Hartwell had a rule of conduct. It was a Procrustean bed which rarely fitted its subject. Unlike the originator of the famous couch, Hartwell never troubled himself to stretch the one nor to trim the other. If his subjects did not fit, they were cast aside. This was decision. The greater the number of the too longs or the too shorts the greater his complacence in the contemplation of his labours. There was one other weakness that was strongly rooted within him. If perchance one worthless stick fitted his arbitrary conditions it was from then on advanced to the rank of deity. Hartwell was strongly prejudiced against Firmstone, but was wholly without malice. He suspected that Firmstone was at least self-interested, if not self-seeking; therefore he assumed him to be unscrupulous. Firmstone's words and actions were either counted not at all, or balanced against him. In approaching others, if words were spoken in his favour, they were discounted or discarded altogether. Only the facts that made against him were treasured, all but enshrined. Even in his cynical beliefs Hartwell was not consistent. He failed utterly to take into account that it might suit the purpose of his advisers to break down the subject of his inquiry. For these reasons the interview with Pierre, even with its mortifying termination, left a firm conviction in his mind that Firmstone was dishonest, practically a would-be thief, and this on the sole word of a professional gambler, a rumshop proprietor, a man with no heritage, no traditions, and no associations to hold him from the extremities of crime. Not one of the men whom Hartwell had interviewed, not even Pierre himself, would for an instant have considered as probable what Hartwell was holding as an obvious truth. This, however, did not prevent Hartwell's actions from hastening to the point of precipitation the very crisis he was blindly trying to avert. He had not discredited Firmstone among the men, he had only nullified his power to manage them. Hartwell had succeeded in completing the operation of informing himself generally. Having reached this point, he felt that the only thing remaining to be done was to align his information, crush Firmstone beneath the weight of his accumulated evidence, and from his dismembered fragments build up a superintendent who would henceforth walk and act in the fear of demonstrated omniscient justice. He even grew warmly benevolent in the contemplation of the gratefully reconstructed man who was to be fashioned after his own image. Firmstone coincided with one of Hartwell's conclusions, but from a wholly different standpoint. Affairs had reached a state that no longer was endurable. Among the men there was no doubt whatever but that it was a question of time only when Firmstone, to put it in the graphic phrase of the mine, "would be shot in the ear with a time check." Firmstone had no benevolent designs as to the reconstruction of Hartwell, but he had decided ones as to the reconstruction of the company's affairs. The meeting thus mutually decided upon as necessary was soon brought about. Firmstone came into the office from a visit to the mine. It had been neither a pleasant nor a profitable one. The contemptuous disregard of his orders, the coarse insolence of the men, and especially of the foremen and shift bosses, organised into the union by Morrison, had stung Firmstone to the quick. To combat the disorders under present conditions would only expose him to insult, without any compensation whatever. Paying no attention to words or actions, he beat a dignified, unprotesting retreat. He would, if possible, bring Hartwell to his senses; if not, he would insist upon presenting his case to the company. If they failed to support him he would break his contract. He disliked the latter alternative, for it meant the discrediting of himself or the manager. He felt that it would be a fight to the death. He found Hartwell in the office. "Well," Hartwell looked up abruptly; "how are things going?" "Hot foot to the devil." "Your recognition of the fact does you credit, even if the perception is a little tardy. I think you will further recognise the fact that I take a hand none too soon." The mask on Hartwell's face grew denser. "I recognise the fact very clearly that, until you came, the fork of the trail was before me. Now it is behind and—we are on the wrong split." "Precisely. I have come to that conclusion myself. In order to act wisely, I assume that it will be best to get a clear idea of conditions, and then we can select a remedy for those that are making against us. Do you agree?" "I withhold assent until I know just what I am expected to assent to." Hartwell looked annoyed. "Shall I go on?" he asked, impatiently. "Perhaps your caution will allow that." Firmstone nodded. He did not care to trust himself to words. "Before we made our contract with you to assume charge of our properties out here I told you very plainly the difficulties under which we had hitherto laboured, and that I trusted that you would find means to remedy them. After six months' trial, in which we have allowed you a perfectly free hand, can you conscientiously say that you have bettered our prospects?" Hartwell