We have demonstrated our good faith and our confidence in the worth of these properties by a personal expenditure approximating fifty thousand dollars in cash.
We have taken every legal precaution and necessary physical step to insure an absolutely safe and profitable investment.
We are now ready, and desire, to finance a close corporation, with a limited capital, to operate this property on a scale Befitting Its Importance.
Helen closed the pamphlet and passed it back. She knew nothing of mining and had no reason to doubt its truth or Sprudell’s honesty. Not only the facts but the magnitude of the possibilities as he had outlined them were bewildering. He might, indeed, become as rich as Crœsus and, she thought, how like a tyrant he would use his power!
“Well?” He looked at her, exultant, gloating. For the moment he had the appearance of a person whose every wish had been granted. His eyes blazed with excitement, his face was crimson. Dazzled, intoxicated by the prospect of his great wealth, he felt himself omnipotent, immune from the consequences of rude manners and shameless selfishness, safe from criticism among the very rich. He felt a wild, reckless impulse to throw the cut-glass rose-vase on the floor—and pay for it.
“Well?” he repeated arrogantly. He felt so sure of her, for what woman who earned her own living would refuse what he now could offer! He was impatient for her to say something that would show how much she was impressed.
And still Helen did not answer. Looking at him as he bared himself in his transport, the realization came swiftly, unexpectedly that she could not marry him if to refuse meant the beginning of sure starvation on the morrow! Not because she was too honorable, too conscientious, to marry without love in her present circumstances, but because it would be an actual impossibility for her to marry Sprudell.
It was not a question of honor or conscience, of mental uncongeniality, temperamental differences, or even the part in his back hair; it was, as she realized, a case of physical repulsion pure and simple.
From her first acquaintance with him she had shrunk involuntarily from the touch of his hand, the slightest contact; when he sat beside her in taxicabs and at the theatre she invariably had been unpleasantly conscious of his nearness. She was convinced now that her reluctant feet would have refused to carry her to the altar, and her tongue to answer according to her bidding.
If she had been less strong in her likes and dislikes, less violent in her prejudices, she might have forced herself to dwell upon the advantages over her present position and come to accept the situation with something like serenity. But she was too strong a character to adapt herself complacently to a livelong, intimate association with a person so genuinely, so uncontrollably, physically repugnant to her as was Sprudell.
Psychologically, it was curious—no doubt there were women in the world who had, or did, or might, adore Sprudell; but for herself she understood clearly now that the single kindly feeling she had for him was the gratitude she felt she owed him.
“I congratulate you,” she said finally. “It is a remarkable story—most romantic! Money is power—there never was anything truer—Listen!” She raised a finger. “Isn’t that your name? Yes; the boy is paging you.”
Sprudell ostentatiously opened the telegram which was brought to him, secretly pleased at seeming to be thus pursued by the requirements of his large business interests; but his frown of importance and air of a man with weighty matters to decide was wasted upon Helen, who was watching a lively party of men making its way to a nearby table reserved for six.
Sprudell read:
The original locator has beat us to the water-right. Applied by wire while I was snowed up. Advise making best terms possible with him. Letter follows.
Dill.
He looked as if some one had struck him in the face.
Helen was still watching the advancing party. She murmured, with a smile of amusement, as Sprudell laid the telegram down:
“Here, coming in the lead, is our unfailing news supply—Winfield Harrah. You’ve heard of him no doubt. Behind him, the big one—that huge chap with the black eyes, is the mysterious Samson from the West who whipped the ‘Spanish Bull-dog.’ ‘The Man from the Bitter Roots’ I think they call him.”
Subconsciously, Sprudell heard what she was saying and his eyes followed hers. The start he gave caused her to turn her head quickly. His face was more than colorless, it was chalky even to the lips.
“Burt!” He exclaimed involuntarily, “Bruce Burt!” He could have bitten his tongue out the instant after.
* * *
XVI
“Slim’s Sister”
Bruce Burt! the murderer! Of all things in the world that he should be “The Man from the Bitter Roots”—dining at the Strathmore—the guest of Winfield Harrah! Weren’t people punished for murder in the West? Sprudell had intimated that he would hang for it. Helen’s grey eyes were big with amazement and indignation while she watched him being seated.
She saw the widening of his eyes when he recognized Sprudell, the quick hardening of his features and the look that followed, which, if not exactly triumph, was certainly satisfaction. Involuntarily she glanced at Sprudell and the expression on his face held her eyes. It fascinated her. For the moment she forgot Bruce Burt in studying him.
She thought she had read his real nature, had seen his dominant characteristic in the blatant egotism that had shown itself so strongly in his elation. But this was different, so different that she had a queer feeling of sitting opposite an utter stranger. It was not dislike, resentment, fear; it was rather a sly but savage vindictiveness, a purposeful malice that would stop at nothing. In the unguarded moment Sprudell’s passion for revenge was stamped upon his face like a brand. Helen had thought of him contemptuously as a bounder, a conceited ignoramus—he was more than these things, he was a dangerous man.
But why this intense antagonism? Why should they not speak? Sprudell had not told her of a quarrel.
