Kitabı oku: «Thurston of Orchard Valley», sayfa 14
A burst of laughter filled the rear of the building when one of Hudson's supporters pulled him down by main force, and held him fast, observing, "You just sit right there, and look wise instead of talking too much. I guess you've said enough already to mix everything up."
The official raised his hand. "I am here to ask questions and not answer them," he said. "Any more speeches resembling the last would be likely to get the inquirer into trouble. I must also remind Mr. Hudson that, after one inundation, he signed a document signifying his approval of the scheme, and I desire to ask him what has caused the change in his opinions."
Again there was laughter followed by a few derisive comments from the party favoring Thurston's cause, while one voice was audible above the rest, "Hudson's been buying horses. Some Vancouver speculator's check!"
The rancher, shaking off his follower's grasp, bounded to his feet, and glared at the men behind him. "I'll get square with some of you fellows later on," he threatened. Turning towards the officer, he went on: "Just because I'm getting tired of being washed out I've changed my mind. When he's had two crops ruined, a man begins to get uneasy about the third one – see?"
"It is a sufficient reason," answered the official. "Now, gentlemen, I gather that some of you have benefited by this scheme. If you have any information to give me, I shall be pleased to hear it."
Several men told how they had added to their holdings many acres of fertile soil, which had once been swamp, and the Crown official said:
"I am convinced that two small ranches have been temporarily inundated, and six or seven benefited. So much for that side of the question. I must now ascertain whether the work is carried out in the most efficient manner, and how many have suffered in minor ways by the contractors' willful neglect, as the petitioners allege."
Hudson and his comrades testified at length, but each in turn, after making the most of the accidental upset of a barrow-load of earth among their crops, or the blundering of a steer into a trench, harked back to the broken sluice. When amid some laughter they concluded, others who favored Savine described the precautions Thurston had taken. Then the inquirer turned over his papers, and Thomas Savine whispered to Geoffrey: "It's all in our favor so far, but I'm anxious about that broken sluice. It's our weak point, and he's sure to tackle it."
"Yes," agreed Geoffrey, whose face was strangely set. "I am anxious about it, too. Can you suggest anything I should do, Mr. Gray?"
The Vancouver lawyer, who had a long experience in somewhat similar disputes, hitched forward his chair. "Not at present," he answered. "I think with Mr. Savine that the question of the sluice gate may be serious. Allowances are made for unpreventable accidents and force of circumstances, but a definite instance of a wholly inefficient appliance or defective workmanship might be most damaging. It is particularly unfortunate it was framed timber of insufficient strength that failed."
Geoffrey made no answer, but Thomas Savine, who glanced at him keenly, fancied he set his teeth while the lawyer, turning to the official inquirer, said:
"These gentlemen have given you all the information in their power, and if you have finished with them, I would venture to suggest that any technical details of the work concern only Mr. Thurston and yourself."
There was a protest from the assembly, and the officer beckoned for silence before he answered:
"You gentlemen seem determined between you to conduct the whole case your own way. I was about to dismiss with thanks the neighboring landholders who have assisted me to the best of their ability."
With some commotion the store-shed was emptied of all but the official, his assistant, and Thurston's party. Beckoning to Geoffrey, the official held up before his astonished eyes a plan of the defective gate. "Do you consider the timbering specified here sufficient for the strain?" he asked. "I cannot press the question, but it would be judicious of you to answer it."
"No!" replied Geoffrey, divided between surprise and dismay.
The drawing was Savine's. He could recognize the figures upon it, but it had evidently been made when the contractor was suffering from a badly-clouded brain. The broken gate itself was damaging evidence, but this was worse, for a glance at the design showed him that the artificers who worked from it had, without orders even, slightly increased the dimensions. Any man with a knowledge of mechanical science would condemn it, but, while he had often seen Savine incapable of mental effort of late, this was the first serious blunder that he had discovered. The mistake, he knew, would be taken as evidence of sheer incapacity; if further inquiry followed, perhaps it would be published broadcast in the papers, and Geoffrey was above all things proud of his professional skill. Still, he had pledged his word to both his partner and his daughter, and there was only one course open to him, if the questions which would follow made it possible.
