BLACKFOOT TERRY WAS OILING his revolver and I was reading The Gold Bug one Saturday afternoon, when Seth Potter entered my three-room cottage. Rainwater dripped from the whangs of the buckskin clothes he insisted on wearing.
“How’s the multimillionaire?” McQuinn saluted him, while I was uncorking the bottle on the table.
Such references to his wealth usually pleased the old fellow, but this one brought forth no smiles. Beyond a word of greeting he said nothing until he had downed his drink and moved to stand with his back to the little sheet-iron stove in the living room.
“A funny thing’s happened,” he said, looking directly at me as he spoke. “ ’Tain’t often this coon asks for help, but I done trapped me two polecats I don’t know how to skin.”
Terry and I exchanged glances before I looked at Seth again. There was a tie of shared experience between Potter and myself, not to mention the fact that I owed my own prospects of wealth to his loyalty.
“I’m already in,” I assured him. “Now tell me why.”
He relaxed a little. “You know my sister’s whelp that come out here from Illinois, don’t you, Baltimore?”
I had met Irah Weaver but had had no inclination to do more than that. While he seemed generally astute and especially clever at business affairs, he was callow enough to believe that he had a monopoly on those qualities. My first thought, therefore, was that he had preened himself before the wrong gamecock.
“Did Irah get himself into trouble with somebody, Seth?”
“Yeah, he did,” the old mountain man stated. “I’m maybe goin’ to kill him and that Horace Bedlington varmint, but I figgered you might think of somethin’ better to do. Didn’t you tell me one time that you’d done some pettifoggin’?”
A glimpse of his difficulties made me crease my forehead. “I’ve practiced law a little, but if there’s a legal dispute between you and a man like Bedlington, you’ll want someone with a lot more experience than I’ve had. Just what’s happened so far?”
Before replying he opened the stove door and discharged a stream of tobacco juice which staggered the flames. “Well, so far,” he said, “they done told me that I don’t own no mines or claims or nothin’ on account of signin’ somethin’ Irah asked me to a ways back. So I throwed a gun on ’em and buffaloed ’em and hog-tied ’em and give ’em each one of his socks to chaw and come after you.”
When McQuinn and I again exchanged glances I was sure we had the same mixture of thoughts. Blended with sorrow that the old fellow had been cheated out of his properties was the resigned feeling that this was the common fate of naive prospectors who had no one to protect them from the gluttony of professional capitalists. There was anger at Irah Weaver, who was supposed to have acted as guardian but had sold out. There was contempt for Bedlington for having engineered the swindle. There was likewise delight at the thought that this financial wolf had got his tail caught in a crack he hadn’t anticipated.
“Where did you leave them?” Terry asked.
“In the company office.” Potter waved in the direction of the Dead Warrior Mining works, which stood about a mile out of town. “I knowed Irah and Bedlington was there because Irah told me they had some things to settle before t’other polecat went back to Philadelphia. Well, I see a good horse this mornin’ that I wanted to buy, so I moseyed out there to get Irah to take some money out of that iron box they stuff it in. That’s when they told me I didn’t have nothin’ comin’ but some paper things they call stock.”
“Sometimes you can swap stock for money, Seth.” Bedlington and Weaver had manifestly put a shady deal across and had wound up in complete control of the cluster of claims which Potter had staked out for himself, but it now seemed possible that they hadn’t taken everything from the old man. “Let’s go and see what the paper looks like and hear what your captives have to say.”
“After we’ve deprived them of the socks they’re chewing,” Terry said. “I’ll take your horse and bring Baltimore’s and mine from the corral, Seth.”
There weren’t many people astir, as we all three jogged along Apache Street. An occasional figure shuffled past the frame buildings of Dead Warrior’s main business section, but usually he got no farther than the nearest saloon or dance hall. Rain was felt to be an imposition in that land of sunshine; and even the Glory Hole and the Happy Hunting Ground — rivaling each other in the magnificence of their false, tin brick fronts — had a slightly woebegone air.