“Who are those men!” he asked in an undertone, and she noticed that he was breathing hard in an excitement he could not conceal.
As she named them in turn she saw that Bruce Burt was regarding her with the puzzled, questioning look one gives to the person he is trying to place.
The one stipulation which Bruce had made when he consented to meet the “Spanish Bull-dog” was that his name should not be known in the event of the match being mentioned in the papers; so Harrah had complied by introducing him to his friends by any humorous appellation which occurred to him. It proved a wise precaution, since directly Bruce’s challenge had been sent and it was known that he was Harrah’s protegé, the papers had made much of it, publishing unflattering snapshots after he had steadily refused to let them take his picture.
It was true enough, as Helen had said, he had whipped the “Spanish Bull-dog,” loosened his tenacious grip in a feat of strength so sensational that the next morning he had found himself featured along with an elopement and a bank failure.
They called him “The Man from the Bitter Boots,” and a staff artist depicted him as a hairy aborigine that Winfield Harrah had had captured to turn loose on the Spanish gladiator. Which humor Bruce did not relish, for Sprudell’s taunt that “muscle” was his only asset still rankled.
The betting odds had been against him in the Athletic Club, for Bruce’s size ofttimes made him look clumsy, but if Bruce had a bear’s great strength he had also a bear’s surprising quickness and agility. And it was the combination which had won the victory for him. Unexpectedly, with one of the awkward but swift movements which was characteristically bear-like, Bruce had swooped when he saw his opening and thrown the “Bull-dog” as he had thrown “Slim”—over his shoulder. Then he had whirled and pinned him—both shoulders and a hip touching squarely. There had been no room for dispute over the decision. Friends and foes alike had cheered in frenzy, but beyond the fact that the financial help which Harrah promised was contingent upon his success, Bruce felt no elation. The whole thing was a humiliat
ion to him.
But Harrah had been as good as his word. They had filed in to Bruce’s top floor room one evening—Harrah’s friends headed by Harrah. They had seemed to regard it as a lark, roosting on his bed and window-sill and table, while Bruce dropped naturally to a seat on his heel, camp-fire fashion, with his back against the wall, and to their amusement outlined his proposition and drew a map of the location of his ground on the carpet with his finger.
But they had not taken much interest in detail, they were going into it chiefly to please Harrah. Bruce saw that clearly and it piqued him. He felt as though his proposition, his sincerity, counted for nothing, but while it nettled him more than ever, it put him on his mettle.
Bruce’s brief acquaintance with Harrah already had opened up new vistas, shown him unknown possibilities in life. They were sport-loving, courteous, generous people that Harrah drew about him—merry-hearted as those may be who are free from care—and Bruce found the inhabitants in this new world eminently congenial. He never had realized before how much money meant in the world “outside.” It was comfort, independence, and most of all the ability to choose, to a great extent, one’s friends instead of being forced to accept such as circumstances may thrust upon one.
Bruce saw what anyone may see who looks facts in the face, namely, that money is the greatest contributory factor to happiness, no matter how comforting it may be to those who have none to assure themselves to the contrary. There may even be doubts as to whether the majority of rich invalids would exchange their check-books for the privilege of being husky paupers in spite of the time-honored platitude concerning health.
Yet Bruce could not help a certain soreness that all he had fought for so doggedly and so unavailingly came so easily as the result of a rich man’s whim.
Laughingly, with much good-humored jest, they had made up the $25,000 between them and then trailed off to Harrah’s box at the opera, taking Bruce with them, where he contributed his share to the gaiety of the evening by observing quite seriously that the famous tenor sounded to him like nothing so much as a bull-elk bugling.
Harrah’s subscription which had headed the list had been half of his winnings and the other half had gone to his favorite charity—The Home For Crippled Children. “If you get in a hole and need a little more I might dig up a few thousand,” he told Bruce privately, but the others stated plainly that they would not commit themselves to further sums or be liable for assessments.
Bruce had gone about with Harrah since then and with so notable a sponsor the world became suddenly a pleasant, friendly place and life plain sailing; but now every detail had been attended to, and, eager to begin, Bruce was leaving on the morrow, this dinner being in the nature of a farewell party.
To see Bruce in the East and in the company of these men on top of Dill’s telegram was a culminating blow to Sprudell, as effective as though it had been planned. Stunned at first by the loss of the water-right which made the ground valueless, then startled, and astonished by Bruce’s unexpected appearance, all his thoughts finally resolved themselves into a furious, overmastering desire to defeat him. Revenge, always his first impulse when injured, was to become an obsession. Whatever there was of magnanimity, of justice, or of honor, in Sprudell’s nature was to become poisoned by the venom of his vindictive malice where it concerned Bruce Burt.
Bruce had altered materially in appearance since that one occasion in his life, in Sprudell’s office, when he had been conscious of his clothes. Those he now wore were not expensive but they fitted him and for the first time in many years he had something on his feet other than hob-nailed miner’s shoes. Also he laid aside his stetson because, as he explained when Harrah deplored the change, he thought “it made folks look at him.” “Folks” still looked at him for even in the correct habiliments of civilization he somehow looked picturesque and alien. Powerfully built, tanned, with his wide, forceful gestures, his utter lack of self-consciousness, there was stamped upon him indelibly the freedom and broadness of the great outdoors.
