The Treasure of Hidden Valley

In point of fact there was another secret motive animating Allen Miller to this line of action. Unless he cooperated with Buell Hampton, the control would remain with W. B. Grady and his associates. And it was Grady whom the banker was after – Grady, the financial shark who had robbed his lifelong friend, General John Holden, of his underlying bonds in the original and now defunct smelter company, at the time when the amalgamation scheme had been devised to freeze out the first founders of the enterprise. General Holden had been the chief victim of this rapacious trick of financial jugglery, and Allen Miller was working secretly to undo the wrong. But the banker was animated not only by reasons of friendship. He had another incentive almost as strong. He wanted to satisfy his keen sense of personal pride toward Roderick Warfield. For the vital cause of quarrel between the old banker and the youth he loved yet had disowned was the unnamed girl he had thrust upon Roderick as a suitable bride because of her fortune. And this fortune had been proved to be illusory on the very day succeeding the rupture that had culminated in Roderick’s fine display of scorn and anger, when he had flung himself out of the banker’s room and started off for parts unknown to fight his own way in the world.

It was the financial disaster which had overtaken General Holden that had opened Allen Miller’s eyes to the truth that he had been utterly wrong in his attempted methods of managing a headstrong, and as the old guardian had thought at the time a wayward, youth like Roderick Warfield. He had bitterly regretted the harsh words that had dared the offender to play football with the world and, as he now realized, had by their sarcastic bitterness driven the high-mettled young man from his boyhood home. He had never doubted Roderick’s prowess to make a way for himself by his own unaided efforts, and, despite the quarrel, had always felt sure of the lad’s affection. So Roderick one day would come back, to find the latchstring hanging outside the door of his home, the promised place in the bank still awaiting him, and – the pride and dogged determination of the old man would not yield the point – the rich, attractive, and in every way highly eligible bride still available. The only flaw in the program was Gail Holden’s fall from fortune, and to repair this had been the object of the banker’s continuous and strenuous endeavor.

He had grabbed at the chance of lending money on the Mine and Smelter Company bonds standing in the name of W. B. Grady, which bonds he considered were by moral right really the property of General Holden. But he had lent discreetly, postponing any big advance while he held the documents and nosed around for information that might give some valid reason to dispute their ownership. And in course of time he had made one surprising discovery. Obtaining from General Holden all correspondence with Grady, he had found one sentence in which the sponsor for the new amalgamation scheme had guaranteed the withdrawal of all underlying bonds in the old smelter company before the scheme would be put through. Yet this condition had not been complied with, for Allen Miller had, in the course of tracing every old bond, discovered that five were still in existence and had never been surrendered. They belonged to a widow away back in Pennsylvania who had gone to Europe and whose whereabouts at the time Grady apparently had not been able to ascertain. But the persistent old banker had followed the trail and through his agents in France had purchased this particular parcel of bonds at a high figure. They were few in number and insignificant in face value, but to Allen Miller they were priceless, for these underlying bonds put W. B. Grady in his power and could be made the means eventually of compelling restitution to General Holden of the fortune that had been filched from him. Grady would have to make good or face the criminal charge of a fraudulent transaction.

Buell Hampton had been told nothing about this – it was sufficient for Allen Miller’s immediate purpose to have the company control wrested without delay out of Grady’s hands. This would render litigation easier, perhaps avoid it altogether – the better alternative, for the law’s harassing delays and heart-sickening uncertainties are proverbial. So when Buell Hampton had come to Keokuk in the cause of humanity, to fight for the toilers at the smelter and in the big mine, he had been agreeably surprised to find in the old banker such a ready listener to his philanthropic arguments. The alliance had been struck, with the result that Buell Hampton had been able to swing the stockholders’ meeting exactly as he desired.

Up to the very eve of that meeting the Major had kept his counsel and held his hand. The merest hint of the power he possessed might have given time for so astute a knave as Grady to devise some means more or less unscrupulous of repelling the attack. Therefore Buell Hampton had not dropped one word of what he intended to do until he had spoken to Roderick in his home on the night before the stockholders’ meeting. Little did either of them know at that time how vitally and directly Roderick was interested in the outcome of the Major’s fight for the downtrodden poor.

