First Blood
:
Ridgway Of Montana
After Ridgway's cavalier refusal to negotiate a peace treaty, Simon Harley
and his body-guard walked back to the offices of the Consolidated, where
they arrived at the same time as the news of the enemy's first blow since
the declaration of renewed war.
Hobart was at his desk with his ear to the telephone receiver when the
great financier came into the inner office of the manager.
"Yes. When
Driven out, you say? Yes--yes. Anybody hurt? Followed our men
through into our tunnel? No, don't do anything till you hear from me. Send
Rhys up at once. Let me know any further developments that occur."
Hobart hung up the receiver and turned on his swivel-chair toward his
chief. "Another outrage, sir, at the hands of Ridgway. It is in regard to
those veins in the Copper King that he claims. Dalton, his superintendent
of the Taurus, drove a tunnel across our lateral lines and began working
them, though their own judge has not yet rendered a decision in their
favor.
Of course, I put a large force in them at once. To-day we tapped their
workings at the twelfth level. Our foreman, Miles, has just telephoned me
that Dalton turned the air pressure on our men, blew out their candles, and
flung a mixture of lime and rocks at them. Several of the men are hurt,
though none badly. It seems that Dalton has thrown a force into our tunnels
and is holding the entrances against us at the point where the eleventh,
twelfth, and thirteenth levels touch the cage. It means that he will work
those veins, and probably others that are acknowledged to be ours, unless
we drive them out, which would probably be a difficult matter."
Harley listened patiently, eyes glittering and clean-shaven lips pressed
tightly against his teeth. "What do you propose to do?"
"I haven't decided yet. If we could get any justice from the courts, an
injunction "
"Can't be got from Purcell. Don't waste time considering it. Fight it out
yourself. Find his weakest spot, then strike hard and suddenly." Harley's
low metallic voice was crisp and commanding.
"His weakest spot?"
"Exactly. Has he no mines upon which we can retaliate?"
"There is the Taurus. It lies against the Copper King end to end. He drove
a tunnel into some of our workings last winter. That would give a
passageway to send our men through, if we decide to do so. Then there is
his New York. Its workings connect with those of the Jim Hill."
"Good! Send as many men through as is necessary to capture and hold both
mines. Get control of the entire workings of them both, and begin taking
ore out at once. Station armed guards at every point where it is necessary,
and as many as are necessary. Use ten thousand men, if you need that many.
But don't fail. We'll give Ridgway a dose of his own medicine, and teach
him that for every pound of our ore he steals we'll take ten."
"He'll get an injunction from the courts."
"Let him get forty. I'll show him that his robber courts will not save him.
Anyhow, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
Hobart, almost swept from his moorings by the fiery energy of his chief,
braced himself to withstand the current.
"I shall have to think about that. We can't fight lawlessness with
lawlessness except for selfpreservation."
"Think! You do nothing but think, Mr. Hobart. You are here to act," came
the scornful retort; "And what is this but self-preservation."
"I am willing to recapture our workings in the Copper King. I'll lead the
attack in person, sir. But as to a retaliatory attack--the facts will not
justify a capture of his property because he has seized ours."
"Wrong, sir. This is no time for half-way measures. I have resolved to
crush this freebooter; since he has purchased your venal courts, then by
the only means left us--force."
Hobart rose from his seat, very pale and erect. His eyes met those of the
great man unflinchingly. "You realize that this may mean murder, Mr.
Harley? That a clash cannot possibly be avoided if you pursue this course?"
"I realize that it is self-preservation," came the cold retort. "There is
no law here, none, at least, that gives us justice. We are back to
savagery, dragged back by the madness of this ruffian. It is his choice,
not mine. Let him abide by it."
"Your intention to follow this course is irrevocable?"
"Absolutely."
"In that case, I must regretfully offer my resignation as manager of the
Consolidated."
"It is accepted, Mr. Hobart. I can't have men working under me that are not
loyal, body and soul, to the hand that feeds them. No man can serve two
masters, Mr. Hobart."
"That is why I resign, Mr. Harley. You give me the devil's work to do. I
have done enough of it. By Heaven, I will be a free man hereafter." The
disgust and dissatisfaction that had been pent within him for many a month
broke forth hot from the lips of this self-repressed man. "It is all wrong
on both sides. Two wrongs do not make a right. The system of espionage we
employ over everybody both on his side and ours, the tyrannical use we make
of our power, the corruption we foster in politics, our secret bargains
with railroads, our evasions of law as to taxes, and in every other way
that suits us: it is all wrong--all wrong. I'll be a party to it no longer.
