The Cross Cut

C >> Courtney Ryley Cooper >> The Cross Cut

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"That's a lie!" Fairchild's temper got away from him and his fist
banged on the table. "That's a lie and you know it!"

"Pardon me--er--pardon me! I made use of a word that can have many
meanings, and I am sure that in using it, I did n't place the same
construction that you did in hearing it. But let that pass. I
apologize. What I should have said was that, if you will pardon me,
she used you, as young women will do, as a foil against her fiance in a
time of petty quarreling between them. Is that plainer?"

It was too plain to Fairchild. It hurt. But he nodded his head and
the other man went on.

"Now the thing has progressed to a place where you may be--well--what
one might call the thorn in the side of their happiness. You are the
'other man', as it were, to cause quarrels and that sort of thing. And
she feels that she has not done rightly by you, and, through her
friendship and a desire to see peace all around, believes she can
arrange matters to suit all concerned. To be plain and blunt, Mr.
Fairchild, you are not in an enviable position. I said that I had
information for you, and I 'm going to give it. You are trying to work
a mine. That demands capital. You have n't got it and there is no way
for you to procure it. To get capital, one must have standing--and you
must admit that you are lacking to a great extent in that very
necessary ingredient. In the first place, your mine is in escrow,
being held in court in lieu of five thousand dollars bond on--"

"You seem to have been making a few inquiries?"

"Not at all. I never heard of the proposition before she brought it to
me. As I say, the deeds to your mine are held in escrow. Your partner
now is accused of four crimes and will go to trial on them in the fall.
It is almost certain that he will be convicted on at least one of the
charges. That would mean that the deeds to the mine must remain in
jurisdiction of the court in lieu of a cash bond while the case goes to
the Supreme Court. Otherwise, you must yield over your partner to go
to jail. In either event, the result would not be satisfactory. For
yourself, I dare say that a person whose father is supposed to have
committed a murder--not that I say he did it, understand--hardly could
establish sufficient standing to borrow the money to proceed on an
undertaking which requires capital. Therefore, I should say that you
were in somewhat of a predicament. Now--" a long wait and then,
"please take this as only coming from a spokesman: My client is in a
position to use her good offices to change the viewpoint of the man who
is the chief witness against your partner. She also is in a position
to use those same good offices in another direction, so that there
might never be a grand jury investigation of the finding of a certain
body or skeleton, or something of the kind, in your mine--which, if you
will remember, brought about a very disagreeable situation. And
through her very good connections in another way, she is able to
relieve you of all your financial embarrassment and procure for you
from a certain eastern syndicate, the members of which I am not at
liberty to name, an offer of $200,000 for your mine. All that is
necessary for you to do is to say the word."

Fairchild leaned forward.

"And of course," he said caustically, "the name of this mysterious
feminine friend must be a secret?"

"Certainly. No mention of this transaction must be made to her
directly, or indirectly. Those are my specific instructions. Now, Mr.
Fairchild, that seems to me to be a wonderful offer. And it--"

"Do you want my answer now?"

"At any time when you have given the matter sufficient thought."

"That's been accomplished already. And there 's no need of waiting. I
want to thank you exceedingly for your offer, and to tell you--that you
can go straight to hell!"

And without looking back to see the result of his ultimatum, Fairchild
rose, strode to the door, unlocked it, and stamped down the hall. He
had taken snap judgment, but in his heart, he felt that he was right.
What was more, he was as sure as he was sure of life itself that Anita
Richmond had not arranged the interview and did not even know of it.
One streaking name was flitting through Fairchild's brain and causing
it to seethe with anger. Cleverly concealed though the plan might have
been, nicely arranged and carefully planted, to Robert Fairchild it all
stood out plainly and clearly--the Rodaines!

And yet why? That one little word halted Fairchild as he left the
elevator. Why should the Rodaines be willing to free him from all the
troubles into which his mining ventures had taken him, start him out
into the world and give him a fortune with which to make his way
forward? Why? What did they know about the Blue Poppy mine, when
neither he nor Harry had any idea of what the future might hold for
them there? Certainly they could not have investigated in the years
that were gone; the cave-in precluded that. There was no other tunnel,
no other means of determining the riches which might be hidden within
the confines of the Blue Poppy claims, yet it was evident. That day in
court Rodaine had said that the Blue Poppy was a good property and that
it was worth every cent of the value which had been placed on it. How
did he know? And why--?

