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CHAPTER IV
THE SUDDEN RISE OF PETER MacGONIGAL

A four-wheeled buggy, with springs, the only vehicle of its kind in Bison, had been hired for Power’s first outing. During a whole week toward the close of July he had stumped about on a crutch, and, when the great day arrived that he was able to crawl slowly to and fro in the veranda with the aid of a stick, he announced to the watchful MacGonigal that henceforth he was “on the job again.”

On that memorable occasion, while Derry was showing off the new-found accomplishment of walking, an elderly man, white-haired and wiry, but of small stature, rode by on a mettlesome mustang. Power’s face grew hard when he met the rider’s stare of astonishment; but the expression fled instantly, and he waved a friendly greeting, which, however, received the curtest of responses, while the horse unexpectedly found his head free for a canter.

MacGonigal, whose big eyes lost nothing within range, noted the bare nod which acknowledged Power’s salute.

“Old man Willard held out the marble mitt that-a time, Derry,” said he.

Power did not reply for a moment. When he answered, he quoted Dryden’s couplet:

 
“Forgiveness to the injured doth belong;
But they ne’er pardon who have done the wrong.”
 

“Good fer you, Derry!” exclaimed the storekeeper appreciatively. “I’ve often wondered what you was connin’ to yerself up thar,” and he jerked his head in the direction of Power’s bedroom; “but I never allowed it was po’try.”

“You were not mistaken, Mac. I was hard at work on dry prose. Those lines are not mine. They were written before Colorado was christened, and they will be true until men attain the millennium.”

“Huh!”

MacGonigal took refuge in a noncommittal grunt, because he fancied that the millennium was the name of a Chicago vaudeville house, and, somehow, the notion did not seem to fit into its right place in the conversation.

“For all that,” mused Power aloud, “I’ll call on Mr. Francis Willard, tomorrow.”

So this resolution explained the light conveyance standing outside the store next morning. Power was in the act of settling himself as comfortably as might be beside the driven, when One-thumb Jake galloped down the slope leading from the Gulch. The cowboy pulled up in the approved style of his tribe, swung out of the saddle, and banged into the veranda a decrepit portmanteau, which he had been carrying in the thumbless hand.

“Room an’ drink fer a single gent!” he shouted. “I’m an orfin, I am, a pore weak critter slung out inter a crool world!”

“You’re never leaving the Willard outfit, Jake?” said Power, who might well be surprised, since the man had been connected with the Dolores ranch since the first lot of cattle was turned loose on its pastures.

“That’s about the size of it,” said the other.

“But why?”

“The old man says, ‘Git!’ an’ I got.”

“No reason?”

“Wall, if you squeeze it outer me, I’ll be squoze. In a sort of a way, it had ter do with you.”

“With me?”

“Yes, sir. The boss says ter me yestiddy, ‘Why is Derry Power hangin’ roun’ Mac’s?’ Says I, ‘He bruk his leg.’ ‘Pity he didn’t break his neck,’ says the boss, an’, seein’ as you’se a friend of mine, I didn’t agree with any sich sentiments, an’ tole him the same. He kind o’ curled up then; but this mornin’ he gev me the perlite push, – said as he was quittin’ Bison fer a spell, an’ the ranch would be shut down. Anyways, Derry, I’m mighty glad ter see you hoppin’ aroun’. Git down outer that rig, an’ hev a sociable drink.”

Power consulted his watch, and seemed to arrive at some decision on the spur of the moment.

“Can’t wait now,” he said. “You’ll be here this evening?”

“Sure.”

“Then I’ll be around, and I may table a proposition that will please you. Jim,” this to the driver, “beat it to the depot. I want to make the ten o’clock to Denver, and we have only twenty minutes.”

MacGonigal, as usual a silent auditor, gazed after the cloud of dust raised by horse and buggy, and was minded, perhaps, to say something. Whatever may have been his first intent, he repressed it.

“What’s yer pizen, Jake?” he inquired, and the cowboy named it.

Late that night Power returned. He was so tired that he had practically to be carried to bed; but he contrived to tell the storekeeper that Jake should remain in Bison at his (Power’s) expense until certain business conditions had developed. Next day he was too exhausted to take any exercise; but sat in the veranda after breakfast, smoking and chatting with the habitués, whose varied surmises he shared, when a stranger whizzed through the township in the buggy, vanished in the direction of the Gulch, and returned with equal celerity of movement a couple of hours subsequently.

