Chapter 8

"You remember them dried apples I bought off the half-breed lady down on the Nez Perce Reserve? Well," said Porcupine Jim sourly, "they walked off day 'fore yistiddy--worms. I weighed that lady out cash gold, and look what she's done on me! I wouldn't wonder if them apples wa'nt three to four year old."

"If only we could find out what that Yellow-Leg's after." Lannigan's face was cross-lined with anxiety. "If some of us could only unload somethin' on him, then the rest of us could borry till Capital took holt in the spring."

"S-ss-sh! That's him," came a warning whisper.

"Good morning, gentlemen. I seem to have slept late."

It was apparent to all that Mr. Dill's spirits were decidedly better than when he had retired.

Yankee Sam suggested humorously:

"I reckon they was a little slow gittin' around with the tea-kittle to thaw you out, so you could git up."

Mr. Dill declared that he had been agreeably disappointed in his night; that he really felt quite rested and refreshed.

"If it isn't too soon after breakfast, friends," he said tentatively, as he produced a flask.

It was quickly made clear to him that it was never too soon, or too late, for that matter, and a suggestion of force was necessary to tear the flask from Yankee Sam's face.

"What? Teetotaler?" As Uncle Bill shook his head.

"Not exactly; sometimes I take a little gin for my kidnas."

Ore City looked at him in unfeigned surprise. Mr. Dill, however, believed he understood. The old man either knew him or had taken a personal dislike--maybe both--at any rate he ceased to urge.

"Gentlemen," impressively, and Ore City felt intuitively that its acute sufferings, due to ungratified curiosity, were at an end, "no doubt you've wondered why I'm here?"

Ore City murmured a hypocritical protest.

"That would be but natural," Mr. Dill spoke slowly, drawling his words, animated perhaps by the spirit which prompts the cat to prolong the struggles of the dying mouse, "but I have postponed making my mission known until rejuvenated by a good night's sleep. Now, gentlemen, if I can have your support, your hearty co-operation, I may tell you that I am in a position--to make Ore City boom! In other words--Capital Is Going to Take Hold!"

Porcupine Jim, who, through long practice and by bracing the ball of his foot against the knob on the stove door, was able to balance himself on one rear leg of his chair, lost his footing on the nickel knob and crashed to the floor, but he "came up smiling," offering for inspection a piece of ore in his extended hand.

"Straight cyanidin' proposition, averagin' $60 to the ton with a tunnel cross-cuttin' the ore-shoot at forty feet that samples $80 where she begins to widen--" Lack of breath prevented Porcupine Jim from saying that the hanging wall was of schist and the foot wall of granite and he would take $65,000 for it, if he could have 10 per cent. in cash.

The specimen which Yankee Sam waved in the face of Capital's representative almost grazed his nose.

"This here rock is from the greatest low-grade proposition in Americy! Porphery dike with a million tons in sight and runnin' $10 easy to the ton and $40,000 buys it on easy terms. Ten thousand dollars down and reg'lar payments every six months, takin' a mortgage--"

"I'm a s-showin' y-you the best f-free-millin' proposition outside of C-California," Judge George Petty stammered in his eagerness. "That there mine'll m-make ten m-men rich. They's stringers in that there ledge that'll run $5,000--$10,000 to the ton. I t-tell you, sir, the 'B-Bouncin' B-Bess' ain't no m-mine--she's a _b-bonanza_! And, when you git down to the secondary enrichment you'll take it out in c-c-chunks!"

Inwardly, Lannigan was cursing himself bitterly that he had eaten "The Gold-Dust Twins," but, searching through his pockets, fortunately, he found a sample from the "Prince o' Peace." He handed it to Mr. Dill, together with a magnifying glass.

"Take a look at this, will you?" He indicated a minute speck with his fingernail.

Mr. Dill lost the speck and was some time in finding it and, while he searched, the stove pipe separated at the joint, calling attention to the fact that the sufferer upstairs was nervous. Pa Snow's voice came so distinctly down the stove-pipe hole that there was reason to believe he was on his hands and knees.

"Befoah you should do anything definite, we-all should like if you would look ovah 'The Bay Hoss.' It's makin' a fine showin', and 'The Under Dawg' is on the market, too, suh."

In the excitement Uncle Bill sat puffing calmly on his pipe.

