9260
HE next morning, as soon as he was up, Alan went to his sister's room. He found her dressed and ready for him. She was seated before a cheerful grate-fire, looking over a magazine she had brought to pass the time on the train.
“Come in,” she said, pleasantly enough, he reflected, now that Miller was not present to absorb her attention. “I expected you to get up a little earlier. Those guns down at the bar-room just about daybreak waked me, and I couldn't go to sleep again. There is no use denying it, Al, we have a barbarous way of amusing ourselves up here in North Georgia.”
He went in and stood with his back to the fire, still unable to rid his brow of the frown it had worn the night before.
“Oh, I reckon you've got too citified for us,” he said, “along with other accomplishments that fast set down there has taught you.”
Adele laid her book open on her lap.
“Look here, Alan,” she said, quite gravely. “What's the matter with you?”
“Nothing, that I know of,” he said, without meeting her direct gaze.
“Well, there is,” she said, as the outcome of her slow inspection of his clouded features.
He shrugged his shoulders and gave her his eyes steadily.
“I don't like the way you and Miller are carrying on.” He hurled the words at her sullenly. “You see, I know him through and through.”
“Well, that's all right,” she replied, not flinching from his indignant stare; “but what's that got to do with my conduct and his?”
“You allow him to be too familiar with you,” Alan retorted. “He's not the kind of a man for you to—to act that way with. He has flirted with a dozen women and thrown them over; he doesn't believe in the honest love of a man for a woman, or the love of a woman for a man.”
“Ah, I am at the first of this!” Adele, instead of being put down by his stormy words, was smiling inwardly. Her lips were rigid, but Alan saw the light of keen amusement in her eyes. “Is hereallyso dangerous? That makes him doubly interesting. Most girls love to handle masculine gunpowder. Do you know, if I was Dolly Barclay, for instance, an affair with you would not be much fun, because I'd be so sure of you. The dead level of your past would alarm me.”
“Thank Heaven, all women are not alike!” was the bolt he hurled at her. “If you knew as much about Ray Miller as I do, you'd act in a more dignified way on a first acquaintance with him.”
“On a first—oh, I see what you mean!” Adele put her handkerchief to her face and treated herself to a merry laugh that exasperated him beyond endurance. Then she stood up, smoothing her smile away. “Let's go to breakfast. I'm as hungry as a bear. I told Rayburn—I mean your dangerous friend, Mr. Miller—that we'd meet him in the dining-room. He says he's crazy for a cup of coffee with whipped cream in it. I ordered it just now.”
“The dev—” Alan bit the word in two and strode from the room, she following. The first person they saw in the big dining-room was Miller, standing at the stove in the centre of the room warming himself. He scarcely looked at Alan in his eagerness to have a chair placed for Adele at a little table reserved for three in a corner of the room, which was presided over by a slick-looking mulatto waiter, whose father had belonged to Miller's family.
“I've been up an hour,” he said to her. “I took a stroll down the street to see what damage the gang did last night. Every sign is down or hung where it doesn't belong. To tease the owner, an old negro drayman, whom everybody jokes with, they took his wagon to pieces and put it together again on the roof of Harmon's drug-store. How they got it there is a puzzle that will go down in local history like the building of the Pyramids.”
“Whiskey did it,” laughed Adele; “that will be the final explanation.”
“I think you are right,” agreed Miller.
Alan bolted his food in grum silence, unnoticed by the others. Adele's very grace at the table, as she prepared Miller's coffee, and her apt repartee added to his discomfiture. He excused himself from the table before they had finished, mumbling something about seeing if the horses were ready, and went into the office. The last blow to his temper was dealt by Adele as she came from the dining-room.
“Mr. Miller wants to drive me out in his buggy to show me his horses,” she said, half smiling. “You won't mind, will you? You see, he 'll want his team out there to get back in, and—”
“Oh, I don't mind,” he told her. “I see you are bent on making a goose of yourself. After what I've told you about Miller, if you still—”
But she closed his mouth with her hand.
“Leave him to me, brother,” she said, as she turned away. “I'm old enough to take care of myself, and—and—well, I know men better than you do.”
When Alan reached home he found that Miller and Adele had been there half an hour. His mother met him at the door with a mysterious smile on her sweet old face, as she nodded at the closed door of the parlor.
“Don't go in there now,” she whispered. “Adele and Mr. Miller have been there ever since they come. I railly believe they are in love with each other. I never saw young folks act more like it. When I met 'em it looked jest like he wanted to kiss me, he was so happy. Now wouldn't it be fine if they was to get married? He's the nicest man in the State, and the best catch.”
“Oh, mother,” said Alan, “you don't understand. Rayburn Miller is—”
“Well, Adele will know how to manage him,” broke in the old lady, too full of her view of the romance to harken to his; “she ain't no fool, son. She 'll twist him around her finger if she wants to. She's pretty, an' stylish, an' as sharp as a brier. Ah, he's jest seen it all and wants her; you can't fool me! I know how people act when they are in love. I've seen hundreds, and I never saw a worse case on both sides than this is.”
