The Iron Trail Part 57

"Don't worry, boss. We'll make it somehow."

"Thorn says there's n.o.body over there," Murray continued; "but that seems strange, for I happen to know of half a dozen outfits at the head of the White River. Jack Dalton has had a gang working there for four years."

Dalton was a famous character in the north--one of the most intrepid of the early pioneers--and the mention of his name brought a hush. A large part of the audience realized the truth of O'Neil's last statement, yet resented having it thrust upon them. Thorn and Baker were scowling.

Gray had just entered the room and was signaling to his chief, and O'Neil realized that he must score a triumph quickly if he wished to hold the attention of his men. He resumed gravely:

"If this strike was genuine I wouldn't argue, but--it isn't." A confusion of startled protests rose; the two miners burst out indignantly; but O'Neil, raising his voice for the first time, managed to make himself heard. "Those jewelry samples came from Nevada," he cried. "I recognized them myself this afternoon, and here's another fellow who can't be fooled. Thorn told you he used to work in Goldfield. You can draw your own conclusions."

The temper of the crowd changed instantly: jeers, groans, hisses arose; the men were on their feet now, and growing noisier every moment; Baker and Thorn were glaring balefully at their accuser. But Gray succeeded in shouldering his way forward, and whispered to O'Neil, who turned suddenly and faced the men again. "Just a minute!" he shouted. "You heard Thorn say he and Baker went prospecting in August. Well, we've just had Cortez on the cable and learn that they were working for Gordon until two weeks ago." A sudden silence fell. Murray smiled down at the two strangers. "What do you say to that?"

Thorn flew into a purple rage: "It's a d.a.m.ned lie! He's afraid you'll quit work, fellows." Viciously he flung himself toward the door, only to feel the grasp of the muscular physician upon his arm.

"Listen to this message from the cashier of the Cortez Home Bank!"

bellowed Gray, his big voice dominating the uproar. Undisturbed by his prisoner's struggles, he read loudly:

"Joe Thorn and Henry Baker quit work fifteenth, leaving for Fairbanks over winter trail, with five dogs--four gray and white malamutes, black shepherd leader. Thorn medium size, thirty-five, red hair. Baker dark, scar on cheek. WILSON, Cashier."

The doctor's features spread into a broad grin. "You've all seen the dog-team, and here's the red hair." His fingers sunk into his prisoner's fiery locks with a grip that threatened to leave him a scalp for a trophy. Thorn cursed and twisted.

The crowd's allegiance had been quick to shift, but it veered back to O'Neil with equal suddenness.

"Bunco!" yelled a hoa.r.s.e voice, after a brief hush.

"Lynch 'em!" cried another; and the angry clamor burst forth anew.

"Don't be foolish," shouted Murray; "n.o.body has been hurt."

"We'd have been on the trail to-morrow. Send 'em down the river barefoot!"

"Yes! What about that gang from Omar?"

"I'm afraid they'll have to take care of themselves," O'Neil said. "But these two men aren't altogether to blame; they're acting under orders.

Isn't that right?" he asked Thorn.

The miner hesitated, until the grip in his hair tightened; then, evidently fearing the menace in the faces on every side, he decided to seek protection in a complete confession.

"Yes!" he agreed, sullenly. "Gordon cooked it up. It's all a fake."

O'Neil nodded with satisfaction. "This is the second time he's tried to get my men away from me. The other time he failed because Tom Slater happened to come down with smallpox. Thank G.o.d, he recovered!"

A ripple of laughter spread, then grew into a bellow, for the nature of "Happy Tom's" illness had long since become a source of general merriment, and O'Neil's timely reference served to divert the crowd. It also destroyed most of its resentment.

"You fellows don't seem able to protect yourselves; so Doc and I will have to do it for you. Now listen," he continued, more gravely. "I meant it when I said I'd open the commissary and help you out if the strike were genuine, but, nevertheless, I want you to know just what it would have meant to me. I haven't enough money to complete the S. R. & N., and I can't raise enough, but I have signed an option to sell the road if the bridge is built by next spring. It's really a two year's job, and some engineers don't believe it can be built at all, but I know it can if you'll help. If we fail I'm ruined; if we succeed"--he waved his hands and smiled at them cheerfully--"maybe we'll build another railroad somewhere. That's what this stampede meant. Now, will you stick to me?"

The answer roared from a hundred throats: "You bet we'll stick!"

At the rear of the room, whence they had witnessed the rapid unfolding of this drama, the two girls joined in the shout. They were hugging each other and laughing hysterically.

"He handled them just right," said Blaine, with shining eyes; "just right--but I was worried."

Walsh, the night foreman, raised his voice to inquire:

"Does anybody want to buy a dog-team cheap?"

"Who wants dogs now?" jeered some one.

"Give 'em to Baker and Thorn!"

O'Neil was still speaking in all earnestness.

"Boys," he said; "we have a big job on our hands. It means fast work, long hours, and little sleep. We picked you fellows out because we knew you were the very best bridge-workers in the world. Now the life of the S. R. & N. lies with you, and that bridge MUST BE BUILT on time. About these two men who tried to stampede us: I think it's enough punishment if we laugh at them. Don't you?" He smiled down at Thorn, who scowled, then grinned reluctantly and nodded his head.

When general good feeling was restored Murray attempted to make his way out; but his men seemed determined to thank him one by one, and he was delayed through a long process of hand-shaking. It pleased him to see that they understood from what hardships and disappointments he had saved them, and he was doubly grateful when Walsh rounded up his crew and announced that the night shift would resume work at midnight.

