Ridgway of Montana Read online

"But you said—"

  "—that I had cursed and cuffed him. That's all right. I have."

  The president of the Mesa Ore-producing Company leaned back with his thumbs in the armholes of his fancy waistcoat and smiled debonairly at his associate's perplexed amazement.

  "Did you say—CUFFED him?"

  "That's what I meant to say. I roughed him around quite a bit—manhandled him in general. But all FOR HIS GOOD, you know."

  "For his good?" Eaton's dazed brain tried to conceive the situation of a billionaire being mauled for his good, and gave it up in despair. If Steve Eaton worshipped anything, it was wealth. He was a born sycophant, and it was partly because his naive unstinted admiration had contributed to satisfy his chief's vanity that the latter had made of him a confidant. Now he sat dumb before the lese-majeste of laying forcible hands upon the richest man in the world.

  "But, of course, you're only joking," he finally decided.

  "You haven't been back twelve hours. Where COULD you have seen him?"

  "Nevertheless I have met him and been properly introduced by his wife."

  "His wife?"

  "Yes, I picked her out of a snow-drift."

  "Is this a riddle?"

  "If it is, I don't know the answer, Steve. But it is a true one, anyhow, not made to order merely to astonish you."

  "True that you picked Simon Harley's wife out of a snow-drift and kicked him around?"

  "I didn't say kicked, did I?" inquired the other, judicially. "But I rather think I did knee him some."

  "Of course, I read all about his marriage two weeks ago to Miss Aline Hope. Did he bring her out here with him for the honeymoon?"

  "If he did, I euchred him out of it. She spent it with me alone in a miner's cabin," the other cried, malevolence riding triumph on his face.

  "Whenever you're ready to explain," suggested Eaton helplessly. "You've piled up too many miracles for me even to begin guessing them."

  "You know I was snow-bound, but you did not know my only companion was this Aline Hope you speak of. I found her in the blizzard, and took her to an empty cabin near. She and her husband were motoring from Avalanche to Mesa, and the machine had broken down. Harley had gone for help and left her there alone when the blizzard came up. Three days later Sam Yesler and the old man broke trail through from the C B Ranch and rescued us."

  It was so strange a story that it came home to Eaton piecemeal.

  "Three days—alone with Harley's wife—and he rescued you himself."

  "He didn't rescue me any. I could have broken through any time I wanted to leave her. On the way back his strength gave out, and that was when I roughed him. I tried to bullyrag him into keeping on, but it was no go. I left him there, and Sam went back after him with a relief-party."

  "You left him! With his wife?"

  "No!" cried Ridgway. "Do I look like a man to desert a woman on a snow-trail? I took her with me."

  "Oh!" There was a significant silence before Eaton asked the question in his mind. "I've seen her pictures in the papers. Does she look like them?"

  His chief knew what was behind the question, and he knew, too, that Eaton might be taken to represent public opinion. The world would cast an eye of review over his varied and discreditable record with women. It would imagine the story of those three days of enforced confinement together, and it would look to the woman in the case for an answer to its suspicions. That she was young, lovely, and yet had sold herself to an old man for his millions, would go far in itself to condemn her; and he was aware that there were many who would accept her very childish innocence as the sophistication of an artist.

  Waring Ridgway put his arms akimbo on the table and leaned across with his steady eyes fastened on his friend.

  "Steve, I'm going to answer that question. I haven't seen any pictures of her in the papers, but if they show a face as pure and true as the face of God himself then they are like her. You know me. I've got no apologies or explanations to make for the life I've led. That's my business. But you're my friend, and I tell you I would rather be hacked in pieces by Apaches than soil that child's white soul by a single unclean breath. There mustn't be any talk. Do you understand? Keep the story out of the newspapers. Don't let any of our people gossip about it. I have told you because I want you to know the truth. If any one should speak lightly about this thing stop him at once. This is the one point on which Simon Harley and I will pull together. Any man who joins that child's name with mine loosely will have to leave this camp—and suddenly."

  "It won't be the men—it will be the women that will talk."

