The Cross-Cut Part 26

"I never thought of it that way!" he agreed. "But it could explain a lot of things. They 're working on our--what-you-call-it?"

"Psychological resistance."

"That's it. Psych--that's it. They want to beat us and they don't care 'ow. It 'urts a person to be disappointed. That's it. I alwyes said you 'ad a good 'ead on you! That's it. Let's go back to the Blue Poppy."

Back they went, once more to descend the shaft, once more to follow the trail along the drift toward the opening of the stope. And there, where loose earth covered the place where a skeleton once had rested, Fairchild took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.

"Harry," he said, with a new determination, "this vein does n't look like much, and the mine looks worse. From the viewpoint we 've got now of the Rodaine plans, there may not be a cent in it. But if you're game, I'm game, and we'll work the thing until it breaks us."

"You 've said it. If we 'it anything, fine and well--if we can turn out five thousand dollars' worth of stuff before the trial comes up, then we can sell hit under the direction of the court, turn over that money for a cash bond, and get the deeds back. If we can't, and if the mine peters out, then we ain't lost anything but a lot of 'opes and time. But 'ere goes. We 'll double-jack. I 've got a big 'ammer 'ere. You 'old the drill for awhile and turn it, while I sling th'

sledge. Then you take th' 'ammer and Lor' 'ave mercy on my 'ands if you miss."

Fairchild obeyed. They began the drilling of the first indentation into the six-inch vein which lay before them. Hour after hour they worked, changing positions, sending hole after hole into the narrow discoloration which showed their only prospect of returns for the investments which they had put into the mine. Then, as the afternoon grew late, Harry disappeared far down the drift to return with a handful of greasy, candle-like things, wrapped in waxed paper.

"I knew that dynamite of yours could n't be shipped in time, so I bought a little up 'ere," he explained, as he cut one of the sticks in two with a pocketknife and laid the pieces to one side. Then out came a coil of fuse, to be cut to its regular lengths and inserted in the copper-covered caps of fulminate of mercury, Harry showing his contempt for the dangerous things by crimping them about the fuse with his teeth, while Fairchild, sitting on a small pile of muck near by, begged for caution. But Harry only grinned behind his big mustache and went on.

Out came his pocketknife again as he slit the waxed paper of the gelatinous sticks, then inserted the cap in the dynamite. One after another the charges were shoved into the holes, Harry tamping them into place with a steel rod, instead of with the usual wooden affair, his mustache brushing his shoulder as he turned to explain the virtues of dynamite when handled by an expert.

"It's all in the wye you do it," he announced. "If you don't strike fire with a steel rod, it's fine."

"But if you do?"

"Oh, then!" Harry laughed. "Then it's flowers and a funeral--after they 've finished picking you up."

One after another he pressed the dynamite charges tight into the drill holes and tamped them with muck wrapped in a newspaper that he dragged from his hip pocket. Then he lit the fuses from his lamp and stood a second in a.s.surance that they all were spluttering.

"Now we run!" he announced, and they hurried, side by side, down the drift tunnel until they reached the shaft. "Far enough," said Harry.

A long moment of waiting. Then the earth quivered and a m.u.f.fled, booming roar came from the distance. Harry stared at his carbide lamp.

"One," he announced. Then, "Two."

Three, four and five followed, all counted seriously, carefully by Harry. Finally they turned back along the drift toward the stope, the acrid odor of dynamite smoke-cutting at their nostrils as they approached the spot where the explosions had occurred. There Harry stood in silent contemplation for a long time, holding his carbide over the pile of ore that had been torn from the vein above.

"It ain't much," came at last. "Not more 'n 'arf a ton. We won't get rich at that rate. And besides--" he looked upward--"we ain't even going to be getting that pretty soon. It's pinching out."

Fairchild followed his gaze, to see in the torn rock above him only a narrow streak now, fully an inch and a half narrower than the vein had been before the powder holes had been drilled. It could mean only one thing: that the bet had been played and lost, that the vein had been one of those freak affairs that start out with much promise, seem to give hope of eternal riches, and then gradually dwindle to nothing.

