CHAPTER V

WHEREIN POWER TRAVELS EAST

One summer's day at high noon a man rode into Bison from the direction of the railway, and, judging by the critical yet interested glances he cast right and left while his drowsy mustang plodded through the dust, he seemed to be appraising recent developments keenly. As the horseman was Francis Willard, and as this was the first time he had visited Bison since leaving the ranch, there were many novelties to repay his scrutiny. The number of houses had been nearly doubled, the store had swollen proportionately, not to mention the Bison Hotel, which had sprung into being on the site of the ramshackle lean-to where once MacGonigal's patrons had stabled their "plugs," and a roomy omnibus rumbled to and fro in the main street before and after the departure of every train from the depot.

These unerring signs of prosperity spoke volumes; but it was only when the rider drew rein near the mouth of the Gulch that he was able to note the full measure of Bison's progress. Deep in a hollow to the left were two mills instead of one, and the noise of ore-crunching rolls was quadrupled in volume. Two long rows of recently erected cyanide vats betokened the increased output of the mine, and, even while Willard sat there, gazing moodily at a scene almost strange to his vision, an engine snorted by, seemingly hauling a dozen loaded trucks, but in reality exerting its panting energy to restrain the heavily freighted cars from taking headlong charge of the downward pa.s.sage. Another engine, heading a similar string of empty wagons, was evidently on the point of making the ascent; so Willard jogged an unwilling pony into movement again, and entered the Gulch.

Beyond the two sets of rails, nothing new caught his eye here until he had rounded the curve leading to the watershed. Then he came in sight of the original entrance to the mine--a shaft was being sunk nearly three-quarters of a mile away, but he was not aware of that at the moment--and noticed that a stout man, jauntily arrayed in a white canvas suit and brown boots, who had a cigar tucked into a corner of his mouth, had strolled out of a pretentious-looking office building, and was obviously surprised by the appearance of a mounted man in that place at that moment.

MacGonigal had, in fact, recognized Willard the instant he swung into view, because none of the ranchers rode that way nowadays, a more circuitous but safer trail having been cut to avoid the rails.

Mac had certainly remarked that he was dog-goned when he set eyes on Willard, and a similar sentiment was expressed more emphatically by the visitor; for there was no love lost between those two, and, in consequence, their greetings were unusually gracious.

"Wall, Mr. Willard, ef this don't beat c.o.c.k-fightin'!" cried MacGonigal, when the other halted at the foot of an inclined way leading to the level s.p.a.ce from which rock had been blasted to provide room for the various structures that cl.u.s.ter near the outlet of a busy mine. "Now, who'd ha thought of seein' you hereabouts terday?"

"Or any other day, Mr. MacGonigal," said Willard, forcing an agreeable smile. The prefix to MacGonigal's name was a concession to all that had gone before during a short half-hour's ride. The ex-storekeeper was now the nominal head of a gold-producing industry which ranked high in the state, and the bitterness welling up in Willard's mind had been quelled momentarily by sheer astonishment.

"That's as may be," returned Mac affably, rolling the cigar across his mouth. "But, seein' as you air on this section of the map, guess you'd better bring that hoss o' yourn into the plaza. A bunch of cars is due here any minute."

Willard jogged nearer, and dismounted, and a youth summoned by MacGonigal took charge of the mustang.

"Hev' yer come ter see Power?" inquired the stout one, with just the right amount of friendly curiosity.

"Well, no, not exactly. I shall be glad to meet him, of course. Is he somewhere around?"

"No. He went East two days sence."

Now, the movements of local financial magnates are duly chronicled in the Colorado press, and MacGonigal was sure that Willard had not only read the announcement of Power's departure, but had timed this visit accordingly. Still, that was no affair of his. Willard was here, and might stay a month if he liked, because he would have to pay for bed and board in the Bison Hotel, which MacGonigal owned.

"Ah, that's too bad," said Willard, feigning an indifference he was far from feeling. "Still, I have no real business on hand. I happened to be at a loose end in Denver, and didn't seem to know anybody in the Brown Palace Hotel; so I came out here, to take a peep at the old shanty, so to speak."

"You'll hev' located an alteration or two already?" chuckled the other.

"Every yard of the way was a surprise."

"Guess that's so; but what you've seen is small pertaters with the circus on the other side of the hill."

"On the ranch! Things can't have changed so greatly there?"

"You come this-a way, an' survey the park."

MacGonigal led the visitor through a check office, and along a corridor.

Throwing open a door, he ushered him into a well furnished room, with two French windows opening on to a s.p.a.cious veranda.

