Empire Builders Part 27

Penfield had been apparently listening avidly to the president's praise of the dry alt.i.tudes as a sure cure for consumption, but now he had his face in his plate. Ford devoted himself for the moment to the deaf Miss Van Bruce, and when he turned back to Alicia he was telegraphing with his eyes for discretion. She understood, and the low-toned tete-a-tete was not resumed. Later, when they had a moment together in the dispersion from the breakfast-table, he tried to apologize for what he was pleased to call his "playing of the baby act." But she rea.s.sured him in a low-spoken word.

"Brother told me--I know more than you give me credit for, Mr. Ford.

Mr. North doesn't like you--he would be glad if you would resign. _You must not resign!_"

The others, personally-conducted by Mr. Colbrith, were crowding to the rear platform for an after-breakfast view of the headquarters camp. Ford and Alicia followed, but without haste.

"You have chanced upon the word, Miss Adair," Ford was saying. "I decided last night that I should resign."

"No," she objected.

"Yes; I must. Sometime I may tell you why."

"I say you must not. That was the last word in brother's letter; and he wished me to repeat it to you," she insisted.

"Where is your brother?" he asked.

"He was in London when he wrote."

"He has thrown up his hand." Ford was pessimistic again.

Miss Adair looked about her despairingly for some means of prolonging the whispered confidence. Penfield, deferentially in the rear of the platform group, was never safely out of earshot.

"I want to see the engine that so nearly plunged us into a collision last night," she said aloud; and Penfield's visible ear betrayed the listening mind.

Ford took his cue promptly. "We can go out the other way," he said; and the secretary _pro tempore_ had no excuse for following.

They found the cab of the 1012 deserted, with the steam in the huge boiler singing softly at the behest of the banked fire. Miss Adair lost her curiosity as soon as Ford had lifted her to the foot-plate.

"Now you are to tell me all about it--quickly," she commanded. "Uncle Sidney will be calling for you as soon as he misses you. Why are you so foolish as to talk about resigning? Don't you see what they will say then?--that you were afraid?"

Ford was leaning against the centered reversing-lever, and his face was gloomy again.

"Possibly I am afraid," he suggested.

"You should be more afraid of dishonor than of--of the other things. Do you suppose Mr. North will be content with your resignation now?"

Ford looked up quickly. Here was a new revelation--an unsuspected facet of the precious gem. He could hardly believe that this steady-voiced, far-seeing young woman was the insouciant, school-girlish--though none the less lovable--young person with whom he had tramped to the wind-swept summit of Plug Pa.s.s in the golden heart of the yesterday.

"You mean--?" he began.

"I mean that you will be discredited; disgraced if possible. Are you sure you haven't been doing anything over here that you wouldn't want Uncle Sidney to find out?"

"Not consciously, you may be sure," he a.s.serted unhesitatingly.

"Think; think hard," she urged. "Is there nothing at all?"

He could not help smiling lovingly at her scarce-concealed anxiety--though it was merely the anxiety of a n.o.ble soul unwilling to stand by and see injustice done.

"My methods never get very far underground," he averred. "Not far enough for my own safety, Frisbie says. If I had been keeping a diary, I think I should be quite willing to let Mr. Colbrith read it--or print it, if he cared to."

"And yet there _is_ something," she a.s.serted, and the straight brows went together in a little frown of perplexity. "You don't ask me how I know: I'm going to tell you, Mr. Ford--though it's rather shameful.

Three days ago, while we were in Denver, Mr. North came down to the car to see Uncle Sidney."

"Yes?" he encouraged.

"They were closeted in Uncle Sidney's state-room for a long time," she went on. "I--I was walking with Miss Van Bruce, up and down on the station platform beside the Nadia, Uncle Sidney had told me not to go very far away because we were likely to start at any moment. The--the car windows were open--"

Her embarra.s.sment was growing painfully apparent, and Ford came to the rescue.

"You were not even constructively to blame," he hastened to say. "They must surely have seen you pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing, and if they wished for privacy they might have closed the windows."

"I didn't hear much: only a word or two, now and then. They were talking about you and brother; and--" She stopped short and laid her hand on the throttle-lever of the big engine: "What did you say this was for?" she asked ingenuously.

Ford's up-glance of surprise was answered by a glimpse of Penfield sauntering past on the other side of the track. She could not have seen, but she had doubtless heard his footsteps on the gravel.

"It's the throttle," said Ford, answering her question. And then: "Please go on: he is out of hearing."

"They were speaking of you and brother; and--and of _me_. I can't repeat a single sentence entire, but I know Mr. North was accusing you in some way, and apparently implicating me. Perhaps I listened in self-defense.

Do you think I did, Mr. Ford?"

"You certainly had a good right to," said Ford, who would have sworn in her behalf that the morally black was spotlessly white. "But how could you be implicated?"

"That was what puzzled me then--and it is puzzling me still. They said--or rather Mr. North said--that you--that you had _bought_ me!"

Ford did not say that he would like to buy, beg, borrow or steal any kind of right to call her his own, but if his lips did not form the words they were lying at the bottom of the steady gray eyes for her to take or leave as she chose.

"I am sure you couldn't have heard that part of it quite straight," he said, almost regretfully.

"But I did, because it was repeated. Mr. North insisted that you had bought me; and I didn't like the way in which he said it, either. He called me 'the little Alicia'."

"What!" said Ford; and then a flood of light burst in upon at least one of the dark places. "It's only a mine," he said sheepishly. "And I did buy it, or half of it."

She was regarding him accusingly now.

"Did you--did you name it?" she asked, and there was the merest breath of frost in the air.

He was glad to be able to tell the truth without flinching.

"No; it is one of the earliest of the Copah prospects, and I suppose the discoverer named it. I am willing to defend his choice, though. He couldn't have found a prettier name."

She went back to the matter in hand with womanly swiftness. "But the mine: you had a right to buy it, didn't you?"

"I should suppose so. I paid for it with my own money, anyway."

"Then why should Mr. North use it as an argument against you in speaking to Uncle Sidney? He did that--I am sure he did that."

"Now the water has grown too deep for me," said Ford. "Why, North, himself, is interested in Copah, openly. He owns half a dozen claims."

"Near yours?" she queried.