He was the last person, even in that group, all of whose members were more or less notable, who would have been suspected of a cold-blooded murder.
Against her will Helen found herself looking at him. It seemed unnatural; she was shocked at herself, but he attracted her irresistibly. Her brother’s murderer was handsome in a dark, serious, unsmiling way which appealed to her strongly.
She tried to fix her attention upon the food before her, to keep up a conversation with Sprudell, who made no pretense of listening; but just so often as she resolved not to look again, just so often she found herself returning Bruce Burt’s questioning but respectful stare.
Helen took it for granted that his object in coming East was to meet the “Spanish Bull-dog,” but Sprudell knew better. He had seen enough of Bruce to guess something of his fixity of purpose when aroused and Dill’s telegram confirmed it. But he had thought that, naturally, Bruce would return to the West at once from Bartlesville to try and hold his claims, from which, when he was ready, through a due process of law, if necessary, Sprudell would eject him.
To find him here, perhaps already with formidable backing, for the moment scattered Sprudell’s wits, upset him; the only thing in his mind which was fixed and real was the determination somehow to block him.
A vaguely defined plan was already forming in his mind, and he wanted to be alone to perfect it and put it into immediate execution. Besides, he was far from comfortable in the presence of the man who, temporarily at least, had outwitted him, nor was he too preoccupied to observe Bruce’s obvious interest in Helen. He made the motion to go as soon as possible and in spite of his best efforts to appear deliberate his movements were precipitate.
Bruce found it impossible to keep his attention upon the conversation at his own table. After his first surprise at seeing Sprudell his mind and eyes persisted in fixing themselves upon Sprudell’s companion. He could not rid himself of the notion that somewhere he had seen her, or was it only a resemblance? Yet surely if he ever had known a girl with a profile like that—such hair, such eyes, such a perfect manner—he would not have forgotten her! Was it the face of some dream-girl that had lingered in his memory? It was puzzling, most extraordinary, but whoever she was she looked far too nice to be dining with that—that—. His black brows met in a frown and unconsciously his hands became fists under the table.
He felt a sharp pang when he saw that they were preparing to go. Why couldn’t it be his luck to know a girl like that? He wondered how it would seem to be sitting across the table from her, talking intimately. And he found considerable satisfaction in the fact that she had not smiled once at Sprudell during the conversation. He would not have said that she was enjoying herself particularly.
Then she arose and the gloves in her lap fell to the floor. He had an impulse to jump and slide for them but the waiter was ahead of him. Sprudell looked back impatiently.
“Thank you so much.” She smiled at the waiter-fellow and Bruce knew her.
Slim’s sister! There was no mistaking the sweetly serious eyes, the smiling lips with which he had grown familiar in the yellowish picture. She was older, thinner, the youthful roundness was gone, but beyond question she was Slim’s sister!
She passed the table without a glance and in something like a panic he watched her leave the room. He would never see her again! This was the only chance he’d ever have. Should he sit there calmly and let it pass! He laid his napkin on the table, and explained as he rose hastily:
“There’s someone out there I must see. I’ll be back, but don’t wait for me.”
He did not know himself what he meant to say or do, beyond the fact that he would speak to her even if she snubbed him.
She had stepped into the cloak room for her wrap and Sprudell was waiting in the corridor. Immediately when he saw Bruce he guessed his purpose and the full significance of a meeting between them rushed upon him. He was bent desperately upon preventing it. Sprudell took the initiative and adva
nced to meet him.
“If you’ve anything to say to me, Bruce, I’ll meet you to-morrow.”
“I’ve nothing at all to say to you except to repeat what I said to you in Bartlesville. I told you then I thought you’d lied and now I know it. That’s Slim’s sister.”
“That is Miss Dunbar.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’ll prove it.”
“Introduce me.”
“It isn’t necessary; besides,” he sneered, “she’s particular who she knows.”
“Not very,” Bruce drawled, “or she wouldn’t be here with you.” He added obstinately: “That’s Slim’s sister.”
Helen came from the cloak room and stopped short at seeing Bruce and Sprudell in conversation. Certainly this was an evening of surprises.
“Are you ready, Miss Dunbar?” Sprudell placed loud emphasis upon the name.
She nodded.
Sprudell, who was walking to meet her, glanced back at Bruce with a smile of malice but it was wasted upon Bruce, who was looking at the girl. Why should there be that lurking horror and hostility in her eyes? What had Sprudell told her? On a sudden desperate impulse and before Sprudell could stop him, he walked up to her and asked doggedly, though his temerity made him hot and cold:
“Why do you look at me as if I were an enemy? What has Sprudell been telling you?”
“I forbid you to answer this fellow—” Sprudell’s voice shook and his pink face had again taken on the curious chalkiness of color which it became under stress of feeling. Forgetting prudence, his deferential pose, forgetting everything that he should have remembered in his rage at Bruce’s hardihood, and the fear of exposure, he shook his finger threateningly before Helen’s face.
The Man from the Bitter Roots Page 15
