Part 15

"Yes." And, as Cortland Bent rose and took up his hat, "You go back to those that sent you here and say that on the twenty-fifth of May the Saguache Smelting Company will be in the market for ore. I've never competed with your company. I've always been content to take my profit at the current prices. But if it's necessary to be a hog to remain in this business, I'll be the biggest hog now or get out of it. You tell your people that in future I'll regulate my schedule to theirs, and whatever the prices of the Amalgamated are, my prices will be better. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly. I'm much obliged. Good morning."

The interview had terminated rather suddenly--almost too suddenly to be entirely satisfactory to Jeff, who had at first seen in a talk with Cortland Bent an opportunity to learn by inductive methods something of the future plans of his enemies. He realized, as he watched Bent's squared shoulders disappear through the door of an inner office, that in this respect he had been entirely unsuccessful. Bent had revealed nothing that Jeff did not know before. Jeff had a feeling, too, that Bent had retired with a slight advantage, even though it had been moral rather than tactical. Throughout the interview Bent had preserved the same demeanor of quiet confidence, of repression and solidity, which, in spite of his advances, had more than offset Jeff's violence and distemper. What had come over the man? Had he found himself at last?

In his heart Jeff had always had a feeling of good-humored contempt for the men of Cortland Bent's class, and the fact that Camilla preferred this one to him had made him less tolerant of them even than before. He was unwilling to acknowledge to himself the slight sense of shock he had experienced in discovering that Cort Bent was now a foeman worthy of his own metal. Their trails were crossing too often. It wasn't healthy for either of them.

He understood now why it was that Camilla had written him vaguely of an urgent matter about which she could not write, requesting permission to come West at once. He had put it down to the whim of a woman--as he did everything feminine he could not understand. It was all clear to him now. She wanted to be near Cortland Bent and feared to take any definite step which might compromise her in the eyes of her husband. He had had some misgivings about her letters--they had seemed so frank, so womanly and friendly, with a touch of regretful tenderness in them that was unlike anything Jeff could remember when they had been together. But he was glad now that he had refused her. Seeing Bent had brought back into Jeff's mind the whole sad history of their mistaken marriage. There wasn't a day when he didn't miss her, and his business worries were never so thick about him that her image didn't intrude. Frequently he found himself thinking and planning, as he used to plan, for Camilla; only to remember bitterly in time that the battle he was fighting was only for himself. And now the man she loved had come down to help the legions of autocracy against him. He was glad of that. It would nerve him for the struggle. He could fight better with Cort Bent on the other side.

With an effort he put the thought of Camilla from his mind and went about his other business with a new determination to circumvent his foes. He always fought better when his back was to the wall, and his conversation with Bent had confirmed the necessity of completing the Short Line at any cost.

The drains upon his resources had been enormous. Three million dollars had already been spent, and there was another million still to be provided for. His expenses had been greater because of the unusual impediments thrown in his way. The mine was paying "big," and the railroad and the banks were still backing him, but he knew that there was a limit to the amounts he must expect from these quarters. He had tried to buy rails in the open market and found that his enemies had forestalled him. The mills agreed to take his orders, but during the press of business refused to name a definite date for delivery. General Bent, whose friendship was necessary to the steel interests East and West, had seen to that. But if the Amalgamated thought that the lack of rails was going to stop the construction of the Short Line, they were going to have another guess.

Already an alternative plan had suggested itself to Wray, a desperate, unheard-of plan which he could never have thought of except as a last resort. But the more he thought of it, the more convinced he was that it was the only solution of his problem. He would tear up the rails of the old narrow-gauge which ran from Mesa City up to the old coal field at Trappe. They were light rails, old and rusty from disuse, but they were _rails_, and by the use of more ties and "blue-boards" for the time would serve his purpose. With the sidings and a reserve supply of the D. & S. at Saguache, he managed to figure out enough to finish the Short Line. He knew his engineers wouldn't approve--they couldn't approve, he knew, on any grounds but those of expediency, for such construction was dangerous and would make the accomplishment of any kind of a fast schedule impossible, but they would give him his connection--without which all of his plans must fall to earth. By October, or perhaps by late summer, he would manage to get standard rails somewhere. It would be easier once the road was in operation. He couldn't help smiling when he went into the office of the Denver and California. If this was the last card Bent's crowd could play, it was on the tallies that they were to lose the game.

