The Joyous Trouble Maker/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
THE POWER OF THE CORLISS MILLIONS
IT was a full week later that Steele announced to himself that his vacation was over, and to Turk Wilson and Bill Rice that he had business "outside" and might be away twenty-four hours or ten days. Then, carrying saddle and bridle down into the little meadow, he put his mare into requisition and rode away toward Camp Corliss. Here he stopped for a casual word with Ed Hurley.
"You old son of trouble," was Hurley's greeting, with a look of perplexity in eyes which had never learned the trick of hiding emotions. "What the deuce are you up to these days? I've got fresh orders about you, orders not a week old."
"Shoot," said Steele, easing himself in the saddle. "What's the latest?"
"I'm to look on you as a moral leper or a small pox suspect; I'm to keep you out of camp, I'm to have no word with you and I'm to see that all my men give you the wide go-by. Otherwise I can quit."
"As strong as that, Ed?"
"Curse it, yes," grunted Hurley. "And, between you and me, Bill, I don't want to lose my job. I know that sounds pretty low down from one friend to another but there are reasons why my salary right now looks to me like a raft to a drowning man. If any man can understand … and make allowances … I guess that man's you, Billy."
Steele nodded thoughtfully. Into Hurley's troubled eyes there came the look of guilt, and Steele knew that there was no guilt in Hurley's heart. Down in the southland there was a wife and a baby boy … the little chap must be five or six now … and a shadow was over them both, the damp, sinister shadow of the white man's plague. For three years had Ed Hurley been fighting the fight with them, and there were times when he felt with bounding pulse that Rose and little Eddie were saved to him, times when he dreaded and his heart shrivelled within him. He had left them and come up here because he must have money, lots of money, to give them every chance in the world. Someday, when the most famous tubercular expert in the west allowed, he would bring them here, up into the clean air of the mountains.
All of this Steele knew.
"Next time I see you in public, Eddie, old man," he said in as gruff a voice as nature allowed him, which is saying rather a good deal, "I'll refuse to know you! We'll even stage a rough and tumble fist fight, if it'll help any. My love to Rose and the kid. They're the good old game sort, Ed. You can't down people of their kind."
And he was gone, headed at gallop for Summit City, a little mist whipped into his eyes by the last look of Hurley's face.
In the little resort town he observed interestedly the many fresh indications of prosperity. Several new cottages were being built, the addition to the hotel had already assumed goodly and picturesque proportions. Evidently the first scattering advance forces of the tourist armies were on the field, their camp outfits to be seen in the street, some of them already established upon the front porches of the cottages. A six horse team was in front of the store, the big wagon heaped high with boxes and crates, evidently provisions and dry goods from the Junction.
"Rush order, too," meditated Steele. "Camped on the road last night, pulling in early this morning. And, as far as I am concerned, it's water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink."
The thought upon him, he stopped at the post office, wrote and mailed a brief note to Beatrice:
"Dear Cook of mine," it read. "Have yon changed your mind about selling me provisions and small truck? Looking over your charming village, I hate to lift my hand against it! It's like swatting a baby. Telephone your storekeeper and chop house man and hotel manager to lift the embargo, that's a nice little Cook. I'll drop in on them in a day or so to learn of their altered attitudes. Some of the biscuits are still left. Turk says we need a dog around camp, anyway. 'Horrid, nasty man!' cries the Queen. Meaning Turk, of course, and never
Your faithful
"Bill"
Riding on through Summit City, passing first the unsightly rough board shack housing that element, undesired here by Beatrice Corliss, that came to drink and gamble and brawl, he rode down to the little lake where a few straggling tents stood reflected in the blue water, noted how two men were overhauling a launch and some canoes, and then was lost to the settlement as he continued on his way toward the Junction.
It was reserved for him to learn that afternoon that Beatrice meant all that she had told him, meant it rather more sweepingly than he had imagined. The Junction was a small railroad station, Junction by name only as never had persistent rumour borne fruit in an actually accomplished line from it to the vicinity of Summit City. Like the latter place it had one hotel, so called through courtesy, one store, one chop house. Steele, hungry from his ride, turned into the hotel's front room and demanded something to eat. The man behind a newspaper at a little counter, regarded him keenly, and then abruptly asked:
"Name of Steele?"
"Yes," returned Steele. "Why?"
"Nothin' to eat this time of day," was the rejoinder around the stem of a pipe.
"Bread and butter, a hunk of cold meat, anything will do," insisted Steele carelessly. But his eyes, as keen as the other's with speculation partook of none of the quality of his voice.
"Nothin' to eat," he was informed a second time. "Dinner ain't till six, an' mos' likely there won't be a extry place at the table then. We're filled up."
"Who owns this place?" demanded Steele.
"Miss Corliss of Thunder River Ranch," was the more than half-expected reply. "Bought me out this week."
