Ridgway of Montana

W >> William MacLeod Raine >> Ridgway of Montana

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

"Judge Purcell says so."

"But do YOU think so--down in the bottom of your heart?"

"Wouldn't I naturally be prejudiced?"

"I suppose you would. Everybody in Mesa seems to have taken sides either
with Mr. Ridgway or the Consolidated. Still, you have an option. Is he
what his friends proclaim him--the generous-hearted independent fighting
against trust domination? Or is he merely an audacious ore-thief, as his
enemies say? The truth must be somewhere."

"It seems to lie mostly in point of view here the angle of observation
being determined by interest," he answered.

"And from your angle of observation?"

"He is the most unusual man I ever saw, the most resourceful and the most
competent. He never knows when he is beaten. I suppose that's the reason
he never is beaten finally. We have driven him to the wall a score of
times. My experience with him is that he's most dangerous when one thinks
he must be about hammered out. He always hits back then in the most daring
and unexpected way."

"With a coupling-pin," she suggested with a little reminiscent laugh.

"Metaphorically speaking. He reaches for the first effective weapon to his
hand."

"You haven't quite answered my question yet," she reminded him. "Is he
what his friends or what his enemies think him?"

"If you ask me I can only say that I'm one of his enemies."

"But a fair-minded man," she replied quickly.

"Thank you. Then I'll say that perhaps he is neither just what his friends
or his foes think him. One must make allowances for his training and
temperament, and for that quality of bigness in him. 'Mediocre men go
soberly on the highroads, but saints and scoundrels meet in the jails,'"
he smilingly quoted.

"He would make a queer sort of saint," she laughed.

"A typical twentieth century one of a money-mad age."

She liked it in him that he would not use the opportunity she had made to
sneer at his adversary, none the less because she knew that Ridgway might
not have been so scrupulous in his place. That Lyndon Hobart's fastidious
instincts for fair play had stood in the way of his success in the fight
to down Ridgway she had repeatedly heard. Of late, rumors had persisted in
reporting dissatisfaction with his management of the Consolidated at the
great financial center on Broadway which controlled the big copper
company. Simon Harley, the dominating factor in the octopus whose
tentacles reached out in every direction to monopolize the avenues of
wealth, demanded of his subordinates results. Methods were no concern of
his, and failure could not be explained to him. He wanted Ridgway crushed,
and the pulse of the copper production regulated lay the Consolidated.
Instead, he had seen Ridgway rise steadily to power and wealth despite his
efforts to wipe him off the slate. Hobart was perfectly aware that his
head was likely to fall when Harley heard of Purcell's decision in regard
to the Never Say Die.

"He certainly is an amazing man," Virginia mused, her fiancee in mind. "It
would be interesting to discover what he can't do--along utilitarian
lines, I mean. Is he as good a miner underground as he is in the courts?"
she flung out.

"He is the shrewdest investor I know. Time and again he has leased or
bought apparently worthless claims, and made them pay inside of a few
weeks. Take the Taurus as a case in point. He struck rich ore in a
fortnight. Other men had done development work for years and found
nothing."

"I'm naturally interested in knowing all about him, because I have just
become engaged to him," explained Miss Virginia, as calmly as if her pulse
were not fluttering a hundred to the minute

Virginia was essentially a sportsman. She did not flinch from the guns
when the firing was heavy. It had been remarked of her even as a child
that she liked to get unpleasant things over with as soon as possible,
rather than postpone them. Once, _aetat_ eight, she had marched in to her
mother like a stoic and announced: "I've come to be whipped, momsie,
'cause I broke that horrid little Nellie Vaile's doll. I did it on
purpose, 'cause I was mad at her. I'm glad I broke it, so there!"

Hobart paled slightly beneath his outdoors Western tan, but his eyes met
hers very steadily and fairly. "I wish you happiness, Miss Balfour, from
the bottom of my heart."

She nodded a brisk "Thank you," and directed her attention again to the
horses.

"Take him by and large, Mr. Ridgway is the most capable, energetic, and
far-sighted business man I have ever known. He has a bigger grasp of
things than almost any financier in the country. I think you'll find he
will go far," he said, choosing his words with care to say as much for
Waring Ridgway as he honestly could.

"I have always thought so," agreed Virginia.

