THE morning following his decision to play the rÔle of angel to Billy Geary's mining concession in Sobrante, John Stuart Webster, like Mr. Pepys, was up betimes.
Nine o'clock found him in the office of his friend Joe Daingerfield, of the Bingham Engineering Works, where, within the hour, he had in his characteristically decisive fashion purchased the machinery for a ten-stamp mill and an electric light plant capability of generating two hundred and fifty horsepower two electric hoists with cable, half a dozen steel ore buckets, as many more ore-cars with five hundred feet of rail, a blacksmithing outfit, a pump, motors, sheet steel to line the crushing-bins and form shovelling platforms for the ore in the workings, picks, shovels drills, and so forth. It was a nice order and Dangerfield fwas delighted.
“This is going to cost you about half your fortune, Jack,” he informed Webster when the order was finally made up.
Webster grinned. “You don't suppose I'm chump enough to pay for it now, do you, Joe?” he queried.
“You'll pay at least half, my son. We love you, Jack; we honour and respect you; but this stuff is going to Central America, and in the event of your premature demise, we might not get it back. They have wars down there, you know, and when those people are war-mad, they destroy things.”
“I know. But I'm going first to scout the country, Joe, and in the meantime keep all this stuff in your warehouse until I authorize you by cable to ship, when you can draw on me at sight for the entire invoice with bill of lading attached. If, upon investigation, I find that this mine isn't all my partner thinks it is, I'll cable a cancellation, and you can tear that nice fat order up and forget it. I don't intend to have you and that gang of penny-pinching card-room engineers up at the Engineers' Club remind me of the old adage that a fool and his money are soon parted.”
From Daingerfield's office Webster went forth to purchase a steamer-trunk, his railway ticket and sleeping-car reservation—after which he returned to his hotel and set about packing for the journey.
He sighed regretfully as he folded his brand-new raiment, packed it in moth balls in his wardrobe-trunk, and ordered the trunk sent to a storage warehouse.
“Well, I was a giddy old bird of paradise for one night, at least,” he comforted himself, as he dressed instead in a suit of light-weight olive drab goods in which he hoped to enjoy some measure of cool comfort until he should reach Buenaventura and thus become acquainted with the foibles of fashion in that tropical centre.
The remainder of the afternoon he spent among his old friends of the Engineers' Club, who graciously tendered him a dollar table d'hote dinner that evening and saw him off for his train at ten o'clock, with many a gloomy prophecy as to his ultimate destiny—the prevailing impression appearing to be that he would return to them in a neat long box labelled: This Side Up—With Care—Use No Hooks.
Old Neddy Jerome, as sour and cross as a setting hen,' accompanied him in the taxicab to the station, loth to let him escape and pleading to the last, in a forlorn hope that Jack Webster's better nature would triumph over his friendship and boyish yearning for adventure. He clung to Webster's arm as they walked slowly down the track and paused at the steps of the car containing the wanderer's reservation, just as a porter, carrying some hand-baggage, passed them by, followed by a girl in a green tailor-made suit. As she passed, John Stuart Webster looked fairly into her face, started as if bee-stung, and hastily lifted his hat. The girl briefly returned his scrutiny with sudden interest, decided she did not know him, and reproved him with a glance that even passÉ old Neddy Jerome did not fail to assimilate.
0075
“Wow, wow!” he murmured. “The next time you try that, Johnny Webster, be sure you're right——”
“Good land o' Goshen, Neddy,” Webster replied. “Fry me in bread-crumbs, if that isn't the same girl! Come to think of it, the conductor who gave me her name told me her ticket called for a stop-over in Denver! Let me go, Neddy. Quick! Good-bye, old chap. I'm on my way.”
“Nonsense! The train doesn't pull out for seven minutes yet. Who is she, John, and why does she excite you so?” Jerome recognized in his whimsical friend the symptoms of a most unusual malady—with Webster—and so he held the patient fast by the arm.
“Who is she, you ancient horse-thief? Why, if I have my way—and I'm certainly going to try to have it—she's the future Mrs. W.”
“Alas! Poor Yorick, I knowed him well,” Jerome answered. “Take a tip from the old man, John. I've been through the mill and I know. Never marry a girl that can freeze you with a glance. It isn't safe, and remember, you're not as young as you used to be. By the way, what's the fair charmer's name?”