At least one answer to Rodaine's action came to him. It was simple now
to see why the scar-faced man had put a good valuation on the mine
during the court procedure and apparently helped Fairchild out in a
difficulty. In fact, there were several reasons for it. In the first
place, the tying up of the mine by placing it in the care of a court
would mean just that many more difficulties for Fairchild, and it would
mean that the mine would be placed in a position where work could be
hampered for years if a first conviction could be obtained. Further,
Rodaine could see that if by any chance the bond should be forfeited,
it would be an easy matter for the claims to be purchased cheap at a
public sale by any one who desired them and who had the inside
information of what they were worth. And evidently Rodaine and Rodaine
alone possessed that knowledge.

It was late now. Fairchild went to a junk yard or two, searching for
the materials which Harry had ordered, and failed to find them. Then
he sought a hotel, once more to struggle with the problems which the
interview with Barnham had created and to cringe at a thought which
arose like a ghost before him:

Suppose that it had been Anita Richmond after all who had arranged
this? It was logical in a way. Maurice Rodaine was the one man who
could give direct evidence against Harry as the man who had held up the
Old Times Dance, and Anita now was engaged to marry him. Judge
Richmond had been a friend of Thornton Fairchild; could it have been
possible that this friendship might have entailed the telling of
secrets which had not been related to any one else? The matter of the
finding of the skeleton could be handled easily, Fairchild saw, through
Maurice Rodaine. One word from him to his father could change the
story of Crazy Laura and make it, on the second telling, only the
maundering tale of an insane, herb-gathering woman. Anita could have
arranged it, and Anita might have arranged it. Fairchild wished now
that he could recall his words, that he could have held his temper and
by some sort of strategy arranged matters so that the offer might have
come more directly--from Anita herself.

Yet, why should she have gone through this procedure to reach him? Why
had she not gone to Farrell with the proposition--to a man whom she
knew Fairchild trusted, instead of to a greasy, hand rubbing shyster?
And besides--

But the question was past answering now. Fairchild had made his
decision, and he had told the lawyer where to go. If, at the same
time, he had relegated the woman who had awakened affection in his
heart, only to have circumstances do their best to stamp it out again,
to the same place,--well, that had been done, too, and there was no
recalling of it now. But one thing was certain: the Blue Poppy mine
was worth money. Somewhere in that beetling hill awaited wealth, and
if determination counted for anything, if force of will and force of
muscle were worth only a part of their accepted value, Fairchild meant
to find it. Once before an offer had come, and now that he thought of
it, Fairchild felt almost certain that it had been from the same
source. That was for fifty thousand dollars. Why should the value
have now jumped to four times its original figures? It was more than
the adventurer could encompass; he sought to dismiss it all, went to a
picture show, then trudged back to his hotel and to sleep.

The next day found him still striving to put the problem away from him
as he went about the various errands outlined by Harry. A day after
that, then the puffing, snorting, narrow-gauged train took him again
through Clear Creek canon and back to Ohadi. The station was strangely
deserted.

None of the usual loungers were there. None of the loiterers who,
watch in hand, awaited the arrival and departure of the puffing train
as though it were a matter of personal concern. Only the bawling 'bus
man for the hotel, the station agent wrestling with a trunk or
two,--that was all. Fairchild looked about him in surprise, then
approached the agent.

"What's happened? Where 's everybody?"

"Up on the hill."

"Something happened?"

"A lot. From what I hear it's a strike that's going to put Ohadi on
the map again."

"Who made it?"

"Don't know. Some fellow came running down here an hour or so ago and
said there 'd been a tremendous strike made on the hill, and everybody
beat it up there."

Fairchild went on, to turn into a deserted street,--a street where the
doors of the stores had been left open and the owners gone. Everywhere
it was the same; it was as if Ohadi suddenly had been struck by some
catastrophe which had wiped out the whole population. Only now and
then a human being appeared, a few persons left behind at the banks,
but that was about all. Then from far away, up the street leading from
Kentucky Gulch, came the sound of cheering and shouting. Soon a crowd
appeared, led by gesticulating, vociferous men, who veered suddenly
into the Ohadi Bank at the corner, leaving the multitude without for a
moment, only to return, their hands full of gold certificates, which
they stuck into their hats, punched through their buttonholes, stuffed
into their pockets, allowing them to hang half out, and even jammed
down the collars of their rough shirts, making outstanding decorations
of currency about their necks. On they came, closer--closer, and then
Fairchild gritted his teeth. There were four of them leading the
parade, displaying the wealth that stood for the bonanza of the silver
strike they had just made, four men whose names were gall and wormwood
to Robert Fairchild.

