Part 20

He pulled out his packet and I verified the amount of the certificates.

I went to the bank in his company, for he seemed to be bothered with the notion that those five-hundred-dollar bills needed me as introducer and sponsor. Then he hotfooted out, weighted with the coin. In spite of myself and of my fresh faith in Mr. Flye, my heart sank considerably when I saw that money take legs. The cashier was one of the amiable citizens I had met in the delegation from the Chamber of Commerce.

“Making a little investment?” he inquired, sociably.

“A foolish one, I am afraid. But an Easterner who hasn’t had a flier in a gold-mine at least once in his life gets to feeling lonesome after a time. That chap has been chasing me around with stock and a story and I have tossed a little spare change to him.”

The cashier peered through the wicket and beamed with new respect on a man who could speak of two thousand dollars as spare change.

“There are mines--and then there are mines,” he suggested.

I thought I might as well try my new tune over on this piano.

“It’s a proposition called ‘Two Bright Eyes.” I tried to seem indifferent, but my heart was only about an inch below my larynx and I could hardly get the words out.

I thought he would never speak. He scratched his nose and fiddled with his ear. I wanted to reach in and shake him so that he would say something, even if he would only say that I had been nicely fooled.

“The property had rather a promising outlook at one time, sir. It was located by good prospectors and afterward two or three other claims were taken in. The section is first-rate!”

Not wildly encouraging.

“But the stock hasn’t been much thought of in these parts--it has been footballed around a lot. Still”--he twisted his mustache and waited a few moments--“well, I’ll tell you this confidentially, if I wasn’t a bank man--and you know we have to move in grooves of caution--if I could afford to do a little gambling I think I would have picked up a small bunch of this loose stock. I got a flicker of a hint from a mining engineer who banks here. Nothing definite--they can’t talk much. But I know they have been running new leads. The first development wasn’t very scientific, I understand.”

“Does a--When they make a real strike--do prices run up pretty sudden?” I managed to ask.

He smiled. “I see you have never been in a mining town when a bonanza toots. Everybody goes crazy. They’ll climb over one another to buy stock. Those who can’t buy stock go racing off to see what they can grab in the way of adjacent claims. Very exciting, sir! Wish we might show you a circus of that kind while you’re in town.”

When I went out on the street I found Mr. Flye waiting around the corner.

“You traded?” he gasped. “He’s over there tossing away twenty-dollar gold pieces!”

“I’ve got twenty thousand shares,” I said, dolefully.

“Then I’m going to let ‘Dirty-shirt’ loose. He’ll swell up and bust if I don’t get that gag out of his mouth.”

“But will anybody believe what he says?”

Honestly, a gold-mine was unreal to me! I had Eastern prejudices.

“You go over there and stand on the hotel porch, sir! You’ll see almighty sudden how news hits a mining town. ‘Dirty-shirt’ Maddox don’t have to bring a gold-mine down into Breed City. He’s the bulletin, that’s all. There’ll be proof enough pretty close on his heels.”

So I went over on the tavern porch. Five minutes later I realized that the bulletin was loose. “It” came whooping around a corner of the street.

Mr. Maddox’s nickname fitted him perfectly; in fact, he was well caked with mud from head to feet. Plainly he had not stopped to pick dry spots in his rush down to Breed City. He was shaking a canvas bag over his head with one hand and in the other flourished a handful of stock certificates.

“Who’s got ‘Bright Eyes’? They’ve hit it! High grade from Buffalo Hump clear through the earth to Chiny! Whoosh! Who wants ‘Bright Eyes’? Here’s some that’s loose. And there ain’t much loose, gents! They have been picking it up! High grade and pockets full of crumble!”

He shook the canvas bag and opened it when men went crowding about him.

“There he is,” announced Mr. Flye at my side.

“Looks the part,” said I.

“After I had rubbed his jaws where the gag had hurt,” confided my friend, “he told me that he ain’t more’n four jumps ahead of the boss engineer expert who is bringing out the samples for the report. All you’ve got to do now, sir, is to sit tight and look wise!”

My unlucky friend could not do much looking for his part; his eyes were swelled so badly that he could hardly open them.

