“To think of dear old Steve Loring reduced to peddling umbrellas!” he said to himself.
On their way, they came to the gilt sign of the umbrellas.
“I must leave these here,” said Loring.
Radlett tactfully waited outside, while Stephen entered and deposited the results of his collection. The proprietor, who, when released from Stephen’s winning conversation, had begun to feel rather worried, was surprised and delighted at the success of the mission. He opened the cash drawer, and handed to Stephen a silver dollar. Stephen wrote down the addresses of the umbrella owners, then with his new earned dollar clinking lovingly against the keys in his pocket, he rejoined Radlett.
They walked briskly to the hotel where Radlett was staying, and stepping into the smoking room, were soon comfortably ensconced in two big leather armchairs, placed in an out-of-the-way corner of the room.
Radlett pounded upon the nickel bell on the smoking table, and ordered two cigars. Stephen bit the end of his cigar hastily, while Radlett produced a clipper from his pocket, and carefully cut the end of his. These unconscious actions portrayed well the differences in their characters. Drawing a match from the white earthenware holder, Baird scratched it on the rough surface, and then held the light to Stephen’s cigar.
“Mine is lighted, thank you, Baird,” said Loring, and through blue circles of smoke he watched Radlett light his own cigar.
“I had almost forgotten what a stocky old brute Baird was,” he mused. “I do not think, though, that I could ever forget that dear old face. Of all the faces that I ever knew his is the homeliest, and the kindest! If he poked that long jaw of his out at me, and looked at me with those honest eyes, he might tell me thatblack was white, and I should fight the man who said that it was not true.”
Radlett also utilized those first moments of silence brought about by a good cigar, an old friend, and a comfortable chair, to make a few observations of his own.
“In five years, Steve has changed a great deal,” he thought. “Five years of failure, and drifting, such as I judge these to have been, leave their mark on any man, definitely and indefinitely. Imagine Loring, the fastidious, in those clothes five years ago! And then the old frank manner has become a bit hesitant. He seems always on the defensive. Poor old chap, he must have had some pretty hard blows. The old light in his eyes is no longer there; but after all he has that same quality of winning appeal, of humor and of latent strength, which nothing can obliterate, which always has made and always will make every one who knows him hope for the best, and pardon the worst.” At the conclusion of his reflections, Baird’s eyes were damp.
Stephen smoked slowly, as one would sip a rare old wine. Then, taking the cigar from his mouth, he held it before his eyes, twirlingthe label slowly around, and looking at it appreciatively.
“It is eleven months since I smoked a good cigar, Baird; perhaps you can guess how this one tastes to me,” said Loring softly, almost as if talking to himself. Then he relapsed again into silence.
Radlett puffed vigorously on his cigar, then said: “Steve, it is your own fault that you are not smoking good cigars all the time.”
“Perhaps it is,” answered Loring; “but the fact remains, and eleven months is a long time out of one’s life to lose such happiness.”
“The last time that I heard of you, you were in Chicago,” remarked Radlett. “Some one told me that you had a good position there. What happened to you?”
“Fired,” was the laconic answer.
“Did you deserve to be?”
“Yes.”
One of the things that Loring’s friends held dearest in him was the fact that he never shirked the truth in the matter of his delinquencies. His own word on the matter was final. In the old days Loring’s deficiencies had been among his most charming attributes. Peoplehad always spoken hopefully of “When he buckles down.” Now the “When he will,” had become “Now that he has not,” and his deficiencies were not so charming.
Radlett smoked on imperturbably. When he again spoke, his voice was thick with smoke.
“What was your last position?”
“Hoist engineer, Quentin Mining Company.”
Again the query: “Why did you leave?”
“Fired,” repeated Stephen, flushing savagely. Then looking Radlett in the eyes, he added: “I was drunk, and through my fault two men were killed.”
Leaning forward, Radlett laid his hand on Loring’s shoulder, and gripped it tightly with his strong fingers.
“Steve, old man, I am sorry for you. I know what this must mean to you. You were always the most kind-hearted fellow on earth, and I can see how this has crushed and saddened you. I’m—I’m damned sorry—but, Steve, you needed it. It will be the making of you, Steve. We have all been wanting to help you, and we could not; you would not let us. You have lost almost everything in the world,—your money, your position, your family. Youhave lost prize after prize which you might have won; and all these things have not held you. You still had that quality of drifting. You used to think,—I remember well how we used to talk it over,—that love would hold a man. It won’t. If you have tried it, you know”—Loring breathed hard—“if you have not, then you have been spared one more blow. You never had, or could have had, religion; I don’t know what that might have done for you.” Radlett was speaking fast now, and though he struck hard, Loring never flinched.
“You always knew that you were hurting yourself by what you did; but that did not check you,” went on Radlett. “You had, I remember, a creed of ethics in which, so you said, you logically believed. You know how much good that has done you.
“Steve, I am as sorry for you as if you were myself—yes, sorrier.” In the intensity of their grasp, his fingers almost crushed Loring’s shoulder. “I know what it seems to you, the feeling of guilt, and of remorse; but you deserved it and you needed it. The one thing that could have stopped your drifting was to find that your destiny and actions are inextricablytangled with those of other men. Now that you have learned that by drifting you may sink other ships, you won’t drift. I know you, Steve, and I swear it. This has been your salvation.” Radlett stopped short, and sank back into his chair.
Stephen sat looking sternly into the smoke. There were deep lines beneath his eyes, showing dark against his pallor, for so great was the tumult within him that even through his heavy tan his face showed white. When he spoke it was as a man who opens his mouth, and does not know whether the words that he speaks are loud or soft.
“You are right, Baird. I was wrong, and Baird, I’ve thrown over everything in the world that I cared about. There was a girl, Baird; you were right about that, too. She believed in me, even though she did not care. I cared for her more than for anything that I have ever dreamed of in the world. She was everything to me, Baird, and I promised her that I would make good. I broke my word. It was the only thing that I had not broken before. Well, my love for her did not check me.
“But since that—that—murder,” he spokenow from deep in his chest, “I have gripped myself; I have found myself. I am going to work up again, Baird. I can,—I am on the up grade. I am sure of it. It is a hard struggle, but the fight of it makes it all the more worth while. It will be hard, and it will take time; but I can do it.”
