“He was expecting me. I promised to meet him about four o’clock.”
“Well, you’re on time.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Ah, come off! A lot I’ve done; though I do believe it was better to keep up a steady flow of chatter than to be asking you every ten yards how you were feeling.... Hi, there! I’ve brought your friend Power; but he’s in rather bad shape. Had a fall up in the Gulch, and one leg is crocked.”
The pony needed no urging to halt, and Power, whose head was sunk between his shoulders, looked as if he would become insensible again at the mere thought of renewed exertion.
“A fall!” repeated MacGonigal, moving ponderously to the near side, and peering up into Power’s face. “Well, ef I ain’t dog-goned! What sort of a fall?”
“Just the common variety—downward,” said Benson. “His left leg is broken below the knee. Can you hold him until I hitch this fiery steed to a post? Then I’ll help carry him to a bedroom. After that, if I can be of any use, tell me what to do, or where to go—for the doctor, I mean.”
By this time MacGonigal had assured himself that Power’s clothing was not full of bullet-holes, and he began to believe that Benson, whom he recognized, was telling the truth.
“Give him to me,” he said, with an air of quiet self-confidence. “Back of some sugar casks in thewarehouse thar you’ll find a stretcher. Bring that along, an’ we’ll lay him in the veranda till the doc shows up.”
Soon the hardly conscious sufferer was reposing with some degree of comfort in a shaded nook with his back to the light. MacGonigal, whose actions were strangely deft-handed and gentle for so stout a man, was persuading him to drink some brandy.
“He has collapsed all at once,” said Benson commiseratingly. “He perked up and chatted in great shape while I was bringing him through the Gulch.”
“Did he now?... Yes, Derry, it’s me, Mac. Just another mouthful.... An’ what did he talk about, Mr. Benson?”
“Oh, mostly about the wedding, I guess.”
“Nat’rally. He’d be kind of interested in hearin’ how Marten had scooped up Nancy Willard.”
Some acrid quality in the storekeeper’s tone must have pierced the fog which had settled on Power’s brain. He raised a hand to push away the glass held to his lips.
“Say, I’ve only secured a broken leg, Mac,” he murmured, smiling into the anxious face bent over him. “I don’t want to be doped as well. Perhaps Mr. Benson will mount that nag of his, and bring Peters.”
“Look-a here, Derry, hadn’t we better send to Denver?”
“No. Peters has set dozens of legs and arms.”
“I guess he’s back at the ranch. He went thar, an’ I hain’t seen him among the crowd.”
“Is he a tall, red-whiskered chap, with a nose that needs keeping out of the sun?” broke in Benson.
“Yep. That’s him.”
“Well, he’s there now—and—not so bad. Does he really understand bone-setting?”
“Sure. He’s all to rights when not too much in likker.”
“I’ll have him here in half an hour.”
Benson whistled to the dog, and they heard the clattering hoofbeats of the cob’s hurried departure. MacGonigal brought a chair, and sat by his friend’s side.
“Was it a reel tumble, Derry?” he asked softly.
“Seems like it, Mac. Don’t worry your kind old fat head. No one saw me. Let me lie quiet now, there’s a good soul. I’ve done enough thinking for today.”
“Say, Boy, kin yer smoke?”
“No—not till the doc is through.”
MacGonigal bit the end off a cigar, bit it viciously, as if he were annoyed at it. Then he struck a match by drawing it sharply along the side of his leg, and lit the cigar; but not another word did he utter until a thunder of hoofs disturbed the hot silence of the afternoon.
“Guess that’s some of the boys comin’ from the depot,” whispered Mac. “They’ll not suspicion you’re here, Derry, an’ I’ll soon have a stampede by tellin’ ’em the doc is loose among the bottles.”
True to his promise, he got rid of the thirsty ones quickly; for this smaller batch had not even awaited the departure of the train.
“Air you awake, Derry?” he inquired, when he had crept back softly to his chair.
“Yes.”
“What’s this yarn about One-thumb Jake shootin’ a rattler?”
“I—don’t know. He didn’t shoot me, Mac. I got slammed on a rock, good and hard.”
“I on’y axed because I’m nearly fed up with Jake an’ his gun-play.”
“Ah, quit it, you sleuth. Jake wouldn’t pull his gun on me, not even at Marten’s bidding.”
“He kin be the biggest damn fool in Bison when he’s loaded. Anyhow, I’ll take your say-so.”
There was another period of quietude, when brooding thought sat heavy on MacGonigal, and pain gnawed Power with its sharpest tooth. Then came the sound of galloping horses again, and Benson appeared, guiding a big man who rolled in his walk; for the fast canter had stirred many varieties of alcohol in an overburdened system. The private secretary’s voice was raised in order that the others might hear.
“I would advise you to bandage the limb sufficiently to give Mr. Power some sort of ease until Dr. Stearn comes from Denver,” he was urging. “I am sure that Mr. Marten would wish this case to be attended by his own doctor, and I know that Dr. Stearn attends him.”
“Stearn! What does that old mutt know about surgery?” shouted Peters. “I could set a compound fracture while he was searching around for his eyeglasses.... Hullo, Mac! You’re always the rightman in the right place. Bring me a highball, to clear the dust out of the pipes.”
“You jest fix Derry first, Peters, an’ you kin hev two highballs.”
The red-whiskered man, whose medical degree was a blend of sheer impudence and a good deal of rough-and-ready experience, knew MacGonigal so well that he did not attempt to argue.
“Very well,” he said sulkily. “Break up an egg box, and saw it into eighteen-inch lengths, four inches wide. You have a roll of lint and scissors? I’ll rip up his trousers, and have a look at the place.”
His actions were decided, but somewhat awkward. When Power winced because of a careless handling of the injured limb, he only guffawed.
“Nips you a bit!” he grunted. “Of course it does. I’d like to know what you expected. Did you fancy you could flop over the Gulch like a crow?... Oh, here we are! Just an ordinary smash. Hurry up with those splints, Mac. Now, just set your teeth and grin hard while I pull.... There! Did you hear it? I’ll not hurt you more than I can help while I do the dressing. Got any bromide in that den of yours, Mac? Well, give him a ten-grain dose every three hours till he sleeps. Get the rest of his clothes off, keep him in bed for three weeks, and the rest may be left safely to Nature. Gee whizz! I’m chewing mud. Where in hell do you keep your whisky?”
“Doctor” Peters had a professional manner which did not inspire confidence; but he seemed to understand what he was about, and Benson, when he could be of no further service, went to the reduction mill,where he had business which detained him until a late hour. Next morning, on his way to Denver, he called at the store, and visited Power, who was feeling a great deal better, and was confident that the damaged limb would soon be as sound as ever.
“I hope you won’t think it necessary to trouble Mr. Marten with any report of my accident,” went on the invalid. “You see, in a sort of a way, it happened in connection with his marriage, as I was watching the festivities when it happened—had my eyes anywhere but where they ought to be, I suppose—and if his wife came to hear of it she might take it to heart. Sometimes a woman has odd notions about such things occurring on her wedding day.”
