The Come-On/Chapter 5
V.
WHEN he opened his eyes in the morning Mortimer groaned and shut them again. His eyeballs felt as if some one had tried lo gouge them from their sockets: his head was one large pain when he moved it on the pillow, and his mouth and tongue seemed lined with dry, upstanding fur; the taste, when he endeavored to moisten them, was a compound of umber and burned sienna. He groaned once more. Collingwood, splashing vigorously at the wash-stand, turned a whimsical eye on the bed.
"Good morning," he said pleasantly.
Mortimer raised himself to a sitting posture and took his repentant head between his hands, "I must have had an awful one," he said. "Where did we go last night? I don't remember."
Collingwood outlined the events of the evening. "I don't know how much you dropped at Carey's," he said. "I tried to get you away, but you wouldn't quit. I'm afraid it cost you something, and I nearly had a row with Carey, too. He didn't like my butting in."
Mortimer examined his pockets.
"I drew five hundred yesterday," he said ruefully, "and here's all I have left." He exhibited a very small roll of bills. "I was a chump, all right. Don't know how I came to get such a load; usually I can carry more than that."
Collingwood, behind the towel, smiled sardonically.
"You're a tank, he said with feigned admiration. "I feel a shade rocky myself, and I didn't try to stay with you. I've ordered a couple of revivers. After that we'll have breakfast, and then, if you feel like it, come around with me while I look at some properties."
Breakfast on Mortimer's part was almost a farce; but he managed to worry down a small portion of food and several cups of coffee; after which he felt better. His head though dull had ceased to ache, and while his regret at the loss of so much money was keen, it was tempered by the comforting thought that he had acted in a manner befitting a man of the world. He even contemplated with satisfaction a confession to Maisie Hooper, and pictured her shocked attitude which should conceal a secret admiration, and her forgiveness following his promise never to gamble again.
They spent the morning in and about the nearest mines. Gradually Mortimer's headache vanished and his spirits, rose. Collingwood was an entertaining and instructive companion, and his manner of meeting and handling men excited Mortimer's admiration. He wished that he possessed the cool assurance and matter-of-course business-like way of his conductor. Then, too, he appeared to know all about the mines—more, indeed, than the men in charge. This knowledge was revealed or rather hinted at more by what he did not say than by his words. At the end of a long explanation by a foreman covering the difficulties encountered, the disappointments, and the character and extent of existing and hoped-for veins, a shrewd question or comment would go to the root of the matter as surely as a surgeon's knife. And after leaving a property his terse comments were conclusive.
"Nothing there," he said, as they rode away from a much-talked-of mine. "They made the too common mistake. Put in a high-priced plant, up-to-date machinery and buildings on the strength of some assays and a lot of faith. And when they had spent a quarter of a million on such things they went to work to prove the property. Now it doesn't pan out, and they are trying to explain value into a worthless claim. Their whole layout isn't worth junk prices."
But at one property they were refused admission. A man sat smoking on a powder-box by the shaft-mouth.
"No one allowed in the mine," he said briefly.
"What's the matter?" asked Collingwood. "Timbering bad, or what?"
"Orders." replied the other laconically.
"How is your ore running?" asked Collingwood.
"Don't know."
"Working or shut down?"
"Sorter, half and half."
Save for the man on the powder-box the place appeared to be absolutely deserted.
"Any one in the mine now?"
"Nope."
"That's the Silver Queen," said Collingwood as they rode on. "They went in on rich ore," and it pinched out. They've been working it half-heartedly for some time, I hear. Maybe they've shut down for good." He was thoughtful for a few moments. "You can't tell. I wish I could have had a look at it. They may have uncovered the vein again."
"In that case they'd be working it, wouldn't they?" asked Mortimer with an air of shrewdness.
"Hard to say. They may be raising money to do it on a larger scale, although I di hear that there are monied men in it now."
Later they encountered a buckboard drawn by a pair of wiry ponies. In it sat a large, military-looking man, elderly, with well-kept white mustache and goatee; his face fairly radiated good nature and benevolence; he greeted Collingwood cordially.