You see to what it leads--murder and anarchy. I'll be a poor man if I must,
but I'll be a free and honest one at least."
"You are talking wickedly and wildly, Mr. Hobart. You are criticizing God
when you criticize the business conditions he has put into the world. I did
not know that you were a socialist, but what you have just said explains
your course," the old man reproved sadly and sanctimonious.
"I am not a socialist, Mr. Harley, but you and your methods have made
thousands upon thousands of them in this country during the past ten years."
"We shall not discuss that, Mr. Hobart, nor, indeed, is any discussion
necessary. Frankly, I am greatly disappointed in you. I have for some time
been dissatisfied with your management, but I did not, of course, know you
held these anarchistic views. I want, however, to be perfectly just. You
are a very good business man indeed, careful and thorough. That you have
not a bold enough grasp of mind for the place you hold is due, perhaps, to
these dangerous ideas that have unsettled you. Your salary will be
continued for six months. Is that satisfactory?"
"No, sir. I could not be willing to accept it longer than to-day. And when
you say bold enough, why not be plain and say unscrupulous enough?" amended
the younger man.
"As you like. I don't juggle with words. The point is, you don't succeed.
This adventurer, Ridgway, scores continually against you. He has beaten you
clear down the line from start to finish. Is that not true?"
"Because he does not hesitate to stoop to anything, because--"
"Precisely. You have given the very reason why he must be fought in the
same spirit. Business ethics would be as futile against him as chivalry in
dealing with a jungle-tiger."
"You would then have had me stoop to any petty meanness to win, no matter
how contemptible?"
The New Yorker waved him aside with a patient, benignant gesture. "I don't
care for excuses. I ask of my subordinates success. You do not get it for
me. I must find a man who can."
Hobart bowed with fine dignity. The touch of disdain in his slight smile
marked his sense of the difference between them. He was again his composed
rigid self.
"Can you arrange to allow my resignation to take effect as soon as
possible? I should prefer to have my connection with the company severed
before any action is taken against these mines."
"At once--to-day. Your resignation may be published in the Herald this
afternoon, and you will then be acquitted of whatever may follow."
"Thank you." Hobart hesitated an instant before he said: "There is a point
that I have already mentioned to you which, with your permission, I must
again advert to. The temper of the miners has been very bitter since you
refused to agree to Mr. Ridgway's proposal for an eight-hour day. I would
urge upon you to take greater precautions against a personal attack. You
have many lawless men among your employees. They are foreigners for the
most part, unused to self-restraint. It is only right you should know they
execrate your name."
The great man smiled blandly. "Popularity is nothing to me. I have neither
sought it nor desired it. Given a great work to do, with the Divine help I
have done it, irrespective of public clamor. For many years I have lived in
the midst of alarms, Mr. Hobart. I am not foolhardy. What precautions I can
reasonably take I do. For the rest, my confidence is in an all-wise
Providence. It is written that not even a sparrow falls without His decree.
In that promise I put my trust. If I am to be cut off it can only be by His
will. 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of
the Lord.' Such, I pray, may be the humble and grateful spirit with which I
submit myself to His will."
The retiring manager urged the point no further. "If you have decided upon
my successor and he is on the ground I shall be glad to give the afternoon
to running over with him the affairs of the office. It would be well for
him to retain for a time my private secretary and stenographer."
"Mr. Mott will succeed you. He will no doubt be glad to have your
assistance in helping him fall into the routine of the office, Mr. Hobart."
Harley sent for Mott at once and told him of his promotion. The two men
were closeted together for hours, while trusted messengers went and came
incessantly to and from the mines. Hobart knew, of course, that plans were
in progress to arm such of the Consolidated men as could be trusted, and
that arrangements were being made to rush the Taurus and the New York.
Everything was being done as secretly as possible, but Hobart's experience
of Ridgway made it obvious to him that this excessive activity could not
pass without notice. His spies, like those of the trust, swarmed
everywhere.