“I've got it down in my memorandum book, but I can't recall it this minute—Spanish name.”
“John, my dear boy, be careful,” Neddy Jerome counseled. “Stick to your own kind of people——”
“I'll not. That girl is as trim and neat and beautiful as a newly minted guinea. What do I want with a Scotch lassie six feet tall and a believer in hell-fire and infant damnation?”
“Is this—a—er—a nice girl, John?”
“How do I know—I mean, how dare you ask? Of course she's nice. Can't you see she is? And besides, why should you be so fearful——”
“I'll have you understand, young man, that I have considerable interest in the girl you're going to marry. Drat it, boy, if you marry the wrong girl she may interfere with my plans. She may be a spoil-sport and not want to live up at the mine—after you return from this wild-goose chase, dragging your fool tail behind you. By the way, where did you first meet this girl? Who introduced you?”
“I haven't met her, and I've never been introduced,” Webster complained, and poured forth the tale of his adventure on the train from Death Valley. Neddy was very sympathetic.
“Well, no wonder she didn't recognize you when you saluted her to-night,” he agreed. “Thought you were another brute of a man trying to make a mash. By thunder, Jack, I'm afraid you made a mistake when you shed your whiskers and buried your old clothes. You don't look nearly so picturesque and romantic now, and maybe she'll refuse to believe you're the same man!”
“I don't care what she thinks. I found her, I lost her, and I've found her again; and I'm not going to take any further chances. I wired a detective agency to pick her up in Salt Lake and trail her to New Orleans and get me all the dope on her, while I was in temporary retirement with my black eye. Brainless fellows, these amateur detectives. I'll never employ one again. I described her accurately—told them she was beautiful and that she was wearing a green tailor-made suit; and will you believe me, Neddy, they reported to me next day that their operative failed to pick her up at the station? He said three beautiful women got off the train there, and that none of them wore a green dress.”
“Well, it's just barely possible she may have another dress,” Jerome retorted slyly. “Women are funny that way. They change their dresses about as often as they change their minds.”
“Why, that's so,” Webster answered innocently. “I never thought of that.”
The porter, having delivered his charge's baggage in her section, was returning for another tip. Webster reached out and accosted him.
“Henry,” he said, “do you want to earn a dollar?”
“Yes, sah. Yes indeed, sah.'
“Where did you stow that young lady's hand-baggage?”
“Lower Six, Car Nine, sah.”
“I have a weakness for coloured boys who are quick at figures,” Webster declared, and dismissed the porter with the gratuity. He turned to Jerome. “Neddy, I feel that I am answering the call to a great adventure,” he declared solemnly.
“I know it, Jack. Good-bye, son, and God bless you. If your fit of insanity passes within ninety days, cable me; and if you're broke, stick the Colorado Con' for the cable tolls.”
“Good old wagon!” Webster replied affectionately. Then he shook hands and climbed aboard the train. The instant he disappeared in the vestibule, however, Neddy Jerome waddled rapidly down the track to Car Nine, climbed aboard, and made his way to Lower Six. The young lady in the green tailor-made suit was there, looking idly out the window.
“Young lady,” Jerome began, “may I presume to address you for a moment on a matter of very great importance to you? Don't be afraid of me, my dear. I'm old enough to be your father, and besides, I'm one of the nicest old men you ever met.”
She could not forbear a smile. “Very well, sir,” she replied.
Neddy Jerome produced a pencil and card. “Please write your name on this card,” he pleaded, “and I'll telegraph what I want to say to you. There'll be a man coming through this car in a minute, and I don't want him to see me here—besides which, the train leaves in half a minute, and I live in Denver and make it a point to be home and in bed not later than ten each night. Please trust me, young lady.” ^
The young lady did not trust him, however, although she wrote on the card. Jerome thanked her and fled as fast as his fat old legs could carry him. Under the station arc he read the card.
