Ridgway of Montana

W >> William MacLeod Raine >> Ridgway of Montana

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In an attempt to stem the rising tide of denunciation that was spreading
from Mesa to the country at large, Harley announced an eight hour day and
an immense banquet to all the Consolidated employees in celebration of the
occasion. Ten thousand men sat down to the long tables, but when one of the
speakers injudiciously mentioned the name of Ridgway, there was steady
cheering for ten minutes. It was quite plain that the miners gave him the
credit for having forced the Consolidated to the eight-hour day.

The verdict of the coroner's jury was that Vance Edwards and the other
deceased miners had come to their death at the hands of the foreman,
Michael Donleavy, at the instigation of Simon Harley. True bills were at
once drawn up by the prosecuting attorney of Mesa County, an official
elected by Ridgway, charging Harley and Donleavy with conspiracy, resulting
in the murder of Vance Edwards. The billionaire furnished bail for himself
and foreman, treating the indictments merely as part of the attacks of the
enemy.

The tragedy in the Taurus brought to the surface a bitterness that had
hitherto not been apparent in the contest between the rival copper
interests. The lines of division became more sharply drawn, and every
business man in Mesa was forced to declare himself on one side or the
other. Harley scattered detectives broadcast and imported five hundred
Pinkertons to meet any emergency that might arise. The spies of the
Consolidated were everywhere, gathering evidence against the Mesa
Ore-producing Company, its conduct of the senatorial campaign, its judges,
and its supporters Criminal indictments flew back and forth thick as
snowflakes in a Christmas storm.

It began to be noticed that an occasional foreman, superintendent, or
mining engineer was slipping from the employ of Ridgway to that of the
trust, carrying secrets and evidence that would be invaluable later in the
courts. Everywhere the money of the Consolidated, scattered lavishly where
it would do the most good, attempted to sap the loyalty of the followers of
the other candidates. Even Eaton was approached with the offer of a bribe.

But Ridgway's potent personality had built up an esprit de corps not
easily to be broken. The adventurers gathered to his side were, for the
most part, bound to him by ties personal in their nature. They were
financial fillibusters, pledged to stand or fall together, with an interest
in their predatory leader's success that was not entirely measurable in
dollars and cents. Nor was that leader the man to allow the organization he
had builded with such care to become disintegrated while he slept. His
alert eye and cheery smile were everywhere, instilling confidence in such
as faltered, and dread in those contemplating defection.

He harassed his rival with an audacity that was almost devilish in its
unexpected ingenuity. For the first time in his life Simon Harley, the town
back on the defensive by a combination of circumstances engineered by a
master brain, knew what it was to be checkmated. He had hot the least doubt
of ultimate victory, but the tentative success of the brazen young
adventurer, were gall and wormwood to his soul. He had made money his god,
had always believed it would buy anything worth while except life, but this
Western buccaneer had taught him it could not purchase the love of a woman
nor the immediate defeat of a man so well armed as Waring Ridgway. In
truth, though Harley stuck at nothing, his success in accomplishing the
destruction of this thorn in his side was no more appreciable than had been
that of Hobart. The Westerner held his own and more, the while he robbed
the great trust of its ore under cover of the courts.

In the flush of success, Ridgway, through his lieutenant, Eaton, came to
Judge Purcell asking that a receiver be appointed for the Consolidated
Supply Company, a subsidiary branch of the trust, on the ground that its
affairs were not being properly administered. The Supply Company had paid
dividends ranging from fifteen to twenty-five per cent for many years, but
Ridgway exercised his right as a stockholder to ask for a receivership. In
point of fact, he owned, in the name of Eaton, only one-tenth of one per
cent of the stock, but it was enough to serve. For Purcell was a bigoted
old Missourian, as courageous and obstinate as perfect health and ignorance
could make him. He was quite innocent of any legal knowledge, his own rule
of law being to hit a Consolidated head whenever he saw one. Lawyers might
argue themselves black in the face without affecting his serenity or his
justice.

Purcell granted the application, as well as a restraining order against the
payment of dividends until further notice, and appointed Eaton receiver
over the protests of the Consolidated lawyers.

Ridgway and Eaton left the court-room together, jubilant over their
success. They dined at a restaurant, and spent the evening at the
ore-producing company's offices, discussing ways and means. When they had
finished, his chief followed Eaton to the doors, an arm thrown
affectionately round his shoulder.

