The Son of his Father

"That feller's worried," he observed. "He's got wind there's something doing, and is scared to death the speculators are to be shut out. He's going back to report to the boys. Maybe we'll hear from Peter again – later. I wonder what Slosson's thinking?"

Gordon smiled.

"I doubt if he can think yet," he said. "I allow he was upset yesterday. I'd give a dollar to see him when he starts to try and buy."

"You're feeling sure."

Mallinsbee's doubt was pretty evident.

"Sure? I'm sure of nothing about Slosson except his particular dislike of me, and, through me, of you."

"Just so. And when a man hates the way he hates you, if he's bright he'll try to make things hum."

"He's bright all right," allowed Gordon.

A further diversion was created. Two men arrived in a buckboard, and Mallinsbee's explanation was verified. They were looking for information. It was said the railroad was to boycott Buffalo Point. It was said, even, that they had bought in Snake's Fall. Was this so? And, anyway, what was the meaning of the rise in prices at that end?

"Why, say," finished up one of the men, "when I was talking to Mason, the dry goods man, this morning, he told me there wasn't a speculator around who'd money enough to buy his spare holdings in Snake's. And when I asked him the figger he said he needed ten thousand dollars for two side street plots and twenty thousand for two avenue fronts. He's crazy, sure."

Mallinsbee shook his head.

"Not crazy. Just bright."

When the man had departed, and Mallinsbee had removed the patch from his eye, he smiled over at Gordon.

"Peter's surely done his work," he said.

Gordon warmed with enthusiasm. If those were the prices ruling Mr. Slosson would have no option but to be squeezed between the two interests. Whatever his personal feelings, he must make good with his company. No agent, unless he were quite crazy, would dare face such prices for his principals.

"I don't see that Slosson's a leg to stand on," he cried, his enthusiasm bubbling. "We've just got to sit around and wait."

Mallinsbee agreed.

"Sure. Sit around and wait," he said, with that baffling smile of his.

Gordon shrugged, and bent over some figures he had been working on. Presently he looked up.

"How's Miss Hazel this morning?" he inquired casually. He had wanted to speak of her before, but the memory of her father's anger yesterday had restrained him. Now he felt he was safe.

"Just sore over things," said the old man, with a sobering of the eyes. "I talked to her some last night. She guesses she owes you a heap, but it ain't nothing to what I owe you."

Gordon flushed. Then he laughed and shook his head.

"No man or woman owes me a thing who gives me the chance of a scrap," he said.

The old man smiled.

"No," he agreed. "With a name like 'Van Henslaer' – you ain't Irish?"

"Descendant of the old early Dutch."

"Ah. They were scrappers, too."

Gordon nodded and went on with his figures. So the morning passed. It was a waiting for developments which both men knew would not long be delayed. Mallinsbee was unemotional, but Gordon was all on wires drawn to great tension. The subtle warnings from Mallinsbee not to be too optimistic had left him in a state of doubt. And an impatience took hold of him which he found hard to restrain.

The two men shared their midday meal. Mallinsbee wanted to get back to the ranch, but neither felt such a course to be policy yet. Besides, now that the crisis had arrived, Gordon was anxious to have his superior's approval for his next move. He had taken a chance yesterday. Now he wanted to make no mistake.

The dénouement came within half an hour of Hip-Lee's clearing of the table. It came with the sound of galloping hoofs, with the rush of a horseman up to the veranda.

The two men inside the office looked at each other, and Gordon rose and dashed at the window.

"It's McSwain," he said, and returned to the haven of his seat behind his desk. His announcement had been cool enough, but his heart was hammering against his ribs.

"Then I guess things are going queer," said the rancher pessimistically.

Gordon was about to reply when the door was abruptly thrust open, and the hot face and hotter eyes of Peter appeared in the doorway.

"Well?"

For the life of him Gordon could not have withheld that sharp, nervous inquiry.

McSwain came right into the room and drew the door closed after him. Quite suddenly his eyes began to smile in that fashion which so expresses chagrin. He flung his hat on Gordon's desk and sat himself on the corner of it. Then he deliberately drew a long breath.

