timber-wolf, his purposes crystallizing, did not attempt to rejoin winch and mexicali joe. by the time he had ridden to the spot where his saddle was hidden and had thrown it upon daylight's back, drawing his cinch savagely, he had begun to get his proper perspective. he knew that he could trust billy winch in all things; that winch, with all of that persevering patience which the occasion demanded and that veterinary skill and love for animals which marked him, would do all that any man could to get thor home and to care for him. and now, for bruce standing, beyond the stricken dog lay other considerations: there remained lynette and babe deveril! he ground his teeth in savage rage and from daylight's first leap under him rode hard.
long before the early sun rose he was back at his own headquarters, a man grim and hard and purposeful. rough garbed and still booted he strode through his study and into his larger office; and in this environment the man's magnificent virility was strikingly accentuated. here was his wilderness home, a place of elegance and of palpitant centres of numerous large activities; not a dozen miles from big pine and yet, in all appearances, set apart from young gallup's crude town as far as the ends of earth. he stood in a great, hard-wooded room of orderly tables and desks and telephones and electric push-buttons. he set an impatient thumb upon a button; at the same moment his other hand caught up a telephone instrument. while the push-button still sent its urgent message he caught a response from his telephone. into the receiver he called sharply:
[pg 295]
"bristow? in a hurry, standing speaking: give me the stables; get billy winch!"
all the while that insistent thumb of his upon the button! there came bursting into the big room, half dressed and clutching at his clothes, a young man whose eyes were still heavy with sleep.
"you, graham," standing commanded him. "get busy on our long-distance wire. my lawyers.... get ben brewster! it's the hurry of a lifetime!"
young graham, with suspenders dragging, flew to the switchboard. meantime came a response from the inter-phone connecting him with the stables.
"billy winch?" he called.
"no, sir, mr. standing," said a voice. "this is dick ross. bill, he got in late and was up all night nearly, working over a bad case that come in. shall i...."
"that case," standing told him abruptly, "was my dog, thor. find out who was left in charge when bill went to sleep; call me right away and give me a report on thor." with that he rang off.
all the while his secretary, graham, had been plugging away at his switchboard. standing, pacing up and down, heard his "hello—hello—hello."
within three minutes the stable telephone rang sharply. standing caught it up. it was dick ross again, reporting:
"bill didn't go off the case until three o'clock this morning. had to operate again at about two; taking out a little piece of skull bone. he left charley peters in charge then; charley's on the job now."
"thor's alive then?"
"yes, sir."
"fine! i'll be out in a few minutes to see him. bill's got him in the 'hospital'?"
[pg 296]
"sure, mr. standing. thor couldn't be gettin' better care if he was king of england."
standing rang off and came back to graham from whose eyes now all heaviness of sleep had fled, leaving them keen and quick. hardly more than a youngster, this graham, and yet timber-wolf's confidential secretary, trained by standing himself to standing's ways.
"i've got mr. brewster's home on the wire," said graham looking up. "he's not up yet but they're calling him...."
standing took the instrument.
"i'll hold it for him. now, graham, order breakfast served here for you and me; plenty of extra coffee for the boys i'll be having in.... get al blake on our wire to red creek mine.... arrange to have bill winch show up here as soon as he's awake; he's to bring ross and peters with him.... and mexicali joe; make sure that joe didn't see any one to talk with last night. i want joe here with winch.... hello! hello! is this ben brewster?"
he heard his lawyer's voice over the wire; then, somewhere over the long line something went wrong; brewster was gone again. an operator at the end of standing's own private part of the line, seventy-five miles away, was saying:
"just a minute, mr. standing ... i'll get him for you...."
"thanks, henry," said standing. and while he waited for the promised service which was to link him with a man nearly two hundred miles away, he was working hastily with pencil and pad. graham was already carrying out his string of orders, getting dressed with one hand meantime.
"brewster?" standing spoke again into the telephone. "i've got something big and urgent on. can
[pg 297]
you come up right away? take a car to placer hill. i'll have a man meet you there with a saddle-horse, and you'll have to ride the last twenty miles in. we're forming a new mining company; i want to shoot it through one-two-three! bring what papers we'll want; that will be all the baggage you need to stop for. graham will have all particulars ready for you. thanks, ben. so long.
"graham!"
graham swung about expectantly.
"get the stables. a couple of the best horses...." "i've already got them," said graham.... it was for such reasons that graham, though a youngster, could hold so difficult position as private secretary to bruce standing, timber-wolf.
al blake was standing's mining expert, general superintendent of all his mining interests and the one source to which he applied for advice on all mining matters. he was the highest salaried man on the extensive pay-roll and the shrewdest. in a few minutes graham announced that he had the red creek mine on the wire and that blake was coming.