Two squares past Bonanza Street, on which were the cribs of the red-light girls, we came to Gully Street. Turning east, we could see the one structure which presumed to tower higher than the town’s two leading gambling saloons. That was the steam-powered hoist of the Dead Warrior Mining Company.
Among the group of boxlike buildings around it was the shanty of the watchman, and I decided that it would be wise to interview that guardian before he made his evening rounds. “Hi, Baltimore,” he said, when I had gained entry to his shack and removed my hat to shake the water off. “I seen you around a few times, but I thought ‘What the hell, he’s probably forgotten me.’”
Peering into the freckled face, I recognized one of the stage robbers I had known at Shakespeare. The fact that he was now a custodian of property hardly made me raise my brows, however. Bygones were bygones in the West, and what he had done in another camp would not be held against him in this one.
“Oh, hello, Pinto; where are the other boys?”
“I wouldn’t know.” He made that emphatic. “So you can call me Pat Scanlan now.”
“That’s fine, Pat.” I pointed through the open door to where Terry and Seth were hitching the horses in the shelter of a shed. “You know Mr. Potter, don’t you?”
“Sure, I know the old beaver-skinner. He’s head of this gold ranch, ain’t he?”
“Well, we’re going into the office,” I informed him, “and as you’re watchman, I thought I’d tell you that we’ll be talking to Weaver and Bedlington for quite a while.”
He shrugged but looked disapproving. “Jesus, Baltimore, you’d ought to be able to find something better than that to do, even on a Sunday. I wouldn’t have drinks on the house with either one of them boids myself. Are you goin’ to tell me when you’re through?”
The financier and the mine superintendent stopped struggling to free themselves, when we entered the office. Economically but effectively, Potter had bound them by tying their thumbs and little fingers behind their backs with whangs cut from his shirt. Their big toes were also bound with thongs which bit into the flesh at every movement.
Weaver was a blond, rawboned fellow with the look peculiar to men in transit from a rural to an industrial way of life. Except for his rumpled appearance and the lump on his head, the slim, brown-whiskered Horace Ainsworth Bedlington had the air of being the trained master of large affairs which he actually was.
“I’m Mr. Potter’s attorney,” I said, when we had them seated at the council table which was the office’s principal piece of furniture. “Where is the document which authorizes the transfer of his property to you?”
“Not to me but to the corporation of which I am president.” In spite of his headache, Bedlington looked as sure of himself as he no doubt felt. Taking the situation out of the hands of the mountain man and putting it in the lee of the law was exactly what he wanted. “At present it’s en route to Philadelphia, where it will be assigned to its proper place in the files of the company.”
I let that go for the time being. “And in return for his property, or share of it, you gave my client what?”
“Full value represented by mining stock, which your client’s signature shows he was willing to accept.” Bedlington chafed a thumb into which the blood had not yet fully returned. “Our desire was to increase operational efficiency by shifting full administrative control to those actually responsible for developing the mines.”
I had to admire that statement, which never deviated from the truth. Bedlington was reputed to have built up one of the largest fortunes in the country, out of mining properties among many other things, and I caught sight of the qualities which had enabled him to do so.
“I don’t know as I can kill ’em, on account of Irah’s my sister’s boy,” Seth observed, while I was pausing to consider. “But I can scalp ’em, so’s I’ll have some of their property as a swap for mine.”
Weaver, who had come to know something about the frontier, took this threat more seriously than did Bedlington. The latter passed his smile from me to Terry. Well groomed and with his neatly trimmed mustache cutting across pleasing but reserved features, the gambler looked every inch a solid citizen, and I got the idea that the Philadelphian took comfort in his presence.
“Where are the stock certificates in question?” I asked.
“They will be forthcoming on receipt of the document transferring the physical control of the mines themselves,” Bedlington said. “It is not my fault if Mr. Potter has changed his mind since signing it; but you can rest assured that the terms will be met in every detail.”