After the eventful meetings of stockholders and directors it had been Buell Hampton’s first duty to send a full report of the proceedings to Allen Miller of Keokuk, whose power of attorney had enabled him to effect the coup deposing Grady and giving a share of the profits to the actual toilers at the furnaces and in the mine. In the course of this report the names of the new directors were set forth. Judge of the old banker’s utter amazement when his eyes fell upon the name of – Roderick Warfield. Surprise quickly yielded to joy and delight. The news was telephoned to Aunt Lois. The old banker could not leave town at the moment – an issue of city bonds required his close attention. But that very night an envoy was dispatched to Wyoming in the person of his bright and trusted young clerk, Whitley Adams.

And the first of the series of surprises for Roderick Warfield, one afternoon a few days after the sleigh ride, was the sight of his old college chum tumbling out of a bob-sled which, in default of coaching facilities, had brought him over from the railroad at Rawlins. Whitley had stopped the sled in the main street along which, in the crisp sunshine that had followed the heavy snowfall, Roderick happened to be strolling.

“Hello, old scout,” cried the new arrival with all the ease of a veteran globe-trotter.

“Where in thunder did you drop from!” exclaimed Roderick, clutching at his hand.

“From Iowa’s sun-kissed cornfields to Wyoming’s snow-capped hills,” laughed Whitley, humming the tune of the hymn he was parodying.

“What has brought you here?”

“Lots of things. A letter for you, to begin with.”

“From whom?”

“Your Uncle Allen Miller.”

“But he doesn’t know I’m here, does he?”

“The whole world knows you’re here, dear boy,” replied Whitley, pulling the latest issue of the Encampment Herald out of his pocket. “Why, you’ve become famous – a director of the great smelting corporation.” And he flourished the journal aloft.

“Who sent you that paper?”

“Major Buell Hampton, of course. At least he sent it to your uncle.”

“Get out. You’re kidding, Whitley.”

“No kidding about me, old man. Those irresponsible days are now over.” Whitley drew himself up with great dignity. “If Buell Hampton hasn’t told you that he came to Keokuk and made the acquaintance of Banker Allen Miller, well, that’s his affair, not mine. Where shall we have dinner? I’m as hungry as a grizzly.”

“Wait a moment, Whitley. Do you mean to tell me Uncle Allen knows the Major?”

“Sure. They’ve been as thick as thieves – or rather I should say as close as twins – Oh, that reminds me. How are dear Barbara and Dorothy?”

“Shut up – stop your nonsense. What were you going to say?”

“Oh, just this, that ever since the Major paid us a visit at Keokuk, letters have been passing nearly every week between him and the banker. I’ve seen all the correspondence.”

“I have known nothing about this,” said Roderick, in great perplexity.

“Well, doubtless you are not in the same confidential position as I occupy,” replied Whitley airily. “But of course now that you are a director of the company you’ll come to know – or at least should know; that’s part of your duties – that Allen Miller is a big stockholder.”

There flashed to Roderick’s mind Buell Hampton’s vague reference, on the night preceding the stockholders’ meeting, to some new friend, a professional man of finance, with whom he held joint control of the company’s stock.

“A true friend of humanity,” he murmured, recalling the Major’s words. “Great Scott, that’s about the last identification tag I would have expected for Uncle Allen.”

“Well, old chap,” interposed Whitley, “don’t mumble in conundrums. You take it from me that Buell Hampton and your uncle are financial pals – associates might be the more dignified word. That’s no doubt why the Major nominated you for the board of directors.”

Roderick paled.

“By God, if that’s the case, I’ll resign tomorrow. I’ve been standing on my own feet here. I owe nothing to Uncle Allen.”

“There now, put all that touchy pride in your pocket, Roderick. By jingo, you’re worse than Banker Miller himself. But I took the old gentleman down a few pegs the afternoon he learned that you were in Wyoming,” Whitley rambled on, laughing. “He declared that I must have known your hiding place all the time.”

“And you answered?”

“Owned up at once, of course. Told him that others besides himself could be trusted with a confidence – that neither he nor anybody else could have bulldosed me into betraying a client. A client – that’s what I called you, old man. Oh, you can’t give me business points nowadays. What do you think he said in reply?”

“Ordered you out of the room, I suppose.”