The lawyer, leaning forward, whispered to Thomas Savine, and then said aloud, "If that drawing is what it purports to be, it must have been purloined. May we ask accordingly how it came into your possession?"
"One of the complainants forwarded it to me. He said he – obtained – it," was the dry answer. "Under the circumstances, I hesitate to make direct use of it, but by the firm's stamp it appears genuine."
"That Mr. Savine could personally be capable of such a mistake as this is impossible on the face of it," said the inquirer's professional assistant. "It is the work of a half-trained man, and suggests two questions, Do you repudiate the plan, and, if you do not, was it made by a responsible person? I presume you have a draughtsman?"
"There is no use repudiating anything that bears our stamp," said Geoffrey, disregarding the lawyer's frown, and looking steadily into the bewildered face of Thomas Savine. "I work out all such calculations and make the sketches myself. My assistant sometimes checks them."
The official, who had heard of the young contractor's reputation for daring skill, looked puzzled as he commented:
"From what you say the only two persons who could have made the blunder are Mr. Savine and yourself. I am advised, and agree with the suggestion, that Mr. Savine could never have done so. From what I have heard, I should have concluded it would have been equally impossible with you; but I can't help saying that the inference is plain."
"Is not all this beside the question?" interposed the lawyer. "The junior partner admits the plan was made in the firm's offices, and that should be sufficient."
Geoffrey held himself stubbornly in hand while the officer answered that he desired to ascertain if it was the work of a responsible person. He knew that this blunder would be recorded against him, and would necessitate several brilliant successes before it could be obliterated, but his resolution never faltered, and when the legal adviser, laying a hand upon his arm, whispered something softly, he shook off the lawyer's grasp.
"The only two persons responsible are Mr. Savine and myself – and you suggested the inference was plain," he asserted.
Here Gillow, who had been fidgeting nervously, opened his lips as if about to say something, but closed them again when his employer, moving one foot beneath the table, trod hard upon his toe.
"I am afraid I should hardly mend matters by saying I am sorry it is," said the official, dryly. "However, a mistake by a junior partner does not prove your firm incapable of high-class work, and I hardly think you will be troubled by further interference after my report is made. My superiors may warn you – but I must not anticipate. It is as well you answered frankly, as, otherwise, I should have concluded you were endeavoring to make your profits at the risk of the community; but I cannot help saying that the admission may be prejudicial to you, Mr. Thurston, if you ever apply individually for a Government contract. Here is the drawing. It is your property."
Geoffrey stretched out his hand for it, but Savine was too quick for him, and when he thrust it into his pocket, the contractor, rising abruptly, stalked out of the room. Gillow, who followed and overtook him, said:
"I can't understand this at all, sir. Mr. Savine made that drawing. I know his arrows on the measurement lines, and I was just going to say so when you stopped me. I have a confession to make. I believe I dropped that paper out of my wallet on board the steamer."
"You have a very poor memory, Gillow," and Thurston stared the speaker out of countenance. "I fear your eyes deceive you at times as well. You must have lost it somewhere else. In any case, if you mention the fact to anybody else, or repeat that you recognise Mr. Savine's handiwork, I shall have to look for an assistant who does not lose the documents with which he is entrusted."
Gillow went away growling to himself, but perfectly satisfied with both his eyesight and memory. Thurston had hardly dismissed him than Thomas Savine approached, holding out the sketch.
"See here, Geoffrey," began the contractor's brother, and one glance at the speaker was sufficient for Thurston, who stopped him.
"Are you coming to torment me about that confounded thing? Give it to me at once," he said.
He snatched the drawing from Savine's hand, tore it into fragments, and stamped them into the mould. "Now that's done with at last!" he said.
"No," was the answer. "There's no saying where a thing like this will end, if public mischief-makers get hold of it. You have your future, which means your professional reputation, to think of. In all human probability my poor brother can't last very long, and this may handicap you for years. I cannot – "
"Damn my professional reputation! Can't you believe your ears?" Geoffrey broke in.
"I'm not blind yet, and would sooner trust my eyes," was the dry answer. "Nobody shall persuade me that I don't know my own brother's figures. There are limits, Geoffrey, and neither Helen nor I would hold our peace about this."