Steele swung on his heel and went out, crossing the street to the chop house whose triangle hung from the wooden awning at the front door.
"Got anything to eat?" he asked shortly of the greasy looking man in shirt sleeves who also was idling behind a newspaper. "For a man named Steele?"
"Nope," he was cheerfully informed. And the greasy gentleman lowered his paper to look over it with frank interest at the man who was already known widely hereabouts as an individual who had incurred the Queen's blighting displeasure.
"Bought out by Miss Corliss?"
"Yep."
Steele had forgotten his hunger, for a little undecided whether to be irritated or amused. In the end his old, wide grin came back to him, and he went out with the chop house man staring after him wonderingly. Thereafter it required but fifteen minutes to assure him that Beatrice had made it impossible for him to buy provisions or tools or any sort of supplies in the Junction.
Puzzling over the novel situation, finding it both ridiculous and yet quite to be looked for from Beatrice Corliss and her almost inexhaustible wealth, he walked down the shimmering railroad tracks to the station, turning in to learn when the next San Francisco-bound train was expected. Swinging about the corner of the building he came face to face with Joe Embry and a lean, long, moustached individual in shirt sleeves and vest and battered hat. At the sound of a footstep the lean man whirled suddenly, his keen grey eyes alert.
"Hello, Banks," said Steele, putting out his hand and ignoring Embry after the one searching look. "What's the word?"
Banks put out his hand, a shade of uncertainty passing swiftly across his face, his eyes running with quick, stabbing fashion between Steele and Embry.
"So—so, Billy," he returned the greeting. "Staying in town long or just catching a train?"
Now that puzzled Steele. He had known Jim Banks casually for half a score of years and had numbered him, after his carelessly good humoured fashion, as a friend. Now the man seemed not only not particularly friendly but positively ill at ease. Then Steele caught the winking of the sunlight on the metal star on Banks's woollen shirt, peeping out from under his vest.
"Constable now, Jim?" he asked. "Deputy sheriff, or what?"
Banks drew back the flap of his vest. Steele whistled.
"Sheriff!" he said. "Good business, Jim. Well, see you later."
And he went into the station, conscious the while that both Embry and Banks were regarding him intently.
"Now what the devil's up?" he wondered. "What's Embry chinning with a sheriff for? He ought to know better by this time. And if they weren't talking about me I'll eat a man's hat! If I ever eat anything again!" as the emptiness of his stomach recalled itself to him.
The station agent, busy with his telegraphic key, turned, fixed him with a vacant eye and went on clicking out mysterious messages. In a moment however, he dropped his hand to a cold cigarette and nodded.
"When does Number Five get in?" Steele asked him.
"Smash-up on the line," said the railroad man. He cocked an eye at the clock. "About two hours and a half yet."
"Can you get a message across to Thunder River for me?"
"I can send it on to White Rock and they can relay it from there by telephone."
Steele scribbled upon the yellow pad which was handed him and the message was promptly put on the wire. It was signed "Your admiring Bill," and ran:
"Last call: Will you lift the embargo or shall I start in putting your little villages out of business? Rush answer while I go out and get something to eat."
"You're Bill Steele?" said the agent, looking at him with a growing interest. And, with a grin, "You're in luck; Number Five carries a dining car this time of year!"
Coming out into the sun Steele found that Embry had gone about his business and that Jim Banks was waiting for him.
"They've got the count on you this trip, Billy," offered the sheriff, coming forward to meet him. "It's like you to go start something for a meal and the fun of it. Take a tip from me and don't do it. I'll slip you a sandwich myself and a bottle of beer if you'll just move easy and keep your mouth shut."
"Retained already by Embry?" demanded Steele shortly. Banks lifted his gaunt shoulders.
"It was Corliss money that put me in my job, Billy," he returned equably. "It will be Embry influence that keeps me in it. I'm no lawyer, but it's open and shut that I've got to gather you in if you start anything that looks like disturbing the peace. Get me?"
"I have a little business in San Francisco," returned Steele thoughtfully. "If I mix things with you, Jim, it'll mean getting held up here a day or so, won't it?"
"It would mean ninety days in jug," grunted Banks. "She'd have you railroaded, Billy. Oh, she can do it all right."
Steele frowned, then his face cleared as he cried warmly:
"She's a corker, Jim! By the Lord, she's a wonder!"
"She sure is, Billy. And it's lucky you take it that way. Now you just stick around here and pretty pronto I'll slip you a handout."
But Steele shook his head.
"It's only a couple of hours to wait, Jim. I'll eat on the train."
And when at last the train pulled in and there had come no reply to his message to Beatrice, he left with the station agent a second telegram for Miss Corliss:
"Congratulations on winning in an initial skirmish. May there be many more. Don't waste all your ammunition prematurely. Shall drink your health and final defeat in the best the dining car carries. Joyously,
"Bill."