She had reason for thinking so in that young man's remarkable career. When
Waring Ridgway had first come to Mesa he had been a draftsman for the
Consolidated at five dollars a day. He was just out of Cornell, and his
assets consisted mainly of a supreme confidence in himself and an imposing
presence. He was a born leader, and he flung himself into the raw, turbid
life of the mining town with a readiness that had not a little to do with
his subsequent success.

That success began to take tangible form almost from the first. A small,
independent smelter that had for long been working at a loss was about to
fall into the hands of the Consolidated when Ridgway bought it on promises
to pay, made good by raising money on a flying trip he took to the East.
His father died about this time and left him fifty thousand dollars, with
which he bought the Taurus, a mine in which several adventurous spirits
had dropped small fortunes. He acquired other properties; a lease here, an
interest there. It began to be observed that he bought always with
judgment. He seemed to have the touch of Midas. Where other men had lost
money he made it.

When the officers of the Consolidated woke up to the menace of his
presence, one of their lawyers called on him. The agent of the
Consolidated smiled at his luxurious offices, which looked more like a
woman's boudoir than the business place of a Western miner. But that was
merely part of Ridgway's vanity, and did not in the least interfere with
his predatory instincts. Many people who walked into that parlor to do
business played fly to his spider.

The lawyer had been ready to patronize the upstart who had ventured so
boldly into the territory of the great trust, but one glance at the
clear-cut resolute face of the young man changed his mind.

"I've come to make you an offer for your smelter, Mr. Ridgway," he began.
"We'll take it off your hands at the price it cost you."

"Not for sale, Mr. Bartel."

"Very well. We'll give you ten thousand more than you paid for it."

"You misunderstand me. It is not for sale."

"Oh, come! You bought it to sell to us. What can you do with it?"

"Run it," suggested Ridgway.

"Without ore?"

"You forget that I own a few properties, and have leases on others. When
the Taurus begins producing, I'll have enough to keep the smelter going."

"When the Taurus begins producing?"--Bartel smiled skeptically. "Didn't
Johnson and Leroy drop fortunes on that expectation?"

"I'll bet five thousand dollars we make a strike within two weeks."

"Chimerical!" pronounced the graybeard as he rose to go, with an air of
finality. "Better sell the smelter while you have the chance."

"Think not," disagreed Ridgway.

At the door the lawyer turned. "Oh, there's another matter! It had slipped
my mind." He spoke with rather elaborate carelessness. "It seems that
there is a little triangle--about ten and four feet across--wedged in
between the Mary K, the Diamond King, and the Marcus Daly. For some reason
we accidentally omitted to file on it. Our chief engineer finds that you
have taken it up, Mr. Ridgway. It is really of no value, but it is in the
heart of our properties, and so it ought to belong to us. Of course, it is
of no use to you. There isn't any possible room to sink a shaft. We'll
take it from you if you like, and even pay you a nominal price. For what
will you sell?"

Ridgway lit a cigar before he answered: "One million dollars."

"What?" screamed Bartel.

"Not a cent less. I call it the Trust Buster. Before I'm through, you'll
find it is worth that to me."

The lawyer reported him demented to the Consolidated officials, who
declared war on him from that day.

They found the young adventurer more than prepared for them. If he had a
Napoleonic sense of big vital factors, he had no less a genius for detail.
He had already picked up an intimate knowledge of the hundreds of veins
and crossveins that traverse the Mesa copper-fields, and he had delved
patiently into the tangled history of the litigation that the defective
mining laws in pioneer days had made possible. When the Consolidated
attempted to harass him by legal process, he countered by instituting a
score of suits against the company within the week. These had to do with
wills, insanity cases, extra lateral rights, mine titles, and land and
water rights. Wherever Ridgway saw room for an entering wedge to dispute
the title of the Consolidated, he drove a new suit home. To say the least,
the trust found it annoying to be enjoined from working its mines, to be
cited for contempt before judges employed in the interests of its
opponent, to be served with restraining orders when clearly within its
rights. But when these adverse legal decisions began to affect vital
issues, the Consolidated looked for reasons why Ridgway should control the
courts. It found them in politics.

For Ridgway was already dominating the politics of Yuba County, displaying
an amazing acumen and a surprising ability as a stumpspeaker. He posed as
a friend of the people, an enemy of the trust. He declared an eight-hour
day for his own miners, and called upon the Consolidated to do the same.
Hobart refused, acting on orders from Broadway, and fifteen thousand
Consolidated miners went to the polls and reelected Ridgway's corrupt
judges, in spite of the fight the Consolidated was making against them.

