At this talk of economy from Curtis Gordon O"Neil refrained from smiling with difficulty. He felt certain that the man"s entire operations were as unsound as his statement that he could bring the Trust to terms. Yet Gordon seemed thoroughly in earnest. Either he expected to fool his present hearer, or else he had become hypnotized by the spell of his own magnificent twaddle--O"Neil could not tell which.
"Who laid out your right-of-way?" he asked with some interest.
"A very able young engineer, Dan Appleton. An excellent man, but--unreliable in certain things. I had to let him go, this very afternoon, in fact, for insubordination. But I discharged him more for the sake of discipline than anything else. He"ll be anxious to return in a few days. Now tell me"--Gordon fixed his visitor with a bland stare which failed to mask his gnawing curiosity--"what brings you to King Phillip Sound? Are we to be rivals in the railroad field?"
"No. There are enough projects of that sort in the neighborhood for the present."
"Five, all told, but only one destined to succeed."
"I"m bound for the Kyak coal-fields to perfect and amend my surveys under the new ruling."
"Ah! I"ve heard about that ruling."
"Heard about it?" exclaimed O"Neil. "Good Lord! Haven"t you complied with it?"
"Not yet."
"You surely intend to do so?"
"Oh yes--I suppose so."
"If you don"t you"ll lose--"
"I"m not sure we can ever win."
"Nonsense!"
"I"m not sure that it"s wise to put more good money into those coal claims," said Gordon. "This ruling will doubtless be reversed as the others have been. One never knows what the Land Office policy will be two days at a time."
"You know your own business," O"Neil remarked after a pause, "but unless you have inside information, or a bigger pull in Washington than the rest of us, I"d advise you to get busy. I"ll be on my way to Kyak in the morning with a gang of men." Gordon"s att.i.tude puzzled him, for he could not bring himself to believe that such indifference was genuine.
"We have been treated unfairly by the Government."
"Granted!"
"We have been fooled, cheated, hounded as if we were a crowd of undesirable aliens, and I"m heartily sick of the injustice. I prefer to work along lines of least resistance. I feel tempted to let Uncle Sam have my coal claims, since he has lied to me and gone back on his promise, and devote myself to other enterprises which offer a certainty of greater profits. But"--Gordon smiled deprecatingly--"I dare say I shall hold on, as you are doing, until that fossilized bureau at Washington imposes some new condition which will ruin us all."
Remembering Natalie"s statement that her own and her mother"s fortunes were tied up in the mines, O"Neil felt inclined to go over Gordon"s head and tell the older woman plainly the danger of delay in complying with the law, but he thought better of the impulse. Her confidence in this man was supreme and it seemed incredible that Gordon should jeopardize her holdings and his own. More likely his att.i.tude was just a part of his pose, designed to show the bigness of his views and to shed a greater l.u.s.ter upon his railroad project.
It was difficult to escape from the hospitality of Hope, and O"Neil succeeded in doing so only after an argument with Natalie and her mother. They let him go at last only upon his promise to return on his way back from the coal-fields, and they insisted upon accompanying him down to the dock, whither Gordon had preceded them in order to have his motor-boat in readiness.
As they neared the landing they overheard the latter in spirited debate with "Happy Tom" Slater.
"But my dear fellow," he was saying, "I can"t lose you and Appleton on the same day."
"You can"t? Why, you"ve done it!" the fat man retorted, gruffly.
"I refuse to be left in the lurch this way. You must give more notice."
Slater shrugged, and without a word tossed his bulging war bag into the motor-boat which lay moored beneath him. His employer"s face was purple with rage as he turned to Murray and the ladies, but he calmed himself sufficiently to say:
"This man is in charge of important work for me, yet he tells me you have hired him away."
"Tom!" exclaimed O"Neil.
"I never said that," protested Slater. "I only told you I was working for Murray."
"Well?"
"I hired myself. He didn"t have anything to say about it. I do all the hiring, firing, and boosting in my department."
"I appeal to you, O"Neil. I"m short-handed," Gordon cried.
"I tell you he don"t have a word to say about it," Slater declared with heat.
Natalie gave a little tinkling laugh. She recognized in this man the melancholy hero of more than one tale "The Irish Prince" had told her.
Murray did his best, but knowing "Happy Tom"s" calm obstinacy of old, he had no real hope of persuading him.
"You see how it is," he said, finally. "He"s been with me for years and he refuses to work for any one else while I"m around. If I don"t take him with me he"ll follow."
Mr. Slater nodded vigorously, then imparted these tidings:
"It"s getting late, and my feet hurt." He bowed to the women, then lowered himself ponderously yet carefully over the edge of the dock and into the leather cushions of the launch. Once safely aboard, he took a package of wintergreen chewing-gum from his pocket and began to chew, staring out across the sound with that placid, speculative enjoyment which reposes in the eyes of a cow at sunset.
Curtis Gordon"s face was red and angry as he shook hands stiffly with his guest and voiced the formal hope that they would meet again.
"I"m glad to be gone," Slater observed as the speed-boat rushed across the bay. "I"m a family man, and--I"ve got principles. Gordon"s got neither."
"It was outrageous for you to walk out so suddenly. It embarra.s.sed me."
"Oh, he"d let me go without notice if he felt like it. He fired Dan Appleton this afternoon just for telling the truth about the mine.
That"s what I"d have got if I"d stayed on much longer. I was filling up with words and my skin was getting tight. I"d have busted, sure, inside of a week."
"Isn"t the mine any good?"
"It ain"t a mine at all. It"s nothing but an excavation filled with d.a.m.n fools and owned by idiots; still, I s"pose it serves Gordon"s purpose." After a pause he continued: "They tell me that snakes eat their own young! Gordon ought to call that mine the Anaconda, for it"ll swallow its own dividends and all the money those Eastern people can raise."
"I"m sorry for Mrs. Gerard."
Slater emitted a sound like the moist exhalation of a porpoise as it rises to the surface.
"What do you mean by that snort?" asked Murray.
"It"s funny how much some people are like animals. Now the ostrich thinks that when his head is hid his whole running-gear is out of sight. Gordon"s an ostrich. As for you--you remind me of a mud turtle.
A turtle don"t show nothing but his head, and when it"s necessary he can yank that under cover. Gordon don"t seem to realize that he sticks up above the underbrush--either that or else he don"t care who sees him. He and that woman--"
"Never mind her," exclaimed O"Neil, quickly. "I"m sure you"re mistaken."
Mr. Slater grunted once more, then chewed his gum silently, staring mournfully into the twilight. After a moment he inquired: