The beating of the man's heart quickened. All his feelings rose, and set him longing to tell her all that was in his heart. He wanted then and there to become her champion for all time. A great passionate wave set the warm blood of youth surging to his head. He felt that she belonged to him, and him alone. Had he not fought for her as those warriors of old would have done? Yes, somehow he felt that she was his, but, with a strange cowardice, he feared to put his fate to the test through words which could never express half of all he felt. He longed and feared, and he told himself —
But Hazel was looking in his direction. She saw him standing there, and peremptorily summoned him to her presence.
"For goodness' sake," she cried. "Dreaming when there's work to be done. Bring them right along, or we'll never get started. There's all twenty miles before supper."
Gordon hurried forward, and as he came up he made his excuses.
"I had to look," he said apologetically. "You see it isn't every day a feller gets a chance to see a real picture – like I've seen. Say, these hills, I guess, can hand all that Nature can paint that way, but you need a human life in it to make a picture real to just an ordinary man's eyes. I – had to look."
But Hazel seemed to have become suddenly aware of something of that which lay behind his words, and she hastily, and with flushed cheeks, turned to the work of saddling her horse. Gordon attempted to help, but she laughingly declined any aid. She pointed at the saddle bags on his saddle.
"They're packed," she said. "Say, I'll show you how to refold your blanket. This way."
Gordon spent some delicious moments struggling with his blanket under the girl's superintendence, and his regret was all too genuine when, at last, it was placed on Sunset's back with the saddle on the top of it. As for the mare, she was saddled and bitted in the time it took him to cinch Sunset up. By the time he had adjusted the bit Hazel was in the saddle, gazing down at his efforts with merry, laughing eyes.
"It does seem queer," she said. "Here are you, big and strong, and capable of most anything. Yet it puzzles you around a saddle – which is so simple."
Gordon climbed into his saddle at last, and smiled round at her.
"I'm learning more than I ever guessed I'd learn when I left New York. I've learned a heap of things, and you've taught me most of them. Sometime I'll have to tell you all you've taught me, and then – and then, why, I guess maybe you'll wonder." He laughed as they moved off. But somehow Hazel kept her eyes averted.
"Now for the enchanted tunnel again," he cried, in a less serious mood. "More enchantment, more delight! And then – then to the serious criminal work we have on hand. Criminal. It sounds splendid. It sounds exciting. We're conspirators of the deepest dye."
CHAPTER XVII
THE CODE BOOK
It seemed as though Peter McSwain never did anything without perspiring. He perspired now with the simple effort of thought. But it was a considerable effort and a considerable thought. He crowded more of the latter into five minutes, he assured himself, than a bankrupt Wall Street man could have done on the eve of settling day. The object of his thought was the telegraph operator and the subject of it the interesting thesis of bribery. Then, too, there were the side issues, which included David Slosson, a telegraph message, and two men waiting at the other end of things for the result of his share in the proceedings.
He made no attempt at pleasant conversation with the row of guests lounging with feet skywards on the shady veranda. For the time at least the affairs of his hotel were quite secondary. It seemed to him just now that these men were the misfortunes of a commercial interest. They were the things that kept him living concealed beneath an exterior of polite attention which he detested. He had never had a chance of being his real self until this moment. There was work of a delicate nature to be performed, work which was to prove his ability in those finer channels where individuality would count and genuine cleverness must be displayed. A lot was depending upon his capacity.
This feeling inspired him, and the dew on his forehead became a moist and shallow lake that was already overflowing its banks. At the end of five minutes, after having seen David Slosson leave the telegraph office and move off down the Main Street, this lake became a streaming torrent as he left the veranda and passed round to the back of the hotel.
This retrograde movement was a part of his deeply laid plans. He had no object in visiting either his barn or his kitchens. The Chinese cook possessed no interest for him at the moment, and as for the hens and the team of horses, and his lame choreman who tended them, they had never been farther from his thoughts.
