The Man from the Bitter Roots

by Lockhart, Caroline

  Harrah looked at him speculatively, without resentment, then his lips parted in a grin which showed two sharp, white, prominent front teeth.

  “On the square,” eagerly, “do you think you can down me?”

  “I know it,” curtly—“any old time or place. Now, if it suits you.”

  To Bruce’s amazement Harrah took his hand and shook it joyfully.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you could! You look as hard as nails. Do you box or wrestle?”

  Bruce wondered if he was crazy.

  He answered shortly: “Some.”

  “Bully!” excitedly. “The best luck ever! We’ll have a try-out in private and if you’re the moose I think you are you can break him in two!”

  “Break who in two?”

  “The Spanish Bull-dog! Eureka!” he chuckled gleefully. “I’ll back you to the limit!”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Bruce demanded. “Are you loco?”

  “Close to it!” the eccentric capitalist cried gaily,—“with joy! He bested me proper the other night at the Athletic Club—he dusted the mat with me—and I want to play even.” Seeing that Bruce’s face did not lose its look of mystification he curbed his exuberance: “You see I’ve got some little reputation as a wrestler so when Billy Harper ran across this fellow in Central America he imported him on purpose to reduce the swelling in my head, he said, and he did it, for while the chap hasn’t much science he’s so powerful I couldn’t hold him. But you, by George! wait till I spring you on him!”

  “Say,” Bruce answered resentfully, “I came East to raise money for a hydro-electric power plant, not to go into the ring. It looks as if you’re taking a good deal for granted.”

  “That’s all right,” Harrah answered easily. “How much do you want? What you got? Where is it?”

  Bruce told him briefly.

  Harrah heard him through attentively and when he was done Harrah said candidly:

  “Perhaps you’ve been told before that without a qualified engineer’s report it isn’t much of a business proposition to appeal to a business man.”

  “Once or twice,” Bruce answered dryly.

  “Nevertheless,” Harrah continued, “I’m willing to take a chance on you—not on the proposition as you’ve put it up to me but on you personally, because I like you. I’ll head your inscription list with $5000 and introduce you to some men that will probably take a ‘flyer’ on my say-so. If you’re still short of what you think you’ll need I’ll make up the remainder, all providing”—with a quick grin—“that you go in and wallop that Greaser!”

  Bruce’s expression was a mixture of many.

  Finally he replied slowly:

  “Well, it isn’t just the way I’d figured out to interest Capital and I reckon the method is unique in mine promotion, but as I’m at the end of my rope and have no choice, one more meal of ‘crow’ won’t kill me.” He went on with a tinge of bitterness, thinking of Sprudell: “Since muscle is my only asset I’ll have to realize on it.” Then his dark face lighted with one of the slow, whimsical smiles that transformed it—“Unchain the ‘Spanish Bull-dog,’ feller!”

  Harrah rang for the office boy and reached for his hat.

  “William,” he said sternly when the quaking youth stood before him, “tell those people outside not to wait. I’m called away on business—urgent, important business and I can’t say when I’ll be back.”

  * * *

  XV

  Millions!

  Would the car never come—would it never come! Helen walked once more to the corner from the shelter of a building in one of the outlying mill districts where an assignment had taken her.

  The day was bitterly cold with a wind blowing which went through her coat and skirt as though they were light-weight summer clothing. She held her muff against her cheek and she peered up the street and the dark background accentuated the drawn whiteness of her face with the pinched, blue look about her mouth and nostrils. The girl was really suffering terribly. She had passed the chattering stage and was enduring dumbly, wondering how much longer she could stand it, knowing all the time that she must stand it as there was no place to go inside and missing the car which ran at half hour intervals meant missing the edition. She was paid to stand it, she told herself, as she stamped her feet which were almost without feeling. The doctor’s emphatic warning came to her mind with each icy blast that made her shrink and huddle closer to the wall of the big storage building. Exposure, wet feet, were as suicidal in her condition as poison, he had told her. She could guard against the latter but there was no escape from the former if she would do her work conscientiously for long, cold rides and waits on street corners were a recognized part of it.