Radlett stared out of the window for a few moments, as though deeply absorbed in watching a passing carriage. Letting his eyes travel back to Loring, he asked: “Did you ever hear of the Kay mine? I think that it was situated near where you were last working.”
Stephen nodded. He was relieved at the change from the tenseness of the conversation, and a little ashamed of the emotion which he had shown. “Yes,” he answered, “it was only fifteen or twenty miles from Quentin. An English syndicate bought it some time ago. They brought out polo ponies, dog-carts, and heaven knows what besides, to gladden their hearts while in exile. I rode there only a few weeks ago, and looked over the place. The mine has been shut down for a year. It is a wonder that they were ever able to open it in the first place, with all the nonsense that they had. A manwhom I saw there told me that the English managers had spent two days in arguing where to put the ‘baths in the houses of the tenantry.’ I hear that the mine has just been sold again.”
Radlett grinned from ear to ear at the thought of the effect on the community of a remark about the “tenantry.”
“Still,” went on Loring, “almost everybody says that it is a very rich property, and would have paid well if it had only been worked properly. The indications were very good for a big vein.”
Radlett beat a tattoo with his fingers on the arms of his chair.
“I have just bought the mine,” he said.
Stephen looked at him in surprise.
“I thought,” he said, “that you were only interested in railroads.”
“That is true; but this is a sort of ‘flyer.’ I had the chance to buy the property very cheaply, and the expert whom I sent to look at it reported it as good, if it were properly managed. I must get as manager a man whom I can absolutely trust, as I shall have no time to supervise the work personally. Stephen, will you take the position?”
Loring sat up straight in his chair.
“I am not the man for the place,” he said; “I know very little about mining, and besides—”
“Leave out the ‘besides’,” answered Radlett. “That is over with. I would trust you now as soon as any man living. As for the knowledge of mining, you will not require any. There is a good mine foreman there who can attend to that. What I want is a man to organize and run the plant, to make it a paying producer. It needs a man who understands men, more than a man who understands mining. The ore is there. The men to get the ore will be there; but there must be a head for the whole system. You know, better than I do, that a new mine means a new community to be governed. It needs a man who will see that for every copper cent that goes into the ground, two copper cents come out, a man who will see that the machinery which is ordered arrives on time. It needs a man who will pick the right subordinates and will give them pride in their work. It needs a man who will get the labor, and keep it there. That is what I want you for, Steve. You can do the work. Now will you?”
Two voices seemed to whisper in Loring.One was of pride, the other was of pride in himself. The voice of pride whispered: “He is your friend, and is offering this to you from charity.” The other voice, aggressive and self-reliant, whispered: “You can do the work well. It needs aman, and you are capable of doing it.”
“Baird,” he said brokenly, “I will. I can’t thank you; it is far too big a chance to be acknowledged by mere thanks. But I will do my best for you, and if I fail, it will be because I am not a big enough man, and not because I have not tried.”
“The thanks will be from me to you, when the Kay is the biggest producer in Pinal County,” responded Radlett. “If you do your best, it will be the best that can be done. Don’t think that it is from friendship that I offer you this. I always keep friendship and business apart, and I am offering this to you because you are the man that I need.” Radlett took a large leather covered note-book from his pocket.
“Here are the details of the proposition,” he said, and for almost an hour he read aloud a list of figures and estimates. Loring listened, keenly alert, and questioned and criticised withan insight which surprised Radlett, who several times looked up in approval at some suggestion. When he had finished, he closed the book, and said: “The acting manager will start you on your work. The mine was opened last week, but everything there is still at sixes and sevens. When do you think that you can start north?”
“I will take the eleven o’clock train to-night,” answered Stephen, decidedly, “only—”
“By the way,” said Baird, in a matter of fact manner, “you had better draw your first month’s salary in advance. There will be a great many things that you need to get.” He wrote a check and gave it to Loring. “They will cash this for us at the office. I shall telegraph to-night to the mine, telling them to expect you; also to the company in Tucson, telling them to honor your drafts.”
Radlett rose and looked at his watch. “It is eight o’clock and I am as hungry as a bear, and,” he added, with a twinkle in his eyes, “if you can leave that house-party of yours, where the girls have such charming umbrellas, we might dine together before you start.”
They entered the dining-room, where the orchestra was playing gaily, and settled themselvesat a table glowingly lighted with candles under softened shades.
“Doesn’t this seem like old times, Steve?” said Radlett, while he carved the big planked steak which they had ordered. Throughout the meal, time and again the phrase: “Do you remember?” was repeated, recalling hosts of memories, both sad and gay. The intimacy between Radlett and Loring had been of such depth and woven with so many bonds that the years in which they had been separated made no difference in their complete companionship. They were not forced to fall back on the past on account of lack of sympathy and mutual interest in the present, as is so often the case; but rather they looked backward as one might open a much loved book, the interest of which increases as the covers wear out, and in which the delight is intensified when some congenial soul has shared its moods, and its laughter. Through all the conversation, Radlett, with an inborn tact unexpected in a man whose manner was so bluff, skilfully recalled Stephen’s successes, and dwelt upon them in an endeavor to raise that self-confidence in Loring which had been shaken to its core. Stephen’s failures wererecalled by Stephen himself, whose recollection of them was undimmed though his perspective on them had changed. So quickly did the time pass that it was with a start that they both heard the clock in the hall outside strike ten, in a deliberate, impersonal fashion. In answer to a question from Radlett, Loring shook his head.
“No, I have no preparations to make. If the city with no history is happy, then certainly the person with no possessions to bother him should be content.”
So they smoked in quiet companionship until it was time to leave for the station. Baird saw Loring on board the train, and they parted after a silent, firm handshake, which gave strength to one and conviction to the other.
In six months after Loring had taken charge, the Kay mine was producing on a paying basis. What those six months had accomplished was little short of marvelous. At the time of the arrival of the new manager, everything had been in an extreme state of disorganization. Unused machinery stood uncovered and rusting. The pumps were hardly more than holding the water in the shafts. No new timbering had been put in place to supplant the old, which was dangerously rotten. The costly electric lighting plant had been almost ruined by neglect. Discord had been reigning between the various heads of departments, and discord in a community in which there is no recreation, and from which there is no way of escape, is a dangerous element.