  "Then garble the story. Change that three days to three hours, Steve. Anything to stop their foul-clacking tongues!"

  "Oh, well! I dare say the story won't get out at all, but if it does I'll see the gossips get the right version. I suppose Sam Yesler will back it up."

  "Of course. He's a white man. And I don't need to tell you that I'll be a whole lot obliged to you, Stevie."

  "That's all right. Sometimes I'm a white man, too, Waring," laughed Steve. Ridgway circled the table and put a hand on the younger man's shoulder affectionately. Steve Eaton was the one of all his associates for whom he had the closest personal feeling.

  "I don't need to be told that, old pal," he said quietly.

  CHAPTER 8. THE HONORABLE THOMAS B. PELTON

  It was next morning that Steve came into Ridgway's offices with a copy of the Rocky Mountain Herald in his hands. As soon as the president of the Mesa Ore-producing Company was through talking with Dalton, the superintendent of the Taurus, about the best means of getting to the cage a quantity of ore he was looting from the Consolidated property adjoining, the treasurer plumped out with his news.

  "Seen to-day's paper, Waring? It smokes out Pelton to a finish. They've moled out some facts we can't get away from."

  Ridgway glanced rapidly over the paper. "We'll have to drop Pelton and find another candidate for the Senate. Sorry, but it can't be helped. They've got his record down too fine. That affidavit from Quinton puts an end to his chances."

  "He'll kick like a bay steer."

  "His own fault for not covering his tracks better. This exposure doesn't help us any at best. If we still tried to carry Pelton, we should last about as long as a snowball in hell."

  "Shall I send for him?"

  "No. He'll be here as quick as he can cover the ground. Have him shown in as soon as he comes. And Steve—did Harley arrive on the eight-thirty this morning?"

  "Yes. He is putting up at the Mesa House. He reserved an entire floor by wire, so that he has bed-rooms, dining-rooms, parlors, reception-halls and private offices all together. The place is policed thoroughly, and nobody can get up without an order."

  "I haven't been thinking of going up and shooting him, even though it would be a blessing to the country," laughed his chief.

  "No, but it is possible somebody else might. This town is full of ignorant foreigners who would hardly think twice of it. If he had asked my advice, it would have been to stay away from Mesa."

  "He wouldn't have taken it," returned Ridgway carelessly. "Whatever else is true about him, Simon Harley isn't a coward. He would have told you that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the permission of the distorted God he worships, and he would have come on the next train."

  "Well, it isn't my funeral," contributed Steve airily.

  "All the same I'm going to pass his police patrols and pay a visit to the third floor of the Mesa House."

  "You are going to compromise with him?" cried Eaton swiftly.

  "Compromise nothing, I'm going to pay a formal social call on Mrs. Harley, and respectfully hope that she has suffered no ill effects from her exposure to the cold."

  Eaton made no comment, unless to whistle gently were one.

  "You think it isn't wise?"

  "Well, is it?" asked Steve.

  "I think so. We'll scotch the lying tongue of rumor by a strict observance of the conventions. Madam Grundy is padlocked when we
reduce the situation to the absurdity of the common place."

  "Perhaps you are right, if it doesn't become too common commonplace."

  "I think we may trust Simon Harley to see to that," answered his chief with a grim smile "Obviously our social relations aren't likely to be very intimate. Now it's 'Just before the battle mother,' but once the big guns begin to boor we'll neither of us be in the mood for functions social."

  "You've established a sort of claim on him. It wouldn't surprise me if he would meet you halfway in settling the trouble between you," said Eaton thoughtfully.

  "I expect he would," agreed Ridgway indifferently as he lit a cigar.

  "Well, then?"

  "The trouble is that I won't meet him halfway. I can't afford to be reasonable, Steve. Just suppose for an instant that I had been reasonable five years ago when this fight began. They would have bought me out for a miserable pittance of a hundred and fifty thousand or so. That would have been a reasonable figure then. You might put it now at five or six millions, and that would be about right. I don't want their money. I want power, and I'd rather fight for it than not. Besides, I mean to make what I have already wrung from them a lever for getting more. I'm going to show Harley that he has met a man at last he can't either freeze out or bully out. I'm going to let him and his bunch know I'm on earth and here to stay; that I can beat them at their own game to a finish."

