The Terms of Surrender Part 40

"Not I. But I come here for a specific purpose. I mean to provide Rafferty with the sum of fifteen dollars weekly while he lives, and, if his grandson recovers from an accident he sustained yesterday, a further sum sufficient to maintain, clothe, and educate the boy until he is taught a trade. My banker will co-operate in a trust for this purpose. Will you, or one of your brotherhood, act with him?"

Thus it came to pa.s.s that Rafferty, like Job, was more prosperous in the end than in the beginning, and died when he was "old and full of days"; but he had lived five long years to bless the name of his benefactor.

That evening Power took train to the West. He prepared MacGonigal for his coming by a telegram, never thinking that an event which lay in the category of common things for him meant something akin to an earthquake at Bison. He was enlightened when a bra.s.s band, "headed by the mayor and a deputation of influential citizens" (see _Rocky Mountain News_ of current date) met him at Bison station, where an address of welcome was read, the while MacGonigal and Jake beamed on a cheering mult.i.tude. At first Power was astonished and secretly annoyed; then he could not help but yield to the genuine heartiness of this civic welcome, which contrasted so markedly with his last dismal home-coming. He made a modest speech, expressing his real surprise at the community's progress, and promising not to absent himself again for so long a period.

Then he was escorted in a triumphal procession to the ranch. It was the organizers' intent that he should sit in an open carriage in solitary state, in order that thousands of people who had never seen him should feast their eyes on "the man who made Bison," while it was felt that, if he were not distracted by conversation, he would give more heed to local marvels in the shape of trolley-cars, a town hall, a public library, a "Mary Power" inst.i.tute, and a whole township of new avenues and streets.

But he declined emphatically to fall in with this arrangement, and, if his subconscious mind were not dwelling on less transient matters, might have been much amused by noting how MacGonigal, Jake, and the mayor (a man previously unknown to him) shared the honors of the hour. Nothing could have proved more distasteful personally than this joyous home-coming; yet he went through the ordeal with a quiet dignity that added to his popularity. For, singularly enough, he had not been forgotten or ignored in Bison. MacGonigal, the leader of every phase of local activity, never spoke in public that he did not refer to "our chief citizen, John Darien Power," and his name and personality figured in all matters effecting the town's rapid development.

He was deeply touched when he found the ranch exactly as he had left it.

He imagined that Jake and his family were living there; but the overseer had built himself a fine house close at hand, and the Dolores homestead was altered in no respect, save that it seemed to have shrunk somewhat, owing to the growth of the surrounding trees and shrubberies.

When, at last, he and MacGonigal were left together in the room which was so intimately a.s.sociated with vital happenings in his career, his stout partner brought off a remark which the ordered ceremony of the railroad depot had not permitted.

"Wall, ef I ain't dog-goned glad ter see ye ag'in, Derry!" he said, holding forth a fat fist for another handshake. "But whar on airth did ye bury yerself? Between yer friend Mr. Dacre an' meself, the hull blame world was s'arched fer news of you; but you couldn't hev vanished more completely ef Jonah's whale had swallered you, or you'd been carried up to Heaven in a fiery chariot like Elijah."

"h.e.l.lo, Mac!" cried Power, eying his elderly companion with renewed interest. "Whence this Biblical flavor in your speech? Have you taken a much-needed religious turn?"

"It's fer example, an' that's a fac', Derry. Sence you boosted me inter bein' a notorious char-ac-ter, I've kind o' lived up ter specification.

Thar's no gettin' away from it. Ye can't deal out prizes to a row o'

shiny-faced kids in a Sunday-school without larnin' some of the stock lingo, an' bits of it stick. But don't let's talk about me. I want ter hear about you. Whar hev you been?"

"It's a long story, Mac, and will take some telling. Just now, looking around at this room and its familiar objects, my mind goes back through the years. What did you say to Nancy when she wrote and asked what had become of me?"

MacGonigal, who had made quite a speech at the reception, and had been unusually long-winded during the drive, reverted suddenly to earlier habit.

"Who's been openin' old sores?" he inquired.

"No one. Nancy wrote to me before she died. That is all."

"Look-a here, Derry, why not leave it at that?"

"Unhappily, I cannot do otherwise. But I have a right to know exactly what happened."

"It wasn't such a heap. She cabled an' wrote, an' I had to tell her you was plumb crazy about--about yer mother's death. That was the on'y reason I could hand out fer your disappearin' act. Pore thing! Soon after she got my letter she gev in her own checks."

"Have you met Marten recently?"

"He was in Denver last fall."

"And the child--the little girl--did you see her?"

"Yep. Gosh, Derry, she's as like her mother as two peas in a pod."

"Is Marten fond of her?"

"Derry, that kid kin twist him round her little finger; but he's a hard man ter move any other way."

"Where does he live?"

"In Europe, fer the most part. He's out of mines an' rails--in the West, anyhow. Last I heerd, he was puttin' through a state loan fer the I-talians."

"Quite an international financier, eh?"

"That's what the papers call him. Guess it's Shakespeare's English fer a dog-goned shark."

"You know Willard is dead?"

"Know! Didn't I celebrate with a school-treat fer two thousand kids?"

"Mac! Haven't they taught you better than that at your Sunday-schools?"

