Harley Makes A Proposition

: Ridgway Of Montana

Apparently the head of the great trust intended to lose no time in having

that business talk with Ridgway, which he had graciously promised the

latter. Eaton and his chief were busy over some applications for leases

when Smythe came into the room with a letter



"Messenger-boy brought it; said it was important," he explained.



Ridgway ripped open the envelope, read through the letter swiftly, and

> tossed it to Eaton. His eyes had grown hard and narrow



"Write to Mr. Hobart that I am sorry I haven't time to call on Mr. Harley

at the Consolidated offices, as he suggests. Add that I expect to be in my

offices all morning, and shall be glad to make an appointment to talk with

Mr. Harley here, if he thinks he has any business with me that needs a

personal interview."



Smythe's leathery face had as much expression as a blank wall, but Eaton

gasped. The unparalleled audacity of flinging the billionaire's overture

back in his face left him for the moment speechless. He knew that Ridgway

had tempted Providence a hundred times without coming to disaster, but

surely this was going too far. Any reasonable compromise with the great

trust builder would be cause for felicitation. He had confidence in his

chief to any point in reason, but he could not blind himself to the fact

that the wonderful successes he had gained were provisional rather than

final. He likened them to Stonewall Jackson's Shenandoah raid, very

successful in irritating, disorganizing and startling the enemy, but with

no serious bearing on the final inevitable result. In the end Harley would

crush his foes if he set in motion the whole machinery of his limitless

resources. That was Eaton's private opinion, and he was very much of the

feeling that this was an opportune time to get in out of the rain.



"Don't you think we had better consider that answer before we send it,

Waring?" he suggested in a low voice.



His chief nodded a dismissal to the secretary before answering.



"I have considered it."



"But--surely it isn't wise to reject his advances before we know what they

are."



"I haven't rejected them. I've simply explained that we are doing business

on equal terms. Even if I meant to compromise, it would pay me to let him

know he doesn't own me."



"He may decide not to offer his proposition."



"It wouldn't worry me if he did."



Eaton knew he must speak now if his protest were to be of any avail. "It

would worry me a good deal. He has shown an inclination to be friendly.

This answer is like a slap in the face."



"Is it?"



"Doesn't it look like that to you?"



Ridgway leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtfully at his friend.

"Want to sell out, Steve?"



"Why--what do you mean?" asked the surprised treasurer.



"If you do, I'll pay anything in reason for your stock." He got up and

began to pace the floor with long deliberate strides. "I'm a born gambler,

Steve. It clears my head to take big chances. Give me a good fight on my

hands with the chances against me, and I'm happy. You've got to take the

world by the throat and shake success out of it if you're going to score

heavily. That's how Harley made good years ago. Read the story of his life.

See the chances he took. He throttled combinations a dozen times as strong

as his. Some people say he was an accident. Don't you believe it. Accidents

like him don't happen. He won because he was the

biggest, brainiest, most daring and unscrupulous operator in the field.

That's why I'm going to win--if I do win."



"Yes, if you win."



"Well, that's the chance I take," flung back the other as he swung

buoyantly across the room. "But YOU don't need to take it. If you want, you

can get out now at the top market price. I feel it in my bones I'm going to

win; but if you don't feel it, you'd be a fool to take chances."



Eaton's mercurial temperament responded with a glow.



"No, sir. I'll sit tight. I'm no quitter."



"Good for you, Steve. I knew it. I'll tell you now that I would have hated

like hell to see you leave me. You're the only man I can rely on down to

the ground, twenty-four hours of every day."



The answer was sent, and Eaton's astonishment at his chief's temerity

changed to amazement when the great Harley, pocketing his pride, asked for

an appointment, and appeared at the offices of the Mesa Ore-producing

Company at the time set. That Ridgway, who was busy with one of his

superintendents, should actually keep the most powerful man in the country

waiting in an outer office while he finished his business with Dalton

seemed to him insolence florescent.



"Whom the gods would destroy," he murmured to himself as the only possible

explanation, for the reaction of his enthusiasm was on him.



Nor did his chief's conference with Dalton show any leaning toward

compromise. Ridgway had sent for his engineer to outline a program in

regard to some ore-veins in the Sherman Bell, that had for months been in

litigation between the two big interests at Mesa. Neither party to the suit

had waited for the legal decision, but each of them had put a large force

at work stoping out the ore. Occasional conflicts had occurred when the men

of the opposing factions came in touch, as they frequently did, since crews

were at work below and above each other at every level. But none of these

as yet had been serious.