“Right you are,” agreed Benson cheerfully.
A remark dropped by the manager of the mill had supplied a reason for the young engineer’s interest in the marriage, and he had come to the conclusion that the sooner the whole affair was forgotten the better it would be for all parties.
“I’ll be in Denver till September or thereabouts; but I’ll be seeing you long before then,” he continued. “What about squaring your account? I think I have all the details in the office.”
“Pay what is coming to me by check to Smith & Moffat’s bank,” said Power. “They’ll let me know when they get the money, and you can mail a receipt here for my signature. By the way, I wish to resign my position on Marten’s staff as from yesterday.”
“Sorry to hear that. Do you really mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll put that through, also. Goodby, oldchap, and good luck. You’ll be well looked after, I suppose?”
“I couldn’t be in better hands than Mac’s. If he didn’t own a hard head, his big heart would have ruined him long ago.”
“An unusual combination,” laughed Benson, and his eyes met Power’s quizzically. “Well, so long! Let me know if I can do anything.”
Beyond the purely business formalities connected with the payment of Power’s salary and the acceptance of his resignation, Benson heard little of him until ten days later, when a telegram reached him in the early morning. It was from MacGonigal, and read:
“Don’t like the look of Power’s leg. Send doctor.”
That afternoon Benson brought Dr. Stearn to the store, and MacGonigal explained that from some remark grunted by Peters when quite sober, and from personal observation, he was not satisfied with the appearance of Power’s injured limb. The doctor, a fully qualified medical man, was very wroth with Peters when he had made a brief examination of the patient.
“This is the work of an incompetent quack,” he said angrily. “Whoever the man may be, he is the worst sort of idiot—the sort that knows a little of what he is doing. The splints and bandaging have served their purpose only too well, because callous is forming already. Unless you wish to have one leg half an inch shorter than the other during the rest of your life, Mr. Power, you must let me put you under ether.”
“Why?” came the calm-voiced question.
“To put it plainly, your leg should be broken again, and properly set.”
“What is wrong with it?”
“You know you have two bones in that part of the leg which is below the knee, the tibia and the fibula? Well, they were broken—by a blow, was it? No, a fall—well, they practically amount to the same thing, though there are indications that this injury was caused by a blow——”
“He fell off one rock onto another, doctor,” put in Benson.
“Ah, yes! That accounts for it. As I was saying, they were broken slantwise, and now, instead of being in correct apposition, the upper parts override the lower ones. Do you follow?”
“Suppose they are not interfered with, will they heal all right?” said Power.
“Y-yes,” came the grudging admission; “but you’ll walk with a limp.”
“Bar that, the left leg will be as strong as the right one?”
“Stronger, in that particular place. Nature does some first-rate grafting, when the stock is young and exceptionally healthy.”
Power smiled, almost with the compelling good-humor of other days. “Then I’ll limp along, Doctor,” he said. “I have things to do, and this enforced waste of time is the worst feature of the whole business. It is very good of you to come out here, and more than kind of Mr. Benson to accompany you; but I won’t, if I can avoid it, endure another ten days like the sample I have just passed through.”
“You’ll regret your decision later. There’s no means of adding that half inch afterward, you know.”
“I quite understand, Doctor. It’s a limp for life.”
Dr. Stearn felt the calf muscles and tendons again, and pressed the region of the fracture with skilled gentleness.
“It’s a pity,” he growled. “You’ve made a wonderful recovery. If, when you are able to hobble about, you meet this rascal, Peters, and shoot him, call me as a witness in your behalf. It would be a clear case of justifiable homicide!”
So that is how John Darien Power acquired the somewhat jerky movement which characterizes his walk today; though the cause of it is blurred by the mists of a quarter of a century. The red-whiskered Peters was shot long ago, not by Power, but by an infuriated miner from whose jaw he had wrenched two sound teeth before discovering the decayed stump which led to this display of misplaced energy. It was well that such impostors should be swept out of the townlets of Colorado, even if the means adopted for their suppression were drastic. They wrought untold mischief by their pretensions, and brought hundreds of men and women to needless death. They did some little good, perhaps, in communities where physicians and surgeons were few and far between; but their rough and partly successful carpentry of the human frame did not atone for the misery they inflicted in cases which demanded a delicately exact and scientific diagnosis. At any rate, they have gone, never to be seen again in Colorado, and the precise manner of their departure,whether by rum, or lead, or wise and far-reaching laws, does not concern this narrative.
What does concern it most intimately is the first use Power made of his limping steps; for upon their direction and daily increasing number depended the whole of his subsequent history. Life still held for him certain rare and noteworthy phases—developments which, when viewed through the vista of many years, seemed as inevitable and preordained as the ordered sequence of a Greek tragedy. Yet, on the day he hobbled out into the sunshine again, it was just the spin of a coin whether he rode to the Dolores ranch or took train for Denver, and it is safe to say that had he done the one thing instead of the other his future career must have been drawn into an entirely different channel.
At least, that is the way men reason when they review the past, and single out some trivial act which apparently governed their destinies; whereat, in all probability, the gods smile pityingly, for the lives of some men cannot be the outcome of idle chance, and John Darien Power’s life was assuredly no commonplace one.
A four-wheeled buggy, with springs, the only vehicle of its kind in Bison, had been hired for Power’s first outing. During a whole week toward the close of July he had stumped about on a crutch, and, when the great day arrived that he was able to crawl slowly to and fro in the veranda with the aid of a stick, he announced to the watchful MacGonigal that henceforth he was “on the job again.”
On that memorable occasion, while Derry was showing off the new-found accomplishment of walking, an elderly man, white-haired and wiry, but of small stature, rode by on a mettlesome mustang. Power’s face grew hard when he met the rider’s stare of astonishment; but the expression fled instantly, and he waved a friendly greeting, which, however, received the curtest of responses, while the horse unexpectedly found his head free for a canter.
MacGonigal, whose big eyes lost nothing within range, noted the bare nod which acknowledged Power’s salute.
“Old man Willard held out the marble mitt that-a time, Derry,” said he.
Power did not reply for a moment. When he answered, he quoted Dryden’s couplet:
“Forgiveness to the injured doth belong;But they ne’er pardon who have done the wrong.”
“Good fer you, Derry!” exclaimed the storekeeper appreciatively. “I’ve often wondered what you was connin’ to yerself up thar,” and he jerked his head in the direction of Power’s bedroom; “but I never allowed it was po’try.”
“You were not mistaken, Mac. I was hard at work on dry prose. Those lines are not mine. They were written before Colorado was christened, and they will be true until men attain the millennium.”
“Huh!”
MacGonigal took refuge in a noncommittal grunt, because he fancied that the millennium was the name of a Chicago vaudeville house, and, somehow, the notion did not seem to fit into its right place in the conversation.
