The Valley of the Giants Part 25

"Perhaps he loves you, too, Moira." The words came with difficulty.

Moira shook her head hopelessly. "No, Miss Shirley. I'm only one of his many human problems, and he just won't go back on me, for old sake's sake. We played together ten years ago, when he used to spend his vacations at our house in Cardigan's woods, when my father was woods-boss. He's Bryce Cardigan--and I--I used to work in the kitchen of his logging-camp."

"Never mind, Moira. He may love you, even though you do not suspect it. You mustn't be so despairing. Providence has a way of working out these things. Tell me about his trouble, Moira."

"I think it's money. He's been terribly worried for a long time, and I'm afraid things aren't going right with the business. I've felt ever since I've been there that there's something that puts a cloud over Mr. Bryce's smile. It hurts them terribly to have to sell the Valley of the Giants, but they have to; Colonel Pennington is the only one who would consider buying it; they don't want him to have it--and still they have to sell to him."

"I happen to know, Moira, that he isn't going to buy it."

"Yes, he is--but not at a price that will do them any good. They have always thought he would be eager to buy whenever they decided to sell, and now he says he doesn't want it, and old Mr. Cardigan is ill over it all. Mr. Bryce says his father has lost his courage at last; and oh, dear, things are in such a mess. Mr. Bryce started to tell me all about it--and then he stopped suddenly and wouldn't say another word."

Shirley smiled. She thought she understood the reason for that.

However, she did not pause to speculate on it, since the crying need of the present was the distribution of a ray of sunshine to broken- hearted Moira.

"Silly," she chided, "how needlessly you are grieving! You say my uncle has declined to buy the Valley of the Giants?"

Moira nodded.

"My uncle doesn't know what he's talking about, Moira. I'll see that he does buy it. What price are the Cardigans asking for it now?"

"Well, Colonel Pennington has offered them a hundred thousand dollars for it time and again, but last night he withdrew that offer. Then they named a price of fifty thousand, and he said he didn't want it at all."

"He needs it, and it's worth every cent of a hundred thousand to him, Moira. Don't worry, dear. He'll buy it, because I'll make him, and he'll buy it immediately; only you must promise me not to mention a single word of what I'm telling you to Bryce Cardigan, or in fact, to anybody. Do you promise?"

Moira seized Shirley's hand and kissed it impulsively. "Very well, then," Shirley continued. "That matter is adjusted, and now we'll all be happy. Here comes Thelma with luncheon. Cheer up, dear, and remember that sometime this afternoon you're going to see Mr. Bryce smile again, and perhaps there won't be so much of a cloud over his smile this time."

When Moira returned to the office of the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company, Shirley rang for her maid. "Bring me my motor-coat and hat, Thelma," she ordered, "and telephone for the limousine." She seated herself before the mirror at her dressing-table and dusted her adorable nose with a powder-puff. "Mr. Smarty Cardigan," she murmured happily, "you walked rough-shod over my pride, didn't you! Placed me under an obligation I could never hope to meet--and then ignored me-- didn't you? Very well, old boy. We all have our innings sooner or later, you know, and I'm going to make a substantial payment on that huge obligation as sure as my name is Shirley Sumner. Then, some day when the sun is shining for you again, you'll come to me and be very, very humble. You're entirely too independent, Mr. Cardigan, but, oh, my dear, I do hope you will not need so much money. I'll be put to my wit's end to get it to you without letting you know, because if your affairs go to smash, you'll be perfectly intolerable. And yet you deserve it. You're such an idiot for not loving Moira. She's an angel, and I gravely fear I'm just an interfering, mischievous, resentful little devil seeking vengeance on--"

She paused suddenly. "No, I'll not do that, either," she soliloquized. "I'll keep it myself--for an investment. I'll show Uncle Seth I'm a business woman, after all. He has had his fair chance at the Valley of the Giants, after waiting years for it, and now he has deliberately sacrificed that chance to be mean and vindictive. I'm afraid Uncle Seth isn't very sporty--after what Bryce Cardigan did for us that day the log-train ran away. I'll have to teach him not to hit an old man when he's down and begging for mercy.

_I_'LL buy the Valley but keep my ident.i.ty secret from everybody; then, when Uncle Seth finds a stranger in possession, he'll have a fit, and perhaps, before he recovers, he'll sell me all his Squaw Creek timber--only he'll never know I'm the buyer. And when I control the outlet--well, I think that Squaw Creek timber will make an excellent investment if it's held for a few years. Shirley, my dear, I'm pleased with you. Really, I never knew until now why men could be so devoted to business. Won't it be jolly to step in between Uncle Seth and Bryce Cardigan, hold up my hand like a policeman, and say: 'Stop it, boys. No fighting, IF you please. And if anybody wants to know who's boss around here, start something.'"

And Shirley laid her head upon the dressing-table and laughed heartily. She had suddenly bethought herself of Aesop's fable of the lion and the mouse!

When her uncle came home that night, Shirley observed that he was preoccupied and disinclined to conversation.

"I noticed in this evening's paper," she remarked presently, "that Mr. Cardigan has sold his Valley of the Giants. So you bought it, after all?"