When Loring had assumed control, in explanation of failures each worker had murmured complaints of others. At the mess there had been gloomy silence, in contrast to thejoviality which had prevailed at the old mess in Quentin. Distrusted and disliked, Loring had firmly pursued his course until that course was justified, and the criticism and hatred had turned to respect and admiration. He had worked night and day, attending to everything himself. Loring was tireless in his enthusiasm, and he had inspired the men under him to do their work better than they knew how. The result was that by this time, the system of a well-built machine had supplanted the previous chaos. And though it was far from a perfect machine, each day was adding to its efficiency.
The nervous irritability of the mess had been relieved by the arrival of an old friend. One day Hop Wah had drifted into Stephen’s office and after announcing solemnly: “Me canned, too,” had stood waiting expectantly until Loring had ordered him installed as assistant cook in the company eating-house. Within a week after this the meals had become joyous occasions. Wah would dance from man to man as he served the meals, murmuring insults which pleased even the insulted, and provoked roars of laughter at the victim’s expense. When he had some particularly bold insult todeliver, he would sing it from the kitchen window. The singing lent impersonality and the distance safety. Soon the refrain and interlude of his old song, “La, la, boom, boom,” were as well known, and as popular in Kay, as they had been in Quentin.
Radlett had told Loring that there would be much work for him to do, and he had not been guilty of exaggeration. Night after night the electric light beneath the green tin reflector in the office had burned until well into the morning. Then a watcher might have seen it go out suddenly, before a tired man turned the key in the office door.
The increase of efficiency in the work at the Kay mine was due to one thing,—the ceaseless vigilance of Stephen Loring, and the outward circumstances were only the manifestation of the changed conditions within himself. One who had known Loring, the failure, would scarcely have recognized Loring, the success. The chin line no longer drooped, his smile showed honest pride in the goodness of his work, his movements were alert, his head thrown back. His skin was ruddy and his eyes clear, yet the marks about his mouth showed tracesof the struggle through which he had passed, and there were new lines of care lying in furrows across his forehead. He had aged under responsibility, and something of the old, lazy charm which had endeared him to his friends was gone; but a stranger looking at him would have appreciated at once that here was a man of force, one who meant to be master, and who was fitted to be.
It is possible that the change in his dress contributed as much as the more subtle developments, for Loring, in his blue suit, soft white shirt, and well-oiled tan boots, was a very different looking man from the shabbily clothed wanderer who had sought work last year in Phœnix.
On one autumn afternoon Stephen sat at the desk in his office, engaged in dictating a report to the directors of the Company. Above the rattle and click of the typewriter his voice rose and fell monotonously: “The construction work alone is behind. Within the workings three new stopes have been opened since last report, at positions marked on the enclosed print. The ore in these has been running high, averaging”—(he paused and glanced at theassayers’ report lying on the table beside him) “averaging twelve per cent copper. If the contact vein continues to run in its present direction, the ore from the new stopes which we are opening may be reached cheaply by means of winzes from the three hundred foot level.” Loring verified this carefully from the foreman’s report, then nodded to the stenographer to proceed. “The cost of production has been reduced five per cent in the last month. If the present favorable prices for the coke continue, I hope to reduce this still more. I enclose for the first time a detailed statement of expense distributed per department, made possible by the new system of bookkeeping which has been adopted.” Here he paused. “That is all for the present,” he said.
Then he picked up the construction report and with a frown reread it. “That is bad work,” he murmured. “With all the men whom Fitz had under him, he should have done better, and accomplished more.”
“Oh, Reade!” he called to the stenographer who had gone into the back room, “come back here! I have something to add to that report.”
The stenographer came in, and again took his place before the typewriter.
“Owing to the slowness of the work on the exterior construction, I have found it necessary to dispense with the services of Mr. Fitz.”
Reade looked up in surprise. “Are you going to ‘can’ him?”
Stephen made no answer, but continued to dictate: “I have secured the services of a very good man, who until recently has been at the head of that work in the Quentin Mining Company and who, I think, will fill the position very satisfactorily.” “That is all, Reade.”
The stenographer left the room, whistling softly. “He sure acts with precision,” murmured Reade, as he closed the door. “When Fitz answered back at mess the other night, I knew he’d get into trouble. The Boss never speaks twice, and now that the men understand his ways, he don’t need to.”
A short half-hour after Loring had finished his letter the stage from the northward drew up outside the office door, and a passenger descended from it. Loring opened the window, looked out, and recognized his old friend McKay.
“Prompt as usual!” thought Loring. “I did not expect him until to-morrow or the dayafter; but I like his coming so soon. Promptness means efficiency.”
Loring smiled when he heard McKay tell the driver to charge the trip to the Company. “Mac has not much to learn of business methods in the west,” Loring chuckled, as he hastened to resume his seat at the desk. A little later he heard a thump, as McKay dropped his bag on the porch, and then he heard him asking for the manager. Some one directed the stranger to the office, and Loring heard the creak of his boots on the stairs.
Stephen, for he had a streak of vanity in his nature, lighted a cigar, and pretended to be very busy over some papers. After a moment he looked up, to find McKay staring in such open-mouthed astonishment that it seemed as if his teeth were in danger of falling back down his throat.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” he finally ejaculated. “What areyoudoing here?”
“I am the manager,” said Stephen in a dignified manner. Then he could keep a sober face no longer, and burst into a laugh, in which McKay, though in a dazed and uncertain manner, joined.
Stephen jumped up from his chair and shook hands with his old boss. McKay continued to swing his arm up and down, as though this grip were his one hold upon the world of realities.
“You! How on earth did it happen? You must have been a heap wiser than I thought!” exclaimed McKay.
The only danger of being thought wise is that one is tempted to prove it; but Stephen safely avoided this danger.
“Anyhow, Mac,” he answered, “here I am and here I hope I’ll remain, and there is a lot of work for you to do here. Things have been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent that it takes more time to rebuild than it must have taken to construct the whole plant. Fortunately we have the original plans designed by the people who had opened the mine, and though they are no key to what has been done, they give a pretty good idea of what was meant to be done.” As he spoke he pulled a roll of blue prints out from the desk drawer, and drawing up a chair beside him for McKay, he started to outline the work.
As he watched the unerring way in whichMcKay’s clumsily shaped finger followed the designs, stopping at each questionable point and rubbing back and forth over it with the determined questioning of a hand competent to remedy defects, Loring thanked heaven for the fact that the Quentin Company, their rush of early work over, had parted with such a man. The very twitching of the corners of McKay’s mustache, as he pored over the papers, showed a personality teeming with success and energy. After an hour of hard work Stephen pushed back his chair from the desk and rolled up the prints.