Mr. Dill with a gesture brushed aside the waving arms and eager hands:

"And haven't you anything to sell?" he asked him curiously. "Don't you mine?"

"Very little," Uncle Bill drawled tranquilly: "I dudes."

"You what?"

"I keeps an 'ad' in the sportin' journals, and guides."

"Oh, yes, hunters--eastern sportsmen--" Mr. Dill nodded. "But I thought I recognized an old-time prospector in you."

"They's no better in the hull West," Yankee Sam declared generously, while Uncle Bill murmured that there was surer money in dudes. "Show Dill that rar' mineral, Uncle Bill." To Dill in an aside: "He's got a mountain of it and it's somethin' good."

Uncle Bill made no move.

"I aims to hold it for the boom."

"And what's your honest opinion of the country, Mr. Griswold?" Dill asked conciliatingly. "What do you think well find when we reach the secondary enrichment?"

A pin dropping would have sounded like a tin wash boiler rolling downstairs in the silence which fell upon the office of the Hinds House. Uncle Bill, looking serenely at the circle of tense faces, continued to smoke while he took his own time to reply.

"I'm a thinkin',"--puff-puff--"that when you sink a hundred feet below the surface,"--puff-puff--"you won't git a damn thing."

Involuntarily Yankee Sam reached for the poker and various eyes sought the wood-box for a sizable stick of wood.

"Upon what do you base your opinion?" asked Mr. Dill, taken somewhat aback. "What makes you think that?"

"Because we're in it now. The weatherin' away of the surface enrichment made the placers we washed out in '61-'64."

Judge George Petty glowered and demanded contemptuously:

"Do you know what a mine _is_?"

"Well," replied Uncle Bill tranquilly, "not allus, but ginerally a mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar."

Yankee Sam half rose from his chair and pointed an accusing poker at Uncle Bill.

"That old pin-head is the worst knocker that ever queered a camp. If we'd a knowed you was comin'," turning to Mr. Dill, "we'd a put him in a tunnel with ten days' rations and walled him up."

"They come clost to lynchin' me onct on Sucker Crick in Southern Oregon for tellin' the truth," Uncle Bill said reminiscently, unperturbed.

Southern Oregon! Wilbur Dill looked startled. Ah, that was it! He looked sharply at Griswold, but the old man's face was blank.

"We're all entitled to our opinions," he said lightly, though his assurance had abated by a shade, "but, judging superficially, from the topography of the country, I'm inclined to disagree."

Ore City's sigh of relief was audible.

Mr. Dill continued:

"And I--we are willing to back our confidence in your camp by the expenditure of a reasonable amount, in order to find out; but, gentlemen, you've raised your sights too high. Your figures'll have to come down if we do business. A prospect isn't a mine, you know, and there's not been much development work done, as I understand."

"How was you aimin' to work it," Uncle Bill asked mildly, "in case you _did_ git anything? The Mascot burned its profits buyin' wood fer steam."

"The riddles of yesterday are the commonplaces of to-day, my friend. The world has moved since the arrastre was invented and steam is nearly as obsolete. Hydro-electric is the only power to-day and that's what I--we--propose to use."

Ore City's eyes widened and then they looked at Uncle Bill. What drawback would he think of next? He never disappointed.

"There ain't water enough down there in Lemon Crick in August to run a churn."

Mr. Dill laughed heartily: "Right you are--but how about the river down below--there's water enough in that, if all I'm told is true."

For once he surprised the old man into an astonished stare.

"The river's all of twenty mile from here."

"They've transmitted power from Victoria Falls on the Zembesi River, in Rhodesia, six hundred miles to the Rand."

Chortling, Ore City looked at the camp hoodoo in triumph.--_That_ should hold him for a while.

"I wish you luck," said Uncle Bill, his complacency returning, "but Ore City ain't the Rand. You'll never pull your money back."

"And in our own country they send 'juice' two hundred and forty-five miles from Au Sable to Baltic Creek, Michigan."

* * * * *

Before his departure Bruce had arranged with Porcupine Jim to load a toboggan with provisions and snowshoe down to Toy. Mr. Dill was delighted when he learned this fortunate circumstance, for it enabled him to make a trip to the river for the purpose, as he elaborately explained, of "looking out a power-site, and the best route to string the wires."