"Listen to me!" Geoffrey's face was as hard as flint. "I see I can't bluff you as easily as the Government man, but I give you fair warning that if you attempt to make use of your suspicions I'll find means of checkmating you. Just supposing you're not mistaken, a young man with any grit in him could live down a dozen similar blunders, and, if he couldn't, what is my confounded personal credit in comparison with what your brother has done for me and my promise to Miss Savine? So far as I can accomplish it, Julius Savine shall honorably wind up a successful career, and if you either reopen the subject or tell his daughter about the drawing, there will be war between you and me. That is the last word I have to say."
"I wonder if Helen knows the grit there is in that man," pondered Savine, when, seeing all protests were useless, he turned away, divided between compunction and gratitude. Neither he nor the lawyer succeeded in finding out how the drawing fell into hostile hands, while, if Geoffrey had his suspicions, he decided that it might be better not to follow them up.
CHAPTER XIX
THE ABDUCTION OF BLACK CHRISTY
These were weighty reasons why Christy Black, whose comrades reversed his name and called him Black Christy instead, remained in Thurston's camp as long as he did. Although a good mechanic, he was by no means fond of manual labor, and he had discovered that profitable occupations were open to an enterprising and not over-scrupulous man. On the memorable night when Thurston fished him out of the river, his rescuer had made it plain that he must earn the liberal wages that were promised to him. As a matter of fact, Black had made the most of his opportunities, and in doing so had brought himself under the ban of the law during an altercation over a disputed mineral claim.
Black, who then called himself by another name, disappeared before an inquiry as to how the body of one of the owners of the claim came into a neighboring river. Only one comrade, and a mine-floating speculator, who stood behind the humbler disputants, knew or guessed at the events which led up the fatality. The comrade shortly afterwards vanished, too, but the richer man, who had connived at Black's disappearance, kept a close hand on him, forcing him as the price of freedom to act as cat's-paw in risky operations, until Black, tired of tyranny, had been glad to tell Thurston part of the truth and to accept his protection. The man from whose grip he hoped he had escaped was the one who had helped Leslie out of a difficulty.
Black Christy found, however, that a life of virtuous toil grew distinctly monotonous, and one morning, when Mattawa Tom's vigilance was slack, he departed in search of diversion in the settlement of Red Pine, which lay beyond the range. He found congenial society there, and, unfortunately for himself, went on with a boon companion next morning to a larger settlement beside the railroad track. He intended to complete the orgie there, and then to return to camp. Accordingly it happened that, when afternoon was drawing towards a close, he sat under the veranda of a rickety wooden saloon, hurling drowsy encouragement at the freighter who was loading rock-boring tools into a big wagon. He wondered how far his remaining dollar would go towards assuaging a thirst which steadily increased, and two men, who leaned against the wagon, chuckled as they watched him. The hands of one of the men were busy about the brass cap which decorated the hub of the wheel, but neither Black nor the teamster noticed this fact. Black had seen one of the men before, for the two had loafed about the district, ostensibly prospecting for minerals, and had twice visited Thurston's camp.
It was a pity Black had absorbed sufficient alcohol to confuse his memory, for when the men strolled towards him he might have recognized the one whose hat was drawn well down. As it was, he greeted them affably.
"Nice weather for picnicking in the woods. Not found that galena yet? I guess somebody in the city is paying you by the week," he observed jocosely.
"That's about the size of it!" The speaker laughed. "But we've pretty well found what we wanted, and we're pulling out with the Pacific express. There don't seem very much left in your glass. Anything the matter with filling it up with me?"
"I'm not proud," was the answer. "I'm open to drink with any man who'll set them up for me." When the prospector called the bar-tender, Black proceeded to prove his willingness to be "treated."
Nothing moved in the unpaved street of the sleepy settlement, when the slow-footed oxen and lurching wagon had lumbered away. The sun beat down upon it pitilessly, and the drowsy scent of cedars mingled with the odors of baking dust which eddied in little spirals and got into the loungers' throats. The bar-tender was liberal with his ice, however, and Black became confidential. When he had assured them of his undying friendship, one of the prospectors asked:
"What's a smart man like you muling rocks around in a river-bed for, anyway? Can't you strike nothing better down to the cities?"