"How are you, colonel?" returned Collingwood with equal cordiality. "Allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Mortimer—Colonel Jefferson Casimir."
"Glad to make your acquaintance, seh," said the colonel in a soft, typically Southern drawl. "Seeing the mines? You couldn't have a betteh guide than my young friend here. I hope to see more of you, seh."
Mortimer responded in kind. He liked Colonel Casimir at first sight. So did most men. He was so large, so gennial, so courteous—the type of a Southern gentleman.
"Come and dine with me to-night, both of you," said the colonel. "I'm staying at the Commercial. Can't promise you much of a dinneh, but I'll guarantee the liquohs and segahs. Till eight o'clock, then."
He gathered up the reins, raised his broad-brimmed slouch-hat and drove on.
"Colonel Casimir." said Collingwood as they watched the swirl of dust thrown from the drying road by the flying heels of the broncos, "is heavily interested in mining properties elsewhere. I didn't know he was in Galena. It looks well for the future of the district if he lakes an interest in it."
"Don't think I ever heard of him," said Mortimer. "He seems very pleasant, though."
"You will hear of him very often if you handle mining properties," returned Collingwood. "Yes, he's the soul of good nature and hospitality, and honorable to a ridiculous extent, judged by modern business maxims. Still I never met a shrewder man, or one more cautious in business. I've never known him to be taken in. You'll find him an excellent host, too, and he has a fund of choice, original anecdote if we can get him started. His title isn't a courtesy one; he was through the war, but of course he was mighty young then."
The dinner at the Commercial was even better than that which Mortimer had enjoyed the night before, and Colonel Casimir as host left nothing to be desired. He seemed greatly taken with Mortimer, and asked his opinion several times on various subjects, an attention which flattered that young gentleman greatly.
"By the way. colonel," said Collingwood when, cigars afire, they sipped their liqueurs in well-fed comfort, "we tried to have a look at the old Silver Queen to-day, and were politely warned off. I'd like to know why. I heard that there was something doing in that property. Do you happen to know anything about it?"
"And what makes you think I know anything?" returned the colonel enigmatically.
"So you do know!" said Collingwood. "Come, colonel, what's the dark secret? That old hole in the ground shouldn't have anything to hide. Satisfy my curiosity, do!"
Colonel Casimmir removed the long, blck panatela from his lips and let a thin stream of smoke trickle ceilingward. His eyes, steel-blue, became very shrewd.
"Collin'wood," he said, "you are a business man and—I say it in no offensive sense—tainted with the cuhsed commercial spirit of this steam-an'-lightnin'-driven age. Therefo', you'll pardon me, I'm sure, if I prefer to keep my own counsel."
"Just as you please, colonel," returned Collingwood. "I suppose I am a little bit out for any loose coin; it's my business. But, so far as that goes, you can look out for yourself. If you can't show a good imitation of the commercial spirit at times I'd hate to meet a real business man."
The colonel chuckled.
" 'Needs must when the devil drives,' seh," he observed. "I stahted life, Misteh Mo'timer, if you will forgive the personal allusion, with two loving parents, some thousands of acres of the best cotton and cane soil in South Ca'lina, and enough niggehs to work the acres. My education was liberal in some lines, includin' literature, hosses, cyards and fiaharms; none of them, as you'll perceive, bein' money-makers—at least in the hands of a gentleman. The war came. My father fell in the Wilderness, and my mother survived him only long enough to hear the news. I fought, a mere boy, through the war. When Lee surrendered and the Confederacy was broken I tuhned to peace an' the arts of peace. The plantation was mo'gaged to the hilt, as I discovered for the first time. It was sold. Personal property of every description had been given freely to the Confederacy. So that at the age of twenty I owned only a hoss, a path of pistols, and a ragged gray unifo'm. I chucked the unifo'm, traded the hoss for clo'es, but kept the pistols. I went to work, seh—the first one of my family to do such a thing for a hundred yeahs. Business was foreign to my instincts; but I stahted right in to acquiah a knowledge of it. And I found, seh, that while there's a right smaht of crooks engaged in it, it is in the main, hon'able. And I found, too, comin' right down to cases, that it consists in finding out what a thing is worth to another man, and buyin' it from a third party for a leetle mite less."