"This yer is Derry's den," he said. "He likes ter look at the gra.s.s growin'; but my crib is at the other side, whar I kin keep tab on the stuff that makes most other things grow as well. Not that it ain't dead easy ter know why Derry likes this end of the outfit--an' n.o.body livin'

'll understand that better'n yerself, Mr. Willard, when you've looked the proposition over fer ten seconds by the clock."

Willard had never found MacGonigal so loquacious in former days; but he was too preoccupied by the tokens of success that met his furtive gaze in every direction to give much heed to any marked change in his guide's manner. Moreover, he had scarcely set foot in the veranda before he yielded to a feeling which, at first, was one of undiluted amazement.

The annual rainfall had been normal since he abandoned ranching; but Colorado in June is not exactly the home of lush meadows during the best of years, and he was staring now at a fertile panorama of green pastures, and thriving orchards, while the ranch itself was set in the midst of smooth lawns embosomed in a wealth of shrubs and ornamental trees. Greatest miracle of all, a tiny stream of pellucid water was flowing down the Gulch.

"I don't quite grasp this," he muttered thickly, while his eyes roved almost wildly from the dancing rivulet to the fair savannah which it had made possible.

"A bit of a wonder, ain't it?" gurgled MacGonigal placidly. "Jest another piece of luck, that's what it air. Derry can't go wrong, I keep tellin' him. I had a notion the hull blamed show was busted when we struck a spring at the end o' the fust dip of two hundred feet; but Derry jest laughed in his quiet way, an' said, 'There oughter be tears round about any place called Grief, an' now we have Dolores weepin'.

We've tapped a perennial spring, Mac, an' it's the very thing I wanted ter make the ranch a fair copy of Paradise.' There you hev' it--Derry's luck--a pipe line laid on by Nature--an' him raisin' apples, Mr.

Willard, raisin' pippins as big as your fist, on land whar _you_ couldn't raise a bundle of alfalfa!"

Willard had to find something to say, or he would have choked with spleen. "Evidently the inrush of water did not injure the mine?" he blurted out; but, for the life of him, he could not conceal the envy in his voice.

"Did good, really," chortled MacGonigal. "We had to drive a new adit, an' that cleared away enough rock ter give us elbow-room. The fust intake was up thar," and he pointed to that part of the Gulch where Power had once wrought with death on a long-vanished ledge. "Now we go in about a hundred feet west of this yer veranda, an' the haulin' is easier."

"Mr. Power and you have created a marvelous property here," said Willard after a long pause.

"Not me," said MacGonigal quickly. "I helped Derry with my wad; but he did all the thinkin', an' it's like a fresh chapter outer a fairy tale when I wake up every fine mornin' an' remember that my third share is bringin' me in close on five hundred dollars a day."

"So Power's interest is worth three hundred thousand dollars a year?"

"More'n that, I reckon. The output keeps on pilin' up, an' Derry's horses 'll add a tidy bit to his bank balance this year."

"His horses?"

"Yep. Hain't you heerd? One-thumb Jake is manager of the plug department. Nigh on fifty two-year-olds 'll be sold this fall at two hundred dollars an' more a throw. I suspicioned Derry was goin' crazy when he bought up so many mares; but I allow he has the bulge on me now.

An' Jake! Dang me if he didn't show up at a dance t'other evenin' with a silver fringe on his chaps!"

Willard turned reluctantly into the darkened room, and, by some mischance, when his eyes had recovered from the external glare, the first object they dwelt on was a framed pencil sketch of the Dolores homestead as he had last seen it--a dreary, ramshackle place, arid and poverty-stricken. In the corner was written, "Nancy," and a date.

"The ways of fortune are mysterious," he said, making shift to utter the words calmly. "I endured ten long years of financial loss in the house which my daughter has shown there. She used to know Mr. Power, and gave the drawing to him, I suppose."

"Derry thinks a heap of that picter," commented MacGonigal.

"I wonder why?"

"He never tole me."

Willard laughed disagreeably. He had not forgotten Mac's peculiarities, one of which used to be blank ignorance concerning any subject on which he did not wish to be drawn.

"By the way," he said, "why did you give the new mine such a queer name--El Preco--I guess you know it means, 'The Price'? Why was it called that?"

"It was jest a notion of Derry's."

"Rather odd, wasn't it?"

"Derry's mostly odd, size him up anyways you hev' a mind ter."

"I could have understood it better had he christened the place, 'The Bargain.' He shook me up good and hard when he grabbed Dolores for five thousand dollars."

"He sure had his wits about him, had Derry," said MacGonigal admiringly.