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The Iron Trail, a novel by Rex Beach |
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Chapter 24. Gordon's Fall |
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_ CHAPTER XXIV. GORDON'S FALL The news of O'Neil's attitude spread quickly, and excitement grew among the workmen. Up through the chill darkness of early evening they came charging. They were noisy and eager, and when the gong summoned them to supper they rushed the mess-house in boisterous good humor. No attempt was made to call out the night crew: by tacit consent its members were allowed to mingle freely with their fellows and plan for the morrow's departure. Some, envious of the crowd from Omar which had profited by an early start, were anxious to be gone at once, but the more sober-minded argued that the road to White River was so long that a day's advantage would mean little in the end, and the advance party would merely serve to break trail for those behind. These men, be it said, were not those who had struck, earlier in the season, at the behest of Gordon's emissary, Linn, but fellows whose loyalty and industry were unquestioned. Their refusal to stampede at the first news was proof of their devotion, yet any one who has lived in a mining community knows that no loyalty of employee to employer is strong enough to withstand for long the feverish excitement of a gold rush. These bridge-workers were the aristocracy of the whole force, men inured to hardship and capable of extreme sacrifice in the course of their work; but they were also independent Americans who believed themselves entitled to every reward which fortune laid in their paths. For this reason they were even harder to handle than the unskilled, unimaginative men farther down the line. Long before the hour when O'Neil appeared the low-roofed mess- house was crowded. Natalie and Eliza, knowing the importance of this crisis, refused to go home, and begged Murray to let them attend the meeting. Mr. Blaine, who also felt the keenest concern in the outcome, offered to escort them, and at last with some difficulty he managed to wedge them inside the door, where they apprehensively scanned the gathering. It was not an ideal place for a meeting of this size, but tables and benches had been pushed aside, and into the space thus cleared the men were packed. Their appearance was hardly reassuring: it was a brawny, heavy-muscled army with which O'Neil had to deal--an army of loud-voiced toilers whose ways were violent and whose passions were quick. Nevertheless, the two girls were treated with the greatest respect, and when O'Neil stepped to a bench and raised himself above their heads his welcome was not unduly boisterous. Outside, the night was clear and cold; inside the cramped quarters the air was hot and close and fetid. Murray had no skill as a public speaker in the ordinary sense; he attempted no oratorical tricks, and addressed his workmen in a matter-of-fact tone. "Boys," he began, "there has been a gold strike at the head of the White River, and you want to go. I don't blame you; I'd like to go myself, if there's any chance to make money." "You're all right, boss!" shouted some one; and a general laugh attested the crowd's relief at this acceptance of the inevitable. They had expected argument, despite the contrary assurances they had received. "Now we all want an even break. We want to know all there is to know, so that a few fellows won't have the advantage of the rest. The strike is three hundred miles away; it's winter, and--you know what that means. I talked with Baker and Thorn this afternoon. I want them to tell you just what they told me. That's why I called this meeting. If you decide to go you won't have to waste time going to Omar after your outfits, for I'll sell you what you want from my supplies. And I'll sell at cost." There was a yell of approval, a cheer for the speaker; then came calls for Baker and Thorn. The two miners were thrust forward, and the embarrassed Thorn, who had acted as spokesman, was boosted to a table. Under Murray's encouragement he stammered out the story of his good fortune, the tale running straight enough to fan excitement into a blaze. There was no disposition to doubt, for news of this sort is only too sure of credence. When the speaker had finished, O'Neil inquired: "Are you an experienced quartz-miner? Do you know ore when you see it?" "Sure! I worked in the Jumbo, at Goldfield, Nevada, up to last year. So did Baker." "When did you go into the White River country?" "August." "How did you go in?" "We packed in. When our grub ran out, we killed our horses and cached the meat for dog-feed." "Is there any other dog-feed there?" "No, sir." "Any people?" "Not a soul. The country is open to the first comers. It's a fine-looking country, too: we seen quartz indications everywhere. I reckon this speaks for itself." Thorn significantly held up his ore samples. "We've made our locations. You fellows is welcome to the rest. First come, first served." There was an eager scramble for the specimens on the part of those nearest the speaker. After a moment Murray asked them: "Did you fellows ever see any rock like that?" One of his workmen answered: "_I_ have." "Where?" "In the Jumbo, at Goldfield. I 'high-graded' there in the early days." There was a laugh at this. Thorn flushed angrily. "Well," he rejoined, "we've got the same formation over there in the White River. It's just like Goldfield. It'll be the same kind of a camp, too, when the news gets out." O'Neil broke in smoothly, to say: "Most of our fellows have no dogs. It