He appeared interested, however, and mopped his forehead several times as he surveyed the scene with attentive eye. Then he passed on without a word. Now his route became circuitous. He walked a hundred yards away from the town, and appeared to be contemplating the open country with weighty thoughts in his mind. Then he turned away and moved in another direction, towards the railroad track. Again he paused with measuring eye. Then he crossed the track and strode off in a fresh direction. This time he was moving northwards away from the depot and telegraph office. Those who now chanced to observe him lost all interest in his movements, and for the time his perspiring face was forgotten. By the time he came within view of the hotel veranda again his very existence had been forgotten in the midst of the busy talk of his guests. And so he was enabled to reach the telegraph office from the farther side without arousing comment.
He casually opened the door and found himself standing before the barrier of the paper-littered office. The operator was at his instrument table ticking out a message in that alert, concentrated manner peculiar to all telegraphists. The man glanced round at his visitor and continued his work without a sign of recognition, and the hotel-keeper propped himself on the counter and drew a cigar from his vest pocket.
By the time he had lit it satisfactorily the ticking of the instrument ceased, and a sigh of relief warned him that Steve Mason was free. He glanced across at the table with his hot eyes and a shadowy smile.
"Busy these times, Steve," he said genially. "The old days when we had time to sit around in this office and yarn are as far back as the flood. Say, you ain't got paralysis of the arm yet? Maybe you work 'em both. Hev a smoke?"
Steve smiled wearily.
"Don't you never take on operatin', Peter," he said, accepting the proffered smoke. "Thanks. What's this? One of those 'multiflavums' of yours you keep for drummers?"
Peter shook his head.
"My own smokes. They match the times. We're all making fortunes."
"Are we?"
"Well – ain't we?"
"None of it's come my way," said Steve, lighting his cigar. "But that's always the way. We get shunted to a bum town like this on a branch, and they pay us salary according. If the city makes a break and gets busy and we're nearly crazy with overwork they don't boost us up. Overwork don't mean overpay, nor overtime. They ain't raised me a dollar. I'm going to get right on the buck if things keep up. I tell you I've eaten three meals in this office to-day, with my hand on the key, and I – I'm just sick to death. I don't take or send again this night."
"Guess you'll be able to make a break when you sell your holdings," McSwain went on sympathetically. He raised the barrier and stepped into the office, and sat himself in a chair he had often occupied in the unruffled days before the coal.
Steve laughed and sat himself on the corner of his instrument table.
"I ain't got no holding. You can't buy land on a hundred dollars a month. No, sir. What with the Chinee laundry and my boarding-house, I guess I need to smoke your 'multiflavums' and drink your worst rye. Why, I ain't got a balance over to buy an ice-cream-soda in winter."
"You sure are badly staked," murmured Peter.
They smoked in silence for some moments. The atmosphere of the little office was opening the pores of Peter's skin again.
"Say," he went on presently, mopping his brow carefully, "I made quite a stake out of that agent feller, Slosson. Somewheres around ten thousand dollars. Quite a piece of money, eh? I ain't sure he's a fool or a pretty wise guy."
"He's the railroad man," said Steve significantly.
"Yes. That don't make him out a fool, does it?"
"I'd smile."
"So'd I – if I knew more. I'd give a hundred dollars to see what's to happen in the next week or so. I've got a big stake here, if the railroad don't shift the depot. Slosson says they won't. Says he's bought all he needs right here for his company. I take it he's helped himself, too. Still, I'd like to know. The boys back at the hotel are fallin' right over 'emselves to get in. They reckon this place is a cinch – since Slosson's bought. I'd like to be sure."
Steve laughed. He read through his friend's purpose now. The visit was not, as he told himself, for nothing. Peter was looking for information which it would be a serious offense for him to give – if he possessed any, which he didn't.
"Guess there's nothing doing, Peter," he said slyly.
"What d'you mean?" The hotel-keeper's eyes were hotter than ever. But there was no resentment in them.
"Why, I just don't know a thing what Slosson's doing. And if I did I couldn't tell you. It would be a criminal offense. Slosson ain't sent a word over the line since he started to buy metal until to-night, and the message I've just sent for him is in code, so, as far as I'm concerned, it's so much Greek. I don't know who it's to, even. That's why I guess there's nothing doing."
"No – I s'pose not. I s'pose codes can be read, though? There's experts who worry out any old code. Guess it's mighty interestin'. If Slosson's sendin' in code I guess he's got something in it he don't need folks to know. That makes it more worrying."