“For all that,” mused Power aloud, “I’ll call on Mr. Francis Willard, tomorrow.”
So this resolution explained the light conveyance standing outside the store next morning. Power was in the act of settling himself as comfortably as might be beside the driven, when One-thumb Jake galloped down the slope leading from the Gulch. The cowboy pulled up in the approved style of his tribe, swung out of the saddle, and banged into the veranda a decrepit portmanteau, which he had been carrying in the thumbless hand.
“Room an’ drink fer a single gent!” he shouted. “I’m an orfin, I am, a pore weak critter slung out inter a crool world!”
“You’re never leaving the Willard outfit, Jake?” said Power, who might well be surprised, since the man had been connected with the Dolores ranch since the first lot of cattle was turned loose on its pastures.
“That’s about the size of it,” said the other.
“But why?”
“The old man says, ‘Git!’ an’ I got.”
“No reason?”
“Wall, if you squeeze it outer me, I’ll be squoze. In a sort of a way, it had ter do with you.”
“With me?”
“Yes, sir. The boss says ter me yestiddy, ‘Why is Derry Power hangin’ roun’ Mac’s?’ Says I, ‘He bruk his leg.’ ‘Pity he didn’t break his neck,’ says the boss, an’, seein’ as you’se a friend of mine, I didn’t agree with any sich sentiments, an’ tole him the same. He kind o’ curled up then; but this mornin’ he gev me the perlite push,—said as he was quittin’ Bison fer a spell, an’ the ranch would be shut down. Anyways, Derry, I’m mighty glad ter see you hoppin’ aroun’. Git down outer that rig, an’ hev a sociable drink.”
Power consulted his watch, and seemed to arrive at some decision on the spur of the moment.
“Can’t wait now,” he said. “You’ll be here this evening?”
“Sure.”
“Then I’ll be around, and I may table a proposition that will please you. Jim,” this to the driver, “beat it to the depot. I want to make the ten o’clock to Denver, and we have only twenty minutes.”
MacGonigal, as usual a silent auditor, gazed after the cloud of dust raised by horse and buggy, and wasminded, perhaps, to say something. Whatever may have been his first intent, he repressed it.
“What’s yer pizen, Jake?” he inquired, and the cowboy named it.
Late that night Power returned. He was so tired that he had practically to be carried to bed; but he contrived to tell the storekeeper that Jake should remain in Bison at his (Power’s) expense until certain business conditions had developed. Next day he was too exhausted to take any exercise; but sat in the veranda after breakfast, smoking and chatting with the habitués, whose varied surmises he shared, when a stranger whizzed through the township in the buggy, vanished in the direction of the Gulch, and returned with equal celerity of movement a couple of hours subsequently.
“Looks like a lawyer,” said some wiseacre. “Them fellers air allus on a hair-trigger when a mortgage falls in.”
“Is Willard’s time up?” inquired another man.
“Thar was talk about it afore this dry spell kem an’ cleared him out. Of course——”
The speaker stopped suddenly. He was on the point of alluding to Nancy’s marriage, when he remembered that Power was present, and, in such circumstances, it is safe to assume that a gathering of rough western miners will display more real courtesy and consideration for the feelings of others than may be forthcoming in far more pretentious circles.
“No need to trip your tongue on my account,” laughed Power, reaching lazily for a glass of milk and seltzer. “You were going to say, I suppose, that whenMr. Willard’s daughter married a rich man the mortgage difficulty would disappear.”
“Somethin’ like that, Derry,” was the answer.
“Did you ever hear the amount of the mortgage?”
“Five thousand, I was told.”
Power laughed again. “Five thousand!” he cried. “Surely Nancy Willard cost more than that! Why, Marten gave me that amount as a rake-off on one job I put through for him this spring.”
The words were bitter as gall, though uttered in a tone of quiet banter. None spoke in reply. Each man there had seen Power and the girl scampering together through Bison on their ponies so often that the two were marked down by good-natured gossip as “made for each other.” Sympathy now would be useless and misplaced; so there was silence for awhile, until a safer and collectively interesting topic was broached by MacGonigal.
“Kin anybody here tell me what’s going on at the mill?” he asked suddenly.
The “mill,” as the agency through which many thousands of tons of low-grade telluride ore were transmuted weekly into a certain number of ounces of gold and silver, was the breath of life to Bison. If it stopped, the greater part of the little town’s inhabitants was aware instantly of bare cupboards and empty pockets. Work might cease at the mines for varying periods without causing vital harm to the community; but the metal pulses of the mill must beat with regularity, or Bison suffered from a severe form of heart disease. Consequently, there was no rush to volunteer information; though some of those present had had their suspicions that all was not as it should be with the giant whose clamant voice rang ever in their ears.
“Some books and things was carted from the office to Denver a-Wednesday,” said the know-all who had spoken about the mortgage.
“Why?”
The storekeeper’s tone was ominous, and the other man grinned uneasily.
“Guess it’s what they call an audit,” he said.
“Thar’s been two audits a year fer ten years at Bison, an’ the books hev never gone ter Denver afore.”
“Page has been nosin’ around, too, like as if he was takin’ stock,” put in a feeder, whose task it was to guide and shovel ore into the rolls.
“Page oughter know what’s in the mill by this time,” said MacGonigal, and indeed, the personage under discussion being the manager, the statement was almost excessively accurate.
“Thar was talk in the papers awhile sence about some new process fer treatin’ low-grade ores,” commented the feeder, apropos of nothing in particular. Then he seemed to wake into cheerful activity. “But what’s the use o’ meetin’ trouble halfways?” he cried. “Goldarn it! people said the mines was peterin’ out more’n a year ago, an’ we’re workin’ full spell this yer week.... Who’s fer a fizz? I go on at six, an’ I hev to eat a line fust.”
That evening, before the store filled with the day men, and Power alone was listening, MacGonigal was more outspoken.
“I’ve a notion that the mill is goin’ ter close down, Derry,” he said glumly.
“Probably, for a time,” said Power.
Such prompt agreement was unexpected; but MacGonigal passed it without comment.
“Nit—fer good. They lost the main vein a year last Christmas, an’ the treatin’ of ounce ore has been a bluff whiles they s’arched high an’ low beyond the fault. No, Derry, Bison is busted. Me for Denver tomorrow, an’ any fellar kin hev this store at a vallyation, wid a good rake-off, too—dang it!”
Power was smoking placidly, and the gloomy prophecy of his friend did not appear to disturb him. He even affected to ignore the sigh with which MacGonigal turned away after gazing at him with an expression akin to dismay; for the stout man had the constitutional dislike of his kind to change, and the store had yielded a steady income since the inception of Bison.
“Say, Mac,” said Power after a long pause, “if you were to dig deep down into your pants, how much could you ante up?”
“Eight thousand dollars, ef I kep’ a grubstake,” came the instant response.
