The Delafield Affair

Bancroft did not blanch nor flinch. For so many years he had schooled himself to such constant watchfulness and incessant self-control that an impassive countenance and manner had become a habit. Lucy, with her uncompromising moral decisions and her swift, unsparing condemnations, could come nearer to unnerving him than could any bolt from the blue like this. He flicked the ash from his cigar, hesitating a moment as if searching his memory, but really wondering whether Jenkins knew anything or was merely guessing and trying to draw him out. The latter seemed much the more likely.

“I can’t say on the instant whether I ever met such a man or not. As you say, I have gone about a good deal and, as my business most of the time has been that of mining and trading in mines, it has often taken me into out-of-the-way places, and I have met a great many people. At this moment I don’t recall the name.”

“Don’t you? I’m sorry, for I thought perhaps you could verify for me a curious story about the man that has just come to my knowledge. You know I’m always picking up information about people – I find it comes in handy now and then. Well, if you’ve never met him, have you ever, in the course of your Western travels, run across a man – he was a mining man, too – a mining man named Hardy – John Mason Hardy? There’s a curious story about him, too, or, rather, about a man who was associated with him in a mining enterprise down in old Mexico. The other man’s name was Smith – a very serviceable name is Smith; sort of like a black derby hat; no distinguishing mark about it and easy to exchange by mistake if you’d rather have some other man’s.”

Bancroft rose and looked at his watch. “If there’s anything of particular interest or importance in this, Mr. Jenkins, I’ll be very glad to listen to it some other time; but I can’t stay any longer this morning. I ought to have been at my desk half an hour ago.”

Jenkins sat still and waved him back with insistent politeness. “One moment more, Mr. Bancroft, if you please. I’m coming to the point right away. This story is of some consequence to me, and I’d like to know if you can verify it. Have another drink.”

Bancroft swallowed the whiskey at a gulp and Jenkins noticed that his fingers trembled as he took the glass. He was thinking, “I’d better stay and find out exactly how much he knows.” Jenkins smiled under his hand as he smoothed his straggling moustache and watched Bancroft wipe the sweat from his forehead.

“This man Smith,” Jenkins continued, “John was his name, too – John Smith and John Mason Hardy were partners in a mining enterprise down in Mexico. One of them died down there – died, you know, in a quiet, private sort of way, and the one that came up to the States again was named Hardy, but it wasn’t the same Hardy that had gone down there. You might guess, if you wanted to, that Smith killed Hardy and took his name – ”

He stopped and drew back suddenly, for Bancroft had sprung forward with a white, angry face and was shaking a trembling fist under his nose.

“Stop there, you liar!” he exclaimed in low, tense tones. “I didn’t do that. He died a natural death – of fever – and I took care of him and did my best to save his life.”

Jenkins recovered his self-possession first. “Oh; then you know all about it!” he said dryly, with a malicious smile.

Bancroft sank back in his chair drawing his hand across his eyes and wondering why his self-control had so suddenly gone to pieces. He had thought himself proof against any surprise, but this man’s sudden blow and persistent baiting had screwed his nerve tension to the snapping point. But he told himself that it probably did not matter anyway, as Jenkins evidently knew the whole story. With a desperate, defiant look he turned upon his tormentor.

“Well, what do you want?” he demanded sharply. “Why have you raked up this old story?”

“Oh, I found it interesting,” Jenkins responded in a leisurely way, “as an instance of the way things are done on the frontier and, as I told you at first, I thought you might be able to verify it. For I was inclined not to believe it, especially as it was about one of the most prominent and respected citizens of New Mexico. But since you’ve confessed its truth yourself – well, I’ve got to believe it now. It has been a very blind trail I’ve followed, crooked and well hidden – wonderfully well hidden, Mr. Bancroft – and the number of names you’ve hoisted along its course has been bewildering. But I’ve managed to track you through ’em all, and to discover in Alexander Bancroft, the upright, honored, public-spirited citizen of New Mexico, the identical person of Sumner L. Delafield, the defaulting and absconding financier of Boston.”

Bancroft looked Jenkins sullenly in the eye. “Well, now that you have it all, what are you going to do about it?”