"I'm as worried as a cat goin' to have kittens," he said. "That feller Slosson's beat us. Maybe he's stark, starin' crazy, maybe he ain't. Anyways he came right along to me this morning with a face like chewed up dogs' meat, with a limp on him that 'ud ha' made the fortune of a tramp, and a mitt all doped up with a dry goods store o' cotton-batten, and asked me the price of my holdings in Snake's. I guessed I wasn't selling my hotel lot, but I'd two Main Street frontages that were worth ten thousand dollars each, and a few other bits going at the waste ground price of five thousand each."

"Well?"

This time it was Mallinsbee's inquiry.

"He closed the deal for his company, and planted the deposit."

"He closed the deal?" cried Gordon thickly, all his dreams of the future tumbling about his ears.

"Why, yes." McSwain regarded the younger man's hopelessly staring eyes for one brief moment. Then he went on: "I was only the first. This was after dinner. Say, in half an hour he's put his company in at Snake's to the tune of nearly a quarter million dollars. He's mad. They'll fire him. They'll repudiate the whole outfit. I tell you he never squealed at any old price. He's beat our play here. But how do we stand up there? A crazy man comes along and makes deals which no corporation in the world would stand for. There ain't a site in Snake's worth more'n a hundred dollars to a railroad who's got to boom a place. Well, if his corporation turns him down, how do we stand? Are they goin' to pay? No, sir; not on your life."

"They'll have to stand it," said Mallinsbee.

"They'll try and fight it," retorted Peter hotly.

"And you can't graft the courts like a railroad can," put in Gordon quickly.

"They'll have to stand it," repeated Mallinsbee doggedly. "An' I'll tell you how. Maybe Slosson's crazy. Maybe he's crazy to beat us, an' I allow he's not without reason for doin' it – now. But it would cost the railroad a big pile to shift that depot here. It would have been better for them in the end. You see, they'd have got their holdings in the township here for pretty well nix, and so they wouldn't have felt the cost of the depot. The city would have paid that, as well as other old profits. Anyway, the capital would have had to be laid out. In Snake's they are laying out capital in their holdings only. They'll get it back all right, all right – and profits. Slosson's relying on making up their leeway for them in the boom. He's takin' that chance, because he's crazy to beat – us."

"And he's done it," said Gordon sharply.

"Yep. He's done it," muttered McSwain regretfully.

"He surely has," agreed Mallinsbee, without emotion.

Gordon was the only one of the trio who appeared to be depressed. McSwain had the consolation of getting his profit in Snake's Fall. The only sense in which he was a loser was that his holdings in Buffalo Point were larger than in the other place. Therefore he was able to regard the matter more calmly, in the light of the fortunes of war. Mallinsbee, who had staked all his hopes on Buffalo Point, seemed utterly unaffected.

A few minutes later McSwain hurried away for the purpose of watching further developments, promising to return in the evening and report. Neither he nor Gordon felt that there was the least hope whatever. Mallinsbee offered no opinion.

When Peter had ridden off, and the two men were left alone, Gordon, weighed down with his failure, began to give expression to his feelings.

He looked over at the strong face of his benefactor, and took his courage in both hands.

"Mr. Mallinsbee," he said diffidently, "I want to tell you something of what I feel at the way things have gone through – my failure. I – "

Mallinsbee had thrust his fingers into his waistcoat pocket, and now drew forth a cigar.

"Say, have a smoke, boy," he said, in his blunt, kindly fashion. "That's a dollar an' a half smoke," he went on, "an' I brought two of 'em over from the ranch to celebrate on. Guess we best celebrate right now."

It was a doleful smile which looked back at the rancher as Gordon accepted the proffered cigar.

"But I – "

"Say, don't bite the end off," interrupted Mallinsbee. "Here's a piercer."

"Thanks. But you must let – "

"I'll be mighty glad to have a light," the other went on hastily.

Gordon was thus forced to silence, and Mallinsbee continued.