“Not on your life! Commended my sagacity, my trustworthiness; told me again that I was a born banker, one after his own heart. And to show that he meant what he said, he raised my salary five dollars a week, and handed me over fifty dollars extra spending money for this trip. What do you think of that?”

“I can’t express a thought – I’m too much surprised over the whole train of events.”

“Oh, I suppose he knew I’d have to buy a few boxes of candy for the beautiful Wyoming girls,” Whitley went on. “I had told him after my first trip here that they were regular stunners – that they had been buzzing about me like flies around a pot of honey. Oh, he laughed all right. I know how to manage the old fellow – was half afraid he’d be coming along himself instead of sending me this time. But he bade me tell you he couldn’t possibly get away from Keokuk just now. Which reminds me – here’s your letter, old man; and one, too, from Aunt Lois. She saw me off at the train, and gave me a kiss to pass on to you.” Whitley, a bunch of letters in his hand, made a movement as if to bestow upon Roderick the osculatory salute with which he had been entrusted. But Roderick, smiling in spite of himself, pushed him back.

“You irrepressible donkey: Hand over my letters.”

“Oh, yes, the letters.” Whitley began to sort the bunch of correspondence. “This is for Buell Hampton. And this is for Ben Bragdon. I suppose he’s in town?”

“Yes. But he’s pretty busy.”

“Won’t be too busy to attend to me, I reckon. Then W. B. Grady” – he was fingering a neatly folded, legal looking document “I hope that Grady hasn’t cleared out from Encampment yet.”

“Not that I’ve heard. In fact I saw him on the street this morning. You seem to have business with everyone in town.”

“Just about hits it, old man. And General John Holden. Ah, yes, that reminds me,” Whitley suspended his sorting of the letters, and looked up. “How’s the college widow, old man?”

Roderick reddened.

“That’s all off,” he answered stiffly.

“I guessed that’s just what would happen. Best so, by a long chalk, So Stella Rain is free again. Guess I’ll stop off on my way home, and take a run to Galesburg. Nice girl, you know, Stella. No saying but I might make an impression now she is” —

“Stella Rain is married,” interrupted Roderick, speaking sharply and shortly.

“You don’t say? Too bad.”

“Happily married, I tell you – to some rich fellow.”

“Oh, then, she threw you over, did she? Ho, ho, ho! But that’s all right, old fellow. Saves all complications. And Gail, how’s Gail? Oh, she’s a pipit pin.

“By gad, Whitley, you shut up. Come and have your dinner. But you haven’t given me my letters yet.”

“Ah, I forgot Well this one is for General Holden. I’ve got to see him at once.”

“What about?”

“Confidential business, my friend. Ask no questions for I want to be spared the pain of refusing you the slightest information. Great guns, Rod, we financial men, you know, hold more secrets than a father confessor. We’ve got to keep our mouths shut all the time, even to our best friends. This is my letter of credit to your local bank – no limit, mind you, on my sight drafts on Keokuk. Ah, yes, here are your letters – one from Aunt Lois, the other from your old guardian. Hope he has put a fat check inside.”

“I don’t need his checks – if there’s any check here, you can take it back.” And Roderick ripped open the envelope.

But there was no offending slip of colored paper enclosed, and he thrust both the letters unread into his pocket.

“Now we’ll dine,” he said.

“A moment, please.” And Whitley turned to the driver of the bob-sled waiting in the middle of the road.

“Go and get your dinner, my man,” he called out. “Then hitch fresh horses in that sled, and come to my hotel, the Bonhomme; that’s the best place in town, if I remember right, Roderick,” he said with a glance at his friend. Then he continued to the driver: “Charge everything to me, and don’t be longer than a couple of hours. Now come along, Roderick. You dine with me – oh, I have an ample expense fund. But I’m sorry I’ll have to leave you immediately after dinner.”

Roderick was overwhelmed by all this grandiloquence. He hardly dared to take his old chum’s arm as they walked along the street. But at last he stopped, burst out laughing, and slapped the man of affairs squarely between the shoulders.

“Whitley, old chap, you’re a wonder. You play the part to perfection.”

“Play the part?” protested Whitley, with a fine assumption of dignity. “I am the part – the real thing. I’m your rich old uncle’s right hand man, and don’t you forget it. Would a little ready cash now be a convenience?”