paused; but Firmstone kept silence. "Have you nothing to say to this?" Hartwell finally burst out. "At present, no." Firmstone spoke with decision. "When will you have?" Hartwell asked. "When you are through with your side." Hartwell felt annoyed at what he considered Firmstone's obstinacy. "Well," he said; "then I shall have to go my own gait. You can't complain if it doesn't suit you. In your reports to the company you have complained of the complete disorganisation which you found here. That this disorganisation resulted in inefficiency of labour, that the mine was run down, the mill a wreck, and, worst of all, that there was stealing going on which prevented the richest ore reaching the mill, and that even the products of the mill were stolen. You laid the stealing to the door of the Blue Goose. You stated for fact things which you acknowledged you could not prove. That the proprietor of the Blue Goose was striving to stir up revolt among the men, to organise them into a union in order that through this organised union the Blue Goose might practically control the mine and rob the company right and left. You pointed out that in your opinion many of the men, even in the organisation, were honest; that it was only a scheme on the part of Morrison and Pierre to dupe the men, to blind their eyes so that, believing themselves imposed on and robbed by the company, they would innocently furnish the opportunity for the Blue Goose to carry on its system of plundering." Firmstone's steady gaze never flinched, as Hartwell swept on with his arraignment. "In all your reports, you have without exception laid the blame upon your predecessors, upon others outside the company. Never in a single instance have you expressed a doubt as to your own conduct of affairs. The assumed robbery of the stage I will pass by. Other points I shall dwell upon. You trust no one. You have demonstrated that to the men. You give orders at the mine, and instead of trusting your foremen to see that they are carried out you almost daily insist upon inspecting their work and interfering with it. The same thing I find to be true at the mill. Day and night you pounce in upon them. Now let me ask you this. If you understand men, if you know your business thoroughly, ought you not to judge whether the men are rendering an equivalent for their pay, without subjecting them to the humiliation of constant espionage?" He looked fixedly at Firmstone, as he ended his arraignment. Firmstone waited, if perchance Hartwell had not finished. "Is your case all in?" he finally asked. "For the present, yes." Hartwell snapped his jaws together decidedly. "Then I'll start." "Wait a moment, right there," Hartwell interrupted. "No. I will not wait. I am going right on. You've been informing yourself generally. Now I'm going to inform you particularly. In the first place, how did you find out that I had been subjecting the men to this humiliating espionage, as you call it?" Firmstone waited for a reply. "I don't know that I am under obligations to answer that question," Hartwell replied, stiffly. "Then I'll answer it for you. You've been to my foremen, my shift bosses, my workmen; you've been, above all other places, to the Blue Goose. You've been to anyone and everyone whose interest it is to weaken my authority and to render me powerless to combat the very evils of which you complain." Hartwell started to interrupt; but Firmstone waved him to silence. "This is a vital point. One thing more: instead of acquiring information as to the conditions that confront me and about my method of handling them, you go to my enemies, get their opinions and, what is worse, act upon them as your own." "Wait a minute right there." Hartwell spoke imperiously. "You speak of 'my foremen' and 'my shift bosses.' They are not your men; they are ours. We pay them, and we are going to see to it that we get an equivalent return, in any way we think advisable." Hartwell ignored Firmstone's last words. "That may be your position. If it is it is not a wise one, and, what is more, it is not tenable. You put me out here to manage your business, and you hold me responsible for results. I ask from you the same consideration I give to my foremen. I do not hire a single man at the mine or mill; my foremen attend to that. I give my orders direct to my foremen, and hold them strictly responsible. The men are responsible to my foremen, my foremen are responsible to me, and I in turn am wholly responsible to you. If in one single point you interfere with my organisation I not only decline to assume any responsibility whatever, but, farther, I shall tender my resignation at once." Hartwell listened impatiently, but nevertheless Firmstone's words were not without effect. They appealed to his judgment as being justified; but to accept them and act upon them meant a repudiation of his own course. For this he was not ready. In addition to his vanity, Hartwell had an abiding faith in his own shrewdness. He was casting about in his mind for a plausible delay which would afford him time to retreat from his position without a confession of defeat. He could find none. Firmstone had presented a clean-cut ultimatum. He was in an