"Dalton, I was down last night to see that lease of Heyburn's on the

twelfth level of the Taurus. The Consolidated will tap our workings about

noon to-day, just below us. I want you to turn on them the air-drill pipe

as soon as they break through. Have a lot of loose rock there mixed with a

barrel of lime. Let loose the air pressure full on the pile, and give it to

their men straight. Follow them up to the end of their own tunnel when they

retreat, and hold it against them. Get control of the levels above and

below, too. Throw as many men as you can into their workings, and gut them

till there is no ore left."



Dalton had the fighting edge. "You'll stand by me, no matter what happens?"



"Nothing will happen. They're not expecting trouble. But if anything does,

I'll see you through. Eaton is your witness that I ordered it."



"Then it's as good as done, Mr. Ridgway," said Dalton, turning away.



"There may be bloodshed," suggested Eaton dubiously, in a low voice.



Ridgway's laugh had a touch of affectionate contempt. "Don't cross bridges

till you get to them, Steve. Haven't you discovered, man, that the bold

course is always the safe one? It's the quitter that loses out every time.

The strong man gets there; the weak one falls down. It's as invariable as

the law of gravity." He got up and stretched his broad shoulders in a deep

breath. "Now for Mr. Harley. Send him in, Eaton.



That morning Simon Harley had done two things for many years foreign to his

experience: He had gone to meet another man instead of making the man come

to him, and he had waited the other man's pleasure in an outer office. That

he had done so implied a strong motive.



Ridgway waved Harley to a chair without rising to meet him. The eyes of the

two men fastened, wary and unwavering. They might have been jungle beasts

of prey crouching for the attack, so tense was their attention. The man

from Broadway was the first to speak.



"I have called, Mr. Ridgway, to arrange, if possible, a compromise. I need

hardly say this is not my usual method, but the circumstances are extremely

unusual. I rest under so great a personal obligation to you that I am

willing to overlook a certain amount of youthful presumption." His teeth

glittered behind a lip smile, intended to give the right accent to the

paternal reproof. "My personal obligation--"



"What obligation? I left you to die in the snow.',



"You forget what you did for Mrs. Harley."



"You may eliminate that," retorted the younger man curtly. "You are under

no obligations whatever to me."



"That is very generous of you, Mr. Ridgway, but--"



Ridgway met his eyes directly, cutting his sentence as with a knife.

"'Generous' is the last word to use. It is not a question of generosity at

all. What I mean is that the thing I did was done with no reference

whatever to you. It is between me and her alone. I refuse to consider it as

a service to you, as having anything at all to do with you. I told you that

before. I tell you again."



Harley's spirit winced. This bold claim to a bond with his wife that

excluded him, the scornful thrust of his enemy--he was already beginning to

consider him in that light rather than as a victim--had touched the one

point of human weakness in this money-making Juggernaut. He saw himself for

the moment without illusions, an old man and an unlovable one, without near

kith or kin. He was bitterly aware that the child he had married had been

sold to him by her guardian, under fear of imminent ruin, before her

ignorance of the world had given her experience to judge for herself. The

money and the hidden hunger of sentiment he wasted on her brought him only

timid thanks and wan obedience. But for this man, with his hateful,

confident youth, he had seen the warm smile touch her lips and the delicate

color rose her cheeks. Nay, he had seen more her arms around his neck and

her, warm breath on his cheek. They had lived romance, these two, in the

days they had been alone together. They had shared danger and the joys of

that Bohemia of youth from which he was forever excluded. It was his

resolve to wipe out by financial favors--he could ruin the fellow later if

need be--any claims of Ridgway upon her gratitude or her foolish

imagination. He did not want the man's appeal upon her to carry the

similitude of martyrdom as well as heroism.



"Yet, the fact remains that it was a service" --his thin lips smiled. "I

must be the best judge of that, I think. I want to be perfectly frank, Mr.

Ridgway. The Consolidated is an auxiliary enterprise so far as I am

concerned, but I have always made it a rule to look after details when it

became necessary. I came to Montana to crush you. I have always regarded

you as a menace to our legitimate interests, and I had quite determined to

make an end of it. You are a good fighter, and you've been on the ground in

person, which counts for a great deal. But you must know that if I give

myself to it in earnest, you are a ruined man."



The Westerner laughed hardily. "I hear you say it."



"But you don't believe," added the other quietly. "Many men have heard and

not believed. They have KNOWN when it was too late.



"If you don't mind, I'll buy my experience instead of borrowing it,"

Ridgway flung back flippantly.



"One moment, Mr. Ridgway. I have told you my purpose in coming to Montana.

That purpose no longer exists. Circumstances have completely altered my

intentions. The finger of God is in it. He has not brought us together thus

strangely, except to serve some purpose of His own. I think I see that

purpose. 'The stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of

the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes,'" he

quoted unctiously.