Then Whitley’s arm went round his comrade’s neck, and with a simultaneous whoop of laughter they passed into the hotel.

But during the next twenty-four hours Roderick saw very little of his college chum. And during the same period the said college chum accomplished some very remarkable things. Immediately after dinner the bob-sled sped out to Conchshell ranch, and General Holden signed the legal papers that attached, as a measure of precaution, the bonds standing in the name of W. B. Grady and now in the custody of the bank at Keokuk as security for a loan. And for half the night Attorney Ben Bragdon and Whitley Adams were closeted with W. B. Grady in a private parlor of the hotel, and the fight was fought out for legal possession of the fraudulently acquired bonds – a fight that put the issue squarely up to Grady whether he would accept Banker Allen Miller’s terms of surrender or face a criminal charge. It was in the grey of the breaking dawn that the vanquished Grady crept out of the hotel, wiping the beads of cold sweat from his brow, while Whitley was quietly folding up the properly signed transfers that gave back to General Holden bonds of equal value to those of which he had been robbed by false pretences and promises never fulfilled.

In the morning Whitley was again at the Conchshell ranch, and breakfasted with the General and his daughter. It was the latter who bound him to secrecy – to the solemn promise that neither he nor Mr. Bragdon should divulge to anyone the story of this restored family fortune. Gail declared that she was going to make good with her dairy cattle venture, that neither she nor her father wanted to return to the old life of fashion and society at Quincy, that they had no wish to appear as rich folks. Whitley listened to all the arguments, understood, and promised. And that the transfer of the bonds should not be connected with General Holden’s name it was agreed that for the present they should pass to Banker Allen Miller as family trustee.

Whitley’s chest had expanded fully two inches when he drove away, the trusted emissary for the carrying into effect of these decrees. He had had a few minutes alone with Gail and, introducing the name of Roderick Warfield in a casual way, had assured her that he, like everyone else, would know nothing about these strictly family affairs. She had blushed a little, reiterated her thanks, and at parting had, he could have sworn, given him an extra friendly pressure of her dainty little fingers.

Whitley drove straight to Ben Bragdon’s office, and took the precaution of adding to the professional seal of secrecy a direct expression from the General of his wishes in the matter.

During the afternoon the young banker from Keokuk personally delivered the letter from Allen Miller addressed to Major Buell Hampton. Whitley had insisted upon Roderick accompanying him. The relationship between Roderick and Banker Miller was now revealed. The Major received the news without much surprise.

“In the loom of life,” he said, with great solemnity, “the shuttle of destiny weaves the threads of individual lives into a pattern which is only disclosed as time goes on. Thus are the destinies of men interwoven without their knowing either the how or the why. Roderick, my dear fellow, from this day on we are simply more closely bound to each other than ever.”

The evening was spent at the Shields ranch. Whitley congratulated Barbara on her engagement to Ben Bragdon, and then took Dorothy’s breath away by congratulating her and the absent Grant Jones as well.

Dorothy blushed furiously, and disowned the soft impeachment; to which Whitley replied that unless her sweetheart got busy promptly and toed the line, he himself was coming back to Encampment to cut out so tardy a wooer. “Tell Grant Jones from me,” he said, “that it’s taking chances to leave the tempting peach upon the tree.” She slapped his hand playfully for his audacity, and Roderick hurried the flippant financier out of the room.

At midnight, in the bright moonlight, Whitley departed for Rawlins to catch his train. Nothing could persuade him to prolong his visit – Banker Miller would be hopping around like a cat on hot bricks, the bank going to wreck and ruin if he did not hurry back, the girls of Keokuk growing quite jealous of the beauties of Wyoming.

Like a whiff of sweet perfume the joyous youth was gone.

CHAPTER XXXI – RODERICK’S DISCOVERY

NOTWITHSTANDING their change in fortunes,

Roderick and Grant still made the editor’s shack their home – the old place endeared to them by many fond associations. A few days after Whitley Adams’ visit they were seated at the breakfast table, and Grant had proposed that they should go deer hunting.

“Excellent weather,” he explained, “as the snow is just deep enough up in the mountains to drive the deer down. Finest sport in the world. Nothing like going after big game.”

