Copper Streak Trail Part 8

"Well, wasn't he insultin' the boys then?" demanded Eric.

"I guess you're right, there," Mayer Zurich admitted. "I was not at all in favor of taking so many of them in on this proposition; but I'm not afraid of them doin' me dirt, now they're in. I don't see why the three of us couldn't have kept this to ourselves--but Something had to blab it out! Why he should do that, and then distrust the very men he chose for so munificent a sharing of a confidence better withheld--that is quite beyond my understanding. Dewing, you would never have clapped an eye on that nugget if I had suspected in you so unswerving a loyalty to the gang. I confess I was disappointed in you--and I count you my right-hand man."

The speech of the educated man, in Mr. Zurich, was overlaid with colloquialism and strange idiom, made a second tongue by long familiarity.

"Your left-hand man!" Dewing made the correction with great composure.

"You come to me to help you, because, though you claim all the discredit for your left-handed activities, I furnish a good half of the brains.

And I blabbed--as you so elegantly phrased it--because I am far too intelligent to bite a bulldog for a bone. Our friends in the Gavilan pride themselves on their nerve. They are fighting men, if you please--very fearless and gallant. That suits me. I am no gentleman.

Quite the contrary. I am very intelligent, as afore-said. It was the part of prudence--"

"That is a very good word--prudence." The interpolation came from tall Eric.

"A very good word," a.s.sented the gambler, unmoved. "It was the part of prudence to let our valiant friends and servants pull these chestnuts from the fire, as aforetime. To become the corpse of a copper king is a prospect that holds no attractions for me."

"But why--why on earth--did you insist on employing men you now distrust?

you bewilder me, Dewing," declared Zurich. "What's the idea--to swindle yourself?"

"You will do me the justice to remember," observed Dewing with a thin-lipped smile, "that I urged upon you, repeatedly and most strongly, as a desirable preliminary to our operations, to remove Mr. Peter Johnson from this unsatisfactory world without any formal declaration of war."

"I won't do it!" declared Zurich bluntly. "And--d.a.m.n you--you shan't do it! He's a dangerous old bow-legged person, and I wish he was farther. And I must admit that I am myself most undesirous for any personal bickering with him. To hear Jim Scarboro relate it, old Pete is one wiz with a six-gun. All the same, I'll not let him be shot from ambush. He's too good for that. I draw the line there. I'm not exactly afraid of the little old wasp, either, when it comes down to cases; but I have great respect for him. I'll never agree to meet him on a tight rope over Niagara and make him turn back; and if I have any trouble with him he's got to bring it to me. You have no monopoly of prudence."

"There it is, you see!" Something Dewing spread out his fine hands. "You made no allowance for my loyalty and I made none for your scruples. As a result, Mr. Johnson has established a stalemate, held a parley, and bought off our warriors. They've been taken in on the copper find, on some small sharing, while we, in quite another sense of the word, are simply taken in. Such," observed Mr. Dewing philosophically, "is the result of inopportune virtues."

"Bos.h.!.+ I told you all along," said Anderson heavily, "that there's no mineral in the Gavilan. I've been over every foot of it--and I'm a miner.

We get no news because no man makes haste to announce his folly. You'll see!"

"Creede and Cripple Creek had been prospected over and over again before they struck it there," objected Zurich.

"Silver and gold!" retorted Eric scornfully. "This is copper. Copper advertises. No, sir! I'll tell you what's happened. There's been no battle, and no treachery, and no mine found. We've been trapped. That Gavilan location was a fake, stuck up to draw our fire. We've tipped our hand. Mr. Johnson can now examine the plans of mice or men that your combined sagacities have so obligingly placed face upward before him, and decide his policies at his leisure. If I were in his shoes, this is what I would be at: I'd tell my wondrous tale to big money. And then I would employ very many stranger men accustomed to arms; and when I went after that mine, I would place under guard any reasonable and obliging travelers I met, and establish a graveyard for the headstrong. And that's what Johnson will do. He'll go to the Coast for capital, at the same time sendin' young Stanley back to his native East on the same errand."