"Steve, we're going to make a big killing. I was never so sure of anything
in my life as that we shall beat Simon Harley at his own game. We're bound
to win. We've got to win."

"I wish I were as sure as you."

"It's hard pounding does it, my boy. We'll drive him out of the Montana
copper-fields yet. We'll show him there is one little corner of the U. S.
where Simon Harley's orders don't go as the last word."

"He has a hundred dollars to your one."

"And I have youth and mining experience and the inside track, as well as
stancher friends than he ever dreamed of," laughed Ridgway, clapping the
other on the back. "Well, good night, Steve. Pleasant dreams, old man."

The boyish secretary shook hands warmly. "You're a MAN, chief. If anybody
can pull us through it will be you."

Triumphant confidence rang in the other's answering laugh. "You bet I can,
Steve,"

CHAPTER 19. ONE MILLION DOLLARS

Eaton, standing on the street curb at the corner of the Ridgway Building,
lit a cigar while he hesitated between his rooms and the club. He decided
for the latter, and was just turning up the hill, when a hand covered his
mouth and an arm was flung around his neck in a stranglehold. He felt
himself lifted like a child, and presently discovered that he was being
whirled along the street in a closed carriage.

"You needn't be alarmed, Mr. Eaton. We're not going to injure you in the
least," a low voice explained in his ear. "If you'll give me your word not
to cry out, I'll release your throat."

Eaton nodded a promise, and, when he could find his voice, demanded: "Where
are you taking me?"

"You'll see in a minute, sir. It's all right."

The carriage turned into an alley and stopped. Eaton was led to a ladder
that hung suspended from the fire-escape, and was bidden to mount. He did
so, following his guide to the second story, and being in turn followed by
the other man. He was taken along a corridor and into the first of a suite
of rooms opening into it. He knew he was in the Mesa House, and suspected
at once that he was in the apartments of Simon Harley.

His suspicion ripened to conviction when his captors led him through two
more rooms, into one fitted as an office. The billionaire sat at a desk,
busy over some legal papers he was reading, but he rose at once and came
forward with hand extended to meet Eaton. The young man took his hand
mechanically.

"Glad to have the pleasure of talking with, you, Mr. Eaton. You must accept
my apologies for my methods of securing a meeting. They are rather
primitive, but since you declined to call and see me, I can hold only you
to blame." An acid smile touched his lips for a moment, though his eyes
were expressionless as a wall. "Mr. Eaton, I have brought you here in this
way to have a confidential talk with you, in order that it might not in any
way reflect upon you in case we do not come to an arrangement satisfactory
to both of us. Your friends cannot justly blame you for this conference,
since you could not avoid it. Mr. Eaton, take a chair."

The wills of the two men flashed into each other's eyes like rapiers. The
weaker man knew that was before him and braced himself to meet it. He would
not sit down. He would not discuss anything. So he told himself once and
again to hold himself steady against the impulse to give way to those
imperious eyes behind which was the impassive, compelling will.

"Sit down, Mr. Eaton."

"I'll stand, Mr. Harley."

"SIT DOWN."

The cold jade eyes were not to be denied. Eaton's gaze fell sullenly, and
he slid into a chair.

"I'll discuss no business except in the presence of Mr. Ridgway," he said
doggedly, falling back to his second line of defenses.

"To the contrary, my business is with you and not with Mr. Ridgway."

"I know of no business you can have with me."

"Wherefore I have brought you here to acquaint you with it."

The young man lifted his head reluctantly and waited. If he had been
willing to confess it to himself, he feared greatly this ruthless spoiler
who had built up the greatest fortune in the world from thousands of
wrecked lives. He felt himself choking, just as if those skeleton fingers
had been at his throat. but he promised himself ever to yield.

The fathomless, dominant gaze caught and held his eyes. "Mr. Eaton, I came
here to crush Ridgway. I am going to stay here till I do. I'm going to wipe
him from the map of Montana-- ruin him so utterly that he can never
recover. It has been my painful duty to do this with a hundred men as
strong and as confident as he is. After undertaking such an enterprise, I
have never faltered and never relented. The men I have ruined were ruined
beyond hope of recovery. None of them have ever struggled to their feet
again. I intend to make Waring Ridgway a pauper."

Stephen Eaton could have conceived nothing more merciless than this man's
callous pronouncement, than the calm certainty of his unemphasized words.
He started to reply, but Harley took the words out of his mouth.