unpleasant predicament. Some one would have to be sacrificed. He was wholly determined that it should not be himself. Perhaps after all it would be better to arrange as best he might with Firmstone, rather than have it go farther. "It seems to me, Firmstone, as if you were going altogether too fast. There's no use jumping. Why not talk this over sensibly?" "There is only one thing to be considered. If you are going to manage this place I am going to put it beyond your power even to make me appear responsible." "You forget your contract with us," Hartwell interposed. "I do not forget it. If you discharge me, or force me to resign, I still demand a hearing." Hartwell was disturbed, and his manner showed it. Firmstone presented two alternatives. Forcing a choice of either of them would bring unpleasant consequences upon himself. Was it necessary to force the choice? "Suppose I do neither?" he asked. "That will not avert the consequences of what you have already done." "Are you determined to resign?" Hartwell asked, uneasily. "That is not what I meant." "What did you mean, then?" "This. Before you came out, I had things well in hand. In another month I would have had control of the men, and the property would have been paying a good dividend. As it is now——" Firmstone waved his hand, as if to dismiss a useless subject. "Well, what now?" Hartwell asked, after a pause. "It has to be done all over again, only under greater difficulties, the outcome of which I cannot foresee." "To what difficulties do you refer?" Firmstone's manner disturbed Hartwell. "The men were getting settled. Now you have played into the hands of two of the most unscrupulous rascals in Colorado. Between you, you've got the men stirred up to a point where a strike is inevitable." For a time, Hartwell was apparently crushed by Firmstone's unanswerable logic, as well as by his portentous forecasts. He could not but confess to himself that his course of action looked very different under Firmstone's analysis than from his own standpoint alone. He drummed his fingers listlessly on the desk before him. He was all but convinced that he might have been wrong in his judgment of Firmstone, after all. Then Pierre's suggestions came to him like a flash. "You are aware, of course, that I shall have to make a full report of the accident to the stage to our directors?" "I made a report of all the facts in the case, at the time. Of course, if you have discovered other facts, they will have to be given in addition." Hartwell continued, paying no attention to Firmstone. "That in the report which I shall make, I may feel compelled to arrange my data in such a manner that they will point to a conclusion somewhat at variance with yours?" "In which case," interrupted Firmstone; "I shall claim the right to another and counter statement." Hartwell looked even more intently at Firmstone. "In your report you stated positively that there were three thousand, one hundred and twenty-five ounces of bullion in your shipment; that this amount was lost in the wreck of the stage." "Exactly." Hartwell leaned forward, his eyes still fixed on Firmstone's eyes. Then, after a moment's pause, he asked, explosively,— "Was there that amount?" Firmstone's face had a puzzled look. "There certainly was, unless I made a mistake in weighing up." His brows contracted for a moment, then cleared decisively. "That is not possible. The total checked with my weekly statements." Hartwell settled back in his chair. There was a look of satisfied cunning on his face. He had gained his point. He had attacked Firmstone in an unexpected quarter, and he had flinched. He had no further doubts. This, however, was not enough. He would press the brimming cup of evidence to his victim's lips and compel him to drink it to the last drop. "Who saw you put the bullion in the safe?" "No one." "Then, if the safe is never recovered, we have only your word that the bullion was put in there, as you stated?" Firmstone was slowly realising Hartwell's drift. Slowly, because the idea suggested appeared too monstrous to be tenable. The purple veins on his forehead were hard and swollen. "That is all," he said, from between compressed lips. "Under the circumstances, don't you think it is of the utmost importance that the safe be recovered?" "Under any circumstances. I have already taken all the steps possible in that direction." Firmstone breathed easier. He saw, as he thought, the error of his other half-formed suspicion. Hartwell was about to suggest that Zephyr should not be alone in guarding the river. Hartwell again leaned forward. He spoke meditatively, but his eyes were piercing in their intensity. "Yes. If in the event of the unexpected," he emphasised the word with a suggestive pause, "recovery of the safe, it should be found not to contain that amount, in fact, nothing at all, what would you have to say?" Every fibre of Firmstone's body crystallised into hard lines. Slowly he rose to his feet. Pale to the lips, he towered over the general manager. Slowly his words fell from set lips. "What have I to say?" he repeated. "This. That, if I stooped to answer such a question, I should put myself on the level of the brutal idiot who asked it." |