Going around to the stables to see that his horses were properly attended to, Alan met his uncle leaning over the rail-fence looking admiringly at a young colt that was prancing around the lot.
“Christmas gift,” said the old man, suddenly. “I ketched you that time shore pop.”
“Yes, you got ahead of me,” Alan admitted.
The old man came nearer to him, nodding his head towards the house. “Heerd the news?” he asked, with a broad grin of delight.
“What news is that?” Alan asked, dubiously. “Young Miss,” a name given Adele by the negroes, and sometimes used jestingly by the family—“Young Miss has knocked the props clean from under Miller.” Alan frowned and hung his head for a moment; then he said:
“Uncle Ab, do you remember what I told you about Miller's opinion of love and women in general?”
The old man saw his drift and burst into a full, round laugh.
“I know you told me what he said about love an' women in general, but I don't know as you said what he thought about women inparticular. This heer's a particular case. I tell you she's fixed 'im. Yore little sis has done the most complete job out o' tough material I ever inspected. He's a gone coon; he 'll never make another brag; he's tied hand an' foot.”
Alan looked straight into his uncle's eyes. A light was breaking on him. “Uncle Ab,” he said, “do you think he is—really in love with her?”
“Ef he ain't, an' don't ax yore pa an' ma fer 'er before a month's gone, I 'll deed you my farm. Now, look heer. A feller knows his own sister less'n he does anybody else; that's beca'se you never have thought of Adele follerin' in the trail of womankind. You'd hate fer a brother o' that town gal to be raisin' sand about you, wouldn't you? Well, you go right on an' let them two kill the'r own rats.”
Alan and his uncle were returning to the house when Pole Baker dismounted at the front gate and came into the yard.
Since becoming a landed proprietor his appearance had altered for the better most materially. He wore a neat, well-fitting suit of clothes and a new hat, but of the same broad dimensions as the old. Its brim was pinned up on the right side by a little brass ornament.
“I seed Mr. Miller drive past my house awhile ago with Miss Adele,” he said, “an' I come right over. I want to see all of you together.”
Just then Miller came out of the parlor and descended the steps to join them.
“Christmas gift, Mr. Miller!” cried Pole. “I ketched you that time.”
“And if I paid up, you'd cuss me out,” retorted the lawyer, with a laugh. “I haven't forgotten the row you raised about that suit of clothes. Well, what's the news? How's your family?”
“About as common, Mr. Miller,” said Pole. “My wife's gittin' younger an' younger ever'day. Sence she moved in 'er new house, an' got to whitewashin' fences an' makin' flower-beds, an' one thing another, she looks like a new person. I'd 'a' bought 'er a house long ago ef I'd 'a' knowed she wanted it that bad. Oh, we put on the lugs now! We wipe with napkins after eatin', an' my littlest un sets in a high-chair an' says 'Please pass the gravy,' like he'd been off to school. Sally says she's a-goin' to send 'em, an' I don't keer ef she does; they 'll stand head, ef they go; the'r noggin' s look like squashes, but they're full o' seeds, an' don't you ferget it.”
“That they are!” intoned Abner Daniel.
“I've drapped onto a little news,” said Pole. “You know what a old moonshiner cayn't pick up in these mountains from old pards ain't wuth lookin' fer.”
“Railroad?” asked Miller, interestedly.
“That's fer you-uns to make out,” said Baker. “Now, I ain't a-goin' to give away my authority, but I rid twenty miles yesterday to substantiate what I heerd, an' know it's nothin' but the truth. You all know old Bobby Milburn's been buyin' timber-land up about yore property, don't you?”
“I didn't know how much,” answered Miller, “but I knew he had secured some.”
“Fust and last in the neighborhood o' six thousand acres,” affirmed Pole, “an' he's still on the war-path. What fust attracted my notice was findin' out that old Bobby hain't a dollar to his name. That made me suspicious, an' I went to work to investigate.”
“Good boy!” said Uncle Abner, in an admiring undertone.
“Well, I found out he was usin' Wilson's money, an' secretly buyin' fer him; an' what's more, he seems to have unlimited authority, an' a big bank account to draw from.”
There was a startled pause. It was broken by Miller, whose eyes were gleaming excitedly.
“It's blame good news,” he said, eying Alan.
“Do you think so?” said Alan, who was still under his cloud of displeasure with his friend.
“Yes; it simply means that Wilson intends to build that road. He's been quiet, and pretending indifference, for two reasons. First, to bring us to closer terms, and next to secure more land. Alan, my boy, the plot thickens! I'm getting that fellow right where I want him. Pole, you have brought us a dandy Christmas gift, but I 'll be blamed if you get a thing for it. I don't intend to get shot.”
Then they all went to find Bishop to tell him the news.
9267
T was a cold, dry day about the middle of January. They were killing hogs at the farm. Seven or eight negroes, men and women, had gathered from all about in the neighborhood to assist in the work and get the parts of the meat usually given away in payment for such services.