"Don't make a mistake. Don't tie to the paltry successes he has gained. I
have not really begun to fight yet."

The young man had nothing to say. His heart was water. He accepted Harley's
words as true, for he had told himself the same thing a hundred times. Why
had Ridgway rejected the overtures of this colossus of finance? It had been
the sheerest folly born of madness to suppose that anybody could stand
against him.

"For Ridgway, the die is cast," the iron voice went on. "He is doomed
beyond hope. But there is still a chance for you. What do you consider your
interest in the Mesa Ore-producing Company worth, Mr. Eaton?"

The sudden question caught Eaton with the force of a surprise. "About three
hundred thousand dollars," he heard himself say; and it seemed to him that
his voice was speaking the words without his volition.

"I'm going to buy you out for twice that sum. Furthermore, I'm going to
take care of your future--going to see that you have a chance to rise."

The waverer's will was in flux, but the loyalty in him still protested. "I
can't desert my chief, Mr. Harley."

"Do you call it desertion to leave a raging madman in a sinking boat after
you have urged him to seek the safety of another ship?"

"He made me what I am."

"And I will make you ten times what you are. With Ridgway you have no
chance to be anything but a subordinate. He is the Mesa Ore-producing
Company, and you are merely a cipher. I offer your individuality a chance.
I believe in you, and know you to be a strong man." No ironic smile touched
Harley's face at this statement. "You need a chance, and I offer it to you.
For your own sake take it."

Every grievance Eaton had ever felt against his chief came trooping to his
mind. He was domineering. He did ride rough-shod over his allies' opinions
and follow the course he had himself mapped out. All the glory of the
victory he absorbed as his due. In the popular opinion, Eaton was as a
farthing-candle to a great electric search-light in comparison with
Ridgway.

"He trusts me," the tempted man urged weakly. He was slipping, and he knew
it, even while he assured himself he would never betray his chief.

"He would sell you out to-morrow if it paid him. And what is he but a
robber? Every dollar of his holdings is stolen from me. I ask only
restitution of you--and I propose to buy at twice, nay at three times, the
value of your stolen property. You owe that freebooter no loyalty."

"I can't do it. I can't do it."

"You shall do it." Harley dominated him as bullying schoolmaster does a
cringing boy under the lash.

"I can't do it," the young man repeated, all his weak will flung into the
denial.

"Would you choose ruin?"

"Perhaps. I don't know," he faltered miserable.

"It's merely a business proposition, young man. The stock you have to sell
is valuable to-day. Reject my offer, and a month from now it will be quoted
on the market at half its present figure, and go begging at that. It will
be absolutely worthless before I finish. You are not selling out Ridgway.
He is a ruined man, anyway. But you--I am going to save you in spite of
yourself. I am going to shake you from that robber's clutches."

Eaton got to his feet, pallid and limp as a rag. "Don't tempt me," he cried
hoarsely. "I tell you I can't do it, sir."

Harley's cold eye did not release him for an instant. "One million dollars
and an assured future, or--absolute, utter ruin, complete and final."

"He would murder me--and he ought to," groaned the writhing victim.

"No fear of that. I'll put you where he can't reach you. Just sign your
name to this paper, Mr. Eaton."

"I didn't agree. I didn't say I would."

"Sign here. Or, wait one moment, till I get witnesses." Harley touched a
bell, and his secretary appeared in the doorway. "Ask Mr. Mott and young
Jarvis to step this way."

Harley held out the pen toward Eaton, looking steadily at him. In a strong
man the human eye is a sword among weapons. Eaton quailed. The fingers of
the unhappy wretch went out mechanically for the pen. He was sweating
terror and remorse, but the essential weakness of the man could not stand
out unbacked against the masterful force of this man's imperious will. He
wrote his name in the places directed, and flung down the pen like a child
in a rage.

"Now get me out of Montana before Ridgway knows," he cried brokenly.

"You may leave to-morrow night, Mr. Eaton. You'll only have to appear in
court once personally. We'll arrange it quietly for to-morrow afternoon.
Ridgway won't know until it is done and you are gone."

CHAPTER 20. A LITTLE LUNCH AT APHONSE'S

It chanced that Ridgway, through the swinging door of a department store,
caught a glimpse of Miss Balfour as he was striding along the street. He
bethought him that it was the hour of luncheon, and that she was no end
better company than the revamped noon edition of the morning paper.
Wherefore he wheeled into the store and interrupted her inspection of
gloves.