“And what is the mill worth?”
“It cost the best part of a hundred an’ fifty thousand.”
“I asked you what it is worth.”
“What it’ll fetch.”
“Can you figure it out?”
“There’s on’y the movable plant. A lot of money is sunk in cyanide vats, an’ rails, an’ buildin’s. Guess, when you come ter whittle it down ter rolls an’ engines,less the cost of takin’ ’em ter pieces an’ fixin’ ’em anywhar, you’d git ’em fer twenty thousand.”
“And plenty, too, for a mill erected ten years ago to deal with high-grade ore. You see, Mac, the scientific treatment of rich ores has developed so rapidly of late that the Bison mill is practically a back number; while we know that it cannot compete with the low-grade extractions now practised in Cripple Creek and at Leadville. No, you must cut down your estimate. When you buy that mill, Mac, you shouldn’t spring a cent beyond fifteen thousand, and begin by offering ten. At best, it would only form a nucleus for real work.”
“Me—buy—the—mill!” MacGonigal permitted himself to be astounded to the point of stupefaction.
“Yes, that is what will happen. But not a word of this to anyone. Start in and sell the store, by all means; provided you fix its value on the basis of live business, likely to improve.”
“Derry, air you wool-gatherin’, or what?”
“Unless I am greatly mistaken, Mac, you and I will gather as much wool during the next twelve months as we are likely to need for the remainder of our lives. I may be wrong, of course, but you will be perfectly safe. You will grab the mill at its breaking-up price, and you should sell the store in any event. All I ask is that you act strictly according to my instructions. It is hardly necessary to repeat that you must keep the proposition to yourself.”
These two knew each other thoroughly; though MacGonigal was well aware that certain unfathomable characteristics had developed of late in the once carefreeand even-minded youngster for whom he felt an almost parental tenderness. He made no reply. He asked no question. He knew that when the time came Power would speak, but not until the scheme he had in mind, whatever it might be, was ripe for action. Indeed, ever since the accident, Power had displayed some of the attributes which caused men to hate and fear Marten. He, whose laugh had been the merriest and human sympathies the most marked among all the men who had passed in review before the storekeeper’s bulbous eyes, was now apt to lapse into a cold cynicism, an aloofness of interest, a smiling contempt for the opinions and wishes of his fellows, which had puzzled and saddened his one stanch friend. But MacGonigal’s confidence in him had not diminished. Rather was he aware of a broadening and strengthening of qualities already remarkable, and he hugged the belief that, as the image of Nancy Willard faded into impenetrable mists, Power would come back to his erstwhile sane and wholesome outlook on life.
So the stout man did not even trouble to put into words the assurance that he might be trusted to hold his tongue as to possible occurrences at Bison. After a prolonged stare at a glorious sunset which silhouetted the Rocky Mountains in a rich tint of ultramarine against a sky of crimson and gold, he executed that unaided transit of a cigar across his mouth for which he was noted, and when he spoke it was only to assure the section of Colorado visible through the door that he was dog-goned.
Thereafter events moved with the swiftness whichat times seems to possess the most out-of-the-way places in America like a fever.
The stranger whose guise suggested a lawyer to the quidnuncs of Bison was not seen again in the township during the ensuing fortnight; but affrighting rumor, which soon became deadly fact, told of the mill closing down for lack of paying ore. Mr. Page, Marten’s representative, promised the sorrowing people that work would be found for everyone elsewhere. Though this guarantee alleviated the crushing effect of the blow, there was much grieving over the loss of more or less comfortable homes which had been won from the wilderness by years of patient effort. Men and women, even in strenuous America, twine their heartstrings around stocks and stones, and the threatened upheaval was grievous to them. It meant the breaking up of families and friendships, a transference to new districts and a strange environment, a scattering of the household gods which might never reassemble in the old and familiar order. Amid the general unrest none gave much heed to the news that the Dolores ranch had found a new owner—who, by the way, according to the joyous version of the foreman, One-thumb Jake, meant to raise horses instead of cattle—but all Bison felt its hair lifting in amazement when theRocky Mountain Newsannounced that Mr. Hugh Marten had sold the mill to Mr. Peter MacGonigal for a sum unnamed, but variously estimated between the ridiculous (though actual) price of twelve thousand dollars (toward which one-half was contributed by a mortgage on mill and ranch) and five times the amount as representing its cheap acquisition as a going concern.
Every practical miner knew that the ore bodies in the mines were exhausted, and many and quaint were the opinions privately uttered as to Mac’s sanity. Even the astute Page—once the deeds were signed and the money paid—expressed the hope that the storekeeper would not rue his bargain.
“Of course,” he said diplomatically, “you may find purchasers for some of the plant; but milling machinery is a special thing, and you will be lucky if you sell the stuff soon. I suppose you have a purpose in view for the buildings?”
“Guess there’s some stuff ter be found in the tailin’s, an’ a few pockets of ore in the mines,” said MacGonigal.
The manager shook his head. “You can take it from me that when Marten sucks an orange there isn’t much juice left for the next fellow,” he said. “You bought the place with your eyes open, and I still think you may get your money back, with a small profit; but I advise you strongly not to lose a day in advertising the rolls and accessories, while the man who has taken over the Dolores ranch may buy the buildings. They will come in useful as barns.”
“I’ll chew on that proposition,” said MacGonigal.
Page thought him slightly cracked; but shook hands affably, and caught the next train for Denver. He was completely flabbergasted when an assistant whom he had deputed to superintend the removal of Bison’s citizens to new spheres of labor informed him that Messrs. Power and MacGonigal were signing on the whole of the miners and mill-hands at established rates of pay, and that operations were to be started forthwith on a new strike in the Gulch. When he had recovered somewhat from the shock of this announcement he strolled into the government record offices, and examined the registry of recent mining claims. There he found that a location certificate had been obtained by John Darien Power for 1,500 feet by 300 feet on a well defined crevice, at least 10 feet deep, situated in the Gulch, Dolores Ranch, Bison, in the county of Bison and state of Colorado. Other certificates had been issued to cover more than a mile of the main contact, and, to clench the mining right, John Darien Power figured as the legal owner of the land. In a word, he was “a valid discoverer” on his own property.
Page was a shrewd man, and he did not commit the error of underestimating the ability of the rival who had engineered this subtle stroke.
“I’m buncoed this time, and no mistake,” he muttered, and hurried back to his office, pallid with wrath and foreboding.
There he met Benson, and told him what had happened. The private secretary, rather staggered at first, regained his complacency when he had glanced through some letters and cablegrams received from their common chief.
“The boss has approved of every move in the game,” he said, with a half-hearted laugh. “You see, here he authorizes us to take even less than MacGonigal paid for the mill, and, when Willard repaid the loan, he refused to accept it, but cabled that the money was a gift from Mrs. Marten. So I don’t think he can hold us responsible.”
