The Valley of the Giants Part 27

"Listen carefully to my story, a.n.a.lyze my plan for possible weak spots, and then get busy, because after I have provided the funds and given the word 'Go!' the rest is up to you. I must not be known in the transaction at all, because that would be fatal. And I miss my guess if, once we start building or advertising the building of the road, you and I and everybody connected with the enterprise will not be shadowed day and night by an army of Pinkertons."

"I listen," said Buck Ogilvy, and he inclined a large speckled ear in Bryce's direction, the while his large speckled hand drew a scratch- pad toward him.

Three hours later Ogilvy was in possession of the most minute details of the situation in Sequoia, had tabulated, indexed, and cross- indexed them in his ingenious brain and was ready for business--and so announced himself. "And inasmuch as that hundred you sent me has been pretty well shattered," he concluded, "suppose you call in your cold-hearted manager who refused me alms on your credit, and give him orders to honour my sight-drafts. If I'm to light in Sequoia looking like ready money, I've got to have some high-cla.s.s, tailor-made clothes, and a shine and a shave and a shampoo and a trunk and a private secretary. If there was a railroad running into Sequoia, I'd insist on a private car."

This final detail having been attended to, Mr. Ogilvy promptly proceeded to forget business and launched forth into a recital of his manifold adventures since leaving Princeton; and when at length all of their cla.s.smates had been accounted for and listed as dead, married, prosperous, or pauperized, the amiable and highly entertaining Buck took his departure with the announcement that he would look around a little and try to buy some good second-hand grading equipment and a locomotive, in addition to casting an eye over the labour situation and sending a few wires East for the purpose of sounding the market on steel rails. Always an enthusiast in all things, in his mind's eye Mr. Ogilvy could already see a long trainload of logs coming down the Northern California & Oregon Railroad, as he and Bryce had decided to christen the venture.

"N. C. & O.," Mr. Ogilvy murmured. "Sounds brisk and snappy. I like it. Hope that old hunks Pennington likes it, too. He'll probably feel that N. C. & O. stands for Northern California Outrage"

When Bryce Cardigan returned to Sequoia, his labours, insofar as the building of the road were concerned, had been completed. His agreement with Gregory of the Trinidad Redwood Timber Company had been signed, sealed, and delivered; the money to build the road had been deposited in bank; and Buck Ogilvy was already spending it like a drunken sailor. From now on, Bryce could only watch, wait, and pray.

On the next steamer a surveying party with complete camping-equipment arrived in Sequoia, purchased a wagon and two horses, piled their dunnage into the wagon, and disappeared up-country. Hard on their heels came Mr. Buck Ogilvy, and occupied the bridal suite in the Hotel Sequoia, arrangements for which had previously been made by wire. In the sitting room of the suite Mr. Ogilvy installed a new desk, a filing-cabinet, and a brisk young male secretary.

He had been in town less than an hour when the editor of the Sequoia Sentinel sent up his card. The announcement of the incorporation of the Northern California Outrage (for so had Mr. Ogilvy, in huge enjoyment of the misery he was about to create, dubbed the road) had previously been flashed to the Sentinel by the United Press a.s.sociation, as a local feature story, and already speculation was rife in Sequoia as to the ident.i.ty of the harebrained individuals who dared to back an enterprise as nebulous as the millennium. Mr. Ogilvy was expecting the visit--in fact, impatiently awaiting it; and since the easiest thing he did was to speak for publication, naturally the editor of the Sentinel got a story which, to that individual's simple soul, seemed to warrant a seven-column head--which it received.

Having boned up on the literature of the Redwood Manufacturers'

a.s.sociation, what Buck Ogilvy didn't know about redwood timber, redwood lumber, the remaining redwood acreage and market conditions, past and present, might have been secreted in the editorial eye without seriously hampering the editorial sight. He stated that the capital behind the project was foreign, that he believed in the success of the project and that his entire fortune was dependent upon the completion of it. In glowing terms he spoke of the billions of tons of timber-products to be hauled out of this wonderfully fertile and little-known country, and confidently predicted for the county a future commercial supremacy that would be simply staggering to contemplate.