“Looks like a lawyer,” said some wiseacre. “Them fellers air allus on a hair-trigger when a mortgage falls in.”

“Is Willard’s time up?” inquired another man.

“Thar was talk about it afore this dry spell kem an’ cleared him out. Of course – ”

The speaker stopped suddenly. He was on the point of alluding to Nancy’s marriage, when he remembered that Power was present, and, in such circumstances, it is safe to assume that a gathering of rough western miners will display more real courtesy and consideration for the feelings of others than may be forthcoming in far more pretentious circles.

“No need to trip your tongue on my account,” laughed Power, reaching lazily for a glass of milk and seltzer. “You were going to say, I suppose, that when Mr. Willard’s daughter married a rich man the mortgage difficulty would disappear.”

“Somethin’ like that, Derry,” was the answer.

“Did you ever hear the amount of the mortgage?”

“Five thousand, I was told.”

Power laughed again. “Five thousand!” he cried. “Surely Nancy Willard cost more than that! Why, Marten gave me that amount as a rake-off on one job I put through for him this spring.”

The words were bitter as gall, though uttered in a tone of quiet banter. None spoke in reply. Each man there had seen Power and the girl scampering together through Bison on their ponies so often that the two were marked down by good-natured gossip as “made for each other.” Sympathy now would be useless and misplaced; so there was silence for awhile, until a safer and collectively interesting topic was broached by MacGonigal.

“Kin anybody here tell me what’s going on at the mill?” he asked suddenly.

The “mill,” as the agency through which many thousands of tons of low-grade telluride ore were transmuted weekly into a certain number of ounces of gold and silver, was the breath of life to Bison. If it stopped, the greater part of the little town’s inhabitants was aware instantly of bare cupboards and empty pockets. Work might cease at the mines for varying periods without causing vital harm to the community; but the metal pulses of the mill must beat with regularity, or Bison suffered from a severe form of heart disease. Consequently, there was no rush to volunteer information; though some of those present had had their suspicions that all was not as it should be with the giant whose clamant voice rang ever in their ears.

“Some books and things was carted from the office to Denver a-Wednesday,” said the know-all who had spoken about the mortgage.

“Why?”

The storekeeper’s tone was ominous, and the other man grinned uneasily.

“Guess it’s what they call an audit,” he said.

“Thar’s been two audits a year fer ten years at Bison, an’ the books hev never gone ter Denver afore.”

“Page has been nosin’ around, too, like as if he was takin’ stock,” put in a feeder, whose task it was to guide and shovel ore into the rolls.

“Page oughter know what’s in the mill by this time,” said MacGonigal, and indeed, the personage under discussion being the manager, the statement was almost excessively accurate.

“Thar was talk in the papers awhile sence about some new process fer treatin’ low-grade ores,” commented the feeder, apropos of nothing in particular. Then he seemed to wake into cheerful activity. “But what’s the use o’ meetin’ trouble halfways?” he cried. “Goldarn it! people said the mines was peterin’ out more’n a year ago, an’ we’re workin’ full spell this yer week… Who’s fer a fizz? I go on at six, an’ I hev to eat a line fust.”

That evening, before the store filled with the day men, and Power alone was listening, MacGonigal was more outspoken.

“I’ve a notion that the mill is goin’ ter close down, Derry,” he said glumly.

“Probably, for a time,” said Power.

Such prompt agreement was unexpected; but MacGonigal passed it without comment.

“Nit – fer good. They lost the main vein a year last Christmas, an’ the treatin’ of ounce ore has been a bluff whiles they s’arched high an’ low beyond the fault. No, Derry, Bison is busted. Me for Denver tomorrow, an’ any fellar kin hev this store at a vallyation, wid a good rake-off, too – dang it!”

Power was smoking placidly, and the gloomy prophecy of his friend did not appear to disturb him. He even affected to ignore the sigh with which MacGonigal turned away after gazing at him with an expression akin to dismay; for the stout man had the constitutional dislike of his kind to change, and the store had yielded a steady income since the inception of Bison.

“Say, Mac,” said Power after a long pause, “if you were to dig deep down into your pants, how much could you ante up?”

“Eight thousand dollars, ef I kep’ a grubstake,” came the instant response.

“And what is the mill worth?”

“It cost the best part of a hundred an’ fifty thousand.”

“I asked you what it is worth.”

“What it’ll fetch.”