"I know the bulliest little French restaurant tucked away in a side street
just three blocks from here. The happiness disseminated in this world by
that chef's salads will some day carry him past St. Peter with no questions
asked."

"You believe in salvation by works?" she parried, while she considered his
invitation.

"So will you after a trial of Alphonse's salad."

"Am I to understand that I am being invited to a theological discussion of
a heavenly salad concocted by Father Alphonse?"

"That is about the specifications."

"Then I accept. For a week my conscience has condemned me for excess of
frivolity. You offer me a chance to expiate without discomfort. That is my
idea of heaven. I have always believed it a place where one pastures in
rich meadows of pleasure, with penalties and consciences all excluded from
its domains."

"You should start a church," he laughed. "It would have a great
following--especially if you could operate your heaven this side of the
Styx."

She found his restaurant all he had claimed, and more. The little corner of
old Paris set her eyes shining. The fittings were Parisian to the least
detail. Even the waiter spoke no English.

"But I don't see how they make it pay. How did he happen to come here? Are
there enough people that appreciate this kind of thing in Mesa to support
it?"

He smiled at her enthusiasm. "Hardly. The place has a scarce dozen of
regular patrons. Hobart comes here a good deal. So does Eaton. But it
doesn't pay financially. You see, I know because I happen to own it. I used
to eat at Alphonse's restaurant in Paris. So I sent for him. It doesn't
follow that one has to be less a slave to the artificial comforts of a
supercivilized world because one lives at Mesa."

"I see it doesn't. You are certainly a wonderful man."

"Name anything you like. I'll warrant Alphonse can make good if it is not
outside of his national cuisine," he boasted.

She did not try his capacity to the limit, but the oysters, the salad, the
chicken soup were delicious, with the ultimate perfection that comes only
out of Gaul.

They made a delightfully gay and intimate hour of it, and were still
lingering over their demi-tasse when Yesler's name was mentioned.

"Isn't it splendid that he's doing so well?" cried the girl with
enthusiasm. "The doctor says that if the bullet had gone a fraction of an
inch lower, he would have died. Most men would have died anyhow, they say.
It was his clean outdoor life and magnificent constitution that saved him."

"That's what pulled him through," he nodded. "It would have done his heart
good to see how many friends he had. His recovery was a continuous
performance ovation. It would have been a poorer world for a lot of people
if Sam Yesler had crossed the divide."

"Yes. It would have been a very much poorer one for several I know."

He glanced shrewdly at her. "I've learned to look for a particular
application when you wear that particularly sapient air of mystery."

Her laugh admitted his hit. "Well, I was thinking of Laska. I begin to
think HER fair prince has come."

"Meaning Yesler?"

"Yes. She hasn't found it out herself yet. She only knows she is
tremendously interested."

"He's a prince all right, though he isn't quite a fairy. The woman that
gets him will be lucky.

"The man that gets Laska will be more that lucky," she protested loyally.

"I dare say," he agreed carelessly. "But, then, good women are not so rare
as good men. There. are still enough of them left to save the world. But
when it comes to men like Sam--well, it would take a Diogenes to find
another."

"I don't see how even Mr. Pelton, angry as he was, dared shoot him."

"He had been drinking hard for a week. That will explain anything when you
add it to his, temperament. I never liked the fellow."

"I suppose that is why you saved his life when the miners took him and were
going to lynch him?"

"I would not have lifted a hand for him. That's the bald truth. But I
couldn't let the boys spoil the moral effect of their victory by so gross a
mistake. It would have been playing right into Harley's hands."

"Can a man get over being drunk in five minutes? I never saw anybody more
sober than Mr. Pelton when the mob were crying for vengeance and you were
fighting them back."

"A great shock will sober a man. Pelton is an errant coward, and he had
pretty good reason to think he had come to the end of the passage. The boys
weren't playing. They meant business."

"They would not have listened to another man in the world except you," she
told him proudly.

"It was really Sam they listened to--when he sent out the message asking
them to let the law have its way."

"No, I think it was the way you handled the message. You're a wizard at a
speech, you know."

"Thanks."

He glanced up, for Alphonse was waiting at his elbow.

"You're wanted on the telephone, monsieur."

"You can't get away from business even for an hour, can you?" she rallied.
"My heaven ,wouldn't suit you at all, unless I smuggled in a trust for you
to fight."