"Say, boy," he said, as he settled himself comfortably to enjoy his expensive cigar, "a business life is just the only thing better than ranching, I'm beginning to guess. You got to figure on things this way: ranching you got so many hands around, so much grazin', so many cattle. Your only enemy is disease. So many head of cows will produce so many calves, and Nature does the rest. That's ranching in a kind of outline which sort of reduces it to a question of figures which it wouldn't need a trick reckoner to work out. Now business is diff'rent. Ther's always the other feller, and you 'most always feel he's brighter than you. But he ain't. He's just figurin' the same way at his end of the deal. So, you see, the real principles of commerce aren't dependent on the things you got and Nature, same as ranching. Your assets ain't worth the paper they're written on – till you've got your man where you want him. Now, to do that you got to ferget you ever were born honest. You've just got one object in life, and that is to get the other feller where you want him. It don't matter how you do it, short of murder. If you succeed, folks'll shout an' say what a bright boy you are. If you fail they'll say you're a mutt. The whole thing's a play there ain't no rules to except those the p'lice handle, and even they don't count when your assets are plenty. You'll hear folks shouting at revival meetings, an' psalm-smitin' around their city churches. You'll hear them brag honesty an' righteousness till you feel you're a worse sinner than ever was found in the Bible. You'll have 'em come an' look you in the eye and swear to truth, and every other old play invented to allay suspicions. And all the time it's a great big bluff for them to get you where they want you. An' that's why the game's worth playing – even when you're beat. If business was dead straight; if you could stake your all on a man's word; if ther' weren't a man who would take graft; if you didn't know the other feller was yearning to handle your wad – why, the game wouldn't be a circumstance to ranching."

"That sounds pretty cynical," protested Gordon. He, too, was smoking, but the failure of his scheme left him unsmiling.

"It's the truth. We were trying to get Slosson where we wanted him. He's doing the same by us. So far he seems to monopolize most of the advantage. The question remaining to us now – and it's the only one of interest from our end of the line – is: Will the President of the Union Grayling and Ukataw Railroad do as I think he will – back his agent's play? Will he stand for his crazy buying? Will he fall for Slosson's game to get us where he wants us? I believe he will, but we can't be dead certain. Our only chance is to try and make it so he won't – even if the Snake's boys lose their stuff up there."

Gordon was sitting up. His cigar was removed from the corner of his mouth and held poised over an ash-tray. There was a sharp look of inquiry in his eyes.

"What's the President of the Union Grayling and Ukataw Railroad got to do with it?" he demanded quickly.

The rancher raised his heavy brows.

"This is a branch of his road, I guess."

"A – a branch?" Gordon's breath was coming rapidly.

"Sure. You see, it's a branch linking up with the Southern Trunk route. It runs into the Grayling line where it enters the Rockies. That's how you make the coast this way."

"And this – is part of the Union Grayling system?" Gordon persisted, his blue eyes getting bigger and bigger with excitement.

"Sure," nodded Mallinsbee, watching him closely.

Then the explosion came. Gordon could contain himself no longer. He flung his newly lit dollar-and-a-half cigar on the floor with all the force of pent feelings and leaped to his feet.

"Great Scott!" he cried. "The President of that road is my father!"

"Eh?" Then, without another sign, Mallinsbee pointed reproachfully at the fallen cigar. "It cost a dollar an' a ha'f, boy."

But Gordon was beside himself with excitement. A great flash of light and hope was shining through his recent mental darkness. It didn't matter to him at that moment if the cigar had cost a thousand dollars.

"But – but don't you understand?" he almost yelled. "The President of the Union Grayling and Ukataw is my – father."

"James Carbhoy."

"Yes, yes. My name's Gordon Van Henslaer Carbhoy."

Then quite suddenly Gordon sat down and began to laugh. Then he stooped and picked up his cigar. He was still laughing, while he carefully wiped the dust from the cigar's moistened end.

"James Carbhoy's your – father?"

Mallinsbee was no longer disturbed at the waste of the cigar. All his attention was fixed on that laughing face in front of him.

Gordon nodded delightedly, while he once more thrust his cigar into the corner of his mouth.

"You're thinkin' something?"

Mallinsbee was becoming infected by the other's manner.

"Sure I am." Gordon nodded. "I'm thinking a heap. Say, the fight has shifted its battle-ground. It's only just going to begin. Gee, if I'd only thought of it before! The Union Grayling and Ukataw! It's fate. Say, it isn't Slosson any longer. It's son and father. I've got to scrap the old dad. Gee! It's colossal. Say, can you beat it? I've got to make my little pile out of my old dad. And – he sent me out to make it and show him what I could do."