“Pardon me, Mr. Bancroft,” said Jenkins with exaggerated suavity, “ah, excuse me, I mean Mr. Delafield – that is for you to say.”

The banker considered for a moment only. Evidently this man knew exactly what he was about and exactly what he wanted, so that it would be of no use to beat around the bush. “Will you please say precisely what you mean?” was his answer.

“That is just what I have been doing, Mr. Delafield.”

“Excuse me, Jenkins, but my name is Bancroft, not Delafield. I have a legal right to the name of Bancroft, given me by the legislature of Arizona. You will oblige me by addressing me in that way.”

“Oh, yes; I know that; and a lot of trouble I had with this chase until I found it out! But I thought you might like to hear yourself called Delafield once more – sort of like meeting an old friend, you know. Won’t you have another cigar, Mr. Bancroft? No? Well, then, let’s have another drink.” He poured out two glasses of whiskey. Bancroft drank his without demur, but Jenkins barely touched his glass to his lips.

“Well, now, Mr. Bancroft,” Jenkins went on affably, smiling and rubbing his hands together, “let’s get down to the practical side of this romantic story from real life. You are getting on so well here under your present name, and you have a young daughter – ” he saw his listener wince at this, and then carefully repeated his words – “and you have such a beautiful and charming young daughter, who, as the heiress of a father who is making a fortune with clean hands and no cloud on his past, can be taken about the world and can make a good marriage some of these days; considering all this, I take it for granted that you would prefer to have this story buried too deep for resurrection. And it is for you to say whether it shall be buried or not.”

Bancroft sat in silence for a full minute, glaring at the man opposite, his lips set in a livid line. Jenkins grew nervous in the dead stillness of the room, and began to fidget. He cautiously rested his right hand on the bed close by his pistol pocket, and kept his eyes on the banker, watchful for the first hostile movement. There was need of wariness, for Bancroft was debating with himself whether it would be better to go on to the dreary end of this business and leave the room with a blackmailer’s noose around his neck, or to whip out his gun, put a bullet through this man’s brain, and another through his own.

But the fragrance of life rose sweet to his nostrils, and his innate virility spurred him on to keep up the fight. Apparently he had brought up against a stone wall, but he had fought too long and too desperately to be willing to confess himself beaten until he could struggle no longer. He felt sure that money would keep Jenkins quiet, and after a while he might find some other means of stopping the man’s mouth for good. The fellow was always in some dirty job or other, and before long doubtless some hold on him would become possible. There was Conrad still to be reckoned with – but that could wait, at least until this man was silenced.

“Well,” he said quietly, “what do you want? For God’s sake, come to the point!”

Jenkins drew a breath of relief. “Well, Mr. Bancroft, I’m interested this year in the success of Johnny Martinez. It’s a matter of the first importance to me for him to be elected. But I’m afraid he hasn’t got much chance if Silverside County and the rest of the South should go against him. Now, you’ve got more influence down here than anybody else, and you can swing it for him if you want to. That’s what I want you to do.”

Bancroft looked up in sudden dismay. He had not expected anything of this sort. “You know I’m committed to Baxter,” he said.

“Oh, yes; I know. But that’s nothing. In New Mexico it’s not difficult to change your politics. Why, I thought of coming out for Baxter myself at first; but I’m solid for Martinez now.”

Bancroft rose and began pacing the half-dozen steps to and fro that the room afforded, seeking some loophole of escape from his obligations to Baxter. There were mortgages the Congressman could foreclose that would balk some of the banker’s most promising plans should he attempt political treachery. He could, and undoubtedly would, reveal his associate’s connection with the loan and mortgage operations in the Rio Grande valley; and Bancroft winced as he thought of this coming to Lucy’s ears. And in that matter of Curtis Conrad and José Gonzalez – had he not put himself at Baxter’s mercy? In this moment of supreme necessity the naked truth came before him; and he knew it to be true that he was primarily responsible for any harm that might come to the young cattleman through Gonzalez. If he did not keep faith with Baxter the Congressman would tell Curtis who it was that desired his death; and then Conrad would know where to find Delafield. In short, he knew that Baxter would stop at nothing to compel his loyalty or punish his treason. Having contemplated no course except that of fidelity in his business and political relations with Baxter, the closeness of their alliance had heretofore given him little uneasiness; and now, in this crisis, he found himself wholly in the other’s power. He flung himself into his chair, his face pallid and the perspiration standing in great drops on his forehead. His breath came hard and his voice was thick as he asked:

“Is there no alternative?”

