The Rim of the Desert Part 2

"Impeach the Government's witness?" repeated Feversham, then a sudden intelligence leaped into his face. "Impeach Hollis Tisdale," he added softly and laughed.

Presently, as the chauffeur slackened speed, looking for a stand among the waiting machines at the depot, the attorney said: "If the syndicate sends Stuart Foster north to the Iditarod, he may be forced to winter there; that would certainly postpone the trial until spring."

The next moment the chauffeur threw open the limousine door, and the delegate stepped out; but he lingered a little over his good-by, retaining his wife's hand, which he continued to shake slowly, while his eyes telegraphed an answer to the question in hers. Then, laughing again deeply, he said: "My lady! My lady! Nature juggled; she played your brother Frederic a trick when she set that mind in your woman's head."

CHAPTER III

FOSTER TOO

The apartment Tisdale called home was in a high corner of the Alaska building, where the western windows, overtopping other stone and brick blocks of the business center, commanded the harbor, caught like a faceted jewel between Duwamish Head and Magnolia Bluff, and a far sweep of the outer Sound set in wooded islands and the lofty snow peaks of the Olympic peninsula. Next to his summer camp in the open he liked this eyrie, and particularly he liked it at this hour of the night tide. He drew his chair forward where the stiff, salt wind blew full in his face, but Foster, who had found the elevator not running and was somewhat heated by his long climb to the "summit," took the precaution of choosing a sheltered place near the north window, which was closed. A shaded electric lamp cast a ring of light on the package he had laid on the table between them, but the rest of the room was in shadow, and from his seat he glanced down on the iridescent sign displays of Second Avenue, then followed the lines of street globes trailing away to the brilliant constellations set against the blackness of Queen Anne hill.

"She is to be out of town a week," he said, "and I hardly liked to leave Weatherbee's things with a hotel clerk; since I am sailing on the _Admiral Sampson_ tonight, I brought the package back. You will have to be your own messenger."

"That's all right, Foster; I can find another when she returns. I'll ask Banks."

"No." Foster's glance came back from the street; his voice rang a little sharp. "Take it yourself, Hollis."

"I can trust it with Banks." Tisdale paused a moment, still looking out on the harbor lights and the stars, then said: "So you are going north again; back to the copper mine, I presume?"

"No, I shall be there later, but I expect to make a quick trip in to the Iditarod now, to look over placer properties. The syndicate has bonded Banks' claims and, if it is feasible, a dredger will be sent in next spring to begin operations on a big scale. I shall go, of course, by way of the Yukon, and if ice comes early and the steamers are taken off, return by trail around through Fairbanks."

"I see." Tisdale leaned forward a little, grasping the arms of his chair.

"The syndicate is taking considerable risk in sending you to the Iditarod at this time. Suppose those coal cases should be called, with you winter-bound up there. Why, the Chugach trial couldn't go on."

"I am identified with the Morganstein interests there, I admit; but why should the Chugach claims be cla.s.sed with conspiracies to defraud the Government? They were entered regularly, fifty coal claims of one hundred and sixty acres each, by as many different persons. Because the President temporarily suspended Alaska coal laws is no reason those patents should be refused or even delayed. Our money was accepted by the Government; it was never refunded."

"As I thought," said Tisdale softly, addressing the stars; "as I feared."

Then, "Foster, Foster," he admonished, "be careful. Keep your head. That syndicate is going to worry you some, old man, before you are through."