  She could not afford even to dress warmly. There was absolutely nothing but fur that would keep out such penetrating wind and cold as this, and anything at all presentable was beyond her means.

  “And they tell us, these smug, unctuous preachers warming their shins before their study fires, that living is a privilege, and we should be grateful to the Almighty for being allowed to go through things like this! I can’t see it!” she declared to herself in angry rebellion. “I haven’t one thing on earth to look forward to—unless—” her hand tightened on a letter inside her muff—“unless I take a way out which, in the end, might be worse.”

  Sprudell’s note had come by special delivery from the Hotel Strathmore just as she was leaving the office, so she had not stopped to answer it. He had made several trips from Bartlesville since their first meeting, under the pretext of business, but it did not require any great acumen to discover that he came chiefly to see her.

  Now, thinking that it might divert her mind from her misery, Helen turned her back to the wind and drew out his note for a second reading. One would scarcely have gathered from her expression as she turned the pages that she was reading a cordial dinner invitation.

  Everything about it grated upon her—and the note was so eminently characteristic. She observed critically the “My dear Miss Dunbar,” which he considered more intimate than “Dear Miss Dunbar.” She disliked the round vowels formed with such care that they looked piffling, and the elaborately shaded consonants. The stiffness, the triteness of his phraseology, and his utter lack of humor, made his letters dull reading but most of all his inexact use of words irritated her—it made him seem so hopeless—far more so than bad spelling. She even detested the glazed note paper which she was sure was a “broken lot” bought at a bargain in a department store.

  “To-night I have a matter of supreme importance to impart,” she read, “make every effort to join me. The evening may prove as eventful to you as to me, so do not disappoint me, Mignonne.”

  “Mignonne!” Her lips curled. “Idiot! Imbecile! Ignoramus!” Savagely—“Donkey!”

  She leaned a shoulder against the cold bricks of the warehouse, her head drooped and a tear slipped down her cheek to turn to frost on the dark fur of her muff.

  Helen was too analytical and she had had the opportunity of knowing and observing men in too many walks of life not to have by this time a fairly good insight into Sprudell’s character. At least she understood him to the extent of reading his motives and interpreting his actions with tolerable accuracy. She tried to be charitable and endeavored not to dwell upon the traits which, in the light of his lover’s attitude, made him ridiculous. When she received tender offering of stale fruit-cake and glucose jam from a cut-rate grocer, large boxes of candy from an obscure confectioner, and other gifts betraying the penurious economy which always tempered his generosity, she endeavored to assure herself that it came merely from the habit of saving in small ways which many self-made men had in common. She dwelt resolutely upon his integrity, upon the acumen which had made him a business success; yet in her heart she could not help likening him to a garment of shoddy material aping the style of elegance. While endeavoring to palliate these small offenses Helen knew perfectly that they were due to the fact that he was innately what was k
nown in the office vernacular as a “cheap skate,” striving to give the impression of generosity at a minimum of expense.

  Helen had grown sensitive about her cough and shrank from comment upon it. She did her best to stifle it and she herself spoke of it lightly; but to-day, when she came into the warm air of the office after the nightmare of a wait on the corner and the long, cold ride afterward, it set her coughing violently, so violently that it attracted the attention of her neighbor, who called over the partition jocularly but with a note of seriousness in his voice—

  “We’ll have to ship you to Colorado, Miss Dunbar, if you go on like that!”

  Helen caught her clasped hands quickly to her breast, a trick she had when startled.

  “Yes?” she answered lightly but her expression was frightened.

  People were noticing! It was the last straw needed. When she laid out her most becoming frock that evening it was the white flag of capitulation. The odds were too heavy—she felt she must surrender before it was too late. While she dressed her hair with more than usual care she scrutinized her face closely for that indefinable look which conveys to the initiated a hint of something deeper-seated than the languor of fatigue.

