The Silver Horde Part 22

"Who, me? Never! I want to get back to G.o.d's country."

"Hurrah for you!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Clyde. "Same here. And I'm going with you."

"How's that?" questioned George.

"Mr. Clyde offers to put ten thousand dollars into the deal if he can go to Kalvik with us and help run the cannery," explained Emerson.

George looked over the clubman carefully from his curly crown to his slender, high-heeled shoes, then smiled broadly.

"It's up to Mr. Emerson. I'm willing if he is." Whereupon, vastly encouraged, Clyde proceeded to expatiate upon his own surpa.s.sing qualifications. While he was speaking, a party of three men approached, and seated themselves at an adjoining table. As they pulled out their chairs, Big George chanced to glance in their direction; then he put down his lemonade gla.s.s carefully.

"What's the matter?" Boyd demanded, in a low tone, for the big fellow's face had suddenly gone livid, while his eyes had widened like those of an enraged animal.

"That's him!" George growled, "That's the dirty hound!"

"Sit still!" commanded Fraser; for the fisherman had shoved back from the table and was rising, his hands working hungrily, the cords in his neck standing out rigidly. Seeing the murder-light in his companion's eyes, the speaker leaned forward and thrust the big fellow back into the chair from which he had half lifted himself.

"Don't make a fool of yourself," he cautioned.

Clyde, who had likewise witnessed the giant's remarkable metamorphosis, now inquired its meaning.

"That's him!" repeated George, his eyes glaring redly. "That's Willis Marsh."

"Where?" Emerson whirled curiously; but there was no need for George to point out his enemy, for one of the strangers stood as if frozen, with his hand upon the back of his chair, an expression of the utmost astonishment upon his face. A smile was dying from his lips.

Boyd beheld a plump, thick-set man of thirty-eight in evening dress. There was nothing distinctive about him except, perhaps, his hair, which was of a decided reddish hue. He was light of complexion; his mouth was small and of a rather womanish appearance, due to the full red lips. He was well groomed, well fed, in all ways he was a typical city-bred man. He might have been a broker, though he did not carry the air of any particular profession.

That he was, at all events, master of his emotions he soon gave evidence.

Raising his brows in recognition, he nodded pleasantly to Balt; then, as if on second thought, excused himself to his companions and stepped toward the other group. The legs of George's chair sc.r.a.ped noisily on the tiles as he rose; the sound covered Fraser's quick admonition:

"Take it easy, pal; let him talk."

"How do you do, George? What in the name of goodness are you doing here? I hardly recognized you." Marsh's voice was round and musical, his accent Eastern. With an a.s.sumption of heartiness, he extended a white-gloved hand, which the big, uncouth man who faced him refused to take. The other three had risen. George seemed to be groping for a retort. Finally he blurted out, hoa.r.s.ely:

"Don't offer me your hand. It's dirty! It's got blood on it!"

"Nonsense!" Marsh smiled. "Let's be friends again, George. Bygones are bygones. I came over to make up with you and ask about affairs at Kalvik.

If you are here on business and I can help--"

"You dirty rat!" breathed the fisherman.

"Very well; if you wish to be obstinate--" Willis Marsh shrugged his shoulders carelessly, although in his voice there was a metallic note. "I have nothing to say." He turned a very bright and very curious pair of eyes upon George's companions, as if seeking from them some hint as to his victim's presence there. It was but a momentary flash of inquiry, however, and then his gaze, pa.s.sing quickly over Clyde and Fraser, settled upon Emerson.

"Mr. Balt and I had a business misunderstanding," he said, smoothly, "which I hoped was forgotten. It didn't amount to much--"

At this Balt uttered a choking snarl and stepped forward, only to meet Boyd, who intercepted him.

"Behave yourself!" he ordered. "Don't make a scene," and before the big fellow could prevent it he had linked arms with him, and swung him around.

The movement was executed so naturally that none of the patrons of the cafe noticed it, except, perhaps, as a preparation for departure. Marsh bowed civilly and returned to his seat, while Boyd sauntered toward the exit, his arm which controlled George tense as iron beneath his sleeve. He felt the fisherman's great frame quivering against him and heard the excited breath halting in his lungs; but possessed with the sole idea of getting him away without disorder, he smiled back at Clyde and Fraser, who were following, and chatted agreeably with his prisoner until they had reached the foyer. Then he released his hold and said, quietly:

"You'd better go up to your room and cool off. You came near spoiling everything."

