in six months after loring had taken charge, the kay mine was producing on a paying basis. what those six months had accomplished was little short of marvelous. at the time of the arrival of the new manager, everything had been in an extreme state of disorganization. unused machinery stood uncovered and rusting. the pumps were hardly more than holding the water in the shafts. no new timbering had been put in place to supplant the old, which was dangerously rotten. the costly electric lighting plant had been almost ruined by neglect. discord had been reigning between the various heads of departments, and discord in a community in which there is no recreation, and from which there is no way of escape, is a dangerous element.
when loring had assumed control, in explanation of failures each worker had murmured complaints of others. at the mess there had been gloomy silence, in contrast to the[228] joviality which had prevailed at the old mess in quentin. distrusted and disliked, loring had firmly pursued his course until that course was justified, and the criticism and hatred had turned to respect and admiration. he had worked night and day, attending to everything himself. loring was tireless in his enthusiasm, and he had inspired the men under him to do their work better than they knew how. the result was that by this time, the system of a well-built machine had supplanted the previous chaos. and though it was far from a perfect machine, each day was adding to its efficiency.
the nervous irritability of the mess had been relieved by the arrival of an old friend. one day hop wah had drifted into stephen’s office and after announcing solemnly: “me canned, too,” had stood waiting expectantly until loring had ordered him installed as assistant cook in the company eating-house. within a week after this the meals had become joyous occasions. wah would dance from man to man as he served the meals, murmuring insults which pleased even the insulted, and provoked roars of laughter at the victim’s expense. when he had some particularly bold insult to[229] deliver, he would sing it from the kitchen window. the singing lent impersonality and the distance safety. soon the refrain and interlude of his old song, “la, la, boom, boom,” were as well known, and as popular in kay, as they had been in quentin.
radlett had told loring that there would be much work for him to do, and he had not been guilty of exaggeration. night after night the electric light beneath the green tin reflector in the office had burned until well into the morning. then a watcher might have seen it go out suddenly, before a tired man turned the key in the office door.
the increase of efficiency in the work at the kay mine was due to one thing,—the ceaseless vigilance of stephen loring, and the outward circumstances were only the manifestation of the changed conditions within himself. one who had known loring, the failure, would scarcely have recognized loring, the success. the chin line no longer drooped, his smile showed honest pride in the goodness of his work, his movements were alert, his head thrown back. his skin was ruddy and his eyes clear, yet the marks about his mouth showed traces[230] of the struggle through which he had passed, and there were new lines of care lying in furrows across his forehead. he had aged under responsibility, and something of the old, lazy charm which had endeared him to his friends was gone; but a stranger looking at him would have appreciated at once that here was a man of force, one who meant to be master, and who was fitted to be.
it is possible that the change in his dress contributed as much as the more subtle developments, for loring, in his blue suit, soft white shirt, and well-oiled tan boots, was a very different looking man from the shabbily clothed wanderer who had sought work last year in ph?nix.
on one autumn afternoon stephen sat at the desk in his office, engaged in dictating a report to the directors of the company. above the rattle and click of the typewriter his voice rose and fell monotonously: “the construction work alone is behind. within the workings three new stopes have been opened since last report, at positions marked on the enclosed print. the ore in these has been running high, averaging”—(he paused and glanced at the[231] assayers’ report lying on the table beside him) “averaging twelve per cent copper. if the contact vein continues to run in its present direction, the ore from the new stopes which we are opening may be reached cheaply by means of winzes from the three hundred foot level.” loring verified this carefully from the foreman’s report, then nodded to the stenographer to proceed. “the cost of production has been reduced five per cent in the last month. if the present favorable prices for the coke continue, i hope to reduce this still more. i enclose for the first time a detailed statement of expense distributed per department, made possible by the new system of bookkeeping which has been adopted.” here he paused. “that is all for the present,” he said.
then he picked up the construction report and with a frown reread it. “that is bad work,” he murmured. “with all the men whom fitz had under him, he should have done better, and accomplished more.”
“oh, reade!” he called to the stenographer who had gone into the back room, “come back here! i have something to add to that report.”
the stenographer came in, and again took his place before the typewriter.
[232]
“owing to the slowness of the work on the exterior construction, i have found it necessary to dispense with the services of mr. fitz.”
reade looked up in surprise. “are you going to ‘can’ him?”
stephen made no answer, but continued to dictate: “i have secured the services of a very good man, who until recently has been at the head of that work in the quentin mining company and who, i think, will fill the position very satisfactorily.” “that is all, reade.”
the stenographer left the room, whistling softly. “he sure acts with precision,” murmured reade, as he closed the door. “when fitz answered back at mess the other night, i knew he’d get into trouble. the boss never speaks twice, and now that the men understand his ways, he don’t need to.”
a short half-hour after loring had finished his letter the stage from the northward drew up outside the office door, and a passenger descended from it. loring opened the window, looked out, and recognized his old friend mckay.