"But how? I don't just see – "

"How? How?"

Gordon's laughing eyes sobered. He suddenly realized that he had only considered the humorous side of the position. His brain began to work at express speed. How was he to turn this thing to account? How? Yes – how?

Mallinsbee watched him for many silent minutes. And during those minutes scheme after scheme, each one more wild than its predecessor, flashed through Gordon's brain. None of them suggested any sane possibility. He knew he was up against one of the most brilliant financiers of the country, who, in a matter like this, would regard his own son simply as "the other feller." He must trick him. But how? How?

For a long time, in spite of his excited delight, Gordon saw no glamour of a hope of dealing successfully with his father. Then all in a flash he remembered something. He remembered he still had his father's private code book with him. He remembered Slosson. If Slosson could only be – silenced.

In a moment he was on his feet again.

"I've got it!" he cried exultantly. "I've got it, Mr. Mallinsbee! You said that it didn't matter, short of murder, how we got the other feller where we needed him. Will you come in on the wildest, most crazy scheme you ever heard of? We can beat the game, and we'll take money for nothing. We can make my dad build the depot right here and scrap Snake's Fall. We can make him – and without any murder. Will you come in?"

"In what?" demanded a girlish voice from the veranda doorway.

Gordon swung round, and Mallinsbee turned his smiling, twinkling eyes upon his daughter, who had arrived all unnoticed.

"It's a scheme he's got to beat his father, gal," laughed Mallinsbee in a deep-throated chuckle.

"His father?" Hazel turned her smiling, inquiring eyes upon the man who had rescued her yesterday.

"Yes, James Carbhoy," said her father, "the President of this railroad."

Hazel's eyes widened, and their smile died out.

"Your father – the – millionaire – James Carbhoy?" she said. And her note of regret must have been plain to anybody less excited than Gordon.

But Gordon was beyond all observation of such subtle inflections. He was obsessed with his wild scheme. He started forward. Walking past Hazel, he closed and locked the door. Then with alert eyes he glanced at the window. It was open. He shut it and secured it. Then he set a chair for Hazel close beside her father, and finally brought his own chair round and sat himself down facing them.

"Listen to me, and I'll tell you," he grinned, his whole body throbbing with a joyous humor. "We're going to get the other feller where we need him, and that other feller is my – dear – old – Dad!"

CHAPTER XVI

SOMETHING DOING

During the next two or three days the entire atmosphere of Snake's Fall underwent a significant change. All doubt had been set at rest. The whole problem of the future boom was solved, and David Slosson received as much homage in the conversation of the general run of the citizens as though he were the victorious general in a military campaign. The lesser people, who would receive the most benefit from the coming boom, regarded him with wide-eyed wonder at the stupendous nature of the wildly exaggerated reports of his dealings in land. They saw in him a Napoleon of finance, and remembered that their concerns were vastly more valuable through his operations.

Men of maturer business instincts withheld their judgment and contented themselves with a rather dazed wonder. Others, those who had actually and already profited by his preliminary deals, chuckled softly to themselves, rubbed their hands gently, pocketed his paper and deposit money, and wrote him down "plumb crazy." But even so, there was a sober watchfulness as to the next movements in the approaching boom. Those who were the farthest seeing kept an eye wide open on Buffalo Point. So far as they could see it was not possible for the Buffalo Point interests to go under without a "kick." When would that "kick" come, and where would it be delivered?

As for David Slosson, after his first effort, which had been the deciding factor in the future of Snake's Fall, he remained unapproachable. He was living at Peter McSwain's hotel, and occupied a bedroom and parlor, which latter served him as an office. Here he remained more or less invisible, possibly while his disfigured features underwent the process of mending, possibly nursing his wrath and plotting developments against the object of it. There was even another possible explanation. Maybe the plunge into the land market he had taken needed a great concentration of effort to completely manipulate it. Whatever it was, very little of the railroad company's agent was seen after his first setting defiant foot into the arena of affairs.

