The Westerners Part 25

During the three days' duration of their stay, the Easterners looked at facts, incomprehensible to the eyes of such as they, through the explanations, honest enough in intention, of Billy Knapp. He led them, perspiring but pleased, from prospect to prospect, from shaft to shaft, from hill to hill. He showed them leads, fissure veins, red quartz, white quartz, water supplies, timberings, hanging walls, country rock, pan tests, and he talked about it all with that easy fluency of eloquence, that flattering a.s.sumption of the other man's sophistication, which is so peculiarly a talent--nay, a genius--of the Westerner.

Some trades there are for which all men imagine themselves qualified without especial training--such as horse buying, writing stories, judging pictures, and mining. This is a little strange when one reflects that other things, such as painting, skating, keeping accounts, or making a horseshoe, while not a whit more difficult, are acknowledged to require a certain amount of technical education and practice. Perhaps it is because the initial concept is so simple; as, in this case, the digging of ore from the ground, and the reduction of it. Details come, not from observation, but from actual experience.

Anybody, on the other hand, can see, without understanding, the complexity of double-entry bookkeeping.

On the afternoon of the third day, the Easterners, Billy Knapp, and Michal Lafond gathered formally to talk it over. The latter contrived to be included because he was a man of experience. After some little preliminary discussion, in which the Easterners showed by their airy familiarity with the topic just how much of the local color had soaked in, Stevens rapped on the table.

"Although this is not strictly a business meeting," he began, "perhaps we can get at what we want better by putting some little formality into its discussions. The question before us is this: Mr. Knapp here possesses certain property which he wishes to dispose of. We have been over it thoroughly in the last few days, we have examined the figures relating to its a.s.says and the gross value of the claims. They have been satisfactory. We have next, as it seems to me, to figure on the probable working expense, in order that we may, with some intelligence, estimate the margin of profit." He sorted over some papers on the table before him. "Let us take up the Great Snake lode first. What, in your idea, would be necessary for its development?"

"Wall," began Billy, rising formally. "They is practically two leads on th' Great Snake; an' if you-all decides to work 'em both, you'd want a shaft on each. A plain-timbered shaft costs you yere about twenty to twenty-five dollars a foot. Then you needs cross-cuts, and drif's at about five or ten a foot besides--that includes everythin'--men, tools, powder. Then yore pump an' hoist is worth about two or three thousan'.

includin' minin' expenses for two months. That's all th' actual expense connected with th' Great Snake itself; but of course you has to have yore stamp mill and washer for all the group of claims. A good stamp mill costs you ten thousan' dollars, but it's good forever."

"How much shaft and tunnel would you have to sink before getting to a paying basis?" asked Frank briefly.

"That would depen'. You wants to get to water level, of course, afore yore sh.o.r.e; but it might pay right squar' from th' surface. Count on a hunderd foot."

"And when you get to pay level, what capacity a day would you have?"

Billy laughed. "That depen's too. You can put on more or less men.

Call her from fifteen to twenty ton a day."

They bent their heads together over the figures. After a little Stevens read the following tabulation:--

2 shafts of 100 feet each @ 20.00 . . . . . . . $4,000.00 Cross-cuts and drifts, say . . . . . . . . . . . 1,200.00 Pump and hoist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000.00 1-10 of the cost of mill (there were ten claims) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000.00 -------- Initial expense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $8,200.00

"That thar figger," observed Billy, "brings her right up to date without no squealin' whatever. Yere you figgers on taking good hard rock out of four hunderd foot of tunnel an' shaft. Lots of that is pay quartz. You got to figger that you gets some return out of it all.

They's a good many ton of ore in four hundred foot of shaft!"

"That is true," said Murphy. "There won't be eight thousand outlay without any return."

"Yore dead right!" agreed Billy.

"Let that go for now," interrupted Stevens. "We can call that 'velvet.' Now what we want to know is, what will be the working expense of converting the ore into gold when the initial expense is over?"

"Call her about five dollars," replied Billy promptly.

Stevens consulted the a.s.say table. "The ore on the Great Snake as shown by samples taken from various spots in the prospect shaft averages $8.55," said he. He figured for a moment. "Allow $3.00 a ton profit at twenty tons a day, it would take only a little over four months to catch the initial expense."

"Of course there's your running expenses of a camp," suggested Frank.

"Oh yes, but look at the margin to cover them."

They went on to the next, and the next, until the ten claims were all figured over. Not all showed as alluring a prospect as the Great Snake, for that was admittedly the banner claim of the group, but all yielded a good margin of profit. It was simple as a proposition in algebra. a.s.say value minus cost of production equals profits. There was no unknown quant.i.ty in sight. Lafond alone saw one, and he held his peace.

One more item the Easterners had to include, and this, falling within their business habits, and out of Billy's, they arranged to their own satisfaction. It was Billy's price for his claims.

"Now what are your ideas on the subject, Mr. Knapp?" asked Stevens briskly.

Billy hesitated. "Mebbe it's funny," he confessed; "but I hadn't settled on a price. I know you gentlemen 'll do what is right. But I would like to stay with her a bit."

"Stay with her?"

"Yes," explained Billy, embarra.s.sed. "Keep a holt; sort to be interested myself, you know." There spoke Billy's vanity.

