Chapter XX: Bright, Seabury & Company

Thus the new firm entered upon its future career with bright prospects. A suitable warehouse on the waterfront was leased for a term of years. True to their determination to stick together, the two junior partners fitted up a room in the second story, and on the day that the doors were first opened for business they moved in. The next thing was to get some business to do.

Charley had a considerable acquaintance among the ranchmen across the Bay, which he now improved by making frequent trips to solicit consignments of country produce. The sight of an empty store and bare walls was at first depressing, but their first shipments from the East could not be expected for several months. There was a sort of tacit understanding that Walter should attend to the financial end of the business, while Charley took care of the outdoor concerns. They were no longer boys. The sense of assumed responsibilities had made them men.

The two partners were busy receiving a sloop-load of potatoes, with their shirt sleeves rolled up, when a big, burly, bewhiskered individual dropped in upon them. Scenting a customer, Charley, always forward, briskly asked what they could do for him.

"I want to see the senior partner."

Charley nodded toward Walter, who was checking off the weights.

The man gave a quick look at the tall, straight young fellow before him, then said, "Can I speak to you in private for five minutes?"

"Come this way," Walter replied, showing the stranger into the little office.

The newcomer sat down, crossed one leg over the other, stroked his long beard reflectively a little, and said, "I've come on a very confidential matter. Can I depend upon the strictest privacy?"

"You may," said Walter, quite astonished at this rather unexpected opening. "Nobody will interrupt us here."

The man cast an inquisitive look around, as if to make sure there were no eavesdroppers near, then, lowering his voice almost to a whisper, said pointedly, "You may have heard something about a plan to aid the poor, oppressed natives of Nicaragua to throw off the tyrannical yoke of their present rulers?"

"I've seen something to that effect in the papers," said Walter evasively.

"So much the better. That clears the way of cobwebs. I want your solemn promise that what passes between us shall not be divulged to a human being."

"I have no business secrets from my partners," Walter objected.

"Your partners! Oh! of course not."

"I've already promised," Walter assented, more and more mystified by the stranger's manner. "Nobody asked you for your secrets. You can do as you like about telling them," he continued rather sharply.

"I'll trust you. You are a young concern. Well connected. Bang-up references. Likely to get on top of the heap, and nat'rally want to make a strike. Nothing like seizing upon a golden opportunity. 'There is a tide'--you know the rest. Now, I'm just the man to put you in the way of doing it, as easy as rolling off a log."

As Walter made no reply, the visitor, after waiting a moment for his words to take effect, went on: "Now, listen. I don't mind telling you, in the strictest confidence, then, that I'm fiscal agent for this here enterprise. I'm in it for glory and the _dinero_. We want some enterprising young firm like yours to furnish supplies for the emigrants we're sending down there," jerking his head toward the south. "There's a big pile in it for you, if you will take hold with us and see the thing through."

Walter kept his eyes upon the speaker, but said nothing.

"You see, it's a perfectly legitimate transaction, don't you?" resumed the fiscal agent a little anxiously.

"Then why so much secrecy?"

"Oh! there's always a lot of people prying round into what don't concern them. Busybodies! If it gets out that our people aren't peaceable emigrants before we're good and ready, the whole thing might get knocked into a cocked hat. They'd say--well, they even might call us filibusters," the man admitted with an injured air.

Walter smiled a knowing smile. "What do you want us to do?" he asked.

"In the first place, we want cornmeal, hard bread, bacon, potatoes, an' sich, for a hundred and fifty men for two months. I can give you the figures to a dot," the agent rejoined, on whom Walter's smile had not been lost. "See here." He drew out of his pocket a package of freshly printed bonds, purporting to be issued by authority of the Republic of Nicaragua, and passed them over for Walter's inspection. "Now, the fact is, we want all our ready funds for the people's outfit, advance money, vessel's charter, and so on. Now, I'm going to be liberal with you. I'll put up this bunch of twenty thousand dollars in bonds, payable on the day Nicaragua is free, for five thousand dollars' worth of provisions at market price. Think of that! Twenty thousand dollars for five thousand dollars. You can't lose. We've got things all fixed down there. Why, man, there's silver and gold and jewels enough in the churches alone to pay those bonds ten times over!"