His plans met with the approval of his friends, and Jeff went back to Mesa City with a lighter heart than when he had left it. A hurried conference with his engineers and directors, which exhausted some of Jeff's strength and most of his patience, and the old road was doomed to destruction. Nor was Jeff satisfied until three dilapidated flat cars loaded with Mexicans and tools were started over the line to the coal fields. Then he turned with a sigh under the "Watch Us Grow" sign and went into his private office, where an accumulation of mining business awaited him.

But his sense of triumph was short-lived. The week had not ended before advices of a disquieting nature reached him from Denver and Pueblo of a considerable activity in the stock of the Denver and California. This information in itself was not surprising, for during the past year the rate-war and the unsettled condition of the country had made the stock of the road particularly vulnerable to manipulation? But back of this movement, Symonds, the General Manager of the road, one of Wray's staunchest supporters, thought he detected powerful influences. Rumors of a more startling character had transpired, signifying the transfer of large blocks of the stock to Eastern investors which seriously threatened the control of those in power. Other men, men of the directorate, Jeff discovered, also showed signs of apprehension. A reorganization of the road might mean anything--to Jeff it meant ruin, if the new stockholders were in any way identified with the Chicago and Utah. Was this Bent's crowd? For the first time Wray really appreciated the lengths to which his enemies were prepared to go to accomplish his downfall. He knew that they had already spent large sums and had used all their influence in completing their control of the Denver and Western, but a control of the Denver and California! It was simply incredible!

Letters from the banks were still more disquieting. Conditions, they wrote, were so unsatisfactory throughout the West that their boards of directors had thought it advisable to call their loans on the stock of the Denver and Saguache Railroad Company. The uncertainty of the development of the Saguache Company's properties, owing to the imperfection of their railroad connections, made this course necessary until they secured definite and satisfactory assurances as to the completion of the Saguache Short Line and the value of its contracts with the Denver and California Railroad Company. The receipt of these letters in the same mail was a coincidence which showed Jeff that, in spite of all assurances to the contrary, his friends were weakening under fire and that the enemy had invaded his own country. They meant, in short, that unless he could meet the loans at once--eight hundred thousand dollars on stock really worth two millions and a half--those securities would fall into the hands of the Amalgamated people.

Eight hundred thousand dollars! It seemed a prodigious sum of money now. The "Lone Tree" would bring that in the open market--of course, but he and Pete could not sell the "Lone Tree." It was the backbone of his entire financial position! Really alarmed at the sudden disastrous turn the company's affairs had taken, he called a meeting of Mulrennan, Larry Berkely, Weigel, Willoughby, and other available directors, and then hurried to Denver to see his friends in the D. & C.

Other disappointments awaited him there. Symonds, and Shackelton, the vice-president, advised him for the sake of his head, as well, perhaps, as for their own, to compromise with his enemies if he could. Until more light was shed as to the new ownership of the D. & C. they could make him no further promises of assistance either moral or financial. He argued with them, pleaded with them at least for some pledge on the part of the road with which he could reassure the banks. They were powerless, they said. Their contracts, of course, would be a basis for a suit even under a new management. They could--or would do nothing more.

A suit? Jeff knew what that meant--interminable legal proceedings, while the ties of the Saguache Short Line rotted under the rails, and washouts in the summer tore the roadbed to pieces; it meant the shutting down of his coal mines, the abandonment of his lumber camps, the complete isolation of his mines and smelter, which, if they did business at all, must do it under all kinds of disadvantages.