“It’s not the responsibility I’m kicking at, but thesmooth way in which I was bested,” growled Page. “Now, who’d have thought Power had it in him?”
“Well, I would, for one,” said Benson.
“Why, you hardly knew him.”
“I met him under exceptional conditions.”
“But how the deuce did he manage to locate that lost vein—I suppose that is what he has found?”
“Perhaps it was a gift from the gods.”
“I do wish you’d talk sense,” said the irritated manager.
“Whatyouwould call sense might not pass for wisdom on Olympus,” smiled Benson.
“Will you kindly tell me what you are driving at?”
“I can’t. But look here, Page—which of us is going to write this story to the boss?”
“You are, and don’t forget to put in those remarks of yours. They’ll help some.”
“Shouldn’t I cable? Marten may want to know of this new move.”
“Yes, I suppose that is the right thing to do. When you have coded the message, I’ll go through it with you. There must be no mistake this time.”
Thus, within a few hours, Hugh Marten, established at the Meurice in Paris, received news which certainly took him aback; for he was a man who seldom brooked a successful interloper. At first he was annoyed, and had it in mind to discharge Page by cablegram. There would be no difficulty in giving “Messrs. Power and MacGonigal” a good deal of legal trouble. To begin with, the lawyers would allege collusion against Page, and an investigation into the purchase of the ranch might reveal loopholes for legal stilettos. Indeed, hisalert brain was canvassing all manner of chicanery possible through statutes made and enacted when his wife came in, flushed and breathless.
“Hugh,” she cried, “I’ve had heaps of fun this afternoon! Madame de Neuville brought me to the Duchesse de Brasnes’ place in that quaint old Faubourg St. Germain, and the Duchesse took such a fancy to me that we are invited for a week-end shoot at her castle, one of the real châteaux on the Loire. You’ll come, of course?”
“Why, yes, Nancy.”
“You say yes as though I had asked you to go to the dentist.”
“I’m a trifle worried, and that’s the fact.”
“What is it? Can I help?”
Marten hesitated; though only for an instant. His wife was more adorable than ever since she had discovered what wonders an illimitable purse could achieve in theboutiquesof the Rue de la Paix; but there was ever at the back of his mind a suspicion that she looked on her past life as a thing that was dead, and was schooling herself to an artificial gaiety in these glittering surroundings of rank and fashion.
“The truth is that I am vexed at something which has happened in Colorado—at Bison,” he said.
“You have had no ill news of Dad?” she cried, in quick alarm.
“No, he’s all right. I told you he had sold the ranch. Well, the purchaser is that young engineer, Derry Power.”
He watched her closely; but trust any woman to mislead a man when she knows that her slightest changeof expression will be marked and understood. Mrs. Marten’s eyes opened wide, and she had no difficulty in feigning honest surprise.
“Derry Power!” she almost gasped. “What in the world does he want with the ranch?”
“It seems that he contrived to find the main vein which we lost in the Esperanza mine.”
“Oh, is that it?” She was indifferent, almost bored. Her mind was in the valley of the Loire.
“Yes. That idiot Page was kept in the dark very neatly; so he sold the mill at a scrap price—by my instructions, I admit—and now Power and MacGonigal have everything in their own hands.”
Nancy’s eyebrows arched, and she laughed gleefully. “Just fancy Mac blossoming into a mining magnate!” she cried. “But why should this affair worry you, Hugh?”
His hard features softened into a smile—in this instance, a real smile—for he was intensely proud of his pretty wife.
“I hate to feel that I have got the worst of a deal,” he admitted. “But that’s all right, Nancy. We won’t quarrel with old friends at Bison. Run away and write to your duchess while I concoct a cable.”
And so it came to pass that Page, instead of receiving a curt dismissal, was told to place no obstacles in the way of the new venture, but rather to facilitate it by fixing a reasonable price on land and houses not covered by the sale of the mill, should they be needed by Marten’s successors at Bison. In fact, by an unexampled display of good will on the part of his employer, he was bade to offer these properties to Powerat a valuation. That somewhat simple though generous proposal had a highly important sequel when Francis Willard, rendered furious by learning how he had been ousted from the ranch, sought legal aid to begin a suit against Power. Even his own lawyer counseled abandonment of the law when the facts were inquired into. Power’s title was indisputable, and Marten’s action in selling the mill, no less than his readiness to make over other portions of the real estate if desired, showed that the whole undertaking had been carried through in an open and businesslike way.
Willard was convinced against his will; but, being a narrow-minded and selfish man, who had not scrupled to imperil his daughter’s happiness when a wealthy suitor promised to extricate him from financial troubles, the passive dislike he harbored against Power now became an active and vindictive hatred. He believed, perhaps he had honestly convinced himself of this, that the young engineer had secured the estate by a trick. It was not true, of course, because he had jumped at the chance of a sale when approached by the Denver lawyer acting for Power. But a soured and rancorous nature could not wholly stifle the prickings of remorse. He knew that he had forced his daughter into a loveless marriage; he could not forget the girl’s wan despair when no answer came from Sacramento to her letters; he had experienced all the misery of a craven-hearted thief when he stole the letters Power sent to Bison until Marten assured him that equally effective measures at the other end had suppressed Nancy’s correspondence also. Because these things were unforgivable he could not forgive the man against whomthey were planned. Penury and failing health had driven him to adopt the only sure means by which he could break off the tacit engagement which opposed a barrier to his scheming; but the knowledge that he had sinned was an ever-present torture. A certain order of mind, crabbed, ungenerous, self-seeking, may still be plagued by a lively conscience, and Willard’s enmity against Power could be measured only by his own fiercely repressed sufferings.
“Curse the fellow!” he said bitterly, when the lawyer told him that a suit for recovery of the ranch must be dismissed ignominiously. “Curse him! Why did he cross my path? I am an old man, and I do not wish to distress my daughter, or I would go now to Bison and shoot him at sight!”
So John Darien Power had made at least one determined enemy, and it may be taken for granted that, had he visited the Dolores ranch instead of Denver on that first day in the open air after his accident, no money he could command would have made him undisputed lord of the land and all it contained.
But evil thinking is a weed that thrives in the most unlikely soil. To all appearance, with Nancy wed and the foundations of a fortune securely laid, Willard’s animosity could achieve small harm to Power. Yet it remained vigorous throughout the years, and its roots spread far, so that when the opportunity came they entangled Power’s feet, and he fell, and was nearly choked to death by them.
One summer’s day at high noon a man rode into Bison from the direction of the railway, and, judging by the critical yet interested glances he cast right and left while his drowsy mustang plodded through the dust, he seemed to be appraising recent developments keenly. As the horseman was Francis Willard, and as this was the first time he had visited Bison since leaving the ranch, there were many novelties to repay his scrutiny. The number of houses had been nearly doubled, the store had swollen proportionately, not to mention the Bison Hotel, which had sprung into being on the site of the ramshackle lean-to where once MacGonigal’s patrons had stabled their “plugs,” and a roomy omnibus rumbled to and fro in the main street before and after the departure of every train from the depot.
