"That"s what I thought, but I can"t recall ever having been told."
After seating ourselves in the restaurant, Hiram, his mind filled with many notions, began to talk.
"I never see a cargo of lumber go by that I don"t think of it as something immensely valuable. I don"t understand it, unless--well--of course, I can"t figure out who is to blame, but do you realize I actually don"t know what business my--I mean the Gold-Beater--is in? I never knew whether he ran a p.a.w.n-shop, a gambling-house, or a real business; my knowledge of his activities is limited to a vague impression I have, an indistinct memory of hearing him talk one night at our house with some man--and he was some man, too, if the Gold-Beater brought him home--about stumpage, stump land and market conditions. I don"t recall much, for then I was about as much interested in it as I would now be in a divinity student"s theory on Heaven and the other place.
"I don"t know whether it"s in my blood, but anyhow, a nice, newly sawed, clean board of timber looks better to me than anything--except a certain girl. I figured it out to-day, that she is the only one I don"t want to disgrace. The Gold-Beater has nothing better coming to him--if I have to go to jail in the clean-up of this gang----"
"Come to the point, Hiram. You"re wandering all around Robin Hood"s barn," said I laughingly.
"I know I"m long-winded, Ben, but I"ve got to speak my prologue, or you won"t understand. You know I have stood on the dock day after day and have seen the river carry down big trees and big logs, some real saw-logs, some days lots of them, and to-day, up the river, I saw a great many floating along down stream. Some of the bayous are full of them. There"s a ma.s.s of logs in that moat back of Becker"s smell factory."
"Well,--what is the answer?" I asked languidly.
"Here"s what I propose: Arrest these fugitive logs, cut "em into lumber and put "em to work. I saw logs up the river that will make a thousand feet of lumber and they tell me even rough lumber is worth fifty dollars a thousand. It won"t take many of them to amount to the hundred and twenty-five dollars per that I"m pulling down monthly from the railroad--eh? You know, just as soon as I get out of this I"m going to marry, and----"
"But they tell me those logs have been in the water so long they are dead sea fruit, rotten in the center?" I interposed.
"I noticed that in some of them, but many are first cla.s.s--you watch me after I get out. Do you know, I feel sure this river is going to make me some money. I"m going to be out to-night, down on the wharf. The packet men say that Becker"s old tub, the one we met going up this afternoon,--called the _Turgia_--and she is well named--goes up there every afternoon and brings down a load in the night. I"ve got to find out where she lands and what she brings down. I forgot to tell you he gets dead animals from the city, in barges, and has to hire a tug to take them up. A good chance for a deal there, if we have a boat big enough to do his work, don"t you think so?" he asked, pausing from his food.
"He seems to have an eye for bargains--why not in towing?" I agreed, much impressed with his determination, amounting to a mania.
"Now, there is another thing, Ben. Suppose this old half-starved geezer"s story is right, and they owe him a lot of wages, and the boat is something we can use, isn"t there some quick, legal way in which we can get possession of it?"
"He would be cla.s.sed as a seaman, with wages due, and I think there is a Federal statute to reach such a case quickly--I will find out, Hiram."
"Do that, Ben, and if I don"t show up in the morning you will know I got knocked in the head by the water-front gang, but I"m going to see what Becker sends down here in the night, or die in the attempt."
CHAPTER XVIII
I HAD to be up that night too, and I had not been in long before he arrived--just before daylight.
"Ben--Ben, awake, and get up! I"ve got it--I"ve got it--see here!" he persisted, holding a piece of cardboard before my eyes now dazzled by the sudden light. "Do you know what that is?" he roared, standing on tiptoes while I gazed at it. He was more energetic and enthusiastic than the night before, although he had not been to bed. His eyes appeared to be a bit bloodshot.
Raising up in bed, I took the piece of cardboard and sat blinking at it when, all of a sudden, Hiram lost patience.
"d.a.m.n it, Ben, can"t you see what it is?--that"s a piece of a ten-pound sausage carton, and it came from Becker"s place. Now then, we"ve got "em," he said with suppressed voice. What he handed me was unquestionably a part of a folding box, one of the corner locks, and a part of the end on which there was tell-tale printing.
"You see, this sausage that was stolen was in ten-pound boxes, and this is part of one of them," he insisted.
"Where did you get this, Hiram?" I finally managed to ask.
"I had to lie on one of the wharfs upstream until after midnight when Becker"s _Turgid_ came slipping down the current, like a thief, and I had to leg it hard to keep up with her. About a mile below she slid in alongside a Mexican, bound for Vera Cruz, unloaded a hundred and fifteen tubs of something--it went down on the manifest as lard, and I guess it was grease, anyhow. On her deck there still remained five bales of something. I wanted to know what it was. The _Turgia_ then slid downstream to the Southern Pacific docks and unloaded there. They billed five bales of waste paper to New York. Yes, I got the name of the consignee--Ca.s.sinis & Ca.s.sinis, Water Street--but I wondered how Becker collected waste paper up there in that swamp and I didn"t believe it was waste paper. It was covered with burlap and baled tight.
"Do you see what this crafty old crook has done? He took the sausage out of the folding boxes, which he laid out flat, then baled them carefully and is shipping them to New York to get the best price and put such evidence clear out of the way. Well, it cost me I don"t know how many drinks of water-front whiskey to get those watchmen in condition--there were two of them--before I could dig into one of the bales for a sample.
I know it was tough on the watchmen, but there you are, and as sure as shooting Becker & Co. got the stolen sausages and we"ve got to get Becker before he has a chance to try to hang it on me, or some other b.o.o.b clerk.