“Can you figure it out?”

“There’s on’y the movable plant. A lot of money is sunk in cyanide vats, an’ rails, an’ buildin’s. Guess, when you come ter whittle it down ter rolls an’ engines, less the cost of takin’ ’em ter pieces an’ fixin’ ’em anywhar, you’d git ’em fer twenty thousand.”

“And plenty, too, for a mill erected ten years ago to deal with high-grade ore. You see, Mac, the scientific treatment of rich ores has developed so rapidly of late that the Bison mill is practically a back number; while we know that it cannot compete with the low-grade extractions now practised in Cripple Creek and at Leadville. No, you must cut down your estimate. When you buy that mill, Mac, you shouldn’t spring a cent beyond fifteen thousand, and begin by offering ten. At best, it would only form a nucleus for real work.”

“Me – buy – the – mill!” MacGonigal permitted himself to be astounded to the point of stupefaction.

“Yes, that is what will happen. But not a word of this to anyone. Start in and sell the store, by all means; provided you fix its value on the basis of live business, likely to improve.”

“Derry, air you wool-gatherin’, or what?”

“Unless I am greatly mistaken, Mac, you and I will gather as much wool during the next twelve months as we are likely to need for the remainder of our lives. I may be wrong, of course, but you will be perfectly safe. You will grab the mill at its breaking-up price, and you should sell the store in any event. All I ask is that you act strictly according to my instructions. It is hardly necessary to repeat that you must keep the proposition to yourself.”

These two knew each other thoroughly; though MacGonigal was well aware that certain unfathomable characteristics had developed of late in the once carefree and even-minded youngster for whom he felt an almost parental tenderness. He made no reply. He asked no question. He knew that when the time came Power would speak, but not until the scheme he had in mind, whatever it might be, was ripe for action. Indeed, ever since the accident, Power had displayed some of the attributes which caused men to hate and fear Marten. He, whose laugh had been the merriest and human sympathies the most marked among all the men who had passed in review before the storekeeper’s bulbous eyes, was now apt to lapse into a cold cynicism, an aloofness of interest, a smiling contempt for the opinions and wishes of his fellows, which had puzzled and saddened his one stanch friend. But MacGonigal’s confidence in him had not diminished. Rather was he aware of a broadening and strengthening of qualities already remarkable, and he hugged the belief that, as the image of Nancy Willard faded into impenetrable mists, Power would come back to his erstwhile sane and wholesome outlook on life.

So the stout man did not even trouble to put into words the assurance that he might be trusted to hold his tongue as to possible occurrences at Bison. After a prolonged stare at a glorious sunset which silhouetted the Rocky Mountains in a rich tint of ultramarine against a sky of crimson and gold, he executed that unaided transit of a cigar across his mouth for which he was noted, and when he spoke it was only to assure the section of Colorado visible through the door that he was dog-goned.

Thereafter events moved with the swiftness which at times seems to possess the most out-of-the-way places in America like a fever.

The stranger whose guise suggested a lawyer to the quidnuncs of Bison was not seen again in the township during the ensuing fortnight; but affrighting rumor, which soon became deadly fact, told of the mill closing down for lack of paying ore. Mr. Page, Marten’s representative, promised the sorrowing people that work would be found for everyone elsewhere. Though this guarantee alleviated the crushing effect of the blow, there was much grieving over the loss of more or less comfortable homes which had been won from the wilderness by years of patient effort. Men and women, even in strenuous America, twine their heartstrings around stocks and stones, and the threatened upheaval was grievous to them. It meant the breaking up of families and friendships, a transference to new districts and a strange environment, a scattering of the household gods which might never reassemble in the old and familiar order. Amid the general unrest none gave much heed to the news that the Dolores ranch had found a new owner – who, by the way, according to the joyous version of the foreman, One-thumb Jake, meant to raise horses instead of cattle – but all Bison felt its hair lifting in amazement when the Rocky Mountain News announced that Mr. Hugh Marten had sold the mill to Mr. Peter MacGonigal for a sum unnamed, but variously estimated between the ridiculous (though actual) price of twelve thousand dollars (toward which one-half was contributed by a mortgage on mill and ranch) and five times the amount as representing its cheap acquisition as a going concern.

Every practical miner knew that the ore bodies in the mines were exhausted, and many and quaint were the opinions privately uttered as to Mac’s sanity. Even the astute Page – once the deeds were signed and the money paid – expressed the hope that the storekeeper would not rue his bargain.

