Chapter IV: Part 4

"He's anything that suits, when it comes to pulling off a mining deal. He'd 'salt' his own mother, he'd sell out his grandmother, but in his profession there's none better if he'd stay straight. I knowed him down in Southern Oregon--he was run out."

"Have you heard yet from Sprudell?"

"Yes," Uncle Bill answered grimly. "As you might say, indirectly. I want you should take a look at this."

He felt for his leather wallet and handed Bruce the clipping.

"Don't skip any," he said acidly. "It's worth a careful peruse."

There was a little likelihood of that after Bruce had read the headlines.

"I hopes you takes special note of tears of gratitude rainin' down my withered cheeks," said Uncle Bill savagely, "I relishes bein' published over the world as a sobbin' infant."

Bruce folded the clipping mechanically many times before he handed it back. There was more in it to him than the withholding of credit which belonged to an obscure old man, or the self-aggrandizement of a pompous braggart. To Bruce it was indicative of a man with a moral screw loose, it denoted a laxity of principle. With his own direct standards of conduct it was equivalent to dishonesty.

"You didn't git no answer to your letter, I notice," Griswold commented, following Bruce's thoughts.

"No."

They smoked in silence for a time, the target of interested eyes, Bruce unconscious that the stories of his feats of strength and his daring as a boatman had somehow crossed the almost impassable spurs of mountain between Ore City and Meadows to make a celebrity of him, not only in Ore City but as far as the evil reputation of the river went.

"You'll hardly be startin' back to-morrow, will you, Burt?"

"To-morrow? No, nor the next day." There was a hard ring in Bruce's voice. "I've changed my mind. I'm going outside! I'm going to Bartlesville, Indiana, to see Sprudell!"

"Good!" enthusiastically. "And if you has cause to lick that pole kitty hit him one for me."

Wilbur Dill, who had not expected to close his eyes, was sleeping soundly, while Bruce in the adjoining room, who had looked forward to a night of rest in a real bed, was lying wide awake staring into the dark. His body was worn out, numb with exhaustion, but his mind was unnaturally alert. It refused to be passive, though it desperately needed sleep. It was active with plans for the future, with speculation concerning Sprudell, with the rebuilding of the air castles which had fallen with his failure to find mail. In the restless days of waiting for Toy to get well enough to leave alone for a few days while he went up to Ore City for mail and provisions, a vista of possibilities had unexpectedly opened to Bruce. He was standing one morning at the tiny window which overlooked the river, starting across at Big Squaw creek, with its cascades of icicles pendant from its frozen mouth.

What a stream Big Squaw creek was, starting as it did all of thirty miles back in the unknown hills, augmented as it came by trickling rivulets from banks of perpetual snow and by mountain springs, until it grew into a roaring torrent dashing itself to whiteness against the green velvet boulders, which in ages past had crashed through the underbrush down the mountainside to lie forever in the noisy stream! And the unexpected fern-fringed pools darkened by overhanging boughs, under which darted shadows of the trout at play--why he had thought, if they had Big Squaw creek back in Iowa, or Nebraska, or Kansas, or any of those dog-gone flat countries where you could look further and see less, and there were more rivers with nothing in them than any other states in the Union, they'd fence it off and charge admission. They'd--it was then the idea had shot into his mind like an inspiration--they'd _harness_ Big Squaw creek if they had it back in Iowa, or Nebraska, or Kansas, and make it work! They'd build a plant and develop power!

The method which had at once suggested itself to Sprudell was slow in coming to Bruce because he was unfamiliar with electricity. In the isolated districts where he had lived the simpler old-fashioned, steam-power had been employed and his knowledge of water-power was chiefly from reading and hearsay.

But he believed that it was feasible, that it was the solution of the difficulty, if the expense were not too great. With a power-house at the mouth of Squaw creek, a transmission wire across the river and a pump-house down below, he could wash the whole sand-bar into the river and all the sand-bars up and down as far as the current would carry! In his excitement he had tried to outline the plan to Toy, who had more that intimated that he was mad.

The Chinaman had said bluntly: "No can do."

Placer-mining was a subject upon which Toy felt qualified to speak, since, after a cramped journey from Hong Kong, smuggled in his uncle's clothes hamper, he had started life in America at fourteen, carrying water to his countrymen placering in "Chiny" Gulch; after which he became one of a company who, with the industry of ants, built a trestle of green timber one hundred and fifty feet high to carry water to the Beaver Creek diggings and had had his reward when he had seen the sluice-box run yellow with gold and had taken his green rice bowl heaping full upon the days of division.

Those times were quick to pass, for the white men had come, and with their fists and six-shooters drove them from the ground, but the eventful days surcharged with thrills were the only ones in which he counted he lived. He laundered now, or cooked, but he had never left the district and he loved placer-mining as he loved his life.

Bruce had found small comfort in discussing his idea with Toy, for Toy knew only the flume and the ditch of the days of the 60's, so he was eager to submit his plan to some one who knew about such things and he wished that he had had an opportunity of talking to the "Yellow-Leg." If it was practicable, he wanted to get an idea of the approximate cost.

Bruce was thinking of the "Yellow-Leg" and envying him his education and knowledge when a new sound was added to the audible slumbers of the guests of the Hinds House and of the Snow family, who were not so musical when asleep. Accustomed to stillness, as he was, the chorus that echoed through the corridor had helped to keep him awake, this and the uncommon softness of a feather pillow and a cotton mattress that Mr. Dill in carping criticism had likened unto a cement block.

