Webster—Man's Man. Peter B. KyneЧитать онлайн книгу.
“Borax. Staked a group of claims down in Death Valley. Bully ground, Neddy, and I was busted when I located them. Had to borrow money to pay the filing fees and incorporation, and did my own assessment work. Look!” Webster held up his hands, still somewhat grimy and calloused.
“How did you get by with your bluff?”
“In the only way anybody ever got by on no pair. I was a brave dog and went around with an erect tail, talking in millions and buying my tobacco on jawbone. The Borax Trust knew I was busted, but they never could quite get over the fear that I'd dig up some blacking and give them a run—so they bought me out. Two weeks ago I got a belated telegram, telling me there was a hundred thousand dollars in escrow against deeds and certificate of title in a Salt Lake City bank—so here I am.”
“Somebody told me Geary had gone to Rhodesia,” Jerome continued musingly, “or maybe it was Capetown. I know he was seen somewhere in South Africa.”
“He left the Creek immediately after the conclusion of his trial. Poor boy! That dirty business destroyed the lad and made a tramp of him, I guess. I tell you, Neddy, no two men ever lived who came nearer to loving each other than Billy Geary and his old Jack-pardner. We bucked the marts of men and went to sleep together hungry many a time during our five-year partnership. Why, Bill was like my own boy! Do you know, Neddy, now that I've rounded the forty-pole, I get thinking sometimes, and wish I could have married when I was about twenty years old; I might have had a son to knock around with now, while I'm still in the shank of my own youth. And if I had been blessed with a son, I would have wanted him to be just like Billy. You know, Bill tied onto me when he was about eighteen. He's rising twenty-six now. He came to me at the Bonnie Claire mine fresh from high school, and I staked him to a drill; but he didn't stick there long. I saw he was too good a boy to be a mucker all his days.”
Webster smiled reminiscently and went on: “I'll never forget the day Billy challenged a big Cornish shift-boss that called him out of his name. The Cousin Jack could fight, too, but Billy walked around him like a cooper around a barrel, and when he finished, I fired the Cousin Jack and gave Billy his job!”
He chuckled softly at the remembrance. “Too bad!” he continued. “That boy had brains and grit and honour, and he shouldn't have held that trial against me. But Billy was young, I suppose, and he just couldn't understand my position. It takes the hard old years to impart common sense to a man, and I suppose Billy couldn't understand why I had to be true to my salt. He should have known I hadn't a leg to stand on when I took the stand for the prosecution—not a scintilla of evidence to present, except that the high-grade had been found in his assay office. Jerome, I curse the day I took that boy out from underground and put him in the Bonnie Claire assay office to learn the business. How could I know that the Holman gang had cached the stuff in his shack?”
“Well, it's too bad,” Jerome answered dully. He was quite willing that the subject of conversation should be changed. “I'm glad to get the right dope on the boy, anyhow. We might be able to hand him a good job to make up for the injustice. Have another drink?”
“Not until I read this letter. Now, who the dickens knew I was headed for Denver and the Engineers' Club? I didn't tell a soul, and I only arrived this morning.”
He turned to the last page to ascertain the identity of his correspondent, and his facial expression ran the gamut from surprise to a joy that was good to see.
It was a long letter, and John Stuart Webster read it deliberately. When he had read it once, he reread it; after which he sat in silent contemplation of the design of the carpet for fully a minute before reaching for the bell. A servant responded immediately.
“Bring me the time-tables of all roads leading to New Orleans,” he ordered, “—also a cable blank.”
Webster had reread the letter before the servant returned with the time-tables. He glanced through them. “Henry,” he announced, “your name is Henry, isn't it?”
“No, sir—George, sir.”
“Well, August, you go out to the desk, like a good fellow, and ask the secretary to arrange for a compartment for me to New Orleans on the Gulf States Limited, leaving at ten o'clock to-morrow night.” He handed the servant his card. “Now wait a minute until I write something.” He seized the cable blank, helped himself, uninvited, to Neddy Jerome's fountain pen, and wrote:
William H. Geary,
Calle de Concordia No. 19,
Buenaventura,
Sobrante, C. A.
Salute, you young jackass! Just received your letter. Cabling thousand for emergency roll first thing to-morrow. Will order machinery. Leaving for New Orleans to-morrow night, to arrive Buenaventura first steamer. Your letter caught me with a hundred thousand. We cut it two ways and take our chances. Keep a light in the window for your old Jack Pardner.
“That's a windy cablegram,” Neddy Jerome remarked as the servant bore it away. “Why all this garrulity? A cablegram anywhere generally costs at least a dollar a word.”
“'That's my delight of a shiny night, in the season of the year,'” quoted John Stuart Webster; “and why the devil economize when the boy needs cheering up?”
“What boy?”
“Billy Geary.”
“Broke?”
“I should say so. Rattles when he walks.”
“Where is he?”
“Central America.”
Neddy Jerome was happy. He was in an expansive mood, for he had, with the assistance of a kindly fate, rounded up the one engineer in all the world whom he needed to take charge of the Colorado Consolidated. So he said:
“Well, Jack, just to celebrate the discovery of your old pal, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll O. K. your voucher for the expense of bringing young Geary back to the U. S. A., and when we get him here, it will be up to you to find a snug berth for him with Colorado Consolidated.”
“Neddy,” said John Stuart Webster, “by my hali-dom, I love thee. You're a thoughtful, kindly old stick-in-the-mud, but——”
“No ifs or but's. I'm your boss,” Jerome interrupted, and waddled away to telephone the head waiter at his favourite restaurant to reserve a table for two.
Mr. Webster sighed. He disliked exceedingly to disappoint old Neddy, but—— He shrank from seeming to think over-well of himself by declining a twenty-five-thousand-dollar-a-year job with the biggest mining company in Colorado, but——
“Rotten luck,” he soliloquized. “It runs that way for a while, and then it changes, and gets worse!”
CHAPTER IV
WHEN Jerome returned to his seat, the serious look in Webster's hitherto laughing eyes challenged his immediate attention. “Now what's gone and broken loose?” he demanded.
“Neddy,” said John Stuart Webster gently, “do you remember my crossing my fingers and saying, 'King's X' when you came at me with that proposition of yours?”
“Yes. But I noticed you uncrossed them mighty quick when I told you the details of the job. You'll never be offered another like it.”
“I know, Neddy, I know. It just breaks my heart to have to decline it, but the fact of the matter is, I think you'd better give that job to your brother after all. At any rate, I'm not going to take it.”
“Why?” the amazed Jerome demanded. “Johnny, you're crazy in the head. Of course you'll take it.”
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