Zephyr was doing some meditation on his own account after the meeting with Firmstone at the Devil's Elbow.
That not only Firmstone's reputation, but his life as well, hung in the balance, Zephyr had visible proof. This material proof he was absently tipping from hand to hand, during his broken and unsatisfactory interview with Firmstone. It was nothing more nor less than a nickel-jacketed bullet which, that very morning, had barely missed his head, only to flatten itself against the rocks behind him.
The morning was always a dull time at the Blue Goose. Morrison slept late. Élise was either with Madame or rambling among the hills. Only Pierre, who seemed never to sleep, was to be counted upon with any certainty.
By sunrise on the day that Firmstone and Miss Hartwell were riding to the Falls Zephyr was up and on his way to the Blue Goose. He found Pierre in the bar-room.
"Bon jour, M'sieur." Zephyr greeted him affably as he slowly sank into a chair opposite the one in which Pierre was seated.
Pierre, with hardly a movement of his facial muscles, returned Zephyr's salutation. From his manner no one would have suspected that, had someone with sufficient reason inquired as to the whereabouts of Zephyr, Pierre would have replied confidently that the sought-for person was bobbing down the San Miguel with a little round hole through his head. Zephyr's presence in the flesh simply told him that, for some unknown reason, his plan had miscarried.
Zephyr lazily rolled a cigarette and placed it between his lips. He raised his eyes languidly to Pierre's.
"M'sieu Pierre mek one slick plan. Ze Rainbow Company work ze mine, ze mill.Moi, Pierre, mek ze gol' in mon cellaire." Zephyr blew forth the words in a cloud of smoke.
Pierre started and looked around. His hand made a motion toward his hip pocket. Zephyr dropped his bantering tone.
"Not yet, Frenchy. You'll tip over more soup kettles than you know of." He dropped the flattened bullet on the table and pointed to it. "That was a bad break on your part. It might have been worse for you as well as for me, if your man hadn't been a bad shot."
Pierre reached for the bullet, but Zephyr gathered it in.
"Not yet, M'sieur. It was intended for me, and I'll keep it, as a token of respect. I know M'sieur Pierre. Wen M'sieur Pierre bin mek up ze min' for shoot, M'sieur Pierre bin say,'Comment!Zat fellaire he bin too damn smartpour moi.' Thanks! Me and Firmstone are much obliged."
Pierre shrugged his shoulders impatiently. Zephyr noted the gesture.
"Don't stop there, M'sieur. Get up to your head. You're in a mess, a bad one. Shake your wits. Get up and walk around. Explode somesacrés. Pull out a few handfuls of hair and scatter around. No good looking daggers. The real thing won't work on me, and you'd only get in a worse mess if it did. That's Firmstone, too. We both are more valuable to you alive than dead. Of what value is it to a man to do two others, if he gets soaked in the neck himself?"
Pierre was angered. It was useless to try to conceal it. His swarthy cheeks grew livid.
"Sacré!" he blurted. "What you mean in hell?"
"That's better. Now you're getting down to business. When I find a man that's up against a thing too hard for him, I don't mind giving him a lift."
"You lif' and bedam!" Pierre had concluded that pretensions were useless with Zephyr, and he gave his passion full play. Even if he made breaks with Zephyr, he would be no worse off.
"I'll' lif'' all right. 'Bedam' is as maybe. Now, Frenchy, if you'll calm yourself a bit, I'll speak my little piece. You've slated Firmstone and me for over the divide.P'quoi, M'sieur?For this. Firmstone understands his business and tends to it. This interferes with your cellar. So Mr. Firmstone was to be fired by the company. You steered that safe into the river to help things along. You thought that Jim would be killed and Firmstone would be chump enough to charge it to a hold-up, and go off on a wrong scent. Jim got off, and Firmstone was going to get the safe. I know you are kind-hearted and don't like to do folks; but Firmstone and me were taking unwarranted liberties with your plans. Now put your ear close to the ground, Frenchy, and listen hard and you'll hear something drop. If you do Firmstone you'll see cross-barred sunlight the rest of your days. I'll see to that. If you do us both it won't make much difference. I've been taking my pen in hand for a few months back, and the result is a bundle of papers in a safe place. It may not be much in a literary way; but it will make mighty interesting reading for such as it may concern, and you are one of them. Now let me tell you one thing more. If this little damned thing had gone through my head on the way to something harder, in just four days you'd be taking your exercise in a corked jug. My game is worth two of yours. Mine will play itself when I'm dead; yours won't."
Pierre's lips parted enough to show his set teeth.
"Bien!You tink you bin damn smart, heh? I show you. You bin catch one rattlesnake by ze tail.Comment?I show you." Pierre rose.
"Better wait a bit, Frenchy. I've been giving you some information. Now I'll give you some instructions. You've been planning to have Élise married. Don't do it. You've made up your mind not to keep your promise to her dead father and mother. You just go back to your original intentions. It will be good for your body, and for your soul, too, if you've got any. You're smooth stuff, Pierre, too smooth to think that I'm talking four of a kind on a bob-tail flush. Comprenny?"
Pierre's eyes lost their fierceness, but his face none of its determination.
"I ain't going to give hup my li'l Élise.Sacré, non!"
"That's for Élise to say. You've got to give her the chance."
There was a moment's pause. "How you bin mek me, heh?" Pierre turned like a cat. There was a challenge in his words; but there were thoughts he did not voice.
Zephyr was not to be surprised into saying more than he intended.
"That's a slick game, Pierre; but it won't work. If you want to draw my fire, you'll have to hang more than an empty hat on a stick. In plain, flat English, I've got you cinched. If you want to feel the straps draw, just start in to buck."
Pierre rose from the table. His eyes were all but invisible. There was no ursine clumsiness in his movements, as he walked to and fro in the bar-room. As became a feline, he walked in silence and on his toes. He was thinking of many a shady incident in his past career, and he knew that with the greater number of his shaded spots Zephyr was more or less familiar. With which of them was Zephyr most familiar, and was there any one by means of which Zephyr could thwart him by threatening exposure? Pierre's tread became yet more silent. He was half crouching, as if ready for a spring. Zephyr had referred to the cellar. There was his weakest spot. Luna, the mill foreman, dozens of men, he could name them every one—all had brought their plunder to the Blue Goose.