Meanwhile, Ridgway's colossal audacity made the Consolidated's copper pay
for the litigation with which he was harassing it. In following his
ore-veins, or what he claimed to be his veins, he crossed boldly into the
territory of the enemy. By the law of extra lateral rights, a man is
entitled to mine within the lines of other property than his own, provided
he is following the dip of a vein which has its apex in his claim.
Ridgway's experts were prepared to swear that all the best veins in the
field apexed in his property. Pending decisions of the courts, they
assumed it, tunneling through granite till they tapped the veins of the
Consolidated mines, meanwhile enjoining that company from working the very
ore of which Ridgway was robbing it.

Many times the great trust back of the Consolidated had him close to ruin,
but Ridgway's alert brain and supreme audacity carried him through. From
their mines or from his own he always succeeded in extracting enough ore
to meet his obligations when they fell due. His powerful enemy, as Hobart
had told Miss Balfour, found him most dangerous when it seemed to have him
with his back to the wall. Then unexpectedly would fall some crushing blow
that put the financial kings of Broadway on the defensive long enough for
him to slip out of the corner into which they had driven him. Greatly
daring, he had the successful cavalryman's instinct of risking much to
gain much. A gambler, his enemies characterized him fitly enough. But it
was also true, as Mesa phrased it, that he gambled "with the lid off,"
playing for large stakes, neither asking nor giving quarter.

At the end of five years of desperate fighting, the freebooter was more
strongly entrenched than he had been at any previous time. The railroads,
pledged to give rebates to the Consolidated, had been forced by Ridgway,
under menace of adverse legislation from the men he controlled at the
State-house, to give him secretly a still better rate than the trust. He
owned the county courts, he was supported by the people, and had become a
political dictator, and the financial outlook for him grew brighter every
day.

Such were the conditions when Judge Purcell handed down his Never Say Die
decision. Within an hour Hobart was reading a telegram in cipher from the
Broadway headquarters. It announced the immediate departure for Mesa of
the great leader of the octopus. Simon Harley, the Napoleon of finance,
was coming out to attend personally to the destruction of the buccaneer
who had dared to fire on the trust flag.

Before night some one of his corps of spies in the employ of the enemy
carried the news to Waring Ridgway. He smiled grimly, his bluegray eyes
hardening to the temper of steel. Here at last was a foeman worthy of his
metal; one as lawless, unscrupulous, daring, and far-seeing as himself,
with a hundred times his resources.

CHAPTER 3. ONE TO ONE

The solitary rider stood for a moment in silhouette against the somber
sky-line, his keen eyes searching the lowering clouds.

"Getting its back up for a blizzard," he muttered to himself, as he
touched his pony with the spur.

Dark, heavy billows banked in the west, piling over each other as they
drove forward. Already the advance-guard had swept the sunlight from the
earth, except for a flutter of it that still protested near the horizon.
Scattering snowflakes were flying, and even in a few minutes the
temperature had fallen many degrees.

The rider knew the signs of old. He recognized the sudden stealthy
approach that transformed a sun-drenched, friendly plain into an unknown
arctic waste. Not for nothing had he been last year one of a search-party
to find the bodies of three miners frozen to death not fifty yards from
their own cabin. He understood perfectly what it meant to be caught away
from shelter when the driven white pall wiped out distance and direction;
made long familiar landmarks strange, and numbed the will to a helpless
surrender. The knowledge of it was spur enough to make him ride fast while
he still retained the sense of direction.

But silently, steadily, the storm increased, and he was forced to slacken
his pace. As the blinding snow grew thick, the sound of the wind deadened,
unable to penetrate the dense white wall through which he forced his way.
The world narrowed to a space whose boundaries he could touch with his
extended hands. In this white mystery that wrapped him, nothing was left
but stinging snow, bitter cold, and the silence of the dead.

So he thought one moment, and the next was almost flung by his swerving
horse into a vehicle that blocked the road. Its blurred outlines presently
resolved themselves into an automobile, crouched in the bottom of which
was an inert huddle of humanity.