“Of course,” he said diplomatically, “you may find purchasers for some of the plant; but milling machinery is a special thing, and you will be lucky if you sell the stuff soon. I suppose you have a purpose in view for the buildings?”

“Guess there’s some stuff ter be found in the tailin’s, an’ a few pockets of ore in the mines,” said MacGonigal.

The manager shook his head. “You can take it from me that when Marten sucks an orange there isn’t much juice left for the next fellow,” he said. “You bought the place with your eyes open, and I still think you may get your money back, with a small profit; but I advise you strongly not to lose a day in advertising the rolls and accessories, while the man who has taken over the Dolores ranch may buy the buildings. They will come in useful as barns.”

“I’ll chew on that proposition,” said MacGonigal.

Page thought him slightly cracked; but shook hands affably, and caught the next train for Denver. He was completely flabbergasted when an assistant whom he had deputed to superintend the removal of Bison’s citizens to new spheres of labor informed him that Messrs. Power and MacGonigal were signing on the whole of the miners and mill-hands at established rates of pay, and that operations were to be started forthwith on a new strike in the Gulch. When he had recovered somewhat from the shock of this announcement he strolled into the government record offices, and examined the registry of recent mining claims. There he found that a location certificate had been obtained by John Darien Power for 1,500 feet by 300 feet on a well defined crevice, at least 10 feet deep, situated in the Gulch, Dolores Ranch, Bison, in the county of Bison and state of Colorado. Other certificates had been issued to cover more than a mile of the main contact, and, to clench the mining right, John Darien Power figured as the legal owner of the land. In a word, he was “a valid discoverer” on his own property.

Page was a shrewd man, and he did not commit the error of underestimating the ability of the rival who had engineered this subtle stroke.

“I’m buncoed this time, and no mistake,” he muttered, and hurried back to his office, pallid with wrath and foreboding.

There he met Benson, and told him what had happened. The private secretary, rather staggered at first, regained his complacency when he had glanced through some letters and cablegrams received from their common chief.

“The boss has approved of every move in the game,” he said, with a half-hearted laugh. “You see, here he authorizes us to take even less than MacGonigal paid for the mill, and, when Willard repaid the loan, he refused to accept it, but cabled that the money was a gift from Mrs. Marten. So I don’t think he can hold us responsible.”

“It’s not the responsibility I’m kicking at, but the smooth way in which I was bested,” growled Page. “Now, who’d have thought Power had it in him?”

“Well, I would, for one,” said Benson.

“Why, you hardly knew him.”

“I met him under exceptional conditions.”

“But how the deuce did he manage to locate that lost vein – I suppose that is what he has found?”

“Perhaps it was a gift from the gods.”

“I do wish you’d talk sense,” said the irritated manager.

“What you would call sense might not pass for wisdom on Olympus,” smiled Benson.

“Will you kindly tell me what you are driving at?”

“I can’t. But look here, Page – which of us is going to write this story to the boss?”

“You are, and don’t forget to put in those remarks of yours. They’ll help some.”

“Shouldn’t I cable? Marten may want to know of this new move.”

“Yes, I suppose that is the right thing to do. When you have coded the message, I’ll go through it with you. There must be no mistake this time.”

Thus, within a few hours, Hugh Marten, established at the Meurice in Paris, received news which certainly took him aback; for he was a man who seldom brooked a successful interloper. At first he was annoyed, and had it in mind to discharge Page by cablegram. There would be no difficulty in giving “Messrs. Power and MacGonigal” a good deal of legal trouble. To begin with, the lawyers would allege collusion against Page, and an investigation into the purchase of the ranch might reveal loopholes for legal stilettos. Indeed, his alert brain was canvassing all manner of chicanery possible through statutes made and enacted when his wife came in, flushed and breathless.

“Hugh,” she cried, “I’ve had heaps of fun this afternoon! Madame de Neuville brought me to the Duchesse de Brasnes’ place in that quaint old Faubourg St. Germain, and the Duchesse took such a fancy to me that we are invited for a week-end shoot at her castle, one of the real châteaux on the Loire. You’ll come, of course?”

“Why, yes, Nancy.”

“You say yes as though I had asked you to go to the dentist.”

“I’m a trifle worried, and that’s the fact.”

“What is it? Can I help?”