Two hogsheads for hot water were half buried in the ground. A big iron pot with a fire beneath it was heating water and a long fire of logs heaped over with big stones was near by. When hot, the stones were to be put into the cooling water to raise the temperature, it being easier to do this than to replace the water in the pot. The hogs to be killed were grunting and squealing in a big pen near the barn.
Abner Daniel and old man Bishop were superintending these preparations when Alan came from the house to say that Rayburn Miller had just ridden out to see them on business. “I think it's the railroad,” Alan informed his father, who always displayed signs of almost childish excitement when the subject came up. They found Miller in the parlor being entertained by Adele, who immediately left the room on their arrival. They all sat down before the cheerful fire. Miller showed certain signs of embarrassment at first, but gradually threw them off and got down to the matter in hand quite with his office manner.
“I've got a proposition to make to you, Mr. Bishop,” he opened up, with a slight flush on his face. “I've been making some inquiries about Wilson, and I am more and more convinced that he intends to freeze us out—or you rather—by holding off till you are obliged to sell your property for a much lower figure than you now ask him for it.”
“You think so,” grunted Bishop, pulling a long face.
“Yes; but what I now want to do is to show him, indirectly, that we are independent of him.”
“Huh!” ejaculated Bishop, even more dejectedly—“huh! I say!”
Alan was looking at Miller eagerly, as if trying to divine the point he was about to make. “I must confess,” he smiled, “that I can' t well see how we can show independence right now.”
“Well, I think I see a way,” said Miller, the flush stealing over his face again. “You see, there is no doubt that Wilson is on his high horse simply because he thinks he could call on you for that twenty-five thousand dollars and put you to some trouble raising it without—without, I say, throwing your land on the market. I can' t blame him,” Miller went on, smiling, “for it's only what any business man would do, who is out for profit, but we must not knuckle to him.”
“Huh, huh!” Bishop grunted, in deeper despondency.
“How do you propose to get around the knuckling process?” asked Alan, who had caught the depression influencing his parent.
“I'd simply take up that note,” said the lawyer. “You know, under the contract, we are privileged to pay it to-morrow if we wish. It would simply paralyze him. He's so confident that you can' t take it up that he has not even written to ask if you want to renew it or not. Yes; he's confident that he 'll rake in that security—so confident that he has been, as you know, secretly buying land near yours.”
Old Bishop's eyes were wide open. In the somewhat darkened room the firelight reflected in them showed like illuminated blood-spots. He said nothing, but breathed heavily.
“But,” exclaimed Alan, “Ray, you know we—father has invested that money, and the truth is, that he and mother have already had so much worry over the business that they would rather let the land go at what was raised on it than to—to run any more risks.”
Bishop groaned out his approval of this elucidation of his condition and sat silently nodding his head. The very thought of further risks stunned and chilled him.
Miller's embarrassment now descended on him in full force.
“I was not thinking of having your father disturb his investments,” he said. “The truth is, I have met with a little financial disappointment in a certain direction. For the last three months I have been raking and scraping among the dry bones of my investments to get up exactly twenty-five thousand dollars to secure a leading interest in a cotton mill at Darley, of which I was to be president. I managed to get the money together and only yesterday I learned that the Northern capital that was to guarantee the thing was only in the corner of a fellow's eye up in Boston—a man that had not a dollar on earth. Well, there you are! I've my twenty-five thousand dollars, and no place to put it. I thought, if you had just as soon owe me the money as Wilson, that you'd really be doing me a favor to let me take up the note. You see, it would actually floor him. He means business, and this would show him that we are not asking any favors of him. In fact, I have an idea it would scare him out of his skin. He'd think we had another opportunity of selling. I'm dying to do this, and I hope you 'll let me work it. Really, I think you ought to consent. I'd never drive you to the wall and—well—hemight.”
All eyes were on the speaker. Bishop had the dazed expression of a bewildered man trying to believe in sudden good luck. Abner Daniel lowered his head and shook with low, subdued laughter.
“You are a jim-dandy, young man,” he said to Miller. “That's all there is about it. You take the rag off the bush. Oh, my Lord! They say in Alt's meeting-house that it's a sin to play poker with no stakes, but Alf's in a game with half the earth put up agin another feller's wad as big as a bale o' hay. Play down, Alf. Play down. You've got a full hand an' plenty to draw from.”
“We couldn't let you do this, Ray,” expostulated Alan.
“But I assure you it is merely a matter of business with me,” declared the lawyer. “You know I'm interested myself, and I believe we shall come out all right. I'm simply itching to do it.”
Bishop's face was ablaze. The assurance that a wise young business man would consider a purchase of his of sufficient value to put a large amount of money on pleased him, banished his fears, thrilled him.
“If you feel that way,” he said, smiling at the corners of his mouth, “go ahead. I don't know but what you are plumb right. It will show Wilson that we ain't beholden to him, an' will set 'im to work ef anything will.”
So it was finally settled, and no one seemed so well pleased with the arrangement as Miller himself. Adele entered the room with the air of one half fearful of intruding, and her three relatives quietly withdrew, leaving her to entertain the guest.