This new disturbance which came through the thin partition separating his room from Dill's was like the soft patter of feet--bare feet--running around and around. Even a sudden desire for exercise seemed an inadequate explanation in view of the frigid temperature of the uncarpeted rooms. Bruce was still more mystified when he heard Dill hurdling a chair, and utterly so when his neighbor began dragging a wash-stand into the centre of the room. Making all due allowance for the eccentricities of Yellow-Legs, Bruce concluded that something was amiss, so, slipping into his shoes, he tapped upon the stranger's door.

The activity within continuing, he turned the knob and stepped inside where Mr. Dill was working like a beaver trying to add a heavy home-made bureau to the collection in the middle of the floor. Shivering in his striped pajamas he was staring vacantly when Bruce lighted the lamp and touched him on the shoulder.

"You'd better hop into bed, mister."

Mr. Dill mumbled as he swung his arms in the gesture of swimming.

"Got to keep movin'!"

"Wake up." Bruce shook him vigorously.

The suspected representative of the "Guggenheimers" whined plaintively: "Itty tootsies awfy cold!"

"Itty tootsies will be colder if you don't get 'em off this floor," Bruce said with a grin, as he dipped his fingers in the pitcher and flirted the ice water in his face.

"Oh--hello!" Intelligence returned to Mr. Dill's blank countenance. "Why, I must have been walking in my sleep. I always do when I sleep in a strange place, but I thought I'd locked myself in. I dreamed I was a fish freezing up in a cake of ice."

"It's not surprising."

"Say." Mr. Dill looked at him wistfully as he stood on one foot curling his purple toes around the other knee. "I wonder if you'd let me get in with you? I'm liable to do it again--sleeping cold and all."

"Sure," said Bruce sociably, leading the way. "Come ahead."

The somnambulist chattered:

"I've been put out of four hotels already for walking into other people's rooms, and once I got arrested. I've doctored for it."

While lamenting his inability to discuss his proposition with the engineer, the last thing Bruce anticipated was to be engaged before daylight in the humane and neighborly act of warming Wilbur Dill's back, but so it is that Chance, that humorous old lady, thrusts Opportunity in the way of those in whom she takes an interest.

Bruce was so full of his subject that he saw nothing unusual in propounding his questions in Mr. Dill's ear under the covers in the middle of the night.

"How many horse-power could you develop from a two-hundred-feet head with a minimum flow of eight hundred miners' inches?"

"Hey?" Mr. Dill's muffled voice sounded startled.

Bruce repeated the question, and added:

"I'm going out on the stage in the morning and it leaves before you're up. I'd like mightily to know a few things in your line if you don't mind my asking."

He was leaving, was he? Going out on the stage? Figuratively, Mr. Dill sat up.

"Certainly not." His tone was cordial. "Any information at all----"

As clearly as he could, Bruce outlined the situation, estimating that a flume half a mile in length would be necessary to get this two-hundred-foot head, with perhaps a trestle bridging the cañon of Big Squaw creek. And Dill, wide awake enough now, asked practical, pertinent questions, which made Bruce realize that, as Uncle Bill had said, whatever doubt there might be about his honesty there could be none at all concerning his ability.

He soon had learned all that Bruce could tell him of the situation, of the obstacles and advantages. He knew his reason for wishing to locate the pump-house at the extreme end of the bar, the best place to cross the river with the transmission wire, of the proximity of saw-timber, and of the serious drawback of the inaccessibility of the ground. Bruce could think of no detail that Dill had overlooked when he was done.

"Transportation is your problem," the engineer said, finally. "With the machinery on the ground the rest would be a cinch. But there's only the river or an expensive wagon-road. A wagon-road through such country might cost you the price of your plant or more. And the river with its rapids, they tell me, is a terror; so with the water route eliminated, there remains only your costly wagon-road."

"But," Bruce insisted anxiously, "what would be your rough estimate of the cost of such a plant, including installation?"

"At a guess, I'd say $25,000, exclusive of freight, and as you know the rates from the coast are almighty high."

"Twenty-five thousand dollars!" And five hundred, Bruce reminded himself, was about the size of his pile.

"Much obliged."

"Don't mention it," Mr. Dill yawned. "One good turn deserves another, and, thanks to you, I'm almost warm."

Because Mr. Dill yawned it did not follow that he slept. On the contrary, he was as wide awake as Bruce himself and when Bruce gently withdrew from the sociable proximity of a bed that sagged like a hammock, and tiptoed about the room while dressing, going downstairs to the office wash-basin when he discovered that there was skating in the water-pitcher, lest the sound of breaking ice disturb his bed-fellow, Dill was gratefully appreciative.

He really liked the fellow, he did for a fact--in spite of his first prejudice against him for being alive. Besides, since he was going outside, as he had told him, for an indefinite stay, he might not interfere so much with his plans after all, for Mr. Dill, too, had had an inspiration.

X

"CAPITAL TAKES HOLT"

It is a safe wager that where two or three prospectors meet in a mining camp or cabin, the length of time which will elapse before the subject of conversation reverts to food will not exceed ten minutes and in this respect the inhabitants of Ore City who "bached" were no exception. The topic was introduced in the office of the Hinds House this morning as soon as there was a quorum.

"I declare, I doubts if I lives to see grass," said Yankee Sam despondently as he manicured a rim of dough from his finger-nails with the point of a savage-looking jack-knife. "I opened my next-to-the-last sack of flour this mornin' and 'twas mouldy. I got to eat it though, and like as not t'other's the same. I tell you," lugubriously, "the pickin's is gittin' slim on this range!"