The three talked together low-voiced for a moment. They had conceived a vast respect for Billy's capacity in the West, however unsophisticated he might appear in the East; and they had long before talked out in antic.i.p.ation just this point. Stevens voiced their decision.

"We have decided, Mr. Knapp," he began, "to ask you to be our superintendent, provided of course the company is formed. We feel sure that your best efforts will be expended in our behalf, because your interests will be ours." Then he went on briefly to flatter Billy exceedingly, until that individual was ready to weep with joy. "Our proposition is this," he concluded. "We intend to form a stock company of two hundred thousand shares at one dollar a share, non-a.s.sessable.

Of this amount a majority will be held by the promoters of the company, some other smaller amount will remain in the treasury, and, say, fifty thousand will be floated on the market. Our offer is, to make you superintendent at a nominal salary of five thousand, and to give you in addition thirty thousand promoter's shares as your price of the claims.

These shares you may either sell or keep. Thus you may either take a certain sum of money, or you may pool your interests with ours, confident that every good showing made by you as superintendent will increase the value of your holding as partic.i.p.ator in the enterprise.

In other words it gives you a personal interest in your work here.

What do you say?"

"Heads I win, tails you lose," said Lafond over in the corner, but he said it under his breath.

To Billy it was all gorgeous. He saw only that he was offered thirty thousand dollars and five thousand a year, in addition to keeping the position of prominence he coveted. To him the paper dollar shares looked as good as paper dollar bills.

"What do I say?" he cried, "I say 'put her thar,' and thank you. Let's go have a drink!"

So the meeting adjourned, wonderfully inspirited, especially Michal Lafond, for at last he saw a chance.

As he looked up at the stars that night before turning in, he made a quaint little sign on high. It was the Indian gesture of wors.h.i.+p.

"Lafond," he purred to himself, "you are a fool for luck. Rippling Water used to say you were born under a lucky star, and by the Turtle, I believe she was right!"

For though the Easterners thought they had done well in paying Billy with a paper futurity, Lafond saw two sides to the question. The meeting had been conducted, apparently, in the most business-like and painstaking manner, yet it was to be noted that the fundamental facts, the facts on whose accuracy depended the whole value of the subsequent figuring, were accepted on Billy's mere say-so, without an attempt at outside verification. Billy was honest, but he was superficial. His temperament did not force him to search out the little details.

Michal Lafond was in the habit of searching them out very thoroughly.

He saw that one claim, because of its peculiar situation, would require an ore bin of equally peculiar construction; that it might perhaps be necessary to flume water to another; that a third, though its surface showing was good, gave indications of being nothing but a blow-out; that though the a.s.say of a certain ore was high, the actual working value might be low, because of the refractory character of the rock.

In regard to mere externals of camp-building, his experience taught him that the Easterners' estimate would turn out to be superficial. His view from the inside showed him that every last article of equipment for the buildings, and every pound of machinery, would have to be brought in on mules; that men might not always be easy to get in a new country; that hay for horses came from a distant prairie, at prices that corresponded to the distance; that the enthusiastic promoter is rarely or never the careful, painstaking superintendent. And so with a hundred other items, which the Easterners had entirely overlooked. It is marvellous that they should have done so. Translate gold into b.u.t.ton hooks, the Hills into a factory, Billy Knapp into an impecunious small proprietor anxious to sell, and not one of the three would have gone into the affair so blindly. But it is true. And more, the history of this operation at Copper Creek is the faithful history of a myriad of exactly similar enterprises in the West. Ask your broker friend, or anyone in a position to watch the floating of schemes on Change; he will tell you.

Having settled the business of the trip, the Easterners spent a few ridiculously juvenile days in pleasure. Billy worked himself nearly blind to get them a shot at deer, but without success. They visited Custer. On their way back to the railroad, they took in the Pine Ridge Reservation, where they saw five thousand Sioux, and bought beaded moccasins and short ill-made arrows. Finally they piled on the Pullman, vastly pleased with their sunburn, and a little inclined to swagger in the presence of these clean-shaven, quietly civilized travellers who had not just left the exciting dangers of a pioneer country.

Billy accompanied them. His presence was necessary in Chicago where the new company was to be "floated" and its final organization brought about.

None of the results of the visit were as yet known officially, but of course a well verified rumor had got about that the Easterners were really going to "take hold" and every man in camp was at the hotel door to bid the visitors farewell. Michal Lafond was the last man at the hub of the wheel before the horses started.

"I am glad you came," said he, holding Stevens' hand while he spoke, "and I am glad you are going to invest here. It will help us all, and I sincerely hope it will help you."

Stevens looked at him suddenly, as if to discover whether the lack of confidence in the words was reflected in the man's face. Apparently satisfied, he replied easily, "Course it will."

"Always figure on the safe side," suggested Lafond.

"You're dead right there," responded the other, "and that is just what we've done. We've put down that fifty thousand as dead clear outlay for a starter, without any offsets by way of return, and surely some of that ore will pay something before we get down two hundred feet. Oh, we're all right on that. You'll see us booming before spring!"

Lafond watched the wagon out of sight with a smile in his inscrutable eyes. Then he went down to spend his afternoon with Durand, humming the remnants of a little Canadian _chanson_.

"A fool for luck," he repeated to himself; "a regular fool for luck, Lafond. All you have to do is to sit right still, and it comes to you without the effort on your part."