“I wonder what's the matter with your brother,” Miller remarked, as his eyes followed Alan from the room.
“Oh, brother?” laughed Adele. “No one tries to keep up with his whims and fancies.”
“But, really,” said Miller, in a serious tone, “he has mystified me lately. I wonder if he has had bad news from Dolly. I've tried to get into a confidential chat with him several times of late, but he seems to get around it. Really, it seems to me, at times, that he treats me rather coldly.”
“Oh, if you waste time noticing Al you 'll become a beggar,” and Adele gave another amused laugh. “Take my advice and let him alone.”
“I almost believe you know what ails him,” said Miller, eying her closely.
“I know what hethinksails him,” the girl responded.
“And won't you tell me what—what he thinks ails him?”
“No, I couldn't do that,” answered our young lady, with a knowing smile. “If you are ever any wiser on the subject you will have to get your wisdom from him.”
She turned to the piano and began to arrange some scattered pieces of music, and he remained on the hearth, his back to the fire, his brow wrinkled in pleased perplexity.
“I 'll have to get my wisdom from him,” repeated Miller, pronouncing each word with separate distinctness, as if one of them might prove the key to the mystery.
“Yes, I should think two wise men could settle a little thing like that. If not, you may call in the third—you know there were three of you, according to the Bible.”
“Oh, so there were,” smiled Miller; “but it's hard to tell when we three shall meet again. The last time I saw the other two they were having their sandals half-soled for a tramp across the desert. I came this way to build a railroad, and I believe I'm going to do it. That's linking ancient and modern times together with a coupling-pin, isn't it?”
She came from the piano and stood by him, looking down into the fire. “Ah,” she said, seriously, “if you couldonlydo it!”
“Would you like it very much?”
“Very, very much; it means the world to us—to Alan, to father and mother, and—yes, to me. I hunger for independence.”
“Then it shall be done,” he said, fervently.
9273
S the elevator in the big building was taking Rayburn Miller up to the offices of the Southern Land and Timber Company, many reflections passed hurriedly through his mind.
“You are going to get the usual cold shoulder from Wilson,” he mused; “but he 'll put it up against something about as warm as he's touched in many a day. If you don't make him squirm, it will be only because you don't want to.”
Wilson was busy at his desk looking over bills of lading, receipts, and other papers, and now and then giving instructions to a typewriter in the corner of the room.
“Ahl how are you, Miller?” he said, indifferently, giving the caller his hand without rising. “Down to see the city again, eh?”
Rayburn leaned on the top of the desk, and knocked the ashes from his cigar with the tip of his little finger.
“Partly that and partly business,” he returned, carelessly.
“Two birds, eh?”
“That's about it. I concluded you were not coming up our way soon, and so I decided to drop in on you.”
“Yes, glad you did.” Wilson glanced at the papers on his desk and frowned. “Wish I had more time at my disposal. I'd run up to the club with you and show you my Kentucky thoroughbreds, but I realty am rushed, to-day particularly.”
“Oh, I haven't a bit of time to spare myself! I take the afternoon train home. The truth is, I came to see you for my clients, the Bishops.”
“Ah, I see.” Wilson's face clouded over by some mechanical arrangement known only to himself. “Well, I can' t realty report any progress in that matter,” he said. “All the company think Bishop's figures are away out of reason, and the truth is, right now, we are over head and ears in operations in other quarters, and—well, you see how it is?”
“Yes, I think I do.” Miller smoked a moment. “In fact, I told my clients last month that the matter was not absorbing your attention, and so they gave up counting on you.”
Wilson so far forgot his pose that he looked up in a startled sort of way and began to study Miller's smoke-wrapped profile.
“You say they are not—have not been counting on my company to—to buy their land?”
“Why, no,” said Miller, in accents well resembling those of slow and genuine surprise. “Why, you have not shown the slightest interest in the matter since the day you made the loan, and naturally they ceased to think you wanted the land. The only reason I called was that the note is payable to-day, and—”
“Oh yes, by Jove! that was careless of me. The interest is due. I knew it would be all right, and I had no idea you would bother to run down for that. Why, my boy, we could have drawn for it, you know.”
Miller smiled inwardly, as he looked calmly and fixedly through his smoke into the unsuspecting visage upturned to him.
“But the note itself is payable to-day,” he said, closely on the alert for a facial collapse; “and, while you or I might take up a paper for twenty-five thousand dollars through a bank, old-fashioned people like Mr. and Mrs. Bishop would feel safer to have it done by an agent. That's why I came.”
Miller, in silent satisfaction, saw the face of his antagonist fall to pieces like an artificial flower suddenly shattered.
“Pay the note?” gasped Wilson. “Why—”
Miller puffed at his cigar and gazed at his victim as if slightly surprised over the assumption that his clients had not, all along, intended to avail themselves of that condition in their contract.
“You mean that the Bishops are ready to—” Wilson began again on another breath—“to pay us the twenty-five thousand dollars?”
“And the interest for six months,” quietly added Miller, reaching for a match on the desk. “I reckon you've got the note here. I don't want to miss my train.”