"No," declared Black, thickly. "Couldn't strike a job nohow when I left them. British Columbia played out – and I had no money to take me to California."
"Well," said the prospector, winking at his comrade, "there is something we might put you on to. The first question is, what kin you do?"
According to Black's not over-coherent answer, there was little he could not do excellently. After he had enumerated his capabilities, the other man said:
"I guess that's sufficient. Come right back with us to 'Frisco and we'll have a few off days before we start you. This is no country for a live man, anyway."
Black nodded sagaciously and tried hard to think. He was afraid of Thurston, but more so of the other man connected with the Enterprise Company. In San Francisco he would be beyond the reach of either, and the city offered many delights to a person of his tastes with somebody else willing to pay expenses.
"I'll come," he promised thickly. "So long as you've got the dollars I'll go right round the earth with either of you."
"Good man!" commended the prospector. "Bring along another jugful, bar-tender."
The attendant glanced at the three men admiringly, for the speaker was plainly sober, and he knew how much money Black had paid him. He went back to his bottles, and there was nobody to see the other prospector, who had kept himself in the background, pour something from a little phial beneath his hand, into Black's liquor.
"Not quite so good as last one. I know 'Frisco. Great time at China Joe's, you an' me," murmured Black as he collapsed with his head upon the table. He was soon snoring heavily.
"Your climate has been too much for him," one of the men declared, when the saloon-keeper came in. "Say, hadn't you better help us heave him in some place where he can sleep, unless you'd prefer to keep him as an advertisement?"
Black was stored away with some difficulty, and two hours later he was wheeled on a baggage-truck into the station, where half the inhabitants of the settlement assembled to see him off. The big cars were already clanging down the track, when a tall man riding a lathered horse appeared among the scattered pines on the shoulder of the hill above the settlement. A bystander commented:
"Thurston's foreman coming round for some of his packages. As usual he's in an almighty hurry. That place is 'most as steep as a roof, and he's coming down it at a gallop."
The prospectors glanced at each other, and one of them said, "Lend me a hand, somebody, to heave our sick partner aboard."
Black was unceremoniously deposited upon the platform of the nearest car, where he sat blinking vacantly at the assembly, while the conductor, leaning out from the door of the baggage-car, looked back towards the rider who was clattering through a dust cloud down the street, as he asked: "Anybody else besides the tired man? Is that fellow yonder coming?"
"No," answered the prospector. "He's only wanting one of those cases you've just dumped out. Likes to fancy his time's precious. I know him."
The conductor waved his hand, the big bell clanged, and the train had just rolled with a rattle over a trestle ahead, when Mattawa Tom, grimed with thick red dust, flung himself down beside the agent's office.
"Has a dark-faced thief in a plug hat with two holes in the top of it, gone out on the cars?" he shouted, and the spectators admitted that such a person boarded the train.
"Why didn't you come in two minutes earlier, Tom?" one of them inquired. "He lit out with two strangers. Has he been stealing something?"
"He's been doing worse, and I'd have been in on time, but that I stopped ten minutes to help freighter Louis cut loose the two live oxen left him," said the foreman, breathlessly. "One wheel came off his wagon going down the Clearwater Trail, and the whole blame outfit pitched over into a ravine. There's several thousand dollars' worth of our boring machines smashed up, and Louis, who has pretty well split his head, is cussing the man who took the cotter out of his wheel hub."
The two prospectors were heartily tired of their charge by the time they passed him off as the sick employé of an American firm, at the nearest station to the Washington border. When Black showed signs of waking up he was soothed with medicated liquor, and his guardians, who several times had high words with the conductor, at last unloaded him in a station hewn out of the forests encircling Puget Sound, where they managed to hoist him into a spring wagon. Black leaned against one of the men, for he was feeling distressfully ill. His head throbbed, his vision was hazy and his throat was dry. Blinking down at the rows of wooden houses among the firs, and the tall spars of vessels behind them, he said: "This isn't 'Frisco – not half big enough. Somebody made mistake somewhere. Say! Lemme out; I'm going back to the depot."
"You're coming along with us," was the decided answer. "Sit down at once before we make you."
