XXXA Grounded Wire
THE small world of Coalville, centring socially under Tait’s store porch, had its vivifying shock when it awoke one morning to find that in a single night, as one might say, the entire face of nature had changed for the sleepy little hamlet at the foot of old Pisgah. In the instant of transformation the Ocoee of many disappointments had suddenly leaped into the foreground as a coal discovery of unlimited possibilities; an army of workmen was massing to shift the old tramway to the new opening; motor-trucks, piled high with material, were trundling over the valley pike from Hesterville; carpenters were rushing up new buildings at top speed; and at the centre of all these stirring activities, directing and driving them, was the young man whom rumor had been bulletining as dead or dying in his room on the second floor of the old office-building, or at best destined to pass the remainder of his life in an asylum.
Taking one thing with another, the gossips at Tait’s found it difficult to recognize the convalescent Tregarvon. The brief period of his illness had seemed to mature him curiously; to make him a man of a single idea—the idea being to turn the Ocoee into a producing industry in the shortest possible time. Also, they missed the genial and mollifying influence of the young New York millionaire, who, though still nominally an inmate of the Ocoee headquarters building, spent most of his time on the mountain, presumably as a guest of the Caswells.
As it chanced, the store-porch gossips were not the only persons who were finding a changed Tregarvon sitting at the desk of overlordship in the hastily remodelled Ocoee office-building. There were others, among them Barnby, travelling freight agent for the railroad, who had come all the way from his own headquarters to find out why the Ocoee was hauling its new material from Hesterville in motor-trucks.
“You will find the reason in the correspondence files of your general office,” was the curt reply of the Ocoee organizer. “I asked for a rate from Hesterville to Coalville on the material and was told that the shortage of cars would make it impossible for your road to handle the freight saveas it might be transported a little at a time by the daily way-train. I don’t propose to be held up by a railroad company, the policy of which seems to be dictated by the C. C. & I., Mr. Barnby.”
Barnby was a fleshy young man with an easy smile, and he gave the smile its blandishing opportunity.
“You will have to ship your product out over our road when you get in operation, won’t you?” he asked mildly.
“Not necessarily. We have all the capital we need, and if you don’t give us an equal show with the C. C. & I. we shall build a ten-mile industrial track, for which we have already secured a right of way, to a connection with the South Central at Midvale. It’s up to your people. Talk it over with them when you go back to headquarters. Glad to have met you. Drop in again when you are going over the line. Good morning.”
Touching this intimation that the coal trust had already begun a new series of impeding activities, speculation was rife. Some said that the C. C. & I. would buy the new mine, lock, stock, and barrel, and close it; others hinted that the trust would put the price of coke so low that the new company would be bankrupted in shortorder; still others suggested that Consolidated Coal would conspire with the railroad and call Tregarvon’s bluff to build the industrial cut-off.
Wilmerding or Duncan, or both of them, brought these rumors to Tregarvon, and were amazed to find that he refused to be either disturbed or greatly interested. In many ways the superintendent and the old Scotch engineer were discovering daily that they had to do with a man who had developed suddenly into a master of himself and others. The light-hearted young fellow who had thrown himself so joyously into the fray at the beginning had given place to a modern captain of industry, alert, strong-willed, a bit dictatorial, perhaps, but entirely capable.
“Never mind what the C. C. & I. is doing, or will try to do,” he told his oddly assorted lieutenants. “Our job is to get the mine open and the ovens fired. Consolidated Coal will neither buy us nor break us, nor force us to build a railroad to Midvale. I’ll take care of all those details at the proper time.”
It was on the day when the first tram loads of Ocoee coal were coming down the mountain to be dumped into the oven-filling hoppers that another caller discovered the new Tregarvon. Late in the afternoon a neat, rubber-tired buggy, drawnby a black Hambletonian, stopped in front of the Ocoee office-building, and a round-bodied little man descended and hitched the horse.
Somewhat to his chagrin, it may be supposed, Mr. Onias Thaxter was allowed to cool his heels for a full quarter of an hour in the outer office before he was admitted to the presence of the new overlord; and the waiting was doubtless the harder to endure since he came bearing the olive-branch of peace. Tregarvon sat back in his chair and listened coldly while the peace branch was getting itself waved to an accompaniment of placative speech.