Wilson was a good business man, but his Puritanical training in New England had not fitted him for wily diplomacy; besides, he had not expected to meet a diplomat that day, and did not, even now, realize that he was in the hands of one. He still believed that Miller was only a half-educated country lawyer who had barely enough brains and experience to succeed as a legal servant for mountain clients. Hence, he now made little effort to conceal his embarrassment into which the sudden turn of affairs had plunged him. In awkward silence he squirmed in his big chair.
“Of course, they can take up their note to-day if they wish,” he said, with alarmed frankness. “I was not counting on it, though.” He rose to his feet. Miller's watchful eye detected a certain trembling of his lower lip. He thrust his hands into his pockets nervously; and in a tone of open irritation he said to the young man at the typewriter: “Brown, I wish you'd let up on that infernal clicking; sometimes I can stand it, and then again I can' t. You can do those letters in the next room.”
When the young man had gone out, carrying his machine, Wilson turned to Miller. “As I understand it, you, personally, have no interest in the Bishop property?”
“Oh, not a dollar!” smiled the lawyer. “I'm only acting for them.”
“Then”—Wilson drove his hands into his pockets again—“perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me if the Bishops are on trade with other parties. Are they?”
Miller smiled and shook his head. “As their lawyer, Mr. Wilson, I simply couldn't answer that question.”
The blow was well directed and it struck a vulnerable spot.
“I beg your pardon,” Wilson stammered. “I did not mean to suggest that you would betray confidence.” He reflected a moment, and then he said, in a flurried tone, “They have not actually sold out, have they?”
Miller was silent for a moment, then he answered: “I don't see any reason why I may not answer that question I don't think my clients would object to my saying that they have not yet accepted any offer.”
A look of relief suffused itself over Wilson's broad face.
“Then they are still open to accept their offer to me?”
Miller laughed as if highly amused at the complication of the matter.
“They are bound, you remember, only so long as you hold their note.”
“Then I tell you what to do,” proposed Wilson. “Go back and tell them not to bother about payment, for a few days, anyway, and that we will soon tell them positively whether we will pay their price or not. That's fair, isn't it?”
“It might seem so to a man personally interested in the deal,” admitted Miller, as the introduction to another of his blows from the shoulder; “but as lawyer for my clients I can only obey orders, like the boy who stood on the burning deck.”
Wilson's face fell. The remote clicking of the typewriter seemed to grate upon his high-wrought nerves, and he went and slammed the partly opened door, muttering something like an oath. On that slight journey, however, he caught an idea.
“Suppose you wire them my proposition and wait here for a reply,” he suggested.
Miller frowned. “That would do no good,” he said. “I'm sorry I can' t explain fully, but the truth is this: I happen to know that they wish, for reasons of their own, to take up the note you hold, and that nothing else will suit them.”
At this juncture Wilson lost his grip on all self-possession, and degenerated into the sullen anger of sharp and unexpected disappointment.
“I don't feel that we are being fairly treated,” he said. “We most naturally assumed that your clients wanted to—to extend our option on the property for at least another six months. We assumed that from the fact that we had no notification from them that they would be ready to pay the note to-day. That's where we feel injured, Mr. Miller.”
Rayburn threw his cigar into a cuspidor; his attitude of being a non-interested agent was simply a stroke of genius. Behind this plea he crouched, showing himself only to fire shots that played havoc with whatever they struck.
“I believe my clientsdidfeel, I may say, honor bound to you to sell for the price they offered; but—now I may be mistaken—but I'm sure they were under the impression, as I was, too, that you only wanted the property provided you could build a railroad from Dar-ley to it, and—”
“Well, that's true,” broke in Wilson. “That's quite true.”
“And,” finished Miller, still behind his inevitable fortification, “they tell me that you have certainly shown indifference to the project ever since the note was given. In fact, they asked me pointedly if I thought you meant business, and I was forced, conscientiously, to tell them that I thought you seemed to have other fish to fry.”
Wilson glared at the lawyer as if he wanted to kick him for a stupid idiot who could not do two things at once—work for the interests of his clients and not wreck his plans also. It had been a long time since he had found himself in such a hot frying-pan.
“So you think the thing is off,” he said, desperately, probably recalling several purchases of land he had made in the section he had expected to develop. “You think it's off?”
“I hardly know what to say,” said Miller. “The old gentleman, Mr. Bishop, is a slow-going old-timer, but his son is rather up to date, full of energy and ambition. I think he's made up his mind to sell that property.”
Wilson went to his desk, hovered over it like a dark, human cloud, and then reluctantly turned to the big iron safe against the wall, obviously to get the note. His disappointment was too great for concealment. With his fat, pink hand on the silver-plated combination-bolt he turned to Miller again.
“Would you mind sitting down till I telephone one or two of the directors?”
“Not at all,” said Miller, “if you 'll get me a cigar and theConstitution. The Atlanta baseball team played Mobile yesterday, and I was wondering—”
“I don't keep track of such things,” said Wilson, coming back to his desk, with an impatient frown, to ring his call-bell for the office-boy.