"You may be right," said Zurich, somewhat staggered. "If you are, their find must be a second Verde or Cananea, or they would never have taken a precaution so extraordinary as a false location. What on earth can have happened to rouse their suspicions to that extent?"

"Man, I wonder at you!" said tall Eric. "You put trust in your brains, your money, and your standing to hold you unstained by all your left-handed business. You expect no man to take heed of you, when the reek of it smells to high heaven. Well, you deceive yourself the more.

These things get about; and they are none so un.o.bserving a people, south of the Gila, where 't is fair life or death to them to note betweenwhiles all manner of small things--the set of a pack, the tongue of a buckle, the cleat of a mine ladder. And your persecution of young Stanley, now.

Was you expectin' that to go unremarked? 'T is that has made Peter Johnson shy of all bait. 'T was a sorry business from the first--hazing that boy; I take shame to have hand in it. And for every thousand of that dirty money we now stand to lose a million."

"'T was a piker's game," sneered Dewing. "Not worth the trouble and risk.

We had about three thousand from Zurich to split between us; little enough. Of course Zurich kept his share, the lion's share."

"You got the middleman's chunk, at any rate," retorted Zurich.

"I did the middleman's work," said the gambler tranquilly. "Now, gentlemen, we have not been agreeing very well of late. Eric, in particular, has been far from flattering in his estimates of my social and civic value. We are agreed on that? Very well. I may have mentioned my intelligence? And that I rate it highly? Yes? Very well, then. I shall now demonstrate that my self-appraisal was justified by admitting that my judgment on this occasion was at fault. Eric's theories as to our delayed news from our expedition are sound; they work out; they prove themselves.

The same is true of his very direct and lucid statement as to the nature and cause of the difficulties which now beset us. I now make the direct appeal to you, Eric: As a candid man or mouse, what would you do next?"

Tall Eric bent his brows darkly at the gambler.

"If you mean that I fear the man Johnson at all, why do you not use tongue and lips to say that same? I am not greatly chafed by an open enemy, but I am no great hand to sit down under a mock."

"It was your own word--the mice," said Dewing. "But this time you take me wrongly. I meant no mockery. I ask you, in good faith, for your opinion.

What ought to be done to retrieve the false step?"

"Could we find this treasure-trove by a painstaking search of the hills?"

asked Zurich doubtfully. "It's a biggish country."

"Man," said Eric, "I've prospected out there for fifteen years and I've scarce made a beginning. If we're to find Johnson's strike before Johnson makes a path to it, we have a month, at most. Find it, says you? Sure, we might find it. But if we do it will be by blind fool-hog luck and not by painstakin' search. Do you search, if you like. My word would be to try negotiations. Make a compromise with Johnson. And if your prudence does not like the errand, I will even take it upon myself."

"What is there to compromise? We have nothing to contribute."

"We have safety to sell," said Eric. "Seek out the man and state the case baldly: 'Sir, we have protection to sell, without which your knowledge is worthless, or near it. Protection from ourselves and all others. Make treaty with us; allot to us, jointly, some share, which you shall name yourself, and we will deal justly by you. So shall you avoid delay. You may avoid some risk. _Quien sabe?_ If you refuse we shall truly endeavor to be interestin'; and you may get nothing.' That's what I would say."

"A share, to be named by Johnson and then be divided between ten? Well, I guess not!" declared Zurich. "To begin with, we'll find a way to stop Kid Mitch.e.l.l from any Eastern trip. Capital is shy; I'm not much afraid of what Johnson can do. But this boy has the inside track."

"With my usual astuteness," remarked Something Dewing, "I had divined as much. And there is another string to our bow if we make a complete failure of this mine business--as would seem to be promised by the Gavilan fiasco. When such goodly sums are expended to procure the downfall of Kid Mitch.e.l.l--an event as yet unexpectedly delayed--there's money in it somewhere. Big money! I know it. And I mean to touch some of it. My unknown benefactor shall have my every a.s.sistance to attain his h.e.l.lish purpose--h.e.l.lish purpose, I believe, is the phrase proper to the complexion of this affair. Then, to use the words of the impulsive Hotspur, slightly altered to suit the occasion, I'll creep upon him while he lies asleep, and in his ear I'll whisper--Snooks!"