“prompt as usual!” thought loring. “i did not expect him until to-morrow or the day[233] after; but i like his coming so soon. promptness means efficiency.”
loring smiled when he heard mckay tell the driver to charge the trip to the company. “mac has not much to learn of business methods in the west,” loring chuckled, as he hastened to resume his seat at the desk. a little later he heard a thump, as mckay dropped his bag on the porch, and then he heard him asking for the manager. some one directed the stranger to the office, and loring heard the creak of his boots on the stairs.
stephen, for he had a streak of vanity in his nature, lighted a cigar, and pretended to be very busy over some papers. after a moment he looked up, to find mckay staring in such open-mouthed astonishment that it seemed as if his teeth were in danger of falling back down his throat.
“well, i’ll be damned!” he finally ejaculated. “what are you doing here?”
“i am the manager,” said stephen in a dignified manner. then he could keep a sober face no longer, and burst into a laugh, in which mckay, though in a dazed and uncertain manner, joined.
[234]
stephen jumped up from his chair and shook hands with his old boss. mckay continued to swing his arm up and down, as though this grip were his one hold upon the world of realities.
“you! how on earth did it happen? you must have been a heap wiser than i thought!” exclaimed mckay.
the only danger of being thought wise is that one is tempted to prove it; but stephen safely avoided this danger.
“anyhow, mac,” he answered, “here i am and here i hope i’ll remain, and there is a lot of work for you to do here. things have been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent that it takes more time to rebuild than it must have taken to construct the whole plant. fortunately we have the original plans designed by the people who had opened the mine, and though they are no key to what has been done, they give a pretty good idea of what was meant to be done.” as he spoke he pulled a roll of blue prints out from the desk drawer, and drawing up a chair beside him for mckay, he started to outline the work.
as he watched the unerring way in which[235] mckay’s clumsily shaped finger followed the designs, stopping at each questionable point and rubbing back and forth over it with the determined questioning of a hand competent to remedy defects, loring thanked heaven for the fact that the quentin company, their rush of early work over, had parted with such a man. the very twitching of the corners of mckay’s mustache, as he pored over the papers, showed a personality teeming with success and energy. after an hour of hard work stephen pushed back his chair from the desk and rolled up the prints.
“i’m afraid, mac,” he said, “that you are going to be very busy here. you see i know how good a man you are. but i also realize that after your journey you must eat, and that you will want to see your quarters.”
he called reade into the room and introduced him. “take mr. mckay and show him where he is to live. put him in that new shack on the right-hand side of the road.” with a sudden recollection of mckay’s treatment of him on that first night at quentin, stephen went on with a broad grin: “to-night i will send you over some blankets. you can pay[236] for them out of your first month’s pay, and to-morrow i will let you have an old straw hat of mine.”
mckay smiled sheepishly, as he stood twirling his rusty black felt hat in his fingers. accustomed as he was to the sudden changes which arizona brings about in men’s fortunes, loring’s meteoric rise was too great a problem for him to solve. he could not adjust himself to the miraculous change which had been wrought in the life of the man before him. he could only stand speechless and gaze at the marvel, and then drop his eyes again to the baggy knees of his best trousers.
stephen took pity on him in his bewilderment and interrupted his reflections: “if you can start in to work after lunch, i will have mr. fitz, the man who is leaving, show you what little he has done. you had better take a microscope to see it with.”
mckay followed reade out of the office, his efficient, right-angled and non-complex mind in a whirl.
“steve loring, manager of the kay mine! i certainly will be damned. him running all this!” he gazed stupefied at the ordered confusion[237] of the busy camp before him. “steve loring! phew!”
and all the time the man of whom mckay was thinking with admiring envy sat before his desk, his head sunk upon his folded arms in an attitude of profound dejection.
to mckay, loring seemed to have reached the highest level of the up grade in being the manager of a successful mine. what more could any man wish? but to loring all that he had achieved was as nothing.
the sight of mckay had brought back with photographic vividness all the familiar things and scenes of the old days at quentin,—the smelter, the dip in the hills, the hoist, “muy bueno,” and then, in spite of himself, above them all rose the face of jean cameron, jean as she had looked bending over his cot in the hospital with the sheaf of flowers across her arm, jean smiling at him as she passed the hoist, jean stretching out her hand to him on that never-to-be-forgotten ride through the soft arizona night.
with a sudden pang he realized that all success would be as dust and ashes unless he could bring it to her and say: “whatever i have won,[238] it was all for you. my only pride is that whether you ever know it or not, i have at last justified your faith in me. oh, jean,” he murmured, “it is not success or power or money that i want. it is you, dear, you, you, you!”