“There is no such thing as personal vindictiveness in business, Mr. Tregarvon,” was the summing-up of the Thaxter argument. “Without admitting it as a fact, let us assume, for the moment, that the man Sawyer was employed as a sort of scout for our people. This is a thing that is done every day; it’s business, and good business. You might do it yourself, if you had a competitor. We are hearing it asserted here and there and everywhere that you are charging us with a lot of outlawry with which we had nothing to do, and that you are going to press the charges in the courts. Will you pardon me if I say that that isn’t playing the game?”
“You may say anything you wish to say, if you will only make it sufficiently brief,” was the discouraging rejoinder.
“I have already made my suggestion. It must be evident to you that a consolidation of interests with us is by far the most sensible plan you can adopt. You can hardly hope to do business here, as an independent coal operator, in the heart of a region which we have developed. There would be constant friction; in the market, with your labor, with the transportation companies. I am not authorized to make a definite proposal, but if you will organize your new company on a conservative basis with a modest capitalization, I feel sure that our people would take you in as a subsidiary, share for share at par value.”
“Are you quite through?” asked the new Tregarvon, when the emissary paused to take breath. “If you are, you may have my answer in one word—No.”
“I am sure you are deciding too hastily, and because you haven’t given the plan sufficient thought. As I have pointed out, there is no such thing as vindictiveness in business; but when you deliberately set up that standard for yourself, you mustn’t expect the other fellow to lie down and let you run the truck-wheels over him.”
“By which you mean that if I refuse to let you swallow me peaceably, you will do it the other way?”
“That is your own deduction—not mine,” said the bookkeeper in the tone of one trying to soothe a wayward child.
“Then listen to me, Mr. Thaxter. Some scoundrels—possibly you and your people—have harried me like a lot of pirates. Nothing has been left undone in the effort either to swindle me out of my property on the one hand, or to force me out of it on the other. But now the shoe is on the other foot”—he was leaning across the corner of the desk and emphasizing the words with a clenched fist beating softly upon the oak—“we have Sawyer where we can make him talk. We know that he can implicate you, individually, in one of the criminalities; and perhaps he can tell us something about the others. Mr. Thaxter, I am going to sift these bushwhackings to the bottom, and you know best whether or not you or the combination you represent can afford to heap more fuel on the fire now by fighting me in the manner you have suggested. That is all I have to say, I believe, and I shall have to ask you to excuse me. This is my busy day.”
In the early evening of the fourth day afterThaxter’s visit, Carfax made one of his infrequent descents of the mountain, driving a ridiculously high-priced car, the purchasing of which had been his latest extravagance. The coke-ovens in the long rank were aglow with the fires of the initial charging, and the air of the valley was murky with the smoke of the new industry. Wilmerding and Duncan were at the mine, and Tregarvon had just finished his dinner when Carfax entered the dining-room.
“You do turn up once in a while, don’t you?” said the solitary diner not too hospitably. “You’re late for dinner, but doubtless Uncle William can find you something. You will have to eat alone. I have some work to do.”
Carfax followed the worker into the front office and, when the lights were turned on, dropped into a chair.
“I don’t want any dinner,” he said. “Or rather I should say, I’m due to show up at Mrs. Caswell’s at the proper dinner-hour.”
Tregarvon had a telegraph pad under his hand and he took time to write a brief message before he said, half-absently: “We keep working-men’s hours here.”
“Which is a delicate way of intimating that I’d better go chase myself and quit botheringyou?” put in the intruder with a gentle chuckle. “All right; I’ll vanish presently. But first I’d like to ask if you are still clinging to your fantastic idea of making somebody suffer for the dynamiting?”
“I am; and I don’t see anything fantastic about it. A number of crimes have been committed, and I have no notion of compounding a felony by letting the perpetrators get away. Morgan McNabb is the key to the situation, and I have never understood why you and Judge Birrell turned him loose and gave him a chance to disappear. It has cost me a pretty penny to trace him, but I’ve got him now. He is under arrest in Dallas, Texas.”