“Well, no; none that I can accept,” Jenkins replied meditatively. “You see, it’s a very important matter for me to be able to make this present to Johnny. If he wins this fight there’ll be something big in it for me. No; I’ll have to insist upon this as the first condition.”

Bancroft’s lips moved soundlessly as he stared at the man sitting on the edge of the bed, nursing his knee and showing his white teeth in a triumphant smile. Then, suddenly, without a word of warning, the banker leaped forward and seized his companion around the throat. Jenkins, taken entirely off his guard, succeeded only in grasping his assailant’s coat as they went down on the bed together in a noiseless scuffle. Bancroft’s hands closed around his tormentor’s throat, and a savage, elemental satisfaction thrilled in him and goaded him on. More and more tightly his fingers clutched as Jenkins struggled under his grip. Neither of them uttered a sound, and the silence of the room was broken only by the creaking of the bed or the occasional knocking of a foot against the chair.

Bancroft’s face was snarled like that of a wild beast as he watched Jenkins’s visage grow livid and his struggles weaken. Of a sudden reason returned to him. If this man were to die under his hand there would be grewsome consequences – and he had enough to deal with already. He stood up, trembling, and looked anxiously at the still form on the bed.

“You – you’re not dead, Jenkins, are you?” he stammered awkwardly.

Jenkins stirred a little, opened his eyes, put his hand to his throat, and got up, looking warily at his assailant. “It’s no thanks to you that I’m not,” he responded sullenly.

“I didn’t mean to kill you – but you – you struck me too hard – it drove me wild – and for a minute I didn’t know what I was doing.” Jenkins scowled, rubbed his throat again, and drank a glass of whiskey. Bancroft helped himself likewise, following it with a copious draught of water. As they faced each other again Jenkins edged away suspiciously toward the door; but Bancroft went back at once to the unsettled question.

“It would ruin me, financially and in every other way, to go back on Baxter. You might just as well kill me outright as insist upon that.”

“But I’m going to insist upon it,” was Jenkins’s sullen answer.

Bancroft made a despairing gesture. “But I tell you, Jenkins, the thing’s impossible! It would ruin me just as surely as for you to tell all you know. You’ll have to be satisfied with something else.”

Jenkins leaned against the bed and stared angrily at Bancroft. Physical pain had made him obstinate and determined him to press his point, more to return injury for injury than because he wanted that particular thing.

“I tell you now,” Bancroft went on, “that I’d rather take the last way out than try to go back on Baxter. It wouldn’t be the healthiest thing in the world for you if I should kill myself shut up in this room with you, would it?”

“Well, I’ll waive that for the present,” Jenkins replied unwillingly; “but, mind you, it’s only for the present. We’ll talk about it again, later in the season. For the present I want a good, big sum before you leave this room, and hereafter I’ve got to have a regular monthly payment, a check on the first of every month when I don’t come after the cash myself.”

Bancroft considered for only a moment. His dilemma was clear: he must either buy this haltered freedom from Jenkins or kill him in his tracks. This latter alternative was not to be considered; and doubtless before long it would be possible to turn the tables on the creature and escape from his clutches.

Jenkins folded away in his pocket-book a check and a roll of bills and smiled as he looked at Bancroft’s haggard face. “I hope, Mr. Dela – ah, pardon me, – Mr. Bancroft, that I have not kept you too long from your affairs at the bank.” As his eyes followed the banker’s disappearing figure with a gleam of satisfaction, he patted his breast pocket and whispered:

“Now for the other score!”

CHAPTER IX

PERILS IN THE NIGHT

Red Jack and José Gonzalez joined the forces of the Socorro Springs ranch while the cattle of the morning’s round-up were being driven to the watering-place near the ranch house. Across the road from the house stood a large grove of cottonwoods; a little beyond that, in the valley, a deep pond had been dug, into which flowed the outlets from the several springs. The cattle from a score of miles roundabout were accustomed to come to this pond, with its circling belt of trees, for water and for midday rest in the shade.