Without seeing what Potter had signed or what he was due to receive, I had little to go on. “And there was no copy of this document available for your uncle?” I asked the mine superintendent.
“Why should there be?” Weaver defended himself. “I used to give him copies of everything; but he just threw them away, so I got out of the habit. He’s always said he didn’t want to be bothered with business, so that’s what I’ve been fixing up for him the best I know how. The way it stands now he’ll get all that stock and won’t have to do a thing in the world for it; and that’s why I advised him to sign that agreement.”
The only thing clear to me was that whatever was done had to be done right away. Once Bedlington got out of Dead Warrior he would have the backing of the courts. Meanwhile it would remain an open question whether Seth had been given some trifling return for what he was forfeiting or none whatever.
“Mr. Bedlington.” I said, drawing my revolver from its holster beneath my shoulder and placing it on the table in front of me, “I’d like you to listen carefully for a moment. Having mentally thumbed through every legal volume read in the course of my vast practice, I find that the only course open to my client is replevin — an action to win the return of property unjustly withheld from the owner, Mr. Weaver. Seth, I think your knowledge of law is equal to arguing this phase of the case. Tie their thumbs behind their backs again, won’t you?”
It wasn’t necessary for me to pick up my pistol. When the conspirators rose to their feet in protest, Terry whisked out a gun which induced them to sit down again. Bedlington wasn’t overawed, however, for he still maintained faith in the protections offered silk-shirt thievery by the industrial age.
“Watchman!” he shouted.
Seth attempted to quiet him with threats but stopped when I raised my hand. “Watchman!” I roared in echo.
Potter had once more bound the hands of our captives behind him by the time Scanlan arrived. “What’s goin’ on?” he demanded. A moment later, though, his eyes grew adjusted to the gloom of the office. “At choich back in New York they always told me I’d never get in trouble for doin’ my duty,” he observed. Drawing up a chair, he crossed his legs and folded his arms. “A watchman’s paid to watch, ain’t he?”
“You’ll lose your job!” Weaver yelled at him.
“You’ve got one with Carruthers and Wheeler,” I said.
“Now, Seth,” I went on, substituting crisper speech for the formal language I had been using, “after talking with these two highbinders I think they’ve got you, cold turkey. That stock they speak of may be worth a few dimes, but I doubt it. There’s nothing else you can do about the situation, but if you still feel inclined to take partial payment out of their hides with your scalping knife, I’d say go to it.”
“The mines are gone, are they, boy? All that gold guzzled by these wolverines?” The old prospector’s shoulders sagged, but as he turned to view the men who had swindled him, they straightened again. “Well, I’ve lifted the hair of a lot of redskins just for takin’ a few beaver plews or a pony worth maybe ten or fifteen dollars; and I’ll sure want somethin’ for this.”
With the words he took the little whetstone he always carried from the case which hung from his belt and started whetting his hunting knife. Unbelieving, the financier watched him a moment. “You can’t scare me with those stage tricks, Carruthers. He wouldn’t dare.”
In place of replying to him, I asked a question of McQuinn. “How many men have been killed here recently?”
That was shop talk. Dead Warrior’s score in this respect was a matter of interest to all the town’s citizenry, and Terry showed an expected concern to be accurate.
“Well, since the first of the month, three — no, four counting the fellow Rogue River Pete plugged last night. Nobody seemed to know who he was; but Floyd Roehampton should count, because it was after midnight on September the thirtieth that I shot him; and Red Tom got Jimmie Miller along about the eighth or ninth; and Si Hoskins knifed Bronco What’s-his-name last week.”
I think it was Terry’s casual reference to his own act of manslaughter which gave Bedlington absolute knowledge that Dead Warrior and Philadelphia had two different sets of values. He closed his eyes but opened them again, as I went on.
“None of the survivors was brought into court, Mr. Bedlington; among other things because as yet there are no courts.” After letting that sink in, I put another query to McQuinn. “Did our deputy sheriff say anything to you?”
Lighting a cigar, McQuinn found a spittoon to flip the match into before he answered. “Oh, you know Fred Andrews, Baltimore. He asked me what happened, and when I told him how Roehampton had tried to sneak a gun on me, he screwed up his face in that funny way he has when his finer feelings are ruffled and said, ‘By Godfreys, Terry, there’d ought to be a law against fellows actin’ like that.’”
By then having honed his knife to the desired keenness, Potter moved toward the men who had cheated him. The financier cast one look at the weapon in Seth’s hand, and another at me.
“You’d never let him do this, Carruthers.”
“He’s a free agent, and so are you, within limits,” I told the man somberly. My stomach was contracting; but I knew I could stand the sight, if he could stand the pain. “Everybody knows what a given thing is worth to him, Bedlington.”
Struggling violently, Weaver tipped his chair over backwards and knocked himself out. “I’ll get him later,” Seth said, and twined his hand expertly in the financier’s hair.
It was then that Bedlington made up his mind. “Hold him off, and let’s talk,” he gasped.
“I can’t give back property that’s been transferred to the corporation,” the Philadelphian said, when I had persuaded Potter to wait a few minutes, “but I can make a personal arrangement with your client, giving him a remuneration over and above the stock with which both you and he appear so dissatisfied.”
“You can save postage by keeping the stock in Pennsylvania,” I suggested. “What else have you to offer?”
Knowing that a shark doesn’t give up, once it has tasted blood, I didn’t think he had quit the game. I watched him carefully while he calculated, not expecting him to come up with an acceptable proposition right away.
“Suppose, as a lawyer, you draw up an agreement which will bind me to turn over my own interest in the mines to Mr. Potter, if I fail to send him a quarterly draft, the amount of that draft to correspond to a percentage of the value of the mines’ gold output.”
“And suppose you form a new gold-mining company or transfer your shares to dummy ownership,” I countered.
“It is not the way I do business.” His look was as haughty as his words. “It’s up to you to make a contract without loopholes, but once I’ve affixed my sign manual, you’ll find that I will comply with the strict letter of the terms.”
Meeting his eyes, I became convinced that he was speaking out of the only faith he knew. “Very well,” I nodded. “If my client gets, say, fifteen per cent of the value of gross production — ”
I had thought that Bedlington would fence with me over the amount, but he didn’t. “Let’s be exact,” he interrupted. “I will agree to give him fifteen per cent of the value of the gold extracted from the mines. Is that satisfactory?”
There was a queer glint in his eyes as he spoke, so I reflected before answering. Without knowing too much about mining costs, I could see that Potter would be getting the equivalent of at least thirty per cent of the net profits. In terms of dollars, he would get hundreds of thousands of them annually; and even though more was possibly due him, I could not see that he would have a right to feel deprived.
“All right,” I finally said. “But if you ever welsh, we’ll take the gold itself at this end of the line.”
In the course of celebrating that victory we ran across Rogue River Pete. The lion of the moment, because he had given the town its latest man for breakfast, the big roustabout was glowing with drink and good fellowship.
“Howdy, Judge. Hello there, Terry. How’s the old Injun killer, Seth?” Every time I met Pete he insisted on buying me a drink in return for the free ride I had given him out of Three Deuces. “Here, Short-fuse,” he now said, “give the judge and the other boys what they want, and don’t try to wish off any of that Zuni cookin’ whiskey. The judge is from Maryland, and he’ll drill a man that tries to give him anythin’ but real, sure-’nough rye.”
Short-fuse was now tending bar in the Happy Hunting Ground, although it was understood that this was a mere stopgap until he came into his own as a mining tycoon. He served us with the air of a man dispensing hospitality rather than selling merchandise. Then he got a light from me for his cigar.
“How’s things goin’ on the claim, Baltimore?”
“The gold’s safer there than in a bank,” I answered. “Meanwhile I haven’t quite decided whether to sell or chase capital. Are you still working your claim on the side?”
“Nope. I quit that after I’d dug out that bit of easy placer stuff I had, because one man workin’ in hard rock don’t get his time back. So now I’m just holdin’ on and lettin’ the minin’ companies come to me.” Short-fuse blew a smoke ring, put his cigar back in his mouth and winked. “It’s like what the chippie said when she hit an army camp on payday. I got it, and they got to have it, so I’ll stand around and wait for them to shell out.”
Pete, who had been sharing his high spirits with some fellows at the other end of the bar, now rejoined us. “Say, Short-fuse,” he interrupted our professional discussion, “did I ever tell you how the judge here got me out of Three Deuces when Meadowbloom — that’s the squaw I had there, not the one I got here — done took my horse for the run to Powder Keg?”
It was probable that Short-fuse had heard the story, although it wasn’t exactly an old one, as Pete then related it. There were details which hadn’t previously been brought to my attention, including Pete’s personal encounter with the grizzly bear that had frightened the Foster equipage off the road.
“That b’ar come tearin’ after that wagon with that pretty gal of the preacher’s squealin’ and the preacher lookin’ like he wasn’t so sure that God was takin’ care of him as preachers generally let on to be. I was havin’ a hell of a time tryin’ to get in a shot, with our team rarin’ like they was fixin’ to climb trees, and every time I almost got a bead drawed old Hangtown Jennie’d grab my arm and beg me to pass the jug, which I wasn’t about to do, knowin’ she was scared enough to drink the whole quart.”
Pete emptied his glass before completing his sketch of this frenzied scene. “Well, just as I was about thinkin’ I’d have to jump out and take my chances on the ground, the judge here ca’ms the nags and swings ’em around so that I’ve got a square shot out the window. He done it so cute that he give the preacher’s buggy room to squeeze by, and he done it so sharp that it throwed Jennie between the seats of the coach, and her bustle got jammed and held her out of my hair, so’s I didn’t have to worry about her gettin’ the jug any more. ‘Now, Pete,’ the judge calls down from the driver’s seat, ca’m as if we was just havin’ target practice, ‘put one right between the eyes.’
“I couldn’t hardly miss,” Pete modestly pointed out, “as the varmint wasn’t no farther away than from me to Blackfoot Terry there. Well, we scooped up the preacher and the gal, which was too scared to drive any more by themselves, and went on into Chuckwalla. We split up there, of course, and I didn’t see none of ’em again till I heard about this camp and come on down here, like half the other folks in the West.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” Seth asked proudly. “There ain’t nothin’ to match it anywhere in the country, so they’re all flockin’ in like ducks to wild rice.”
“That’s sure right,” Pete concurred. “When I come along the judge was already here, then the preacher tails me into camp, and this afternoon a wagonload of gals pulls in and the one that ain’t a gal exactly is Hangtown Jennie.”
This intelligence was confirmed a couple of hours later. By then at the Glory Hole, I was in the act of lifting a drink when a wallop on the back made me spill most of it. Looking around, I took off my hat with the hand which didn’t have whiskey all over it.
“Why, Jennie; it’s nice to see you,” I said.
“I’d just as soon see you as about anything but a drink or a dollar,” she beamed in return. “Howdy, Terry; long time no see. Get your carcass out of the way, Pete, and let me belly up. Who’s the jigger in the leather pants and face fur, Baltimore?”
“Oh, just the man who discovered this bonanza.” Seth, who had been waiting to have his distinction made known, cocked his head at that and slid his quid from one cheek to the other. “This is Seth Potter, Jennie.”
“Well, shove over and let me stand next to him,” she ordered. “Him and me’s the only ones here that’s really old enough to know good liquor and to have sense enough to come in out of that goddam rain out there, so we ought to stick together.”