“And you are going to have him brought back and given the third degree?”
“Precisely. I have just written the telegram.”
Carfax was feeling in his pockets for his cigarette-case, going about it leisurely as one who would gain time.
“McNabb is only a poor devil of a mountaineer, too ignorant to be held fully accountable, don’t you think?” he ventured at the match-lighting.
“That may be. But he knows the real criminal or criminals who employed him. I’ve been an easy mark all my life, Poictiers, but that is athing of the past now. I’ve turned over a new leaf.”
The golden youth was blowing delicate little smoke rings at the ceiling.
“So you have, and the new leaf isn’t as pleasant reading as some of the old ones, Vance,” he commented, speaking slowly and without a trace of the lisp. “Some of the things you are writing down on it are rather sordid, don’t you think? You are a bigger man in some ways, and a much smaller one in some others.”
“‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend,’” quoted the one under criticism with a short laugh. “Suppose you elucidate.”
“I will. Up to the time of your father’s death you were as much of aflâneuras I’ve always been. You didn’t have to ask for your blessings; you merely reached out and took them—if they didn’t happen to be handed you on a silver platter. During the past few months you’ve been chucked up against life as it really is for the greater part of mankind; a fight, a frantic scramble for a foothold. You’ve made the fight, because you have the good old Cornish fighting blood in you; but while you have been growing on one side you have been shrinking on the other.”
“Go on.”
“Real magnanimity was one of the strongest and most lovable qualities of the man you’ve put off; you’ve lost it completely. Cheerful optimism was one of the other good points, and you’ve dropped it. Just now you are planning first to get square with your enemies, and next to shirk your responsibilities by effacing yourself. What have you done about the new incorporation?”
“I have done exactly what I told you I should. The new company is formed, and the papers for the division of the capital stock are prepared. I am looking for Peters, the family lawyer, on every train, and when he comes the deal will be closed.”
“You tried to tell me the other day what the property arrangement is to be, but I didn’t get it very clearly fixed in my mind,” Carfax offered.
“It is simple. Since you say you don’t want any of the stock, you will be reimbursed for your cash advances out of the first money earned by the mine. The stock is to be divided, sixty per cent to my mother and sister and forty to Judge Birrell for distribution among the original minority stockholders who were swindled out of their holdings by Parker.”
“Parker,” said Carfax musingly. “He will never swindle any more. Did I tell you? I readan item in the New YorkTimes. Parker was found dead at his desk in his Broad Street office one day last week.” Then he came back to the matter in hand. “Where do you come in, in the property distribution?”
“I don’t come in; I go out. Wilmerding and Duncan can operate the mine, and I shan’t be needed. I shall go West and try for an engineering job in one of the gold camps.”
“But not before you have had your revenge upon the dynamiters?”
“No; I shall stay long enough to see that part of it through to a finish.”
“You are proving my contention very handsomely, don’t you think?” said the critic quietly; “that you are bigger in some ways and smaller in others? You are telling yourself that this generous thing you are going to do is perfectly magnanimous, and that you are merely raising the magnanimity to thenthpower by conserving the ends of pure justice in the prosecution part of it, and by obliterating yourself afterward. But, really, at the bottom of it all there are two rather dismal motives. You want your revenge, and you wish to show the woman in the case that you can turn your back upon her without half trying. Isn’t that true?”
Tregarvon’s grin bordered upon the saturnine. “It’s next to impossible to resent anything you choose to say, Poictiers; that is your one little gift—to be able to flay your friends without getting yourself disliked. Let’s talk of something else. How long is Elizabeth going to stay at Judge Birrell’s?”
This time the golden youth was able to call up the cherubic smile in all its glory.
“Not very much longer now. She, too, is going West.”
“What? Elizabeth? You don’t know her as well as I do. Her ‘West’ begins and ends at the summit of the Alleghenies.”
“Nevertheless, she is planning to make the grand tour—in a private car.”
Tregarvon reached suddenly across the corner of the table-desk and grasped the hand of many helpings.
“There is enough of the old Vance Tregarvon left in me to wish you all the joy there is in the world, Poictiers!” he exclaimed, with some touch of the old-time heartiness. “You two were made for each other; I can see it now.”