“Oh yes, I believe football is your national sport,” said Miller, with a dry smile. “Well, it's only a difference between arms and legs—whole bones and casualties.”
Wilson ordered the cigar and paper when the boy appeared, and, leaving the lawyer suddenly, he went into the room containing the telephone, closing the door after him.
In a few minutes he reappeared, standing before Miller, who was chewing a cold cigar and attentively reading. He looked up at Wilson abstractedly.
“Bully for Atlanta!” he said. “The boys made ten runs before the Mobiles had scored—”
“Oh, come down to business!” said the New-Eng-lander, with a ready-made smile. “Honestly, I don't believe you drowsy Southerners ever will get over your habit of sleeping during business hours. It seems to be bred in the bone.”
Miller laughed misleadingly. “Try to down us at a horse-race and we 'll beat you in the middle of the night. Hang it all, man, you don't know human nature, that's all! How can you expect me, on my measly fees, to dance a breakdown over business I am transacting for other people?”
“Well, that may account for it,” admitted Wilson, who seemed bent on being more agreeable in the light of some fresh hopes he had absorbed from the telephone-wires. “See here, I've got a rock-bottom proposal to make to your people. Now listen, and drop that damned paper for a minute. By Jove! if I had to send a man from your State to attend to legal business I'd pick one not full of mental morphine.”
“Oh, you wouldn't?” Miller laid down the paper and assumed a posture indicative of attention roused from deep sleep. “Fire away. I'm listening.”
“I already had authority to act for the company, but I thought it best to telephone some of the directors.” Wilson sat down in his chair and leaned towards the lawyer. “Here's what we will do. The whole truth is, we are willing to plank down the required one hundred thousand for that property, provided we can lay our road there without incurring the expense of purchasing the right of way. Now if the citizens along the proposed line want their country developed bad enough to donate the right of way through their lands, we can trade.”
There was a pause. Then Miller broke it by striking a match on the sole of his boot. He looked crosseyed at the flame as he applied it to his cigar. “Don't you think your people could stand whatever value is appraised by law in case of refusals along the line?”
“No,” said Wilson. “The price for the land is too steep for that. Your clients have our ultimatum. What do you say? We can advertise a meeting of citizens at Springtown, which is about the centre of the territory involved, and if all agree to give the right of way it will be a trade. We can have the meeting set for to-day two weeks. How does that strike you?”
“I'd have to wire my clients.”
“When can you get an answer?”
Miller looked at his watch. “By five o' clock this afternoon. The message would have to go into the country.”
“Then send it off at once.”
A few minutes after five o' clock Miller sauntered into the office. Wilson sat at his desk and looked up eagerly.
“Well?” he asked, almost under his breath.
The lawyer leaned on the top of the desk. “They are willing to grant you the two weeks' time, provided you sign an agreement for your firm that you will purchase their property at the price named at the expiration of that time.”
“With the provision,” interpolated Wilson, “that a right of way is donated.”
“Yes, with that provision,” Miller nodded.
“Then sit down here and write out your paper.”
Miller complied as nonchalantly as if he were drawing up a bill of sale for a worn-out horse.
“There you are,” he said, pushing the paper to Wilson when he had finished.
Wilson read it critically. “It certainly is binding,” he said. “You people may sleep during business hours, but you have your eyes open when you draw up papers. However, I don't care; I want the Bishops to feel secure. They must get to work to secure the right of way. It will be no easy job, I 'll let you know. I've struck shrewd, obstinate people in my life, but those up there beat the world. Noah couldn't have driven them in the ark, even after the Flood set in.”
“You know something about them, then?” said Miller, laughing to himself over the implied confession.
Wilson flushed, and then admitted that he had been up that way several times looking the situation over.
“How about the charter?” asked Miller, indifferently.
“That's fixed. I have already seen to that.”
“Then it all depends on the right of way,” remarked the lawyer as he drew a check from his pocket and handed it to Wilson. “Now get me that note,” he said.
Wilson brought it from the safe.
“Turning this over cuts my option down to two weeks,” he said. “But we 'll know at the meeting what can be done.”
“Yes, we 'll know then what they can do withyou,” said Miller, significantly, as he put the cancelled note in his pocket and rose to go.
9283
HEN Miller's train reached Darley and he alighted in the car-shed, he was met by a blinding snow-storm. He could see the dim lantern of the hotel porter as he came towards him through the slanting feathery sheet and the yet dimmer lights of the hotel.
“Heer! Marse Miller!” shouted the darky; “look out fer dat plank er you 'll fall in er ditch. Marse Alan Bishop is at de hotel, an' he say tell you ter stop dar—dat you couldn't git home in dis sto'm no how.”
“Oh, he's in town,” said Miller. “Well, I was thinking of spending the night at the hotel, anyway.”
In the office of the hotel, almost the only occupant of the room besides the clerk, sat Abner Daniel, at the red-hot coal stove.
“Why,” exclaimed Miller, in surprise, “I didn't know you were in town.”