Harry shook his head.

"It won't last."

"Not more than two or three more shots," Fairchild agreed.

"You can't tell about that. It may run that way all through the mountain--but what's a four-inch vein? You can go up 'ere in the Argonaut tunnel and find 'arf a dozen of them things that they don't even take the trouble to mine. That is, unless they run 'igh in silver--" he picked up a chunk of the ore from the muck pile where it had been deposited and studied it intently--"but I don't see any pure silver sticking out in this stuff."

"But it must be here somewhere. I don't know anything about mining--but don't veins sometimes pinch off and then show up later on?"

"Sure they do--sometimes. But it's a gamble."

"That's all we 've had from the beginning, Harry."

"And it's about all we 're going to 'ave any time unless something bobs up sudden like."

Then, by common consent, they laid away their working clothes and left the mine, to wander dejectedly down the gulch and to the boarding house. After dinner they chatted a moment with Mother Howard, neglecting to tell her, however, of the downfall of their hopes, then went upstairs, each to his room. An hour later Harry knocked at Fairchild's door, and entered, the evening paper in his hand.

"'Ere 's something more that's nice," he announced, pointing to an item on the front page. It was the announcement that a general grand jury was to be convened late in the summer and that one of its tasks probably would be to seek to unravel the mystery of the murder of Sissie La.r.s.en!

Fairchild read it with morbidity. Trouble seemed to have become more than occasional, and further than that, it appeared to descend upon him at just the times when he could least resist it. He made no comment; there was little that he could say. Again he read the item and again, finally to turn the page and breathe sharply. Before him was a six-column advertis.e.m.e.nt, announcing the strike in the Silver Queen mine and also spreading the word that a two-million-dollar company would be formed, one million in stock to represent the mine itself, the other to be subscribed to exploit this new find as it should be exploited. Glowing words told of the possibilities of the Silver Queen, the a.s.sayer's report was reproduced on a special cut which evidently had been made in Denver and sent to Ohadi by rush delivery.

Offices had been opened; everything had been planned in advance and the advertis.e.m.e.nt written before the town was aware of the big discovery up Kentucky Gulch. All of it Fairchild read with a feeling he could not down,--a feeling that Fate, somehow, was dealing the cards from the bottom, and that trickery and treachery and a venomous nature were the necessary ingredients, after all, to success. The advertis.e.m.e.nt seemed to sneer at him, to jibe at him, calling as it did for every upstanding citizen of Ohadi to join in on the stock-buying bonanza that would make the Silver Queen one of the biggest mines in the district and Ohadi the big silver center of Colorado. The words appeared to be just so many daggers thrust into his very vitals. But Fairchild read them all, in spite of the pain they caused. He finished the last line, looked at the list of officers, and gasped.

For there, following one another, were three names, two of which Fairchild had expected. But the other--

They were, president and general manager, R. B. (Squint) Rodaine; secretary-treasurer, Maurice Rodaine; and first vice-president--Miss Anita Natalie Richmond!

CHAPTER XVIII

After that, Fairchild heard little that Harry said as he rambled on about the plans for the future. He answered the big Cornishman's questions with monosyllables, volunteering no information. He did not even show him the advertis.e.m.e.nt--he knew that it would be as galling to Harry as it was to him. And so he sat and stared, until finally his partner said good night and left the room.

That name could mean only one thing: that she had consented to become a partner with them, that they had won her over, after all. Now, even a different light came upon the meeting with Barnham in Denver and a different view to Fairchild. What if she had been playing their game all along? What if she had been merely a tool for them; what if she had sent Farrell at their direction, to learn everything he and Harry knew? What--?