When Colonel Seth Pennington read this outburst he smiled. "That's a bright scheme on the part of that Trinidad Redwood Timber Company gang to start a railroad excitement and unload their white elephant,"

he declared. "A scheme like that stuck them with their timber, and I suppose they figure there's a sucker born every minute and that the same old gag might work again. Chances are they have a prospect in tow already."

When Bryce Cardigan read it, he laughed. The interview was so like Buck Ogilvy! In the morning the latter's automobile was brought up from the steamship-dock, and accompanied by his secretary, Mr. Ogilvy disappeared into the north following the bright new stakes of his surveying-gang, and for three weeks was seen no more. As for Bryce Cardigan, that young man buckled down to business, and whenever questioned about the new railroad was careful to hoot at the idea.

On a day when Bryce's mind happened to be occupied with thoughts of Shirley Sumner, he b.u.mped into her on the main street of Sequoia, and to her great relief but profound surprise, he paused in his tracks, lifted his hat, smiled, and opened his mouth to say something-- thought better of it, changed his mind, and continued on about his business. As Shirley pa.s.sed him, she looked him squarely in the face, and in her glance there was neither coldness nor malice.

Bryce felt himself afire from heels to hair one instant, and cold and clammy the next, for Shirley spoke to him.

"Good morning, Mr. Cardigan."

He paused, turned, and approached her. "Good morning, Shirley," he replied. "How have you been?"

"I might have been dead, for all the interest you took in me," she replied sharply. "As matters stand, I'm exceedingly well--thank you.

By the way, are you still belligerent?"

He nodded. "I have to be."

"Still peeved at my uncle?"

Again he nodded.

"I think you're a great big grouch, Bryce Cardigan," she flared at him suddenly. "You make me unutterably weary."

"I'm. sorry," he answered, "but just at present I am forced to subject you to the strain. Say a year from now, when things are different with me, I'll strive not to offend."

"I'll not be here a year from now," she warned him. He bowed. "Then I'll go wherever you are--and bring you back." And with a mocking little grin, he lifted his hat and pa.s.sed on.

CHAPTER XXIII

Though Buck Ogilvy was gone from Sequoia for a period of three weeks, he was by no means forgotten. His secretary proved to be an industrious press-agent who by mail, telegraph, and long-distance telephone managed daily to keep the editor of the Sequoia Sentinel fully apprised of all developments in the matter of the Northern California Oregon Railroad Company--including some that had not as yet developed! The result was copious and persistent publicity for the new railroad company, and the arousing in the public mind of a genuine interest in this railroad which was to do so much for the town of Sequoia.

Colonel Seth Pennington was among those who, skeptical at first and inclined to ridicule the project into an early grave, eventually found himself swayed by the publicity and gradually coerced into serious consideration of the results attendant upon the building of the road. The Colonel was naturally as suspicious as a rattlesnake in August; hence he had no sooner emerged from the ranks of the frank scoffers than his alert mind framed the question:

"How is this new road--improbable as I know it to be--going to affect the interests of the Laguna Grande Lumber Company, if the unexpected should happen and those bunco-steerers should actually build a road from Sequoia to Grant's Pa.s.s, Oregon, and thus construct a feeder to a transcontinental line?"

Five minutes of serious reflection sufficed to bring the Colonel to the verge of panic, notwithstanding the fact that he was ashamed of himself for yielding to fright despite his firm belief that there was no reason why he should be frightened. Similar considerations occur to a small boy who is walking home in the dark past a cemetery.

The vital aspects of his predicament dawned on the Colonel one night at dinner, midway between the soup and the fish. So forcibly did they occur to him, in fact, that for the nonce he forgot that his niece was seated opposite him.

"Confound them," the Colonel murmured distinctly, "I must look into this immediately."