"He tried to shake hands," George mumbled, "_with me!_ That thieving whelp tried to shake--" He trailed off into an unintelligible jargon of curses and threats which did not end until he had reached the elevator.

Here Alton Clyde clamored for enlightenment as to the reason for this eruption.

"That is the fellow we will have to fight, "Boyd explained. "He is the head of the cannery combination at Kalvik, and a bitter enemy of George's.

If he suspects our motives or gets wind of our plans, we're done for."

Clyde spoke more earnestly than at any time during the evening. "Well, that absolutely settles it as far as I am concerned. This is bound to end in a row."

"You mean you don't want to join us?"

"_Don't want to!_ Why, I've just _got_ to, that's all. The ten thousand is yours, but if you don't take me along I'll stow away."

CHAPTER XI

WHEREIN BOYD EMERSON IS TWICE AMAZED

Nearly a month had elapsed when Emerson at last expressed to George the discouragement that for several days had lain silently in both men's minds.

"It looks like failure, doesn't it?"

"Sure does! You've played your string out, eh?"

"Absolutely. I've done everything except burglary, but I can't raise that hundred thousand dollars. From the way we started off it looked easy, but times are hard and I've bled my friends of every dollar they can spare. In fact, some of them have put in more than they can afford."

"It's an awful big piece of money," Balt admitted, with a sigh.

"I never fully realized before how very large," Boyd said. "And yet, without that amount the Seattle bank won't back us for the remainder."

"Oh, it's no use to tackle the business on a small scale." Big George pondered for a moment. "We can't wait much longer. We'd ought to be on the coast now. We're shy twenty-five thousand dollars, eh?"

"Yes, and I can't see any possible way of raising it. I've done the best I could, and so has Clyde, but it's no use."

The strain of the past month was evident in Emerson's face, which was worn and tired, as if from sleepless nights. Of late he had lapsed again into that despondent mood which Fraser had observed in Alaska, his moments of depression growing more frequent as the precious days slipped past. Every waking hour he had devoted to the promotion of his enterprise. He had laughed at rebuffs and refused discouragement; he had solicited every man who seemed in any way likely to be interested. He had gone from office to office, his hours regulated by watch and note-book, always retailing the same facts, always convincingly lucid and calmly enthusiastic. But a scarcity of money seemed prevalent. Those who sought investment either had better opportunities or refused to finance an undertaking so far from home, and apparently so hazardous.

During those three years in the North, Boyd had worked with feverish haste and suffered many disappointments; but never before had he used such a vast amount of nervous force as in this short month, never had fortune seemed so maddeningly stubborn. But he had hung on with bulldog tenacity, not knowing how to give up, until at last he had placed his stock to the extent of seventy-five thousand dollars, only to realize that he had exhausted his vital force as well as his list of acquaintances. In public he maintained a sanguine front, but in private he let go, and only his two Alaskan friends had sounded the depths of his disappointment.

One other, to be sure, had some inkling of what troubled him, yet to Mildred he had never explained the precise nature of his difficulties. She did not even know his plans. He spent many evenings with her, and she would have given him more of her society had he consented to go out with her, for the demands upon her time were numerous; but this he could never bring himself to do, being too wearied in mind and body, and wis.h.i.+ng to spare himself any additional mental disquiet.

Neither Mildred nor her father ever spoke of that unknown suitor in his presence, and their very silence invested the mysterious man with menacing possibilities which did not tend to soothe Boyd's troubled mind. In fact, Mr. Wayland, despite his genial manner, inspired him with a vague sense of hostility, and, as if he were not sufficiently distracted by all this, Fraser and George kept him in a constant state of worry from other causes.

The former was continually involving him in some wildly impossible enterprise which seemed ever in danger of police interference. He could not get rid of the fellow, for Fraser calmly included him in all his machinations, dragging him in w.i.l.l.y-nilly, until in Boyd's ears there sounded the distant clank of chains and the echo of the warden's tread. A dozen times he had exposed the rogue and established his own position, only to find himself the next day wallowing in some new complication more difficult than that from which he had escaped. Ordinarily it would have been laughable, but at this crisis it was tragic.