XII
GREGORY had worn a clean suit of overalls into the mine. He was now spattered from head to foot, including his face and hands, but he swung along beside Ora with an unconsciousness of his disreputable appearance that was quite superb. All the miners of the three camps’ off shift were gathered about the saloon. As Gregory appeared the greater number of these men cheered wildly, but the “dark men,” who stood apart, maintained an ominous silence.
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll take a shot at you some night?” asked Ora. “How they must hate you!”
“You don’t go into any business nowadays and put it over without running the risk of being shot by some sort of down-and-outer. What’s the sense in worrying? Unless I’m much mistaken we’ll be rid of that scum inside of twenty-four hours.”
And he was right. There was another battle underground, in which more of the Apex men were scalded, and the Perch men unhurt. Then the Apex men refused to work, and the mine closed. Gregory was shot at on the following night, and Joshua Mann was slightly wounded. Both the Perch and Primo men tumbled out of bed, hunted down the offenders, and chased them into Pony, riddling the air with shot and rending it with bloodthirsty yells. It would be some time before Apex would be able to hire miners of any nationality willing to trust themselves between the two belligerent camps. But bohunks—more recent importations—would return in the future, if any. These ignorant and friendless South Europeans can be killed for about two hundred dollars apiece, whereas it costs several thousands to kill an American, Cornishman, or Irishman, as he leaves behind him an equally intelligent family or friends. It was unlikely, in any case, that high class miners would “take a job” in the predatory Apex. They not only liked Gregory Comptonbecause he was his own manager and worshipped by his miners, but because he possessed in overflowing measure the two qualities that the American in his heart of hearts respects most, luck and bluff.
Amalgamated immediately brought suit against Gregory Compton, charging not only that the faulted vein apexed in their claim, but that his original patent was agricultural and gave him no lateral rights in mining; furthermore, that a patented claim could not be repatented. This was a fine legal point and could impoverish several generations before it was decided.
Gregory paid no attention to this suit beyond issuing an invitation through the press to eight of the leading geologists of the United States and Canada to come to Montana at his expense and make a personal inspection of the two veins. If they did not agree that the vein on which he had been working, containing a shoot of chalcopyrite six feet wide, and of the highest grade, was the original vein, and the Primo-Apex a mere stringer, or at most a fork from his, he would let the suit go by default. The geologists promptly accepted, and it was agreed that they should all arrive in Butte on the second of June.
Once more Gregory Compton had scored. Scientific men are normally honest, although the great fees offered to geologists frequently infuse their judgment with that malleable quality peculiar to the lawyer under the subtle influence of his brief. But these men, all of high repute, would be too afraid of one another, and of the merciless newspaper men that would accompany them, to deliver aught but a just verdict. Gregory knew that Amalgamated was profoundly disconcerted, and that in the face of public opinion it was improbable that the suit ever would be brought into court. But they could devil him meanwhile, and he was enjoined from working on the recovered vein until the case should be decided. He accepted the injunction without protest and transferred the miners, whom he had kept hard at work blocking out until the last minute, down to the second level of the mine.
“They’ll get a jolt from that quarter, too,” said Gregory to Ora, and he was not referring to the miners. “They’ll go on fighting me for years, no doubt, but I’ll spring some sort of a facer on them every time. They may have more money, but I have enough.”
“You never feel afraid they may beat you in the end?”
“Beat me?” Gregory’s eyes glittered. “Not unless they bore a hole in my skull and introduce a microbe that will devour my brains. I can get ahead of them in more ways than one. Long before all the ore on the second level is stoped out I shall be in a position to put up my own reduction works if they freeze me out of Anaconda or Great Falls. If I ever go into politics it will be to fight for a state smelter.”
Ora looked at him speculatively. He was walking up and down her living-room with a swift gliding motion peculiar to him in certain moods; his head was a little bent as if his narrow concentrated gaze were following a trail.
“I believe you love the fight as much as any part of it,” she said.
“I do. And as soon as I’ve taken out money enough I’m going to buy a big tract of land, irrigate it, plant it in beets, put up a sugar refinery and fight the Havemeyer trust.”
“Why don’t you form a company, buy your beet land, and put up the factory now? You could raise all the money you wanted.”
“No companies or partners for me,” he said curtly. “What I’ll do I’ll do alone. I want no man’s help and no man’s money. And I certainly want no other man’s ideas interfering with mine.”
Ora sighed. He had been away for a week on his railroad and land business, and during this, their first meeting since his return, he had talked of nothing save his mine and the new possibilities of Circle-G Ranch. Investigation of the soil and timber values of the 35,000 acres which he had originally hypothecated as a guarantee that the railroad should be built, but which perforce had reverted to him when the Land Selling Company had failed to keep this part of their contract, would be worth, after proper transportation facilities were insured, not less than twenty-five dollars an acre. A member of the Land Selling Company whom he had taken with him had been convinced of this, and that the soil was peculiarly adapted to the raising of apples by intensive culture. As soon as the railroad was built there would be no difficulty in selling the timber and the rest of the land, and the Companyhad agreed to buy it. His profits would be $875,000, and the railroad would cost but $300,000.
No wonder, thought Ora, that a man with a business brain of that calibre had little place in it for woman. True, he had called her up once from Helena, evidently seized with a sudden desire to hear her voice, but he had been interrupted; and the only tangible result had been to keep her in such a fever of expectancy that she barely had left the house lest he call her up again and she miss him. He did not, and her nerves had become so ragged that she almost had hated him and obeyed the impulse to pack her trunks and flee to Europe. He had come to see her within an hour of his return, but, beyond his rare delightful smile and a hard pressure of the hand, he had manifestly been too absorbed to feel any personal appeal beyond her always welcome companionship.
And the next morning he telephoned that he was leaving for Butte. Ida had reminded him of his promise to appear in public with her. Mary Garden was to sing that night and she had taken a box. He had grumbled but finally agreed to go, as he had business in Butte which might as well be transacted that afternoon. Ida thanked him politely and promised him an interesting party at dinner. Then she called up Ora and invited her, but Ora declined on the plea of good taste; the story of her impending divorce was common property, and it was hardly decent for her to appear in public.