Every man who brought him uncoined gold was a thief, and they all felt safe because in the eyes of the law he, Pierre, was one of them. He alone was not safe. Not one of the thieves was certainly known to the others; he was known to them all. It could not be helped. He had taken big chances; but his reward had been great as well. That would not help him, if—Unconsciously he crouched still lower. "If there's any procession heading for Cañon City you'll be in it, too." Someone had got frightened. Luna, probably. Firmstone was working him, and Zephyr was helping Firmstone. Pierre knew well the fickle favour of the common man. A word could destroy his loyalty, excite his fears, or arouse him to vengeance. Burning, bitter hatred raged in the breast of the little Frenchman. Exposure, ruin, the penitentiary! His hand rested on the butt of his revolver as he slowly turned.
Zephyr was leaning on the table. There was a look of languid assurance, of insolent contempt in the eye that was squinting along a polished barrel held easily, but perfectly balanced for instant action.
"Go it, Frenchy." Zephyr's voice was patronising.
Pierre gave way to the passion that raged within him.
"Sacré nom du diable! Mille tonnerres!You bin tink you mek me scare,moi, Pierre! Come on, Meestaire Zephyr, come on! Fourtin more just like it! Strew de piece hall roun' ze dooryard!"
Zephyr's boots thumped applause.
"A-a-ah! Ze gran'spectacle!Magnifique!By gar! She bin comedown firsrate. Frenchy, you have missed your cue. Take the advice of a friend. Don't stay here, putting addled eggs under a painted goose. Just do that act on the stage, and you'll have to wear seven-league boots to get out of the way of rolling dollars."
Hartwell had a rule of conduct. It was a Procrustean bed which rarely fitted its subject. Unlike the originator of the famous couch, Hartwell never troubled himself to stretch the one nor to trim the other. If his subjects did not fit, they were cast aside. This was decision. The greater the number of the too longs or the too shorts the greater his complacence in the contemplation of his labours. There was one other weakness that was strongly rooted within him. If perchance one worthless stick fitted his arbitrary conditions it was from then on advanced to the rank of deity.
Hartwell was strongly prejudiced against Firmstone, but was wholly without malice. He suspected that Firmstone was at least self-interested, if not self-seeking; therefore he assumed him to be unscrupulous. Firmstone's words and actions were either counted not at all, or balanced against him.
In approaching others, if words were spoken in his favour, they were discounted or discarded altogether. Only the facts that made against him were treasured, all but enshrined. Even in his cynical beliefs Hartwell was not consistent. He failed utterly to take into account that it might suit the purpose of his advisers to break down the subject of his inquiry.
For these reasons the interview with Pierre, even with its mortifying termination, left a firm conviction in his mind that Firmstone was dishonest, practically a would-be thief, and this on the sole word of a professional gambler, a rumshop proprietor, a man with no heritage, no traditions, and no associations to hold him from the extremities of crime.
Not one of the men whom Hartwell had interviewed, not even Pierre himself, would for an instant have considered as probable what Hartwell was holding as an obvious truth. This, however, did not prevent Hartwell's actions from hastening to the point of precipitation the very crisis he was blindly trying to avert. He had not discredited Firmstone among the men, he had only nullified his power to manage them. Hartwell had succeeded in completing the operation of informing himself generally. Having reached this point, he felt that the only thing remaining to be done was to align his information, crush Firmstone beneath the weight of his accumulated evidence, and from his dismembered fragments build up a superintendent who would henceforth walk and act in the fear of demonstrated omniscient justice. He even grew warmly benevolent in the contemplation of the gratefully reconstructed man who was to be fashioned after his own image.
Firmstone coincided with one of Hartwell's conclusions, but from a wholly different standpoint. Affairs had reached a state that no longer was endurable. Among the men there was no doubt whatever but that it was a question of time only when Firmstone, to put it in the graphic phrase of the mine, "would be shot in the ear with a time check." Firmstone had no benevolent designs as to the reconstruction of Hartwell, but he had decided ones as to the reconstruction of the company's affairs. The meeting thus mutually decided upon as necessary was soon brought about.
Firmstone came into the office from a visit to the mine. It had been neither a pleasant nor a profitable one. The contemptuous disregard of his orders, the coarse insolence of the men, and especially of the foremen and shift bosses, organised into the union by Morrison, had stung Firmstone to the quick. To combat the disorders under present conditions would only expose him to insult, without any compensation whatever. Paying no attention to words or actions, he beat a dignified, unprotesting retreat. He would, if possible, bring Hartwell to his senses; if not, he would insist upon presenting his case to the company. If they failed to support him he would break his contract. He disliked the latter alternative, for it meant the discrediting of himself or the manager. He felt that it would be a fight to the death. He found Hartwell in the office.
"Well," Hartwell looked up abruptly; "how are things going?"
"Hot foot to the devil."
"Your recognition of the fact does you credit, even if the perception is a little tardy. I think you will further recognise the fact that I take a hand none too soon." The mask on Hartwell's face grew denser.
"I recognise the fact very clearly that, until you came, the fork of the trail was before me. Now it is behind and—we are on the wrong split."
"Precisely. I have come to that conclusion myself. In order to act wisely, I assume that it will be best to get a clear idea of conditions, and then we can select a remedy for those that are making against us. Do you agree?"
"I withhold assent until I know just what I am expected to assent to."
Hartwell looked annoyed. "Shall I go on?" he asked, impatiently. "Perhaps your caution will allow that."
Firmstone nodded. He did not care to trust himself to words.
"Before we made our contract with you to assume charge of our properties out here I told you very plainly the difficulties under which we had hitherto laboured, and that I trusted that you would find means to remedy them. After six months' trial, in which we have allowed you a perfectly free hand, can you conscientiously say that you have bettered our prospects?"
Hartwell paused; but Firmstone kept silence.
"Have you nothing to say to this?" Hartwell finally burst out.
"At present, no." Firmstone spoke with decision.
"When will you have?" Hartwell asked.
"When you are through with your side."
Hartwell felt annoyed at what he considered Firmstone's obstinacy. "Well," he said; "then I shall have to go my own gait. You can't complain if it doesn't suit you. In your reports to the company you have complained of the complete disorganisation which you found here. That this disorganisation resulted in inefficiency of labour, that the mine was run down, the mill a wreck, and, worst of all, that there was stealing going on which prevented the richest ore reaching the mill, and that even the products of the mill were stolen. You laid the stealing to the door of the Blue Goose. You stated for fact things which you acknowledged you could not prove. That the proprietor of the Blue Goose was striving to stir up revolt among the men, to organise them into a union in order that through this organised union the Blue Goose might practically control the mine and rob the company right and left. You pointed out that in your opinion many of the men, even in the organisation, were honest; that it was only a scheme on the part of Morrison and Pierre to dupe the men, to blind their eyes so that, believing themselves imposed on and robbed by the company, they would innocently furnish the opportunity for the Blue Goose to carry on its system of plundering."
Firmstone's steady gaze never flinched, as Hartwell swept on with his arraignment.
"In all your reports, you have without exception laid the blame upon your predecessors, upon others outside the company. Never in a single instance have you expressed a doubt as to your own conduct of affairs. The assumed robbery of the stage I will pass by. Other points I shall dwell upon. You trust no one. You have demonstrated that to the men. You give orders at the mine, and instead of trusting your foremen to see that they are carried out you almost daily insist upon inspecting their work and interfering with it. The same thing I find to be true at the mill. Day and night you pounce in upon them. Now let me ask you this. If you understand men, if you know your business thoroughly, ought you not to judge whether the men are rendering an equivalent for their pay, without subjecting them to the humiliation of constant espionage?" He looked fixedly at Firmstone, as he ended his arraignment.
Firmstone waited, if perchance Hartwell had not finished.
"Is your case all in?" he finally asked.
"For the present, yes." Hartwell snapped his jaws together decidedly.
"Then I'll start."
"Wait a moment, right there," Hartwell interrupted.
"No. I will not wait. I am going right on. You've been informing yourself generally. Now I'm going to inform you particularly. In the first place, how did you find out that I had been subjecting the men to this humiliating espionage, as you call it?" Firmstone waited for a reply.
"I don't know that I am under obligations to answer that question," Hartwell replied, stiffly.
"Then I'll answer it for you. You've been to my foremen, my shift bosses, my workmen; you've been, above all other places, to the Blue Goose. You've been to anyone and everyone whose interest it is to weaken my authority and to render me powerless to combat the very evils of which you complain."
Hartwell started to interrupt; but Firmstone waved him to silence.
"This is a vital point. One thing more: instead of acquiring information as to the conditions that confront me and about my method of handling them, you go to my enemies, get their opinions and, what is worse, act upon them as your own."
"Wait a minute right there." Hartwell spoke imperiously. "You speak of 'my foremen' and 'my shift bosses.' They are not your men; they are ours. We pay them, and we are going to see to it that we get an equivalent return, in any way we think advisable." Hartwell ignored Firmstone's last words.
"That may be your position. If it is it is not a wise one, and, what is more, it is not tenable. You put me out here to manage your business, and you hold me responsible for results. I ask from you the same consideration I give to my foremen. I do not hire a single man at the mine or mill; my foremen attend to that. I give my orders direct to my foremen, and hold them strictly responsible. The men are responsible to my foremen, my foremen are responsible to me, and I in turn am wholly responsible to you. If in one single point you interfere with my organisation I not only decline to assume any responsibility whatever, but, farther, I shall tender my resignation at once."
Hartwell listened impatiently, but nevertheless Firmstone's words were not without effect. They appealed to his judgment as being justified; but to accept them and act upon them meant a repudiation of his own course. For this he was not ready. In addition to his vanity, Hartwell had an abiding faith in his own shrewdness. He was casting about in his mind for a plausible delay which would afford him time to retreat from his position without a confession of defeat. He could find none. Firmstone had presented a clean-cut ultimatum. He was in an unpleasant predicament. Some one would have to be sacrificed. He was wholly determined that it should not be himself. Perhaps after all it would be better to arrange as best he might with Firmstone, rather than have it go farther.
"It seems to me, Firmstone, as if you were going altogether too fast. There's no use jumping. Why not talk this over sensibly?"
"There is only one thing to be considered. If you are going to manage this place I am going to put it beyond your power even to make me appear responsible."
"You forget your contract with us," Hartwell interposed.
"I do not forget it. If you discharge me, or force me to resign, I still demand a hearing."
Hartwell was disturbed, and his manner showed it. Firmstone presented two alternatives. Forcing a choice of either of them would bring unpleasant consequences upon himself. Was it necessary to force the choice?
"Suppose I do neither?" he asked.
"That will not avert the consequences of what you have already done."
"Are you determined to resign?" Hartwell asked, uneasily.
"That is not what I meant."
"What did you mean, then?"
"This. Before you came out, I had things well in hand. In another month I would have had control of the men, and the property would have been paying a good dividend. As it is now——" Firmstone waved his hand, as if to dismiss a useless subject.
"Well, what now?" Hartwell asked, after a pause.
"It has to be done all over again, only under greater difficulties, the outcome of which I cannot foresee."
"To what difficulties do you refer?" Firmstone's manner disturbed Hartwell.
"The men were getting settled. Now you have played into the hands of two of the most unscrupulous rascals in Colorado. Between you, you've got the men stirred up to a point where a strike is inevitable." For a time, Hartwell was apparently crushed by Firmstone's unanswerable logic, as well as by his portentous forecasts. He could not but confess to himself that his course of action looked very different under Firmstone's analysis than from his own standpoint alone. He drummed his fingers listlessly on the desk before him. He was all but convinced that he might have been wrong in his judgment of Firmstone, after all. Then Pierre's suggestions came to him like a flash.
"You are aware, of course, that I shall have to make a full report of the accident to the stage to our directors?"
"I made a report of all the facts in the case, at the time. Of course, if you have discovered other facts, they will have to be given in addition."
Hartwell continued, paying no attention to Firmstone.
"That in the report which I shall make, I may feel compelled to arrange my data in such a manner that they will point to a conclusion somewhat at variance with yours?"
"In which case," interrupted Firmstone; "I shall claim the right to another and counter statement."
Hartwell looked even more intently at Firmstone.
"In your report you stated positively that there were three thousand, one hundred and twenty-five ounces of bullion in your shipment; that this amount was lost in the wreck of the stage."
"Exactly."
Hartwell leaned forward, his eyes still fixed on Firmstone's eyes. Then, after a moment's pause, he asked, explosively,—
"Was there that amount?"
Firmstone's face had a puzzled look.
"There certainly was, unless I made a mistake in weighing up." His brows contracted for a moment, then cleared decisively. "That is not possible. The total checked with my weekly statements."
Hartwell settled back in his chair. There was a look of satisfied cunning on his face. He had gained his point. He had attacked Firmstone in an unexpected quarter, and he had flinched. He had no further doubts. This, however, was not enough. He would press the brimming cup of evidence to his victim's lips and compel him to drink it to the last drop.
"Who saw you put the bullion in the safe?"
"No one."
"Then, if the safe is never recovered, we have only your word that the bullion was put in there, as you stated?"
Firmstone was slowly realising Hartwell's drift. Slowly, because the idea suggested appeared too monstrous to be tenable. The purple veins on his forehead were hard and swollen.
"That is all," he said, from between compressed lips.
