Anderson Crow, Detective Part 14

"Exactly," said Mr. Crow.

Mr. Bacon shot a significant look at Mr. Bonaparte, and that worthy put his hand suddenly to his mouth.

"Well, that's what we're here for, Mr. Crow--to get that gold out of the earth. If our estimates are correct--or, I should say, if our investigations establish the fact that it is a real vein and not merely a little pocket, there ought to be a million dollars in that piece of land of yours. Now, let me see. Just how much land do you own up there, Mr. Crow?"

"I own derned near all of it," said the marshal promptly. "'Bout seventy-five acres, I should say."

"Nothing but timberland, I a.s.sume--judging from what we have been able to observe."

"All timber. Never been cleared, 'cept purty well down the slope."

"And it is about five miles as the crow flies from Tinkletown, eh?"

"I ginerally say as the wild goose flies," said Mr. Crow, somewhat curtly.

"Well, you have heard the proposition I bring from my employers in New York City. Think it over tonight, Mr. Crow. Then, we will meet tomorrow morning at your office to complete our plans. I shall be prepared to hand you a draft for two hundred dollars to bind the bargain. What time do you reach your office?"

"Ginerally some'eres between six and a quarter-past."

"My G.o.d!" muttered Mr. Bonaparte.

"We will be there at six-fifteen," said Mr. Bacon firmly. "Good evening, Mr. Crow."

Far in the night, Mrs. Crow peevishly mumbled to her bedfellow: "What ails you, Anderson Crow? Go to sleep!"

"Never mind, never mind. I can't tell you, so don't pester me. All I ast of you is to wake me at five if I happen to oversleep."

"Well, of all the--do you suppose I'm goin' to lay awake here all night waitin' for five o'clock to----"

"How in thunder do you expect me to go to sleep, Eva, if you keep jabberin' away to me all night long like this? Ding it all to gosh, here it is after one o'clock an' you still talkin'. Don't do it, I say.

Don't ast another question till five o'clock, an' then all you got to do it to ast me if I'm awake."

"Umph!" said Mrs. Crow.

Messrs. Bacon and Bonaparte were an hour and forty minutes late.

It was nearly eight o'clock when the two gentlemen came hurrying around the corner into Sickle street, piloted by Alf Reesling, the town drunkard.

A long, important-looking cigar propitiated Mr. Crow, and after Mr.

Reesling and other citizens had been given to understand that the strangers were figuring on buying all the timber on Crow's Mountain, the three princ.i.p.als set forth in Anderson's buckboard.

In due time they arrived at the top of the "Mountain." Now Crow's Mountain was no mountain at all. It was a thickly wooded hill that had achieved eminence by happening to be a scant fifty feet higher than the knolls surrounding it. From the low-lying pastures and grain-fields to the top of the outstanding pine that reared its blasted storm-stripped tip far above its fellows, the elevation was not more than three hundred feet. Nevertheless, it was the loftiest hill in all that region and capped Anderson Crow's agricultural possessions.

Just before the Boggs City National Bank at the county seat closed that afternoon Mr. Crow appeared at the receiving-teller's window. He deposited two hundred dollars in currency. Mr. Bacon had decided that a draft on New York might excite undue curiosity.

"If people were to get wise to what we are really after up here on this mountain, Mr. Crow," said he, "it would play hob with everything. If it gets out that we are after gold--why, the price of land would be so high we couldn't--"

"Lot of these hayseeds been wantin' to sell fer years, the derned rubes," broke in Anderson, pityingly.

"Well, you get me, don't you? Keep our eyes open and our mouths closed, and we will be millionaires inside of a year--or two, at the outside."

"Mum's the word, as the feller said," agreed Mr. Crow.

"And of course you see the advisability of having our articles of incorporation filed secretly in New Jersey. This contract we have signed will be ratified by our employers in New York, and the regular articles drawn up at once. Wait till you see the names of the men who are behind this enterprise. The first meeting of the board of directors will bring together a dozen of the greatest--"

"Where will the meetin' be held?" broke in Anderson, somewhat anxiously.

"New York City, of course. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to see you elected President of the Corporation, Mr. Crow."