While he was gone, properties to the value of half a million in the aggregate changed hands--but no cash. It was like the good old days to come again, to see the embryo magnates whispering in corners, to feel once more a delicious sense of mystery and plotting in the air. Real estate advanced in leaps and bounds and "Lemonade Dan" overhauled the bar fixtures in the Bucket o' Blood, and stuffed a gunny-sack into a broken window pane with a view to opening up. In every shack there was an undercurrent of excitement and after the dull days of monotony few could calm themselves to a really good night's sleep. They talked in thousands and the clerk's stock of Cincos, that had been dead money on his hands for over three years, "moved" in three days--sold out to the last cigar!

When the time arrived that they had calculated Dill should return, even to the hour, the person who was coming back from the end of the snow tunnel at the front door of the Hinds House, that commanded a good view of the trail, always met someone going out to ask if there was "any sight of 'em?" and he, in turn, took his stand at the mouth of the tunnel, until driven in by the cold. In this way, there was nearly always someone doing lookout duty.

Ore City's brow was corrugated with anxiety when Dill and Porcupine Jim had exceeded by three days the time allotted them for their stay. Wouldn't it be like the camp's confounded luck if Capital fell off of something and broke its neck?

Their relief was almost hysterical when one evening at sunset Lannigan shouted joyfully: "Here they come!"

They dashed through the tunnel to see Mr. Dill dragging one foot painfully after the other to the hotel. He seemed indifferent to the boisterous greeting, groaning merely:

"Oh-h-h, what a hill!"

"We been two days a makin' it," Jim vouchsafed cheerfully. "Last night we slept out on the snow."

"You seem some stove up." Uncle Bill eyed Dill critically. "And looks like you have fell off twenty pounds."

"Stove up!" exclaimed Dill plaintively. "Between Jim's cooking and that hill I took up four notches in my belt. I wouldn't make that trip again in winter if the Alaska Treadwell was awaiting me as a gift at the other end."

"You'll git used to it," consoled Uncle Bill, "you'll learn to like it when you're down there makin' that there 'juice.' I mind the time I went to North Dakoty on a visit--I longed for one of these hills to climb to rest myself. The first day they set me out on the level, I ran away--it took four men to head me off."

"We found where we kin develop 250,000 jolts," Porcupine Jim announced.

"Volts, James," corrected Mr. Dill, and added, dryly, "Don't start in to put up the plant until I get back."

He _was_ coming back then--he _was_! Figuratively, all Ore City fell at his feet, though strictly only two scrambled for the privilege of unbuckling his snow-shoes, and only three picked up his bag.

XI

THE GHOST AT THE BANQUET

T. Victor Sprudell's dinner guests were soon to arrive, and Mr. Sprudell's pearl gray spats were twinkling up and down the corridor of Bartlesville's best hotel, and back and forth between the private dining-room and the Room of Mystery adjoining, where mechanics of various kinds had been busy under his direction, for some days.

But now, so far as he could see, everything was in perfect working order and he had only to sit back and enjoy his triumph and receive congratulations; for once more Mr. Sprudell had demonstrated his versatile genius!

The invited guests came, all of them--a few because they wanted to, and the rest because they were afraid to stay away. Old Man "Gid" Rathburn, who cherished for Sprudell the same warm feeling of regard that he had for a rattlesnake, occupied the seat of honor, while John Z. Willetts, a local financier, whose closet contained a skeleton that Sprudell by industrious sleuthing had managed to unearth, was placed at his host's left to enjoy himself as best he could. Adolph Gotts, who had the contract for the city paving and hoped to renew it, was present for the sole purpose, as he stated privately, of keeping the human catamount off his back. Others in the merry party were Abram Cone and Y. Fred Smart.

The dinner was the most elaborate the chef had been able to devise, the domestic champagne was as free as the air, and Mr. Sprudell, stimulated by the presence of the moneyed men of Bartlesville and his private knowledge of the importance of the occasion, was keyed up to his best. Genial, beaming, he quoted freely from his French and Latin phrase-book and at every turn of the conversation was ready with appropriate verse--his own, mostly.

This was Mr. Sprudell's only essay at promoting, but he knew how it was done. A good dinner, wine, cigars; and he had gone the ingenious guild of money-raisers one better by an actual, uncontrovertible demonstration of the safety and value of his scheme.