"Ben, are you awake? do you understand what I am saying?" he asked, giving my shoulder a tap that made me sway as though kicked by a mule.
"Yes, Hiram, I understand. Was there a Southern Pacific ship at the dock?" I asked, rubbing my shoulder.
"No--the next ship is due to-morrow, and they"re always late now."
"I believe you have something really tangible. I"ll stop that shipment this morning, but you"d better get to bed. And," I hastily added, "we must have more than empty sausage cartons to make a case against him."
"I know that, and there is nothing doing in the way of sleep for me now. The old man is down at a rummy, waiting to take me up to the ca.n.a.l to see that boat. If the boat looks good to me, will you come and look it over?" he asked, getting up and walking the floor like a caged lion.
"Yes--meet me here at noon, and in the meantime I"ll try to learn something about the matter----" But before I had time to finish he was out of the room, going downstairs two steps at a time.
When I told Superintendent Kitch.e.l.l that morning in his office as much as I thought good for him to know at that time, and especially about Hiram"s plans and what he had already accomplished, his face began to glow, and he otherwise evidenced intense interest.
"Taylor," he began, without any attempt now at inscrutability, "I would give ten years of my life to have that robbery matter ferreted out quickly. All the other division superintendents on the system are laughing at me and the General Super and President are raising h.e.l.l. It seems to me that the boy"s theory as to how to round up the gang is good, and I will help you all I possibly can. I"ve looked at Becker"s plant several times while pa.s.sing and I think the boy is right. You can"t really get the goods on him without getting into his plant, and that must be done by starting some kind of trade. Do you think he has any chance of getting a boat?"
"He will, or rather may have, something definite about that before night."
"I wonder----" hesitated the man of many troubles; "when I was up in Memphis the other day I met the man in charge of the Illinois division.
He happened to mention that the state was killing whole herds of tubercular-infected cattle there. I wonder if I couldn"t get a few carloads sent here and let the boy--Strong, did you say his name was?--get in by boating them up to him--but you are not sure of obtaining a boat?"
"I feel sure we can get some kind of a boat."
"Here is something--Ever since we entered the war Central and South America have been revolution incubators, especially for Mexico. Some never hatch but die in the sh.e.l.l, others hatch but die before they can walk, then once in a while, out of the great number one of them grows big enough to buy all sorts of ridiculous stuff they think they need or want, and ship it down here. Then they get shot, macheted, put in prison or exiled, and a lot of this stuff is never claimed, so we have to sell it for freight charges. We"ve got a whole warehouse of that kind of junk we should have disposed of long ago. Go down and look it over--anything you can use I will see that you get it p.r.o.nto. We"ve had about everything except industry, virtue and honesty."
"Wire the Illinois division regarding the slaughtered cattle, and I will look over your unclaimed freight. I may find something----"
"And do you think," he interrupted, sore to the bone at the thought, "that it involves any one in the offices?"
I hesitated, recalling that I had not mentioned either Chief Clerk Burrell or Miss Bascom, or their conversations with Becker. "Yes--Becker couldn"t work without some one to give him information about arrivals and keep him posted at the river."
"Rotten--rotten!" he exploded; "just think of it, a mess like this putrefying right under our noses and we don"t get wise until they smell it in Kansas City and Chicago. And now, Ben Taylor, while I feel sure you are on the right track at last, and are going to make good, you seem to be moving so maddeningly slow and deliberate." He said this with a deep sigh from the depths of his waistband, his chubby hand fingering a number of yellow slips used for official railroad messages and reminding me of the mysterious one sent to Hiram about Becker & Co. receiving freight by rail, but invariably shipping out by water.
"But, Mr. Kitch.e.l.l, haste in this matter will be fatal to final results," I said casually.
"Yes, perhaps--at any rate I hope that"s so, but I"m so d.a.m.nably worked up over this matter that I am about wild. Then another thing, I don"t quite understand why you have so much confidence in this young Strong, though I"ll admit he shows good mettle. I recall at our first interview you said he was well connected in the North?" said he, still glancing nervously over the messages on his desk.
"Hiram Strong is well connected. He has inherited a great pride and along with it what seems to be honor. He feels keenly the onus cast upon him in this matter, but has withal a saving sense of humor. He is working out his own salvation and feels he is heading off an attempt to make him the goat--to him it is simply a matter of keeping out of jail.
He has, I believe, demonstrated that he can do head work as well as leg work, and I feel like giving him room to turn around," I insisted, perhaps too testily.
"I wonder if he is kin of this man Hiram Strong, who was reported this morning as coming in on our system at Chicago in his private car. Do you know, Taylor, I wish every private car was in h.e.l.l--as though we didn"t have enough trouble already! Our pa.s.senger engines are loaded with every pound they can keep rolling and every once in a while we get a private car of some millionaire pork-sticker or quick-rich, who wants to come down here to shoot ducks or some other fool thing. Do you think it is the same man?" he demanded.
"It might be."
"Do you suppose the boy has got word to him, and he is coming down here to raise the devil?" he asked, eyeing me as though I might have something to do with it.
"As I understand it, from the boy, he was thrown out entirely on his own resources--disinherited--and as far as appearances go, is completely estranged from his father."
"Well, by Heaven, if he shows up here with a chip on his shoulder, I"m going to turn him over to you--do you understand?--I"ll turn him over to you. You know all about it, and I"ve had a stomachful of educating rich men"s sons, and all the other troubles I want," he insisted, disgustedly, as I started to go to my office.