"Under the circumstances, don't you think it is of the utmost importance that the safe be recovered?"
"Under any circumstances. I have already taken all the steps possible in that direction." Firmstone breathed easier. He saw, as he thought, the error of his other half-formed suspicion. Hartwell was about to suggest that Zephyr should not be alone in guarding the river.
Hartwell again leaned forward. He spoke meditatively, but his eyes were piercing in their intensity.
"Yes. If in the event of the unexpected," he emphasised the word with a suggestive pause, "recovery of the safe, it should be found not to contain that amount, in fact, nothing at all, what would you have to say?"
Every fibre of Firmstone's body crystallised into hard lines. Slowly he rose to his feet. Pale to the lips, he towered over the general manager. Slowly his words fell from set lips.
"What have I to say?" he repeated. "This. That, if I stooped to answer such a question, I should put myself on the level of the brutal idiot who asked it."
At last the union was organised at mill and mine.
The men had been duly instructed as to the burden of their wrongs and the measures necessary for redress. They had been taught that all who were not for them were against them, and that scabs were traitors to their fellows, that heaven was not for them, hell too good for them, and that on earth they only crowded the deserving from their own. In warning his fellows against bending the knee to Baal, Morrison did not feel it incumbent upon him to state that there was a whole sky full of other heathen deities, and that, in turning from one deity to make obeisance to another, they might miss the one true God. He did not even take the trouble to state that there was a chance for wise selection—that it was better to worship Osiris than to fall into the hands of Moloch.
With enthusiasm, distilled as much from Pierre's whisky as from Morrison's wisdom, the men had elected Morrison leader, and now awaited his commands. Morrison had decided on a strike. This would demonstrate his power and terrify his opponents. There was enough shrewdness in him to select a plausible excuse. He knew very well that even among his most ardent adherents there was much common sense and an inherent perception of justice; that, while this would not stand in the way of precipitating a strike, it might prevent its perfect fruition. Whatever his own convictions, Morrison felt intuitively that ideas in the minds of the majority of men were but characters written on sand which the first sweep of washing waves would wipe out and leave motiveless; that others must stand by with ready stylus, to write again and again that which was swept away. In other words, he must have aides; that these aides, if they were to remain steadfast, must be thinking men, impressed with the justice of their position.
Hartwell had supplied just the motive that was needed. As yet, it was not apparent; but it was on the way. When it arrived there would be no doubt of its identity, or the course of action which must then be pursued. Morrison was sure that it would come, was sure of the riot that would follow. His face darkened, flattened to the similitude of a serpent about to strike.
There was a flaw in Morrison's otherwise perfect fruit. Where hitherto had been the calm of undisputed possession was now the rage of baffled desire. Aside from momentary resentment at Élise's first interview with Firmstone, the fact had made little impression on him. As Pierre ruled his household, even so he intended to rule his own, and, according to Morrison's idea of the conventional, a temporary trifling with another man was one of the undeniable perquisites of an engaged girl. Morrison had been too sure of himself to feel a twinge of jealousy, rather considering such a course of action, when not too frequently indulged, an additional tribute to his own personality. What Morrison mistook for love was only passion. It was honourable, insomuch as he intended to make Élise his wife.
Morrison ascribed only one motive to the subsequent meetings which he knew took place between Élise and Firmstone. Élise was drifting farther and farther from him, in spite of all that he could do. "Rowing," as he expressed it, had not been of infrequent occurrence between himself and Élise before Firmstone had appeared on the scene; but on such occasions Élise had been as ready for a "mix-up" as she was now anxious to avoid one. There was another thing to which he could not close his eyes. There had been defiance, hatred, an eager fierceness, both in attack and defence, which was now wholly lacking. On several recent occasions he had sought a quarrel with Élise; but while she had stood her ground, there was a contempt in her manner, her eyes, her voice, which could not do otherwise than attract his attention.
To do Morrison the justice which he really deserved, there was in him as much of love for Élise as his nature was capable of harbouring for any one outside himself. He looked upon her as his own, and he was defending this idea of possession with the same pugnacity that he would protect his dollars from a thief. Morrison had been forced to the conclusion that Élise was lost to him. Hitherto Firmstone had been an impersonal obstacle in his path. Now—The eyes narrowed to a slit, the venomous lips were compressed. Morrison was a beast. Only the vengeance of a beast could wipe out the disgrace that had been forced upon him.
In reality Élise was only a child. Unpropitious and uncongenial as had been her surroundings to her finer nature, these had only retarded development; they had not killed the germ. Her untrammelled life had been natural, but hardly neutral. To put conditions in a word, her undirected life had stored up an abundant supply of nourishing food that would thrust into vigorous life the dormant germ of noble womanhood when the proper time should come. There had been no hot-house forcing, but the natural growth of the healthy, hardy plant which would battle successfully the storms that were bound to come.
In the cramped and sordid lives which had surrounded her there was much to repel and little to attract. The parental love of Pierre was strong and fierce, but it was animal, it was satiating, selfish, and undemonstrative. Hence Élise was almost wholly unconscious of its existence. As for Madame, hers was a love unselfish; but dominated and overshadowed, in terror of her husband, she stood in but little less awe of Élise. These two, the one selfish, with strength of mind sufficient to bend others to his purposes, the other unselfish, but with every spontaneous emotion repressed by stronger personalities, exerted an unconscious but corresponding influence upon their equally unconscious ward. These manifestations were animal, and in Élise they met with an animal response. She felt the domineering strength of Pierre, but without awe she defied it. She felt the unselfish and timorous love of Madame. She trampled it beneath her childish feet, or yielded to a storm of repentant emotion that overwhelmed and bewildered its timid recipient. She was surrounded and imbued with emotions, unguided, unanalysed, misunderstood, that rose supreme, or were blotted out as the strength of the individual was equal to or inferior to its opposition. They were animal emotions that one moment would lick and caress and fight to the death, the next in a moment of rage would smite to the earth. As Élise approached womanhood, these emotions were intensified, but were otherwise unmodified. There was another element which came as a natural temporal sequence. She had seen with unseeing eyes young girls given in marriage; she had no question but that a like fate was in store for her. So it happened that when Pierre, announcing to her her sixteenth birthday, had likewise broached the subject of marriage she opposed it not on rational grounds but simply on general principles. She was not at first conscious of any objections to Morrison. Being ignorant of marriage she had no grounds upon which to base a choice. To her Morrison was no better and no worse than any other man she had met. Morrison was perfectly right in his assumptions. Had not circumstances interfered, in the end he would have had his way. Morrison was also perfectly wrong. Élise was not Madame in any sense of the word. His reign would have been at least troubled, if not in the end usurped. The first circumstance which had already interfered to prevent the realisation of his desire was one which, very naturally, would be the last to appeal to him. This circumstance was Zephyr.