Black slowly doubled up a still formidable fist, and grasping a rail, lurched to and fro unsteadily. "Lemme out 'fore I kill somebody. Claim rightsh of British citizensh," he said.
"You'll get them if you're not careful," was the threat, and the speaker jerked Black's feet from under him. "I was told to remind you if you made trouble that a sheriff on this side of the frontier had some papers describing you. There's one or two patrolmen yonder handy."
"It was an accident," temporized Black, endeavoring to pull his scattered wits together.
"Juss so!" was the answer, given with a gesture of indifference. "I was only told a name for the patrolmen, and to remind you that a man, who knows all about it, has got his eye on you."
Black leered upon him with drunken cunning, then his face grew stolid, and he said nothing further until the wagon drew up in a by-street, before a door, hung across with quaint signboards of Chinese characters. The door opened and closed behind him when his companions knocked, and Black, who recognized a curious sour smell, choked out, "Gimme long drink of ice watah!"
He drained the cool draught that was brought him, then flinging himself on a pile of matting in a corner of a dim room, sank forthwith into slumber. He had intended to pretend to sleep, but to lie awake and think. His custodians, however, had arranged things differently, and Black's wits were not working up to their usual power.
Whenever railroad extension or mining enterprise provided high wages for all strong enough to earn them and crews deserted wholesale, seamen were occasionally shipped in a very irregular fashion from the ports of the Pacific slope. At the time Black was brought into one of the seaboard cities, the purveying of drugged and kidnaped mariners had risen to be almost a recognized profession.
It accordingly happened that when the unfortunate Black first became clearly conscious of anything again, he heard the gurgle of sliding water close beside his head, and, opening his eyes, caught sight of a smoky lamp that reeled to and fro, in very erratic fashion. Moisture dripped from the beams above him, and there was a sickly smell which seemed familiar. Black, who had been to sea before, decided that he caught the aroma of bilge water. Rows of wooden shelves tenanted by recumbent figures, became discernible, and he started with dismay to the full recognition of the fact that he was in a vessel's forecastle.
Somebody or something was pounding upon the scuttle overhead. A black gap opened above him, a rush of cold night wind swept down, followed by a gruff order:
"Turn out, watch below, and help get sail upon her. Stir round before I put a move on to you!"
Men scrambled from the wooden shelves growling as they did so. Two lost their balance on the heaving floor, went down headlong, and lay where they fell. When a man in long boots floundered down the ladder, Black sat up in his bunk.
"Now there's going to be trouble. Some blame rascals have run me off aboard a lumber ship," he said.
"Correct!" observed a man who was struggling into an oilskin jacket. "You're blame well shanghaied like the rest of us, and as the mate's a rustler, you've got to make the best of it."
"Hello! What's the matter with you? Not feeling spry this morning, or is it hot water you're waiting for?" the mate said, jerking Black out of his bunk as he spoke. "Great Columbus! What kind of a stiff do you call yourself? Up you go!"
Black went, with all the expedition he was capable of, and, blundering out through the scuttle, stood shivering on a slant of wet and slippery deck. A brief survey showed him that he was on board a full-rigged ship, timber laden, about to be cast off by a tug. There was a fresh breeze abeam. Looking forward he could see dark figures hanging from the high-pointed bowsprit that rose and dipped, and beyond them the lights of a tug reeling athwart a strip of white-streaked sea. Mountains dimly discernible towered in the distance, and he fancied it was a little before daybreak. Bursts of spray came hurtling in through the foremast shrouds, and the whine and rattle of running wire and chain fell from the windy blackness overhead whence the banging of loosened canvas came to his ears. Glancing aloft he watched the great arches of the half-sheeted topsails swell blackly out and then collapse again with a thunderous flap. Somebody was shouting from the slanted top-gallant-yard that swung in a wide arc above them, but Black had no time for further inspection.
"Lay aloft and loose maintopsails! Are you figuring we brought you here to admire the scenery?" a hoarse voice challenged.
Half-dazed and sullenly savage Black had still sense enough to reflect that it would be little use to expect that the harassed mate would listen to reason then. Clawing his way up the ratlines he laid his chest upon the main-topsail-yard and worked his way out to the lower end of the long inclined spar. Here, still faint and dizzy, he hung with the footrope jammed against his heel, as he felt for the gasket that held the canvas to the yard. Swinging through the blackness across a space of tumbling foam he felt a horrible unsteadiness. There were other men behind him, for he could hear them swearing and coughing until a black wall of banging canvas sank beneath him when somebody roared: "Sheet her home!"