“You are quite sure there aren’t any inward daggerings behind that, Vance?” said the successful one half wistfully.
“Not in the least. I’m glad. If you or Elizabeth had only told me at first who the other fellow was ... but it is all right now. How did you contrive to persuade her to overlook your bit of play-acting with Richardia?”
The persuader shook his head. “That part of it was pretty serious. It was one of the things that couldn’t very well be explained in cold words. I think Miss Richardia has helped out some. She knew well enough what I did it for.”
“You didn’t do it for me,” Tregarvon interposed bluntly.
“Not at all,” was the quiet rejoinder. “As I have said before, I assumed most naturally that Elizabeth’s happiness was involved, and I didn’t propose to stand by and see you make ducks and drakes of it if I could help it.”
“Never mind; it’s all over now, and you two at least are in a fair way to get what is coming to you. How is Hartridge getting along by this time?”
“Quite well. He is walking with a crutch, and is able to hear his classes.” So much Carfax said in the matter-of-fact manner of one who answers a commonplace categorically. Then he sat up suddenly and snapped his fingers, and the lisping drawl had returned when he went on: “By Jove!that reminds me, don’t you know. Hartridge would like to see you.”
“Why does he wish to see me?”
Carfax spread his hands. “My dear boy, I’m no mind-reader. But I’m sure it’s rather urgent. Will you go?”
Tregarvon sat frowning down upon the papers on the desk for a full half-minute before he looked up to say: “I can’t go, Poictiers. I don’t care especially to meet Hartridge, or to listen to the begging-off plea which he is probably going to make. He as good as told me that he was jealous, and was trying to get square. Besides, I haven’t seen Richardia since this mad-work whirl began, and—and it will be easier for me if I don’t see her again.”
Carfax had his answer ready. “You’ll not meet Richardia at Highmount. Elizabeth is staying with the Caswells for a few days, and Richardia went home to Westwood House at three o’clock. I know, because I drove her in my car. Hartridge has his rooms in the laboratory building, and you needn’t show up at the president’s house at all if you don’t wish to.”
Tregarvon hesitated a moment and then glanced at his watch.
“I’ll go—a little later,” he decided abruptly.“I don’t know that I owe the professor anything but an action at law for helping to destroy my drilling plant, but I’ll give him a chance to say what he has to say. Now run along and keep your dinner engagement. I can drive up in my own car when I am ready.”
“About what time will that be?” queried Carfax, hanging upon the threshold of the door of leave-takings. “I ought to let Hartridge know when to expect you.”
Again Tregarvon looked at his watch. “Say eight o’clock. Will that do?”
“Perfectly, I should think.” It was the golden youth’s cue to disappear, but still he lingered. “That telegram you have just written, Vance; are you going to send it to-night?”
Tregarvon answered without looking up. “Certainly. And to-morrow I shall notify the sheriff to send a deputy after McNabb.”
Carfax went out, closing the door softly behind him. But when the big expensive motor-car had cut its half-circle to head toward the mountain pike it was brought to a stand at the railroad station, and the driver left it for a minute or two while he had speech through the ticket-window with Orcutt, the night telegraph operator. Daddy Layne, with nothing better to do, was warminghis shins at the waiting-room stove, and though he listened, after the manner of his kind, he caught only one sentence of the low-toned talk. That was Orcutt’s, spoken after Layne’s keen old eyes had glimpsed the passing of something that looked like a yellow-backed bank-note through the window. “It’ll be as much as my job’s worth, Mr. Carfax, but I’ll do it.”
A half-hour later, while Layne was dozing in a corner of the superheated waiting-room, Tregarvon came in with his message to the Dallas chief of police. This time there was no effort made to keep the talk from being overheard.
“I’m mighty sorry, Mr. Tregarvon, but I can’t get it off to-night,” was the operator’s deprecatory protest when the message was handed in. “The commercial wires are grounded—been that way all the evening. Mighty sorry, but these things will happen once in a while. Yes; sure! first thing in the morning, if I have to put it through the despatcher’s office. Good night.”