"I know one thing," declared Judge George Petty, who was sober and irritable, "if N. K. Rippetoe sends me in any more of that dod-gasted Injun bakin' powder, him and me is goin' to fall out. I warned him once I'd take my trade away and now he's gone and done it again. It won't raise nothin', not _nothin'_!"

"An' you can't _drink_ it," Lanningan observed pointedly.

"You remember them dried apples I bought off the half-breed lady down on the Nez Perce Reserve? Well," said Porcupine Jim sourly, "they walked off day 'fore yistiddy--worms. I weighed that lady out cash gold, and look what she's done on me! I wouldn't wonder if them apples wa'nt three to four year old."

"If only we could find out what that Yellow-Leg's after." Lannigan's face was cross-lined with anxiety. "If some of us could only unload somethin' on him, then the rest of us could borry till Capital took holt in the spring."

"S-ss-sh! That's him," came a warning whisper.

"Good morning, gentlemen. I seem to have slept late."

It was apparent to all that Mr. Dill's spirits were decidedly better than when he had retired.

Yankee Sam suggested humorously:

"I reckon they was a little slow gittin' around with the tea-kittle to thaw you out, so you could git up."

Mr. Dill declared that he had been agreeably disappointed in his night; that he really felt quite rested and refreshed.

"If it isn't too soon after breakfast, friends," he said tentatively, as he produced a flask.

It was quickly made clear to him that it was never too soon, or too late, for that matter, and a suggestion of force was necessary to tear the flask from Yankee Sam's face.

"What? Teetotaler?" As Uncle Bill shook his head.

"Not exactly; sometimes I take a little gin for my kidnas."

Ore City looked at him in unfeigned surprise. Mr. Dill, however, believed he understood. The old man either knew him or had taken a personal dislike--maybe both--at any rate he ceased to urge.

"Gentlemen," impressively, and Ore City felt intuitively that its acute sufferings, due to ungratified curiosity, were at an end, "no doubt you've wondered why I'm here?"

Ore City murmured a hypocritical protest.

"That would be but natural," Mr. Dill spoke slowly, drawling his words, animated perhaps by the spirit which prompts the cat to prolong the struggles of the dying mouse, "but I have postponed making my mission known until rejuvenated by a good night's sleep. Now, gentlemen, if I can have your support, your hearty co-operation, I may tell you that I am in a position--to make Ore City boom! In other words--Capital Is Going to Take Hold!"

Porcupine Jim, who, through long practice and by bracing the ball of his foot against the knob on the stove door, was able to balance himself on one rear leg of his chair, lost his footing on the nickel knob and crashed to the floor, but he "came up smiling," offering for inspection a piece of ore in his extended hand.

"Straight cyanidin' proposition, averagin' $60 to the ton with a tunnel cross-cuttin' the ore-shoot at forty feet that samples $80 where she begins to widen--" Lack of breath prevented Porcupine Jim from saying that the hanging wall was of schist and the foot wall of granite and he would take $65,000 for it, if he could have 10 per cent. in cash.

The specimen which Yankee Sam waved in the face of Capital's representative almost grazed his nose.

"This here rock is from the greatest low-grade proposition in Americy! Porphery dike with a million tons in sight and runnin' $10 easy to the ton and $40,000 buys it on easy terms. Ten thousand dollars down and reg'lar payments every six months, takin' a mortgage--"

"I'm a s-showin' y-you the best f-free-millin' proposition outside of C-California," Judge George Petty stammered in his eagerness. "That there mine'll m-make ten m-men rich. They's stringers in that there ledge that'll run $5,000--$10,000 to the ton. I t-tell you, sir, the 'B-Bouncin' B-Bess' ain't no m-mine--she's a _b-bonanza_! And, when you git down to the secondary enrichment you'll take it out in c-c-chunks!"

Inwardly, Lannigan was cursing himself bitterly that he had eaten "The Gold-Dust Twins," but, searching through his pockets, fortunately, he found a sample from the "Prince o' Peace." He handed it to Mr. Dill, together with a magnifying glass.

"Take a look at this, will you?" He indicated a minute speck with his fingernail.

Mr. Dill lost the speck and was some time in finding it and, while he searched, the stove pipe separated at the joint, calling attention to the fact that the sufferer upstairs was nervous. Pa Snow's voice came so distinctly down the stove-pipe hole that there was reason to believe he was on his hands and knees.

"Befoah you should do anything definite, we-all should like if you would look ovah 'The Bay Hoss.' It's makin' a fine showin', and 'The Under Dawg' is on the market, too, suh."

In the excitement Uncle Bill sat puffing calmly on his pipe.

Mr. Dill with a gesture brushed aside the waving arms and eager hands:

"And haven't you anything to sell?" he asked him curiously. "Don't you mine?"

"Very little," Uncle Bill drawled tranquilly: "I dudes."

"You what?"

"I keeps an 'ad' in the sportin' journals, and guides."

"Oh, yes, hunters--eastern sportsmen--" Mr. Dill nodded. "But I thought I recognized an old-time prospector in you."

"They's no better in the hull West," Yankee Sam declared generously, while Uncle Bill murmured that there was surer money in dudes. "Show Dill that rar' mineral, Uncle Bill." To Dill in an aside: "He's got a mountain of it and it's somethin' good."

Uncle Bill made no move.

"I aims to hold it for the boom."

"And what's your honest opinion of the country, Mr. Griswold?" Dill asked conciliatingly. "What do you think well find when we reach the secondary enrichment?"

A pin dropping would have sounded like a tin wash boiler rolling downstairs in the silence which fell upon the office of the Hinds House. Uncle Bill, looking serenely at the circle of tense faces, continued to smoke while he took his own time to reply.