“Look here, Mr. Flye,” I said, with a lot of repentance, “I must seem to you like pretty much of a crab. I don’t know how--”

“It was only a gold-mine guess, according to your notion, sir. And I know how an Easterner must feel on that point. But when I have a friend and make up my mind to let him in on a good thing I propose to do it, even if I have to apologize to him afterward for being almighty fresh. So I--”

“Don’t make me feel worse than I am feeling!”

There was a crowd in the street of Breed City by that time and Mr. Maddox, in the center of it, had worked himself into a frenzy of excitement and was offering “Bright Eyes” stock at a million dollars a share.

“Don’t mind that kind of talk,” advised Mr. Flye. “He’s half tight, and his coco ain’t just right when he gets to talking in a crowd, but you needn’t worry but what his news is all right. And you can see for yourself!”

Several men were larruping cayuses up the street, bags dangling from saddle-bows.

“It’s the first of the rush for the ‘Bright Eyes’ section. Some of the critters out this way can beat firemen for quick action,” stated Mr. Flye. Perhaps to emphasize the fact that now at last he felt himself on a footing of intimate friendship with me, he plucked a cigar from my vest pocket and lighted up.

“I see you don’t smoke--you probably chaw,” he suggested, and he handed his plug to me.

When I state here that I promptly took the plug, whittled off a chunk, palmed it, and put some gum into my mouth, the depth of my esteem for Mr. Flye may be understood. I would rather have chewed that tobacco than hurt his feelings by refusing a friendly offer.

While we stood there a bearded man rode down the street, mud-covered.

“And there’s the man who will back me up!” squealed Maddox. “There comes the boss engineer! He knows what’s under cover in ‘Bright Eyes’!”

But the bearded man rode right through the crowd without answering questions. He alighted in front of the bank and went in, tugging something in his hand.

As a new, and somewhat heavy, stockholder in “Bright Eyes” gold-mine, I reckoned I’d try to get a little information from that engineer--I was quite sure that an Eastern capitalist who wore a silk hat and had a friend in the bank cashier might expect a little more attention than a street bystander. Therefore, with a word to my friend Flye I went over to find out the best or the worst.

XXIII--THE CLEAN-UP

AFTER I had been properly indorsed by the cashier, the mining engineer gave me some mighty comforting information, though I did not understand the technical lingo very well. He was conservative; he was not at all excited. We could hear “Dirty-shirt” still orating.

“Of course that old lunatic doesn’t know what he is talking about,” said the engineer. “There are always some of that sort to run and rant and stir up excitement and start poor fools off on a wild-goose chase.”

He opened a sack and showed me ore and hunks of crumbly rock which looked like nothing special. I had rather expected to see nuggets. He explained that the crumbly stuff was high grade, very much so, but there were only scattered pockets of it in the “Bright Eyes” claim.

“The parties who first located the property,” said he, “simply skim in for what pockets they were able to open. They had to pack all their ore out on cayuses and ship it to Tacoma, and there was no profit to speak of unless the ore yielded over a couple hundred dollars a ton. So when they quit the job the mine seemed to be played out.” Then he went on with his technical talk, and about all I could do was to blink and try to look wise.

“You can be sure that Newell knows what he is talking about,” put in the cashier.

I wished _I_ knew. I wanted to butt in with some excited questions. ‘But I did understand that the men who had gathered up most of the stock of the mine were going to build a smelter and tackle the thing right end to. There was plenty of ore and the mine would pay after development was the comforting information handed to me at last.

“I beg your pardon, but how many shares went to you in that trade you just made?” asked the cashier. “That is, if you’re willing to tell me.”

“Twenty thousand--I bought for ten cents a share.” The engineer showed some surprise.

“I didn’t think so much of the loose stuff was corralled in one bunch; we thought what we hadn’t picked up was scattered so wide that we wouldn’t bother to chase it,” said he. “How did you happen to grab in on it?”

I didn’t propose to betray Mr. Flye.

“Oh, it was just a gamble! A fellow kept following around after me and I bought to get rid of him.”

“Some of you Eastern Yankees certainly can use your noses for something else than to talk through,” said the engineer.