“'Henrietta Wilkins,'” he murmured. “By the gods, one would never suspect a name like that belonged to a face like that. I know that name is going to jar Jack and cause him to seethe with ambition to change it. He'll trim the Henrietta down to plain Retta, and change Wilkins to Webster! By jingo, it would be strange if that madman persuaded her to marry him. I hope he does. If I'm any judge of character, Jack Webster won't be cruel enough to chain that vision to Sobrante; and besides, she's liable to make him decide who's most popular with him—Henrietta or Billy Geary. If she does, I'll play Geary to lose. However, if that confirmed old bachelor wants to chase rainbows, I might as well help him out, since whichever way the cat jumps I can't lose. It's to my interest to have him marry that girl, or any girl, for that matter, because she'll have something to say about the advisability of kicking aside what amounts, approximately, to thirty thousand a year, in order to sink the family bankroll in a wildcat mine in the suburbs of hell. Well! Needs must when the devil drives.” And he entered the station telegraph office and commenced to write.
An hour later Miss Dolores Ruey, alias Henrietta Wilkins, was handed this remarkably verbose and truly candid telegram:
Denver, Colo., Aug. 7, 1913. Miss Henrietta Wilkins,
Lower 6, Car 9,
On board train 24.
Do you recall the bewhiskered, ragged individual you met on the S.P., L.A. & S.L. train in Death Valley ten days ago? He thrashed a man who annoyed you, but owing to a black eye and his generally unpresentable appearance, he remained in his stateroom the remainder of the trip and you did not see him again until to-night. He lifted his hat to you to-night, and you almost killed him with a look. It did not occur to him that you would not recognize him disguised as a gentleman, and he lifted his hat on impulse. Do not hold it against him. The sight of you again set his reason tottering on its throne, and he told me his sad story.
This man, John Stuart Webster, is wealthy, single, forty, fine, and crazy as a March hare. He is in love with you.
You might do worse than fall in love with him. He is the best mining engineer in the world, and he is now aboard the same train with you, en route to New Orleans, thence to take the steamer to Buenaventura, Sobrante, C. A., where he is to meet another lunatic and finance a hole in the ground. He has just refused a thirty-thousand-dollar-a-year job from me to answer the call of a mistaken friendship. I do not want him to go to Sobrante. If you marry him, he will not. If you do not marry him, you still might arrange to make him listen to reason. If you can induce him to come to work for me within the next ninety days, whether you marry him or not, I will give you five thousand dollars the day he reports on the job. Please bear in mind that he does not know I am doing this. If he did, he would kill me, but business is business, and this is a plain business proposition. I am putting you wise, so you will know your power and can exercise it if you care to earn the money. If not, please forget about it. At any rate, please do me the favour to communicate with me on the subject, if at all interested.
Edward P. Jerome.
President Colorado Consolidated Mines, Limited.
Care Engineers' Club.
The girl read and reread this telegram several times, and presently a slow little smile commenced to creep around the corners of her adorable mouth, for out of the chaos of emotions induced by Ned Jerome's amazing proposition, the humour of the situation had detached itself to the elimination of everything else.
“I believe that amazing old gentleman is absolutely dependable,” was the decision at which she ultimately arrived, and calling for a telegraph blank, she wired the old schemer:
Five thousand not enough money. Make it ten thousand and I will guarantee to deliver the man within ninety days. I stay on this train to New Orleans.
Henrietta.
That telegram arrived at the Engineers' Club about midnight, and pursuant to instructions, the night barkeeper read it and phoned the contents to Neddy Jerome, who promptly telephoned his reply to the telegraph office, and then sat on the edge of his bed, scratching his toes and meditating.
“That's a remarkable young woman,” he decided, “and business to her finger-tips. Like the majority of her sex, she's out for the dough. Well, I've done my part, and it's now up to Jack Webster to protect himself in the clinches and breakaways.”
About daylight a black hand passed Neddy Jerome's reply through the berth-curtains to Dolores Ruey. She read:
Accept. When you deliver the goods, communicate with me and get your money.
Jerome.
She snuggled back among the pillows and considered the various aspects of this amazing contract which she had undertaken with a perfect stranger. Hour after hour she lay there, thinking over this.
As she passed, John Stuart Webster looked fairly into her face, v started as if bee-stung, and hastily lifted his hat preposterous situation, and the more she weighed it, the more interesting and attractive the proposition appeared. But one consideration troubled her. How would the unknown knight manage an introduction? Or, if he failed to manage it, how was she to overcome that obstacle?
“Oh, dear,” she murmured, “I do hope he's brave.”
She need not have worried. Hours before, the object of her thought had settled all that to his own complete satisfaction, and as a consequence was sleeping peacefully and gaining strength for whatever of fortune, good or ill, the morrow might bring forth.