  "Did it ever occur to you, Waring, that it might pay to make this a limited round contest? You've won on points up to date by a mile, but in a finish fight endurance counts. Money is the same as endurance here, and that's where they are long."

  Eaton made this suggestion diffidently, for though he was a stockholder and official of the Mesa Ore-producing Company, he was not used to offering its head unasked advice. The latter, however, took it without a trace of resentment.

  "Glad of it, my boy. There's no credit in beating a cripple."

  To this jaunty retort Eaton had found no answer when Smythe opened the door to announce the arrival of the Honorable Thomas B. Pelton, very anxious for an immediate interview with Mr. Ridgway.

  "Show him in," nodded the president, adding in an aside: "You better stay, Steve."

  Pelton was a rotund oracular individual in silk hat and a Prince Albert coat of broadcloth. He regarded himself solemnly as a statesman because he had served two inconspicuous terms in the House at Washington. He was fond of proclaiming himself a Southern gentleman, part of which statement was unnecessary and part untrue. Like many from his section, he had a decided penchant for politics.

  "Have you seen the infamous libel in that scurrilous sheet of the gutters the Herald?" he demanded immediately of Ridgway.

  "Which libel? They don't usually stop at one, colonel."

  "The one, seh, which slanders my honorable name; which has the scoundrelly audacity to charge me with introducing the mining extension bill for venal reasons, seh."

  "Oh! Yes, I've seen that. Rather an unfortunate story to come out just now."

  "I shall force a retraction, seh, or I shall demand the satisfaction due a Southern gentleman.

  "Yes, I would, colonel," replied Ridgway, secretly amused at the vain threats of this bag of wind which had been punctured.

  "It's a vile calumny, an audacious and villainous lie."

  "What part of it? I've just glanced over it, but the part I read seems to be true. That's the trouble with it. If it were a lie you could explode it."

  "I shall deny it over my signature."

  "Of course. The trouble will be to get people to believe your denial with Quinton's affidavit staring them in the face. It seems they have got hold of a letter, too, that you wrote. Deny it, of course, then lie low and give the public time to forget it."

  "Do you mean that I should withdraw from the senatorial race?"

  "That's entirely as you please, colonel, but I'm afraid you'll find your support will slip away from you."

  "Do you mean that YOU won't support me, seh?"

  Ridgway locked his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. "We've got to face facts, colonel. In the light of this exposure you can't be elected."

  "But I tell you, by Gad, seh, that I mean to deny it."

  "Certainly. I should in your place," agreed the mine-owner coolly. "The question is, how many people are going to believe you?"

  Tiny sweat-beads stood on the forehead of the Arkansan. His manner was becoming more and more threatening. "You pledged me your support. Are you going to throw me down, seh?"

  "You have thrown yourself down, Pelton. Is it my fault you bungled the thing and left evidence against you? Am I to blame because you wrote incriminating letters?"

  "Whatever I did was done for you," retorted the cornered man desperately.

  "I beg your pardon. It was done for what was in it for you. The arrangement between us was purely a business one."

  The coolness of his even voice maddened the harassed Pelton.

  "So I'm to get burnt drawing your chestnuts out of the fire, am I? You're going to stand back and let my career be sacrificed, are you? By Gad, seh, I'll show you whether I'll be your catspaw," screamed the congressman.

  "Use your common sense, Pelton, and don't shriek like a fish-wife," ordered Ridgway sharply. "No sane man floats a leaky ship. Go to drydock and patch up your reputation, and in a few years you'll come out as good as new."

  All his unprincipled life Pelton had compromised with honor to gain the coveted goal he now saw slipping from him. A kind of madness of despair surged up in him. He took a step threateningly toward the seated man, his hand slipping back under his coat-tails toward his hip pocket. Acridly his high voice rang out.