"I'm a thinkin',"--puff-puff--"that when you sink a hundred feet below the surface,"--puff-puff--"you won't git a damn thing."

Involuntarily Yankee Sam reached for the poker and various eyes sought the wood-box for a sizable stick of wood.

"Upon what do you base your opinion?" asked Mr. Dill, taken somewhat aback. "What makes you think that?"

"Because we're in it now. The weatherin' away of the surface enrichment made the placers we washed out in '61-'64."

Judge George Petty glowered and demanded contemptuously:

"Do you know what a mine _is_?"

"Well," replied Uncle Bill tranquilly, "not allus, but ginerally a mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar."

Yankee Sam half rose from his chair and pointed an accusing poker at Uncle Bill.

"That old pin-head is the worst knocker that ever queered a camp. If we'd a knowed you was comin'," turning to Mr. Dill, "we'd a put him in a tunnel with ten days' rations and walled him up."

"They come clost to lynchin' me onct on Sucker Crick in Southern Oregon for tellin' the truth," Uncle Bill said reminiscently, unperturbed.

Southern Oregon! Wilbur Dill looked startled. Ah, that was it! He looked sharply at Griswold, but the old man's face was blank.

"We're all entitled to our opinions," he said lightly, though his assurance had abated by a shade, "but, judging superficially, from the topography of the country, I'm inclined to disagree."

Ore City's sigh of relief was audible.

Mr. Dill continued:

"And I--we are willing to back our confidence in your camp by the expenditure of a reasonable amount, in order to find out; but, gentlemen, you've raised your sights too high. Your figures'll have to come down if we do business. A prospect isn't a mine, you know, and there's not been much development work done, as I understand."

"How was you aimin' to work it," Uncle Bill asked mildly, "in case you _did_ git anything? The Mascot burned its profits buyin' wood fer steam."

"The riddles of yesterday are the commonplaces of to-day, my friend. The world has moved since the arrastre was invented and steam is nearly as obsolete. Hydro-electric is the only power to-day and that's what I--we--propose to use."

Ore City's eyes widened and then they looked at Uncle Bill. What drawback would he think of next? He never disappointed.

"There ain't water enough down there in Lemon Crick in August to run a churn."

Mr. Dill laughed heartily: "Right you are--but how about the river down below--there's water enough in that, if all I'm told is true."

For once he surprised the old man into an astonished stare.

"The river's all of twenty mile from here."

"They've transmitted power from Victoria Falls on the Zembesi River, in Rhodesia, six hundred miles to the Rand."

Chortling, Ore City looked at the camp hoodoo in triumph.--_That_ should hold him for a while.

"I wish you luck," said Uncle Bill, his complacency returning, "but Ore City ain't the Rand. You'll never pull your money back."

"And in our own country they send 'juice' two hundred and forty-five miles from Au Sable to Baltic Creek, Michigan."

* * * * *

Before his departure Bruce had arranged with Porcupine Jim to load a toboggan with provisions and snowshoe down to Toy. Mr. Dill was delighted when he learned this fortunate circumstance, for it enabled him to make a trip to the river for the purpose, as he elaborately explained, of "looking out a power-site, and the best route to string the wires."

While he was gone, properties to the value of half a million in the aggregate changed hands--but no cash. It was like the good old days to come again, to see the embryo magnates whispering in corners, to feel once more a delicious sense of mystery and plotting in the air. Real estate advanced in leaps and bounds and "Lemonade Dan" overhauled the bar fixtures in the Bucket o' Blood, and stuffed a gunny-sack into a broken window pane with a view to opening up. In every shack there was an undercurrent of excitement and after the dull days of monotony few could calm themselves to a really good night's sleep. They talked in thousands and the clerk's stock of Cincos, that had been dead money on his hands for over three years, "moved" in three days--sold out to the last cigar!

When the time arrived that they had calculated Dill should return, even to the hour, the person who was coming back from the end of the snow tunnel at the front door of the Hinds House, that commanded a good view of the trail, always met someone going out to ask if there was "any sight of 'em?" and he, in turn, took his stand at the mouth of the tunnel, until driven in by the cold. In this way, there was nearly always someone doing lookout duty.

Ore City's brow was corrugated with anxiety when Dill and Porcupine Jim had exceeded by three days the time allotted them for their stay. Wouldn't it be like the camp's confounded luck if Capital fell off of something and broke its neck?

Their relief was almost hysterical when one evening at sunset Lannigan shouted joyfully: "Here they come!"

They dashed through the tunnel to see Mr. Dill dragging one foot painfully after the other to the hotel. He seemed indifferent to the boisterous greeting, groaning merely:

"Oh-h-h, what a hill!"

"We been two days a makin' it," Jim vouchsafed cheerfully. "Last night we slept out on the snow."

"You seem some stove up." Uncle Bill eyed Dill critically. "And looks like you have fell off twenty pounds."

"Stove up!" exclaimed Dill plaintively. "Between Jim's cooking and that hill I took up four notches in my belt. I wouldn't make that trip again in winter if the Alaska Treadwell was awaiting me as a gift at the other end."

"You'll git used to it," consoled Uncle Bill, "you'll learn to like it when you're down there makin' that there 'juice.' I mind the time I went to North Dakoty on a visit--I longed for one of these hills to climb to rest myself. The first day they set me out on the level, I ran away--it took four men to head me off."

"We found where we kin develop 250,000 jolts," Porcupine Jim announced.

