Out of the Primitive Part 11

"After he threw us down on the Q. T. survey?"

Griffith coughed and hesitated. "Well--now--look here, Tommy, you're not the kind to hold a grudge. Anyway, the bridge was turned over to the Coville Construction Company." He turned quickly to Lord James.

"Say, what's that about his being in the papers? If it's anything to his credit, put me next, won't you? I couldn't pry it out of him with a crow-bar."

"So you're going to use a Jimmy instead, eh?" countered Blake.

"Right-o, Tammas," said Lord James. "We're going to open up the incident out of hand."

"Lord!" groaned Blake. He rose, flus.h.i.+ng with embarra.s.sment, and swung across, to stare at a blueprint in the far corner of the room.

Lord James flicked the ash from his cigar with his little finger, and smiled at Griffith.

"Tom and I had been knocking around quite a bit, you know," he began.

"Fetched up in South Africa. American engineers in demand on the Rand.

Tom was asked to manage a mine."

"He could do it," commented Griffith. "Was two years on a low-grade proposition in Colorado--made it pay dividends. Didn't he suit the Rand people?"

"Better than they suited him, I take it. I left for a run home. Week before I arrived a servant looted the family jewels--heirlooms, all that, you know--chap named Hawkins. Thought I'd play Sherlock Holmes.

Learned that my man had booked pa.s.sage for India. Traced him to Calcutta. Lost two months; found he'd doubled back and gone to the Cape. Cape Town, found he'd booked pa.s.sage for England under his last alias--Winthrope. Steamer list also showed names of my friend Lady Bayrose, Miss Leslie, and Tom."

"Hey?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Griffith, opening his narrowed eyes a line.

"Same time, learned the steamer had been posted as lost, somewhere between Port Natal and Zanzibar."

"Crickey!" gasped Griffith. "Then it was Tom who pulled H. V.'s daughter--Miss Leslie--through that deal! Heard all about it from H. V.

himself, when he took me out to Arizona to look over this Zariba Dam proposition. But he didn't name the man. Well, I'll be--switched! Tommy sure did land in High Society that time!"

"They landed in the primitive, so to speak,--he and Miss Leslie and Hawkins,--when the cyclone flung them ash.o.r.e in the swamps."

"Hawkins? Didn't you just say--"

"Rather a grim joke, was it not? Every soul aboard drowned except those three--Tom and Miss Leslie and Hawkins, of all men!"

"Bet Tommy shook your family jewels out of his pockets mighty sudden."

Lord James lost his smile. "He got them, later on, when the fellow--died."

"Died? How?"

"Fever--another cyclone."

"Eh? Well, G.o.d's country is good enough for me. Those tropical holes sure are h.e.l.l. Tommy once wrote me about one of the Central American ports. You. don't ever catch me south of the U. S. This East African proposition, now? Must have been a tough deal even for Tommy."

"They were doing well enough when I found him, both he and Miss Leslie,--skin clothes, poisoned arrows, house in a tree hollow--all that, y'know."

"Well, I'll be--! But that's Tommy, for sure. He's got the kind of brains that get there. If he can't buck through a proposition, he'll triangulate around it. Go on."

"There's not much to tell, I fancy, now that you know he was the man.

You're aware that, had it not been for his resourcefulness and courage, Miss Leslie would have perished in that savage land of wild beasts and fever. Yet there _is_ something more than you could have heard from her father, something I'm not free to tell about. Wish I was, 'pon my word, I do! Finest thing he ever did,--something even _we_ would not have expected of him."

"Dunno 'bout that," qualified Griffith. "There's mighty little I don't expect of him--if only he can cut out the lus.h.i.+ng."

Lord James twisted his mustache. "Ever think of him as wearing a dress suit, Mr. Griffith?"

Griffith looked blank. "Tommy?--in a dress suit!"

"There's one in his box. When we landed in England I took him down to Ruthby. Kept him there a month. You'd have been jolly well pleased to see the way he and the guv'nor hit it off."

"Governor?"

"Yes, my pater--father, y' know."

"So he's a governor? Then Tommy was stringing me about the earl and duke business."

"Oh, no, no, indeed, no. The pater is the Duke of Ruthby, seventh in the line, and twenty-first Earl of Avondale; but he's a crack-up jolly old chap, I a.s.sure you. Not all our t.i.tled people are of the kind you see most of over here in the States."

"But--hold on--if your father is a real duke, then you're not Mr.--"

"Yes, I must insist upon that. Even in England I am only Mr.

Scarbridge--legally, y' know. Hope you'll do me the favor of remembering I prefer it that way."

"I'd do a whole lot for any man _he_ calls his friend," said Griffith, gazing across at Blake's broad back. Lord James glanced at his watch, and rose. "Sorry. Must go."

"Well, if you must," said Griffith. "You know the way here now. Drop in any time you feel like it. Rooms are always open. If I'm busy, I've got a pretty good technical library--if you're interested in engineering,--and some photographs of scenery and construction work.

Took 'em myself."

"Thanks. I'll come," responded Lord James. He nodded cordially, and turned to call slangily to Blake: "S' long, bo. I'm on my way."

Blake wheeled about from the wall. "What's this? Not going already?"

"Ah, to be sure. Pressing engagement. Must give Wilton time to attire me--those studied effects--last artistic touches, don't y' know,"

chaffed the Englishman.

But his banter won no responsive smile from his friend. Blake's face darkened.

"You're not going to see her to-day," he muttered.

"How could you think it, Tom?" reproached the younger man, flus.h.i.+ng hotly. "I have it! We'll extend the agreement until noon to-morrow. You have that appointment with her father in the morning."

"That's square! Just like you, Jimmy. Course I knew you'd play fair--It's only my grouch. I remember now. Madam G. gave you a bid to dine with her."

Lord James drew out his monocle, replaced it, and smiled. "Er--quite true; but possibly the daughter may be a compensation."

"Sure," a.s.sented Blake, a trifle too eagerly, "You're bound to like Miss Dolores. I sized her up for a mighty fine girl. Not at all like her mamma--handsome, lively young lady--just your style, Jimmy."

"Can't see it, old man. Sorry!" replied his lords.h.i.+p. "Good-day.

Good-day, Mr. Griffith."