From the earliest infancy of Élise, Zephyr had been, in a way, her constant guardian and companion. With enough strength of character to make him fearless, it was insufficient to arouse the ambition to carve out a distinctive position for himself. He absorbed and mastered whatever came in his way, but there his ambition ceased. He was respected and, to a certain extent, feared, even by those who were naturally possessed of stronger natures.
There may be something in the fabled power of the human eye to cow a savage beast, but unfortunately it will probably never be satisfactorily demonstrated. A man confronted with the beast will invariably and instinctively trust to his concrete "44" rather than to the abstract force of human magnetism. Yet there is a germ of truth in the proverbial statement. Brought face to face with his human antagonist, the thinking man always stands in fear of himself, of his sense of justice, while the brute in his opponent has no scruples and no desires save those of personal triumph.
These things Élise did not see. The things she saw which appealed to her and influenced her were, first of all, Zephyr's fearlessness of others who were feared, his good-natured, philosophical cynicism which ridiculed foibles that he did not feel called upon to combat, his protecting love for her which was always considerate but never obsequious, which was unrestraining yet restrained her in the end. Against his cynical stoicism the waves of her childish rage beat themselves to calm, or, hurt and wounded, she wept out her childish sorrows in his comforting arms. The protecting value of it she did not know, but in Zephyr, and that was the only name by which she knew him, was the only untrammelled outlet for every passion of her childish as well as for her maturing soul.
Zephyr alone would have thwarted Morrison's designs on Élise. But Morrison despised Zephyr, even though he feared him. Zephyr in a neutral way had preserved Élise from herself and from her surroundings. Neutral, because his efforts were conserving, not developmental. Neutral, for, while he could keep her feet from straying in paths of destruction, he had through ignorance been unable to guide them in ways that led to a higher life.
This mission had been left to Firmstone. Not that Zephyr's work had been less important, for the hand that fallows ground performs as high a mission as the hand that sows the chosen seed. Unconsciously at first, Firmstone had opened the eyes of Élise to vistas, to possibilities which hitherto had been undreamed of. It mattered little that as yet she saw men as trees, the great and saving fact remained, her eyes were opened and she saw.
Morrison's eyes were also opened. He saw first the growing influence of Firmstone and later the association of Élise with Miss Hartwell. He could not see that Élise, with the influence of Firmstone, was an impossibility to him. Like a venomous serpent that strikes blindly at the club and not at the man who wields it, Morrison concentrated the full strength of his rage against Firmstone.
Perhaps no characterisation of Élise could be stronger than the bald statement that as yet she was entirely oblivious of self. The opening vistas of a broader, higher life were too absorbing, too intoxicating in themselves, to permit the intrusion of the disturbing element of personality. Her eager absorption of the minutest detail, her keen perception of the slightest discordant note, pleased Miss Hartwell as much as it delighted Firmstone.
Élise was as spontaneous and unreserved with the latter as with the former. She preferred Firmstone's company because with him was an unconscious personality that met her own on even terms. Firmstone loved strength and beauty for themselves, Miss Hartwell for the personal pleasure they gave her. She was flattered by the childish attention which was tendered her and piqued by the obvious fact that her personality had made only a slight impression upon Élise as compared with that of Firmstone.
This particular afternoon Élise was returning from a few hours spent with Miss Hartwell at the Falls. It had been rather unsatisfactory to both. As the sun began to sink behind the mountain they had started down the trail together, but the walk was a silent one. Miss Hartwell had a slight flush of annoyance. Élise, sober and puzzled, was absorbed by thoughts that were as yet undifferentiated and unidentified. They parted at the Blue Goose.
Élise turned at the steps and entered by the back door. Morrison was watching, unseen by either. He noted Élise's path, and as she entered he confronted her. Élise barely noticed him and was preparing to go upstairs. Morrison divined her intention and barred her way.
"You're getting too high-toned for common folks, ain't you?"
Élise paused perforce. There was a struggling look in her eyes. Her thoughts had been too far away from her surroundings to allow of an immediate return. She remained silent. The scowl on Morrison's face intensified.
"When you're Mrs. Morrison, you won't go traipsing around with no high-toned bosses and female dudes more than once. I'll learn you."
Élise came back with a crash.
"Mrs. Morrison!" She did not speak the words, she shrank from them and left them hanging in their self-polluted atmosphere. "Learn me!" The words were vibrant with a low-pitched hum, that smote and bored like the impact of an electric wave. "You—you—snake; you—how dare you!"
Morrison did not flinch. The blind fury of a dared beast flamed in his eyes.
"Dare, you vixen! I'll make you, or break you! I've been in too many scraps and smelled too much powder to get scared by a hen that's trying to crow."
The animal was dominant in Élise. Fury personified flew at Morrison.
"You'll teach me; will you? I'll teach you the difference between a hen and a wild cat."
The door from the kitchen was opened and Madame came in. She flung herself between Élise and Morrison. The repressed timorous love of years flamed upon the thin cheeks, flashed from the faded eyes. There was no trace of fear. Her slight form fairly shook with the intensity of her passion.
"Go! Go! Go!" The last was uttered in a voice little less than a shriek. "Don't you touch Élise. She is mine. Why don't you go?"
Her trembling hands pushed Morrison toward the open door. Bewildered, staggered, cowed, he slunk from the room. Madame closed the door. She turned toward Élise. The passion had receded, only the patient pleading was in her eyes.
The next instant she saw nothing. Her head was crushed upon Élise's shoulder, the clasping arms caressed and bound, and hot cheeks were pressed against her own. Another instant and she was pushed into a chair. For the first time in her life, Madame's hungry heart was fed. Élise loved her. That was enough.
The westward sinking sun had drawn the veil of darkness up from the greying east. Its cycles of waxing and waning were measured by the click of tensioned springs and beat of swinging pendulums. But in the growing darkness another sun was rising, its cycles measured by beating hearts to an unending day.
Because Zephyr saw a school of fishes disporting themselves in the water, this never diverted his attention from the landing of the fish he had hooked.
This principle of his life he was applying to a particular event. The river had been closely watched; now, at last, his fish was hooked. The landing it was another matter. He needed help. He went for it.
Zephyr found Bennie taking his usual after-dinner nap.
"Julius Benjamin, it's the eleventh hour," he began, indifferently.
Bennie interrupted:
"The eleventh hour! It's two o'clock, and the time you mention was born three hours ago. What new kind of bug is biting you?"