Here the round-up was in progress, and Conrad galloped out to meet the new hand and give him instructions. As he rode off toward the hills after a bunch of straggling cattle Curtis looked after him with an approving eye. “He knows how to fork a horse, at least,” he thought. In the afternoon José was set to work cutting out and bunching the two- and three-year-old steers and later at helping with the branding. Conrad watched his handling of the branding irons, and he and all the rest stopped their work to follow his movements with critical eyes as he roped and brought to the ground a belligerent steer. The superintendent was well satisfied. “At last I’ve got a man who knows the business and has some sabe,” he thought. “If he goes on as well as he begins I’ll keep him after the shipping is done.”

The next day the round-up crept slowly southward, accompanied by the chuck-wagon and a drove of fresh horses. At noon the cattle gathered during the morning were bunched at Adobe Springs, the next watering-place toward the Mexican border. Gonzalez was the only Mexican among the cowboys, the rest being Americans of one sort or another – from Texas, Colorado, the Northwest, and the Middle West. All felt toward him the contemptuous scorn born of difference in race and consequent conviction of superior merit. They had no scruples about making known their prejudice, and more than once his face flushed and his hand darted toward the knife hidden in his bosom. Yet, as the day wore on and they saw that he excelled the best of them in handling the lasso and in the cunning of his movements when cutting out the steers from the herd, they began to show him the respect that skill of any sort inspires in those who know with what effort it is acquired.

After supper, when they gathered about the campfire, smoking, and scoffing good-naturedly at one another’s tales of wondrous experiences, and talking over the events of the day just gone, they received him upon an equality with themselves which was only slightly grudged. He told them, in English more precise than any of them could speak, of Conrad’s encounter with Rutherford Jenkins in the Blue Front, and their appreciation of the tale completed the work which his skill as a cowboy had begun. Thereafter they looked upon José as a comrade and a good fellow.

Three small adobe houses, of one room each, with flat roofs and earthen floors, had been built here, as the large and never-failing springs made the spot a sure rendezvous for every round-up. The locality was infested by skunks, and the cowboys, who greatly feared midnight bites from the prowling animals, believing hydrophobia a sure consequence, usually preferred to sleep inside the houses, on bunks filled with alfalfa hay. If they ventured to sleep out-of-doors, they kept small cans of coal oil ready and, whenever a wakeful man saw one of the small creatures near, a quick turn of the wrist drenched its fur with the fluid and a brand from the smouldering campfire tossed after it sent a squealing pillar of flame flying up the hill and saved them from further disturbance that night.

A board nailed across a corner of the largest house served Conrad as a desk. He kept there a lamp, writing materials, and a few books. While the men sprawled around the campfire and the last gleams of dusky red faded from the west and the moon bounded up from behind the eastern hills, he made his memoranda, wrote a letter to be sent to the post-office by the first chance comer, and lost himself for an hour in a volume of Shakespeare. When he went outside the men were walking about, yawning and stretching, ready for sleep. Curtis’s imagination was still astir from his reading, and the presence of any other human being seemed an impertinence. But he said, genially:

“Well, boys, you begin to look as if you wanted to turn in. Take whatever bunks you like, if you want to go inside. I’m going to sleep out here.”

“Better have a tin of ile handy,” said Red Jack. “The polecats are sure likely to nibble your toes if you don’t. The night I slept here last week I never saw the cusses so bad; durned if one of the critters didn’t get inside and wake me up smellin’ of my ear. I was some skeered of him stinkin’ up the place so it couldn’t be slept in for a year, so I jest had to lay low and wait for him to go outside, and then I doused him good with ile and throwed the candle at him. I sure reckon he’s holed up somewhere now, waitin’ till he can afford a new sealskin sacque before he shows hisself in good sassiety ag’in.”

“I don’t think they’ll bother me to-night,” Curtis responded. At that moment he felt that nothing could disturb him, if only he could be left alone with the moonlight and the plain. “I’ll sleep with my boots on, and my cheeks are not as fat as yours, Jack, so there’ll be no temptation. Where do you want to bunk, José? You can sleep outside or in, just as you like.”