“If I smelled a bargain when I bought that stock I reckon it must have been hunch instead of knowledge.”

“Well, stick by and stand your assessment for the smelter and you won’t be sorry.”

Mayor Ware and several other citizens came hurrying to have the news about “Bright Eyes” confirmed. I stood at one side for a time, listening and meditating. When the cashier told them of my lucky strike they were immensely tickled.

“But you know we Easterners never can make a goldmine seem real,” I said.

“In most cases where they’re selling stock East the mines are not real. But you’re West, now, and you happened in on the ground floor,” said the mayor. “I am sorry I’m not there, too.”

“You can be,” I promptly informed him. “I’m called back home. I’m in a hurry. I don’t know anything about gold-mines. I can’t come back here to watch my interests. You folks out here know all about mines and values. My stock is for sale if anybody wants it.”

“What price?” inquired the mayor. “We might make up a little syndicate. How much do you want for the stock?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed, frankly. “It’s all new to me. I paid ten cents a share. When a gold-mine gets to paying I don’t know how much it pays.”

“It depends on the mine,” stated the engineer. “We can do a pretty good job of guessing in our line, but we can’t see all that’s underground.”

I pulled out my packet of stock.

“I tell you honestly, gentlemen, this seems more or less like a joke to me--and that being the case I’ll sell cheap.”

“It’s really worth par--or it will be in time, I’m sure,” stated the mayor, in honest fashion. “We are under great obligations to you, sir, and we don’t want to take advantage of you in any way.”

“And I feel just that same way toward you, gentlemen,” I assured them. “There’s always the element of a gamble in mining, I’m sure, though I don’t know much about it. Your mine may flush out. I’ll tell you what I’ll do--I’ll meet you on a half-way basis. I’ll sell for half price--fifty cents on a dollar. Give me ten thousand dollars and you own the stock.”

They stepped aside and conferred.

“I suppose you’ll be in town a few days longer!” suggested the mayor.

“If I can get out of here to-night I want to go. I must go.”

“I say again, we don’t want to take any advantage of you because you are obliged to leave in such a hurry. This may seem like queer talk for business men to make--to offer more than the price asked. But we want you to remember that Breed City is grateful.”

“I really am not asking for any presents,” I said.

That was jackass talk for me to make, and I knew it. Lord! we needed all the money we could scrape. But a funny sort of pride swelled up in me. I did not propose to be outdone in politeness. Never had I had municipal attentions shown to my humble self before I came to Breed City. They did not realize all the good it had done me.

“This is no proposition of that sort,” declared the mayor. “But we are so sure of Newell’s judgment that we know we shall make big profits on this stock. There are six of us. We propose to give you twelve thousand dollars, so that the amount you have paid for the stock will be handed back to you also. We’d like you to remember that Breed City was good to you to the extent of ten thousand dollars’ clear profit.”

That asinine pride was prompting me to split the difference with them. But across the street just then I saw the old judge peering about, evidently in a panic of anxiety about me because I had been gone so long with all that money. Another memory jogged me at that moment. I was morally bound to hand Dodovah Vose some profit on his five hundred dollars. Haggling with those enthusiastic citizens of Breed would be feeding my fool pride at the expense of two old men.

“It’s a trade, gentlemen, with all thanks to you!”

The mayor was president of the bank and I guess the rest were directors; at any rate, the cashier, in about two minutes, was asking me how I would have it!

I asked for currency--big bills. I had a boyish, eager hankering to lug the money to the judge, to show it to him, to have him count it and feel it and know that he could face the taxpayers of Levant, even if he couldn’t satisfy all his creditors. But even bankruptcy, thought I, was not State prison; my uncle would be cheated out of that part of his revenge. My fingers itched and my eyes shone while the cashier nipped at the comers of the bills with moistened fingers. He wrapped them in oiled paper and I sunk them carefully in my clothes!

I made as quick a getaway as politeness would allow.

As I remember it, I left a promise to come back to Breed City and settle down!

I caught Judge Kingsley by the arm and hurried him down-street and into the hotel.

The moment we were in our room I began jamming packages of money into his hands.

“Look at it! Feel of it! Smell of it!” I urged. “Judge, I took that money out for an airing and the junket did it lots of good.”