Zephyr studiously rolled a cigarette.
"Your education is deficient, Julius. You don't know your Bible, and you don't know the special force of figurative language. I'm sorry for you, Julius, but having begun I'll see it through. Having put my hand to the plough, which is also figuratively speaking, it's the eleventh hour, but if you'll get into your working clothes and whirl in, I'll give you full time and better wages."
Bennie sat upright.
"What?" he began.
Zephyr's cigarette was smoking.
"There's no time to waste drilling ideas through a thick head. The wagon is ready and so is the block and ropes. Come on, and while we're on the way, I'll tackle your wits where the Almighty left off."
Bennie's wits were not so muddy as Zephyr's words indicated. He sprang from his bed and into his shoes, and before the stub of Zephyr's cigarette had struck the ground outside the open window Bennie was pushing Zephyr through the door.
"Figures be hanged, and you, too. If my wits were as thick as your tongue, they'd be guessing at the clack of it, instead of getting a wiggle on the both of us."
The stableman had the wagon hooked up and ready. Zephyr and Bennie clambered in. Bennie caught the lines from the driver and cracking the whip about the ears of the horses, they clattered down the trail to the Devil's Elbow.
Zephyr protested mildly at Bennie's haste.
"Hold your hush," growled Bennie. "There's a hell of a fight on at the office this day. If you want to see a good man win the sooner we're back with the safe the better."
There were no lost motions on their arrival at the Devil's Elbow. The actual facts that had hastened Zephyr's location of the safe were simple. He had studied the position which the stage must have occupied before the bridge fell, its line of probable descent. From these assumed data he inferred the approximate position of the safe in the river and began prodding in the muddy water. At last he was tolerably sure that he had located it. By building a sort of wing dam with loose rock, filling the interstices with fine material, the water of the pool was cut off from the main stream and began to quiet down and grow comparatively clear. Then Zephyr's heart almost stood still. By careful looking he could distinguish one corner of the safe. Without more ado he started for Bennie.
The tackle was soon rigged. Taking a hook and chain, Zephyr waded out into the icy water, and after a few minutes he gave the signal to hoist. It was the safe, sure enough. Another lift with the tackle in a new position and the safe was in the wagon and headed for its starting-point.
Bennie was rigid with important dignity on the way to the office and was consequently silent save as to his breath, which whistled through his nostrils. As for Zephyr, Bennie's silence only allowed him to whistle or go through the noiseless motions as seemed to suit his mood. The driver was alive with curiosity and spoiling to talk, but his voluble efforts at conversation only confirmed his knowledge of what to expect. When later interrogated as to the remarks of Zephyr and Bennie upon this particular occasion he cut loose the pent-up torrent within him.
"You fellows may have heard," he concluded, "that clams is hell on keeping quiet; but they're a flock of blue jays cussin' fer a prize compared with them two fellers."
As Firmstone turned to leave the office the door was thrust open and the two men entered. Bennie led, aggressive defiance radiating from every swing and pose. Zephyr, calm, imperturbable, confident, glanced at the red-faced Hartwell and at the set face of Firmstone. He knew the game, he knew his own hand. He intended to play it for its full value. He had an interested partner. He trusted in his skill, but if he made breaks it was no concern of his.
"Assuming," he began; "that there's an interesting discussion going on, I beg leave to submit some important data bearing on the same."
"Trim your switches," burst out Bennie. "They'll sting harder."
The unruffled Zephyr bent a soothing eye on Bennie, moved his hat a little farther back from his forehead, placed his arms leisurely akimbo, and eased one foot by gradually resting his weight on the other. It was not affectation. It was the physical expression of a mental habit.
"Still farther assuming," here his eyes slowly revolved and rested on Hartwell, "that truth crushed to earth sometimes welcomes a friendly boost, uninvited, I am here to tender the aforesaid assistance." He turned to Bennie. "Now, Julius, it's up to you. If you'll open the throttle, you can close your blow-off with no danger of bursting your boiler." He nodded his head toward the door.
Hartwell's manner was that of a baited bull who, in the multiplicity of his assailants, knew not whom to select for first attack. For days and weeks he had been marshalling his forces for an overwhelming assault on Firmstone. He had ignored the fact that his adversary might have been preparing an able defence in spite of secrecy on his part. It is a wise man who, when contemplating the spoliation of his neighbour, first takes careful account of defensive as well as of offensive means. His personal assault on Firmstone had met with defeat. In the mental rout that followed he was casting about to find means of concealing from others that which he could not hide from himself. The irruption of Bennie and Zephyr threatened disaster even to this forlorn hope. Firmstone knew what was coming. Hartwell could not even guess. As he had seen Firmstone as his first object, so now he saw Zephyr. Blindly as he had attacked Firmstone, so now he lowered his head for an equally blind charge on the placid Zephyr.
"Who are you, anyway?" he burst out, with indignant rage.
"Me?" Zephyr turned to Hartwell, releasing his lips from their habitual pucker, his eyes resting for a moment on Hartwell. "Oh, I ain't much. I ain't a sack of fertilizer on a thousand-acre ranch." His eyes drooped indifferently. "But at the same time, you ain't no thousand-acre ranch."
"That may be," retorted Hartwell; "but I'm too large to make it safe for you to prance around on alone."
Zephyr turned languidly to Hartwell.
"That's so," he assented. "I discovered a similar truth several decades ago and laid it up for future use. Even in my limited experience you ain't the first thorn-apple that I've seen pears grafted on to. In recognition of your friendly warning, allow me to say that I'm only one in a bunch."
A further exchange of courtesies was prevented by the entrance of four men, of whom Bennie was one. Their entrance was heralded by a series of bumps and grunts. There was a final bump, a final grunt, and the four men straightened simultaneously; four bended arms swept the moisture from four perspiring faces.
"That's all." Bennie dismissed his helpers with a wave of his hand, then stood grimly repressed, waiting for the next move.
The scene was mildly theatrical; unintentionally so, so far as Zephyr was concerned, designedly so on the part of Bennie, who longed to push it to a most thrilling climax. It was not pleasant to Firmstone; but the cause was none of his creating, he was of no mind to interfere with the event. He was only human after all, and that it annoyed and irritated Hartwell afforded him a modicum of legitimate solace. Besides, Zephyr and Bennie were his stanch friends; the recovery of the safe and the putting it in evidence at the most effective moment was their work. The manner of bringing it into play, though distasteful to him, suited their ideas of propriety, and Firmstone felt that they had earned the right to an exhibition of their personalities with no interference on his part. He preserved a passive, dignified silence.
