"Hot foot to the devil."

"Your recognition of the fact does you credit, even if the perception is a little tardy. I think you will further recognise the fact that I take a hand none too soon." The mask on Hartwell's face grew denser.

"I recognise the fact very clearly that, until you came, the fork of the trail was before me. Now it is behind and--we are on the wrong split."

"Precisely. I have come to that conclusion myself. In order to act wisely, I a.s.sume that it will be best to get a clear idea of conditions, and then we can select a remedy for those that are making against us. Do you agree?"

"I withhold a.s.sent until I know just what I am expected to a.s.sent to."

Hartwell looked annoyed. "Shall I go on?" he asked, impatiently.

"Perhaps your caution will allow that."

Firmstone nodded. He did not care to trust himself to words.

"Before we made our contract with you to a.s.sume charge of our properties out here I told you very plainly the difficulties under which we had hitherto laboured, and that I trusted that you would find means to remedy them. After six months' trial, in which we have allowed you a perfectly free hand, can you conscientiously say that you have bettered our prospects?"

Hartwell paused; but Firmstone kept silence.

"Have you nothing to say to this?" Hartwell finally burst out.

"At present, no." Firmstone spoke with decision.

"When will you have?" Hartwell asked.

"When you are through with your side."

Hartwell felt annoyed at what he considered Firmstone's obstinacy.

"Well," he said; "then I shall have to go my own gait. You can't complain if it doesn't suit you. In your reports to the company you have complained of the complete disorganisation which you found here. That this disorganisation resulted in inefficiency of labour, that the mine was run down, the mill a wreck, and, worst of all, that there was stealing going on which prevented the richest ore reaching the mill, and that even the products of the mill were stolen. You laid the stealing to the door of the Blue Goose. You stated for fact things which you acknowledged you could not prove. That the proprietor of the Blue Goose was striving to stir up revolt among the men, to organise them into a union in order that through this organised union the Blue Goose might practically control the mine and rob the company right and left. You pointed out that in your opinion many of the men, even in the organisation, were honest; that it was only a scheme on the part of Morrison and Pierre to dupe the men, to blind their eyes so that, believing themselves imposed on and robbed by the company, they would innocently furnish the opportunity for the Blue Goose to carry on its system of plundering."

Firmstone's steady gaze never flinched, as Hartwell swept on with his arraignment.

"In all your reports, you have without exception laid the blame upon your predecessors, upon others outside the company. Never in a single instance have you expressed a doubt as to your own conduct of affairs.

The a.s.sumed robbery of the stage I will pa.s.s by. Other points I shall dwell upon. You trust no one. You have demonstrated that to the men. You give orders at the mine, and instead of trusting your foremen to see that they are carried out you almost daily insist upon inspecting their work and interfering with it. The same thing I find to be true at the mill. Day and night you pounce in upon them. Now let me ask you this. If you understand men, if you know your business thoroughly, ought you not to judge whether the men are rendering an equivalent for their pay, without subjecting them to the humiliation of constant espionage?" He looked fixedly at Firmstone, as he ended his arraignment.

Firmstone waited, if perchance Hartwell had not finished.

"Is your case all in?" he finally asked.

"For the present, yes." Hartwell snapped his jaws together decidedly.

"Then I'll start."

"Wait a moment, right there," Hartwell interrupted.

"No. I will not wait. I am going right on. You've been informing yourself generally. Now I'm going to inform you particularly. In the first place, how did you find out that I had been subjecting the men to this humiliating espionage, as you call it?" Firmstone waited for a reply.

"I don't know that I am under obligations to answer that question,"

Hartwell replied, stiffly.

"Then I'll answer it for you. You've been to my foremen, my shift bosses, my workmen; you've been, above all other places, to the Blue Goose. You've been to anyone and everyone whose interest it is to weaken my authority and to render me powerless to combat the very evils of which you complain."

Hartwell started to interrupt; but Firmstone waved him to silence.

"This is a vital point. One thing more: instead of acquiring information as to the conditions that confront me and about my method of handling them, you go to my enemies, get their opinions and, what is worse, act upon them as your own."

"Wait a minute right there." Hartwell spoke imperiously. "You speak of 'my foremen' and 'my shift bosses.' They are not your men; they are ours. We pay them, and we are going to see to it that we get an equivalent return, in any way we think advisable." Hartwell ignored Firmstone's last words.

"That may be your position. If it is it is not a wise one, and, what is more, it is not tenable. You put me out here to manage your business, and you hold me responsible for results. I ask from you the same consideration I give to my foremen. I do not hire a single man at the mine or mill; my foremen attend to that. I give my orders direct to my foremen, and hold them strictly responsible. The men are responsible to my foremen, my foremen are responsible to me, and I in turn am wholly responsible to you. If in one single point you interfere with my organisation I not only decline to a.s.sume any responsibility whatever, but, farther, I shall tender my resignation at once."

Hartwell listened impatiently, but nevertheless Firmstone's words were not without effect. They appealed to his judgment as being justified; but to accept them and act upon them meant a repudiation of his own course. For this he was not ready. In addition to his vanity, Hartwell had an abiding faith in his own shrewdness. He was casting about in his mind for a plausible delay which would afford him time to retreat from his position without a confession of defeat. He could find none.

Firmstone had presented a clean-cut ultimatum. He was in an unpleasant predicament. Some one would have to be sacrificed. He was wholly determined that it should not be himself. Perhaps after all it would be better to arrange as best he might with Firmstone, rather than have it go farther.

"It seems to me, Firmstone, as if you were going altogether too fast.

There's no use jumping. Why not talk this over sensibly?"

"There is only one thing to be considered. If you are going to manage this place I am going to put it beyond your power even to make me appear responsible."

"You forget your contract with us," Hartwell interposed.

"I do not forget it. If you discharge me, or force me to resign, I still demand a hearing."

Hartwell was disturbed, and his manner showed it. Firmstone presented two alternatives. Forcing a choice of either of them would bring unpleasant consequences upon himself. Was it necessary to force the choice?

"Suppose I do neither?" he asked.

"That will not avert the consequences of what you have already done."

"Are you determined to resign?" Hartwell asked, uneasily.

"That is not what I meant."

"What did you mean, then?"

"This. Before you came out, I had things well in hand. In another month I would have had control of the men, and the property would have been paying a good dividend. As it is now----" Firmstone waved his hand, as if to dismiss a useless subject.

"Well, what now?" Hartwell asked, after a pause.

"It has to be done all over again, only under greater difficulties, the outcome of which I cannot foresee."

"To what difficulties do you refer?" Firmstone's manner disturbed Hartwell.

"The men were getting settled. Now you have played into the hands of two of the most unscrupulous rascals in Colorado. Between you, you've got the men stirred up to a point where a strike is inevitable." For a time, Hartwell was apparently crushed by Firmstone's unanswerable logic, as well as by his portentous forecasts. He could not but confess to himself that his course of action looked very different under Firmstone's a.n.a.lysis than from his own standpoint alone. He drummed his fingers listlessly on the desk before him. He was all but convinced that he might have been wrong in his judgment of Firmstone, after all. Then Pierre's suggestions came to him like a flash.

"You are aware, of course, that I shall have to make a full report of the accident to the stage to our directors?"

"I made a report of all the facts in the case, at the time. Of course, if you have discovered other facts, they will have to be given in addition."

Hartwell continued, paying no attention to Firmstone.