These unerring signs of prosperity spoke volumes; but it was only when the rider drew rein near the mouth of the Gulch that he was able to note the full measure of Bison’s progress. Deep in a hollow to the left were two mills instead of one, and the noise of ore-crunching rolls was quadrupled in volume. Two long rows of recently erected cyanide vats betokened the increased output of the mine, and, even while Willard sat there, gazing moodily at a scene almost strange to hisvision, an engine snorted by, seemingly hauling a dozen loaded trucks, but in reality exerting its panting energy to restrain the heavily freighted cars from taking headlong charge of the downward passage. Another engine, heading a similar string of empty wagons, was evidently on the point of making the ascent; so Willard jogged an unwilling pony into movement again, and entered the Gulch.
Beyond the two sets of rails, nothing new caught his eye here until he had rounded the curve leading to the watershed. Then he came in sight of the original entrance to the mine—a shaft was being sunk nearly three-quarters of a mile away, but he was not aware of that at the moment—and noticed that a stout man, jauntily arrayed in a white canvas suit and brown boots, who had a cigar tucked into a corner of his mouth, had strolled out of a pretentious-looking office building, and was obviously surprised by the appearance of a mounted man in that place at that moment.
MacGonigal had, in fact, recognized Willard the instant he swung into view, because none of the ranchers rode that way nowadays, a more circuitous but safer trail having been cut to avoid the rails.
Mac had certainly remarked that he was dog-goned when he set eyes on Willard, and a similar sentiment was expressed more emphatically by the visitor; for there was no love lost between those two, and, in consequence, their greetings were unusually gracious.
“Wall, Mr. Willard, ef this don’t beat cock-fightin’!” cried MacGonigal, when the other halted at the foot of an inclined way leading to the level space from which rock had been blasted to provide roomfor the various structures that cluster near the outlet of a busy mine. “Now, who’d ha thought of seein’ you hereabouts terday?”
“Or any other day, Mr. MacGonigal,” said Willard, forcing an agreeable smile. The prefix to MacGonigal’s name was a concession to all that had gone before during a short half-hour’s ride. The ex-storekeeper was now the nominal head of a gold-producing industry which ranked high in the state, and the bitterness welling up in Willard’s mind had been quelled momentarily by sheer astonishment.
“That’s as may be,” returned Mac affably, rolling the cigar across his mouth. “But, seein’ as you air on this section of the map, guess you’d better bring that hoss o’ yourn into the plaza. A bunch of cars is due here any minute.”
Willard jogged nearer, and dismounted, and a youth summoned by MacGonigal took charge of the mustang.
“Hev’ yer come ter see Power?” inquired the stout one, with just the right amount of friendly curiosity.
“Well, no, not exactly. I shall be glad to meet him, of course. Is he somewhere around?”
“No. He went East two days sence.”
Now, the movements of local financial magnates are duly chronicled in the Colorado press, and MacGonigal was sure that Willard had not only read the announcement of Power’s departure, but had timed this visit accordingly. Still, that was no affair of his. Willard was here, and might stay a month if he liked, because he would have to pay for bed and board in the Bison Hotel, which MacGonigal owned.
“Ah, that’s too bad,” said Willard, feigning an indifference he was far from feeling. “Still, I have no real business on hand. I happened to be at a loose end in Denver, and didn’t seem to know anybody in the Brown Palace Hotel; so I came out here, to take a peep at the old shanty, so to speak.”
“You’ll hev’ located an alteration or two already?” chuckled the other.
“Every yard of the way was a surprise.”
“Guess that’s so; but what you’ve seen is small pertaters with the circus on the other side of the hill.”
“On the ranch! Things can’t have changed so greatly there?”
“You come this-a way, an’ survey the park.”
MacGonigal led the visitor through a check office, and along a corridor. Throwing open a door, he ushered him into a well furnished room, with two French windows opening on to a spacious veranda.
“This yer is Derry’s den,” he said. “He likes ter look at the grass growin’; but my crib is at the other side, whar I kin keep tab on the stuff that makes most other things grow as well. Not that it ain’t dead easy ter know why Derry likes this end of the outfit—an’ nobody livin’ ’ll understand that better’n yerself, Mr. Willard, when you’ve looked the proposition over fer ten seconds by the clock.”
Willard had never found MacGonigal so loquacious in former days; but he was too preoccupied by the tokens of success that met his furtive gaze in every direction to give much heed to any marked change in his guide’s manner. Moreover, he had scarcely set foot in the veranda before he yielded to a feeling which, at first, was one of undiluted amazement. The annualrainfall had been normal since he abandoned ranching; but Colorado in June is not exactly the home of lush meadows during the best of years, and he was staring now at a fertile panorama of green pastures, and thriving orchards, while the ranch itself was set in the midst of smooth lawns embosomed in a wealth of shrubs and ornamental trees. Greatest miracle of all, a tiny stream of pellucid water was flowing down the Gulch.
“I don’t quite grasp this,” he muttered thickly, while his eyes roved almost wildly from the dancing rivulet to the fair savannah which it had made possible.
“A bit of a wonder, ain’t it?” gurgled MacGonigal placidly. “Jest another piece of luck, that’s what it air. Derry can’t go wrong, I keep tellin’ him. I had a notion the hull blamed show was busted when we struck a spring at the end o’ the fust dip of two hundred feet; but Derry jest laughed in his quiet way, an’ said, ‘There oughter be tears round about any place called Grief, an’ now we have Dolores weepin’. We’ve tapped a perennial spring, Mac, an’ it’s the very thing I wanted ter make the ranch a fair copy of Paradise.’ There you hev’ it—Derry’s luck—a pipe line laid on by Nature—an’ him raisin’ apples, Mr. Willard, raisin’ pippins as big as your fist, on land wharyoucouldn’t raise a bundle of alfalfa!”
Willard had to find something to say, or he would have choked with spleen. “Evidently the inrush of water did not injure the mine?” he blurted out; but, for the life of him, he could not conceal the envy in his voice.
“Did good, really,” chortled MacGonigal. “We had to drive a new adit, an’ that cleared away enough rock ter give us elbow-room. The fust intake was up thar,” and he pointed to that part of the Gulch where Power had once wrought with death on a long-vanished ledge. “Now we go in about a hundred feet west of this yer veranda, an’ the haulin’ is easier.”
“Mr. Power and you have created a marvelous property here,” said Willard after a long pause.
“Not me,” said MacGonigal quickly. “I helped Derry with my wad; but he did all the thinkin’, an’ it’s like a fresh chapter outer a fairy tale when I wake up every fine mornin’ an’ remember that my third share is bringin’ me in close on five hundred dollars a day.”
“So Power’s interest is worth three hundred thousand dollars a year?”
“More’n that, I reckon. The output keeps on pilin’ up, an’ Derry’s horses ’ll add a tidy bit to his bank balance this year.”