"What! rob the churches!" Walter exclaimed, knitting his brows.

"Why, no; I believe they call that merely a forced loan nowadays," objected the fiscal agent in some embarrassment.

Seeing that he paused for a reply, Walter observed that he would consult his partner. Charley was called in and the proposal gone over again with him. As soon as advised of its purport he turned on his heel.

"Not any in mine," was his prompt decision.

"Mine either," assented Walter.

The stranger seemed much disappointed, but not yet at the end of his resources. "Well, then," he began again, "you take the bonds, sell them for a fair discount for cash, and use the proceeds towards those provisions?"

"Hadn't you better do that yourself? We're not brokers. We're commission merchants. If you come to us with cash in hand we'll sell you anything money will buy, and no questions asked; but Nicaragua bonds, payable any time and no time, are not in our line." So said Walter.

"Not much," echoed Charley.

"Your line seems to be small potatoes," muttered the stranger testily. Then quickly checking himself, he carelessly asked, "I suppose you'd have no objection to keeping these bonds in your safe for a day or two for me, giving me a receipt for them, or the equivalent? I don't feel half easy about carrying them about with me."

"Why, no," said Charley, looking at Walter, to see how he would take it.

"Yes," objected Walter, "most decidedly."

"'No;' 'yes;' who's boss here, anyhow?" sneered the agent, dismissing his wheedling tone, now that he had played his last card. Even Charley seemed a trifle nettled at being snubbed by Walter in the presence of a stranger. After all, it seemed a trifling favor to ask of them.

"My partner and I can settle that matter between ourselves. Once for all, we don't choose to be mixed up in your filibustering schemes in any way. Your five minutes have grown to three-quarters of an hour already. This is our busy day," he concluded, as a broad hint to the stranger to take leave, and at once.

"Very well," said the unmoved fiscal agent, buttoning up his coat. "But you'll repent, all the same, having thrown away the finest opportunity of making a fortune ever offered----"

"This way out, sir," Charley interrupted, throwing wide the office door.

When the strange visitor had gone Charley asked Walter why he refused to let the bonds be put in the safe. "Now we've made an enemy," he said resignedly.

"To let him raise money on that receipt for twenty thousand dollars, _or equivalent_--on Mr. Bright's name? No, sir-ee. Where were your wits, Charles Wormwood? That fellow's a sharper!"

"Guess I'd better attend to those potatoes," was all the junior partner could find to say, suiting the action to the word.

As was quite natural, much curiosity was felt as to what had become of Ramon, by his former business associates. In some way he had found out that Mr. Bright was in San Francisco, and taking counsel of his fears of being sent back to Boston as a confessed felon, he cast his lot among the most lawless adventurers of the day. Learning that a filibustering expedition was being fitted out at San Francisco against Lower California, under command of Walker, the "Gray-eyed Man of Destiny," Ramon joined it, keeping in hiding meanwhile, until the vessel was ready to sail. As is well known, the affair was a complete failure, Walker's famished band being compelled to surrender to the United States officers at San Diego. From this time Ramon disappeared.

* * * * *

Some five years later a young man, ruddy-cheeked, robust, and well though not foppishly dressed, drove up to the door of a pretty cottage in one of the most fashionable suburbs of Boston. Alighting from his buggy and hitching his horse, he walked quickly up the driveway to the house. The front door flew open by the time he had put his hand on the knob; and a young woman, with the matchless New England pink and white in her cheeks, called out, "Why, Walter, what brings you home so early to-day? Has anything happened?"

"Yes, Dora; Charles Wormwood is coming out to dine with us to-day. He only arrived to-day overland. I want to show him my wife."

THE END

The transcriber made these changes to the text:

1. p. 152, "the the certificate" changed to "the certificate"
2. p. 224, "eend" changed to "end"
3. p. 246, "Charlay" changed to "Charley"
4. p. 281, "dimissing" changed to "dismissing"

End of Project Gutenberg's The Young Vigilantes, by Samuel Adams Drake