XXIII
“WELL, what do you know about that?”
Mark’s feet were on the table in the cabin Gregory had had built for himself on the top of the hill. The news had just been brought to them by one of the men who had a faithful friend in the Primo Mine.
Gregory was engaged in biting a cigar to pieces. He waited some ten minutes before replying, during which Mark smoked philosophically. “I think this,” he said finally, “what those fellows are after is gold, not copper. Better suggest to them to get out an expert geologist—Holmes is a good friend of mine—who will tell them to sink a shaft over on the right, or run a drift from the original stope. All we need is time.”
“I’m on. But will they do it? They’re not fools and what they’re after mainly is cash.”
“I think they’ll listen to reason. They’re not far from the boundary line and there’s no possible doubt that the vein apexes here. The moment they cross the line I’ll get out an injunction. That would stop them anyhow, hold them up until their lease had expired. And their chance is good to recover the vein on the other side. No doubt it has faulted. Have you noticed those aspens about a hundred yards beyond their shaft? Where there are aspens there is water. Now as there is no water in sight it must be below the surface, and that would indicate faulting. There might be no ore on the other side, but the chance is worth taking. Better have a talk with Osborne tomorrow. He’s the least mulish of the two.”
“Good. I might offer them some inducement—give them an extra month or two. Even so we’d win out. But they’re not the only danger ahead. How long since you’ve been in Butte?”
“Not since I began work.”
“Well, let me tell you that Amalgamated is buzzing.They’ve got on to the fact good and plenty that you’ve got the biggest thing in copper that has been struck in Montana for twenty years. Of course they get figures regularly from the sampling works. They know you’ve already taken out half a million dollars worth of ore—net—and that the new shoot is getting richer every minute. They’re talking loud about spoiling the market and all the rest of it. Of course that’s rank nonsense. What worries them is a rival in Montana. If your mine was in Colorado or Michigan they wouldn’t care shucks. You haven’t taken out enough yet to worry them about the market. But if they can queer your game they’ll do it. Lucky for you the smelting works need copper just now as badly as you need them. If it were not for that strike in the Stemwinder and the Corkscrew you might be having trouble.”
Gregory smiled, but as he set his jaw at the same time it was not an agreeable smile. “I’m in a mood to fight somebody—and win. I wanted gold and didn’t get it. A row with Amalgamated would relieve my feelings—although I’d rather use my fists.”
“They’re mad, too, because you’ve named your mine ‘Perch of the Devil.’ That’s the old name for Butte, and they look upon it as a direct challenge.”
“So it is. And you don’t suppose I’d call my mine Limestone Hill, do you? I shouldn’t get half the fun out of it. What the devil can they do, anyhow?”
“That’s what I’m worrying about. You never know what Amalgamated has up its sleeve. There was just one man who was too much for them—for a while—and that was Heinze. And they got him in the end. I believe you’d give them a run for their money, and I don’t rank you second to Heinze or any other man when it comes to brains or resource. But—well, they’ve got billions—and the best legal talent in the state.”
“You deserve a return compliment. You may consider yourself counsel for Perch of the Devil Mine.”
“Jimminy! But I’d like a chance at them.” Mark’s cigar was burning his fingers but he only felt the fire in his brain. “Do you mean it?”
“Who else? Watch them. Put spies on them. Fight them with their own weapons. They’ve spies among my miners. That doesn’t worry me a bit. I merely mentionit. Let’s change the subject. I’ve got to sleep tonight. What’s the news from Europe?”
“I’ve got Ora’s last letter here; want to hear it?”
“Good Lord, no. Tell me what they are doing. I sent Ida five thousand dollars a few days ago, so I suppose they’re flying high. She cabled her thanks and said they were both well.”
“Don’t you really know what they’ve been doing?”
“Not a thing.”
“Well—let’s see. They went over in June. They did France, Germany—lot of places in regulation tourist style—incidentally met several of Mrs. Stratton’s old friends. Then they went back to Paris, where they appear to have indulged in an orgy of clothes preparatory to a round of country house visits on the Continent and in England. Ora writes with great enthusiasm of—er—Ida’s improvement. Says you’d think she’d been on top all her life, especially since she got those Paris duds, and met a lot of smart people; makes a hit with everybody, and will astonish Butte when she comes back.”
“That will please her!” He felt no glow of tenderness, but some satisfaction that he could gratify the ambitions of the woman he had married. He was still too keen on his own youthful dreams, and thankful at their partial fulfillment, not to sympathise with those of others.
Mark left him to accept the more commodious hospitality of Oakley, and Gregory sat for another hour smoking, hoping for the mood of sleep. But the news had excited him, and he preferred to sit up rather than to toss about his narrow bed. The last part of the conversation, however, had given a new turn to his thoughts. Suddenly, unbidden, Ora flashed into his mind and refused to be dislodged. He walked up and down, striving to banish her as he had done before, when, sleepless, she had peremptorily demanded his attention. Tonight she was almost a visible presence in the little room.
He sat down again and grimly permitted his mind to dwell upon his long communion with her on the steps of the School of Mines. He tried to analyse his impulse to take her there. Unconventional as he was it had never occurred to him to do such a thing before, and there were twenty women in the room whom he would have expected to exercise a more potent fascination had he been in thehumour for a flirtation. He had been quite honest in telling Ora that he had taken her out merely to look at her under the stars, and in intimating that to make love to her was the last thing in his mind. She had hardly seemed a woman at all there in the ballroom or when he first sat at her feet; his mind was relaxed and the “queer” romantic or poetical streak that he often deprecated had taken possession of it; if he had had a suspicion of anything more he would have fled from her at once, for she was the wife of his friend. As it was he merely had dismissed Mark from his mind and tried the experiment of setting a bit of exquisite white poetry to the music of the stars....
As often as her memory had assailed him he had longed to rehearse that scene; the conversation, desultory and personal; her white profile against the flaming blue sky; the intensity and brilliancy of her eyes, so unlooked for in her young almost colorless face; her pink mouth that changed its expression so often; her curious magnetism, so unlike that of the full-blooded woman—all of that and something more; the strange community of mind—or soul?—that had drawn him on to pour out his secret self into another self of whose contact he was almost literally sensible,—in a sudden desire for comprehension that had been like the birth of a new star in his mental constellation. He had felt the thrill of her sympathy, her understanding, then another thrill of perplexity, fear; then the little quarrel, when he had thought her more adorable than ever, and no longer bearing the least resemblance to a star-wraith, but wholly feminine. When he left her it was with the confused sense that he had sojourned for a bit with the quintessence of womanhood whom Nature had cast in a new and perilous mould.
He went over the hour again and again, hoping to bore himself, to arrive at the conclusion that it had been a mere commonplace flirtation with a coquette who was as cold as she looked. But he found the recaptured scene very sweet. The power of concentration he possessed enabled him to shut out the little room and sit at the feet of the woman whose magic personality had penetrated the barriers he so jealously had built about his soul and given him the first sense of companionship he had ever known.
He was filled with a longing that shook him and hurthim, to feel that sense of sympathetic companionship, of spiritual contact, again. And far more. He knew that she had loved no man, that all the glory and the riches within her were waiting—and if she had waited, and he had waited, and they had met unfettered that night——
He sprang to his feet. His face in the smoky light looked black.
“God!” he muttered. “God! Have I fallen as low as that? If ever I think of her again I’ll cut my heart out. I hope to God the Amalgamated puts up the hell of a fight. What I want is a man’s work in the world, not a play actor’s.”