Marten hesitated; though only for an instant. His wife was more adorable than ever since she had discovered what wonders an illimitable purse could achieve in the boutiques of the Rue de la Paix; but there was ever at the back of his mind a suspicion that she looked on her past life as a thing that was dead, and was schooling herself to an artificial gaiety in these glittering surroundings of rank and fashion.

“The truth is that I am vexed at something which has happened in Colorado – at Bison,” he said.

“You have had no ill news of Dad?” she cried, in quick alarm.

“No, he’s all right. I told you he had sold the ranch. Well, the purchaser is that young engineer, Derry Power.”

He watched her closely; but trust any woman to mislead a man when she knows that her slightest change of expression will be marked and understood. Mrs. Marten’s eyes opened wide, and she had no difficulty in feigning honest surprise.

“Derry Power!” she almost gasped. “What in the world does he want with the ranch?”

“It seems that he contrived to find the main vein which we lost in the Esperanza mine.”

“Oh, is that it?” She was indifferent, almost bored. Her mind was in the valley of the Loire.

“Yes. That idiot Page was kept in the dark very neatly; so he sold the mill at a scrap price – by my instructions, I admit – and now Power and MacGonigal have everything in their own hands.”

Nancy’s eyebrows arched, and she laughed gleefully. “Just fancy Mac blossoming into a mining magnate!” she cried. “But why should this affair worry you, Hugh?”

His hard features softened into a smile – in this instance, a real smile – for he was intensely proud of his pretty wife.

“I hate to feel that I have got the worst of a deal,” he admitted. “But that’s all right, Nancy. We won’t quarrel with old friends at Bison. Run away and write to your duchess while I concoct a cable.”

And so it came to pass that Page, instead of receiving a curt dismissal, was told to place no obstacles in the way of the new venture, but rather to facilitate it by fixing a reasonable price on land and houses not covered by the sale of the mill, should they be needed by Marten’s successors at Bison. In fact, by an unexampled display of good will on the part of his employer, he was bade to offer these properties to Power at a valuation. That somewhat simple though generous proposal had a highly important sequel when Francis Willard, rendered furious by learning how he had been ousted from the ranch, sought legal aid to begin a suit against Power. Even his own lawyer counseled abandonment of the law when the facts were inquired into. Power’s title was indisputable, and Marten’s action in selling the mill, no less than his readiness to make over other portions of the real estate if desired, showed that the whole undertaking had been carried through in an open and businesslike way.

Willard was convinced against his will; but, being a narrow-minded and selfish man, who had not scrupled to imperil his daughter’s happiness when a wealthy suitor promised to extricate him from financial troubles, the passive dislike he harbored against Power now became an active and vindictive hatred. He believed, perhaps he had honestly convinced himself of this, that the young engineer had secured the estate by a trick. It was not true, of course, because he had jumped at the chance of a sale when approached by the Denver lawyer acting for Power. But a soured and rancorous nature could not wholly stifle the prickings of remorse. He knew that he had forced his daughter into a loveless marriage; he could not forget the girl’s wan despair when no answer came from Sacramento to her letters; he had experienced all the misery of a craven-hearted thief when he stole the letters Power sent to Bison until Marten assured him that equally effective measures at the other end had suppressed Nancy’s correspondence also. Because these things were unforgivable he could not forgive the man against whom they were planned. Penury and failing health had driven him to adopt the only sure means by which he could break off the tacit engagement which opposed a barrier to his scheming; but the knowledge that he had sinned was an ever-present torture. A certain order of mind, crabbed, ungenerous, self-seeking, may still be plagued by a lively conscience, and Willard’s enmity against Power could be measured only by his own fiercely repressed sufferings.

“Curse the fellow!” he said bitterly, when the lawyer told him that a suit for recovery of the ranch must be dismissed ignominiously. “Curse him! Why did he cross my path? I am an old man, and I do not wish to distress my daughter, or I would go now to Bison and shoot him at sight!”

So John Darien Power had made at least one determined enemy, and it may be taken for granted that, had he visited the Dolores ranch instead of Denver on that first day in the open air after his accident, no money he could command would have made him undisputed lord of the land and all it contained.

But evil thinking is a weed that thrives in the most unlikely soil. To all appearance, with Nancy wed and the foundations of a fortune securely laid, Willard’s animosity could achieve small harm to Power. Yet it remained vigorous throughout the years, and its roots spread far, so that when the opportunity came they entangled Power’s feet, and he fell, and was nearly choked to death by them.