Foster got to his feet. "See here, Hollis, be fair. Look at it once from the other side. The Morgansteins have done more for Alaska than they will ever be given credit for. Capital is the one key to open that big, new, mountain-locked country, and the Government is treating it like a boa-constrictor to be throttled and stamped out. Millions went into the development of the El Dorado, yet they still have to s.h.i.+p the ore thousands of miles to a smelter, with coal,--the best kind, inexhaustible fields of it,--at our door. And go back to McFarlane. He put one hundred and fifty thousand into the Chugach Railway to bring out the coal he had mined, but he can't touch it; it's all tied up in red tape; the road is rotting away. He is getting to be an old man, but I saw him doing day labor on the Seattle streets to-day. Then there's the Copper River Northwestern. That company built a railroad where every engineer but one, who saw the conditions, said it could not be done. You yourself have called it the most wonderful piece of construction on record. You know how that big bridge was built in winter--the only time when the bergs stopped chipping off the face of the glacier long enough to set the piers; you know how Haney worked his men, racing against the spring thaw--he's paying for it with his life, now, down in California. In dollars that bridge alone cost a million and a half. Yet, with this road finished through the coast mountains, they've had to suspend operation because they can't burn their own coal. They've got to change their locomotives to oil burners.

And all this is just because the President delays to annul a temporary restriction the previous executive neglected to remove. We have waited; we have imported from British Columbia, from j.a.pan; s.h.i.+pped in Pennsylvania, laid down at Prince William Sound at fifteen dollars a ton, when our own coal could be mined for two and a quarter and delivered here in Seattle for five."

"It could, I grant that," said Tisdale mellowly, "but would it, Stuart?

Would it, if the Morganstein interests had exclusive control?"

Foster seemed not to have heard that question. He turned restlessly and strode across the room. "The Government with just as much reason might have conserved Alaska gold."

Tisdale laughed. "That would have been a good thing for Alaska," he answered; "if a part, at least of her placer streams had been conserved.

Come, Foster, you know as well as I do that the regulations early prospectors accepted as laws are not respected to-day. Every discovery is followed by speculators who travel light, who do not expect to do even first a.s.sessment work, but only to stay on the ground long enough to stake as many claims as possible for themselves and their friends. When the real prospector arrives, with his year's outfit, he finds hundreds of miles, a whole valley staked, and his one chance is to buy or work under a lease.

Most of these speculators live in the towns, some of them down here in Seattle, carrying on other business, and they never visit their claims.

They re-stake and re-stake year after year and follow on the heels of each new strike, often by proxy. We have proof enough of all this to convince the most lukewarm senator."

"You think then," said Foster quickly, "there is going to be a chance, after all, for the bill for Home Rule?"

"No." Tisdale's voice lost its mellowness. "It is a mistake; it's asking too much at the beginning. We need amended mining laws; we should work for that at once, in the quickest concerted way. And, first of all, our special delegates should push the necessity of a law giving a defined length of shaft or tunnel for a.s.sessment work, as is enforced in the Klondike, and ask for efficient inspectors to see that such laws as we have are obeyed."

Foster moved to the window and stood looking down again on the city lights. Presently he said: "I presume you will see the President while you are in Was.h.i.+ngton."

"Probably. He is always interested in the field work up there, and this season's reconnaissance in the Mata.n.u.ska coal district should be of special importance to him just now. The need of a naval coaling station on the Pacific coast has grown imperative, and with vast bodies of coal accessible to Prince William Sound, the question of location should soon be solved."

There was another silence, while Poster walked again to the end of the room and returned. "How soon do you start east?" he asked.

"Within a week. Meantime, I am going over the Cascades into the sage-brush country to look up that land of Weatherbee's."

"You intend then," said Foster quickly, "to take that piece of desert off Mrs. Weatherbee's hands?"

"Perhaps. It depends on the possibility of carrying out his project. I have just s.h.i.+pped a steam thawing apparatus in to the Aurora, and that, with supplies for a winter camp, has taken a good deal of ready money.

Freighting runs high, whether it's from the Iditarod or south from Fairbanks. But spring should see expenses paid and my investment back."

"From all I've heard," responded Foster dryly, "you'll get your investment back with interest."

"Of course," said Tisdale after a moment, "Mrs. Weatherbee will be eager to dispose of the tract; the only reason it is still on her hands is that no one has wanted to buy it at any price."