"Oh, gosh-a-mighty! I--I can't accept the honour, Mr. Bacon. It's too much of a responsibility. Besides, I don't see how I'm goin' to be able to get away from Tinkletown this fall to attend the meetin'. The County Fair opens next week at Boggs City, an' the second week in October there's to be a Baptist revival--"

"You can send in your proxy, Mr. Crow," explained Mr. Bacon. "It will be all the same to us, you know."

"Well, I guess I better," said Anderson thoughtfully.

A fortnight went by. Crow's Mountain had become the scene of sharp but stealthy activity. Anderson went about the streets of Tinkletown as if in a daze. Acting upon the stern, almost offensive, advice of his new partners, he did not go near the "Mountain" after the first couple of days. They made it very plain to him that _everything_ depended on his shrewdness in staying away from the "Mountain" altogether.

The Tinkletown _Banner_, in reporting the vast transaction, incorporated an interview with Mr. G. W. Bacon, who announced that the syndicate he represented had in mind a project to erect a huge summer hotel on top of the "most beautiful mountain east of the Rockies," in the event that satisfactory terms could be arranged with Mr. Crow. As a matter of fact, explained Mr. Bacon, he had been instructed to make certain preliminary investigations in regard to construction, and so forth--such as ascertaining how far down they would have to go to bed-rock, and all that sort of thing.

Practically all of the syndicate's preparatory work on Crow's Mountain was done under cover of night. Motor-trucks that were said to have been driven all the way from Pittsburgh--on account of the dreadful congestion on the railroads--delivered machinery, tools, drills, rods, bolts, rivets and thin jangling strips of structural steel.

Marshal Crow, a.s.suming an importance he did not feel, strutted about Tinkletown.

His abstraction had a good deal to do with the accident to old Mrs.

Twiggers. He was dreamily cogitating at the time she was run down by Schultz's butcher-wagon, and as the catastrophe took place almost under his nose, more than one citizen called him names he wouldn't forget. The old lady had her spectacles smashed and lost a dozen eggs in the confusion. Moreover, Ed Higgins's hen-roost was robbed; and three tramps spent as much as half a day on Main Street before Anderson took any notice of them. Ordinarily, he was death on tramps. Crime, as Mr. Harry Squires put it in a caustic editorial in the _Banner_, was rampant in Tinkletown. It was getting so rampant, he complained, that it wasn't safe to cross the street--especially while eggs were retailing at forty-two cents a dozen.

It remained for Alf Reesling, the town drunkard, to bring order out of chaos. Not that he seized the opportunity to go on a spree while Anderson was moon-gazing,--not at all. Alf loathed intoxicating liquors.

He did not drink himself, and he had a horror of any one who did. He had been drunk just three times in his life, but as he had managed to crowd the three exhibitions into the s.p.a.ce of one week--some twenty years before--Tinkletown elected him forthwith for life to the office of town sot.

Now, Alf had a grievance. He finally got the ear of Marshal Crow and let loose in a way that startled the old man out of his daze.

"Here you been watchin' me, an' trailin' me, an' lecturin' me for twenty years, dern ye,--an' pleadin' with me to keep sober fer the sake of Tinkletown's fair name, an' you let this feller Bonyparte git full an'

keep people awake half the night. He's been drunk more times in the last three weeks than I ever was in all my life. He--"

"What's that? Did you say drunk?" demanded Anderson, blinking. "Who told you he was drunk?"

"_He_ did," said Alf. "He don't make any bones about it. He tells everybody when he is drunk. He's proud of it."

"An' I suppose everybody believes him," said Anderson scathingly. "The people of this here town will believe _any_ thing if--"

"Las' night that pardner of his'n an' two other fellers from up the hill had to take him up to his room an' lock him in. He was tryin' to sing the Star Spangled Banner in _Dutch_. Gosh, it was awful! He orter be arrested, same as anybody else, Anderson Crow. You got me under suspicion every minute o' the time--night _and_ day--"

"That'll do, that'll do, now Alf. No more back talk out o' you,"

exclaimed Anderson menacingly. "You might as well _be_ drunk as to _act_ drunk. Don't you know any better'n--"