“I’m afraid, Mac,” he said, “that you are going to be very busy here. You see I know how good a man you are. But I also realize that after your journey you must eat, and that you will want to see your quarters.”
He called Reade into the room and introduced him. “Take Mr. McKay and show him where he is to live. Put him in that new shack on the right-hand side of the road.” With a sudden recollection of McKay’s treatment of him on that first night at Quentin, Stephen went on with a broad grin: “To-night I will send you over some blankets. You can payfor them out of your first month’s pay, and to-morrow I will let you have an old straw hat of mine.”
McKay smiled sheepishly, as he stood twirling his rusty black felt hat in his fingers. Accustomed as he was to the sudden changes which Arizona brings about in men’s fortunes, Loring’s meteoric rise was too great a problem for him to solve. He could not adjust himself to the miraculous change which had been wrought in the life of the man before him. He could only stand speechless and gaze at the marvel, and then drop his eyes again to the baggy knees of his best trousers.
Stephen took pity on him in his bewilderment and interrupted his reflections: “If you can start in to work after lunch, I will have Mr. Fitz, the man who is leaving, show you what little he has done. You had better take a microscope to see it with.”
McKay followed Reade out of the office, his efficient, right-angled and non-complex mind in a whirl.
“Steve Loring, manager of the Kay mine! I certainly will be damned.Himrunning all this!” He gazed stupefied at the ordered confusionof the busy camp before him. “Steve Loring!Phew!”
And all the time the man of whom McKay was thinking with admiring envy sat before his desk, his head sunk upon his folded arms in an attitude of profound dejection.
To McKay, Loring seemed to have reached the highest level of the up grade in being the manager of a successful mine. What more could any man wish? But to Loring all that he had achieved was as nothing.
The sight of McKay had brought back with photographic vividness all the familiar things and scenes of the old days at Quentin,—the smelter, the dip in the hills, the hoist, “Muy Bueno,” and then, in spite of himself, above them all rose the face of Jean Cameron, Jean as she had looked bending over his cot in the hospital with the sheaf of flowers across her arm, Jean smiling at him as she passed the hoist, Jean stretching out her hand to him on that never-to-be-forgotten ride through the soft Arizona night.
With a sudden pang he realized that all success would be as dust and ashes unless he could bring it to her and say: “Whatever I have won,it was all for you. My only pride is that whether you ever know it or not, I have at last justified your faith in me. Oh, Jean,” he murmured, “it is not success or power or money that I want. It is you, dear, you, you, you!”
At four o’clock that afternoon, since it was Saturday, the men were paid off for the week. No pay day will ever be satisfactory to the recipients until that happy state of affairs is reached when each man himself decides on the amount which is due him. Even then there will be some who will leave the pay-window with the discontented feeling that they have cheated themselves.
The bookkeeper, from his grated window, gave out the pay checks to the line of Mexican laborers who, displaying their brass number tags, passed before him. He kept up a running fire of argument. Over and over he was obliged to explain the amounts of the checks.
“The mess bill comes out of you.”
“You had twenty dollars’ worth of coupons at the store.”
“No, you only worked five days this week.”
“Hospital fee is twenty-five cents.”
These were fair samples of the innumerablearguments which he was compelled to go through with every week. And in spite of all explanations, the poor miners would walk away from the window, looking with dejected, unbelieving eyes at the small figures of their checks. Men of this class can never realize that if out of wages of ninety dollars a month they spend seventy-five for food and store coupons, the balance due to them is not ninety dollars, but fifteen.
As usual on pay day afternoon, in the road before the office, little groups of men were arguing excitedly among themselves, discussing the manner in which they were “cheated.” The dejected droop of their shoulders was accentuated by the quick, jerky movements of their arms as they gesticulated.
Knowlton, the deputy sheriff, who was assigned to Kay, sat on the steps before the office door. He was rolling a cigarette, seemingly unconscious of the noisy crowd. But pay day was always likely to cause trouble, and he was prepared for it.
“No one quite dared to lead an attack upon Knowlton, who stood his ground beside the body.”Page 241
“No one quite dared to lead an attack upon Knowlton, who stood his ground beside the body.”Page 241
The group of excited men augmented fast, as little knots of miners were paid off, and found awaiting them a willing audience of theirgrievances. A word will fire a crowd of this kind as quickly as a fuse will set off a charge of giant powder.
Knowlton watched them closely, out of the corner of his eye. He saw one of the leaders in the discussion stoop down and pick up a large rock.
“Hey, Rigas! Drop that, quick!” he shouted.
For answer the rock crashed through the glass of the office window.
Knowlton waded into the midst of the crowd, and seized Rigas by the collar, almost hurling him off his feet. His rough tactics generally overawed his prisoners, but Rigas had been drinking, and fought. The crowd began to close in.
Knowlton dropped his hand to the point where the suspenders joined his belt and whipped out his “automatic.” Raising it in the air, he swung it down with all his strength upon Rigas’s head. There was a stunning report, and the miner lay upon the ground, with a hole two inches wide through his forehead. The crowd, muttering angry curses, drew back. No one quite dared to leadan attack upon Knowlton, who stood his ground beside the body, his still smoking gun in his hand. The camp doctor came up on the run, having heard the sound of the report. Kneeling beside the body, he gave short and incisive directions.
“Valrigo, Peres, Gonzales, and Escallerra; you four carry him over to the hospital!”
The four men whom he had designated bent over and clumsily raised the inanimate body.
“No, no,” said the doctor, “don’t let his head hang back. Here, Valencella! Come and hold up his head. That is right. Now slowly with him, boys; easy, don’t jolt him!”
The doctor walked beside the bearers, his hand on Rigas’s heart, which for a wonder was still beating. Behind them fell in a sullen, straggling, pushing procession of the other men, watching the blood drip from Rigas’s head.
Then Knowlton turned, and walked slowly into the office. As he entered, the volume of curses changed from a mutter to a roar. He found Loring on his knees, locking the combination of the safe.
“Well, Mr. Loring, I’ve done it now. I’ve killed Rigas. These damned automatics! Youcan beat a man over the head for a week with a Colt without its going off.”
“Too bad!” said Stephen calmly, rising from his knees. “But the character of Rigas was not such that he will be a great loss to the world. He was always causing some sort of mischief.”