will take them three weeks to cover the trail. They'll have to spend three weeks in there, then three weeks more coming out--over two months altogether. They can't haul enough grub to do them." He turned to his employees and said gravely: "You'd better think it over, boys. Those who have teams can make it but the rest of you will get left. Do you think the chance is worth all that work and suffering?" The bridge-workers shifted uncomfortably on their feet. Then a voice exclaimed: "Don't worry, boss. We'll make it somehow." "Thorn says there's nobody over there," Murray continued; "but that seems strange, for I happen to know of half a dozen outfits at the head of the White River. Jack Dalton has had a gang working there for four years." Dalton was a famous character in the north--one of the most intrepid of the early pioneers--and the mention of his name brought a hush. A large part of the audience realized the truth of O'Neil's last statement, yet resented having it thrust upon them. Thorn and Baker were scowling. Gray had just entered the room and was signaling to his chief, and O'Neil realized that he must score a triumph quickly if he wished to hold the attention of his men. He resumed gravely: "If this strike was genuine I wouldn't argue, but--it isn't." A confusion of startled protests rose; the two miners burst out indignantly; but O'Neil, raising his voice for the first time, managed to make himself heard. "Those jewelry samples came from Nevada," he cried. "I recognized them myself this afternoon, and here's another fellow who can't be fooled. Thorn told you he used to work in Goldfield. You can draw your own conclusions." The temper of the crowd changed instantly: jeers, groans, hisses arose; the men were on their feet now, and growing noisier every moment; Baker and Thorn were glaring balefully at their accuser. But Gray succeeded in shouldering his way forward, and whispered to O'Neil, who turned suddenly and faced the men again. "Just a minute!" he shouted. "You heard Thorn say he and Baker went prospecting in August. Well, we've just had Cortez on the cable and learn that they were working for Gordon until two weeks ago." A sudden silence fell. Murray smiled down at the two strangers. "What do you say to that?" Thorn flew into a purple rage: "It's a damned lie! He's afraid you'll quit work, fellows." Viciously he flung himself toward the door, only to feel the grasp of the muscular physician upon his arm. "Listen to this message from the cashier of the Cortez Home Bank!" bellowed Gray, his big voice dominating the uproar. Undisturbed by his prisoner's struggles, he read loudly: "Joe Thorn and Henry Baker quit work fifteenth, leaving for Fairbanks over winter trail, with five dogs--four gray and white malamutes, black shepherd leader. Thorn medium size, thirty-five, red hair. Baker dark, scar on cheek. WILSON, Cashier." The doctor's features spread into a broad grin. "You've all seen the dog-team, and here's the red hair." His fingers sunk into his prisoner's fiery locks with a grip that threatened to leave him a scalp for a trophy. Thorn cursed and twisted. The crowd's allegiance had been quick to shift, but it veered back to O'Neil with equal suddenness. "Bunco!" yelled a hoarse voice, after a brief hush. "Lynch 'em!" cried another; and the angry clamor burst forth anew. "Don't be foolish," shouted Murray; "nobody has been hurt." "We'd have been on the trail to-morrow. Send 'em down the river barefoot!" "Yes! What about that gang from Omar?" "I'm afraid they'll have to take care of themselves," O'Neil said. "But these two men aren't altogether to blame; they're acting under orders. Isn't that right?" he asked Thorn. The miner hesitated, until the grip in his hair tightened; then, evidently fearing the menace in the faces on every side, he decided to seek protection in a complete confession. "Yes!" he agreed, sullenly. "Gordon cooked it up. It's all a fake." O'Neil nodded with satisfaction. "This is the second time he's tried to get my men away from me. The other time he failed because Tom Slater happened to come down with smallpox. Thank God, he recovered!" A ripple of laughter spread, then grew into a bellow, for the nature of "Happy Tom's" illness had long since become a source of general merriment, and O'Neil's timely reference served to divert the crowd. It also destroyed most of its resentment. "You fellows don't seem able to protect yourselves; so Doc and I will have to do it for you. Now listen," he continued, more gravely. "I meant it when I said I'd open the commissary and help you out if the strike were genuine, but, nevertheless, I want you to know just what it would have meant to me. I haven't enough money to complete the S. R. & N., and I can't raise enough, but I have signed an option to sell the road if the bridge is built by next spring. It's really a two year's job, and some engineers don't believe it can be built at all, but I know it can if you'll help. If we fail I'm ruined; if we succeed"--he waved his hands and smiled at them cheerfully--"maybe we'll build another railroad somewhere. That's what this stampede meant. Now, will you stick to me?" The answer roared from a hundred throats: "You bet we'll stick!" At the rear of the room, whence they had witnessed the rapid unfolding of this drama, the two girls joined in the shout. They were hugging each other and laughing hysterically. "He handled them just right," said Blaine, with shining eyes; "just right--but I was worried." Walsh, the night foreman, raised his voice to inquire: "Does anybody want to buy a dog-team cheap?" "Who wants dogs now?" jeered some