“His horses?”
“Yep. Hain’t you heerd? One-thumb Jake is manager of the plug department. Nigh on fifty two-year-olds ’ll be sold this fall at two hundred dollars an’ more a throw. I suspicioned Derry was goin’ crazy when he bought up so many mares; but I allow he has the bulge on me now. An’ Jake! Dang me if he didn’t show up at a dance t’other evenin’ with a silver fringe on his chaps!”
Willard turned reluctantly into the darkened room, and, by some mischance, when his eyes had recovered from the external glare, the first object they dwelt on was a framed pencil sketch of the Dolores homestead as he had last seen it—a dreary, ramshackle place, arid and poverty-stricken. In the corner was written, “Nancy,” and a date.
“The ways of fortune are mysterious,” he said, making shift to utter the words calmly. “I endured ten long years of financial loss in the house which my daughter has shown there. She used to know Mr. Power, and gave the drawing to him, I suppose.”
“Derry thinks a heap of that picter,” commented MacGonigal.
“I wonder why?”
“He never tole me.”
Willard laughed disagreeably. He had not forgotten Mac’s peculiarities, one of which used to be blank ignorance concerning any subject on which he did not wish to be drawn.
“By the way,” he said, “why did you give the new mine such a queer name—El Preço—I guess you know it means, ‘The Price’? Why was it called that?”
“It was jest a notion of Derry’s.”
“Rather odd, wasn’t it?”
“Derry’s mostly odd, size him up anyways you hev’ a mind ter.”
“I could have understood it better had he christened the place, ‘The Bargain.’ He shook me up good and hard when he grabbed Dolores for five thousand dollars.”
“He sure had his wits about him, had Derry,” said MacGonigal admiringly.
“And he has gone now to New York, you tell me,” went on Willard.
“East, I said.”
“Well, East stands for New York all the time. Is he making a long stay there?”
“He never said a word. Jest, ‘So long, Mack,’ an’, ‘So long, Derry.’ That’s all thar was to it. Kin I get you a drink? Thar’s a chunk of ice somewhar in the outfit.”
“No, thanks. Time I got a move on. How about those freight cars of yours? Have I a clear road back through the Gulch?”
“Thar’s a half-hour’s off spell right now,” was the prompt answer, and a minute later the resident manager of El Preço mine was watching Willard descend the canyon in the direction of Bison.
“I’d give a ten-spot ter know jest why that skunk kem nosin’ round here,” he mused, gazing contemplatively after the slow-moving mustang and its rider. Then he called the youth who had held the horse during Willard’s brief visit.
“What sort of an Indian air you, Billy?” he grinned.
“Purty spry, Boss, when the trail’s fresh,” said the boy.
“Well, hike after old man Willard, an’ let me know when he’s safe off this yer section.”
Within a couple of hours Billy reported that Willard had entered a train bound for Denver, and MacGonigal blew a big breath of relief. It was not that he had the slightest misgiving as to the effect of Willard’s ill will against either his partner or himself, but he was intensely anxious that Power should not come in contact with anyone who would remind him of the existence of Mrs. Hugh Marten. Power himself never mentioned her; so his faithful friend and trusted associate in business could only hope that the passing years, with their multiplicity of fresh interests, were gradually dimming the memory of events which had altered the whole course of his life.
MacGonigal did not think it necessary to tell Willard that Power had brought his mother from San Francisco soon after the mine proved its worth. Mother and son occupied the Dolores ranch. The presence of the gentle, white-haired woman was a positive blessing to Bison; for she contrived to divert no mean percentage of her son’s big income into channels of social and philanthropic effort in which she took a close personal interest. A library and reading-room had been established; a technical instruction class offered an excellent supplement to the state school; a swimming bath was built close to the mills; two churches were in course of erection; a wideawake theatrical manager at Denver had secured a site for a theater and the township already boasted its ten miles of metaled roadway. In the self-satisfied phrase of the inhabitants, Bison was becoming “quite a place,” and everyone testified that it was to Mrs. Power rather than her son that all these civic improvements were due. Men had even ceased to consult Power himself on such matters.
“You run and see my mother about that,” he would say, with a quiet smile, when someone had endeavored to arouse his sympathy in behalf of a deserving object. “It’s my affair to make the money which she spends. Get her to O. K. your scheme, and it goes.”
In business he was equally unapproachable.
“Put it before MacGonigal,” was his regular formula. “I can’t do a thing without his say-so. But I warn you he is a terror. If there’s a kink in yourproposition, he’ll find it, as sure as Jake can run his fingers onto a splint.”
For all that, the stout manager of mine and mill realized his limitations.
Once, and once only, did MacGonigal act in the belief that Power had referred a point to him for final settlement. A glib agent for mining machinery persuaded him to purchase a new type of drill, which proved absolutely useless when asked to disintegrate the hard granite of Colorado. Power laughed when he heard of its failure.
“You must have thought it was meant for cutting cheese, Mac,” he said lightly. But the barbed shaft struck home, and “the terror” bought no more drills without first consulting the man who understood them.
Thus, slowly but effectually, Power contrived to isolate himself from Bison. With an almost uncanny prescience he gave occasional directions in the mine, or suggested some modification in the milling process which invariably resulted in a higher percentage of extraction. For the rest, he devoted his days to the improvement of the stud farm, and his evenings to books. His mother tried vainly to dissipate this recluse trend of thought and habit. On one memorable occasion she invited a friend and her two cheerful and good-looking daughters to visit the ranch for a week. Timidly enough, she had sprung a surprise on her son, warning him of the forthcoming invasion only when it was too late to stop travelers already en route from San Francisco. Then she, like MacGonigal, had to learn her lesson. Derry agreed she had acted quite rightly. He merely expressed a suave doubt that the ladies wouldenjoy the enforced seclusion of a place like Dolores, but they might appreciate the air. Then he strolled out, and a telegram from Denver apologized for a sudden departure to Chicago. He explained in a letter that he was in need of a number of books, and thought it best to look through the bookstores in person rather than trust to catalogues. He returned two days after the guests had left, and there were no more experiments in that direction. Be sure that an anxious mother had long ago formed a remarkably accurate opinion as to the circumstances attending Nancy Willard’s wedding; but, being a wise woman, she said no word to her son concerning it, and was content to pray that the cloud might lift from off his soul, and that he might yet meet a girl who would make him a good and loving wife. For that is the way of women who are mothers—they find real joy only in the well-being of their offspring. Though this gentle-hearted creature knew that she was risking some of her own belated happiness in bringing about her son’s marriage, she was ready to dare that, and more, for his sake. She longed to renew her own youth in fondling his children. She was almost feverishly desirous of seeing him thoroughly established in a bright and cheerful home before the gathering mists shut him out forever from her sight. So she waited, and watched, and wondered what the future had in store for her loved one, and often, in her musings, she tried to imagine what manner of girl Nancy Willard was that she should have inspired such an enduring and hopeless passion.