“It ain’t Rigas that I am worrying about,” said the deputy. “It’s the rest of them.”
“How long can you hold them in check?” asked Stephen.
“If they were sober, I could hold them until hell froze, but they have just been paid off, and by night they will all be drunk. Then there will be trouble. It has been brewin’ for a week. Some agitator chap has been talking it up to them about the way the Company was stealing from them. I don’t jest know what we had better do,” he concluded, while he fingered his gun nervously, and looked to Loring for guidance.
“Rigas is dead, you said?” asked Stephen.
“Well, not exactly. He might as well be, though. A forty-five calibre hole through your head ain’t healthy. If he ain’t dead now, he won’t live more than a few hours. And when he does die—!” Knowlton broke off gloomily.
“What are you going to do about it, Mr. Loring?”
“We can only wait,” answered Loring. “We must not let them see that we are anxious.”
“Ain’t you going to donothing?” Knowlton looked at Loring in perfect amazement.
Stephen smiled, and shook his head. “No, I am going to supper. I would advise you to eat at the mess to-night, instead of at your shack. I am afraid that at present you are not exactly popular.”
He walked off towards the eating-house, while Knowlton stood looking after him blankly.
“He don’t realize that in about three hours after those men get to drinking, the Kay mine won’t exist. If we had a real man in charge here, we might do something about it. He thinks, I suppose, that because the men like him there won’t be trouble. Hell! and I used to think he had sense!” Knowlton almost snorted in his rage.
At supper every man was keyed to a high pitch of excitement. There were only about twenty white men in camp, and though they were well armed, the Mexicans outnumbered them more than fifteen to one. Stephen alonerefrained from joining in the flurry of question and conjecture which whirled about the table. Although he seemed unmoved, a close observer would have noticed that he gripped his knife and fork almost as if they had been weapons. Wah slid his plate of soup before him, at the same time patting him on the shoulder with affectionate interest.
“Me bludder like one owl,” he said.
“Hey, Wah, this soup is rotten!” called a young fellow from the end of the table.
“Oh, lubbly, lubbly soup!” chanted Wah. “Lubbly, me bludder, lubbly.”
“I’m not your bludder, Wah,” answered the man politely. “I would rather have an ape for a brother than you.”
“You me bludder, allee samee, allee samee.” Saying which, Wah disappeared into the kitchen, only to stick his head a moment later through the connecting window, and call: “Oh, you pig-faced Swede, Oh, you pig-faced Swede! La, la, boom, boom!”
But even Wah was unable to break the tension that surrounded the supper. As the men were lighting their pipes at the close of the meal, from the gulch behind the camp where werethe saloons, came the sound of a fusillade of shots and a burst of shrill yelling.
“The game is on,” thought Loring.
As the noise outside became louder, Stephen said to the men: “I want all you fellows to get your guns and go over into the office to guard the safe. Go as quietly as you can so as not to stir things up. Keep quiet in there and don’t shoot unless you are compelled to. We have just issued some new stock, and if there is news of any fighting here the value will go all to pieces. We must just wait, and keep quiet. Remember a fight means almost ruin, and we have got to avoid it.”
Knowlton looked quickly over to McKay, and nodded. Both were experienced men, and they knew that now was no time to think of stock values, but of actually saving the mine, and the lives of the white men there. They knew that serious trouble was intended, as since the shooting, every outlet of the camp had been guarded by Mexicans. They knew that the only chance, not for avoiding a fight, but for avoiding a massacre, lay in an immediate attack on the Mexicans, before they were completely out of hand. And Loring was thinkingof stock values! Still, they remembered that he was inexperienced, and they set down to indecision what seemed like criminal folly. As for McKay, he had known Loring to fall once before, and he was not hopeful for the outcome.
“Knowlton,” continued Loring, “you had better stay here with me. It won’t do for the miners to think that you are hidden.”
“Well, I won’t be,” exclaimed Knowlton decisively. “There is only one thing in this world that I am afraid of, and that is a fool!”
The men hurried to their tents to procure their firearms. From the window of the mess Stephen watched them, as one by one they returned and slipped into the darkened office. Then he stepped out on the porch, and seated himself beneath the full glare of the hanging electric light. Knowlton, with a dogged expression on his face, seated himself on the steps. Another man came and joined them. It was McKay.
“Let me stay here with you, Steve,” he said gruffly.
“Thank you!” replied Stephen. Then he relapsed into silence.
Sitting with his watch beside him on the arm of the chair, and smoking furiously, his eye traveled to Knowlton, and dwelt on the brown oiled butt of the latter’s “automatic,” an odd-shaped lump against the white of his shirt.
“That was the first time I ever killed a man by accident,” murmured Knowlton, half to himself. “The Doc said after supper that Rigas might possibly live another hour.”
“An hour, did you say?” asked Loring. Then again he sat in silence, staring intently at his watch.
“Quarter past eight. He has lived more than an hour since supper.”
From the valley, seven miles away, came softly the whistle of the evening train. The noise in camp was continually increasing in volume. Groups of miners went by the mess shouting, singing, and whooping derisively. Every now and then the babel of voices was punctuated by shots fired in rapid succession as some one emptied his gun in the air.
By the hospital a silent group was waiting, waiting for Rigas to die.
The men on the porch watched that sinister mass with apprehension. The effect was farmore suggestive than that of the noisier portion of the camp.
Suddenly the mass of men by the hospital stirred, heaved, and moved. From a hundred throats came a dull roar.
“Rigas is dead,” said Loring, shutting his watch with a snap.
The crowd of men by the hospital began to roll towards the mess. As a huge swell rolls in from the sea, so the black mass, swaying, rising, falling, swept on. As it drew nearer, the white of the men’s faces stood out in the glare of the electric lights even as the foam upon that wave.
“Put out the porch lights!” yelled Knowlton.
“I am manager here, and they stay lit,” shouted Loring back to him.
Even as the surf curls before breaking and sweeping up the beach, so the wave of men seemed to rise and draw itself together, before surging up the steps.
Stephen had stepped forward to the edge of the steps in front of Knowlton. He raised his fist for silence, and such was the compelling force in his eyes that for a moment he was obeyed. But as he started to speak, a greathiss arose from the crowd, like the sound of escaping steam from some giant locomotive. Loring gripped the railing of the porch hard, and again shouted something.