one. "Give 'em to Baker and Thorn!" O'Neil was still speaking in all earnestness. "Boys," he said; "we have a big job on our hands. It means fast work, long hours, and little sleep. We picked you fellows out because we knew you were the very best bridge-workers in the world. Now the life of the S. R. & N. lies with you, and that bridge MUST BE BUILT on time. About these two men who tried to stampede us: I think it's enough punishment if we laugh at them. Don't you?" He smiled down at Thorn, who scowled, then grinned reluctantly and nodded his head. When general good feeling was restored Murray attempted to make his way out; but his men seemed determined to thank him one by one, and he was delayed through a long process of hand-shaking. It pleased him to see that they understood from what hardships and disappointments he had saved them, and he was doubly grateful when Walsh rounded up his crew and announced that the night shift would resume work at midnight. He escaped at last, leaving the men grouped contentedly about huge pans of smoking doughnuts and pots of coffee, which the cook-boys had brought in. Liquor was taboo in the camp, but he gave orders that unlimited cigars be distributed. When he reached his quarters he was completely fagged, for the crisis, coming on top of his many responsibilities, had taken all his vitality. His once cheerless room was warm and cozy as he entered: he found Natalie sleeping peacefully on his bed and Eliza curled up in his big chair waiting. She opened her eyes drowsily and smiled up at him, saying: "You were splendid, Omar Khayyam. I'm SO glad." He laid a finger on his lips and glanced at the sleeping Natalie. "Sh-h!" "Where are you going to put us for the night?" "Right here, of course." "Those men will do anything for you now. I--I think I'd die, too, if anything happened to the bridge." He took her hand in his and smiled down into her earnest eyes a little wearily. "Nothing will happen. Now go to bed--and thank you for making a home for me. It really is a home now. I'll appreciate it to-morrow." He tiptoed out and tramped over to Parker's quarters for the night. The news of the White River fiasco reached Curtis Gordon in Seattle, whither he had gone in a final attempt to bolster up the tottering fortunes of the Cortez Home Railway. His disappointment was keen, yet O'Neil from the beginning had met his attacks with such uniform success that new failure did not really surprise him; it had been a forlorn hope at best. Strangely enough, he had begun to lose something of his assurance of late. Although he maintained his outward appearance of confidence with all his old skill, within himself he felt a growing uneasiness, a lurking doubt of his abilities. Outwardly there was reason enough for discouragement, for, while his co-operative railroad scheme had begun brilliantly, its initial success had not been sustained. As time passed and Eliza Appleton's exposure remained unrefuted he had found it ever more difficult to enlist support. His own denials and explanations seemed powerless to affect the public mind, and as he looked back he dated his decline from the appearance of her first article. It had done all the mischief he had feared. Not only were his old stock-holders dissatisfied, but wherever he went for aid he found a disconcerting lack of response, a half-veiled skepticism that was maddening. Yet his immediate business worries were not all, nor the worst of his troubles: his physical powers were waning. To all appearances he was as strong as ever, but a strange bodily lassitude hampered him; he tired easily, and against this handicap he was forced to struggle continually. He had never rightly valued his amazing equipment of energy until now, when some subtle ailment had begun to sap it. The change was less in his muscular strength than in his nerves and his mental vigor. He found himself growing peculiarly irritable; his failures excited spasms of blind fury which left him weak and spent; he began to suffer the depressing tortures of insomnia. At times the nerves in his face and neck twitched unaccountably, and this distressing affection spread. These symptoms had first manifested themselves after his unmerciful drubbing at the hands of Dan Appleton: but they were not the result of any injury; they were due to some deeper cause. When he had recovered his senses, after the departure of Dan and Natalie, he had fallen into a paroxysm of anger that lasted for days; he had raged and stormed like a madman, for, to say nothing of other humiliations, he prided himself extravagantly on his physical prowess. While the marks of the rough treatment he had suffered were disappearing he remained indoors, plunged in such abysmal fury that neither Gloria nor the fawning Denny dared approach him. The very force of his emotions had permanently disturbed his poise, or perhaps effected some obscure lesion in his brain. Even when he showed himself again in public he was still abnormally choleric. His fits of passion became almost apoplectic in their violence; they caused his associates to shun him as a man dangerous, and in his calmer moments he thought of them with alarm. He had tried to regain his nervous control, but without success, and his wife's anxiety only chafed him further. Gradually he lost his mental buoyancy, and for the first time in his life he really yielded to pessimism. He found he could no longer attack a problem with his accustomed certainty of conquering it, but was haunted by a foreboding of inevitable failure. All in all, when he reached the States on his critical mission he knew that he was far from being