"And that's just why you should." Foster paused, then went on slowly, controlling the emotion in his voice, "You don't know her, Hollis. She's proud. She won't admit the situation, and I can't ask her directly, but I am sure she has come to the limit. I've been trying all day, ever since I knew I must go north again, to raise enough money to make an offer for that land, but practically all I have is tied up in Alaska properties. It takes time to find a customer, and the banks are cautious."

Tisdale rose from his chair. "Foster!" he cried and stretched out his hands. "Foster--not you, too."

Then his hands dropped, and Foster drew a step nearer into the circle of light and stood meeting squarely the silent remonstrance, accusation, censure, for which he was prepared. "I knew how you would take it," he broke out at last, "but it's the truth. I've smothered it, kept it down for years; but it's nothing to be ashamed of any longer. I'd have been glad to exchange places with Weatherbee. I'd have counted it a privilege to work, even as he did, for her; I could have suffered privation, the worst kind, wrung success out of failure, for the hope of her."

"See here, Foster,"--Tisdale laid his hands on the younger man's shoulders, shaking him slowly,--"you must stop this." His hold relaxed; he stepped back, and his voice vibrated softly through the room. "How could you have said it, knowing David Weatherbee as you did? No matter what kind of a woman she is, you should have remembered she was his wife and respected her for his sake."

"Respect? I do respect her. She's the kind of woman a man sets on a pedestal to wors.h.i.+p and glorify. You don't understand it, Hollis; you don't know her, and I can't explain; but just her presence is an appeal, an inspiration to all that's worth anything in me."

Tisdale's hands sought his pockets; his head dropped forward a little and he stood regarding Foster with an upward look from under frowning brows.

"You don't know her," Foster repeated. "She's different--finer than other women. And she has been gently bred. Generations of the best blood is bottled like old wine in her crystal body." He paused, his face brightening at the fancy. "You can always see the spirit sparkling through."

"I remember about that blue blood," Tisdale said tersely. "Weatherbee told me how it could be traced back through a Spanish mother to some buccaneering adventurer, Don Silva de y somebody, who made his headquarters in Mexico. And that means a trace of Mexican in the race, or at least Aztec."

Foster colored. "The son of that Don Silva came north and settled in California. He brought his peons with him and made a great rancheria. At the time of the Mexican War, his herds and flocks covered immense ranges.

Hundreds of these cattle must have supplied the United States commissary; the rest were scattered, and in the end there was little left of the estate; just a few hundred acres and a battered hacienda. But Mrs.

Weatherbee's father was English; the younger son of an old and knighted family."

"I know," answered Tisdale dryly. "Here in the northwest we call such sons remittance men. They are paid generous allowances, sometimes, to come to America and stay."

"That's unfair," Foster flamed. "You have no right to say it. He came to California when he was just a young fellow to invest a small inheritance.

He doubled it twice in a few years. Then he was persuaded to put his money in an old, low-grade gold mine. The company made improvements, built a flume thirty miles long to bring water to the property for development, but it was hardly finished when a State law was pa.s.sed prohibiting hydraulic mining. It practically ruined him. He had nothing to depend on then but a small annuity."

"Meantime," supplemented Tisdale, "he had married his Spanish senorita and her inheritance, the old rancheria, was sunk with his own in the gold mine. Then he began to play fast and loose with his annuity at the San Francisco stock exchange."

"He hoped to make good quickly. He was getting past his prime, with his daughter's future to be secured. But it got to be a habit and, after the death of his wife, a pa.s.sion. His figure was well known on the street; he was called a plunger. Some days he made fortunes; the next lost them.

Still he was the same distinguished, courteous gentleman to the end."

"And that came on the stock exchange, after a prolonged strain. David Weatherbee found him and took him home." Tisdale paused, then went on, still regarding Foster with that upward look from under his forbidding brows. "It fell to Weatherbee to break the news to the daughter, and ten days later, on the eve of his sailing north to Seattle, that marriage was hurried through."