“God, he’s crazy!” yelled Knowlton to McKay. “He is going to try and argue.” Knowlton’s hand lay tightly on the gun in his belt.
“Steve has lost his head again,” thought McKay bitterly. “I might have known that he didn’t have the stuff in him.”
A bottle whizzed by Loring’s ear, breaking with a crash against the wall behind him. For an instant the sound of breaking glass caught the attention of the crowd.
“You want the money in the safe?” shouted Loring.
“Sí,sí, yes,sí, yes,sí!” roared the crowd, in a mixture of two languages.
The sound lulled for a second. Stephen waved his keys in the air. “You shall have it.”
The shouting was wilder than before, and echoed from end to end of the camp.
“Coward!” moaned McKay, sickened by such an exhibition. Some one in the crowd fired at Loring, luckily with drunken aim.The bullet kicked up the dust at the foot of the steps. Knowlton jumped to his feet, and leveled his gun at the crowd.
“Sit down!” roared Stephen. Not knowing why he did so, Knowlton lowered his gun and sank again into his chair.
“Do you want Knowlton?” shouted Loring, pointing to the deputy beside him. As he spoke, he glanced at his watch, which lay in his hand. His face was reeking with sweat.
“Do you want Knowlton?” he shouted again.
The howl that went up from the mob was as if from the throats of blood-hungry beasts.
Knowlton’s face was white; but his eyes showed their scorn of Loring. He looked at him in contempt, and looking, to his surprise, saw the tense lines of his face light with the gleam of victory.
“You want Knowlton?” he shouted for the last time. “Then come and take him!”
As the mob surged up the steps, a body of horsemen charged them fiercely from behind. Right and left galloped the riders, beating the mob over the heads with their Winchesters, or cutting them with their quirts, riding downmen beneath the weight of their horses. The mob scattered and fled in every direction. The leader of the horsemen swung out of the saddle in front of the steps, and Winchester in hand, walked up to Loring.
“Are you Mr. Loring?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered Stephen.
“Well, it seems as if we were just in time—not much too early, are we? We just got your telegram in Dominion in time to raise a big posse, and pack them onto the evening train. It was about the liveliest job that I ever did, and I reckon it is one of the best,” said the sheriff, surveying the scene with satisfaction. “How did the trouble start anyhow?” he asked.
Stephen explained rapidly. At the conclusion, the sheriff turned to Knowlton: “Killed him by accident, eh? Too bad you didn’t have the pleasure of meaning to. Now I guess we’d better clean up the camp a bit, hadn’t we, Mr. Loring?”
Stephen agreed, and the sheriff sent his deputies in groups of twos and threes, to raid the tents of the Mexicans, and gather in their arms.
Knowlton approached Loring in a stupefied manner.
“When could you have telegraphed?” he asked. “They have been guarding the roads ever since the shooting.”
Stephen smiled. “When you jumped into that crowd, Knowlton, I sent Reade out through the back window of the office to send a telegram for help, and to get horses for them ready at the station camp.”
A light broke over McKay’s face. Walking up to Loring, he laid his hand on his shoulder.
“By God, Steve, I am proud of you!” he said. Then turning to the arc light which hung from the ceiling of the porch, he addressed it softly: “Andthat’sthe man we fired!”
In the middle of the following September, Radlett arrived in Tucson from the East. He was on his way to pay his first visit to his property in Kay, since Stephen had taken charge. As he signed his name on the hotel register, his eye was caught by the names of the arrivals of the day before.
“Donald Cameron.”
“Miss Cameron.”
A flush came to his cheeks and a light to his eyes as he looked steadily at the page. Strange what power a written word may have to stir a man to the depths of his being! As Radlett read the names, he felt the years slip away from him. Five, six years was it since that summer at Bar Harbor when he and Jean Cameron had climbed together about the cliffs of the spouting horn or, staff in hand, had explored Duck Brook or floated idly in his canoe around the islands in the harbor? Like Loring he had dreamed his dream of what might be. By theend of the summer he knew it was only a dream of what might have been. He carried away with him an ideal, an aching heart, and a knot of ribbon of the Cameron plaid. But he was a man of too much force and energy to spend his life in bewailing the past. He had shut the knot of ribbon in a secret drawer, set the ideal in a shrine, and flung his heart into business with such success that to-day, while he was still a young man, he was already a power to be reckoned with in the financial world, while a golden career opened ahead of him.
A man so loyal in his friendship could not be other than loyal in his love; but he had put the possibility of winning Jean Cameron definitely out of his mind, and he would have sworn that the years had reduced the fever of his feeling to a genial tranquillity of friendship, when now at the very sight of her name on a hotel register, all his philosophy was put to flight and he was conscious only of a burning desire to see her once more.
Being a man of action, he wasted no time on reminiscence; but inquired in quick incisive terms whether Mr. Cameron and his daughter were still at the hotel. Learning that they were,he sent up his card. Then he lighted a cigarette and walked the floor of the lobby, smoking nervously till the bell-boy returned to say that Mr. Cameron would be glad to receive him in his private sitting-room. Before following the boy, Radlett stopped at the desk to arrange for his room and get his key.
“How good a room do you wish, sir, and how long will you stay?”
“The best you have, and as long as I choose,” Radlett answered with characteristic brevity. A moment later he stood before the door of the Camerons’ sitting-room, which opened at his knock to reveal Mr. Cameron’s bristling red head in the foreground, and in the background a figure in a traveling dress of gray cloth, with a hat to match and a knot of plaided ribbon under the brim.
At sight of Radlett, Jean rose, smiling, but with a slight consciousness in her manner, a consciousness resulting from the remembrance of a painful scene, the hope that the man before her had quite forgiven and the slighter hope, a mere faint ashamed shadow of a hope, that he had not quite forgotten.
Her mind must have been quickly set atrest on that point, for such a rush of feeling swept over Radlett that he could scarcely make his greetings intelligible. Mr. Cameron gave him a firm grip, and Jean held out a gray gloved hand which Radlett clasped tremulously. Mr. Cameron looked at the man and girl as they stood talking together, and the longer he looked the better he liked the combination.