his old self, and he had deteriorated more than he knew. A week or two of disappointments should have shown him the futility of further effort; at any other time it would have set him to putting his house in order for the final crash, but now it merely enraged him. He redoubled his activity, launching a new campaign of publicity so extravagant and ill-timed as to repel the assistance he needed. He had lost his finesse; his nicely adjusted financial sense had gone. The outcome was not long delayed; it came in the form of a newspaper despatch to the effect that his Cortez bank had suspended payment because of a run started by the dissatisfied employees of the railroad. Through Gordon's flamboyant advertising his enterprises were so well known by this time that the story was featured despite his efforts to kill it. His frantic cables to Cortez for a denial only brought assurances that the report was true and that conditions would not mend unless a shipment of currency was immediately forthcoming. Harassed by reporters, driven on by the need for a show of action, he set out to raise the money, but the support he had hoped for failed him when it transpired that his bank's assets consisted mainly of real estate at boom prices and stock in his various companies which had been inflated to the bursting-point. Days passed, a week or more; then he was compelled to relinquish his option on the steamship line he had partly purchased, and to sacrifice all that had been paid in on the enterprise. This, too, made a big story for the newspapers, for it punctured one of the most imposing corporations in the famous "Gordon System." It likewise threatened to involve the others in the general crash. Hope Consolidated, indeed, still remained, and Gordon's declaration that the value of its shares was more than sufficient to protect his bank met with some credence until, swift upon the heels of the other disasters, came an application for a receiver by the stock-holders, coupled with the promise of a rigorous investigation into his various financial manipulations. Then at last Gordon acknowledged defeat. Ruin had come swiftly; the diversity of his interests made his situation the more hopeless, for so cunningly had he interlocked one with another that to separate them promised to be an endless task. He still kept up a fairly successful pretense of confidence, and publicly he promised to bring order out of chaos, but in secret he gave way to the blackest despair. Heretofore, failure had never affected him deeply, for he had always managed to escape with advantage to his pocket and without serious damage to his prestige, but out of the present difficulty he could find no way. His office force stopped work, frightened at his bearing; the bellboys of his hotel brought to the desk tales of such maniacal violence that he was requested to move. At last the citizens of Cortez, who up to this time had been like putty in his fingers, realized their betrayal and turned against him. Creditors attached the railway property, certain violent- tempered men prayed openly and earnestly to their gods for his return to Alaska in order that they might exact satisfaction in frontier fashion. Eastern investors in Hope Consolidated appeared in Seattle: there was talk of criminal procedure. Bewildered as he was, half crazed with anxiety, Gordon knew that the avalanche had not only wrecked his fortunes, but was bearing him swiftly toward the penitentiary. Its gates yawned to welcome him, and he felt a chilling terror such as he had never known. One evening as Captain Johnny Brennan stood on the dock superintending the final loading of a cargo for the S. R. & N. he was accosted by a tall, nervous man with shifting eyes and twitching lips. It was hard to recognize in this pitiable shaken creature the once resplendent Gordon, who had bent the whole northland to his ends. Some tantalizing demons inside the man's frame were jerking at his sinews. Fear was in his roving glance; he stammered; he plucked at the little captain's sleeve like a frightened woman. The open-hearted Irishman was touched. "Yes," said Johnny, after listening for a time. "I'll take you with me, and they won't catch you, either." Gordon chattered: "I'll pay you well, handsomely. I'm a rich man. I have interests that demand attention, so--accept this money. Please! Keep it all, my good fellow." Brennan stared at the bundle Gordon had thrust into his hand, then regarded the speaker curiously. "Man dear," he said, "this isn't money. These are stock certificates." "Eh? Stock? Well, there's money in stocks, big money, if you know how to handle them." The promoter's wandering eye shifted to the line of stevedores trundling their trucks into the hold, then up to the crane with its straining burden of bridge material. Every package was stenciled with his rival's name, but he exclaimed: "Bravo, Captain! We'll be up to the summit by Christmas. 'No graft! No incompetence! The utmost publicity in corporate affairs!'--that's our platform. We're destined for a glorious success. Glorious success!" "Go aboard and lie down," Brennan said, gently. "You need a good sleep." Then, calling a steward, he ordered, "Show Mr. Gordon to my cabin and give him what he wants." He watched the tall figure stumble up the gang-plank, and shook his head: "'The utmost publicity,' is it? Well, it's you that's getting it now. And to think that you're the man with the mines and the railroads and the widow! I'm afraid you'll be in irons when she sees you, but--that's as good a finish as you deserve, after all." _ |
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