"I expect it is Eaton," he explained. "Steve phoned down to the office that
he isn't feeling well to-day. I asked him to have me called up here. If he
isn't better, I'm going to drop round and see him."

But when she caught sight of his face as he returned she knew it was serious.

"What's the matter? Is it Mr. Eaton? Is he very ill?" she cried.

His face was set like broken ice refrozen. "Yes, it's Eaton. They say--but
it can't be true!"

She had never seen him so moved. "What is it, Waring?"

"The boy has sold me out. He is at the courthouse now, undoing my work--the
Judas!"

The angry blood swept imperiously into her cheeks. "Don't waste any more
time with me, Waring. Go--go and save yourself from the traitor. Perhaps it
is not too late yet."

He flung her a grateful look. "You're true blue, Virginia. Come! I'll leave
you at the store as we pass."

The defection of Eaton bit his chief to the quick. The force of the blow
itself was heavy--how heavy he could not tell till he could take stock of
the situation. He could see that he would be thrown out of court in the
matter of the Consolidated Supply Company receivership, since Eaton's stock
would now be in the hands of the enemy. But what was of more importance was
the fact that Eaton's interest in the Mesa Ore-producing Company now
belonged to Harley, who could work any amount of mischief with it as a
lever for litigation.

The effect, too, of the man's desertion upon the morale of the M. O. P.
forces must be considered and counteracted, if possible. He fancied he
could see his subordinates looking shiftyeyed at each other and wondering
who would slip away next.

If it had been anybody but Steve! He would as soon have distrusted his
right hand as Steve Eaton. Why, he had made the man, had picked him out
when he was a mere clerk, and tied him to himself by a hundred favors. Up
on the Snake River he had saved Steve's life once when he was drowning. The
boy had always been as close to him as a brother. That Steve should turn
traitor was not conceivable. He knew all his intimate plans, stood second
to himself in the company. Oh, it was a numbing blow! Ridgway's sense of
personal loss and outrage almost obliterated for the moment his
appreciation of the business loss.

The motion to revoke the receivership of the Supply Company was being
argued when Ridgway entered the court-room. Within a few minutes the news
had spread like wild-fire that Eaton was lined up with the Consolidated,
and already the paltry dozen of loafers in the court-room had swelled into
hundreds, all of them eager for any sensation that might develop.

Ridgway's broad shoulders flung aside the crowd and opened a way to the
vacant chair waiting for him. One of his lawyers had the floor and was
flaying Eaton with a vitriolic tongue, the while men craned forward all
over the room to get a glimpse of the traitor's face.

Eaton sat beside Mott, dry-lipped and pallid, his set eyes staring vacantly
into space. Once or twice he flung a furtive glance about him. His stripped
and naked soul was enduring a foretaste of the Judgment Day. The whip of
scorn with which the lawyer lashed him cut into his shrinking
sensibilities, and left him a welter of raw and livid wales. Good God! why
had he not known it would be like this? He was paying for his treachery and
usury, and it was being burnt into him that as the years passed he must
continue to pay in self-contempt and the distrust of his fellows.

The case had come to a hearing before Judge Hughes, who was not one of
Ridgway's creatures. That on its merits it would be decided in favor of the
Consolidated was a foregone conclusion. It was after the judge had rendered
the expected decision that the dramatic moment of the day came to gratify
the seasoned court frequenters.

Eaton, trying to slip as quietly as possible from the room, came face to
face with his former chief. For an interminable instant the man he had
betrayed, blocking the way squarely, held the trembling wretch in the blaze
of his scorn. Ridgway's contemptuous eyes sifted to the ingrate's soul
until it shriveled. Then he stood disdainfully to one side so that the man
might not touch him as he passed.

Some one in the back of the room broke the tense silence and hissed: "The
damned Judas!" Instantly echoes of "Judas! Judas!" filled the room, and
pursued Eaton to his cab. It would be many years before he could recall
without scalding shame that moment when the finger of public scorn was
pointed at him in execration.

CHAPTER 21. HARLEY SCORES

What Harley had sought in the subornation of Eaton had been as much the
moral effect of his defection as the tangible results themselves. If he
could shake the confidence of the city and State in the freebooter's
victorious star, he would have done a good day's work. He wanted the
impression to spread that Ridgway's success had passed its meridian.

Nor did he fail of his purpose by more than a hair's breadth. The talk of
the street saw the beginning of the end. The common voice ran: "It's 'God
help Ridgway' now. He's down and out."

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