He did not understand. I guess he thought I’d merely brought back the Pratt money and had gone crazy while I was out with it.

“There’s sixteen thousand dollars net and clear for us, Judge Kingsley! And I reckon we won’t hunt up Pratt and hand back the thousand that’s over and above his graft from you. He’s a liberal gentleman and he ought to be willing to pay our expenses and for wear and tear. Now pack up, sir!” I clapped him on the shoulder. “I can’t stop to tell you the story just yet. We’ll have it on the way.”

I began to pack the money into my pockets.

He was deathly white when he stood up, and he staggered against the wall.

“On the way! Where?” he gasped.

“Home!” I yelled, frolicking like a lad. “Home! And we’ve got to make a race of it if we propose to head Uncle Deck Sidney under the wire!”

Ten minutes later I was humping around Breed City, trying to find out how I could escape.

The stage would not leave till morning. And that stage would take us to Royal City, and blamed if I wanted to go through Royal City.

I knew well enough, of course, that Pratt had gone back there to join his forces and I could hardly hope that the forces were still in jail.

On the new railroad which they were building into Breed only a part of the rails were down; they were not operating trains. There was no stage line through the broken country in that direction.

The Buffalo Hump Mountains were to the south, and to the east the Bitter Root range raised obstructions.

I had the judge on my back, as it were! I couldn’t wake him up to what had happened. He appeared to be mentally and physically prostrated. I myself could have straddled a cayuse and ducked out over the broken country. But the judge must have wheels under him when he was moved.

There seemed to be nothing to do but smash through Royal City, taking our chances. I felt that the citizens there wouldn’t see us murdered on the street, but they could not be expected to go along and guard us all the way home. We would have three buzzards on our trail!

I was mighty blue and some scared. I was wishing that I had not indulged that boyish impulse to carry my fortune in cash. I would be fine picking for those devils! Take that money and the judge, and I had two pretty heavy parcels to tug back to the East. The dusk came down on Breed before I had braced myself to make the jump.

No, there was nothing else to it!

In order to catch trains and get to Levant ahead of calamity we must go back across Callas prairie and run the gantlet of those three renegades.

I reckoned, according to my reading of time-tables, that the delay of even one day would bump our plans fatally.

I had tried several times to find my friend, Mr. Wash Flye. I could not get on to his track to save me. I wanted to talk transportation with him, for I was having a mighty discouraging time of it with other parties.

There were four public stables in the city, so I found by asking questions. I tackled the biggest one first. The man in the office was pulling off hip rubber boots with the air of one who has decided to call it a day. He laughed at me when I asked for a horse.

“My friend, every cayuse in my stable that can walk, trot, run, or limp, or even can cover ground by rolling over is hired and has either started for the Blacksnake country where that new strike has been reported or else is going to start with a crazy prospector astraddle.”

I offered to buy a horse. He said that he didn’t do business that way--he had made promises and would keep them. I asked for names of men who had hired. I found a few and was turned down; they all expected to get rich if they could get to Blacksnake.

I had no better luck at the other stables.

“Bright Eyes” had made me--it looked as if it would also unmake me.

“You can’t get it out of their heads in these parts that first-comers on a strike ain’t due to be millionaires,” one man told me. “If you want a hoss you’ll have to carpenter together a new one. The only plugs in the city that haven’t been nailed by prospectors are the spare hosses of the stage company--and old Uncle Sam’s mail keeps his thumb down hard on those critters.”

Then I set my teeth and began to hunt all the harder for my friend. I got word of him here and there, but an eel in a dock quicksand could not have been more of a dodger. It was evident that success had put springs into the legs and restlessness into the heart of this new Rockebilt of Breed City. The trail grew hot--the trail grew cold. It was late in the evening when I finally caught up with him. He was clinking glasses with “Dirty-shirt” Maddox, in a bar down an alley where Breed City’s virtuous ten-o’clock-closing ordinance could be more safely violated.

“I’ve done a lot for you, Mr. Mann, but I can’t monkey-doodle with the company hosses at this time o’ year when the mud makes double work.”

I drew him outdoors and down the alley.

