Mountain Part 18

"How has the _Voice of Labor_ made out?"

"It's made out--that's about all, Mr. Judson. Print paper's gone so high, that only the adver_tise_ments has made it go. We expect this special will net a neat sum."

He jingled the Woodmen's emblem at the end of a thick gold chain, thoroughly satisfied with the world. There was an Odd Fellows' b.u.t.ton on his coat--fraternal orders strengthened his appeals for the paper.

"Pooley, how do you stand on this mining law down at Jackson?"

The lanky president of the State Federation twisted his lame leg more comfortably under him, and leaned forward, gesticulating diplomatically.

"It's both good and bad, Mr. Judson. Some of the boys is very strong for it. But I seen an editorial against it in the _Times-Dispatch_ last week. I figured you might not be for it."

Paul cut through the verbal knot. "How will the Federation go?"

The other shook his head. "No telling. There's a few of them Socialists is delegates--they're for anything to stir up trouble; but n.o.body pays much attention to them. Then there is others. It'll be pretty even."

"How would you feel if I took the front and back pages, Bivens?"

"That would be fine for both of us, sir."

"Coming out editorially against that law?"

He wheezed deferentially. "It has some bad flaws, sir. I figured on a write-up against it."

"Make it strong, and I'll take the two pages."

Bivens consulted with the other representative of labor. His eager eyes shone greedily. "How would you like us to put you down, Mr. Judson, for the main speech of the convention? 'Proper Legal Safeguards in Mining,'

or something like that?... You know, the front and back pages is more expensive. Say five hundred for the two."

Paul watched their well-fed, ever-hungry faces with mental nausea. "All right."

"You'll make the speech?"

He nodded. "Don't forget the editorial."

As they rose, he lifted his check book with studied obviousness. "If those Socialists make trouble, find out what they want. If another advertis.e.m.e.nt will handle them----" He did not end the sentence.

He stared after their retreating figures. The spokesmen of labor! A herd of dumb, worthless brutes, led by pig-eyed greed! Promising material to have any say as to the destinies of a country!... Well, Pelham would learn.

Paul had a busy month of it. The mining was beginning to pay at last.

Two hundred more convicts, more than a hundred negro workers, had been added to the force in the third ramp; its output had begun to exceed the other two.

After he had purchased the ore lands lying on both sides of the former holding, he called Sam Ross, Dudley Randolph, and the Birrell-Florence representatives into conference. Randolph was the only one who held out, when a pool was proposed to cover prices and wages.

"I don't have trouble with my men, Judson; I don't want any. I'm with you in theory, but I can't see any advantage to me in that proposition."

Paul then opened his alternate plan. The working out of the details took two weeks, but the result was the incorporation of the Birrell-Florence-Mountain Mining Company. Paul Judson's salary as managing vice-president was fifty thousand, in addition to what the dividends would bring.

He figured up the value of his stock. Unless it depreciated, he could get out--now--with five million dollars! And this was only the mining rights. He could afford to let Pelham play with a few fool notions, when things broke this way!

On his next conference with the son over progress at the works, well-planned hints gave Pelham the opening to learn of the invitation from John Pooley, and the father's acceptance. "Of course, my opinions don't go as far as yours----"

"I didn't expect that. But this _is_ great news! You'll come out for the new bill, after all?"

"With necessary practical modifications. I'm studying it out now."

Pelham repeated enthusiastically, "It's splendid news!"

At his first opportunity he phoned down to Jane an insistent plea for that afternoon. "You'll have to see me, lady dear; I've something important to tell you."

Was there ever a girl to whom these words, from even a pa.s.sable lover, or, for that matter, a possible one, did not bring the fluttering fantasy of what woman has been so long taught to consider the one important something that she is to hear? This thought came first to Jane; then, smiling at her overstayed fraction of thinking, she promised the afternoon.

She was on the porch when his wheels slid to a standstill at the curb; he was beside her before she was well out of her chair. "The most amazing thing, Jane!" as urgent fingers levitated her into the seat beside him. "Dad's coming our way!"

Something of his flaring enthusiasm heightened her reply. "You can't be serious! I'd as soon expect Auntie to be a convert!" Her mothering eyes searched his face anxiously. "You aren't teasing me?"

"Indeed not! He's to speak at the state labor convention himself, in favor of proper mining regulations. It's great, Jane! I wouldn't have believed it of him!"

Her mobile lips curved doubtfully. "For your sake, I hope you're right, Pelham. But--how can he? Why, boy, he's on the other side--he must be!

How could he line up with our ideas, when it would take money out of his own pocket? Miracles don't happen, I'm afraid. I wish----" She sighed.

There was something to admire, almost love, in his hearty zeal over the amazing convert; he was so boyish, so peltingly trustful!

"_I_'m for it, remember. And I'm his son." Her unsympathetic unbelief widened his gaze.

Her fingers brushed his arm in a fleet unspoken caress. "You're a good boy, Pelham. I haven't gotten over my wonder at you. But--you're pulling against him, in all of this, remember."

"He's decent." Real pain spoke here; his own doubts of the father gave an obstinate tinge to his reception of her objections.

A cynical sureness hardened the eyes for a moment. "n.o.body's decent, when his pocket-book's affected." A merry laugh parted her lips. "How unfeeling you must find me! Let's pray I'm entirely wrong. Why not get a look at his speech, before he delivers it?" Incredulous, hope-against-hope eagerness flickered in her face.

This Pelham at once agreed to do. There was some ground for Jane's hesitancy, he reflected; most men, given Paul's position, would have been permanently intractable. But his father, after all, was different.

He could hardly let her go back for supper, although she had promised. A dizzying intemperance drove on his tongue. "I wish I could keep you, now that I have you here," and his eyes dwelt upon her alluring shapeliness; her gaze was intently busied with the panorama of uninspired villas. "You don't know what knowing you has meant to me, Jane. I was in the dumps over the whole business...."

"It's mutual, Pelham. The iron city has chiefly solid iron headpieces, I think. You were a rare find."

He chuckled. "You make the thing too intellectual, at that. I a.s.sure you that I wouldn't offer to elope with a suffrage tract, or a skirted treatise on socialism. My offer holds good, if you're willing."

Playfully he increased the speed.

"Lauderdale isn't Barkis," she temporized. "Have you known me four weeks, or five?"

"So romance perishes, as the lady grows arithmetical! Love can't be weighed on the iceman's scales."

"Nor can mental dynamite blast it out, Mr. Miner. Modern marriage isn't a thing to venture lightly. Love's blindness was once thought a blessing----"

"It's often a mercy," he slipped in.

"To-day's surgery is curing the blindness. It's all right to mate as birds do, if people could part as easily. But when a heart must be pledged, not only to honeymoon days, but to the petty irks, and the tedious astronomical study of the skyhigh cost of living----It needs reflection."

"You might give me a croton of comfort. The especial heart I sit beside isn't pledged elsewhere, I hope?"