  If Helen had cared at all for Sprudell’s approbation she would have had the reward for her pains in the pleased, self-satisfied air of proprietorship with which he followed her to the table he had reserved in the fashionable restaurant of the Hotel Strathmore. He missed none of the interested looks directed at her as she passed, and glowed with satisfaction.

  “If they notice her like this in a city,” he thought triumphantly, “she’ll make ’em sit up in Bartlesville!” Sprudell’s cup of happiness seemed running full.

  “You’re looking great to-night,” he whispered as they sat down.

  “Fine feathers—” she smiled slightly—“my one good gown.”

  “My dear, you can have a hundred—a thousand!” he cried extravagantly. “It’s up to you!”

  She studied him curiously, wondering what had happened. He was tremulous with suppressed excitement; his high spirits were like the elation of intoxication and he ordered with a lavishness which made him conspicuous.

  But Sprudell was indifferent to appearances, seeming to survey the world at large from the height of omnipotence and it seemed to Helen that every objectionable trait he had was exaggerated, twice enlarged under the stimulus of this mysterious, exalted mood. His egotism loomed colossal, he was oblivious to everything and everybody but himself, else he could not have failed to see the growing coldness in her eyes.

  Helen herself had little appetite, so while Sprudell partook of the numerous dishes with relish she inspected him anew from the critical viewpoint of the woman who intends to marry without love. As she dissected him it occurred to her that Sprudell exemplified every petty feminine prejudice she had. She disliked his small, red mouth, which had a way of fixing itself in an expression of mawkish sentimentality when he looked at her, and there was that in the amorous, significant light in his infantile blue eyes which sickened her very soul. She disapproved of his toddling walk, his fat, stooped shoulders, his spats and general appearance of over-emphasized dapperness. The excessive politeness, the elaborate deference which he showed her upon occasions, exasperated her, and it was incredible, she thought, that a part in a man’s back hair should be able to arouse such violence of feeling. But it did. She hated it. She loathed it. It was one of her very strongest aversions. She had always hoped never even to know a man who parted his back hair and now she was going to marry one.

  She tried to imagine herself going through life making a pretense of taking his learning and his talents seriously, of refraining carefully from calling attention to his errors or correcting his misstatements, of shielding him from the ridicule which his pedantry must bring upon him when he mingled with his superiors, smoothing over smarts when he bullied and “talked down,” without convincing his adversaries—as Helen had seen other women do. But could she do it? When it came right down to brass tacks, she asked herself, could she exchange herself, her freedom, her individuality, all the years to come if many were spared her, for the chance to get well and for relief from anxiety about food and clothes and shelter?

  To marry Sprudell meant immunity from freezing on street corners, from mental and physical exhaustion, from the rebuffs which were a part of her work and which hurt far worse than anyone guessed because she could never regard them as impersonal. Women were making such exchanges every day and with less excuse—for luxury or position merely—but could she do it?

  Must she grow into an old woman without a single romance in her life? That much seemed every woman’s right. What had she done that the Fates should “have it in for her” like this? She clenched her hands under the shelter of the tablecloth. This thing she had made up her mind to do seemed such a horrid, sordid, vulgar end to youth and sentiment.

  Sprudell meanwhile was revolving in his mind the best method of imparting effectively and dramatically the news which was burdening him. He considered beginning with a Latin quotation from his Vest-Pocket Manual—“Labor omnia vincit”—or something like that—but ended, when he felt the right moment had arrived, by stating the fact bluntly and abruptly:

  “I’m going to be as rich as Crœsus.”

  Helen looked up, to see his red lower lip trembling with excitement.

  “My dear,” solemnly, “I shall have fabulous wealth.”

  Undoubtedly he was in earnest. She could see that from the intensity shining in his eyes. Wonderingly she took the pamphlet which he withdrew from its envelope and passed to her, watching her face eagerly as she read.