There was only one thing left to do, and that was to finish the Short Line and put it into operation. Then, perhaps, the courts would uphold him and force the D. & C. to live up to its contracts--no matter who was in control. But how was he to redeem the eight hundred thousand in stock? He had enough available capital to finish the Short Line, but not enough to redeem the stock, too. He got on the Denver and Western sleeper for Kinney that night, sore in mind and body. He was too tired even to think. Larry and Pete must help him now. Perhaps there was some way. He fell into a troubled sleep, and about his ears Cornelius Bent's railroad mocked at him in noisy triumph.

* * * * *

The arrival of the morning train from Saguache was an event in Mesa City. There were but two trains a day, and it was the morning train which brought the mail and yesterday's newspapers from Denver. For obvious reasons, the passenger traffic was small, and, as almost every member of the Saguache community was personally known to almost every citizen of Mesa City, the greetings as a rule were short and laconic, consisting of a rustic nod or the mere mention of a surname. Most of the travelers were men and descended from the combination baggage-smoker; but this morning Bill Wilkinson, the conductor (and brakeman), a person by nature taciturn, appeared upon the platform of the rear coach bearing a lady's English traveling bag, and winked, actually winked, at Ike Matthews, the station master, who was waiting for his envelope from headquarters. At least eight people saw that wink and fully eighteen the handbag, and, when a pretty lady in a dove-gray traveling suit appeared in the car doorway to be helped down ceremoniously to the station platform, thirty-six eyes were agog and thirty-six ears were open to learn the meaning of the unusual occurrence; for it was plainly to be seen that the visitor bore every mark of consequence and came from the East--surely from Denver--possibly from Chicago.

They saw her smile her thanks to Wilkinson, but when she looked rather helplessly about her and asked for a "coupe" or "station wagon" a snigger, immediately suppressed, arose from the younger persons in the audience. The firm hand of Ike Matthews now took control of the situation.

"Do you want the hotel, ma'am?" he said.

"Yes, I think so," said the lady. "But first I want to find Mr. Jeff Wray. Can you tell me where I can see him?"

Her eyes searched the cottonwood trees along the creek opposite the station, as though she hoped to find him there, searching in the wrong direction for the town which had been described to her.

"Yes, ma'am, if you'll come with me." Ike took up the bag and led the way around the corner of the building into Main Street, while the engineer and fireman hung out of their cab and with the crowd on the platform followed the slim figure with their eyes until it vanished into the crowd at the post-office.

A clerk in the outer room of the Development Company's office building received the queer pair.

"Mr. Wray is in, ma'am, but he's very busy." He looked at her timidly. "I don't know whether he'll see you or not. Who shall I say?"

The lady handed him a card, and, as he disappeared, she fingered in her pocketbook for change--then, after a glance at the station master, smiled at him instead.

"I'm much obliged to you," she said gratefully. "I think I'll stay here now. I'll find my way to the hotel."

Matthews put the bag on a desk, awkwardly removed his hat and departed, while the lady sat and waited.

In the inner office, his head in his hands, his elbows on his desk, his brows bent over some papers, sat Jeff, trying to bring cosmos out of the chaos of his affairs. His clerk entered, the card in his hand, wondering whether he had made a mistake. Hell had been let loose in the Development Company for a week, and Mr. Wray, he knew, was in no humor for interruptions. Jeff looked up with a frown.

"Well--what is it?"

"A lady--to see you."

Jeff's head sank into his papers again.

"Tell her I'm busy!" Then he looked up irritably. "What lady? Who is she? I can't see anybody to-day."

"I don't know. She doesn't belong around here." And he dropped the card on the desk.

Jeff picked it up and looked at it with a scowl, then started in amazement. What did it mean? He rose slowly, his brows perplexed, and put on his coat.

"Tell her to come in," he said. He was still standing in the middle of the room looking at her card when Mrs. Cheyne entered.

*CHAPTER XIX*

*THE LADY IN GRAY*

She was frankly amused at his bewilderment.

"Well," she said with a smile, "you don't seem very pleased to see me."

