Mr. Opp looked pleased but embarra.s.sed. "I can't deny there is a young lady," he said; "but she is quite young as yet. In fact, I don't mind telling you she's just about half my age."

Hinton, instead of putting two and two together, added eighteen to eighteen. "And you are about thirty-six?" he asked.

"Exactly," said Mr. Opp, surprised. "I am most generally considered a long sight younger."

From matrimony the conversation drifted to oil-wells, then to journalism, and finally to a philosophical discussion of life itself.

Mr. Opp got beyond his depth again and again, and at times he became so absorbed that he gave a very poor imitation of himself, and showed signs of humility that were rarely if ever visible.

Hinton meantime was taking soundings, and sometimes his plummet stopped where it started, and sometimes it dropped to an unexpected depth.

"Well," he said at last, rising, "we must go to bed. You'll go on climbing a ladder in the air, and I'll go on burrowing like a mole in the ground, and what is the good of it all? What chance have either of us for coming out anywhere? You can fool yourself; I can't: that's the difference."

Mr. Opp's unusual mental exertions had apparently affected his entire body, his legs were tightly wrapped about each other, his arms were locked, and his features were drawn into an amazing pucker of protest.

"That ain't it," he said emphatically, struggling valiantly to express his conviction: "this here life business ain't run on any such small scale as that. According to my notion, or understanding, it's--well--what you might call, in military figures, a fight." He paused a moment and tied himself if possible even into a tighter knot, then proceeded slowly, groping his way: "Of course there's some that just remains around in camp, afraid to fight and afraid to desert, just sort of indulging in conversation, you might say, about the rest of the army. Then there is the cowards and deserters. But a decent sort of a individual, or rather soldier, carries his orders around with him, and the chief and princ.i.p.al thing he's got to do is to follow them. What the fight is concerning, or in what manner the general is a-aiming to bring it all correct in the end, ain't, according to my conclusion, a particle of our business."

Having arrived at this point of the discussion in a somewhat heated and indignant state, Mr. Opp suddenly remembered his duties as host. With a lordly wave of the hand he dismissed the subject, and conducted Hinton in state to his bed-chamber, where he insisted upon lighting the fire and arranging the bed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "It was Mr. Opp saying his prayers"]

Hinton sat for a long time before undressing, listening to the wind in the chimney, to the sc.r.a.pe, sc.r.a.pe of the cedar on the roof, and to the yet more dismal sounds that were echoing in his heart. Everything about the old house spoke of degeneration, decay; yet in the midst of it lived a man who asked no odds of life, who took what came, and who lived with a zest, an abandon, a courage that were baffling. Self-deception, egotism, cheap optimism--could they bring a man to this state of mind?

Hinton wondered bitterly what Opp would do in his position; suppose his sight was threatened, how far would his foolish self-delusion serve him then?

But he could not imagine Mr. Opp, lame, halt, or blind, giving up the fight. There was that in the man--egotism, courage, whatever it was--that would never recognize defeat, that quality that wins out of a life of losing the final victory.

Before he retired, Hinton found there was no drinking water in his room, and, remembering a pitcher full in the dining-room, he took the candle and softly opened his door. The sudden cold draft from the hall made the candle flare, but as it steadied, Hinton saw that an old cot had been placed across the door opposite his, as if on guard, and that beside it knelt an ungainly figure in white, with his head clasped in his hands.

It was Mr. Opp saying his prayers.

XII

The visit of the capitalists marked the beginning of a long and profitable spell of insomnia for the Cove. The little town had gotten a gnat in its eye when Mr. Opp arrived, and now that it had become involved in a speculation that threatened to develop into a boom, it found sleep and tranquillity a thing of the past.

The party of investigators had found such remarkable conditions that they were eager to buy up the ground at once; but they met with unexpected opposition.

At a meeting which will go down to posterity in the annals of Cove City, the Turtle Creek Land Company, piloted by the intrepid Mr. Opp, had held its course against persuasion, threats, and bribes. There was but one plank in the company's platform, and that was a determination not to sell. To this plank they clung through the storm of opposition, through the trying calm of indifference that followed, until a truce was declared.

Finally an agreement was reached by which the Turtle Creek Land Company was to lease its ground to the capitalists, receive a given per cent. of the oil produced, and maintain the right to buy stock up to a large and impossible amount at any time during the ensuing year.

Close upon this contract came men and machinery to open up a test well.

For weeks hauling was done up the creek bottom, there being no road leading to the oil spring where the first drilling was to be done.

The town watched the operations with alternate scorn and interest. It was facetious when water and quicksands were encountered, and inclined to be sarcastic when work was suspended on account of the weather. But one day, after the pipe had been driven to a considerable depth and the rock below had been drilled for six inches, the drill suddenly fell into a crevice, and upon investigation the hole was found to be nearly full of petroleum.