Blindeye Bozeman and Taylor Bill were two of them. The others were
Squint and Maurice Rodaine!

CHAPTER XVII

Had it been any one else, Fairchild would have shouted for happiness
and joined the parade. As it was, he stood far at one side, a silent,
grim figure, watching the miners and townspeople passing before him,
leaping about in their happiness, calling to him the news that he did
not want to hear:

The Silver Queen had "hit." The faith of Squint Rodaine, maintained
through the years, had shown his perspicacity. It was there; he always
had said it was there, and now the strike had been made at last,
lead-silver ore, running as high as two hundred dollars a ton. And
just like Squint--so some one informed Fairchild--he had kept it a
secret until the assays all had been made and the first shipments
started to Denver. It meant everything for Ohadi; it meant that mining
would boom now, that soon the hills would be clustered with
prospectors, and that the little town would blossom as a result of
possessing one of the rich silver mines of the State. Some one tossed
to Fairchild a small piece of ore which had been taken from a car at
the mouth of the mine; and even to his uninitiated eyes it was
apparent,--the heavy lead, bearing in spots the thin filagree of white
metal--and silver ore must be more than rich to make a showing in any
kind of sample.

He felt cheap. He felt defeated. He felt small and mean not to be
able to join the celebration. Squint and Maurice Rodaine possessed the
Silver Queen; that they, of all persons, should be the fortunate ones
was bitter and hard to accept. Why should they, of every one in Ohadi,
be the lucky men to find a silver bonanza, that they might flaunt it
before him, that they might increase their standing in the community,
that they might raise themselves to a pedestal in the eyes of every one
and thereby rally about them the whole town in any difficulty which
might arise in the future? It hurt Fairchild, it sickened him. He saw
now that his enemies were more powerful than ever. And for a moment he
almost wished that he had yielded down there in Denver, that he had not
given the ultimatum to the greasy Barnham, that he had accepted the
offer made him,--and gone on, out of the fight forever.

Anita! What would it mean to her? Already engaged, already having
given her answer to Maurice Rodaine, this now would be an added
incentive for her to follow her promise. It would mean a possibility
of further argument with her father, already too weak from illness to
find the means of evading the insidious pleas of the two men who had
taken his money and made him virtually their slave. Could they not
demonstrate to him now that they always had worked for his best
interests? And could not that plea go even farther--to Anita
herself--to persuade her that they were always laboring for her, that
they had striven for this thing that it might mean happiness for her
and for her father? And then, could they not content themselves with
promises, holding before her a rainbow of the far-away, to lead her
into their power, just as they had led the stricken, bedridden man she
called "father"? The future looked black for Robert Fairchild. Slowly
he walked past the happy, shouting crowd and turned up Kentucky Gulch
toward the ill-fated Blue Poppy.

The tunnel opening looked more forlorn than ever when he sighted it, a
bleak, staring, single eye which seemed to brood over its own
misfortunes, a dead, hopeless thing which never had brought anything
but disappointment. A choking came into Fairchild's throat. He
entered the tunnel slowly, ploddingly; with lagging muscles he hauled
up the bucket which told of Harry's presence below, then slowly lowered
himself into the recesses of the shaft and to the drift leading to the
stope, where only a few days before they had found that gaunt,
whitened, haunting thing which had brought with it a new misfortune.

A light gleamed ahead, and the sound of a single jack hammering on the
end of a drill could be heard. Fairchild called and went forward, to
find Harry, grimy and sweating, pounding away at a narrow streak of
black formation which centered in the top of the stope.

"It's the vein," he announced, after he had greeted Fairchild, "and it
don't look like it's going to amount to much!"

"No?"

Harry withdrew the drill from the hole he was making and mopped his
forehead.

"It ain't a world-beater," came disconsolately. "I doubt whether it
'll run more 'n twenty dollars to the ton, the wye smelting prices 'ave
gone up! And there ain't much money in that. What 'appened in Denver?"