"Volts, James," corrected Mr. Dill, and added, dryly, "Don't start in to put up the plant until I get back."

He _was_ coming back then--he _was_! Figuratively, all Ore City fell at his feet, though strictly only two scrambled for the privilege of unbuckling his snow-shoes, and only three picked up his bag.

XI

THE GHOST AT THE BANQUET

T. Victor Sprudell's dinner guests were soon to arrive, and Mr. Sprudell's pearl gray spats were twinkling up and down the corridor of Bartlesville's best hotel, and back and forth between the private dining-room and the Room of Mystery adjoining, where mechanics of various kinds had been busy under his direction, for some days.

But now, so far as he could see, everything was in perfect working order and he had only to sit back and enjoy his triumph and receive congratulations; for once more Mr. Sprudell had demonstrated his versatile genius!

The invited guests came, all of them--a few because they wanted to, and the rest because they were afraid to stay away. Old Man "Gid" Rathburn, who cherished for Sprudell the same warm feeling of regard that he had for a rattlesnake, occupied the seat of honor, while John Z. Willetts, a local financier, whose closet contained a skeleton that Sprudell by industrious sleuthing had managed to unearth, was placed at his host's left to enjoy himself as best he could. Adolph Gotts, who had the contract for the city paving and hoped to renew it, was present for the sole purpose, as he stated privately, of keeping the human catamount off his back. Others in the merry party were Abram Cone and Y. Fred Smart.

The dinner was the most elaborate the chef had been able to devise, the domestic champagne was as free as the air, and Mr. Sprudell, stimulated by the presence of the moneyed men of Bartlesville and his private knowledge of the importance of the occasion, was keyed up to his best. Genial, beaming, he quoted freely from his French and Latin phrase-book and at every turn of the conversation was ready with appropriate verse--his own, mostly.

This was Mr. Sprudell's only essay at promoting, but he knew how it was done. A good dinner, wine, cigars; and he had gone the ingenious guild of money-raisers one better by an actual, uncontrovertible demonstration of the safety and value of his scheme.

His personal friends already had an outline of the proposition, with the promise that they should hear more, and now, after a dash through "Spurr's Geology Applied to Mining," he was prepared to tell them all that their restricted intelligences could comprehend.

When the right moment arrived, Mr. Sprudell arose impressively. In an attentive silence, he gave an instructive sketch of the history of gold-mining, beginning with the plundering expeditions of Darius and Alexander, touching lightly on the mines of Iberia which the Roman wrestled from the Carthagenians, and not forgetting, of course, the conquest of Mexico and Peru inspired by the desire for gold.

When his guests were properly impressed by the wide range of his reading, he skillfully brought the subject down to modern mines and methods, and at last to his own incredible good fortune, after hardships of which perhaps they already had heard, in securing one hundred and sixty acres of valuable placer-ground in the heart of a wild and unexplored country--a country so dangerous and inaccessible that he doubted very much if it had ever been trod by any white foot beside his own and old "Bill" Griswold's.

The climax came when he dramatically announced his intention of making a stock company of his acquisition and permitting Bartlesville's leading citizens to subscribe!

Mr. Sprudell's guests received the news of the privilege which was to be accorded them in an unenthusiastic silence. In fact his unselfish kindness seemed to inspire uneasiness rather than gratitude in Bartlesville's leading citizens. They could bring themselves to swallow his dinners, but to be coerced into buying his mining stock was a decidedly bitter dose.

Well-meaning but tactless, Abe Cone expressed the general feeling, when he observed:

"I been stung once, already, and I ain't lookin' for it again."

To everyone's surprise Abe got off unscathed. In fact Mr. Sprudell laughed good-naturedly.

"Stung, Abe--that's the word. And why?" He answered himself. "Because you were investing in something you did not understand."

"It _looked_ all right," Abe defended. "You could see the gold stickin' out all over the rock, but I was 'salted' so bad I never got enough to drink since. I don't understand this placer-mining either, when it comes to that."

Adolph Gotts, who had been a butcher, specializing in sausage, before he became a city contractor, was about to say the same thing, when Sprudell interrupted triumphantly:

"Ah, but you will before I'm done." It was the moment for which he had waited. "Follow me, gentlemen."

He threw open the door of the adjoining room with a wide gesture, his face radiant with elation.

The company stared, and well it might, for at a signal a miniature placer mine started operation.

The hotel porter shovelled imported sand into a sluice-box through which a stream of water ran and at the end was the gold-saving device invented by Mr. Sprudell which was to revolutionize placer-mining!

The sand contained the gold-dust that represented half of Bruce's laborious summer's working and when Sprudell finally removed his coat and cleaned up the sluice boxes and the gold-saving machine, the residue left in the gold-pan was enough to give even a "'49'er" heart failure.

His triumph was complete. There was a note of awe even in Old Man "Gid" Rathburn's voice, while Abe Cone fairly grovelled as he inquired:

"Is it all like that? Where does it come from? How did it git into that dirt?"

Mr. Sprudell removed his eyeglasses with great deliberation and pursed his lips:

"In my opinion," he said weightily--he might have been an eminent geologist giving his opinion of the conglomerate of the Rand banket, or Agricola elucidating his theory of vein formation--"in my opinion the gold found in this deposit was derived from the disintegration of gold-bearing rocks and veins in the mountains above. Chemical and mechanical processes are constantly freeing the gold from the rocks with which it is associated and wind and water carry it to lower levels, where, as in this instance, it concentrates and forms what we call placers."

Mr. Sprudell spoke so slowly and chose his words with such care that the company received the impression that this theory of placer deposit was his own and in spite of their personal prejudice their admiration grew.