He escaped at last, leaving the men grouped contentedly about huge pans of smoking doughnuts and pots of coffee, which the cook-boys had brought in. Liquor was taboo in the camp, but he gave orders that unlimited cigars be distributed.

When he reached his quarters he was completely f.a.gged, for the crisis, coming on top of his many responsibilities, had taken all his vitality.

His once cheerless room was warm and cozy as he entered: he found Natalie sleeping peacefully on his bed and Eliza curled up in his big chair waiting. She opened her eyes drowsily and smiled up at him, saying:

"You were splendid, Omar Khayyam. I'm SO glad."

He laid a finger on his lips and glanced at the sleeping Natalie.

"Sh-h!"

"Where are you going to put us for the night?"

"Right here, of course."

"Those men will do anything for you now. I--I think I'd die, too, if anything happened to the bridge."

He took her hand in his and smiled down into her earnest eyes a little wearily. "Nothing will happen. Now go to bed--and thank you for making a home for me. It really is a home now. I'll appreciate it to-morrow."

He tiptoed out and tramped over to Parker's quarters for the night.

The news of the White River fiasco reached Curtis Gordon in Seattle, whither he had gone in a final attempt to bolster up the tottering fortunes of the Cortez Home Railway. His disappointment was keen, yet O'Neil from the beginning had met his attacks with such uniform success that new failure did not really surprise him; it had been a forlorn hope at best. Strangely enough, he had begun to lose something of his a.s.surance of late. Although he maintained his outward appearance of confidence with all his old skill, within himself he felt a growing uneasiness, a lurking doubt of his abilities. Outwardly there was reason enough for discouragement, for, while his co-operative railroad scheme had begun brilliantly, its initial success had not been sustained. As time pa.s.sed and Eliza Appleton's exposure remained unrefuted he had found it ever more difficult to enlist support. His own denials and explanations seemed powerless to affect the public mind, and as he looked back he dated his decline from the appearance of her first article. It had done all the mischief he had feared. Not only were his old stock-holders dissatisfied, but wherever he went for aid he found a disconcerting lack of response, a half-veiled skepticism that was maddening.

Yet his immediate business worries were not all, nor the worst of his troubles: his physical powers were waning. To all appearances he was as strong as ever, but a strange bodily la.s.situde hampered him; he tired easily, and against this handicap he was forced to struggle continually. He had never rightly valued his amazing equipment of energy until now, when some subtle ailment had begun to sap it. The change was less in his muscular strength than in his nerves and his mental vigor. He found himself growing peculiarly irritable; his failures excited spasms of blind fury which left him weak and spent; he began to suffer the depressing tortures of insomnia. At times the nerves in his face and neck twitched unaccountably, and this distressing affection spread.

These symptoms had first manifested themselves after his unmerciful drubbing at the hands of Dan Appleton: but they were not the result of any injury; they were due to some deeper cause. When he had recovered his senses, after the departure of Dan and Natalie, he had fallen into a paroxysm of anger that lasted for days; he had raged and stormed like a madman, for, to say nothing of other humiliations, he prided himself extravagantly on his physical prowess. While the marks of the rough treatment he had suffered were disappearing he remained indoors, plunged in such abysmal fury that neither Gloria nor the fawning Denny dared approach him. The very force of his emotions had permanently disturbed his poise, or perhaps effected some obscure lesion in his brain. Even when he showed himself again in public he was still abnormally choleric. His fits of pa.s.sion became almost apoplectic in their violence; they caused his a.s.sociates to shun him as a man dangerous, and in his calmer moments he thought of them with alarm. He had tried to regain his nervous control, but without success, and his wife's anxiety only chafed him further. Gradually he lost his mental buoyancy, and for the first time in his life he really yielded to pessimism. He found he could no longer attack a problem with his accustomed certainty of conquering it, but was haunted by a foreboding of inevitable failure. All in all, when he reached the States on his critical mission he knew that he was far from being his old self, and he had deteriorated more than he knew.

A week or two of disappointments should have shown him the futility of further effort; at any other time it would have set him to putting his house in order for the final crash, but now it merely enraged him. He redoubled his activity, launching a new campaign of publicity so extravagant and ill-timed as to repel the a.s.sistance he needed. He had lost his finesse; his nicely adjusted financial sense had gone.

The outcome was not long delayed; it came in the form of a newspaper despatch to the effect that his Cortez bank had suspended payment because of a run started by the dissatisfied employees of the railroad.

Through Gordon's flamboyant advertising his enterprises were so well known by this time that the story was featured despite his efforts to kill it. His frantic cables to Cortez for a denial only brought a.s.surances that the report was true and that conditions would not mend unless a shipment of currency was immediately forthcoming.

Hara.s.sed by reporters, driven on by the need for a show of action, he set out to raise the money, but the support he had hoped for failed him when it transpired that his bank's a.s.sets consisted mainly of real estate at boom prices and stock in his various companies which had been inflated to the bursting-point. Days pa.s.sed, a week or more; then he was compelled to relinquish his option on the steamship line he had partly purchased, and to sacrifice all that had been paid in on the enterprise. This, too, made a big story for the newspapers, for it punctured one of the most imposing corporations in the famous "Gordon System." It likewise threatened to involve the others in the general crash. Hope Consolidated, indeed, still remained, and Gordon's declaration that the value of its shares was more than sufficient to protect his bank met with some credence until, swift upon the heels of the other disasters, came an application for a receiver by the stock-holders, coupled with the promise of a rigorous investigation into his various financial manipulations. Then at last Gordon acknowledged defeat.