He shouted, forgetting that no voice could carry through the muffled
scream of the storm. When he got no answer, he guided his horse close to
the machine and reached down to snatch away the rug already heavy with
snow. To his surprise, it was a girl's despairing face that looked up at
him. She tried to rise, but fell back, her muscles too numb to serve.

"Don't leave me," she implored, stretching her, arms toward him.

He reached out and lifted her to his horse. "Are you alone?"

"Yes. He went for help when the machine broke down--before the storm," she
sobbed. He had to put his ear to her mouth to catch the words.

"Come, keep up your heart." There was that in his voice pealed like a
trumpet-call to her courage.

"I'm freezing to death," she moaned.

She was exhausted and benumbed, her lips blue, her flesh gray. It was
plain to him that she had reached the limit of endurance, that she was
ready to sink into the last torpor. He ripped open his overcoat and shook
the snow from it, then gathered her close so that she might get the warmth
of his body. The rugs from the automobile he wrapped round them both.

"Courage!" he cried. "There's a miner's cabin near. Don't give up, child."

But his own courage was of the heart and will, not of the head. He had
small hope of reaching the hut at the entrance of Dead Man's Gulch or, if
he could struggle so far, of finding it in the white swirl that clutched
at them. Near and far are words not coined for a blizzard. He might
stagger past with safety only a dozen feet from him. He might lie down and
die at the very threshold of the door. Or he might wander in an opposite
direction and miss the cabin by a
mile.

Yet it was not in the man to give up. He must stagger on till he could no
longer stand. He must fight so long as life was in him. He must crawl
forward, though his forlorn hope had vanished. And he did. When the
worn-out horse slipped down and could not be coaxed to its feet again, he
picked up the bundle of rugs and plowed forward blindly, soul and body
racked, but teeth still set fast with the primal instinct never to give
up. The intense cold of the air, thick with gray sifted ice, searched the
warmth from his body and sapped his vitality. His numbed legs doubled
under him like springs. He was down and up again a dozen times, but always
the call of life drove him on, dragging his helpless burden with him.

That he did find the safety of the cabin in the end was due to no wisdom
on his part. He had followed unconsciously the dip of the ground that led
him into the little draw where it had been built, and by sheer luck
stumbled against it. His strength was gone, but the door gave to his
weight, and he buckled across the threshold like a man helpless with
drink. He dropped to the floor, ready to sink into a stupor, but he shook
sleep from him and dragged himself to his feet. Presently his numb fingers
found a match, a newspaper, and some wood. As soon as he had control over
his hands, he fell to chafing hers. He slipped off her dainty shoes,
pathetically inadequate for such an experience, and rubbed her feet back
to feeling. She had been torpid, but when the blood began to circulate,
she cried out in agony at the pain.

Every inch of her bore the hall-mark of wealth. The ermine-lined
motoring-cloak, the broadcloth cut on simple lines of elegance, the
quality of her lingerie and of the hosiery which incased the wonderfully
small feet, all told of a padded existence from which the cares of life
had been excluded. The satin flesh he massaged, to renew the flow of the
dammed blood, was soft and tender like a babe's. Quite surely she was an
exotic, the last woman in the world fitted for the hardships of this
frontier country. She had none of the deep-breasted vitality of those of
her sex who have fought with grim nature and won. His experience told him
that a very little longer in the storm would have snuffed out the wick of
her life.

But he knew, too, that the danger was past. Faint tints of pink were
beginning to warm the cheeks that had been so deathly pallid. Already
crimson lips were offering a vivid contrast to the still, almost colorless
face.

For she was biting the little lips to try and keep back the cries of pain
that returning life wrung from her. Big tears coursed down her cheeks, and
broken sobs caught her breath. She was helpless as an infant before the
searching pain that wracked her

"I can't stand it--I can't stand it," she moaned, and in her distress
stretched out her little hand for relief as a baby might to its mother.

The childlike appeal of the flinching violet eyes in the tortured face
moved him strangely. He was accounted a hard man, not without reason. His
eyes were those of a gambler, cold and vigilant. It was said that he could
follow an undeviating course without relenting at the ruin and misery
wrought upon others by his operations. But the helpless loveliness of this
exquisitely dainty child-woman, the sense of intimacy bred of a common
peril endured, of the strangeness of their environment and of her utter
dependence upon him, carried the man out of himself and away from
conventions.

He stooped and gathered her into his arms, walking the floor with her and
cheering her as if she had indeed been the child they both for the moment
conceived her.