As for Hartwell, openly attacked from without, within a no less violent conflict of invisible forces was crowding him to self-humiliation. To retreat from the scene meant either an open confession of wrong-doing, or a refusal on his part to do justice to the man whom he had wronged. To remain was to subject himself to the open triumph of Zephyr and Bennie, and the no less assured though silent triumph of Firmstone.
Hartwell's reflections were interrupted by Zephyr's request for the keys to the safe. There was a clatter as Firmstone dropped them into his open hand. Hartwell straightened up with flushed cheeks. Pierre's words again came to him. The whole thing might be a bluff, after all. The safe might be empty. Here was a possible avenue of escape. With the same blind energy with which he had entered other paths, he entered this. He leaned back in his chair with tolerant resignation.
"If it amuses you people to make a mountain out of a molehill I can afford to stand it."
Bennie looked pityingly at Hartwell. "God Almighty must have it in for you bad, or he'd let you open your eyes t'other end to, once in a while."
As the safe was finally opened and one by one the dull yellow bars were piled on the scales, there was too much tenseness to allow of even a show of levity. Zephyr had no doubts. No one could have got at the safe while in the river; he could swear to that. From its delivery to the driver by Firmstone there had been no time nor opportunity to tamper with its contents. As for Firmstone, he had too much at stake to be entirely free from anxiety, though neither voice nor manner betrayed it. He had had experience enough to teach him that it was not sufficient to be honest—one must at all times be prepared to prove it.
The last ingot was checked off. Firmstone silently handed Hartwell the copy of his original letter of advice and the totalled figures of the recent weighing. Hartwell accepted them with a cynical smile and laid them indifferently aside.
"Well," he remarked; "all I can say is, the company recovered the safe in the nick of time, from whom I don't pretend to say. We've got it, and that's enough." There was a grin of cunning defiance on his face. He had entered a covert where further pursuit was impossible.
For once Bennie felt unequal to the emergency. He turned silently, but appealingly, to Zephyr.
It was a new experience for Zephyr as well. For the first time in his life he felt himself jarred to the point of quick retort, wholly unconsonant with his habitual serenity. His face flushed. His hand moved jerkily to the bosom of his shirt, only to be as jerkily removed empty. The harmonica was decidedly unequal to the task. His lips puckered and straightened. His final resort was more satisfying. He deliberately seated himself on the safe and began rolling a cigarette. Placing it to his lips, he drew a match along the leg of his trousers. The shielded flame was applied to the cigarette. There came a few deliberate puffs, the cigarette was removed. His crossed leg was thrust through his clasped hands at he leaned backward. Through a cloud of soothing smoke his answer was meditatively voiced.
"When the Almighty made man, he must have had a pot of sense on one hand and foolishness on the other, and he put some of each inside every empty skull. He got mighty interested in his work and so absent-minded he used up the sense first. Leastways, some skulls got an unrighteous dose of fool that I can't explain no other way. I ain't blaming the Almighty; he'd got the stuff on his hands and he'd got to get rid of it somehow. It's like rat poison—mighty good in its place, but dangerous to have lying around loose. He just forgot to mix it in, that's all, and we've got to do it for him. It's a heap of trouble and it's a nasty job, and I ain't blaming him for jumping it."
As Zephyr and Bennie left the office Hartwell turned to Firmstone. There was no outward yielding, within only the determination not to recognise defeat.
"The cards are yours; but we'll finish the game."
The words were not spoken, but they were in evidence.
Firmstone was silent for a long time. He was thinking neither of Hartwell nor of himself.
"Well," he finally asked; "this little incident is happily closed. What next?"
Hartwell's manner had not changed. "You are superintendent here. Don't ask me. It's up to you."
Firmstone restrained himself with an effort. "Is it?"
The question carried its own answer with it. It was plainly negative, only Hartwell refused to accept it.
"What else are you out here for?"
Firmstone's face flushed hotly. "Why can't you talk sense?" he burst out.
"I am not aware that I have talked anything else." Hartwell only grew more rigid with Firmstone's visible anger.
"If that's your opinion the sooner I get out the better." Firmstone rose and started to the door.
"Wait a moment." Firmstone's decision was, by Hartwell, twisted into weakening. On this narrow pivot he turned his preparation for retreat. "The loss of the gold brought me out here. It has been recovered and no questions asked. That ends my work. Now yours begins. When I have your assurance that you will remain with the company in accordance with your contract, I am ready to go. What do you say?"
Firmstone thought rapidly and to the point. His mind was soon made up. "I decline to commit myself." The door closed behind him, shutting off further discussion.
The abrupt termination of the interview was more than disappointing to Hartwell. It carried with it an element of fear. He had played his game obstinately, with obvious defiance in the presence of Zephyr and Bennie; with their departure he had counted on a quiet discussion with Firmstone. He had no settled policy further than to draw Firmstone out, get him to commit himself definitely while he, with no outward sign of yielding, could retreat with flying colours. He now recognised the fact that the knives with which he had been juggling were sharper and more dangerous than he had thought, but he also felt that, by keeping them in the air as long as possible, when they fell he could at least turn their points from himself. Firmstone's departure brought them tumbling about his ears in a very inconsiderate manner. He must make another move, and in a hurry. Events were no longer even apparently under his control; they were controlling him and pushing him into a course of action not at all to his liking.
The element of fear, before passive, was now quivering with intense activity. He closed his mind to all else and bent it toward the forestalling of an action that he could not but feel was immediate and pressing.
Partly from Firmstone, partly from Pierre, he had gathered a clear idea that a union was being organised, and this knowledge had impelled him to a course that he would now have given worlds to recall.
This act was none else than the engaging of a hundred or more non-union men. On their arrival, he had intended the immediate discharge of the disaffected and the installing of the new men in their places. He had chuckled to himself over the dismay which the arrival of the men would create, but even more over the thought of the bitter rage of Morrison and Pierre when they realised the fact that they had been outwitted and forestalled. The idea that he was forcing upon Firmstone a set of conditions for which he would refuse to stand sponsor had occurred to him only as a possibility so remote that it was not even considered. He was now taking earnest counsel with himself. If Firmstone had contemplated resignation under circumstances of far less moment than the vital one of which he was still ignorant—Hartwell drew his hand slowly across his moistening forehead, then sprang to his feet. Why had he not thought of it before? He caught up his hat and hurried to the door of the outer office. There was not a moment to lose. Before he laid his hand on the door he forced himself to deliberate movement.
"Tell the stable boss to hitch up the light rig and bring it to the office."