Then a hail came down across the waters from the tug. There was a loud splash beneath the bows, while shadowy figures that howled a weird ditty as they hove the hawser in, rose and fell black against the foam-flecked sea on the dripping forecastle. Nobody had missed Black, who now sat astride the yard watching the tug, as the ship, listing over further and commencing to hurl the spray in clouds about her plunging bows, gathered way. The steamboat would slide past very close alongside, and he saw a last chance of escape. Moving out to the very yard-arm he clutched the lee-brace, which rope led diagonally downwards to the vessel's depressed rail. He looked below a moment, bracing himself for the perilous attempt.
The tug was close abreast of the ship's forecastle now, evidently waiting with engines stopped until the vessel should pass her. The crew was still heaving in the cable or loosing the top-gallants, and froth boiled almost level with the depressed rail. Black was a poor swimmer, but he could keep his head above water for a considerable time. If the tug did not start her engines within the next few seconds she must drive close down on him. Otherwise – but filled with the hope of escape and the lust for revenge Black was willing to take the risk.
He hooked one knee around the brace, gripped it between his ankles and slackened the grip of his hands. The topsails slid away from him, the spray rushed up below, his feet struck the rail, and the next moment he was down in utter blackness and conscious of a shock of icy cold water. He rose gasping and swung around, buffeted in the vessel's eddying wake. There was no shouting on board her, and, with a choking cry, he struck out for the black shape of the tug, now only a short distance away. Somebody heard and flung down a line. He clutched at it and, by good fortune, grasped it. Head downward he was drawn on board by the aid of a long boathook, and hauled, dripping, before the skipper.
"Did you fall or jump in?" asked the skipper.
"I jumped," confessed Black, putting a bold face on it, and the master of the towboat laughed.
"Shanghaied, I guess!" he said. "Well, I don't blame you for showing your grit. The master of that lumber wagon is a blame avaricious insect! He beat us down until all we got out of him will hardly pay for the coal we used – that's what he did. So if you slip ashore quietly when we tie up, he'll think you pitched over making sail, and I'll keep my mouth shut."
Accordingly it happened that next morning Black, who had left the wooden city before daylight to tramp back to the bush, sat down to consider his next move.
"There's one thing tolerably certain, Black Christy's drowned, and he'll just stop drowned until it suits him," he decided. "Next, though he's not over fond of it, there's lots of work for a good carpenter in this country and newspapers are cheap. So when it's worth his while to strike in with the Thurston Company and get even with the other side he'll probably hear of it."
He laughed a little as he once more read the message on a strip of pulpy paper somebody had slipped into his pocket.
"You are going to China for your health, and you had better stop there if you want to keep clear of trouble."
Black Christy got upon his feet again and departed into the bush, where he wandered for several weeks, building fences and splitting shingles for the ranchers in return for food and shelter, until he found work and wages at a saw-mill.
Shortly after he was employed at the mill, the director who held Leslie's receipt sat in his handsome offices with the Englishman. A newspaper lay open on the table before him, and the director smiled as he read, "Ship, Maria Carmony, timber laden for China, meeting continuous headwinds after sailing from this port, put into Cosechas, Cal., for shelter, and her master reported the loss of a seaman when making sail in the Straits of San Juan. The man's name was T. Slater, and must have been a stranger, as nobody appears to have known him in this city."
"Those fellows haven't managed it badly," he commented. "Anyway, there's an end of him."
"They told me they had some trouble over it, and I gave them fifty dollars extra," said Leslie. "They used the hint you mentioned – said it worked well. But the two men are always likely to turn up, unfortunately."
"It wouldn't count," the other answered confidently. "You will have to bluff them off if they do. Deny the whole thing – nobody would believe them – it's quite easy. It would have been different with that confounded Black, for he would have had Thurston's testimony. The joke of the whole thing is, that although he knew I held evidence which would likely hang him with a jury of miners, it's tolerably certain Black never did the thing he was wanted for."