It was not till mid-afternoon of the next day that Mott found time to join
him and run over with him the details of such unfinished business as the
office had taken up. The retiring manager was courtesy itself, nor did he
feel any bitterness against his successor. Nevertheless, he came to the end
of office hours with great relief. The day had been a very hard one, and it
left him with a longing for solitude and the wide silent spaces of the open
hills. He struck out in the direction which promised him the quickest
opportunity to leave the town behind him. A good walker, he covered the
miles rapidly, and under the physical satisfaction of the tramp the brain
knots unraveled and smoothed themselves out. It was better so--better to
live his own life than the one into which he was being ground by the
inexorable facts of his environment. He was a young man and ambitious, but
his hopes were not selfish. At bottom he was an idealist, though a
practical one. He had had to shut his eyes to many things which he
deplored, had been driven to compromises which he despised. Essentially
clean-handed, the soul of him had begun to wither at the contact of that
which he saw about him and was so large a part of.
"I am not fit for it. That is the truth. Mott has no imagination, and
property rights are the most sacred thing on earth to him. He will do
better at it than I," he told himself, as he walked forward bareheaded into
the great sunset glow that filled the saddle between two purple hills in
front of him.
As he swung round a bend in the road a voice, clear and sweet. came to him
through the light filtered air.
"Laska!"
young woman on horseback was before him. Her pony stood across the road,
and she looked up a trail which ran down into it. The lifted poise of the
head brought out its fine lines and the distinction with which it was set
upon the well-molded throat column. Apparently she was calling to some
companion on the trail who had not yet emerged into view.
At sound of his footsteps the rider's head turned.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Hobart," she said quietly, as coolly as if her heart
had not suddenly begun to beat strangely fast.
"Good afternoon, Miss Balfour."
Each of them was acutely conscious of the barrier between them. Since the
day when she had told him of her engagement they had not met, even
casually, and this their first sight of each other was not without
embarrassment.
"We have been to Lone Pine Cone," she said rather hurriedly, to bridge an
impending silence.
He met this obvious statement with another as brilliant.
"I walked out from town. My horse is a little lame."
But there was something she wanted to say to him, and the time for saying
it, before the arrival of her companion, was short. She would not waste it
in commonplaces.
"I don't usually read the papers very closely, but this morning I read both
the Herald and the Sun. Did you get my note?"
"Your note? No."
"I sent it by mail. I wanted you to know that your friends are proud of
you. We know why you resigned. It is easy to read between the lines."
"Thank you," he said simply. "I knew you would know."
"Even the Sun recognizes that it was because you are too good a man for the
place."
"Praise from the Sun has rarely shone my way," he said, with a touch of
irony, for that paper was controlled by the Ridgway interest. "In its
approval I am happy."
Her impulsive sympathy for this man whom she so greatly liked would not
accept the rebuff imposed by this reticence. She stripped the gauntlet from
her hand and offered it in congratulation.
He took it in his, a slight flush in his face.
"I have done nothing worthy of praise. One cannot ask less of a man than
that he remain independent and honest. I couldn't do that and stay with the
Consolidated, or, so it seemed to me. So I resigned. That is all there is
to it."
"It is enough. I don't know another man would have done it, would have had
the courage to do it after his feet were set so securely in the way of
success. The trouble with Americans is that they want too much success.
They want it at too big a price."
"I'm not likely ever to have too much of it," he laughed sardonically.
"Success in life and success in living aren't the same thing. It is because
you have discovered this that you have sacrificed the less for the
greater." She smiled, and added: "I didn't mean that to sound as preachy as
it does."
"I'm afraid you make too much of a small thing. My squeamishness has
probably made me the laughing-stock of Mesa."
"If so, that is to the discredit of Mesa," she insisted stanchly. "But I
don't think so. A great many people who couldn't have done it themselves
will think more of you for having done it."
Another pony, which had been slithering down the steep trail in the midst
of a small rock slide, now brought its rider safely to a halt in the road.
Virginia introduced them, and Hobart, remembered that he had heard Miss
Balfour speak of a young woman whom she had met on the way out, a Miss
Laska Lowe, who was coming to Mesa to teach domestic science in the public
schools. There was something about the young teacher's looks that he liked,
though she was of a very different type than Virginia. Not at all pretty in
any accepted sense, she yet had a charm born of the vital honesty in her.
She looked directly at one out of sincere gray eyes, wide-awake and
fearless. As it happened, her friend had been telling her about Hobart, and
she was interested in him from the first. For she was of that minority
which lives not by bread alone, and she felt a glow of pride in the man who
could do what the Sun had given this man credit for editorially.
They talked at haphazard for a few minutes before the young women cantered
away. As Hobart trudged homeward he knew that in the eyes of these two
women, at least, he had not been a fool.