"No such luck!" he almost barked. "I'm an idiot. I should be placed in charge of a keeper. Now, for heaven's sake, Shirley, don't discuss that timber with me, for if you do, I'll go plain, lunatic crazy.

I've had a very trying day."

"Poor Uncle Seth!" she purred sweetly. Her apparent sympathy soothed his rasped soul. He continued:

"Oh, I'll get the infernal property, and it will be worth what I have to pay for it, only it certainly does gravel me to realize that I am about to be held up, with no help in sight. I'll see Judge Moore to- morrow and offer him a quick profit for his client. That's the game, you know."

"I do hope the new owner exhibits some common sense, Uncle dear," she replied, and turned back to the piano. "But I greatly fear," she added to herself, "that the new owner is going to prove a most obstinate creature and frightfully hard to discover."

True to his promise, the Colonel called on Judge Moore bright and early the following morning. "Act Three of that little business drama ent.i.tled 'The Valley of the Giants,' my dear Judge," he announced pleasantly. "I play the lead in this act. You remember me, I hope. I played a bit in Act Two."

"In so far as my information goes, sir, you've been cut out of the cast in Act Three. I don't seem to find any lines for you to speak."

"One line, Judge, one little line. What profit does your client want on that quarter-section?"

"That quarter-section is not in the market, Colonel. When it is, I'll send for you, since you're the only logical prospect should my client decide to sell. And remembering how you b.u.t.ted in on politics in this county last fall and provided a slush-fund to beat me and place a crook on the Superior Court bench, in order to give you an edge in the many suits you are always filing or having filed against you, I rise to remark that you have about ten split seconds in which to disappear from my office. If you linger longer, I'll start throwing paper-weights." And as if to emphasize his remark, the Judge's hand closed over one of the articles in question.

The Colonel withdrew with what dignity he could muster.

CHAPTER XXI

Upon his return from the office that night, Bryce Cardigan found his father had left his bed and was seated before the library fire.

"Feeling a whole lot better to-day, eh, pal?" his son queried.

John Cardigan smiled. "Yes, son," he replied plaintively. "I guess I'll manage to live till next spring."

"Oh, I knew there was nothing wrong with you, John Cardigan, that a healthy check wouldn't cure. Pennington rather jolted you, though, didn't he?"

"He did, Bryce. It was jolt enough to be forced to sell that quarter-- I never expected we'd have to do it; but when I realize that it was a case of sacrificing you or my Giants, of course you won. And I didn't feel so badly about it as I used to think I would. I suppose that's because there is a certain morbid pleasure in a real sacrifice for those we love. And I never doubted but that Pennington would snap up the property the instant I offered to sell. Hence his refusal--in the face of our desperate need for money to carry on until conditions improve--almost floored your old man."

"Well, we can afford to draw our breath now, and that gives us a fighting chance, partner. And right after dinner you and I will sit down and start brewing a pot of powerful bad medicine for the Colonel."

"Son, I've been sitting here simmering all day." There was a note of the old dominant fighting John Cardigan in his voice now. "And it has occurred to me that even if I must sit on the bench and root, I've not reached the point where my years have begun to affect my thinking ability." He touched his leonine head." I'm as right as a fox upstairs, Bryce."

"Right-o, Johnny. We'll buck the line together. After dinner you trot out your plan of campaign and I'll trot out mine; then we'll tear them apart, select the best pieces of each and weld them into a perfect whole."

Accordingly, dinner disposed of, father and son sat down together to prepare the plan of campaign. For the s.p.a.ce of several minutes a silence settled between them, the while they puffed meditatively upon their cigars. Then the old man spoke.

"We'll have to fight him in the dark."

"Why?"

"Because if Pennington knows, or even suspects the ident.i.ty of the man who is going to parallel his logging railroad, he will throw all the weight of his truly capable mind, his wealth and his ruthlessness against you--and you will be smashed. To beat that man, you must do more than spend money. You will have to outthink him, outwork him, outgame him, and when eventually you have won, you'll know you've been in the fight of your career. You have one advantage starting out. The Colonel doesn't think you have the courage to parallel his road in the first place; in the second place, he knows you haven't the money; and in the third place he is morally certain you cannot borrow it, because you haven't any collateral to secure your note.

"We are mortgaged now to the limit, and our floating indebtedness is very large; on the face of things and according to the Colonel's very correct inside information, we're helpless; and unless the lumber- market stiffens very materially this year, by the time our hauling- contract with Pennington's road expires, we'll be back where we were yesterday before we sold the Giants. Pennington regards that hundred thousand as get-away money for us. So, all things considered, the Colonel, will be slow to suspect us of having an ace in the hole; but by jinks we have it, and we're going to play it."

"No," said Bryce, "we're going to let somebody else play it for us.

The point you make--to wit, that we must remain absolutely in the background--is well taken."

"Very well," agreed the old man. "Now let us proceed to the next point. You must engage some reliable engineer to look over the proposed route of the road and give us an estimate of the cost of construction."

"For the sake of argument we will consider that done, and that the estimate comes within the scope of the sum Gregory is willing to advance us."

"Your third step, then, will be to incorporate a railroad company under the laws of the State of California."

"I think I'll favour the fair State of New Jersey with our trade,"