His personal friends already had an outline of the proposition, with the promise that they should hear more, and now, after a dash through "Spurr's Geology Applied to Mining," he was prepared to tell them all that their restricted intelligences could comprehend.

When the right moment arrived, Mr. Sprudell arose impressively. In an attentive silence, he gave an instructive sketch of the history of gold-mining, beginning with the plundering expeditions of Darius and Alexander, touching lightly on the mines of Iberia which the Roman wrestled from the Carthagenians, and not forgetting, of course, the conquest of Mexico and Peru inspired by the desire for gold.

When his guests were properly impressed by the wide range of his reading, he skillfully brought the subject down to modern mines and methods, and at last to his own incredible good fortune, after hardships of which perhaps they already had heard, in securing one hundred and sixty acres of valuable placer-ground in the heart of a wild and unexplored country--a country so dangerous and inaccessible that he doubted very much if it had ever been trod by any white foot beside his own and old "Bill" Griswold's.

The climax came when he dramatically announced his intention of making a stock company of his acquisition and permitting Bartlesville's leading citizens to subscribe!

Mr. Sprudell's guests received the news of the privilege which was to be accorded them in an unenthusiastic silence. In fact his unselfish kindness seemed to inspire uneasiness rather than gratitude in Bartlesville's leading citizens. They could bring themselves to swallow his dinners, but to be coerced into buying his mining stock was a decidedly bitter dose.

Well-meaning but tactless, Abe Cone expressed the general feeling, when he observed:

"I been stung once, already, and I ain't lookin' for it again."

To everyone's surprise Abe got off unscathed. In fact Mr. Sprudell laughed good-naturedly.

"Stung, Abe--that's the word. And why?" He answered himself. "Because you were investing in something you did not understand."

"It _looked_ all right," Abe defended. "You could see the gold stickin' out all over the rock, but I was 'salted' so bad I never got enough to drink since. I don't understand this placer-mining either, when it comes to that."

Adolph Gotts, who had been a butcher, specializing in sausage, before he became a city contractor, was about to say the same thing, when Sprudell interrupted triumphantly:

"Ah, but you will before I'm done." It was the moment for which he had waited. "Follow me, gentlemen."

He threw open the door of the adjoining room with a wide gesture, his face radiant with elation.

The company stared, and well it might, for at a signal a miniature placer mine started operation.

The hotel porter shovelled imported sand into a sluice-box through which a stream of water ran and at the end was the gold-saving device invented by Mr. Sprudell which was to revolutionize placer-mining!

The sand contained the gold-dust that represented half of Bruce's laborious summer's working and when Sprudell finally removed his coat and cleaned up the sluice boxes and the gold-saving machine, the residue left in the gold-pan was enough to give even a "'49'er" heart failure.

His triumph was complete. There was a note of awe even in Old Man "Gid" Rathburn's voice, while Abe Cone fairly grovelled as he inquired:

"Is it all like that? Where does it come from? How did it git into that dirt?"

Mr. Sprudell removed his eyeglasses with great deliberation and pursed his lips:

"In my opinion," he said weightily--he might have been an eminent geologist giving his opinion of the conglomerate of the Rand banket, or Agricola elucidating his theory of vein formation--"in my opinion the gold found in this deposit was derived from the disintegration of gold-bearing rocks and veins in the mountains above. Chemical and mechanical processes are constantly freeing the gold from the rocks with which it is associated and wind and water carry it to lower levels, where, as in this instance, it concentrates and forms what we call placers."

Mr. Sprudell spoke so slowly and chose his words with such care that the company received the impression that this theory of placer deposit was his own and in spite of their personal prejudice their admiration grew.

"As undoubtedly you know," continued Mr. Sprudell, tapping his glasses judicially upon the edge of the sluice-box, "the richest gold in all alluvial deposits--"

"What is an alluvial deposit?" inquired Abe Cone, eagerly.

Mr. Sprudell looked hard at Abram but did not answer, one reason being that he wished to rebuke the interruption, and another that he did not know. He reiterated: "The richest gold in all alluvial deposits is found upon bed-rock. This placer, gentlemen, is no exception and while it is pay-dirt from the grass roots and the intermediate sand and gravel abundantly rich to justify their exploitation by Capital, it is upon bed-rock that will be uncovered a fortune to dazzle the mind of man!