Peter heaved a great sigh of longing. The other shook his head.
"You've got to find the key to 'em," he said.
"Yep – a Bible, or some queer old book. Maybe the 'History of the United States.' Say, I'd hate to chase up the 'History of the United States' looking for a key. Maybe it would be interestin', though. Say – "
"You couldn't do it in a month of years," laughed Steve, humoring his friend. "What would it be worth to you to be able to read his code?"
"Oh, maybe I'd make fifty thousand dollars."
"Whew! That's some money."
"Sure. I'd like to try. Say, boy, I'll hand you five hundred dollars to let me take a copy of that message. All you need do is just leave it on your table there for five minutes and lock the outer door. Then just pass right into the other room till the five minutes is up. I'll hand you the bills right here an' now. I'd like to figure on that message. Is it a bet?"
Steve shook his head. He was scared. He knew the consequences of discovery to himself too well. It was penitentiary. It was the equivalent of tapping wires. But Peter was unfolding a big roll of bills, and the temptation of handling that money was very great.
"You just need to copy the message out? That all?"
"Just that. No more."
"You won't need to disfigure my record?"
"Sure not." Peter grinned. He was sweating, profusely. He felt he was on a hot scent and likely to make a kill.
"Only to make a copy. It's a big bunch of money for just a copy," Steve demurred suspiciously.
Peter laughed.
"Say, boy, we're old friends. I ain't out to do you a hurt. All I need is to try and worry out that code and know things. If I was sure of being able to read it, why, this five hundred would be five thousand, and worth it all to me, every cent of it. If I can't read that code, then I'll just hand you back my copy, and no harm's done. See? I tell you I wouldn't hurt you for more than the money I hope to make. Is it a bet?"
Steve passed out through the barrier and turned the key in the door. Then he came back.
"I'll take that money."
"Good."
Peter paid it over, and then watched the other as he took the original message which Slosson had written off a file and laid it on the table beside a blank form.
"Say, be as sharp as you can over it," Steve said urgently. Then he passed into the inner room and closed the door.
The interior of Mike Callahan's livery barn was typical of a small prairie town. Rows of horse-stalls ran down either side of it, from one end to the other. At the far end sliding doors opened out upon an enclosure, round which were the sheds sheltering a widely varied collection of rigs and buggies. Also here there was further accommodation for horses. Just inside the main barn, to the left, the American Irishman had two small rooms. The one at the front, with its window on Main Street, was his office. Behind this, dependent for light upon a window at the side of the building, was a harness-room crowded with saddles and harness of every description, also a bunk on which Mike usually slept when he kept the barn open at night.
It was late at night now, about midnight on the day following Peter McSwain's momentous effort with Steve Mason. Four men were gathered together in profound council in Mike's harness-room. The atmosphere of the place was poisonous. A horse blanket obscured the window, and the door was shut and locked, although the barn itself was closed for the night, and there was small enough chance of intrusion. Still, every precaution had been taken to avoid any such contingency.
A single guttering candle stuck in the neck of a black bottle illumined the intent faces of the men. Gordon was sitting at a small table with a sheet of paper in front of him and a small morocco-bound book beside it. Silas Mallinsbee and Peter McSwain were sitting upon Mike Callahan's emergency bunk, while the owner of it contented himself with an upturned bucket near the door. Cigar-smoke clouded the room and left the atmosphere choking, but all of them seemed quite impervious to its inconvenience.
For awhile there was no other sound than the rustle of the leaves of Gordon's book and the scratching of the indifferent pen he had borrowed from Mike. Then, after what seemed interminable minutes, he looked up from his task with a transparent smile.
"It's all right," he said in a low, thrilling tone. "I guess we've got the game in our hands. He's used the governor's code."
"You can read it?" demanded Peter quickly, leaning forward with a stiff, tense motion.
"Is it what we guessed?" inquired Mike, with a sigh of relief.
Mallinsbee alone offered no comment.
Gordon nodded in answer to each inquiry. He was reading what he had written over to himself.
Then he turned sharply to Peter.
"For goodness' sake give me a cigar. I need something to keep me from shouting."
His tone, and the expression of his eyes were full of excitement.