"Look into what, Uncle dear?" Shirley asked innocently.

"This new railroad that man Ogilvy talks of building--which means, Shirley, that with Sequoia as his starting point, he is going to build a hundred and fifty miles north to connect with the main line of the Southern Pacific in Oregon."

"But wouldn't that be the finest thing that could possibly happen to Humboldt County?" she demanded of him.

"Undoubtedly it would--to Humboldt County; but to the Laguna Grande Lumber Company, in which you have something more than a sentimental interest, my dear, it would be a blow. A large part of the estate left by your father is invested in Laguna Grande stock, and as you know, all of my efforts are devoted to appreciating that stock and to fighting against anything that has a tendency to depreciate it."

"Which reminds me, Uncle Seth, that you never discuss with me any of the matters pertaining to my business interests," she suggested.

He beamed upon her with his patronizing and indulgent smile. "There is no reason why you should puzzle that pretty head of yours with business affairs while I am alive and on the job," he answered.

"However, since you have expressed a desire to have this railroad situation explained to you, I will do so. I am not interested in seeing a feeder built from Sequoia north to Grant's Pa.s.s, and connecting with the Southern Pacific, but I am tremendously interested in seeing a feeder built south from Sequoia toward San Francisco, to connect with the Northwestern Pacific."

"Why?"

"For cold, calculating business reasons, my dear." He hesitated a moment and then resumed: "A few months ago I would not have told you the things I am about to tell you, Shirley, for the reason that a few months ago it seemed to me you were destined to become rather friendly with young Cardigan. When that fellow desires to be agreeable, he can be rather a likable boy--lovable, even. You are both young; with young people who have many things in common and are thrown together in a community like Sequoia, a lively friendship may develop into an ardent love; and it has been my experience that ardent love not infrequently leads to the altar."

Shirley blushed, and her uncle chuckled good-naturedly.

"Fortunately," he continued, "Bryce Cardigan had the misfortune to show himself to you in his true colours, and you had the good sense to dismiss him. Consequently I see no reason why I should not explain to you now what I considered it the part of wisdom to withhold from you at that time--provided, of course, that all this does not bore you to extinction."

"Do go on, Uncle Seth. I'm tremendously interested," averred Shirley.

"Shortly after I launched the Laguna Grande Lumber Company--in which, as your guardian and executor of your father's estate, I deemed it wise to invest part of your inheritance--I found myself forced to seek further for sound investments for your surplus funds. Now, good timber, bought cheap, inevitably will be sold dear. At least, such has been my observation during a quarter of a century--and old John Cardigan had some twenty thousand acres of the finest redwood timber in the State--timber which had cost him an average price of less than fifty cents per thousand.

"Well, in this instance the old man had overreached himself, and finding it necessary to increase his working capital, he incorporated his holdings into the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company and floated a bond-issue of a million dollars. They were twenty-year six per cent.

certificates; the security was ample, and I invested for you three hundred thousand dollars in Cardigan bonds. I bought them at eighty, and they were worth two hundred; at least, they would have been worth two hundred under my management--"

"How did you manage to buy them so cheap?" she interrupted.

"Old Cardigan had had a long run of bad luck--due to bad management and bad judgment, my dear--and when a corporation is bonded, the bondholders have access to its financial statements. From time to time I discovered bondholders who needed money and hence unloaded at a sacrifice; but by far the majority of the bonds I purchased for your account were owned by local people who had lost confidence in John Cardigan and the future of the redwood lumber industry hereabouts. You understand, do you not?"

"I do not understand what all this has to do with a railroad."

"Very well--I shall proceed to explain." He held up his index finger.

"Item one: For years old John Cardigan has rendered valueless, because inaccessible, twenty-five hundred acres of Laguna Grande timber on Squaw Creek. His absurd Valley of the Giants blocks the outlet, and of course he persisted in refusing me a right of way through that little dab of timber in order to discourage me and force me to sell him that Squaw Creek timber at his price."