Part 15 (1/2)

Gordon straightened up, and spoke that all might hear. ”Look here, gentlemen,” he said, ”I'm afraid I've started off badly. I'm out here on business, and I need the good-will of every one of you. Perhaps later on you may be glad of mine in return, but we can't tell about that now. All I want to say is that I didn't look for a fight, but since it came along I'm glad it's over, and I hope we'll all be better friends for it. I'm afraid I only beat Bill here by accident, and I'll bet I feel a good deal worse done up than he does.” He paused and drew a fifty-dollar note from his pocket, handing it to Stickney with a smile, ”I'm afraid I shan't be with you to-night,” he added, ”but I want you gentlemen to have a drink on me, all around, and then do a repeat as long as the money holds out, and I never want a better fight than I had to-day.”

Amid the general murmur of approval he nodded to Harrison, and together they started back for town. That evening Gordon spent alone in the hotel, in greater pain than he would have been willing to admit; but in tavern and bar-room and store his fame waxed mightily, and the next morning every man, woman and child in Seneca towns.h.i.+p knew that Mr. Richard Gordon, a ”minin' sharp” from the effete East, had suddenly appeared among them, and had most emphatically ”made good.”

CHAPTER V

A QUESTION OF FINANCE

The three men were seated together in Gordon's tiny room in the hotel.

The shades were drawn, and the lamp on the table diffused at one and the same time light, heat, and a reek of ill-smelling oil. A scattered ma.s.s of papers, notes, jottings, memoranda, littered the room, and from the midst of this disorder Gordon, flushed, perspiring, for once lacking his usual calm, was seeking to bring about some semblance of system and order. Seated at the table, coat and vest tossed aside, he went through a regular routine, seizing on a paper and reading it through, then either tearing it up and tossing it aside, or transcribing its contents, his fingers flying furiously over the typewriter's clicking keys. Steadily and rapidly he did his work, and steadily the little heap of typewritten pages at his right hand mounted higher and higher still.

Jim Mason, sprawled comfortably in the armchair, smoked in silence, apparently waiting with calmness for the completion of the task. Jack Harrison sat on the side of the bed, awkward and uncomfortable, his troubled gaze s.h.i.+fting from Mason to Gordon and back again with the air of one who wishes to see a puzzling silence brought to an end.

Finally Gordon cast the last discarded memorandum from him, whirled the last sheet of copy from the typewriter, and with a heartfelt sigh of relief pushed back his chair. ”There,” he cried, ”that's out of the way; and now let's see what we've got to show for it.”

For a moment he sorted and arranged the typewritten sheets; then, looking up at the others, he spoke eagerly, anxiously, almost with a note of entreaty in his tone. ”I hate to rush this thing through this way,” he said, ”and under ordinary circ.u.mstances I wouldn't do it, but you understand the situation as well as I do. This is the time you want to give me a free hand on the stock market end of the deal, just as later on, when you want all kinds of new-fangled machinery and all that sort of thing, I shall have to let you get it, though I won't know whether we need it or not. In other words, it's a mutual affair.

You don't know and don't care just the precise moment when the stock ought to be listed, and I don't know and don't care about the difference in the rock on the sixth level and the seventh, but you want to let me run the incorporation and the market end, though you're not especially interested in them, and I want to let you run everything connected with the mine, though personally I don't care half so much about all that part of it as you do.”

He paused for a moment, then continued, more slowly, ”The point in our settling this thing up quick is right here. It's only about once in every five or six years that there comes a time like this in coppers, anyway. It takes a long time to get the pot boiling; then for a while it boils like the very devil, and then--it boils over; there's a busted boom, and people are left to sit down on their holdings for five or six years more, calling themselves names and wondering how they could ever have been such fools. At the end of that time, such a wonderful thing is the human mind, they've forgotten the past, and fairly tumble over themselves in their anxiety to repeat the process.

Right now is the beginning of the biggest copper boom this country's ever seen, and it looks as if it would last for a good long time.

Still, you can't ever tell; there are so many things that can happen; and what I want to do is to have the Ethel all incorporated and ready to launch just at the exact moment when the people are so crazy over coppers that they'll buy anything that's even named a mine, let alone a genuine first-cla.s.s proposition like ours. Then we'll be sure of the mine's future, for we'll be able to make enough legitimate profit in the market to set aside a sum big enough to look out for all the development work we might ever be called upon to do. So the quicker we can get the papers signed, and the quicker I can get back East and have the company incorporated, the safer for all of us. There, that's the whole story, and if there's anything about it that isn't on the square, I want you to say so. How about it, Jim?”

Mason slowly removed his pipe from his mouth. ”Sounds all right,” he said laconically.

Gordon turned to Harrison. ”Any objection, Jack?” he queried.

Harrison shook his head. ”Sounds all right,” he echoed. ”Maybe down on the sixth level me and Jim could give you some pointers, but when it comes to stocks and bonds I guess you're the doctor. I don't see what's wrong with getting things fixed up right away.”

Gordon nodded. ”I'm glad you both think so,” he said, his relief showing in his tone. ”And you'll find you won't regret it, either.

Now--” he reached for the typewritten papers, ”here's the best I could do on an agreement. It's a lawyer's job, but I guess what I've patched together here will hold water, anyway. Stop me if there's anything you don't understand, and if you want to ask any questions, just fire away.”

He tilted his chair back against the wall, glanced the papers through for an instant, and began to read rapidly, skipping here and there.

”This agreement, entered into this blank day of blank, between said Mason and said Gordon, witnesseth; said Mason, hereinafter styled the party of the first part, in consideration of the sum of one dollar and other good and valuable consideration, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, to him paid--does hereby covenant and agree with said party of the second part--”

He broke off suddenly, letting the papers fall from his hand, and mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.

”d.a.m.n the language they use,” he said, ”it's too much to wade through now. Boiled right down to plain common sense, I give you fifty thousand dollars cash for a half interest in the mine, and you're appointed superintendent for ten years at a salary of five thousand a year, and Jack a.s.sistant for the same time at three thousand a year.

That's the gist of it, isn't it? and that's plain enough for any one.”

Mason glanced a trifle doubtfully at the ten or twelve scattered sheets. ”What's all the rest of it?” he inquired.

Gordon slowly lit a cigar. ”Well,” he said at length, ”you know all the stuff that has to go into one of these things. There's nothing of any real importance beyond what I've just said. The other clauses take up provisions as to how the corporation's going to be formed, and all that sort of thing. They don't amount to anything except to get us all mixed up, though, if we start to go into them. Why don't we say that I'll get the whole thing in final shape by to-morrow night. Then we can sign it before a notary, and I can put for home and get things underway without any delay at all. Or do you think of anything else?

You're all right as far as the board of directors goes. You'll both be on the board, and any other Michigan man you think ought to go on. The eastern men that I'm going to get are all first-cla.s.s in every way, and there's no doubt we'll have a strong board. Most of the other things, as I say, are mere matters of detail, so I should think if you could get around about this same time to-morrow night we could fix things up then, and make our start.”

There was a moment's silence. Then Jim Mason again removed his pipe from his mouth. ”About what,” he said deliberately, ”were you calculatin' on for your capital stock?”

From Gordon's manner no one could have guessed that this was the one subject he had feared and dreaded, that this was the one question he had hoped and prayed no one would raise. Indeed, to all appearances, he welcomed the topic with real pleasure.