A Damaged Reputation Part 43

"The Crown people seem to be. Now, I can't draw back my claim without throwing the mine open to anybody, but I'm willing to hold on and trade my rights to you when I've got my improvements in. Of course, you'd have to make it worth while, but I'm not going to be unreasonable."

Devine laughed a little. "There was once a jumper who figured he'd found the points you mentioned out. He wanted eight thousand dollars. Would you be content with that?"

"No," said Saxton, drily. "I'm going to strike you for more."

There was silence for a moment or two, and Brooke leaned forward a little as he watched his companions. Saxton was a trifle flushed in face, and his dark eyes had an exultant gleam in them, while the thin, nervous fingers of one hand were closed upon the edge of the table. His expression suggested that he was completely satisfied with himself and the strength of his position, for it apparently only remained for him to exact whatever terms he pleased. Devine's att.i.tude was, however, not quite what one would have expected, for he did not look in the least like a man who felt himself at his adversary's mercy. He sat smiling a little, and trifling with his cigar.

"Well," he said, reflectively, "I guess the man I mentioned was sorry he asked quite as much as he did. What is your figure?"

"I'll wait your bid."

Devine sat still for several moments, with the little sardonic smile growing plainer in his eyes, and Brooke, who felt the tension, fancied that Saxton was becoming uneasy. There was a curious silence in the room, through which the whirr of an elevator jarred harshly.

"One dollar," he said.

Saxton gasped. "Bluff!" he said. "That's not going to count with me. You want a full hand to carry it through, and the one you're holding isn't strong enough. Now, I'll put down my cards."

"One dollar," said Devine, drily.

Saxton stood up abruptly, and gazed at him in astonishment, with quivering fingers and tightening lips. "I tell you your patent's no good."

"I know it is."

Again there was silence, and Brooke saw that Saxton was holding himself in with difficulty.

"Still, you want to keep your mine," he said.

"You can have it for what I asked you, and if you can clear the cost of working, it's more than I can do. The Canopus was played out quite a while ago."

Even Brooke was startled, and Saxton sat down with all his customary a.s.surance gone out of him. His mouth opened loosely, he seemed to grow suddenly limp, and his cigar shook visibly in his nerveless fingers.

"Now," he said, and stopped while a quiver of futile anger seemed to run through him, "that's the last thing I expected. What'd you put up that wire sling for? I can't figure out your game."

Devine laughed. "It's quite easy. You have just about sense enough to worry anybody, or you wouldn't have dumped that ore into the Dayspring, and worked off one of the richest mines in the province on to me. Well, when I saw you meant to strike me on the Canopus, I just let you get to work because it suited me. I figured it would keep you busy while I took out timber-rights and bought up land round the Dayspring. n.o.body believed in Allonby, and I got what I wanted at quite a reasonable figure. I'm holding the mine and everything worth while now. There's nothing left for you, and I guess it would be wiser to get hold of a man of your own weight next time."

Saxton's face was colorless, but he put a restraint upon himself as he turned to Brooke.

"You knew just what this man meant to do?"

"Oh, yes," said Devine, drily. "He told me quite a while ago. You're going? Haven't you any use for that dollar?"

Saxton said nothing whatever, but the door slammed behind him, and Brooke, who, in spite of Devine's protests, went back to the Dayspring that evening, never saw him again.

XXVIII.

BROOKE DOES NOT COME BACK.

Devine went home a little earlier than usual after Saxton left him, and dusk was not far away when he sat recounting the affair in his wife's drawing-room. She listened with keen appreciation, and then looked up at him.

"But where is Brooke?" she said.

Devine smiled. "I guess he's buying mining tools. You can't keep that man out of a hardware store," he said. "I wanted to bring him back, but he was feeling better, and made up his mind to go out on the Atlantic express. He asked me to make his excuses, as he had fixed to meet an American machinery agent, and wasn't quite sure he could get round."

"Perhaps it is just as well," said Mrs. Devine, who appeared reflective.

"Do you think you are wise in encouraging that man to come here, Grant?"

"I wouldn't exactly call it that. I brought him. He didn't want to come."

"You are, of course, quite sure?" and Mrs. Devine's smile implied that she, at least, was a trifle incredulous. "Hasn't it struck you that Barbara----"

"So far as I've noticed lately, Barbara didn't seem in any way pleased with him."

Mrs. Devine made a little impatient gesture. "That," she said, "is exactly what I don't like. It's a significant sign. Barbara wouldn't have been angry with him--if it was not worth while."

"You said nothing when he came to the ranch, while we were at the mine."

"The man was pleasant company, and there was, it seemed to me, very little risk of a superior workman attracting Barbara's fancy."

Devine laughed. "I guess I was of no great account when you married me."

"Pshaw!" said Mrs. Devine. "Anyway, you hadn't plotted to steal a mine from the people I belonged to."

Devine's eyes twinkled. "It showed his grit, and 'most anything is considered square in a mining deal. Besides, there were the six thousand dollars Sloc.u.m took out of him."

"I am quite aware that such transactions are evidently not subject to the ordinary code, but, seriously, if you would be content with Harford Brooke as my brother-in-law, it is considerably more than I would be. We don't even know why he left the Old Country."

"Well," said Devine, drily, "I guess I have a notion. I've been finding out a good deal about him. But get on with your objections."

"Barbara has a good many dollars."

"So has Brooke. You needn't worry about that point."

Mrs. Devine's astonishment was very apparent. "Then whatever is he working at the mine for--and why didn't you tell me before?"

"I guess it's because that kind of thing pleases him, and, anyway, it's only since last mail came in I knew."

"You're quite sure, now?"

"I'll tell you what I heard. There was a man who bought up our stock in England when n.o.body else seemed to have any use for it. The directors wanted to know a little about him, and they found it was a trust account. He was taking up the stock for another man, who had been left quite a few dollars, and that man was called Harford Brooke. The executor, it seems, told somebody that the man he was buying for was here. Now, it's not likely there are two of them in this part of Canada."

The door, as it happened, was not closed, and Mrs. Devine was too intent to hear it swing open a little further. "The dollars," she said, "are by no means the most important consideration, but still----"

She stopped abruptly at a sound, and then turned round with a little gasp, for Barbara stood just inside the room. Then there was a disconcerting silence for a moment or two, until the girl glanced at Devine.