As the man left the room, Hartwell seated himself and lighted a cigar. In a few moments the rig was at the door and Hartwell appeared, leisurely drawing on a pair of driving-gloves. Adjusting the dust-robe over his knees, as he took the lines from the man, he said:
"If Mr. Firmstone inquires for me tell him I have gone for a drive."
Down past the mill, along the trail by the slide, he drove with no appearance of haste. Around a bend which hid the mill from sight, the horses had a rude awakening. The cigar was thrown aside, the reins tightened, and the whip was cracked in a manner that left no doubt in the horses' minds as to the desires of their driver.
In an hour, foaming and panting, they were pulled up at the station. Hitching was really an unnecessary precaution, for a rest was a thing to be desired; but hitched they were, and Hartwell hurried into the dingy office.
The operator was leaning back in his chair, his feet beside his clicking instrument, a soothing pipe perfuming the atmosphere of placid dreams.
"I want to get off a message at once." Hartwell was standing before the window.
The operator's placid dreams assumed an added charm by comparison with the perturbed Hartwell.
"You're too late, governor." He slowly raised his eyes, letting them rest on Hartwell.
"Too late!" Hartwell repeated, dazedly.
"Yep. At once ain't scheduled to make no stops." The operator resumed his pipe and his dreams.
"I've no time to waste," Hartwell snapped, impatiently.
"Even so," drawled the man; "but you didn't give me no time at all. I don't mind a fair handicap; but I ain't no jay."
"Will you give me a blank?"
"Oh, now you're talking U. S. all right. I savvy that." Without rising, he pushed a packet of blanks toward the window with his foot.
Hartwell wrote hurriedly for a moment, and shoved the message toward the operator. Taking his feet from the desk, he leaned slowly forward, picked up a pencil and began checking off the words.
John Haskins, Leadville, Colorado.Do not send the men I asked for. Will explain by letter.Arthur Hartwell.
John Haskins, Leadville, Colorado.
Do not send the men I asked for. Will explain by letter.
Arthur Hartwell.
"Things quieting down at the mine?" The operator paused, looking up at Hartwell.
Hartwell could not restrain his impatience.
"I'm Mr. Hartwell, general manager of the Rainbow Company. Will you attend to your business and leave my affairs alone?"
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hartwell. My name is Jake Studley, agent for R. G. S. I get fifty dollars a month, and don't give a damn for no one." He began clearing the papers from before his instrument and drumming out his call.
The call was answered and the message sent. The operator picked up the paper and thrust it on a file.
Hartwell's face showed conflicting emotions. He wanted to force the exasperating man to action; but his own case was urgent. He drew from his pocket a roll of bills. Selecting a ten-dollar note, he pushed it toward the operator, who was refilling his pipe.
"I want that message to get to Haskins immediately, and I want an answer."
The operator shoved the bill into his pocket with one hand, with the other he began another call. There was a pause, then a series of clicks which were cut off and another message sent. The man closed his instrument and winked knowingly at Hartwell.
"I squirted a little electricity down the line on my own account. Told them the G. M. was in and ordered that message humped. 'Tain't up to me to explain what G. M. is here."
Hartwell went out on the platform and paced restlessly up and down. In about an hour he again approached the window.
"How long before I can expect an answer?"
"I can't tell. It depends on their finding your man. They'll get a wiggle on 'em, all right. I'll stir them up again before long. Jehosaphat! There's my call now!" He hurriedly answered, then read, word by word, the message as it was clicked off.
Arthur Hartwell, Rainbow, Colorado.Message received. Too late. Men left on special last night.John Haskins.
Arthur Hartwell, Rainbow, Colorado.
Message received. Too late. Men left on special last night.
John Haskins.
Hartwell caught up another blank.
John Haskins, Leadville, Colorado.Recall the men without fail. I'll make it worth your while.Arthur Hartwell.
John Haskins, Leadville, Colorado.
Recall the men without fail. I'll make it worth your while.
Arthur Hartwell.
There was another weary wait. Finally the operator came from his office.
"Sorry, Mr. Hartwell, but Leadville says Haskins left on train after sending first despatch. Says he had a ticket for Salt Lake."
"When will that special be here?" Hartwell's voice was husky in spite of himself.
"Ought to be here about six. It's three now."
"Is there no way to stop it?"
"Not now. Haskins chartered it. He's the only one that can call it off, and he's gone."
Hartwell's face was pale and haggard. He again began pacing up and down, trying in vain to find a way of doing the impossible. The fact that he had temporised, resolutely set his face against the manly thing to do, only to find the same alternative facing him at every turn, more ominous and harder than ever, taught him nothing. The operator watched him as he repeatedly passed. His self-asserting independence had gone, in its place was growing a homely sympathy for the troubled man. As Hartwell passed him again he called out:
"Say, governor, I know something about that business at the mine, and 'tain't up to you to worry. Your old man up there is a corker. They're on to him all right. He'll just take one fall out of that crowd that'll do them for keeps."
Hartwell paused, looking distantly at the speaker. He was not actively conscious of him, hardly of his words. The operator, not understanding, went on with more assurance.
"I know Jack Haskins. This ain't the first time he's been called on to help out in this kind of a racket, you bet! He's shipped you a gang that 'ud rather fight than eat. All you've got to do is to say 'sick 'em' and then lay back and see the fur fly."
Hartwell turned away without a word and went to his rig. He got in and drove straight for the mill. His mind was again made up. This time it was made up aright. Only—circumstances did not allow it to avail.
As he drove away he did not notice a man in miner's garb who looked at him sharply and resumed his way. The operator was still on the platform as the man came to a halt. He was deriving great satisfaction from the crackling new bill which he was caressing in his pocket. The new bill would soon have had a companion, had he kept quiet, but this he could not know.
Glancing at the miner, he remarked, benevolently:
"Smelling trouble, and pulling out, eh?"
"What do you mean?" The new-comer looked up stupidly.
"Just this. I reckon you've run up against Jack Haskins's gang before, and ain't hankering for a second round."
"Jack Haskins's gang comin'?" There was an eagerness in the man's manner which the operator misunderstood.
"That's what, and a hundred strong."
The man turned.
"Thanks, pard. Guess I'll go back and tell the boys. Perhaps they'd like a chance to git, too; then again they mightn't." Tipping a knowing wink at the open-mouthed operator, he turned on his heel and walked briskly away. He too was headed for the mill.
The operator's jaw worked spasmodically for a moment.
"Hen's feathers and skunk oil! If he ain't a spy, I'll eat him. Oh, Lord! Old Firmstone and Jack Haskins's gang lined up against the Blue Goose crowd! Jake, my boy, listen to me. You can get another job if you lose this; but to-morrow you are going to see the sight of your life."