"Another frame-up by the Rodaines to get the mine away from us. It was
a lawyer. He stalled that the offer had been made to us by Miss
Richmond."

"How much?"

"Two hundred thousand dollars and us to get out of all the troubles we
are in."

"And you took it, of course?"

"I did not!"

"No?" Harry mopped his forehead again. "Well, maybe you 're right.
Maybe you 're wrong. But whatever you did--well, that's just the thing
I would 'ave done."

"Thanks, Harry."

"Only--" and Harry was staring lugubriously at the vein above him,
"it's going to take us a long time to get two hundred thousand dollars
out of things the wye they stand now."

"But--"

"I know what you're thinking--that there's silver 'ere and that we 're
going to find it. Maybe so. I know your father wrote some pretty
glowing accounts back to Beamish in St. Louis. It looked awful good
then. Then it started to pinch out, and now--well, it don't look so
good."

"But this is the same vein, is n't it?"

"I don't know. I guess it is. But it's pinching fast. It was about
this wye when we first started on it. It was n't worth much and it was
n't very wide. Then, all of a sudden, it broadened out, and there was
a lot more silver in it. We thought we 'd found a bonanza. But it
narrowed down again, and the old standard came back. I don't know what
it's going to do now--it may quit altogether."

"But we 're going to keep at it, Harry, sink or swim."

"You know it!"

"The Rodaines have hit--maybe we can have some good luck too."

"The Rodaines?" Harry stared. "'It what?"

"Two hundred dollar a ton ore!"

A long whistle. Then Harry, who had been balancing a single jack,
preparatory to going back to his work, threw it aside and began to roll
down his sleeves.

"We 're going to 'ave a look at it."

"A look? What good would it--?"

"A cat can look at a king," said Harry. "They can't arrest us for
going up there like everybody else."

"But to go there and ask them to look at their riches--"

"There ain't no law against it!"

He reached for his carbide lamp, hooked to a small chink of the hanging
wall, and then pulled his hat over his bulging forehead. Carefully he
attempted to smooth his straying mustache, and failing, as always, gave
up the job.

"I 'd be 'appy, just to look at it," he announced. "Come on. Let's
forget 'oo they are and just be lookers-on."

Fairchild agreed against his will. Out of the shaft they went and on
up the hill to where the townspeople again were gathering about the
opening of the Silver Queen. A few were going in. Fairchild and 'Arry
joined them.

A long walk, stooping most of the way, as the progress was made through
the narrow, low-roofed tunnel; then a slight raise which traveled for a
fair distance at an easy grade--at last to stop; and there before them,
jammed between the rock, was the strike, a great, heavy streaking vein,
nearly six feet wide, in which the ore stuck forth in tremendous
chunks, embedded in a black background. Harry eyed it studiously.

"You can see the silver sticking out!" he announced at last. "It's
wonderful--even if the Rodaines did do it."

A form brushed past them, Blindeye Bozeman, returning from the
celebration. Picking up a drill, he studied it with care, finally to
lay it aside and reach for a gad, a sort of sharp, pointed prod, with
which to tear away the loose matter that he might prepare the way for
the biting drive of the drill beneath the five-pound hammer, or single
jack. His weak, watery eyes centered on Harry, and he grinned.

"Didn't believe it, huh?" came his query.

Harry pawed his mustache.

"I believed it, all right, but anybody likes to look at the United
States Mint!"

"You 've said it. She 's going to be more than that when we get a few
portable air compressors in here and start at this thing in earnest
with pneumatic drills. What's more, the old man has declared Taylor
Bill and me in on it--for a ten per cent. bonus. How's that sound to
you?"

"Like 'eaven," answered Harry truthfully. "Come on, Boy, let's us get
out of 'ere. I 'll be getting the blind staggers if I stay much
longer."

Fairchild accompanied him wordlessly. It was as though Fate had played
a deliberate trick, that it might laugh at him. And as he walked
along, he wondered more than ever about the mysterious telegram and the
mysterious conversation of the greasy Barnham in Denver. That--as he
saw it now--had been only an attempt at another trick. Suppose that he
had accepted; suppose that he had signified his willingness to sell his
mine and accept the good offices of the "secret friend" to end his
difficulties. What would have been the result?