Gonzalez replied respectfully that he would rather go in. But presently he came out again with his blanket and chose a spot against the wall of one of the houses. Conrad had gone out to the herd to speak with the man on patrol and to make sure that all was well. When he returned the men had disappeared. “Good!” he said to himself. “They’ve all gone inside and I’ve got the universe to myself.” He did not see the still form in its gray blanket close against the wall.

Curtis took the red bandanna from his neck and tied it over his ears, to keep out the tiny things that crawl o’ nights, and couched himself in his blanket on the gently rising ground with his saddle for a pillow. He lay down with his face to the east, where the dim and mellow sky, flooded with moonlight, seemed to recede far back, to the very limits of space, and leave the huge white globe suspended there in brooding majesty just above the plain. With long legs outstretched and muscles relaxed, he lay as still as if asleep, his eyes on its glowing disk. He knew all that science had discovered or guessed about the moon’s character and history. But it had companioned him on so many a silent ride across long miles of dimly gleaming plain, and on so many nights like this as he lay upon the earth it had gathered his thoughts into its great white bosom, that he could not image it to himself as a mere dead and barren satellite of the earth. More easily could he understand how the living Cynthia had once leaped earthward and been welcomed with belief and love.

Conrad’s mind busied itself at first with the play he had just been reading, but presently wandered to his own affairs and the purpose that had been the dominant influence of half his life. He chuckled softly as he remembered the check he had recently received. “I’ve got him on the run,” he thought, “and I’m bound to lay him out sooner or later. Lord, but it will be a satisfaction to face him finally! And he’ll not get the drop on me first, either, unless Providence takes as good care of rascals as they say it does of fools.” He recalled himself now and then to listen to the sounds from the sleeping herd, to the hoof-beats of the horse as the cowboy on watch rode round and round the bunch, and to his voice singing in a lulling monotone. But gradually thought and will and sense sank back toward the verge of that great gulf out of which they spring.

When next he opened his eyes the moon was dropping toward the western horizon, but he had turned in his sleep and its light was still upon his face. Lying motionless, Curtis listened to the sounds from the herd, his first thought being that something unusual there must have awakened him. The coyotes were yelping at one another from hill and plain, but through their barking he could hear the snorting sigh of a steer turning in its sleep, the tramp of the horse, and the cowboy’s lullaby. He recognized the voice as that of Peters, who was to have the third watch, and so knew that it must be well on toward morning. He was about to sink into slumber again when his gaze fell upon a small black and white animal nosing among some rocks near by. “Poor little devil! If it wakens any of the boys it will get a taste of hell out of proportion to its sins,” he thought, and decided that he would drive it away before any one else discovered it. But the languor of sleep still held him and not a muscle moved as his eyelids began to droop. Then, through his half-shut eyes, he became conscious that something was moving, over against one of the houses, among the shadows. His eyelids lifted again and he saw the Mexican rise out of his blanket, look about, and in a crouching posture move stealthily toward him. Something in his hand glittered in the moonlight.

“It’s José,” thought Conrad. “He’s coming for the skunk with a can of oil. Quick, or I’ll be too late!” He sprang to a sitting posture and flung out one arm. As he did so he noticed with sleepy surprise that José was not facing toward the animal but was coming toward him. Then, before he had time to speak, the Mexican turned, a flying something shone in the moonlight like an electric flash, and Conrad’s eyes, following the gleam, saw the little creature pinned to the ground with a long knife through its neck and the gray sand darkening with its blood.

“Why, José, that was a wonderful throw!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, señor,” the man replied quietly, as he stooped to draw out the knife and wipe it on the sand, “I am rather good at that sort of thing.”

CHAPTER X

BY A HAIR’S BREADTH

Curtis Conrad rode to the farther side of a hill sloping gently northeast of the houses as the outfit was getting under way the next morning. He remembered having seen there a rather uncommon species of cactus, and he thought to make sure of it in order to secure a specimen for Lucy Bancroft’s collection when next he should pass that way on a homeward trip. José Gonzalez noted his action and presently, when a steer broke wildly from the herd and ran back, it was José who dashed after it. But, instead of heading it off and driving it back, he so manœuvred that he contrived to get it around the hill behind which he had seen Conrad disappear. The superintendent was digging busily in the ground with his pocket-knife, having decided to take up the plant and leave it in the house in readiness for his return journey.