“You almost persuade me,” said Roderick, setting down his coffee and looking at Grant with increased interest. “All the same I hate to leave the smelter plant even for a day or two. You see I’m just beginning to get a hang of the business, and I’ve quite made up my mind to master it.”

“Oh, let it rip. You’re not tied down to the works, are you?”

“Certainly not – you don’t imagine I think myself qualified as yet to be tied down. ‘But what about guns?”

“Oh, well,” said Grant, “I have a.32 Winchester, one that has got a record too, by gunnies, as Jim Rankin would say. Its record is great.”

“How big a record?” inquired Roderick.

“Seven deer,” answered Grant.

“All your own killing?”

“Well, no. To be downright truthful since you force me to particularize, I’ll admit I never killed but one deer with it. But that does not interfere with the gun’s record.” And then he continued: “I have no doubt Major Hampton will be delighted to loan you his gun. He has a .30 calibre Government Springfield and in his hands it has accounted for many a buck.”

After breakfast they called on Major Hampton.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” said the Major as he opened the door and bade them welcome.

“We are going deer hunting,” said Grant, quite enthusiastically. “I have a gun, but this-would-be-slayer-of-big-game, Roderick, is gunless and when we return he may be deerless. Was just wondering, Major, if you would care to loan your famous deer killer to him. Guess its long record,” he added, “would fill a book.”

“Why, certainly,” replied the Major in an absent-minded way; and then presently he went on: “Do not interpret my hesitation as unwillingness to accommodate you. It is well you came just when you did, for within half an hour I myself will be starting for the mountains and my mind was pre-occupied with my own little preparations.”

“Can’t you come with us, Major?” asked Grant.

“But I won’t be depriving you of your gun?” enquired Roderick simultaneously.

“I answer ‘no’ to both questions,” was the smiling response. “I am going out on one of my lonesome excursions – to commune with Nature face to face for a brief spell. And when I go I need no rifle – even the very deer there are my trustful friends.”

Then turning he took down his rifle from its accustomed place and brought it over to Roderick.

“This old Springfield has served me well,” he said, smiling in his own magnificent way. “It was my friend in dark days of need. In my lifetime, gentlemen, I have never spilled the blood of any living thing wantonly, and I do not believe man is justified in taking the life of even a worm on the pathway, a rabbit in the hills, cattle or sheep in the fields, or a deer in the wilds unless it is for food and to sustain life.”

Then suddenly looking at Grant the Major said: “I understand W. R. Grady is up in the hills?”

“Yes, so I have heard.”

“What is he doing? Looking for a mine?”

“Possibly. They say he is at the Thomas Boarding House most of the time up at Battle.”

“Guess,” interrupted Roderick, “that he is not very happy since the new order of things – your new plan, Major – put him out of business.”

“Perhaps he is getting in touch again with his old heeler, Bud Bledsoe,” suggested Grant. “That outlaw gang has been lying low for quite a while, but I’m expecting to hear about some new bit of deviltry any day. Am in need of a corking good newspaper story.”

“Well, since you are bent on hunting big game,” laughed the Major, “these miscreants might provide you with all the exciting sport you are wanting.”

“Oh, a brace of good fat bucks will be good enough for us. Where’s the likeliest place to start from, Major? You’re the local authority on these matters.”

“You know where Spirit River Falls are?” asked Buell Hampton.

“I’ve heard of them but have never been there,” replied Grant.

“I think that I’ve seen them from above,” observed Roderick, “but I don’t know the way to them.”

“Well, you know where Gid Sutton’s half-way house is located?”

“Certainly,” replied Roderick. “I was there less than a month ago.”

“Well, Spirit River Falls are located about six or seven miles south and east of the half-way house. I advise that one of you go up the South Fork of the Encampment River and the other keep to the right and go over the hills past Conchshell ranch into a park plateau to the south; then have your meeting place this evening in an old log structure that you will find about three-fourths of a mile directly through the timber southeast from the falls. If you are wise, you will load up two or three burros, send them with a trusty, and have him make camp for you in this old deserted hut. You will find a cup of coffee, a rasher of bacon and a few sandwiches very appetizing by the time you have tramped all day in your deer-hunting quest And the country all around is full of deer.”

The young men thanked him warmly for his advice.