  "As a Southern gentleman, seh, I refuse to tolerate the imputations you cast upon me. I demand an apology here and now, seh."

  Ridgway was on his feet and across the room like a flash.

  "Don't try to bully ME, you false alarm. Call yourself a Southern gentleman! You're a shallow scurvy impostor. No more like the real article than a buzzard is like an eagle. Take your hand from under that coat or I'll break every bone in your flabby body."

  Flabby was the word, morally no less than physically. Pelton quailed under that gaze which bored into him like a gimlet. The ebbing color in his face showed he could summon no reserve of courage sufficient to meet it. Slowly his empty hand came forth.

  "Don't get excited, Mr. Ridgway. You have mistaken my purpose, seh. I had no intention of drawing," he stammered with a pitiable attempt at dignity.

  "Liar," retorted his merciless foe, crowding him toward the door.

  "I don't care to have anything more to do with you. Our relations are at an end, seh," quavered Pelton as he vanished into the outer once and beat a hasty retreat to the elevator.

  Ridgway returned to his chair, laughing ruefully. "I couldn't help it, Steve. He would have it. I suppose I've made one more enemy."

  "A nasty one, too. He'll stick at nothing to get even."

  "We'll draw his fangs while there is still time. Get a good story in the Sun to the effect that I quarreled with him as soon as I discovered his connection with this mining extension bill graft. Have it in this afternoon's edition, Steve. Better get Brayton to write it."

  Steve nodded. "That's a good idea. We may make capital out of it after all. I'll have an editorial in, too. 'We love him for the enemies he has made.' How would that do for a heading?"

  "Good. And now we'll have to look around for a candidate to put against Mott. I'm hanged if I know where we'll find one."

  Eaton had an inspiration.

  "I do?"

  "One that will run well, popular enough to catch the public fancy?"

  "Yes."

  "Who, then?"

  "Waring Ridgway."

  The owner of the name stared at his lieutenant in astonishment, but slowly the fascination o the idea sank in.

  "By Jove! Why not?"

  CHAPTER 9. AN EVENING CALL

  "Says you're to come right up, Mr. Ridgway," t
he bell-hop reported, and after he had pocketed his tip, went sliding off across the polished floor to answer another call.

  The president of the Mesa Ore-producing Company turned with a good-humored smile to the chief clerk.

  "You overwork your boys, Johnson. I wasn't through with that one. I'll have to ask you to send another up to show me the Harley suite."

  They passed muster under the eye of the chief detective, and, after the bell-boy had rung, were admitted to the private parlor where Simon Harley lay stretched on a lounge with his wife beside him. She had been reading, evidently aloud and when her visitor was announced rose with her finger still keeping the place in the closed book.

  The gaze she turned on him was of surprise, almost of alarm, so that the man on the threshold knew he was not expected.

  "You received my card?" he asked quickly.

  "No. Did you send one?" Then, with a little gesture of half-laughing irritation: "It must have gone to Mr. Harvey again. He is Mr. Harley's private secretary, and ever since we arrived it has been a comedy of errors. The hotel force refuses to differentiate."

  "I must ask you to accept my regrets for an unintentional intrusion, Mrs. Harley. When I was told to come up, I could not guess that my card had gone amiss."

  The great financier had got to his feet and now came forward with extended hand.

  "Nevertheless we are glad to see you, Mr. Ridgway, and to get the opportunity to express our thanks for all that you have done for us."

  The cool fingers of the younger man touched his lightly before they met those of his wife.

  "Yes, we are very glad, indeed, to see you, Mr. Ridgway," she added to her husband's welcome.

  "I could not feel quite easy in my mind without hearing from your own lips that you are none the worse for the adventures you have suffered," their visitor explained after they had found seats.

  "Thanks to you, my wife is quite herself again, Mr. Ridgway," Harley announced from the davenport. "Thanks also to God, who so mercifully shelters us beneath the shadow of His wing."

  But her caller preferred to force from Aline's own lips this affidavit of health. Even his audacity could not ignore his host entirely, but it gave him the least consideration possible. To the question which still rested in his eyes the girl-wife answered shyly.