The Cove promptly went into a state of acute hysteria. Speculation spread like the measles, breaking out in all manner of queer and unexpected places. Everybody who could command a dollar promptly converted it into oil stock. Miss Jim Fenton borrowed money from her cousin in the city, and plunged recklessly; the Missionary Band raffled off three quilts and bought a share with the proceeds; Mr. Tucker foreclosed two mortgages on life-long friends in order to raise more money; while the amount of stock purchased by Mr. D. Webster Opp was limited only by his credit at the bank.

The one note of warning that was sounded came from Mrs. Fallows, who sat on the porch of Your Hotel, and, like the Greek Chorus, foretold the disasters that would befall, and prophesied nothing but evil for the entire enterprise. Even the urbane Jimmy became ruffled by her insistent iteration, and declared that she "put him in mind of a darned old whip-o'-will."

But Mrs. Fallows's piping note was lost in the gale of enthusiasm.

Farmers coming into town on Sat.u.r.day became infected and carried the fever into the country. The entire community suspended business to discuss the exciting situation.

These were champagne days for Mr. Opp. Life seemed one long, sparkling, tingling draft and he was drinking it to Guinevere. If her eyes drooped and she met his smile with a sigh, he saw it not, for the elixir had gone to his head.

Compelled to find some outlet for his energy, he took advantage of the Cove's unwonted animation and plunged into munic.i.p.al reform. "The Opp Eagle" demanded streets, it demanded lamp-posts, it demanded temperance.

The right of pigs to take their daily siesta in the middle of Main Street was questioned and fiercely denied. Dry-goods boxes, which for years had been the only visible means of support for divers youths of indolent nature, were held up to such scathing ridicule that the owners were forced to remove them.

The policies suggested by Mr. Opp, the editor, were promptly acted upon by Mr. Opp, the citizen. So indignant did he become when he read his own editorials that nothing short of immediate action was to be considered.

He arranged a reform party and appointed himself leader. Mat Lucas, he made Superintendent of Streets; Mr. Gallop, chairman of the Committee on City Lights. In fact, he formed enough committees to manage a Presidential campaign.

The att.i.tude of the town toward him was that of a large lump of dough to a small cake of yeast. It was willing to be raised, but doubtful of the motive power.

"I'd feel surer," said Jimmy Fallows, "if his intellect was the standard size. It appears so big to him he can't get his language ready-made; he has to have it made to order."

But since the successful management of the oil-wells, Mr. Opp's opinion was more and more considered. In the course of a short time the office of "The Opp Eagle" became the hub about which the township revolved.

One afternoon in March the editor was sitting before his deal table, apparently in the most violent throes of editorial composition.

Nick, who was impatiently waiting for copy, had not dared to speak for an hour, for fear of slipping a cog in the intricate machinery of creation. The constant struggle to supply "The Opp Eagle" with sufficient material to enable it to fly every Thursday was telling upon the staff; he was becoming irritable.

"Well?" he said impatiently, as Mr. Opp finished the tenth page and gathered the large sheets into his hand.

"Yes, yes, to be sure," said Mr. Opp, guiltily; "I am at your disposal.

Just finishing a little private correspondence of a personal nature that couldn't wait over."

"Ain't that copy?" demanded Nick, fixing him with an indignant eye.

"Well, no," said Mr. Opp, uneasily. "The fact is, I haven't been able to accomplish any regular editorial this week. Unusual pressure of outside business and--er--"

"How long is she going to stay down in Coreyville?" Nick asked, with a contemptuous curl of his lip.

Mr. Opp paused in the act of addressing the envelop, and gave Nick a look that was designed to scorch.

"May I inquire to who you refer?" he asked with dignity.

Nick's eyes dropped, and he shuffled his feet. "I just wanted to put it in the paper. We got to fill up with something."

"Well," said Mr. Opp, slightly conciliated, "you can mention that she has gone back to attend the spring term at the Young Ladies' Seminary."

"Gone back to school again?" exclaimed Nick, unable to control his curiosity. "What for?"

"To attend the spring term," repeated Mr. Opp, guardedly. Then he added in a burst of confidence: "Nick, has it ever occurred to you that Mrs.

Gusty was what you might term a peculiar woman?"

But Nick was not interested in the psychological idiosyncrasies of the Gusty family. "The Opp Eagle" was crying for food, and Nick would have sacrificed himself and his chief to fill the vacancy.

"See here, Mr. Opp, do you know what day it is? It's Monday, and we've got two columns to fill. New subscriptions are coming in all the time.