"As undoubtedly you know," continued Mr. Sprudell, tapping his glasses judicially upon the edge of the sluice-box, "the richest gold in all alluvial deposits--"

"What is an alluvial deposit?" inquired Abe Cone, eagerly.

Mr. Sprudell looked hard at Abram but did not answer, one reason being that he wished to rebuke the interruption, and another that he did not know. He reiterated: "The richest gold in all alluvial deposits is found upon bed-rock. This placer, gentlemen, is no exception and while it is pay-dirt from the grass roots and the intermediate sand and gravel abundantly rich to justify their exploitation by Capital, it is upon bed-rock that will be uncovered a fortune to dazzle the mind of man!

"Like myself, you are practical men--you want facts and figures, and when you invest your money you want to be more than reasonably sure of its return. Gentlemen, I have in the hands of a printer a prospectus giving the values of the ground per cubic yard, and from this data I have conservatively, very conservatively, calculated the profits which we might reasonably anticipate. You will be startled, amazed, bewildered by the magnitude of the returns upon the investment which I am giving you the opportunity to make.

"I shall say no more at present, gentlemen, but when my prospectus is off the press I shall place it in your hands--"

"Gemman to see you, suh."

"I'm engaged."

"Said it was important." The bell boy lingered.

Sprudell frowned.

"Did he give no name?"

"Yes, suh; he said to tell you Burt--Bruce Burt."

Sprudell grew a curious, chalky white and stood quite still. He felt his color going and turned quickly lest it be observed.

Apologetically, to his guests:

"One moment, if you please."

He remembered that Bruce Burt had warned him that he would come back and haunt him--he wished the corridor was one mile long.

There was nothing of the wraith, or phantom, however, in the broad-shouldered figure in a wide-brimmed Stetson sitting in the office watching Sprudell's approach with ominous intentness.

With a fair semblance of cordiality Sprudell hastened forward with outstretched hand.

"I'm amazed! Astonished--"

"I thought you would be," Bruce answered grimly, ignoring Sprudell's hand. "I came to see about that letter--what you've done."

"Everything within my power, my friend--they're gone."

"Gone! You could not find them?"

"Not a trace." Sprudell looked him squarely in the eye.

"You did your best?"

"Yes, Burt, I did my best."

"Well," Bruce got up slowly, "I guess I'll register." His voice and face showed his disappointment. "You live here, they said, so I'll see you in the morning and get the picture and the 'dust'."

"In the morning, then. You'll excuse me now, won't you? I have a little dinner on."

He lingered a moment to watch Bruce walk across the office and he noticed how he towered almost head and shoulders above the clerk at the desk: and he saw also, how, in spite of his ill-fitting clothes so obviously ready-made, he commanded, without effort, the attention and consideration for which, in his heart, Sprudell knew that he himself had to pay and pose and scheme.

A thought which was so strong, so like a conviction that it turned him cold, flashed into his mind as he looked. If, by any whim of Fate, Helen Dunbar and Bruce Burt should ever meet, all the material advantages which he had to offer would not count a straw's weight with the girl he had determined to marry.

But such a meeting was the most remote thing possible. There were nearer bridges to be crossed, and Sprudell was anxious to be rid of his guests that he might think.

When Bruce stepped out of the elevator the next morning, Sprudell greeted him effusively and this time Bruce, though with no great enthusiasm, took his plump, soft hand. From the first he had a feeling which grew stronger, as the forenoon waned, that Sprudell was "riding herd on him," guarding him, warding off chance acquaintances. It amused him, when he was sure of it, for he thought that it was due to Sprudell's fear lest he betray him in his rôle of hero, though it seemed to Bruce that short as was their acquaintance Sprudell should know him better than that. When he had the young man corralled in his office at the Tool Works, he seemed distinctly relieved and his vigilance relaxed. He handed Bruce his own letter and a roll of notes, saying with a smile which was uncommonly gracious considering that the money was his own:

"I suppose it won't make any difference to you that your gold-dust has taken on a different form."

"Why, no," Bruce answered. "It's all the same." Yet he felt a little surprise. "But the letter from 'Slim's' sister, and the picture--I want them, too."

"I'm sorry," Sprudell frowned in perplexity, "but they've been mislaid. I can't think where I put them, to save my soul."

"How could you misplace them?" Bruce demanded sharply. "You kept them all together, didn't you? I _wanted_ that picture."

"It'll turn up, of course," Sprudell replied soothingly. "And when it does I'll get it to you by the first mail."

Bruce did not answer--there seemed nothing more to say--but there was something in Sprudell's voice and eyes that was not convincing. Bruce had the feeling strongly that he was holding back the letter and the picture, but why? What could they possibly mean to a stranger? He was wrong in his suspicions, of course, but nevertheless, he was intensely irritated by the carelessness.

He arose, and Sprudell did likewise.

"You are going West from here?"

Bruce answered shortly:

"On the first train."

Sprudell lowered his lids that Bruce should not see the satisfaction in his eyes.

"Good luck to you, and once more, congratulations on your safe return."

Bruce reluctantly took the hand he offered, wondering why it was that Sprudell repelled him so.

"Good-bye," he answered indifferently, as he turned to go.

Abe Cone in his comparatively short career had done many impulsive and ill-considered things but he never committed a worse _faux pas_ than when he dashed unannounced into Sprudell's office, at this moment, dragging an out-of-town customer by the arm.