"It's the greatest luck ever," he went on, while Peter produced a cigar and passed it across to him. "This feller's in direct communication with the governor. You see, this code is the private one. I had it as the dad's secretary. The manager had it, and, of course, my father. No one else. So it's just about certain this thing was an important matter for Slosson to be allowed to use it. Now I'd never heard of this Slosson before, so that it's also evident he's one of my father's secret agents. A matter which further proves the affair's importance."
He lit his cigar and puffed at it leisurely as he contemplated his paper with even greater satisfaction.
"This is addressed direct to the old man, which – makes our work doubly easy," he went on. "Also the nature of the message helps us. If it had been to our manager it would have been more difficult to work out my plans."
He raised the paper so that the candlelight fell full upon it.
"This is the transcript. 'Occipud, New York' – that's my father," he added in parenthesis.
"'Have bought in Snake's Fall, working on instructions. Buffalo Point crowd out for a heavy graft. Utterly unscrupulous lot, offering impossible deal. Have turned them down on grounds provided for in your instructions. Snake's Fall everything you require. Would suggest you come up here incognito, if possibly convenient. There are other propositions in coal worth a deep consideration. Coal deposits here the greatest in the country. Must come an enormous boom. Will send word later on this matter. Am sending letter covering operations. I think it will be urgent that you visit this place shortly in interests of boom as well as the coal. – SLOSSON.'"
Gordon looked round at the faces of his companions in silent triumph. And in each case he encountered a keen expectancy. As yet his fellow conspirators were rather in the dark. The significance of that transcript was not yet sufficiently clear.
"What comes next?" inquired Mallinsbee in his calm, direct fashion.
The others simply waited for enlightenment.
Gordon chuckled softly.
"Now we know we can get at Slosson's messages and my father's messages to him, and, having the code book, by a miracle of good luck, in my possession, the rest is easy. First, Peter must get a copy of my father's reply to this. Meanwhile I shall send an urgent message to my father in Slosson's name to come up here at once. The answer to that must never reach Slosson. Get me, Peter? You've got that boy Steve where you need him. You must hold him there and pay his price. I'll promise him he'll come to no harm. When my father finds out things I'll guarantee to pacify him. This way we'll get my father here, I'll promise you. And when he does get here the fun 'll begin – as we have arranged. That clear? Mike's got his work marked out. You yours, Peter. Mr. Mallinsbee and I will do the rest. Peter, you did a great act laying hands on this message. It was worth double the price. The whole game is now in our hands."
Gordon folded up the paper and placed it inside the code book, which he carefully returned to his pocket.
Mike rubbed his hands.
"Say, it's sure a great play," he said gleefully.
"And seein' you're his son the risk don't amount to pea-shucks," nodded the perspiring hotel proprietor.
"You can be quite easy on that score," laughed Gordon. "I can promise you this: it won't be the old dad's fault, when this is over, if you don't find yourselves gathered around a mighty convivial board somewhere in New York – at his expense. You know my father as a pretty bright financier. I don't guess you know him as the sportsman I do."
Mallinsbee suddenly bestirred himself and removed his cigar.
"I kind o' wish he weren't your father, Gordon, boy," he said bluntly. "It sort of seems tough to me."
Gordon's eyes shot a whimsical smile across at Hazel's father.
"I'd hate to have any other, Mr. Mallinsbee," he said. "Maybe I know how you're feeling about it. But I tell you right here, if my father knew I had this opportunity and didn't take it, he'd turn his face to the wall and never own me as his son again. You're reckoning that for a son to do his father down sort of puts that son on a level with David Slosson or any other low down tough. Maybe it does. But I just think my father the bulliest feller on earth, and I love him mighty hard. I love him so well that I'd hate to give him a moment's pain. I tell you frankly that it would pain him if I didn't take this opportunity. It would pain him far more than anything we intend to do to him – when we get him here."
He rose from his seat and his good-natured smile swept over the faces of his companions.
"How do you say, gentlemen? Our work's done for to-night. Are we for bed?"
CHAPTER XVIII
WAYS THAT ARE DARK
The people of Snake's Fall were in the throes of that artificial excitement which ever accompanies the prospect of immediate and flowing wealth in a community which has been feverishly striving with a negative result.