"Thar's a proverb about skinnin' a Rooshan an' findin' a Tartar. That's me, all the time, when any of that bunch shows up on the screen. What d'ye think Marten kem to Denver for?"

"I can't imagine."

"He wanted ter buy the ranch. No, not the mine," for MacGonigal misread the amazement in Power's face, "just the ranch. Said he was anxious for little Nancy to own the property whar her mother lived as a gal."

"And what did you say--or do?"

"Handed him a joint straight outer the refrigerator, all fixed with mustard. 'Marten,' says I, just like that, 'Marten, ef you want yer little gal ter grow up good an' happy, don't let her suspicion thar's such a place as Dolores on the map.' 'Why?' says he, lookin' black as thunder. 'Because,' says I, 'it's well named when thar's one of the Willard family on the location. Ef any children kin play around here an'

be happy, they'll be Derry Power's, not yours.' Sorry, Derry, ef ye didn't wish me ter rile him; but, till you was given up fer good, the one spot in Colorado his money couldn't buy was this yer house an'

land."

And again did MacGonigal fail to interpret his hearer's expression, nor did he ever understand the tragic import of his words. The story of Nancy's transgression was buried with her, and the grave seldom gives up its secrets. Moreover, was she not nearly seven years dead? And seven years of death count in the scale of forgetfulness as against seventy and seven of life.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SECOND GENERATION

Marguerite Sinclair did not write. Perhaps, tucked away in a corner of Power's heart, a tender little shoot of hope that she might be moved to disobedience and revolt blossomed for awhile. But it soon withered. She did not break the silence he had imposed on her. The quiet weeks pa.s.sed.

The vessel in which the girl and her father had traveled to London had already returned to South America; but never a word came from Marguerite. So far as externals went, Power seemed to have settled down again to the life of the student and the recluse from which he had been so rudely withdrawn. Beyond a rearrangement with Jake, whereby that pillar of the community was given the stock-raising business, while Power retained only the ranch, together with the paddocks and orchards in its immediate vicinity, there was no change in affairs at Bison.

MacGonigal was offered a controlling interest in the mine; but he scoffed at the proposal. The proceeds of his third share would amount to nearly quarter of a million dollars for the current year, and his personal expenditure did not exceed a fifth of that sum.

"It's the Scot blood in me," he explained, when people rallied him as to his saving habits. "My great-grandfather lost a sixpence one day in Belfast, an' the family has been makin' good ever sence. Thar ain't no sixpences here; so I run a dime bank. Another thing," and his bulging eyes challenged dispute, "it's a bully fine notion ter let well enough alone. This yer proposition is goin' along O. K. Let her rip!"

Power, of course, was acc.u.mulating wealth with every turn of the rolls in the reduction mills. The name of the mine became a standing joke in Colorado. "What price the El Preco outfit?" men would say, and spoke with bated breath of the millions it would bring in the open market. Not only were there almost unlimited supplies of rich ore in sight, but the very granite containing the main vein itself yielded handsomely under low-grade treatment. It seemed impossible that the undertaking should go wrong at any stage. If water was tapped, it went to irrigate new lands which MacGonigal had added to the ranch. If a new shaft was sunk, sufficient pay-ore was taken out of the excavation to meet the cost; whereas, in ninety-nine mines among a hundred, the charge would have fallen on capital.

For three months Power lay fallow at Dolores. His bodily vigor was unimpaired; but his mind demanded the restorative tonic of peace. A Chicago bookstore sent him the hundred most important books which had been published during his absence from civilization, and, with their aid, he supplemented Marguerite's lessons, and soon brought himself abreast of contemporary thought. Beyond establishing a maternity hospital in Bison, and renewing the grant to Dr. Stearn's poor, he did not embark in philanthropic schemes to any great extent. Still, he found pressing need of a secretary, and secured an excellent a.s.sistant in a Harvard undergraduate, a young man whose brilliant career in the university was brought to a dramatic close by an automobile accident which crippled him for life. He was one of the first victims of the new force. Power had never seen a motor-car until he reached New York. The industry had sprung into being when he was immured in the Andes. Even yet it was in the experimental stage, and his secretary, Wilmot Richard Howard, was testing an improved steering-gear when he was smashed up by a hostile lumber wagon.

The post Power offered him was a veritable G.o.dsend, and he, in his way, became infinitely useful to his employer. A curious sympathy soon existed between them. The limitations of Howard's maimed body caused him to understand something of the cramped outlook before Power's maimed soul. Moreover, within a month, his wide reading and thorough acquaintance with the world's current topics filled gaps in Power's knowledge which books alone could not repair. When Power quitted Bison in the spring of the year none who did not know his history would ever have suspected that he had dwelt so long apart from his fellow-men.

The two traveled together. Halting in New York for a few hours only, they crossed the Atlantic in the _Lucania_. They remained in London a week, living in one of those small and most exclusive West End hotels whose patrons come and go without the blare of trumpets in the press which is the penalty, or reward, of residence in the more noteworthy caravansaries. London, it is true, is the one city in the world where a millionaire can mingle unnoticed with the crowd; but Power took no risk of undue publicity. Once, in later years, a newspaper discovered him, and blazoned forth to all and sundry the status he occupied in Colorado; thenceforth, Howard arranged matters in his own name, and hotel managers and hall-porters bowed to him as the holder of the purse.