Wolf Breed Part 18

"Yes." Max's words, though very quiet and low toned, had in them something of the precision and finality of pistol shots. "They'll not get away this time, Mr. Sothern."

"_He_ mustn't get away. But remember, Lieutenant, that the time is not ripe yet. I positively can do nothing to help your case until . . .

until I am ready!"

"I'll wait."

Max lifted his hand in a sort of salute, turned and went out. Drennen, bringing his eyes back from the departing figure, found that both Marshall Sothern and McCall were studying him intently.

"Mr. Drennen," said Sothern, "I presume you are here to talk business.

You have a mine you want us to look at?"

"I am here for two purposes," answered Drennen steadily, his eyes hard upon the older man's. "That is one of them."

"The other can wait. Mr. McCall and myself are at your disposal. From the specimens I have seen I am inclined to think that you have not discovered a new mine at all, but have stumbled on to the old Lost Golden Girl. If so, you are to be congratulated . . . and so are we."

Drennen nodded, waiting for Sothern to go on.

"You made a certain offer to Charlie Madden," continued Sothern. "Was that your bona fide proposition, Mr. Drennen? Or were you merely sparring for time and putting out a bluff?"

"I meant business," returned Drennen. "I know that the property is worth considerably more than I am asking. But I have a use for just that sum."

"A hundred thousand dollars, cash, I believe? And a ten per cent royalty?" put in McCall quietly.

"Exactly." Again Drennen nodded.

"You want me to look it over with you, Sothern?" demanded McCall. "It isn't necessary, you know. Not now."

"I want you to do me the favour, McCall," answered Sothern. "Mr.

Drennen, yesterday the only man in the West empowered to do business for the Northwestern upon such a scale as this was Mr. McCall. But things have happened in the East. Our chief, Bruce Elwood, is dead.

Mr. McCall goes to-morrow to Montreal, stepping into Mr. Elwood's place. I move on and up into Mr. McCall's."

He paused, his face inscrutable under its dark frown. Suddenly he swung about upon McCall.

"Andy," he said sharply, "you're going to do more than just look at Mr.

Drennen's find with us. You're going to act upon his offer as you see fit. As a favour to me, Andy."

Both Drennen and McCall looked at him curiously. Sothern's stern face told nothing.

"As a favour to me, Andy," he repeated. "You bring me word of my promotion. Pigeonhole it until after this deal is made or rejected."

McCall, his hesitation brief, swung about upon Drennen.

"Where is this mine of yours?" he demanded curtly. "How long will it take us to get to it?"

"It's less than forty miles from Lebarge," returned Drennen. "And we can get there in five hours, if we keep on moving."

"You have filed your t.i.tle, of course?"

"Yes."

"Come ahead then." McCall was upon his feet, his hat on his head and his cigar lighted all in little more than an instant.

In ten minutes the party was formed and had clattered out of Lebarge, back along the MacLeod trail. There were five men in the little group, Drennen, Sothern, McCall and two mining experts in the pay of the Northwestern. As they swept out of Lebarge, rounding into the canon where the trail twisted ahead of them, Drennen saw two men looking after them. One was Marc Lemarc who had accompanied him to Lebarge; the other Lieutenant Max.

Once in the trail the five men strung out in a line, Drennen in the lead. It was easy to see his impatience in the hot pace he set for them, and they thought that it was no less easy to understand it. But for once they followed a man who thought less of his gold mine than of a girl.

Drennen's gold mine itself plays no part in this story. He was never to see it again after this day, although it was to pour many thousands of dollars into his pockets from a distance. In the _West Canadian Mining and Milling News_, date of _August 9, 1912_, appears a column-and-a-half article upon the subject, readily accessible to any who are not already familiar with the matter which excited so wide an Interest at the time and for many months afterwards. The article is authoritative to the last detail. It explains how the Golden Girl became a lost mine in 1799, and how it happened that while David Drennen had discovered it in 1912 it had been hidden to other eyes than his. A series of earthquakes of which we have record, occurring at the beginning of the nineteenth century, bringing about heavy snowslides and landslides, had thrown the course of one of the tributaries of the Little MacLeod from its bed into a new channel where a sudden depression had sunk the golden vein of the lost mine.

Here, just before the winter of 1911-12 shut down, David Drennen had found a nugget which he had concealed, saying nothing about it. The snows came and he went back to MacLeod's Settlement to wait for the coming of springtime and pa.s.sable trails. The first man to pack out of the Settlement prospecting, he had come to the spot which last year he had marked under the cliffs known locally as h.e.l.l's Lace. The trail had been rotten underfoot and he had slipped and fallen into one of the black pools. Clambering out he had found the thing he sought; where the trail had broken away was gold, much gold. In the bed of the stream itself, nicely hidden for a hundred years by the cold, black water, swept into deep pools, jammed into sunken crevices, was the old lost gold of the Golden Girl.

The _West Canadian Mining and Milling News_ of the same date goes on to mention that the last official act of Mr. Andrew McCall as Local Agent for the Northwestern, had been the purchasing of his claim from David Drennen at the latter's figure, namely one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and an agreement of a royalty upon the mine's output.

Despite Drennen's impatience to be riding trail again it was a week before the deal was consummated. Half a mile above his claim it was possible for the engineers to throw the stream again into its old bed, a score of men and three days' work accomplis.h.i.+ng the conditions which had obtained before the period of seismic disturbance. Then followed days of keen expert investigation. Even when they were sure these men who know as most men do not the value of caution when they are allowed to take time for caution, postponed their final verdict. But at last the thing was done and McCall, taking his train for the East, left Lebarge with a conscious glow of satisfaction over the last work done as superintendent of the Western Division.

Marshall Sothern, returning from the railroad station, found Drennen waiting for him in his private office.

"Well, Mr. Drennen," he said quietly, going about the table and to his chair, "how does it feel to be worth a cool hundred thousand?"

"It feels," cried the younger man sharply, his voice ringing with a hint of excitement which had been oddly lacking in him throughout the whole transaction, "like power! Like a power I've been hungering for for ten years! May I have your stenographer for a few moments, sir?"

Sothern touched the buzzer and the clerk came in from the outer office.

"Take Mr. Drennen's dictation," said Sothern. "I'll go into the other room. . . ."

Drennen lifted his hand.

"It's nothing private, sir," he said. "I'd rather you stayed. I'd like a word with you afterwards."

The clerk took pencil and notebook. And Drennen, his eyes never leaving Sothern's face, dictated:

"Harley W. Judson, Esq., President Eastern Mines, Inc., New York.

DEAR SIR:--In compliance with the last request of my father, John Harper Drennen, before his departure for Europe in 1901, I am forwarding draft on the Merchants' & Citizens' National Bank of New York for $40,000. John Harper Drennen's original indebtedness to your company was, you will remember, $75,000. Of this amount some $50,000 was paid from the sales of such properties belonging to him at that time. The remaining $25,000 at an interest of 6% for the ten years during which the obligation has continued, amounts to the $40,000 which I enclose.

Respectfully,"

"That is all, Mr. Drennen?" asked the clerk.

"That is all," answered Drennen. The clerk went out. Drennen turned toward the man at the desk whose stern set face had gone strangely white.

"The absconding John Harper Drennen made such a request of you?"

Marshall Sothern said calmly, though the effort for control was evident.

"No. It's just a little lie told for my father . . . the only thing I have ever done for him!"

Drennen came suddenly about the table, both of his strong hands out.