"Excuse me for intrudin'," he apologized breathlessly, "but my friend here, Mr. Herman Florsheim--shake hands with Mr. Sprudell, Herman--wants to catch a train and he's interested in what I been tellin' him of that placer ground you stumbled on this fall. He's got friends in that country and wanted to know just where it is. I remember you said something about Ore City bein' the nearest post-office, but what railroad is it on? If we need any outside money, why, Herman here--"

Bruce's hand was on the door-knob, but he lingered, ignoring the most urgent invitation to go that he ever had seen in any face.

"I'm busy, Abe," Sprudell said so sharply that his old friend stared. "You _are_ intruding. You should have sent your name."

Bruce closed the door which he had partially opened and came back.

"Don't mind me," he said slowly, looking at Sprudell. "I'd like to hear about that placer--the one you stumbled on last fall."

"We'll come another time," Abe said, crestfallen.

Bruce turned to him:

"No, don't go. I've just come from Ore City and I may be able to tell your friend something that he wants to know. Where _is_ your placer ground, Sprudell?"

Sprudell sat down in his office chair, toying with a desk-fixture, while Bruce shoved both hands in his trousers' pockets and waited for him to speak.

"Burt," he said finally, "I regret this unpleasantness, but the fact is you did not comply with the law--you have never recorded and you are located out."

"So you've taken advantage of the information with which I trusted you to jump my ground?" Bruce's eyes blazed into Sprudell's.

"The heirs could not be found, you were given up for dead, and in any event I've not exceeded my rights."

"You have no rights upon that ground!" Bruce answered hotly, "My locations were properly made in 'Slim's' name and my own. The sampling and the cabin and the tunnel count for assessment work. I had not abandoned the claim."

"Nevertheless, my engineer informs me----"

"Your engineer?" A light dawned.

"Wilburt Dill--pity you did not meet him, a bright young chap--"

"I met him," Bruce answered grimly. "I shall hope to meet him again."

"No doubt you will," Sprudell taunted, "if you happen to be there when we're putting up the plant. As I was saying, Mr. Dill's telegram, which came last night, informs me that he has carried out my instructions, and therefore, individually, and as the President of the Bitter Root Placer Mining Company, I now control one hundred and sixty acres of ground up and down the river, including the bar upon which your cabin stands." Sprudell's small, red mouth curved in its tantalizing smile.

"You'll never hold it!" Bruce said furiously.

"The days of gun-plays have gone by," Sprudell reminded him. "And you haven't got the price to fight me in the courts. You'd better lay down before you start and save yourself the worry. What can you do? You have no money, no influence, no brains to speak of," he sneered insultingly, "or you wouldn't be down there doing what you are. You haven't a single asset but your muscle, and in the open market that's worth about three-fifty a day."

Bruce stood like a mute, the blood burning in his face. Even toward "Slim" he never had felt such choking, speechless rage as this.

"You Judas Iscariot!" he said when he could speak. "You betrayed my hospitality--my trust. Next to a cache robber you're the meanest kind of a thief I've ever known. I've read your story in the newspaper, and so has the old man who saved your rotten life. We know you for the lying braggart that you are. You made yourself out a hero when you were a weakling and a coward.

"You're right--you tell the truth when you twit me with the fact that I have no money no influence, perhaps no brains--not a single asset, as you say, but brute strength; yet somehow, I'll beat you!" He stepped closer and looking deep into the infantile blue eyes that had grown as hard as granite, reiterated--"_Somehow I'm going to win!_"

To say that Abe Cone and Mr. Herman Florsheim departed is not enough--they faded, vanished, without a sound.

Sprudell's eyes quailed a little beneath the fierce intensity of Bruce's gaze, but for a moment only.

"I've heard men talk like that before." He shrugged a shoulder and looked Bruce up and down--at his coat too tight across the chest, at his sleeves, too short for his length of arm, at his clumsy miner's shoes, as though to emphasize the gulf which lay between Bruce's condition and his own. Then with his eyes bright with vindictiveness and his hateful smile of confidence upon his lips, he stood in his setting of affluence and power waiting for Bruce to go, that he might close the door.

XII

THORNS--AND A FEW ROSES

Helen Dunbar was exercising that doubtful economy, walking to save car-fare, when she saw Mae Smith with her eyes fixed upon her in deadly purpose making a bee-line across the street. If there was any one thing more needed to complete her depression it was a meeting with Mae Smith.

She stopped and waited, trying to think what it was Mae Smith resembled when she hurried like that. A penguin! that was it--Mae Smith walked exactly like a penguin. But Helen did not smile at the comparison, instead, she continued to look somberly and critically at the woman who approached. When Helen was low spirited, as now, Mae Smith always rose before her like a spectre. She saw herself at forty another such passé newspaper woman trudging from one indifferent editor to another peddling "space." And why not? Mae Smith had been young and good-looking once, also a local celebrity in her way when she had signed a column in a daily. But she had grown stale with the grind, and having no special talent or personality had been easily replaced when a new Managing Editor came. Now, though chipper as a sparrow, she was always in need of a small loan.

As Helen stood on the corner, in her tailor-made, which was the last word in simplicity and good lines, the time looked very remote when she, too, would be peddling space in a $15 gown, that had faded in streaks, but Helen had no hallucinations concerning her own ability. She knew that she had no great aptitude for her work and realized that her success was due more often to the fact that she was young, well-dressed, and attractive than to any special talent. This was all very well now, while she got results, but what about the day when _her_ shoes spread over the soles and turned over at the heels, and she bought _her_ blouse "off the pile?" When her dollar gloves were shabby and would not button at the wrist? What about the day when she was too dispirited to dress her hair becomingly, but combed it straight up at the back, so that her "scolding locks" hung down upon her coat-collar, and her home-trimmed hat rode carelessly on one ear?