The upheaval, when it came, was due to the simplest of causes. Power had foreseen the tremendousindustrial development which lay before Colorado, and indulged his horse-breeding hobby on lines calculated to produce a large income wholly apart from the ever-increasing profits of the mine. The state needed horses, which must be strong of bone, with plenty of lung capacity; yet not too heavy, for mountain tracks and dusty valleys are anathema to the soft Belgian. They must be presentable animals, too, symmetrical, of untarnished lineage, and of a type fitted either for saddle or harness, because Colorado was making money in a hurry. Thus, it chanced that, shortly before Willard’s ill-omened visit to Bison, an Eastern agent wrote advising Power to attend a sale in New York. A noted breeder of hackneys, who had imported some of the best sires from England and Russia, and owned several fine Percherons, was breaking up his stud, and the chance thus presented of securing some magnificent stock might not be repeated during another decade.
Power asked his mother to accompany him; but she was afraid of the long journey in the torrid temperature then obtaining. Yielding to his wishes, she telegraphed a second time to her San Francisco friends, and they accepted an invitation joyously and promptly. Moreover, seeing that she was regarding with some misgivings his prospective absence from the ranch for a period which could not well be less than three weeks, he made a great concession.
“If Mrs. Moore and her girls can arrange to stay so long, keep them here until I return,” he said, and the pleasure in the worn, lined face fully repaid the effort those words cost him. So they kissed, and parted, and the weary years which have passed since that sunlit morning in Colorado have contained no diviner solace for the man than the knowledge that he left his mother well satisfied with her lot, and smiling a farewell without the slightest premonition of evil or sorrow. It is well to part thus from those whom we love; for no man knows what the future may have in store—and horror would have been added to the burden of Power’s suffering if recollections of the last hours of companionship with his mother were clouded by an abiding sense of unkindness or unfilial treatment.
So Power hied him to New York, which meant that he passed three hot nights and two hotter days in a fast-speeding train. The Rock Island Railroad took him across the rolling prairie to Omaha and Chicago, and, in the city which no steer nor sheep nor hog can visit and live, he entered the palatial Pennsylvania Limited, which, in those unregenerate days, dumped him out early in the morning on the New Jersey shore. Then, for the first time, he saw New York, and saw it from the river, which is the one way to see New York for the first time. Crossing by the ferry to 23d Street, he did not, it is true, secure that wondrous initial glimpse of a city, unequaled, in many respects, by any other, which is vouchsafed to the traveler arriving by sea. But, even twenty-two years ago, the busy Hudson was no mean stream, and when Power’s unaccustomed eye turned bewildered from the maze of shipping which thronged that magnificent waterway it found fresh wonders in the far-flung panorama stretching from Grant’s Tomb to the Battery. At that time Trinity Church was still a landmark, for New York had hardly begun to climb into the empyrean; so theprospect was pleasing rather than stupefying, as it is today.
A hot wind already hissed with furnace-breath over the fourteen miles of serried streets that lined the opposite shore; for, in the long years which have sped since Power first crossed the Hudson, New York has neither lengthened nor broadened. Even mighty Gotham cannot achieve the impossible; so, in the interim, several new cities have been superimposed on the older one which spread its beauties before his bewildered vision. TheParis—who of the middle generation does not remember theParis, with her invariable list to starboard, after an ocean crossing?—was creeping slowly upstream, and Power was amused by the discovery that the big ship, like himself, moved with a limp. TheCity of Rome, whose yacht-like lines suggested the poetry of motion, but, as is the mode on Parnassus, adhered strictly to suggestion, lay at anchor near the Jersey shore, and when the ferry churned around her graceful stem, the grim walls of the Palisades completed a picture which admits of few peers. Disillusionment came later; but the spell of that thrilling first impression was never wholly lost. Driving through 23d Street, on his way to the Waldorf Hotel, Power could not help comparing this important thoroughfare with Market Street, San Francisco, and State Street, Chicago, and the architectural stock of the metropolis experienced a sudden slump. Nor did it wholly recover lost points when his carriage entered Madison Square, with its newly erected campanile, almost a replica of the stately Giralda tower in Seville, its glimpses of Broadway, south and north, its stolid Fifth Avenue Hotel, and itschastely elegant, though still towerless, white Metropolitan building. Even the Waldorf, then less than a fourth of the Waldorf-Astoria, though notable already among the public palaces of the world, failed to strike his imagination with the appeal of the Palace Hotel, San Francisco; the truth being that New York, first in the field by a couple of centuries, had not yet begun, like Milton’s eagle, to mew her mighty youth.
It would assuredly be interesting to those who knew and loved the queen city of the Atlantic nearly a quarter of a century ago if Power’s revised and corrected opinions might be quoted now. But the chronicle of a man’s life ought to be accurate before it is picturesque, and the truth is that the heat-wave which was then withering the whole Eastern seaboard kept this visitor from breezy Colorado pent within the marble halls of the Waldorf Hotel, save when urgent need drove him forth. That particular scourge of high temperature was destined to become historical. The thermometer soared up beyond 100 degrees Fahrenheit; hundreds of people were stricken daily by heat apoplexy; the hospitals were crammed to their utmost capacity; the asphalt pavement, where it existed, showed ruts like a muddy road in the country; and it is easy to understand why a man who had cheerfully endured 110 degrees and 115 degrees in the dry heat of the nearer Rockies should gasp for air here like a fish out of water.
Worst of all, the horse sale was postponed. The owner of the stud and his prospective patrons alike had flown to sea and mountain for relief. As inquiry showed that the horse-breeder himself had gone to Newport, Power made haste to secure a stateroom on oneof the Fall River line of steamboats, and it was on this quest that thePuritan Maiden, a vessel on which folk would travel merely for the sake of describing her to their friends, brought him to the chief summer resort of fashionable life in America.
He had not the slightest notion that Mrs. Hugh Marten was disporting herself daily on that particular stretch of Rhode Island beach. For all that he knew, she might as well have been at Trouville or Brighton. Indeed, had anyone dared the lightning of his glance by mentioning her, and if he were compelled to hazard a guess as to her possible whereabouts, he would certainly have said that, to the best of his belief, she was in Europe. Such was the fact; but there are facts in every life which assume the guise of sheer incredibility when analyzed, say, in the doubtful atmosphere of a law-court. In the dark days to come, during those silent watches of the night when a man looks back along the tortuous ways of the past, John Darien Power could only lift impotent hands to Heaven and plead in anguish that he might at least have been spared an ordeal which he not only did not seek, but would have fled to the uttermost parts of the earth to have avoided. Such moments of introspection were few and far between, it is true. His was too self-contained a nature that he should rail against the Omnipotent for having tested him beyond endurance. He made a great fight, and he failed, and he paid an indemnity which is not to be measured by any other scale than that alone which records the noblest effort.