The Popular Magazine/Volume 58/Number 4/The Implacable Friend/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
CONSTERNATION!
Most of the freighters had arrived with their stores of building materials and merchandise—all the diversified paraphernalia of a brand-new, booming mining camp of the northern placer fields. With the arrival of each new craft at the landing, whether it were canoe, poling boat, or slender barge, new white tents sprang up on the flat, goods were piled up, men, and not a few women rushed about, entering into “deals” of all sorts—buying or leasing lots, contracting for log buildings, or earnestly discussing, and often squabbling over, “lay” agreements to work ground on the creek. The flat was rapidly taking shape as the embryonic Midas City; and its population, which now numbered upward of one hundred souls, were, with few exceptions, too bustlingly employed to notice the half dozen men, muck-covered, scowling, who passed in single file along the creek trail to the commissioner's office at the upper edge of the flat.
Collins, acting as spokesman, tersely gave their information to Judge Manners, who turned thoughtful on the instant. His immediate response was a long-drawn whistle.
“Where's Ticely, judge?” asked Tholmes, worriedly slapping his knee with his cloth cap.
“Who knows?” Manners looked questioningly from one to the other.
“I believe he's directing the unloading of a barge,” replied Collins, who privately “kept cases” on Ticely.
“Better get him,” said Othmer excitedly. Having been the most enthusiastic Midas fan in Nome, his fall was the fall of Lucifer!
“We'll have to have a talk right away, won't we?” asked Tholmes, whose investments were largest, next to Collins.
“About what?” asked Slim Jim. It was intended as a feeler—to bring out the temper of mind of his associates.
“Well put,” said Manners, mistaking his meaning. “We may be mistaken, and if so”
“We're not,” asserted Collins shortly. “I'll answer for that.”
“But even if we're not, it's a rather delicate business, boys. What are we going to say to him?”
“I know what I'll say to him,” answered Othmer in a loud voice.
“Don't crack your windpipe, Oth!” warned Redbank. “They can hear you down on the flat!”
“I don't care if they do. I'm goin' to know where them big pans are, and know quick!”
Collins pointed a long finger at the dancing painter. “Say, you just dry up a minute, will you? You're a damn good promoter, old top, but you haven't got the head to handle this. You keep your temper in what's coming, or I'll keep it for you, see?”
“Get him,” advised One-word Watkins.
“Get him, Collins,” echoed Tholmes. “Let's have it out right now. Will you start the ball a-rolling, judge? You can use diplomatic language.”
“Con, go after him, will you?” said Collins to Redbank. “Just say we're having a kind of meeting up here, and could he just as well as not stroll up.” Redbank nervously lit a cigarette and left the building.
“Where is Bruce Waring?” asked Judge Manners.
Collins waited to see if no one else would answer, and then volunteered: “I think he's up in the timber somewhere with the cutting gang.”
“I wonder what he knows about this thing?” queried Manners hesitantly.
“Oh, nothing, of course!” said Slim Jim quietly.
“It's going to be rather embarrassing if we talk to Ticely frankly,” warned Mamners. “We should have to give away the—the men who got some of the information.”
“You're right, judge,” agreed Tholmes. “We don't want to do that, if we can help it. In a sense, we had no right to that information.”
“Didn't we, though!” challenged Collins. “When a man acts the way he did ue
“It may be all right yet,” put in Colwell hopefully. “Perhaps the big pay is in some of the other holes. Here he is now, I guess.” Footsteps sounded among the chips outside.
“Hullo, boys, what's up?” greeted Ticely amiably, as he and Redbank entered.
“Why, just this, Mr. Ticely,” began Manners. “Yesterday and to-day the men have been drifting in both the drained shafts and have made a thorough test of the gravel and bed rock. They are very much dissatisfied with the result.”
“I feared they might be,” answered Ticely quickly, “though—you found what I told you, didn't you, gentlemen?”
“Then why did you fear we might be dissatisfied?”