Nor was this excitement a healthy or agreeable wave of emotion. It was aggressive and vulgar. It was hectoring and full of a blatant self-advertisement. Men who had never done better for themselves than a third-rate hotel, or who had never used anything more luxurious than a street car for locomotion in their ordinary daily life, now talked largely of Plaza hotels and automobiles, of real estate corners and bank balances. They sought by every subterfuge to exercise the dominance of their own personalities in the affairs of the place, only that they might the further enhance their individual advantage. Schemes for building and trading were in everybody's minds, and money, so long held tight under the pressure of doubt, now began to flow in one incessant stream towards the coffers of the already established traders.
Every boom city is more or less alike, and Snake's Fall was no variation to the rule. Gambling commenced in deadly earnest, and the sharpers, with the eye of the vulture for carrion, descended upon the place. How word had reached them would have been impossible to tell. Then came the accompaniment of loose houses, and every other evil which seems to settle upon such places like a pestilential cloud.
To Gordon, looking on and waiting, it was all a matter of the keenest interest, not untinged with a certain wholesome-minded disgust, and when he sometimes spoke of it in the little family circle at the ranch, or to the worldly-wise Mike Callahan in his barn, his talk was never without a hint of real regret.
"It makes a feller feel kind of squeamish watching these folks," he observed to Mike, as they sat smoking in the latter's harness-room one afternoon. "You see, if I didn't know the whole game was lying in the palm of my hand I'd just simply sicken at the sordidness of it. We can't feel that way, though. We're worse than them. They're just dead in earnest to beat the game by the accepted rules of it, which don't debar general crookedness. We're out to win by sheer piracy. Makes you laugh, doesn't it? Makes it a good play."
Mike was older, and had been brought up in a hard school.
"Feelin's don't count one way or the other, I guess," he replied contemptuously. "When it comes to takin' the dollars out of the other feller's pocket I'm allus ready and willin'. You can allus help him out after you beat him. Private charity after the deal is a sort of liqueur after a good dinner."
"Charity?" Gordon laughed.
"Well, maybe you got another name for it," retorted Mike indifferently.
"Several," laughed Gordon. "Rob a man and give him something back needs another name."
"They call it 'charity' in the newspapers when them philanthropists hand back part of the wad they've collected from a deluded public – anyway. It don't seem different to me." Mike's tone was sharply argumentative.
"It isn't different," agreed Gordon. "They're both a salve to conscience. The only thing is that public charity of the latter nature has the advantage of personal advertisement. I'm learning things, Mike. I'm learning that the moment you get groping for dollars, you've just tied up into a sack all the goodness and virtue handed out to you by the Creator and – drowned it."
Though Gordon was never able to carry any sort of conviction on these matters with Mike, his occasional regrets found a cordial sympathy in Hazel Mallinsbee. She watched him very closely during the days of waiting for the maturity of his schemes. She knew the impulse which had inspired him. She understood it thoroughly. It was humor, and she liked him all the better for it. She realized to the full all the depth of love Gordon possessed for his father, an affection which was not one whit the less for the fact that to all intents and purposes his object was the highway robbery of that parent.
It was something of a paradox, but one which she perfectly understood. She felt that it was a case of two strong personalities opposed to each other in friendly rivalry. Gordon had propounded his beliefs to a man of great capacity whose convictions were opposed. Opportunity had served the younger man, who now intended to drive his point home ruthlessly, with a deep, kindly humor lying behind his every act. She could imagine, though she had never seen James Carbhoy, these two men, big and strong and kindly, sitting opposite each other, smoking luxuriously when it was all over, discussing the whole situation in the friendliest possible spirit.
Her father offered little comment. Curiously enough, this man, who had so much at stake, deep in his heart did not approve of the whole thing. It was not that he possessed ordinary scruples. Had the conspiracy been opposed to anybody but Gordon's father he would have been heart and soul in the affair. He would have reveled in the daring of the trick which Gordon intended to carry out. As it was, he was old-fashioned enough to see some sort of heinous ingratitude and offense in the fact of a son pitted piratically against his father.
However, he, like his daughter, watched closely for every sign this son of his father gave. But while Hazel watched with sympathy and real understanding, he saw only with the searching eyes of the observer who is seeking the manner of man with whom he is dealing.