"You don't know where he lives," said Zurich.

"Ah, but you do! I beg your pardon, Zurich--perhaps in my thoughtlessness I have wounded you. I used the wrong p.r.o.noun. I did not mean to say 'I'--much less 'you'--in reference to who should hollo 'Halves!' to our sleeping benefactor. 'We' was the word I should have used."

Zurich regarded Mr. Dewing in darkling silence; and that gentleman, in no way daunted, continued gayly:

"I see that the same idea has shadowed itself to you. You must consider us--Eric and I--equals in that enterprise, friend Mayer. Three good friends together. I begin to fear we have sadly underestimated Eric--you and I. By our own admission--and his--he is a better fighting man than either of us. You wouldn't want to displease him."

"I think you go about it in an ill way to remedy a mistake, Dewing," said Zurich. "Don't let's be silly enough to fall out over one chance gone wrong. We've got all we can attend to right now, without such a folly as that. Don't mind him, Eric. Tell me, rather, what we are going to do about this troublesome Johnson? Violence is out of the question: we need him to show us where he found that copper. Besides, it isn't safe to kill old Pete, and it never has been safe to kill old Pete. As for the Kid, I'll do what I have been urged to do this long time by the personage who takes so kindly an interest in his fortunes--I'll railroad him off to jail, at least till we get that mine or until it is, beyond question, lost to us. It isn't wise to let him go East; he might get hold of unlimited money. If he did, forewarned as he is now, Johnson would fix it so we shouldn't have a look-in. You turn this over and let me know your ideas."

"And that reminds me," said Dewing with smooth insolence, equally maddening to both hearers, "that Eric's ideas have been notably justified of late; whereas your ideas--and mine--have been stupid blunders from first to last. You see me at a stand, friend Mayer, doubtful if it were not the part of wisdom to transfer my obedience to Eric hereafter."

"For every word of that, Johnson would pay you a gold piece, and have a rare bargain of it." Zurich's voice was hard; his eye was hard. "Is this a time for quarreling among ourselves? There may be millions at stake, for all we know, and you would set us at loggerheads in a fit of spleen, like a little peevish boy. I'm ashamed of you! Get your horse and ride off the sulks. If you feel spiteful, take it out on Johnson. Get yourself a pack outfit and go find his mine."

"I'm no prospector," said the gambler disdainfully.

"No. I will tell you what you are." Tall Eric rose and towered above Dewing at the window; the sun streamed on his bright hair, "You are a crack-brained fool to tempt my hands to your throat! You will do it once too often yet. You a prospector? You never saw the day you had the makin's of a prospector in you."

"Let other men do the work and take the risk while I take the gain, and it's little I care for your opinion," rejoined Dewing. "And you would do well to keep your hands from my throat when my hand is in my coat pocket--as is the case at this present instant."

"This thing has gone far enough," said Zurich. "Anderson, come back and sit down. Dewing, go and fork that horse of yours and ride the black devil out of your heart."

"I have a thing to say, first," said Eric. "Dewing, you sought to begowk me by setting me up against Zurich--or perhaps you really thought to use me against him. Well, you won't! When we want the information about the man that has been harryin' young Mitch.e.l.l, Zurich will tell us. We know too much about Zurich for him to deny us our askings. But, for your mock at me, I want you both to know two things: The first is, I desire no heads.h.i.+p for myself; the second is this--I take Zurich's orders because I think he has the best head, as a usual thing; and I follow those orders exactly so far as I please, and no step more. I am mean and worthless because I choose to be and not at all because Mayer Zurich led me astray.

Got that, now?"

"If you're quite through," said Dewing, "I'll take that ride."

The door closed behind him.

"Disappointed! Had his mouth fixed for a million or so, and didn't get it; couldn't stand the gaff; made him ugly," said Zurich slowly. "And when Dewing is ugly he is unbearable; absolutely the limit."

"Isn't he?" agreed Eric in disgust. "Enough to make a man turn honest."