“There would be a son-in-law to be proud of,” he thought, naturally enough perhaps considering him in that relation first. “Baird Radlett has everything that a girl could ask,—a hard head, a long purse, a free hand and an endless stock of common sense. And then, if I had him to help me, what a property I could build up! He used to seem devoted to Jean. But she could not have refused him—no, and by heaven she should not.” (Mr. Cameron liked to keep up even to himself the illusion that he was a tyrannical parent whose will was law.) “Rather different this man from Loring! Jean must see that. If she does not, she must be made to see it. I was afraid at one time that she might be foolish enough to fall in love with Loring; but I took it in time—I took it in time. Yet she is too efficient not to make someone big mistake in her life. We Camerons all do it sooner or later. If it is not one thing it is another—misdirected energy, I suppose—” Then aloud, in answer to a question from Radlett as to how he happened to be in that part of the world: “Why, about a year and a half ago I became interested in a mine in Arizona which was not being run properly, and so for the present I am giving up my time to managing it myself.”
“And have you too become a mining engineer?” Radlett asked of Jean.
“Not quite,” she laughed.
“Jean came rather near it at first,” added her father; “but I think that now she is half tired of the life out here. It has not the charm for her that it had at first.”
“I should think not!” exclaimed Radlett emphatically. “Do you mean that you have spent a whole year out in the hills here?” he asked Jean.
“Yes,” she answered. “This trip marks the first time that I have been back to the East since last fall; but I have not yet become such a savage that I can dispense with afternoon tea. I hope you will join us,” she added.
“Yes, with thanks,” Radlett answered. Up to this moment he had never found any use for Tucson. Now he discovered that it existed to hold a tea-table and Jean Cameron.
“What brings you to Tucson, Baird?” she asked, while the waiter laid the cloth.
“I am in the mining business myself, in a small way,” he rejoined. “Last year I bought a property in Pinal County on speculation. I am going up to visit it now for the first time. I do not really need to go. In fact I shall probably do more harm than good. I have a manager up there who has accomplished wonders. He has made the mine pay in six months after he took control. As far as I can learn, he has done practically everything himself, from mining the ore to putting it on the cars. I bought the mine at a big risk, and now it is about the most satisfactory investment that I own.”
“I wish that I had such a man to put in charge of Quentin. When I am not there the whole plant seems to go to pieces.”
“Quentin!” exclaimed Radlett in surprise. “Is that the name of your property?”
“It is,” said Mr. Cameron. “Why? Had you ever heard of it?”
Radlett opened his lips to speak; but the arrival of the tea turned the subject of conversation for the moment. As he watched Jean pouring the tea all thoughts of mines and business vanished from Radlett’s mind. He wondered how he had ever existed throughout the years in which he had not seen her.
While Jean Cameron talked to Radlett, she glanced at him over her teacup with that interest which a girl naturally bestows upon a man who might have been a part of her life had she so willed it. In the past year the standards by which she judged men had changed considerably. She had much more regard for the qualities of steadiness and determination which Baird possessed than she had felt at the time when she refused him. From her widened experiences she had learned that ability without reliability was useless. Perhaps, too, now that disappointment in her new surroundings had set in, she looked back with more tenderness upon those who had peopled her life in the East.
The talk ranged over many scenes and people familiar to them all, then gradually drifted to the plans of each for the future. Baird’smind had been working fast. Seeing Jean for an hour had made him wish to see her for many more hours, and by the time that he had finished his second cup of tea, he had evolved a plan by which he hoped to achieve that end. If he could persuade Mr. Cameron, when on his way to Quentin, to stop over at Kay, and to make an expert report on the property, it would enable him to have at least a week more with Jean. Turning to Mr. Cameron, he approached him on the subject.
“I wish very much that I could persuade you to stop over and examine my property for me. If you had the time I should greatly value your professional opinion.”
“Where is your mine situated?”
“At Kay,” answered Radlett. “I think it is on the direct route to Quentin.”
“So you are the man who bought that property. I had not heard who owned it.”
“Yes,” said Baird. “Now do you think that you could possibly spare four or fives days to investigate the place for me?”
“I do not know whether I can possibly spare the time,” reflected Mr. Cameron, half aloud. If it had been any man besides Radlett, Mr.Cameron would have refused at once, as he had for some time given up all such work. But he was glad to do a favor to Baird, and also he felt that he would like to have him and Jean thrown together for a while. “Still I can get in touch with Quentin, and if they need me there I can get there at short notice. Yes, I think that I can take the time. I shall be interested to see how the mine is doing with this wonderful new manager of yours. Frankly, it never used to be much good.”
“Don’t be discouraging, Father!” said Jean. “You might at least be an optimist until you have seen Baird’s mine.”
“If your father should be a pessimist after seeing it, I should certainly give up the mine, I have such respect for his judgment.”
Mr. Cameron expanded under the compliment. “By the way, did you not have a big riot or something up there this spring? I read about it, I think, in the Eastern papers. They said that there had been a race riot in Kay which, but for the coolness and nerve of the manager, would have been a desperate outbreak.”
“Yes, there was a desperate state of affairs,” answered Radlett, and he proceeded to give anaccount of the riot, the details of which he had learned through a postscript added by Reade to one of Loring’s reports. When he reached the part of the story which told how the manager had held the mob at bay until the arrival of the deputies, both Jean and her father exclaimed with approval. Jean’s eyes were shining with the enthusiasm which she always felt for a brave act well carried out.
“And,” said Radlett in conclusion, “since then there has not been a hint of trouble in the camp. In fact a labor agitator came up there last month, and the men themselves ran him out of camp.”
“You certainly have a wonderful man there,” said Mr. Cameron. “If I had chanced upon him first, you would never have had him. If there is one thing on which I pride myself, it is my power to read character at first sight. I should have snapped up a man like that in no time. What is his name?”
“His name,” said Radlett, “is Stephen Loring.” He watched Mr. Cameron closely as he uttered the name, and was amused to see the expression of blank dismay and astonishment upon that gentleman’s face.
“Loring! Stephen Loring!” cried Mr. Cameron, completely taken aback.
“Stephen Loring,” repeated Radlett doggedly.
“Why, we dismissed him from Quentin for—”
“Father, don’t!” ejaculated Jean suddenly. Her cheeks burned, while her eyes pleaded with her father to spare Loring’s past. Radlett looked at her with a quick glance of appreciation.
“It is all right, Jean,” he said. “Loring told me all about it himself.”
“He told you,” queried Mr. Cameron incredulously, “about the accident, about his drunkenness and all; and after that you put him in charge of the mine? How could you?”