Once only, during the days of waiting and comparative inaction, he gave vent to his disapproval, and even then his manner was purely that of regret.
They were sitting together in the evening sunlight on the veranda of the ranch.
"Gordon, boy," he said in his deep, rumbling voice, after a long, thoughtful pause; "if I had a son, which I guess I haven't, it would hurt like sin to think he'd act towards me same as you're doing to your father."
His remark did not bring forth an immediate reply. When, however, it finally came, accompanied as it was by twinkling, mischievous blue eyes, and a smile of infinite amusement, Hazel, who was standing in the doorway of the house, fully understood, although it left her father unconvinced.
"If you were my father, I guess you wouldn't hate it a – little bit," Gordon said cheerfully. Then his eyes wandered in Hazel's direction, and presently came back again to her father's face. "Maybe I'll live many a long year yet, and if I do I can tell you right here that perhaps there'll only be one greater moment in my life, than the moment in which we win out on this scheme. I just want you to remember, all through, that I love my old dad with all that's in me. Same as Hazel loves you."
From that moment Gordon heard no further protest throughout all the preparations that had to be made. Silas Mallinsbee cheerfully acquiesced in all that was demanded of him. Furthermore, he tacitly acknowledged Gordon's absolute leadership.
Under that leadership much had to be done of a subtle, secret nature. The impression had to be created that the Buffalo Point interests had completely abandoned the game. It was an anxious time – anxious and watchful. David Slosson was kept under close surveillance by the four conspirators, and, to this end, Gordon and Silas Mallinsbee spent most of their time in Snake's Fall, which further added to the impression that their interests had been abandoned.
Having succeeded in bribing Steve Mason, the telegraph operator, in the first place, Peter McSwain further bought him body and soul over to their interests. Mallinsbee's purse was wide open for all such contingencies, and Steve was left with the comfortable feeling that, whatever happened, he had made sufficient money to throw up his job before any crash came, and clear out to safety with a capital he could never have honestly made out of his work.
Thus Gordon had been enabled at last to dispatch his urgent code message to his father, purporting as it did to come from David Slosson. It was an irresistible demand for the Union Grayling and Ukataw Railroad President's immediate presence in Snake's Fall. It had been made as strong as David Slosson would have dared to make it. Nor, when the answer to it arrived, would it ever reach the agent. Nothing was forgotten. Every detail had been prepared for with a forethought almost incredible in a man of Gordon's temperament and experience.
It was late evening the second day after the dispatching of Gordon's urgent message. He had not long returned home to the ranch with Hazel's father from a day amidst the excitement reigning in Snake's Fall. Hazel was in the house clearing away supper and generally superintending her domestic affairs. Silas Mallinsbee was round at the corrals in consultation with his ranch foreman. Gordon was alone on the veranda smoking and gazing thoughtfully out at the wonderful ruddy sunset.
For him there was none of the peace which prevailed over the scene that spread out before him. How could there be? Every moment of the two days which had intervened since the dispatching of his message had been fraught with tense, nervous doubt. Every plan he had made depended on the answer to that message, and he felt that the time-limit for the answer's arrival had been reached. It must come now within a few hours. He felt that he must get it to-morrow morning or never. And when it came what – what then? Would it be the reply he desired, or an uncompromising negative? He felt that the whole thing depended upon the relations between his father and his agent. He was inclined to think, from the very nature of the work his father had intrusted to Slosson, that those relations were of the greatest confidence. He hoped it was so, but he could not be absolutely sure. Therefore the strain of waiting was hard to bear.
While his busy thoughts teemed through his brain, and his unappreciative gaze roamed over the purpling of the distant hills, his ears, rendered unusually acute in the deep evening calm, suddenly caught the faint, distant rumble of a vehicle moving over the trail.
His quick eyes turned alertly. There was only one trail, and that was the road to Snake's Fall. The alertness of his eyes communicated itself to his body. He moved off the veranda and gazed down the trail, of which he now obtained a clear view. A team and buggy were approaching at a rapid rate, and, even at that distance, he fancied he recognized it as the one of Mike Callahan's which he had himself driven.