  PROSPECTUS OF THE BITTER ROOT

  PLACER MINING COMPANY

  proclaimed the outside page, and the frontispiece contained a picture of seven large mules staggering up a mountain trail under a load of bullion protected by guards carrying rifles with eight-foot barrels.

  “That illustration is my idea,” he said proudly.

  “It’s very—very alluring,” Helen conceded. “And you are interested?”

  “Interested!” gleefully, “it’s all mine! Wait till you go on.”

  The first paragraph of the text read:

  We have, with infinite hardship and difficulties and a large personal expense, secured absolute legal ownership, and physical possession, of eight placer claims, making 160 acres of the richest, unworked placer ground in the United States.

  THE PROPERTIES

  Queen of Sheba No. 1:—Area about 15 acres.

  Section 1—600 × 300 feet. Examined by the best obtainable placer experts and under the most favorable conditions money could afford. Prospect Shaft No. L:—Through natural, clean sand and fine river gravel. Depth of pit 10 feet. Every foot showed gold in paying quantities. A four foot streak, extremely rich, passes through this section. Red-rock was not reached but the values increase with depth, as is usually true.

  Average workable depth of this section 60 ft.

  Average assay .6235 per cubic yard.

  600 × 300 × 60——400,000 cu. yds. @ .6235 $249,400

  Estimated cost of working 5 cents per cu. yd. 20,000

  ————

  Estimated Net Profit $229,000

  “That’s one of the poor claims,” he explained carelessly, “we probably won’t bother with it.”

  “The yardage of ‘The Pot of Gold’ and claims ‘Eureka’ 1 and 2 totalled millions, while the leanest next to ‘The Queen of Sheba,’ yielded a net profit of $700,000.”

  Then the monotony of facts and figures was varied by another illustration showing a miner in hip-boots and a sou’wester blithely handling a giant which threw a ten-inch stream into a sand-bank.

  “I drew the rough sketch for that and the artist carried out my ideas.” Sprudell wished to convey the impression that along with his many other gifts he possessed artistic talent, had he only chosen to develop it.

  Helen read at random:

  Numerous prospect holes, cuts
and trenches fully corroborate the value of the ground. There are rich streaks and spots yielding 25 cts. to 50 cts. to the pan of what area the Giant alone will tell. Every surface foot yields gold in paying quantities. It is pay-dirt from the grass-roots. While we confine our estimates to the actual ground examined, nevertheless we are certain the real wealth lies on bed-rock.

  The home claim with its rustic log cabin provides a delightful home for those interested in the enterprise, supplying comforts and luxuries which money cannot purchase in large cities. Game and fish in greatest abundance infest its door-yard. We have seen fifty grouse and twenty mountain sheep within three hundred feet of the doorway. Bear may be had at any time for the going after.

  It must be borne in mind, all of these placers are the ancient beds of a least two separate periods of a great river, consequently, bed-rock will undoubtedly reveal fabulous wealth which cannot be uncovered in an examination. It would be useless to attempt to exaggerate the possibilities of these properties. The plain, simple facts are far more potent than unestablished fiction could possibly be.

  All the claims we have described represent virgin ground, something seldom found, now, anywhere in the U. S. There is not a wagon track in the whole valley. It has heretofore been too difficult of access to tempt capital to come in here. We have changed the whole situation. Our Saw-mill, which we now have in operation, is the wonder of the place, and is, of course, our salvation, for without that, of course, we could not construct flumes to put water upon our placer ground.

  We have partially constructed a wagon road to shorten and make less arduous the difficult trip into this paradise. Nevertheless, it is a paradise, when once within its charmed environments. Gold is the commonest product there.

  This is quite sufficient.

  The confidential details which accompany this prospectus will make known our financial requirements.

  We know we have a great fortune in sight, but, hidden away in the greater depths are unknown possibilities of fabulous riches, for this great river is noted for its richness on bed-rock. Millions have been taken out of its sand with the crudest devices.