Ticely smiled. “It didn't make any difference what I said or might have said. You know perfectly well that you did not believe me. You thought the ground was better.” There was silence.
“Well, maybe it is,” added the Midas promoter. Then he added again—for that was not artistic enough: “Let's hope so, at least.” He said it in a very cheerful manner. Nothing came from those six glowering men; nor from Judge Manners, deeply thoughtful. They were baffled—defeated, almost, in the first encounter. Then Collins gave Manners a glance which said: “Dig in—the best way you know how.”
The judge began again, a note of sternness in his voice: “All true enough, as far as it goes, Mr. Ticely. But it doesn't go far enough. I think you know perfectly well that you have been more or less responsible for our optimism.”
“If you mean that I was glad that you thought so well of the prospects up here that you wanted to invest with me, enabling us all to attack the ground in the right way—why certainly. I'd have been a fool to have discouraged you when I needed assistance. I was mightily encouraged, myself, in the prospects—and am still, for that matter. Perhaps you all felt the way you did because, in spite of my conservative statements, you had reason to think I felt very optimistic!”
“We sure had!” exclaimed Othmer feelingly, Collins transfixed him with two cold-gray eyes, and the little painter's teeth came together almost with a snap.
“Distant pastures look the greenest, you know,” pursued Ticely. “You're simply experiencing a reaction, now that you've got on the ground itself. The facts remain the same. It's a big proposition here”
“I should think it is!” sneered Collins. “A few feet of six or eight-cent dirt, and half of Alaska to lug every pound of outfit over. I'll say it's big!”
“I—what is your pleasure, gentlemen?” asked Manners uncertainly. He felt he could go no further without letting out secrets. The interview was a grave disappointment to him. He was oppressed by a sense of failure—of ruin. He wanted to think it all out. Perhaps they were wrong. At least Ticely had lost none of his comfortable assurance.
“I suppose that'll do for now,” prompted Collins, and Tholmes nodded to him. The others scowled at Ticely and shuffled toward the door. Ticely remained, obediently to a look from Manners—which Collins observed. When out of earshot of the cabin the men grouped again.
“Hell, this won't do,” said Tholmes angrily.
“I should say not,” agreed Collins with a light, derisive laugh.
They decided to get together the rest of the Midas mining company men and to see the judge later. The yeast of disappointment was rapidly fermenting a bitter and angry resentment.
Inside the log house for a few long moments Manners silently regarded the partner of clean young Bruce Waring. Then, a little falteringly, he asked:
“Can't you say more to me about this thing, Ticely? I'm your friend—I certainly want to be.”
“Why, my dear judge, I hardly know what to say,” replied Ticely in nicely simulated bewilderment. “I spoke as candidly as I know how. Quite as candidly, I think, as you did—or the rest.”
The truth of this made further progress difficult for Manners. He held obstinately to the hope that real frankness would disclose that there was big pay which, for reasons held good by its discoverers, they had not wished as yet to reveal.
“Can't you be franker—franker, perhaps, than I have been?”
“That's rather naïve of you, judge, don't you think?” smiled the other.
“Perhaps.”
“No, Judge Manners, I think the thing will have to work itself out. Just have a little patience, and try to instill a little into the others, and I'm sure they will be satisfied in the end.” Once more the artist in him suggested another stroke. “I'm sure they'll be satisfied” was too humble. So he added: “It's what is known as the baby act, isn't it, that these fellows are putting over? I told them exactly what I had. I gave it to them straight. And yet they almost made life a burden to me till I sold them interests. What the deuce is the matter with them, anyhow? What do they want!”
“We'll see soon enough, I dare say. Too soon, perhaps.” Manners bit his lip and turned away.
“I'll stand pat, judge,” replied Ticely cryptically; and he left the cabin, passing Joan in the doorway.
The girl went white at the look on her father's face, and bit by bit she got from him the details. He had no wish, and, indeed, there seemed no reason, to withhold the truth from her.
“But Bruce!” she exclaimed. To which cry from her heart her father could make no reply.