"Like myself, you are practical men--you want facts and figures, and when you invest your money you want to be more than reasonably sure of its return. Gentlemen, I have in the hands of a printer a prospectus giving the values of the ground per cubic yard, and from this data I have conservatively, very conservatively, calculated the profits which we might reasonably anticipate. You will be startled, amazed, bewildered by the magnitude of the returns upon the investment which I am giving you the opportunity to make.

"I shall say no more at present, gentlemen, but when my prospectus is off the press I shall place it in your hands--"

"Gemman to see you, suh."

"I'm engaged."

"Said it was important." The bell boy lingered.

Sprudell frowned.

"Did he give no name?"

"Yes, suh; he said to tell you Burt--Bruce Burt."

Sprudell grew a curious, chalky white and stood quite still. He felt his color going and turned quickly lest it be observed.

Apologetically, to his guests:

"One moment, if you please."

He remembered that Bruce Burt had warned him that he would come back and haunt him--he wished the corridor was one mile long.

There was nothing of the wraith, or phantom, however, in the broad-shouldered figure in a wide-brimmed Stetson sitting in the office watching Sprudell's approach with ominous intentness.

With a fair semblance of cordiality Sprudell hastened forward with outstretched hand.

"I'm amazed! Astonished--"

"I thought you would be," Bruce answered grimly, ignoring Sprudell's hand. "I came to see about that letter--what you've done."

"Everything within my power, my friend--they're gone."

"Gone! You could not find them?"

"Not a trace." Sprudell looked him squarely in the eye.

"You did your best?"

"Yes, Burt, I did my best."

"Well," Bruce got up slowly, "I guess I'll register." His voice and face showed his disappointment. "You live here, they said, so I'll see you in the morning and get the picture and the 'dust'."

"In the morning, then. You'll excuse me now, won't you? I have a little dinner on."

He lingered a moment to watch Bruce walk across the office and he noticed how he towered almost head and shoulders above the clerk at the desk: and he saw also, how, in spite of his ill-fitting clothes so obviously ready-made, he commanded, without effort, the attention and consideration for which, in his heart, Sprudell knew that he himself had to pay and pose and scheme.

A thought which was so strong, so like a conviction that it turned him cold, flashed into his mind as he looked. If, by any whim of Fate, Helen Dunbar and Bruce Burt should ever meet, all the material advantages which he had to offer would not count a straw's weight with the girl he had determined to marry.

But such a meeting was the most remote thing possible. There were nearer bridges to be crossed, and Sprudell was anxious to be rid of his guests that he might think.

When Bruce stepped out of the elevator the next morning, Sprudell greeted him effusively and this time Bruce, though with no great enthusiasm, took his plump, soft hand. From the first he had a feeling which grew stronger, as the forenoon waned, that Sprudell was "riding herd on him," guarding him, warding off chance acquaintances. It amused him, when he was sure of it, for he thought that it was due to Sprudell's fear lest he betray him in his rôle of hero, though it seemed to Bruce that short as was their acquaintance Sprudell should know him better than that. When he had the young man corralled in his office at the Tool Works, he seemed distinctly relieved and his vigilance relaxed. He handed Bruce his own letter and a roll of notes, saying with a smile which was uncommonly gracious considering that the money was his own:

"I suppose it won't make any difference to you that your gold-dust has taken on a different form."

"Why, no," Bruce answered. "It's all the same." Yet he felt a little surprise. "But the letter from 'Slim's' sister, and the picture--I want them, too."

"I'm sorry," Sprudell frowned in perplexity, "but they've been mislaid. I can't think where I put them, to save my soul."

"How could you misplace them?" Bruce demanded sharply. "You kept them all together, didn't you? I _wanted_ that picture."

"It'll turn up, of course," Sprudell replied soothingly. "And when it does I'll get it to you by the first mail."

Bruce did not answer--there seemed nothing more to say--but there was something in Sprudell's voice and eyes that was not convincing. Bruce had the feeling strongly that he was holding back the letter and the picture, but why? What could they possibly mean to a stranger? He was wrong in his suspicions, of course, but nevertheless, he was intensely irritated by the carelessness.

He arose, and Sprudell did likewise.

"You are going West from here?"

Bruce answered shortly:

"On the first train."