Loaded Dice Part 11

Overshadowed by the importance of the Palmer case, the violent death of a woman of the underworld on an obscure street near Bradfield's attracted little attention, and by the papers the affair was disposed of in a few brief lines of the smallest type. Suicide seemed to be favored as the cause of death, and despondency and weariness with life the reason therefor.

That Gordon should be questioned both by Mrs. Holton and Rose was inevitable. Not that Mrs. Holton, with hazy memories of talking too freely while the wine had worked its spell upon her, altogether regretted that Providence had seen fit to intervene, or that Rose, after her work was done, was deeply concerned with Palmer's subsequent fate, but to both, knowing the situation as they did, the sequence of events seemed, though lacking the faintest shadow of proof, beyond all question to implicate Gordon. To both he made the same answer. He admitted that Palmer's disappearance, coming just at the time it did, was a remarkable stroke of good fortune for all of them, but as to any knowledge of it, outside of the theories advanced by the papers, he blandly professed entire ignorance. That Annie Holton should have come to her death on the night of the same day on which Palmer had disappeared, he further acknowledged to be a most remarkable coincidence, but so far as he could see, nothing more than that. And with this they were fain to be content.

To Rose, indeed, the succeeding weeks brought a vague sense of injustice and disappointment. Constantly Gordon had referred to the getting of the money from Palmer as the turning point in their fortunes; the first real step towards the culmination of their plans; as marking the time when he should have leisure to be constantly at her side; and now, so far from this being so, she found as the days went by that she saw less of him even than before. Moreover, on the rare occasions when he did dine with her at Bradfield's or call at her rooms, he was preoccupied, inattentive, distraught, his mind only too plainly upon other things.

And in truth, Gordon for a time had found himself more perplexed than he would perhaps have cared to own. Even with sufficient capital, and a practically certain knowledge of the future course of the metal market, the problem still remained to him how best to make use of his point of vantage. The first move in the game successfully accomplished, the second was yet to be made.

At length, after long deliberation, he went to young Bob Randall, floor broker for Parkman and Brooks. Randall's father, old Sam Randall, the big cotton man, had just emerged victor from a desperate fight with the Parker-Moorfield interests, the loudest bellowing and highest tossing of all the great cotton bulls, in which battle, besides the prestige gained, he was incidentally reported to have cleaned up something over two millions on the sharp break in July cotton. Young Bob, besides having money back of him, was one of those gifted mortals who seem always able to carry others with them in whatever they choose to undertake. With a national reputation as an athlete while still at school, in college he had played end on the football team, and then made the crew, both with the same ease with which he had been chosen president of his cla.s.s, and called out as first man on the Alpha Chi. In addition, in his few leisure moments he had worked enough, as he had himself expressed it, to "somehow get by," so that at last, infinitely to his friends' surprise, and somewhat to his own, he found himself, at the end of his four years, ent.i.tled to his sheepskin, and perchance with somewhat mingled feelings of regret for lost opportunities of learning, and of satisfaction at more substantial and worldly-wise success, heard himself, together with three hundred of his mates, welcomed by the venerable president in his cla.s.s-day address to "the fellowship of educated men."

To young Randall, then, over the coffee and cigars in a private dining-room at the Federal, Gordon broached the subject.

"Bob," he said abruptly, "do you want to make a barrel of money?"

Randall nodded. "Sure thing," he answered briefly. "How?"

Gordon did not at once reply, and when he did, it was to answer the query with another.

"What do you know about coppers?" he asked.

"Soft," answered the younger man readily, "and going lower, too.

There's a big surplus supply of the metal stored somewhere, or at least so everybody says."

Gordon leaned back in his chair, gazing at his companion from beneath half-closed eyelids.

"Just one more question, Bob," he said; "don't think it's an impertinence. About how much are you getting now?"

"Three thou," answered Randall promptly. "And now give me a turn. What in the devil are you driving at, anyway?"

Gordon hesitated the veriest instant, as if choosing which course to pursue. Then he answered, speaking with the utmost earnestness.

"Here's the story, Bob. I've got a great chance; the kind that only comes once in a man's lifetime, and of course I'd be a fool if I didn't want to make the most of it. It's perfectly true that coppers are soft; it's perfectly true that they're going lower, but that there's any acc.u.mulation of the metal I know to be absolutely false.

And more than that: I can almost name the precise day when there's going to be launched the biggest copper boom this country's ever seen.

A boom that's going to last, barring the absolutely unforeseen, for several years, and that's going to provide the speculative opportunity of the century. Now my proposition is just this: Leave Parkman and Brooks at once; get your father to advance you a hundred thousand dollars, and then start in partnership with me. I'll put in a like amount, and this information, which I'll absolutely guarantee, against your ability to bring your father and some of his crowd in as customers, to say nothing of your own following among the younger set.

Nothing succeeds like success. We'll do well by our customers, and incidentally we'll make our own reputations and our fortunes beside.

Bob, it's an absolute cinch, and I don't mind letting you know that I started with a list of twenty men as possibilities, and eliminated one after the other until you were left as the man I wanted for a partner.

Now, what do you say?"

Randall had allowed his cigar to go out, as he sat listening to Gordon's words.

"It sounds good," he said at length, "but, Gordon, tell me one thing.

I know your reputation on the Exchange, of course, and I know you're a bully good judge of the market, but the information you're giving me is away out of the ordinary. I think you ought to be willing to tell me where and how you got it."

Gordon smiled. "I can tell you where," he answered readily, "but not how. Is this good enough for you?" and, leaning forward, he whispered a name known the world over.