“The fact is, we're all heer,” smiled the old man, standing up and stretching himself. He looked as if he had been napping. “We fetched the women in to do some tradin', an' this storm blowed up. We could 'a' made it home all right,” he laughed out impulsively, “but the last one of 'em wanted a excuse to stay over. They are et up with curiosity to know how yore trip come out. They are all up in Betsy an' Alf's room. Go up?”
“Yes, I reckon I'd better relieve their minds.”
Abner offered to pilot him to the room in question, and when it was reached the old man opened the door without knocking. “Heer's the man you've been hankerin' to see all day,” he announced, jovially. “I fetched 'im straight up.”
They all rose from their seats around the big grate-fire and shook hands with the lawyer.
“He looks like he has news of some kind,” said Adele, who was studying his face attentively. “Now, sir, sit down and tell us are we to be rich or poor, bankrupt or robber.”
“Don't put the most likely word last,” said Abner, dryly.
“Well,” began Miller, as he sat down in the semicircle. “As it now stands, we've got a chance to gain our point. I have a signed agreement—and a good one—that your price will be paid if we can get the citizens through whose property the road passes to donate a right of way. That's the only thing that now stands between you and a cash sale.”
“They 'll do it, I think,” declared Alan, elatedly.
“I dunno about that,” said Abner. “It's owin' to whose land is to be donated. Thar's some skunks over in them mountains that wouldn't let the gates o' heaven swing over the'r property except to let themselves through.”
No one laughed at this remark save Abner himself. Mrs. Bishop was staring straight into the fire. Her husband leaned forward and twirled his stiff fingers slowly in front of him.
“Huh! So it depends onthat,” he said. “Well, itdoeslook like mighty nigh anybody ud ruther see a railroad run out thar than not, but I'm no judge.”
“Well, it is to be tested two weeks from now,” Miller said. And then he went into a detailed and amusing account of how he had brought Wilson to terms.
“Well, that beats the Dutch!” laughed Abner. “I'd ruther 'a' been thar 'an to a circus. You worked 'im to a queen's taste—as fine as split silk. You 'n' Pole Baker'd make a good team—you to look after the bon-tons an' him to rake in the scum o' mankind. I don't know but Pole could dress up an' look after both ends, once in a while, ef you wanted to take a rest.”
“I'm always sorry when I heer of it bein' necessary to resort to trickery,” ventured Mrs. Bishop, in her mild way. “It don't look exactly right to me.”
“I don't like it, nuther,” said Bishop. “Ef the land's wuth the money, an'—”
“The trouble with Alf,” broke in Abner, “is that with all his Bible readin' he never seems to git any practical benefit out'n it. Now, when I'm in doubt about whether a thing's right or wrong, I generally find some Scriptural sanction fer the side I want to win. Some'rs in the Bible thar was a big, rich king that sent a pore feller off to git 'im kilt in battle so he could add his woman to his collection. Now, no harm ever come to the king that I know of, an', fer my part, I don't think what you did to yank Wilson into line was nigh as bad, beca'se you was work-in' fer friends. Then Wilson was loaded fer bear his-se'f. War's over, I reckon, but when Wilson's sort comes down heer expectin' to ride rough-shod over us agin, I feel like givin' a war-whoop an' rammin' home a Minié ball.”
“I sha 'n't worry about the morality of the thing,” said Miller. “Wilson was dead set on crushing you to powder. I saw that. Besides, if he takes the property and builds the road, he 'll make a lot of money out of it.”
After this the conversation languished, and, thinking that the old people might wish to retire, Miller bade them good-night and went to his own room.
A snow of sufficient thickness for sleighing in that locality was a rare occurrence, and the next morning an odd scene presented itself in front of the hotel. The young men of the near-by stores had hastily improvised sleds by taking the wheels from buggies and fastening the axles to rough wooden runners, and were making engagements to take the young ladies of the town sleighing.
“Have you ever ridden in a sleigh?” Miller asked Adele, as they stood at a window in the parlor witnessing these preparations.
“Never in my life,” she said.
“Well, you shall,” he said. “I 'll set a carpenter at work on my buggy, and be after you in an hour. Get your wraps. My pair of horses will make one of those sleds fairly spin.”
About eleven o' clock that morning Alan saw them returning from their ride, and, much to his surprise, he noted that Dolly Barclay was with them. As they drew up at the entrance of the hotel, Alan doffed his hat and stepped forward to assist the ladies out of the sled.
“Miss Dolly won't stop,” said Miller. “Get in and drive her around. She's hardly had a taste of it; we only picked her up as we passed her house.”
Alan's heart bounded and then it sank. Miller was smiling at him knowingly. “Go ahead,” he said, pushing him gently towards the sled. “It's all right.”
Hardly knowing if he were acting wisely, Alan took the reins and sat down by Dolly.
Adele stepped up behind to say good-bye to Dolly, and they kissed each other. It was barely audible, and yet it reached the ears of the restive horses and they bounded away like the wind.
“A peculiar way to start horses,” Alan laughed.
“A pleasant way,” she said. “Your sister is a dear, dear girl.”
