The Lure of the North Part 13

"I surely will," Drummond replied, and pulling up an easy chair, put his wet snow-boots on Stormont's bed, after which he lighted a cigar.

"Now," he resumed, "if you have anything to say to me, you can go ahead."

"You're a store clerk, I think. It's a poor job making a profit for another man and Watson tells me you are enterprising. How'd you like to run a store of your own? If you could put up the stock to start with, I reckon you'd soon make good."

"I've figured on that," Drummond replied, with a cunning look, though Stormont saw he was flattered. "You want some money to begin, but I've a notion how I'm going to raise my pile."

Stormont nodded. He had appealed to the young man's raw vanity, but meant to work upon another emotion. "Watson tells me you came from Hamilton. Nice town and business was pretty good when I was there." He paused and asked sharply: "Why did you quit?"

Drummond hesitated and got confused. "Nothing much doing in my line; didn't see many chances, and Hamilton made me tired."

"Oh, well," said Stormont, who had given the other a hint that he knew something about his past history. "I reckon you didn't leave your employer your new address! Anyhow, store-clerking's a tame job, and you're a sport. You want to get out and give yourself a chance. Wasn't Hector Drummond, Hudson's Bay agent at the old Longue Sault factory, your father?"

"He was. Don't know how you know, but you've got it right."

Stormont smiled. The young man had told Watson much about himself one night when he was drunk. "I don't think it matters. You'd like to get rich and hinted that you knew how to make your pile."

"I know where there's a silver lode."

"Ah!" said Stormont, "that's interesting! But it's an expensive business to prove and develop a mineral claim, and you couldn't do much alone. I expect you know this, since you stop here clerking for a few dollars a week. You want help."

"The man who looks for that ore will want my help," Drummond rejoined.

"Well, it's my business to speculate in mines, and I'm generally willing to pay for a useful tip. But it's got to be useful. I don't like to be stung, and the woods are full of dead-beat prospectors ready to put you wise about rich pay-dirt for a dollar or two."

"My tip's all right," Drummond declared in a defiant tone. "I'll show you! When the old man was at Longue Sault he had a clerk called Strange, and sent him off somewhere one day with a sledge and dogs. Strange came back with a bagful of mineral specimens, and said he'd struck it rich, but the old man knew nothing about mining and didn't want any prospectors mussing up things round there. By and by Strange left the factory, and the old man pulled out and brought me South. Located at Owen Sound, and told me about Strange's specimens one day when he was very sick. Said he'd reckoned the fellow was a crank, but he'd kept two or three specimens and a mining man told him they carried good silver."

"Did Strange tell your father where he found the specimens?" Stormont asked carelessly.

Drummond grinned. "Since the old man sent him, I guess he knew where he went. But I've got to know what my tip is worth before I tell you."

"Certainly," said Stormont. "Suppose we take a drink?" He filled a gla.s.s and gave it Drummond, but was silent for some minutes afterwards.

The young man was not as drunk as he thought, and had obviously some caution left. The heady liquor, however, might make a difference.

"Well," he resumed, when Drummond put down his gla.s.s, "you're ambitious and enterprising. I expect you'd like to own a share in a paying mine?"

"You bet I would; I'm surely going to!"

"Then you had better let me help. It will cost you something to locate the vein, and you won't find people ready to believe your tale and put up the money," Stormont replied.

He saw by Drummond's look that he had tried to sell his secret; but the lad answered: "Cut it out! What's your offer?"

"Fifty dollars now, and five hundred when we find the lode, if it's worth working. Then a share that will depend on the cost of development and the profit."

"Shucks!" said Drummond. "I want five hundred dollars before I start."

"Then you had better try somebody else," said Stormont, smiling. "It's possible that all you can tell me isn't worth five dollars."

"I'll show you! Gimme a hundred now and 'nother drink."

"Take fifty, or I quit," said Stormont, who pa.s.sed him the bottle.

Drummond drained his gla.s.s. "You're mean, but I gotter make a start.

Where's the bills?"

Stormont gave him some paper money, and then turned to the clerk. "See about mailing the letters, Watson."

The clerk went out, knowing why he had been sent. His employer trusted him where he was forced, but did not want him to hear what Drummond had to say.

When Watson had gone Drummond knitted his brows, as if trying to remember something. "The vein runs out on the face of a cliff, 'bout forty paces from the first rampike pine; there's three or four rampikes, but the fire hadn't gone far into the bush."

"Not much of a clue! There are patches of burned forest all over the country," Stormont remarked.

"Don't interrupt!" said Drummond, with a frown. "It's pretty hard to remember. Give me 'nother drink. I wanter get it right."

Stormont filled his gla.s.s and he resumed in an unsteady voice: "Cliff rises from the creek in a little round hollow. There's a big rock near the top of the divide opposite--"

"Go on. How does the creek run?"

"You're hustling me," Drummond grumbled. "I wanter think. It's important. Knowing how the creek runs fixes where she is." He paused, and a vague distrust of Stormont entered his bemused brain. He had got the fifty dollars and saw, with drunken cunning, that it might be prudent to keep something back. "She runs south."

"South?" exclaimed Stormont, who knew that the natural drainage of the region is north-east to James Bay.

"Sure," said Drummond, with a sullen look. "Strange told the old man, and the old man told me."

Stormont pondered. If the creek flowed south, it drained a subsidiary basin and probably filled a lake from which a river ran north or east.

The clue was worth fifty dollars because it would simplify the search for the lode.

"How does the creek lie from the factory?"

"'Bout south-west," said Drummond in a thick, drowsy voice. "There isn't a factory at Longue Sault now. Company moved the post after the old man left."

"How far is the creek from where the post was?"

"Lemme think," Drummond muttered, and his eyes half closed. "Old man reckoned Strange made it in a fortnight's march."

"From the creek, or from the place where he was sent? Or do you mean the double journey?"

"Don't know," Drummond answered dully. "Old man said fortnight. Told you all I remember."

Then he slipped down in the big chair, his head drooped forward, and he fell into a drunken sleep. Stormont got up and leaned against the table.

He had borne some strain in the last few minutes, because it had been obvious that Drummond was overcome by liquor and would soon be unable to talk, while when he woke up sober he might repent his rashness. Now Stormont imagined he had told him all he knew, and it ought to be worth fifty dollars. Lighting a cigar, he waited until his clerk came back, when he indicated Drummond, who lay, snoring heavily, with his dirty boots on Stormont's bed.

"Wake the drunken fool and see him home."

Watson had some trouble to get Drummond on his feet and after Stormont shut the door there was a heavy thud. It looked as if Drummond had fallen down the stairs, but Stormont smiled. He had done with the fellow, and if Watson could get him out of the hotel, it did not matter if he reached home or not. Ringing for the bell-boy, he gave orders about being called in the morning, as he meant to leave by an early west-bound train.