"I am convinced that it is a waste of good material to crush you; therefore

I desire to effect a consolidation with you, buy all the other copper

interests of any importance in the country, and put you at the head of the

resulting

combination."



In spite of himself, Ridgway's face betrayed him. It was a magnificent

opportunity, the thing he had dreamed of as the culmination of a lifetime

of fighting. Nobody knew better than he on how precarious a footing he

stood, on how slight a rock his fortunes might be wrecked. Here was his

chance to enter that charmed, impregnable inner circle of finance that in

effect ruled the nation. That Harley's suave friendliness would bear

watching he did not doubt for a moment, but, once inside, so his vital

youth told him proudly, he would see to it that the billionaire did not

betray him. A week ago he could have asked nothing better than this chance

to bloat himself into a some-day colossus. But now the thing stuck in his

gorge. He understood the implied obligation. Payment for his service to

Aline Harley was to be given, and the ledger

balanced. Well, why not? Had he not spent the night in a chaotic agony of

renunciation? But to renounce voluntarily was one thing, to be bought off

another.



He looked up and met Harley's thin smile, the smile that on Wall Street was

a synonym for rapacity and heartlessness, in the memory of which men had

committed murder and suicide. On the instant there jumped between him and

his ambition the face that had worked magic on him. What a God's pity that

such a lamb should be cast to this ravenous wolf! He felt again her arms

creeping round his neck, the divine trust of her lovely eyes. He had saved

her when this man who called himself her husband had left her to perish in

the storm. He had made her happy, as she had never been in all her starved

life. Had she not promised never to forget, and was there not a deeper

promise in her wistful eyes that the years could not wipe out? She was his

by every right of natural law. By God! he would not sell his freedom of

choice to this white

haired robber!



"I seldom make mistakes in my judgment of men, Mr. Ridgway," the oily voice

ran on. "No small share of such success as it has been given me to attain

has been due to this instinct for

putting my finger on the right man. I am assured that in you I find one

competent for the great work lying before you. The opportunity is waiting;

I furnish it, and you the untiring energy of youth to make the most of the

chance." His wolfish smile bared the tusks for a moment. "I find myself not

so young as I was. The great work I have started is well under way. I must

trust its completion to younger and stronger

hands than mine. I intend to rest, to devote myself to my home, more

directly to such philanthropic and educational work as God has committed to

my hands."



The Westerner gave him look for look, his eyes burning to get over the

impasse of the expressionless mask no man had ever penetrated. He began

to see why nobody had ever understood Harley. He knew there would be no

rest for that consuming energy this side of the grave. Yet the man talked

as if he believed his own glib lies.



"Consolidated is the watchword of the age; it means elimination of ruinous

competition, and consequent harmony and reduced expense in management. Mr.

Ridgway, may I count you with us? Together we should go far. Do you say

peace or war?"



The younger man rose, leaning forward with his strong, sinewy hands

gripping the table. His face was pale with the repression of a rage that

had been growing intense. "I say war, and without quarter. I don't believe

you can beat me. I defy you to the test. And if you should--even then I had

rather go down fighting you than win at your side."



Simon Harley had counted acceptance a foregone conclusion, but he never

winked a lash at the ringing challenge of his opponent. He met his defiance

with an eye cold and steady as jade.



"As you please, Mr. Ridgway. I wash my hands of your ruin, and when you are

nothing but a broken gambler, you will remember that I offered you the

greatest chance that ever came to a man of your age. You are one of those

men, I see, that would rather be first in hell than second in heaven. So be

it." He rose and buttoned his overcoat.



"Say, rather, that I choose to go to hell my own master and not as the

slave of Simon Harley," retorted the Westerner bitterly.



Ridgway's eyes blazed, but those of the New Yorker were cool and fishy.



"There is no occasion for dramatics," he said, the cruel, passionless smile

at his thin lips. "I make you a business proposition and you decline it.

That is all. I wish you good day."



The other strode past him and flung the door open. He had never before

known such a passion of hatred as raged within him. Throughout his life

Simon Harley had left in his wake wreckage and despair. He was the

best-hated man of his time, execrated by the working classes, despised by

the country at large, and distrusted by his fellow exploiters. Yet, as a

business opponent, Ridgway had always taken him impersonally, had counted

him for a condition rather than an individual. But with the new influence

that had come into his life, reason could not reckon, and when it was

dominant with him, Harley stood embodied as the wolf ready to devour his

ewe lamb.



For he couldn't get away from her. Wherever he went he carried with him the

picture of her sweet, shy smile, her sudden winsome moments, the deep light

in her violet eyes; and in the background the sinister bared fangs of the

wild beast dogging her patiently, and yet lovingly.



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