“I’m meddling with another man’s secret, my friend, but I’m going to tell you enough so that you’ll understand what this means to a poor old man and;--and--a girl back East.”

At the end of my little speech the driver put out his, wiry hand.

“If I didn’t do my part to help you in this job I’d have-; to own up to having a spavined soul and a heart with, wind-puffs on it. Go out on the road a half-mile and I’ll overtake you with two hosses and a mud-cart.”

Before midnight our little expedition was well started across the prairie. The cart was light, the crisp air of the March night had stiffened the mud, and we naturally made-better time than with the heavy outfit on which we had ridden to Breed. But it was coming, dawn when we got to the rim-rock at the edge of Callas prairie.. Far below we could see the chimneys of Royal City, smoking signals of early breakfasts.

During the crawl across the adobe ruts, under the stars, I had canvassed with the driver the dangers that the presence of Pratt and his associate rogues in Royal City held for two gentlemen who desired to mind their own business and travel East by that; first train.

“Friends,” stated the driver, after he had meditated on the matter, “I’m going to drop you right here at the rim-rock. Just over there is the mouth of a path that leads down the side of the canon by a short cut--it’s all of two miles further by the stage-road where you came-up. The path doesn’t hit the stage-road anywhere. Now if those chaps are out and free they’ll be likely to ram across to Breed by this morning’s stage. They want to see you mighty quick and what the mayor said to Pratt won’t keep ’em away, I reckon! They must be reckless by now! If you walk down the path you’ll dodge ’em--for the stage is just about leaving. There’s an old feller named Mike at the foot of the path who’ll ferry you. You’ll have a full hour to make the train. Take your time down the path so that you’ll be sure to miss the stage. If your men are still in Royal City--well, if I was in your place I’d take that train, anyway, even if I had to leave orders behind for the funerals and the flowers.”

We climbed down and I started to shove my hand into my pocket. Mr. Flye threw his own hand to his hip.

“Hands up!” he called, sharply. “Don’t you pull that wallet! When a chap gets rich overnight like I’ve done he’s pretty touchy when a friend tries to put favor on a cash basis. I didn’t think you’d do it, Mr. Mann.”

Tears came into my eyes.

“Hands up? Yes, hands up to you, good friend, both hands up to you.” I grabbed the driver’s fists in mine. “But I don’t understand just why you have done for me all that you’ve done.”

“I reckon I smelled out by sort of instinct that you was giving up your time, doing good for somebody else,” he said, with a nod at the old man. “At any rate, I took to you, and when I take to a man it’s all of a sudden and, doggone it, I just can’t help giving him my shirt--if it’s clean enough and he’ll take it.”

He did not trust himself to stay any longer. He lashed his horses, they spun around, dragging the cart on two wheels, and away the outfit went across the prairie. And I never saw Wash Flye any more!

I hurried along and the old man found the path too steep for conversation. In places we were obliged to cling to sloping trees and ease our way down.

We were startled, after a time, by the sudden appearance of a man in the path ahead. He was climbing with haste.

“Well, gents,” he called, cheerily, “you’re lucky to be coming down instead of going up! But I figured that I’d rather climb up to the prairie and get a little sunshine than stay down there and wait for that stage to get fixed up.”

He stopped and wiped his forehead.

“What about the stage?” I asked. I had a vision of Dragg, Dawlin, and Pratt waiting at the river below or lounging in the streets of Royal City, blocking our path of retreat.

“Oh, a tire came off, this side of the river, and the rim caved in. They’ve propped up the old caboose and sent the wheel back to the blacksmith shop. You ought to have heard those other three passengers swear! I’ve had a chance to hear it scientific and fancy in my time--but those gents certainly could hang on the trimmings. Especially the fat one!”

“Fat one!”

“Yep! Fat man with a suit of clothes that would put the eyesight of a Potlatch coyote on the blink. They seem to be in a hurry. They’re walking up this hill, too. Other two men are derricking fat man up the trail. Are making some talk about getting a rancher to set ’em across Callas.”

He clapped on his hat and climbed along.

When he had disappeared, I led the way into the pine growth at the side of the trail, and we found a boulder which would shield the two of us.