For once a ray of cheer came to him. The Rodaines had known of this
strike long before he ever went to that office in Denver. They had
waited long enough to have their assays made and had completed their
first shipment to the smelter. There was no necessity that they buy
the Blue Poppy mine. Therefore, was it simply another trick to break
him, to lead him up to a point of high expectations, then, with a laugh
at his disappointment, throw him down again? His shoulders
straightened as they reached the outside air, and he moved close to
Harry as he told him his conjectures. The Cornishman bobbed his head.

"I never thought of it that way!" he agreed. "But it could explain a
lot of things. They 're working on our--what-you-call-it?"

"Psychological resistance."

"That's it. Psych--that's it. They want to beat us and they don't
care 'ow. It 'urts a person to be disappointed. That's it. I alwyes
said you 'ad a good 'ead on you! That's it. Let's go back to the Blue
Poppy."

Back they went, once more to descend the shaft, once more to follow the
trail along the drift toward the opening of the stope. And there,
where loose earth covered the place where a skeleton once had rested,
Fairchild took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.

"Harry," he said, with a new determination, "this vein does n't look
like much, and the mine looks worse. From the viewpoint we 've got now
of the Rodaine plans, there may not be a cent in it. But if you're
game, I'm game, and we'll work the thing until it breaks us."

"You 've said it. If we 'it anything, fine and well--if we can turn
out five thousand dollars' worth of stuff before the trial comes up,
then we can sell hit under the direction of the court, turn over that
money for a cash bond, and get the deeds back. If we can't, and if the
mine peters out, then we ain't lost anything but a lot of 'opes and
time. But 'ere goes. We 'll double-jack. I 've got a big 'ammer
'ere. You 'old the drill for awhile and turn it, while I sling th'
sledge. Then you take th' 'ammer and Lor' 'ave mercy on my 'ands if
you miss."

Fairchild obeyed. They began the drilling of the first indentation
into the six-inch vein which lay before them. Hour after hour they
worked, changing positions, sending hole after hole into the narrow
discoloration which showed their only prospect of returns for the
investments which they had put into the mine. Then, as the afternoon
grew late, Harry disappeared far down the drift to return with a
handful of greasy, candle-like things, wrapped in waxed paper.

"I knew that dynamite of yours could n't be shipped in time, so I
bought a little up 'ere," he explained, as he cut one of the sticks in
two with a pocketknife and laid the pieces to one side. Then out came
a coil of fuse, to be cut to its regular lengths and inserted in the
copper-covered caps of fulminate of mercury, Harry showing his contempt
for the dangerous things by crimping them about the fuse with his
teeth, while Fairchild, sitting on a small pile of muck near by, begged
for caution. But Harry only grinned behind his big mustache and went
on.

Out came his pocketknife again as he slit the waxed paper of the
gelatinous sticks, then inserted the cap in the dynamite. One after
another the charges were shoved into the holes, Harry tamping them into
place with a steel rod, instead of with the usual wooden affair, his
mustache brushing his shoulder as he turned to explain the virtues of
dynamite when handled by an expert.

"It's all in the wye you do it," he announced. "If you don't strike
fire with a steel rod, it's fine."

"But if you do?"

"Oh, then!" Harry laughed. "Then it's flowers and a funeral--after
they 've finished picking you up."

One after another he pressed the dynamite charges tight into the drill
holes and tamped them with muck wrapped in a newspaper that he dragged
from his hip pocket. Then he lit the fuses from his lamp and stood a
second in assurance that they all were spluttering.

"Now we run!" he announced, and they hurried, side by side, down the
drift tunnel until they reached the shaft. "Far enough," said Harry.

A long moment of waiting. Then the earth quivered and a muffled,
booming roar came from the distance. Harry stared at his carbide lamp.

"One," he announced. Then, "Two."

Three, four and five followed, all counted seriously, carefully by
Harry. Finally they turned back along the drift toward the stope, the
acrid odor of dynamite smoke-cutting at their nostrils as they
approached the spot where the explosions had occurred. There Harry
stood in silent contemplation for a long time, holding his carbide over
the pile of ore that had been torn from the vein above.

"It ain't much," came at last. "Not more 'n 'arf a ton. We won't get
rich at that rate. And besides--" he looked upward--"we ain't even
going to be getting that pretty soon. It's pinching out."

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