the footsteps of Cheadle crossing the floor—toward him.

Catlike, the man from Tonopah came to his feet, looked swiftly around for a weapon. He could not trust his fists—yet! There was too much at stake. He must call Gus Saunders before two o’clock!

As the dumpy figure of Cheadle parted the curtains, Bowen caught up a small footstool—the first object to hand—and hurled it. The hassock took Cheadle in the side of the head and knocked him sprawling. Before he could recover, Bowen was upon him; and, without any mercy, struck two blows that knocked out the fat little mining man.

Moving rapidly, Bowen caught up the cords that had bound him, tied Cheadle hand and foot, and rolled the inert body under the bed. Barely had he finished and come erect, when Henderson returned to the adjoining room.

“Nothing doing yet, eh?” he sang out. The telephone rang, and saved Bowen from making any response. Henderson took the message and repeated his former commands.

“Well, didn’t I tell you the stock was kiting up? Now you wait for my order to sell, and keep your ear close to the phone! I want no monkey business at the last moment.”

Henderson banged up the receiver. “She’s up to ninety, Cheadle!” he called exultantly. “What ’d I tell you, eh? It’s just ten minutes of two now. In five minutes I’ll give Charley orders to sell—”

“I’ll bet you two to one you don’t,” said Bowen, stepping into the room.

He had thought to take Henderson by surprise; to down the thunderstruck man without a struggle. But he had far underestimated Dickover’s former agent. Henderson had spread upon a small table which bore the telephone, the dishes borne in by Cheadle. Without a second’s hesitation, Henderson picked up a heavy restaurant coffee-cup and hurled it fair and square at the face of his opponent.

Caught athwart the forehead by the missile, Bowen almost crumpled up. Henderson was upon him like a wildcat, beating at him with another cup. Bowen could do no more than clinch.

Locked in each other’s arms, the two men reeled back and forth, smashed over chairs, went crashing into the wall with terrific impact. The shock separated them. Henderson’s arm swept up; the heavy crockery cracked down upon Bowen’s head, struck full against the blood-black bruise Cheadle had given him, and shivered to pieces.

Under that terrific blow, Bob Bowen felt himself going, and going fast. He lunged forward and caught Henderson about the body: A final great wave of strength surged into him, and he threw Henderson over his hip—an old wrestling trick. He saw the man drive head first into the wall—and saw no more. For the second time, his knees were loosened and black darkness engulfed his soul.

When he wakened again, Bowen sat up and looked around dazedly, wondering at the deadly ache in his head. He remembered by slow degrees. He saw Henderson lying across the room, lying in a limp mass. He heard the man’s stertorous breathing. It was the deep, hard breathing of a man badly hurt.

Slowly Bob Bowen came to his feet. Staggering, he came to the table, clutched the bottle of milk, poured the revivifying fluid down his throat. A deep sigh of satisfaction burst from him—and then he remembered. Two o’clock! How long had he lain senseless?

With a groan, Bowen flung himself across the room to Henderson’s side. His fingers trembling, he drew out Henderson’s watch. It was two forty!

A moment later, Bowen seized the telephone and gave the number of Gus Saunders. He waited, frantic with suspense, until he heard the broker’s voice. There might yet be hope! Cheadle might have made mistakes.

“You, Bob? Good Lord!” Saunders’s tone sent his heart down. “We’ve been looking all over town for you—”

“What’s your last report on Apex Crown?” cried Bowen hoarsely. “Has it broken—”

“Broke all to smash at two o’clock. Last report was eight cents here and going down fast. Miss Ferguson is here. You’d better come down and settle up—”

Bowen slammed the receiver on the hook. “Oh, hell!” he said simply. “Well, we’ll face the music!”

IX—FEMININE INSTINCT.

Bob Bowen sat in the private office of Gus Saunders at three fifteen. On the way down-town he had stopped at a doctor’s office and had had his head bound up. As he himself put it, a couple of days would see him able to butt into another wall.

“And I’ve sure butted it this time,” he said with assumed cheerfulness, as he concluded his story. In the eyes of Alice Ferguson he read quick sympathy—sympathy, and something else that set his pulses to leaping. But he refused to meet her eyes.

“I sure have,” he went on. “Where I made my mistake was in thinking that Henderson was—was—well, that he was something less than Henderson! My one consolation is that I knocked him out so effectually that he never got word to the unknown Charley to sell out. When the news of the real condition of the Apex Crown got abroad, and the market busted all to nothing, Henderson was still rocked in the cradle of the deep. It makes me feel better to think that that skunk went down with us!

“But I’m only sorry for—for your sake, Miss Ferguson. I’m not worrying about my own money; but yours—”

“Mine is safe,” said the girl, gazing at him with shining eyes.

Bowen sat up a trifle straighter. “What?”

“I have a confession to make, Mr. Bowen—a happy confession,” said the girl, earnestly, leaning forward. “Mr. Saunders had been trying to get in touch with you all morning and had failed. No one knew where you were. At noon I came down here and got reports. Then the stock began to go up and up. It reached ninety, and was still climbing!

“To tell you the truth, I was afraid. Why? I can’t say, except that it was just a feeling inside of me. There was no word from you; all sorts of rumors were flying around about Apex Crown, and—and Mr. Saunders said that the stock was being so rottenly manipulated that there might be an investigation! That frightened me more than anything. So I told Mr. Saunders to sell the whole thing—”

Saunders came to his feet with a whoop of delight.

“Feminine instinct, by George!” he shouted, his repressed mirth breaking out in a roar of laughter. “Bob, old man, she made me sell out the whole blamed bunch around ninety! So help me, she did, and we did!”