"I--it's rather sudden. I wasn't exactly certain it was you." He took her hand mechanically. "What on earth are you doing out here?"

"I've come to see you--traveled two thousand miles to tell you I'm sorry."

Jeff brought forth a chair.

"Sorry? What for? Oh, yes, we quarreled, didn't we? I remember. It was my fault. But I don't understand yet. Are you on your way to the coast?"

"What coast? Oh, no," coolly; "I rather thought I'd reached my destination, but perhaps I'm mistaken."

Jeff was still regarding her curiously, as if he couldn't be quite sure he was not dreaming. He pulled out his swivel chair and sat in it, facing her.

"Now tell me what this means," he insisted rather sternly.

"I've told you. I want to convey the impression of begging your pardon. Don't I do it? I've tried so hard. Ugh! Such unspeakable sleeping-cars last night! Such a silly little train this morning from the place with the unpronounceable name. I had no idea that friendship could be such a martyrdom!" She sighed. "I think I really deserve something after this."

He found that he was smiling in spite of himself. "You do, I'm sure," he said after a pause. "But I don't bear you any grudge. I expected too much of you, I guess. I've forgotten that long ago. I'm glad to see you."

"Really?" she drawled. "You convey just the opposite idea. You ought to be glad, you know. I've never been so tired in my life. That train! Oh, Jeff, whatever possessed you to live in such an outlandish place?"

"This is where I belong. If Mesa City is outlandish, then I'm outlandish, too."

"Love me, love my dog," she laughed. "I'd have to love you a lot. Perhaps it will improve on acquaintance." She crossed her feet and settled more comfortably in her chair, while Jeff watched her shrewdly.

"You can't mean you want to stay here?" he asked.

"I don't know. That depends on you. I've told you the sentimental side of my journey. Actually I'm a practical young female, with a prudent eye for an investment." And when her companion smiled, "Are you laughing because you think I'm not practical--or because you think I'm not prudent?"

"I'd hardly call you either. In fact, I don't know what to think. You don't seem to belong, somehow."

"Why not? Once you said I spoke out like Mesa City."

"But you don't look like Mesa City."

"Horrors!" preening her hair, "I hope not."

Jeff leaned back in his chair with folded arms and examined her--his eyes narrowing critically. She had given two explanations of her presence, neither of which in itself seemed sufficient. The real explanation, he was forced to admit, lay in the presence itself. She bore his scrutiny calmly, examining him with frank interest.

"What is it you don't understand?" she asked him, answering the question in his eyes with another. "Me? Oh, you'll have to give it up. There isn't any answer. I'm something between a sibyl and a sphinx. You thought you'd guessed me in New York, but you hadn't, you see. I'm neither what you thought I was, nor what you thought I ought to be. I'm the spirit of Self-Will. I do as I choose. I thought I'd like to see you, and so I came--_Voila_."

"I don't know what you can expect here. The accommodations at the hotel----"

"Oh, I can stand anything now--after your trains----"

"You'll be bored to death."

"I'm always bored to death. But, then, this place may have the charm of boring me in an entirely new way. After all," she sighed, "I might as well be bored here as at home."

Wray got up without speaking and walked to the window which overlooked the plains. He stood here a moment, his hands behind his back, the look of perplexity deepening on his face. Somehow Rita Cheyne didn't seem accessory to the rather grim background of his thoughts. For days he had been acting the leading part in what now promised to be a tragedy. Rita belonged to satirical comedy or, at the best, to the polite melodrama. Something of this she suddenly read in his attitude, wondering why she had not discerned it before. She got up and went over to him.

"What is it, Jeff? You're changed somehow out here. You seem older, bigger, browner, more thoughtful."

"This is where I work, Rita," he said with a slow smile. "In New York we Westerners only play. I am older--yes, more thoughtful, too. I've had a good deal to worry me----"

"Yes, I know. I think Cortland Bent has been behaving very badly."

Jeff made a quick gesture of protest.

"I didn't mean that," he said abruptly. "My worries are business worries."