Then he told her his fears in regard to what her father would think of his driving with her.
“He's out of town to-day,” she answered, with a frank upward glance, “and mother wouldn't care.”
“Then I'm going to enjoy it fully,” he said. “I've been dying to see you, Dolly.”
“And do you suppose I haven't wanted to see you? When Mr. Miller proposed this just now it fairly took my breath away. I was afraid you might happen not to be around the hotel. Oh, there is so much I want to say—and so little time.”
“When I'm with you I can' t talk,” he said. “It seems, in some way, to take up time like the ticking of a clock. I simply want to close my eyes, and—be with you, Dolly—YOU.”
“I know, but we must be practical, and think of the future. Mr. Miller tells me there is a chance for your big scheme to succeed. Oh, if it only would!”
“Yes, a pretty good chance,” he told her; “but even then your father—”
“He'd not hold out against you then,” said Dolly, just for an impulsive moment clasping his arm as they shot through a snow-drift and turned a corner of the street leading into the country.
“Then it must succeed,” he said, looking at her tenderly. “Itmust, Dolly.”
“I shall pray for it—that and nothing else.”
Feeling the slack reins on their backs, the horses slowed up till they were plodding along lazily. Suddenly the sled began to drag on the clay road where the wind had bared it of snow, and the horses stopped of their own accord, looking back at their increased burden inquiringly. Alan made no effort to start them on again. It was a sequestered spot, well hidden from the rest of the road by an old hedge of Osage orange bushes.
“We must not stop,dear,” Dolly said, laying her hand again on his arm. “You know driving is—is different from this. As long as we are moving in any direction, I have no scruples, but to stop here in the road—no, it won't do.”
“I was just wondering if we can start them,” he said, a mischievous look in his laughing eye.
“Start them?” She extended her hand for the reins, but he held them out of her reach. “Why, what do you mean?”
“Why, you saw the way they were started at the hotel,” he answered, in quite a serious tone. “Ray has trained them-that way. They won't budge an inch unless—”
“Oh, you silly boy!” Dolly was flushing charmingly.
“It's true,” he said. “I'm sorry if you object, for it's absolutely the only available way.”
She raised her full, trusting eyes to his.
“You make me want to kiss you, Alan, but—”
He did not let her finish. Putting his arm around her, he drew her close to him and kissed her on the lips. “Now, darling,” he said, “you are mine.”
“Yes, I am yours, Alan.”
As they were nearing her house he told her that Wilson had agents out secretly buying land, and that she must not allow her father to dispose of his timbered interests until it was decided whether the railroad would be built.
She promised to keep an eye on the Colonel's transactions and do all she could to prevent him from taking a false step. “You may not know it,” she said, “but I'm his chief adviser. He 'll be apt to mention any offer he gets to me.”
“Well, don't tell him about the railroad unless you have to,” he said, in parting with her at the gate. “But it would be glorious to have him profit by our scheme, and I think he will.”
“We are going to hope for success, anyway, aren't we?” she said, leaning over the gate. “I have believed in you so much that I feel almost sure you are to be rewarded.”
“Miller thinks the chances are good,” he told her, “but father is afraid those men over there will do their best to ruin the whole thing.”
Dolly waved her handkerchief to some one at a window of the house. “It's mother,” she said. “She's shaking her finger at me.”
“I reckon she's mad at me,” said Alan, disconsolately.
“Not much,” Dolly laughed. “She's simply crazy to come out and gossip with us. She would, too, if she wasn't afraid of father. Oh, young man, you 'll have a mother-in-law that will reverse the order of things! Instead of her keeping you straight, you 'll have to help us manage her. Father says she's 'as wild as a buck.'”
They both laughed from the fulness of their happiness. A buggy on runners dashed by. It contained a pair of lovers, who shouted and waved their hands. The sun was shining broadly. The snow would not last long. The crudest sled of all passed in the wake of the other. It was simply a plank about twelve inches wide and ten feet long to which a gaunt, limping horse was hitched. On the plank stood a triumphant lad balancing himself with the skill of a bareback rider. His face was flushed; he had never been so full of joy and ozone. From the other direction came a gigantic concern looking like a snow-plough or a metropolitan street-sweeper. It was a sliding road-wagon to which Frank Hillhouse had hitched four sturdy mules. The wagon was full of girls. Frank sat on the front seat cracking a whip and smoking. A little negro boy sat astride of the leading mule, digging his rag-clothed heels into the animal's side. Frank bowed as he passed, but his face was rigid.
“He didn't intend to ask me,” said Dolly. “He hardly speaks to me since—”
“Since what?” Alan questioned.
“Since I asked him not to come to see me so often. I had to do it. He was making a fool of himself. It had to stop.”
“You refused him?”
“Yes; but you must go now.” Dolly was laughing again. “Mother will be out here in a minute; she can't curb her curiosity any longer. She'd make you take her riding, and I wouldn't have you do it for the world. Good-bye.”
“Well, good-bye.”
“Now, you must hope for the best, Alan.”
“I'm going to. Good-bye.”