Ernest Haycox - Ernest Haycox - Ultimate Collection - Western Classics & Historical Novels

Bangor shook his head. "You are a very lucky man, Woolfridge."

Something of the mildness went from Woolfridge. His eyes cooled, the smooth cheeks became distinctly hard. All at once he was a different individual, aggressive and slightly overbearing. "Not lucky, Bangor. I have been studying this five years. One more item—the lateral ditches. They will go in as I sell the ranches. I've got a mechanical digger in mind that will slash them out of the ground in no time at all. There is the cost of it. Advertising will mount up, of course. Buying out the present ranchers will cost. But the whole sum is nothing when compared to what I expect to make. There is a quarter or a half million in this one angle."

"We are the means, therefore, of supplying you with a very nice fortune," said Bangor, not overenthused.

Woolfridge had been watching his man closely, gauging the latter's reactions. The coldness became more pronounced, his speech snapped more crisply, more rapidly. "I expected some such reply, Bangor. I am prepared to meet it. I said I have studied this five years. It depended wholly on somebody building a dam on the Roaring Horse. A power dam with excess water for irrigating purposes. Otherwise it couldn't pay. Your company had to get a site. I called this to your attention—an ideal location from every point of view. Moreover, when you got in trouble with Bi-State Power I saw to it my block of stock was instrumental in giving you a position that was not assailable. I helped you. I expect help in return."

"Your help had definite strings attached," Bangor reminded him. "It still has strings attached."

"I believe in protecting myself," was Woolfridge's quiet answer. "This isn't charity. You will make money from the deal. Not only in water rent but in the development of a whole new region. Personally I've got controlling interest in the bank, in a warehouse, and shortly will also have bought the major store here. All through the dummy corporation. I expect to build up a marketing organization in time. Long after I take my first profit there will be a steady, year by year percentage of the general prosperity coming my way."

"You let nothing past you."

"I have studied it a long time," said Woolfridge. "There is yet one difficult barrier to cross. I have got to buy out Satterlee or the whole thing falls to pieces. His land slices my project in two. The ditch runs across it; and the man would let his fingers be hacked off before he'd see the cattle range split into homesteads. So I have got to take him out of the game."

"From what I saw of him," suggested Bangor, "he looks both prosperous and stubborn."

"Both," agreed Woolfridge. "But all men have a price. Somewhere up the scale I'll find his. Now, we must work quietly and let nothing get out. You don't know how cattle land hates the smell of small farms. They'd block me if they understood. The name of my dummy—they wonder who is behind it—-sounds like a big joke to them. They can't understand how this country will ever get water. Moreover, they don't want it."

"Who is in with you on this deal?" question Bangor.

"Nobody. When I want a thing done I do it myself. I never let another man see my hand if I can help it. And the rewards I keep alone, having well earned them."

In saying that the core of his nature broke through the neutral wrapping and lay exposed. His round cheeks were flushed and hard; there was a slanting, oriental cast to his eyes that defied Bangor's power of analysis. Bangor saw part of Woolfridge's underlying coldness and a part of the man's acquisitive will, but there was still some latent explosive force beyond sight. It was to him an uncomfortable moment. He broke it quickly.

"We should have an answer to our application in Washington. That's only formality. It will go through. And so will our business with the territorial engineer. You had better get your necessary legal business in order as well."

"I am taking care of that," said Woolfridge. Bangor had the disquieting sensation that the man had taken care of a great many things. He knew Woolfridge very well; he knew his approximate wealth and connections. Yet from time to time Woolfridge surprised him by producing still another weapon out of the case. Stock, a friendly official, some secret control.

"Well," went on Bangor, "when you are ready to break the news let me know. I'll hold off until then. By the way, the governor is preparing to lay a series of distinctly radical reforms before the ensuing legislature. I don't like it. But we'll beat them."

"Give the governor my regards," was Woolfridge's ironical comment. "Two years from now I'll send him back to private life."

"How?" was Bangor's startled question.

Woolfridge shrugged his shoulders and motioned to the bottle. The interview was over. They drank in silence, and Woolfridge prepared to leave. By the door he turned for a last word. "See you in the morning. You are sitting with me. It will be very interesting. Watch a man named Jim Chaffee. It will repay you. He has a terrific reputation for ability in these parts." He seemed to thaw and drop back to his inconspicuous role. "By the way, Gay Thatcher is an extraordinarily charming lady. Where is she from?"

"Don't know," said Bangor. "She's been socially up around the capital this fall. Her past seems to be entirely her own business, but she walks through the best doors."

"I should think so," murmured Woolfridge, and let himself out.

Bangor waited a spell. Then he pulled off his shoes and stared a long, long interval at the wall. His thoughts seemed to displease him, and in the end he spoke a short piece. "How did he get that stock in the first place, and how did he know we were battling for a place in the sun? Now he talks to me as if I were a secretary. Me! And I'd like to throw him overboard but don't dare. He's playing his own cards, which may not be mine. Where does he think he's going to get the power to defeat the governor? That man is a profound mystery."

William Wells Woolfridge went down the plush carpeted stairway of the Gusher and paused in the lobby beneath a crystal chandelier. The Gusher was not a modern hotel. Its frame dated back to an ancient army post. But recently unknown capital had taken over and remodeled the place. It glittered cheerfully of a night, its walls were loaded with murals, and its woodwork ran to fancy scrolls and jigsaw figures. Each room on the lower floor opened grandly into another—lobby, dining hall, ballroom, and gaming parlor; and each room was differently colored and took name from that color. Most appropriately the gaming parlor was called the Gold Room, into which Woolfridge sauntered, seeming pleased at the comfortable crowd gathered there. It should have pleased him. It was his hotel, though this was another under- cover possession, and the Gold Room was his idea. It netted him money; it furnished a cosmopolitan air to the town and public sentiment in no wise disapproved. The Gold Room, according to his own rigid directions, was thoroughly genteel, and women sometimes stood at the doorway looking on. There was a bar beyond a partition, but not a drop of liquor entered the precincts of this room; men went to the bar if they were athirst.

The playing had started, but he found Dad Satterlee leaning idly against a wall, talking politics to French Melotte, looking for all the world like a man who had absolutely no interest in the click of chips or the shuffle of cards. Dad was an inveterate poker player, but he went about it cagily. Woolfridge tapped him on the arm and nodded toward the lobby. Satterlee followed, his red, blunt face shining honestly against the light; his hair was the color of iron and his eyes were like disks of steel; but Satterlee liked to laugh, and the echo of it rang strong and free wherever he was.

"Nice crowd," said Dad, scanning the lobby.