XXVI
GREGORY had scored against the most powerful combination of capital in the world. He knew that they knew he had scored, for he had met Mr. John Robinson as he descended the Court House steps with the husband of the delinquent taxpayer, and he felt reasonably elated. But the keenest and canniest brains are not infallible, and he underestimated the resources of his mighty and now open enemy. Three mornings later, while he was still asleep, Joshua Mann, the miner in his confidence and devoted to his interests, burst into the cabin and shook him.
“There’s the devil to pay, sir,” he cried. “Amalgamated has staked off a claim between our boundary line and Primo.”
Gregory sat up in bed. He never awakened dazed, but with every faculty alert. “What are you talking about? The Primo claim almost overlaps the ranch.”
“So anyone would think. But it doesn’t. That’s the point. Of course the old stakes of the Primo rotted long ago. They must have got hold of the original map. But there it is: a bit of unclaimed land between Primo and the ranch. There isn’t much more than room to sink a shaft, but there is, all right. Guess they’ve got us on the hip.” And having delivered his news he relieved his mind with profanity, of which he too had a choice assortment.
Gregory flung on his clothes and accompanied by Mann walked hastily to the edge of the hill. There, sure enough, were the four posts and the flaunting notice of a located claim.
“Must have done it between shifts last night,” commented the miner. “Didn’t take long and the moon helped. By jing!—if I’d been round with a shotgun! Well, there’ll be fun underground sames on top. The moment they break through we’ll be ready for ’em. They may get there but they won’t stay long. The boys willlike the fun; and we’d put our last cent on you—know a winner when we see one.”
“Put on an extra force and make them work like hell.We must get here first.When I’m not below you’re boss.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll keep ’em on the job, all right.”
“Promise them extra pay. Come up to me at eight o’clock tonight and we’ll talk it over.”
He went back to the cabin and telephoned to Mark to come out at once. The lawyer arrived in the course of the morning. The first ten minutes of the interview may be passed over. Then Mark recovered his equilibrium. He lit a cigar, demanded a drink, and elevated his feet to the table.
“We’ll just thresh this question out, turn the spot-light on every side of it, present and future. We ought to have done it before, but that first victory was a little too heady. Nothing like a defeat to clear the brain. What’s the first thing they’ll do? They won’t waste time sinking a shaft if they can help it. That’s the hardest kind of country rock. They’ll try to buy up the lease from Douglas and Osborne. I haven’t the lease with me, but most leases carry a clause which permits the original lessees to sub-let. I fancy I could get out an injunction and delay them, however, until the lease expired. But what they can do, all right, is to bribe those two men to give them the use of their cross-cut—the one that has already struck your vein—while they were sinking the shaft. Do you think they’ll fall for it?”
“My experience is that most men can be bribed if the roll is big enough. Osborne and Douglas are pretty discouraged, although they’ve begun to drift across the fault. I’ll talk to them, but they’re not square men. Amalgamated could pretend to be sinking a shaft against time itself, and be drifting for all they were worth on the Primo vein. I understand that Amalgamated’s head geologist has been nosing round for some time and has concluded there’s a parallel fissure in their claim and that they can ‘prove’ apex rights.”
“How deep do you figure they’d have to sink to strike the vein at that point?”
“About two hundred feet, owing to that surface bump.”
“And it apexes here. There’s no getting round that—with a square deal. But they figure on proving thatthey’ve the main vein, and yours is an offshoot? The case would go to Helena—to the Federal Courts—as Amalgamated was incorporated out of the state. That’s bad. If the case could be tried in Virginia City, and there was a good healthy suspicion that the Judge was expecting to retire in comfort, you could apply for a change of venue—result of that odorous chapter in our history when every judge was on the pay roll of either Heinze or Amalgamated. Well, at least there’s public opinion to be considered; the state is waking up. Here is one thing we can do. If it comes to a knock-out fight and the case goes to Helena, we can get out an expert geologist of national reputation, whose record shows him to be above bribes, and who will be bound to testify that the vein apexes in your claim. Becke of the School of Mines, will find the man we want. Now, what’s your first move?”
“To stope the vein as far as the boundary line, which of course is my side-line, and as far down as possible. If they won in the courts I’d have to fork over eventually, but they’d have to wait for it, and they’ll get a good jolt underground.”
“You’re much too calm. What have you got up your sleeve?”
“I’ll tell you that when the time comes. It has nothing to do with the present case. The best thing you can do now is to make the whole thing public and get public opinion behind us. They don’t own all the newspapers in the state, and they don’t own all the newspapers in the rest of the country, either. Are you on?”
“You bet. Aren’t you afraid there’ll be a sudden strike among your miners? After all, Amalgamated is popular among the mining class. They pay good wages and treat the men pretty squarely all round. I’ll say that much for them.”
“I’m not worrying about that. I’ll raise the wages of my miners, and they like me. I call every one of them by his first name, and they’re men—not a Bohunk among them—and like the idea, too, of a fight under a good captain. If I’d put an Eastern manager in who’d put on dog, it might be different, but I’ve worked shoulder to shoulder with them, and not one of them has stuck harder to his job. Besides, Mann is devoted to me, and has great influence over them.”
“Well, Amalgamated can’t queer you in the East, for you get your roll from the Smelting Works. If that went back on you——”
“I’m not worrying about that, either. Torrence is a friend of mine. He’s also a Mason. If things get hot he’ll give headquarters a hint that my men, their blood being up, are as likely as not to make a bonfire somewhere. Get back to town and give the story to the new evening paper. Its lay is to fight Amalgamated for the sake of notoriety. See that their brightest man writes a story for one of the biggest New York and Chicago newspapers. Now, clear out. I’ve got to go below.”