"i want you here on the jump, al," said standing. "and i need forty of our best men; scare up as many as you can at your diggings; i can fill the number down here. just good men, understand? men you know; men who at a pinch will fight like hell; every man with a rifle."
"sounds like st. ives!" grunted blake, wide awake by now. "all right. i'm on my way in ten minutes."
standing began pacing up and down again, his eyes frowning. he needed billy winch right now; needed him the worst way. for here was work to be done of the sort which invariably he placed in winch's capable hands. but winch had had a night of it and standing
[pg 298]
was not the man to overlook that fact as long as he could put his hand on another man who would do....
"have dick ross up, on the run," he told graham.
breakfast came, served on big massive trays by the japanese servant. almost at the same moment, and literally on the run, dick ross came in.
"scare up ten good men for me, ross. with rifles, all ready to ride. i'll have breakfast ready for them here." graham caught the alert eye of the japanese who set down his trays hurriedly and with a quick nod raced off to the kitchen. standing looked sternly at ross and said curtly: "i'm handing you a job that would usually go to winch, ross, but he's asleep...."
"he was just getting up again, mr. standing. said he wanted to see for himself how thor was pulling along...."
"then," said standing, "hop back and tell winch what i said. he can tell you the men to pick ... or, if he's busy working with thor he can leave it to you. of course i want you to be of the number; peters also if winch doesn't need him; winch, too, if he says the word...."
standing and graham ate standing up. men summoned began coming in. each of them was given brief clean-cut orders and allowed brief time to gulp a hot breakfast. billy winch came first, bringing with him mexicali joe.
"he's going to be all right, i think," said winch by way of greeting, and standing understood that he was reporting on thor. "i never saw man or animal worse shot-all-to-hell, either. i got him in bed now, strapped down; he's conscious this morning and had a fair night, all things considered. there's nothing more to be done right away, just be kept quiet...."
"i was coming out in a minute...."
[pg 299]
"i can't have folks running in on him, timber," said winch, with a slow shake of the head, mumbling over a mouthful of ham and egg. "but if you'd just run in on him one second, to sort of let him know you was with him, you know, and then beat it, it might do him good."
"can you leave for two or three hours? to go down with al blake and some of the boys to stake a string of mining claims down in light ladies' gulch?"
"that's why the rifles?" said winch. "sure, i can go, leaving charley peters with full instructions. but i'll have to be back in, say, four hours at latest."
standing turned to mexicali joe.
"joe," he said, "how many friends have you got that we can put on the pay-roll for a few days at twenty-five dollars a day? to stake claims down in the gulch?"
"jesus maria!" gasped joe. "twenty-five dollars a day? for each man? there would be one meelion men, señor caballero...."
"take him in tow, graham! get a list of names from him, men to be reached in an hour's ride. as many as you can get, twenty or thirty or forty. and get them here ... quick."
al blake arrived from the red creek mine. stringing along after him came a dozen men of his choosing; big, uncouth, unshaved, rough-looking customers to the last man of them and yet ... as standing and blake agreed ... all good men! good to carry out orders; to put up a fight against odds; to hang on and fight to the last ditch. graham saw to it that every man jack of them was fed and had his cigar from the chief's private stock. the men grouped outside and looked at one another, but for the greater part wasted little breath in speculations and questionings, each realizing that his fellows knew as little as himself.
it was a busy morning for bruce standing. yet three
[pg 300]
times he found the time ... rather he made it ... to go out to the "hospital" to stand over old thor and speak softly to him. thor lay upon a white-enamelled bed; his bed was softened for him by many downy pillows; at the bedside sat charley peters, his face as grave, his eye as watchful, as could have been had it been timber-wolf himself who lay there. and when standing came in thor heard his step and tried to move; tried to lift his poor battered head. but at the master's low voice, "down, thor! down, sir ... good old dog!" thor lay back and his tired sigh was like the sigh of a man. standing's big hand rested gently upon the old fellow ... then standing went out, walking softly and thor lay still a very long while, waiting for him to come again....
al blake left within fifteen minutes of his arrival, a little army of armed men at his back. with him, on the fastest horse in standing's stables, rode a man whose sole responsibility was to race back with word of conditions. fully standing counted on hearing that already at least two claims had been staked. but he was not ready to see lynette again so soon; he was not ready yet to see babe deveril. never for a single instant since seeing that bit of paper hung to a tree with a girl's mockery upon it, had he doubted that this girl, whom he had thought that he loved, had cast in with the baby devil, the two racing side by side to steal mexicali joe's gold. he had said to al blake:
"put them off ... but don't hurt either of them. leave them to me."
attorney ben brewster, a man much shaken, arrived in record time. he could scarcely speak a word until graham poured out for him a generous glass of whiskey. then he glared at standing as though he would highly enjoy killing him.