“I believed in him,” replied Radlett quietly, “and he has justified my belief. I have known him all my life, and I trust and respect him.”
“You say that he has made good with you?” inquired Mr. Cameron sharply.
“He has.”
Mr. Cameron was a man of honest enthusiasms, but of equally honest hatreds. When man had once failed him, he was loath to believe that there could be good in him.
“I hope you will find that he keeps it up,” was all that he said. He did not say it with complimentary conviction, either.
“He will,” Radlett answered shortly.
Jean was moved by Baird’s faithful defense of his friend.
“It is characteristic of you to stand by him as you have done,” she said, “and if ever a man needed a good friend, it was Mr. Loring.”
“You knew him well?” asked Radlett, with surprise. From what Loring had told him of his position in camp, he had not imagined that he would know Miss Cameron personally at all.
“He saved my life,” answered Jean. Her voice was soft, but there was a hint of challenge in the glance that she sent toward her father.
“Saved your life!” ejaculated Radlett. “He never said anything to me about that. Just like him! He told me only of his failures.”
“You have known him all your life. What was he?” asked Mr. Cameron. “Another case of a worthless fellow whom every one liked?”
“He never was worthless,” said Baird. “Only until now he never showed what he was worth, and never was there a man whom his friends loved so much, to whom they forgave so much,and from whom they continued to hope so much.”
“He took a peculiar way of showing his worth with me,” remarked Mr. Cameron. “Really now, Radlett, killing men by your carelessness is a pretty serious thing. And from what I can gather, I judge that for the past few years his life has been far from creditable; that he has been getting into trouble of some sort all the time. His record shows that he has been permanently inefficient and frequently drunk.”
“Yes, it is all true,” answered Baird, “but in all those years he was being hammered and forged, and in the end the experience has strengthened him. The things that he has gone through, even the wrong things which he has done, all have molded his character, and for the better. It was a big risk, a big chance, but by it the metal in him has been turned to steel.”
“Is not that rather an expensive process by which to obtain a product like Loring?” asked Mr. Cameron dryly.
“I hope very much that when you see what Loring has done at Kay, you will change yourmind,” said Radlett. “I understand of course what you must feel about him; but I think that he has wiped his slate clean. If two lives were lost through him at Quentin, by preventing a fight at Kay he has saved twenty.”
“Not to mention saving my life,” added Jean, rising.
“That alone should extenuate everything,” said Radlett earnestly.
He looked after Jean as she left the room to dress for dinner, admiring her proud, erect carriage, and devoutly thankful that he should have several days in which to be with her.
When she had gone, the two men resumed their seats, and proceeded to discuss the plans and business arrangements for Mr. Cameron’s prospective visit to Kay. But even while he was talking, Mr. Cameron’s decision in regard to the visit was wavering, and later, as he went upstairs, he shook his head and said to himself: “No, I can’t do it. Under the circumstances that visit is an impossibility.”
That night, when they had come upstairs from dinner, he went to Jean’s door and knocked.
“Jean,” he called.
“Yes, Father.”
“Can you come into my sitting-room? I want to talk with you.”
They returned to his sitting-room, and Jean seated herself while her father walked slowly up and down the room.
“I have been thinking about our going with Baird up to his mine. I told him that we would go; but if this fellow Loring is the manager there, I do not think that we can. I shall tell Baird that we find it impossible.”
“Why?” asked Jean, although she well knew the reason.
“Why?” echoed her father irritably. “Do you remember the insulting letter which he wrote to me after my offer of help to him at Dominion? Do you think it would be a pleasure to meet him again with that letter in mind?”
“You never told me what you wrote in your letter to him,” replied Jean, parrying the question.
“I offered him work in the north because I said we were under obligation to him for saving—That is, to repay my debt to him.”
“I suppose that you made no conditions?”
“Only that he should never cross our pathagain,” responded her father. “Of course I felt bound to tell him what I thought of him.”
“In other words,” exclaimed Jean with spirit, “you insulted him, and now are angry that he was gentleman enough to refuse your offer. When he was practically starving, as Baird told me he was, he refused to take advantage of an unwilling obligation. Is that why you do not want to go to Kay?” There was pride in the quiver of her nostrils, and pity in her eyes, as she spoke.
Mr. Cameron, like many strong men, was at a disadvantage in an argument with his daughter. Her strength of will was as great as his, and with it she combined an intuitive knowledge of whither to direct her questions, as a good fencer instinctively knows the weak points in his opponent’s defense.
“You are trying to put me in the wrong, Jean,” said her father testily, “but the fact remains that we cannot go.”
“The fact remains, Father, that you owe it to yourself to go, not only because you have promised Baird” (here she scored a strong point, for the keeping of his word was her father’s great pride), “but because you owe it to Mr.Loring to atone for the wrong that you did him.”
Mr. Cameron was in a quandary. On the one side was his desire not to see Loring again or to have Jean meet him; on the other was the fact that he had promised Radlett and that he wished to have him and Jean thrown together. With his usual bluntness he asked his daughter: “Jean, have you thought much of Loring since he left Quentin?”
“A great deal, Father.”
“Often?”
“Very often.”
“Damn me! I was afraid of it. But you may as well understand now that I absolutely forbid your thinking of him any more.”
“Be careful, Father, that you do not add to my real interest the fictitious one of defiance which has always been strong in the Cameron blood. What I have been thinking all these months about Mr. Loring is that he is a man to whom we are under deep obligation, and one to whom you have been unjust.”
“I thought,” said Mr. Cameron helplessly, and foolishly allowing his attack to be changed to defense, “that I had done everything possiblefor Loring. I do not wish to be thought ungrateful to any man; but that letter—”
Jean was touched and coming over to her father, put her arms around him saying: “Can’t you see, Father dear, that the letter he sent to you was the only one which a gentleman could write under the circumstances.”
“Perhaps so, perhaps,” answered Mr. Cameron. “And anyhow,” he went on rather weakly, “I have promised Baird, and Jean, I want you to see more of him. He is, I think, of all the men whom I know, the best and the most trustworthy. He told me that some time ago you refused to marry him.”
“Yes,” said Jean.
“Have you ever changed at all? Do you not like him better than you did? He is the man of all others whom I should rather see you marry.”
“I always liked him and I like him better than ever now,” replied Jean, with her usual frankness. “Only it would take me at least a week to fall in love with him,” she added laughing, as she kissed her father and bade him good night.