McSwain was more than interested. The hotel-keeper seemed to have become obsessed with the idea that David Slosson was the only creature worth regarding on the face of the earth. This was after he, Peter, had spent the evening of that memorable first day of real movement, in the company of Silas Mallinsbee and Gordon, out at the office at Buffalo Point.

Peter McSwain had always been an attentive landlord in his business, now he had suddenly become even more so, especially to David Slosson. There was not a single requirement that the agent could conceive, but Peter was on hand to supply it. He was more or less at his elbow the whole time.

Then, too, Mike Callahan became a frequenter of the hotel, and even boarded there. Furthermore, a wonderful friendliness between him and Peter sprang up, which was so marked that the townspeople saw in it a combination of forces possibly foreshadowing the inauguration of a great hotel enterprise under their joint control. This also was after that first evening, when Mike Callahan had also formed one of the party at the office at Buffalo Point.

Another point of interest, had it been noticeable by the more curious and interested of the frequenters of the hotel, was, that at any time that Peter McSwain found it necessary to absent himself from the hotel, Mike was always found in his place superintending the running of the establishment.

However, these small details were merely an added puff of wind to the breath of general excitement prevailing. The one thought in the place seemed to be of those preparations necessary for the boom. Already certain contracts, long since prepared for such a happening, were put into operation. A number of buildings were started, or prepared to start. The news had been sent broadcast by interested citizens, and a fresh influx of people began and heavy orders from the various traders were placed with the wholesalers in the East.

David Slosson in his quarters was made aware of these things, but somehow they raised small enough enthusiasm in him. Truth to tell, he was far too deeply concerned with the subtleties of his own affairs. His course of action had not been the wild plunge which Peter McSwain had suggested. On the contrary, such was his venomous nature that he had pitted his own abilities and fortune against the Buffalo Point interests in a carefully calculated scheme.

For years he had been engaged in every corner of the United States and Canada in such work as he was now doing. In the process of such work, by methods of unscrupulous grafting and blackmail he had contrived a fortune of no inconsiderable amount. So that now he was no ordinary agent. He was a "representative" of the interests he worked for. In his case the distinction was a nice one.

As the result of his encounter with Gordon he had resolved upon the crushing defeat of his adversaries by hurling the entire weight of his personal fortune into the scale. True enough he had bought without regard to price. He bought all he could in the best positions, and even in the quarters which would not meet with the railroad's approval. So his purchases had to be far greater, both in extent and price, than in the ordinary way he would have made at Buffalo Point.

Having thus bought, and thrown his own money into the affair, this was his plan of dealing with the matter. First, he knew this boom was based on sound foundations. The future was assured by the vast coal-fields just opening up. The Bude and Sideley Coal Company was only the first. There would be others, many of them. With the railroad depot at Snake's Fall, the whole of the outlying positions of the city would boom with the rest. Any land round it would be of enormous value. So he purchased in every direction. He bought at "skied" prices from the big holders, so that the railroad should be satisfied as to positions, and he bought largely in the outlying parts of the city where no "skied" prices could rule. Then he pooled the price which he knew the railroad would pay, with his own fortune to pay the whole bill, put the railroad in on the best sites at their own price, and held the balance of his purchases for himself.

It was his only means of justifying to his principals his declining to accept Buffalo Point's terms, and though it meant locking up his available capital in Snake's Fall, he knew, in the end, he would recoup himself with added fortune, and have wrecked those who had rejected his blackmail, and added to their audacity by personal assault. It pleased him to think that Hazel Mallinsbee would also be made to suffer for what he considered her outrageous treatment of himself.

His method was certainly Napoleonic, and for its very audacity it should succeed. As he reviewed his position he could find no appreciable flaws. If the coal were there the place must boom, and —he knew the coal was there.

So he was satisfied.

Five days after making his first deal, those deals which had inspired so much derision, his whole operations were completed. He was feeling contented. It had been a strenuous time, and had demanded every ounce of energy and commercial acumen he possessed to complete the work. He knew that his whole future was at stake, but he also knew that he held the four aces which would be the finally deciding factors in the game. He felt free at last to notify the President of the Union Grayling and Ukataw Railroad of his transactions, and was confident of that shrewd financier's approval and felicitations. Nor were the latter the least desirable in his estimation.