"Oh! I intruded."

"Yes, you did. But I'm glad of it now. I'm going to Hell about as fast as a man can, but I might as well do it comfortably."

"What do you mean?" she asked in alarm.

"Your relatives, the Bents. They've got me in a corner."

"Yes, I heard. What will be the end of it?"

Jeff ran a finger around his throat with a significant gesture.

"Won't you tell me about it?"

"It wouldn't interest you. It's a long story. They have more money than I have. That's the amount of it."

"I thought you were so wealthy."

"I am. But I can't go up against the whole of Wall Street. They've cost me a lot. If I won this fight I'd be the richest man west of the Missouri River. It isn't over yet." He paced the room violently, beginning to rant, as he still did when to talked of himself. "No, by G--d! not yet. They've got to come to me in the end. They can't get my mine." He went over to his desk and took out a piece of ore. "See that, Rita; that came out of 'Lone Tree' only yesterday. They may get a control of the Denver and Saguache and even of the Development Company, but they can't get the 'Lone Tree.' I reckon I won't starve."

"But how can they get the Development Company?"

"The banks have called my loans--oh, you can't understand. If I don't meet them, the stock will be sold. Bent's crowd will buy it."

"Of course I don't know much about these things, but I was wondering--how much stock is there?"

"Two million and a half. I've borrowed eight hundred thousand dollars."

She looked down, turning the ferrule of her umbrella on the toe of her boot.

"Suppose some one else bought it?"

"I hadn't thought of that. Who?"

"Me."

Jeff started forward in his chair, his eyes blazing--then he took a step or two away from her.

"You?"

She nodded pertly. He turned and looked at her over his shoulder. Then, with a warm impulse, he seized both of her hands in his and held them tightly in his own.

"That's white of you, Rita. You're the real thing. I'll swear you are--the Real Thing--you've got sand, too, a lot of it, and I like you for it. It's worth while getting in a hole to find out who your friends are. I won't forget this soon."

She disengaged her hands.

"Thanks," she said calmly. "Do you agree?"

"Agree? To what?"

"To let me buy that stock?"

He straightened and turned to his desk, uncertainly fingering some papers there. He was silent so long that she repeated the question.

"No," he said at last.

"Why do you say that?"

"I don't want you to."

"I don't understand. In New York you were willing to have me in with you. Why do you object now? Any security your banks will take ought to be good enough for me. Any security my cousin Cornelius Bent wants to buy ought to be worth having."

"It is--to him."

"Then why not to me?--it's all in the family."

He looked at her blankly a moment and then laughed and shook his head.

"No--there's too much risk."

"I expected to risk something."

He sat down in his chair before her and put his hands over hers.

"See here, Rita. You'll have to let me think this thing out and take my own time. I never put my friends into anything I don't believe in myself. If you're looking for an investment here I'll find you something. I know a dozen good things."

"You can't prevent my getting that stock if I want it," she broke in.

"The Amalgamated can."

"I'll go to the General and tell him I insist on having it. He's a little afraid of me."

He laughed. "He ought to be. I am, too." Jeff rose and took up his hat and Rita Cheyne's traveling bag. "There's one thing sure: I'm not going to talk about this any more--not now. You're tired. I've got to get you fixed up somehow. You know I started building a place up in the canon, but it's not finished yet. Mrs. Brennan is away. There's nothing for it but a hotel, I guess."

"Oh, I don't care. I'm not going to be discouraged. I warn you I always have my own way--in the end--in all things."

He chose to disregard the significance of the remark and showed her out. On their way up the street the spirit moved him to apologize again.

"There's a bathroom at the Kinney House. I'd better take you there. It's pretty well kept. Camilla stayed there once. I wish she was here."

"You do?" quizzically.

"Why--yes."

"Then why don't you have her here?" she asked suddenly.

A shade passed over Jeff's face. "We went East for the winter," he said slowly. "I had to come back here. My wife likes it in New York. It--it wasn't advisable for her to come."