All these things were characteristic of Mae Smith, who personified unsuccessful, anxious middle-age. But there was one thing, she told herself as she returned Mae Smith's effusive greeting, that never, never, no matter how sordid her lot became, should there emanate from her that indefinable odor of poverty--cooking, cabbage, lack of ventilation, bad air--not if she had to hang her clothing out the window by a string!

"I've been over to the _Chronicle_ office," Mae Smith chattered. "Left some fashion notes for the Sunday--good stuff--but I don't know whether he'll use 'em; that kid that's holdin' down McGennigle's job don't buy much space. He's got it in for me anyhow. I beat him on a convention story when he was a cub. I was just goin' down to your office."

"Yes? I'm on the way to the doctor's."

"You don't look well, that's a fact. Sick?"

Helen smiled, faintly. "I do feel miserable. Like every one else I got a drenching at the Thanksgiving Game."

"That's too bad," Mae Smith murmured absently. What was a cold compared to the fact that she needed two dollars and a half? "Say, I wonder if I could get a little loan for a few days? You know I bought this suit on the installment plan and I'm two weeks behind on it. The collector was around yesterday and said he'd have to take it back. I can't go around gettin' fashion notes in my kimono, and the milkman wouldn't leave any milk until I paid for the last ticket. I'm up against it and I thought maybe--"

"How much do you want?"

"About two dollars and a half." The tense look faded instantly from Miss Smith's face.

Helen did not mention, as she laid that amount in her eager hand, that it was part of the money she had saved to buy a pair of long gloves.

"Thank you"--gaily--"ever so much obliged! I've got a corking idea in my head for a Sunday special and just as soon as I write it and get paid--"

"No hurry," Helen answered with a quizzical smile, and she watched Mae Smith clamber joyously on a street car to ride two blocks and spend the fare that Helen had walked eight blocks to save.

The girl's spirits were low and her face showed depression when she mounted the broad stone steps of the physician's city office and residence, but when she came down the look had changed to a kind of frozen fright.

She had not felt like herself for weeks, but she did not dream that it was anything which time and a little medicine would not cure. Now, he had told her that she must leave the city--stop her work at once.

He advised the South or West--particularly the West--some place where it was high and dry. How lovely--and so simple! Just stop work and start! Why didn't he say St. Petersburg or the Arctic circle. With no income save what she earned from week to week they were equally impossible.

She had come in time, he had assured her, but she must not delay. Filled with consternation, sick with dread and horror of what she saw before her, Helen walked slowly to her hotel, the shabby place where she had found board and lodging within her means. She loathed it, everything about it--its faded tawdry splendor, the flashy, egotistical theatrical folk who frequented it, the salaried mediocrities who were "permanent" like herself, the pretentious, badly cooked food; but as she climbed the yellowish marble steps she thought despairingly that even this would be beyond her reach some day.

If only Freddie were alive! There was a lump in her throat as she removed her hat and looked at her pale face in the old-fashioned bureau mirror in her room. She might have gone to him in such an emergency as this--she had saved money enough to have managed that. He had been a bad son and an utterly indifferent brother, but surely he would not have turned her out.

Her shoulders drooped and two tears slipped from beneath her lashes as she sat on the edge of her narrow bed with her hands lying passively in her lap. Tears were so weak and futile in a world where only action counted that it was seldom they ever reached her eyes, though they sometimes came close.

Practical as Helen's life had made her in most things, she was still young enough to build high hopes on a romantic improbability. And nothing was more improbable than that "Slim" Naudain, even if he had lived, ever would have returned to make amends.

But she had thrown the glamour of romance about her scapegrace brother from the day he had flung out of the house in ignominy, boasting with the arrogance of inexperience that he would succeed and come back triumphant, to fill them with envy and chagrin. She never had heard from him directly since, but she had kept her childish, unreasoning faith that he would make good his boast and compensate her for her share of the fortune which it had cost to save him from his evil deeds.

She had not realized until Sprudell had told her of his death how strongly she had counted upon him. He was the only one left to her of her own blood, and had been the single means of escape that she could see from the exhausting, uncongenial grind and the long, lonely hours in the shabby hotel when her work was done. If the future had looked dark and hopeless before, how much worse it seemed with illness staring her in the face!

The money Freddie had left her would have gone a long way toward the vacation after she had used the larger part of it to pay off a long-standing obligation which her mother had incurred. The thought of the money reminded her of the letter and photograph. She brushed her wet cheeks with her hand and getting up took the soiled and yellowing envelope from the bureau drawer, wondering again why his murderer had sent it back.

The quick tears came once more as she read the ingenuous scrawl! What centuries ago it seemed since she had written that! She bit her lip hard but in spite of herself she cried--for her lost illusions--for her mother--for that optimistic outlook upon life which never would come back. She had learned much since that smiling "pitcher" was taken--what "mortgages" mean, for instance--that poverty has more depressing depths than the lack of servants and horses, and that "marrying well," as she interpreted a successful marriage then, is seldom--outside of "fiction and Pittsburgh"--for the girl who earns her own living. Young men who inherit incomes or older men of affairs do not look in shops and offices for their wives. Helen Dunbar had no hallucinations on this score.

Propinquity, clothes, social backing, the necessary adjuncts to "marrying well," had not been among her advantages for many years. There remained on her horizon only the friendly youths of mediocre attainments that she met in her daily life. She liked them individually and collectively in business, but socially, outside of the office, they made no appeal.