Randall started slightly, and then gave a low whistle of astonishment.

"The devil you say!" he exclaimed. "Well, you have struck it rich. I didn't know you stood in with him."

Gordon smiled again. "It isn't a thing that's generally known," he said softly, "and of course you realize I'm trusting a great deal to your discretion in talking so freely, but I feel so sure you're not going to let the chance slip, Bob, that I thought it was the best way to let you know the whole situation and keep nothing back at all. Do you feel reasonably satisfied now?"

Randall nodded. "I'll have to see the governor, first, of course," he answered; "but I guess it will be all right. That's just the kind of thing he rather likes, you know. I'll dine with you again day after to-morrow, if you say so."

Thus it was that they met again two days later, to sit discussing.

plans and details far into the morning, and thus it was that a month after, in their big new offices in the Equitable Building, with a generous bank account, with the hearty backing of old Sam Randall, and with every prospect of success, the stock brokerage firm of Gordon and Randall was formally launched.

CHAPTER II

THE ETHEL CLAIM

The sun, sinking low, for an instant shone through the gap in the distant hills in one splendid blaze of light, enfolding in its radiance, as if in friendly farewell, the little cabin which lay so snugly nestled away on the towering slope of Burnt Mountain.

Abe Peters, gaunt, unkempt, kindly of face and gentle of manner, turned for a moment from his methodical washing of the supper dishes to glance down and away far over the distant valley.

"An' there's another day gone," he said slowly, "an' there's old Ph[oe]be once again tellin' us good night. All sorts of ways she comes up over the mountain in the morning, and all sorts of ways she goes down behind the hills at night, but that's the way I like to see her set the best; sort of nice and peaceful like and calm."

He turned to the other occupant of the cabin. "But there," he added, after a moment, "I expect it seems kind of all-fired lonesome to a city man, don't it now? I expect you find us folks out here live pretty common."

Frost, short, stout, pleasant of face and manner, turned from the window. "No, sir," he said heartily, "not a bit of it. I'm a city man part of the time, but the other part I have to spend just knocking around the world, here, there and everywhere. And after all, Abe, four walls and a roof, a fire and a bit to eat and drink; that's all a man's got a right to expect, and that's all he needs, too."

Peters nodded in pleasant a.s.sent. "Yes, sir, that's right," he answered, "but it ain't every one that thinks the way you do. Most of 'em are crazy for somethin' they can't get; money mad, or liquor mad, or minin' mad, or somethin' of the kind. Speakin' in general, it ain't what you'd call a contented world, no ways at all."

Frost laughed. "Abe," he said good-humoredly, "you're a real philosopher. You've got about the same ideas concerning things that I have, and that's why I respect you and esteem you as a man of intelligence and good sense."

Up the path, standing out in shadowy relief against the fading afterglow in the west, a figure strode past the cabin window. Frost turned idly to his host. "There goes a late worker, Abe," he said. "I wonder if that might be Harrison you were telling me about."

Peters stepped to the window, shading his eyes with his hand as he gazed out into the fast gathering twilight. "No, that ain't Harrison,"

he replied. "Jack would be steppin' out sprier'n that. That must be the old man, I reckon. Yes, that's him, for sure."

Frost turned from the window, and, seating himself by the log fire, began leisurely to fill his pipe. "So we see the gentlemen to-night, do we?" he asked.

Peters nodded. "That's what we do," he answered, "and, Mr. Frost, I'm givin' this to you straight. I'm a friend of Jim's and I'm a friend of yours, and I want to see you both come out of this thing right. And the way to do it's for you to buy a half interest in the Ethel. That's best for him and it's best for you, too."

Frost smiled. "So you think half a loaf's better than no bread, do you?" he said. "Well, that's right enough sometimes, but where a man wants to buy the whole blamed bake-shop, why, then it doesn't quite seem to fit. Yes, I've got to do my best, anyway. And I wonder, Abe, which is the real man I ought to get next to here, Mason or Harrison."

Peters put the last dish away on the shelf, and in turn drew up his chair and, fumbling in his pocket, drew forth and lighted a grimy pipe. He shook his head doubtfully.

"That's more'n I can tell," he answered, "but we've got half an hour yet before we start, an' I can give you the story, anyway; then you can figure things out for yourself, an' you won't be blamin' me. How's that suit?"

Frost blew a beautifully rounded ring of smoke, and leisurely watched it float upward. "Fine," he a.s.sented. "Just what I was going to ask.

I'm all attention, Abe. Let her go."

For some minutes Peters puffed in silence; then took his pipe from his mouth and began.

"In the first place," he said slowly, "Jim Mason's an all fired smart man. He wa'nt born and brought up here, like I was. He used to live down Octagon way. Soon as he left school, he went to copper minin'.

I've heard him tell about it fifty times. 'I began,' he says, 'at the bottom o' the mine an' the bottom o' my trade, an' I worked pretty well up to the top in both of 'em.' An' it's the truth, too. He was one o' the best surface men at the lake, an' earnin' good money; layin' it away, too, an' that's more than a lot of 'em can say. Then he gets married an' settles down, an' then d.a.m.ned if a while after that an epidemic o' typhoid don't hit the Octagon camp, an' Jim's wife takes it an' dies in a week. Well, that breaks him up complete. After a while he finds he can't stand it round home noways, so he takes his little girl an' moves up here to Seneca. Always he's claimin' the Onondaga lode hits here somewheres after it dips. So he fools around for a while, an' then, after a year or so, he stakes out his claim, names it the Ethel after his little girl, hires a gang o' men, an'