"Or selling it for a little more," suggested Collingwood as the colonel paused.
"There, seh, speaks the commercial spirit which I deplore," said the colonel to Mortimer; "I never sold a thing for or asked more than it was worth, knowingly. I have made mistakes in judgment, I admit; and propehties which I have sold have been mismanaged by the buyers so that their value has diminished, hut I do not hold myself responsible for that. On the other hand, I endeaveh not to pick up a plate by the hot side. And because of that my young friend here calls me a hard man at a bargain." .
"You didn't quite catch my meaning, colonel." said Collingwood. "I merely meant that you are able to protect your own interests."
"If I wasn't, seh," retorted Colonel Casimir, "I wouldn't have any to protect. There are men to-day, I regret to state, who have no business or other honah. When I deal with them, seh, I hold the cyards tight up against my chest and count the chips on the table."
"Illustration—your diplomatic silence about the Silver Queen. I suppose," said Collingwood. "If that is your meaning" He half rose from his chair.
"My deah boy—my deah boy"—the colonel pressed him back gently with one hand—"you mistake me entirely. I feah my language might beah that construction, but such a monstrous thing was never in my thoughts. I know you to be an hon'able gentleman, and you are sufficient warrant for the discretion of your friend, whose acquaintance gives me pleasure. In proof of my trust in both of you, if proof is needed. I will throw this Silveh Queen cyard on the table so that you may see it for yourself. I know that you will respect my confidence as I would yours.
"This Silveh Queen mine," he went on, "was a poor propehty, but it came to my ears that a rich strike has just been made which will put it in the first ranks of ore-producers. The news filtered to me underground, I may state. They are, however, in urgent need of ready money. I offered to buy, but they refused to sell, standing out for a sum which I considered exo'bitant. I therefo' began to buy shares. The company was stocked for five hundred thousand dollahs in one-dollah shares; non-assessable, of course. Of these, fifty thousand are in the treasury, unissued. They won't sell them below par, now, and they can't sell them at par for they are not worth it. Of the remaining four hundred and fifty thousand I have options on one hundred and sixty thousand at various prices. These I will take up, provided I can secure options on or buy more shares sufficient to give me control of the company in any event, even if they issue the treasury shares."
"Can you get them?" asked Collingwood. He was penciling rapidly on an envelope, following the statement of the case with keen interest. "You'll need, roughly speaking, one hundred thousand shares more to retain control in any 'event, as I figure it."
"Ninety thousand and one, to be exact," said Colonel Casimir. "Call it an even hundred thousand, which will give me a control beyond cavil. I hope to get them if my agents can locate the right man."
"But still I don't see why we couldn't get into the mine this morning," said Collingwood.
"That," replied the colonel, "is a part of the game. The present owners naturally want to depress still further the value of the shares, which are worth little enough on the market as it is, the Lawd knows. They have denied the repawt of a strike and have shut down. In that way they hope to buy up loosely held stock cheap, and possibly to induce me to allow my options to expiah—that is, if they know of them, which they will sooner or later."
"Are these shares strongly held?" asked Mortimer, he uttered the phrase in a very businesslike way, and he liked the sound of it. It seemed to him exceedingly technical.
"There you go to the root of the matteh, seh," said the colonel. "That question shows your practical business mind. Some of them are and some are not. But there is one block of a hundred thousand owned by a surly cantankerous curmudgeon named Lowrey, that will give me trouble. This man Lowrey was one of the original owners, and for his interest and services—for he is a mining engineer and a good one—he received one hundred thousand shares in the company that was formed. methods didn't suit the majority, and they dismissed him and got a new man who made a mess of things. Naturally Lowrey is disgruntled and I doubt if he will sell his stock. I might induce him to cooperate with me if I could find him, but he seems to have gone prospecting, the Lawd knows where. Howeveh, I am having him traced. Let me fill your glass, Misteh Mo'timer. You are drinking nothing, seh!"