Fairchild sought to put the thought from him and failed. Now that he looked at it in retrospect, everything seemed to have a sinister meaning. He had met the girl under circ.u.mstances which never had been explained. The first time she ever had seen him after that she pretended not to recognize him. Yet, following a conversation with Maurice Rodaine, she took advantage of an opportunity to talk to him and freely admitted to him that she had been the person he believed her to be. True, Fairchild was looking now at his idol through blue gla.s.ses, and they gave to her a dark, mysterious tone that he could not fathom. There were too many things to explain; too many things which seemed to connect her directly with the Rodaines; too many things which appeared to show that her sympathies were there and that she might only be a trickster in their hands, a trickster to trap him! Even the episode of the lawyer could be turned to this account. Had not another lawyer played the friendship racket, in an effort to buy the Blue Poppy mine?

And here Fairchild smiled grimly. From the present prospects, it would seem that the gain would have been all on his side, for certainly there was little to show now toward a possibility of the Blue Poppy ever being worth anything near the figure which he had been offered for it.

And yet, if that offer had not been made as some sort of stiletto jest, why had it been made at all? Was it because Rodaine knew that wealth did lie concealed there? Was it because Squint Rodaine had better information even than the faithful, hard-working, unfortunate Harry?

Fairchild suddenly took hope. He clenched his hands and he spoke, to himself, to the darkness and to the spirits of discouragement that were all about him:

"If it's there, we 'll find it--if we have to work our fingers to the bone, if we have to starve and die there--we'll find it!"

With that determination, he went to bed, to awake in the morning filled with a desire to reach the mine, to claw at its vitals with the sharp-edged drills, to swing the heavy sledge until his shoulders and back ached, to send the roaring charges of dynamite digging deeper and deeper into that thinning vein. And Harry was beside him every step of the way.

A day's work, the booming charges, and they returned to the stope to find that the vein had neither lessened nor grown greater. Another day--and one after that. The vein remained the same, and the two men turned to mucking that they might fill their ore car with the proceeds of the various blasts, haul it to the surface by the laborious, slow process of the man-power elevator, then return once more to their drilling, begrudging every minute that they were forced to give to the other work of tearing away the muck and refuse that they might gain the necessary room to follow the vein.

The days grew to a week, and a week to a fortnight. Once a truck made its slow way up the tortuous road, chortled away with a load of ore, returned again and took the remainder from the old, half-rotted ore bins, to the Sampler, there to be laid aside while more valuable ore was crushed and sifted for its a.s.says, and readier money taken in. The Blue Poppy had nothing in its favor. Ten or twenty dollar ore looked small beside the occasional shipments from the Silver Queen, where Blindeye Bozeman and Taylor Bill formed the entire working staff until the much-sought million dollars should flow in and a shaft-house, portable air pumps, machine drills and all the other attributes of modern mining methods should be put into operation.

And it appeared that the million dollars would not be slow in coming.

Squint Rodaine had established his office in a small, vacant store building on the main street, and Fairchild could see, as he went to and from his work, a constant stream of townspeople as they made that their goal--there to give their money into the keeping of the be-scarred man and to trust to the future for wealth. It galled Fairchild, it made his hate stronger than ever; yet within him there could not live the hope that the Silver Queen might share the fate of the Blue Poppy.

Other persons besides the Rodaines were interested now, persons who were putting their entire savings into the investment; and Fairchild could only grit his teeth and hope--for them--that it would be an everlasting bonanza. As for the girl who was named as vice-president--

He saw her, day after day, riding through town in the same automobile that he had helped re-tire on the Denver road. But now she did not look at him; now she pretended that she did not see him.

Before,--well, before, her eyes had at least met his, and there had been some light of recognition, even though her carefully masked face had belied it. Now it was different. She had gone over to the Rodaines, she was engaged to marry the chalky-faced, hook-nosed son and she was vice-president of their two-million-dollar mining corporation.

Fairchild did not even strive to find a meaning for it all; women are women, and men do well sometimes if they diagnose themselves.

The summer began to grow old, and Fairchild felt that he was aging with it. The long days beneath the ground had taught him many things about mining now, all to no advantage. Soon they would be worth nothing, save as five-dollar-a-day single-jackers, working for some one else.

The bank deposits were thinning, and the vein was thinning with it.

Slowly but surely, as they fought, the strip of pay ore in the rocks was pinching out. Soon would come the time when they could work it no longer. And then,--but Fairchild did not like to think about that.