"You don't know how it hurts," she pleaded between sobs, looking up into
the strong face so close to hers.

"I know it must, dear. But soon it will be better. Every twinge is one
less, and shows that you are getting well. Be brave for just a few minutes
more now."

She smiled wanly through her tears. "But I'm not brave. I'm a little
coward--and it does pain so."

"I know--I know. It is dreadful. But just a few minutes now."

"You're good to me," she said presently, simply as a little girl might
have said it.

To neither of them did it seem strange that she should be there in his
arms, her fair head against his shoulder, nor that she should cling
convulsively to him when the fierce pain tingled unbearably. She had
reached out for the nearest help, and he gave of his strength and courage
abundantly.

Presently the prickling of the flowing blood grew less sharp. She began to
grow drowsy with warmth after the fatigue and pain. The big eyes shut,
fluttered open, smiled at him, and again closed. She had fallen asleep
from sheer exhaustion.

He looked down with an odd queer feeling at the small aristocratic face
relaxed upon his ann. The long lashes had drooped to the cheeks and
shuttered the eyes that had met his with such confident appeal, but they
did not hide the dark rings underneath, born of the hardships she had
endured. As he walked the floor with her, he lived once more the terrible
struggle through which they had passed. He saw Death stretching out icy
hands for her, and as his arms unconsciously tightened about the soft
rounded body, his square jaw set and the fighting spark leaped to his
eyes.

"No, by Heaven," he gave back aloud his defiance.

Troubled dreams pursued her in her sleep. She clung close to him, her arm
creeping round his neck for safety. He was a man not given to fine
scruples, but all the best in him responded to her unconscious trust.

It was so she found herself when she awakened, stiff from her cramped
position. She slipped at once to the floor and sat there drying her lace
skirts, the sweet piquancy of her childish face set out by the leaping
fire-glow that lit and shadowed her delicate coloring. Outside in the gray
darkness raged the death from which he had snatched her by a miracle.
Beyond--a million miles away--the world whose claim had loosened on them
was going through its routine of lies and love, of hypocrisies and
heroisms. But here were just they two, flung back to the primordial type
by the fierce battle for existence that had encompassed them--Adam and Eve
in the garden, one to one, all else forgot, all other ties and obligations
for the moment obliterated. Had they not struggled, heart beating against
heart, with the breath of death icing them, and come out alive? Was their
world not contracted to a space ten feet by twelve, shut in from every
other planet by an illimitable stretch of storm?

"Where should I have been if you had not found me?" she murmured, her
haunting eyes fixed on the flames.

"But I should have found you--no matter where you had been, I should have
found you."

The words seemed to leap from him of themselves. He was sure he had not
meant to speak them, to voice so soon the claim that seemed to him so
natural and reasonable.

She considered his words and found delight in acquiescing at once. The
unconscious demand for life, for love, of her starved soul had never been
gratified. But he had come to her through that fearful valley of death,
because he must, because it had always been meant he should.

Her lustrous eyes, big with faith, looked up and met his.

The far, wise voices of the world were storm-deadened. They cried no
warning to these drifting hearts. How should they know in that moment when
their souls reached toward each other that the wisdom of the ages had
decreed their yearning futile?

CHAPTER 4. TORT SALVATION

She must have fallen asleep there, for when she opened her eyes it was
day. Underneath her was a lot of bedding he had found in the cabin, and
tucked about her were the automobile rugs. For a moment her brain, still
sodden with sleep, struggled helplessly with her surroundings. She looked
at the smoky rafters without understanding, and her eyes searched the
cabin wonderingly for her maid. When she remembered, her first thought was
to look for the man. That he had gone, she saw with instinctive terror.

But not without leaving a message. She found his penciled note, weighted
for security by a dollar, at the edge of the hearth.

"Gone on a foraging expedition. Back in an hour, Little Partner," was all
it said. The other man also had promised to be back in an hour, and he had
not come, but the strong chirography of the note, recalling the resolute
strength of this man's face, brought content to her eyes. He had said he
would come back. She rested secure in that pledge.

She went to the window and looked out over the great white wastes that
rose tier on tier to the dull sky-line. She shuddered at the arctic
desolation of the vast snow-fields. The mountains were sheeted with
silence and purity. It seemed to the untaught child-woman that she was
face to face with the Almighty.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14