[pg 301]
"you've got a fee to pay this trip," he groaned, "that will make you sit up and stretch your eyes! good god, man...."
"give him another drink, graham," said standing. "he's a lawyer and there's no danger of such getting drunk!... curse your fees, brewster. what do i care so you make an iron-clad job of it."
"and the job?"
graham saw that he had a cigar.
"something crooked!" muttered brewster. "i'll bet a hat!"
"otherwise," jeered standing, "why send for you!... now shut up, ben, and get that infected brain of yours working. here's the tale."
ben brewster, a man who knew his business ... and his client ... went into action. that day he took in businesslike shape all possible steps toward forming a new corporation, the mexicali joe gold mining company.
"lord, what a fool name!" he growled.
"never mind the name," retorted standing.
during the day many other men came in; among them no less than seventeen swarthy men of mexicali joe's breed. brewster took signatures, and the men, showing their glistening white teeth, knew nothing of what was happening save that each man of them was to draw twenty-five dollars a day for driving a stake and sitting snug over it, rifle in hand and cigarette in mouth! brewster got other signatures going down to light ladies' gulch and among the men there. in all, he signed names of about sixty men. the mexicali joe gold mining company was born. and the greater part of the stock, and the magnificently shining title of president was invested in ... mexicali joe! suddenly, though all day he had been a man as dark-browed as
[pg 302]
a thunder-storm, standing burst out into that golden laughter of his. not a single share in his name; all immediate expenses to be paid by him, and they were to be heavy; and yet he counted himself the man to draw a full ninety-nine per cent of the dividends of sheer triumph! for it was to be a cold shut-out to taggart and gallup and shipton and all big pine! and, most of all, for babe deveril and that girl! for early had come back the report from al blake: "neither of them here; no claims staked!"
standing could only estimate that the girl had misunderstood; that, hearing joe's description of the place, she had not grasped the true sense of his words. he lingered over the picture of her and deveril, hastening, driving their stakes somewhere else!
when mexicali joe came to understand, after much eloquence from graham, how matters stood ... how he swaggered! this, a day in a lifetime, was mexicali joe's day.
"me, i'm president!"
president of a gold-mining company! mexicali joe! and of a real mine; for al blake had sent back the curt word: "he's got it; he's got a mine that i'd advise you to buy in for a hundred thousand while you can. it may run to anything. the best thing i've seen up here anywhere!"
mexicali joe on the high-road to become a millionaire ... through the efforts of bruce standing.
to be sure, joe, a man very profoundly bewildered, more dumfounded even than elated, took never a single step and said never a single word without going first to his friend "señor caballero." before the end of that glorious day joe was dead-drunk; didn't know "whether he was afoot or horseback." but in his crafty latin way, he kept his mouth shut.
[pg 303]
and then bruce standing, with an eye not to further wealth, but toward the confounding of all hopes of such as young gallup and jim taggart and babe deveril ... and a certain girl ... sprang his coup. with ben brewster guarding his rear in every advance, he "swallowed whole," as brewster put it, every bit of available land above and below and on every side of joe's claims. he recked neither of present difficulties and expenses nor of lawsuits to come. he wanted the land ... and he got it! and he issued his proclamation:
"there's a town there, on light ladies' gulch. you don't see it? it's there!... graham, get busy! a contractor; lumber; building materials; carpenters! we build a town as big as big pine and we build it faster than ever a town grew before! a store, blacksmith shop, hotel. shacks of all sorts. graham!"
graham, like a man with an electric current shot through him, jumped out of his chair.
"send a man on the run to big pine with a message for young gallup! and the message is this: 'bruce standing promised to pull your damned town down about your ears ... and the pulling has begun!'"
"yes, mr. standing," said graham. and sent a man on a running horse.
and then took swift dictation. standing made a budget of fifty thousand dollars, as a "starter." even graham wondered what impulses were rioting in his mad heart!
"we want scrapers and ploughs, a crew of road-makers! we build a new road ... on this side of light ladies' gulch! got the idea, graham? we cut big pine out. we go by them, giving a shorter road to the outside, a better road. we boycott gallup's dinky town! keep in mind we'll double that first fifty thousand any time we need to. get this word around: 'any man who buys
[pg 304]
a nickel's worth of tobacco in big pine can't buy anything, even if he has his pockets full of clinking gold, in our town! no man, once seen setting his foot down in gallup's town, is going to be tolerated two minutes in our town.' get the idea, graham?"
"yes, mr. standing!"
standing smote him then so mightily upon the shoulder that graham, a small man, went pale, shot through with pain.
"raise your own salary, graham. and earn it now!"
