The Come-On/Chapter 8
VIII.
HE arrived in Coppercliffe late that night and went to the Ogallala House. Investigation of the register showed Lowrey's signature a couple of days old.
"Mr. Lowrey here still?" he asked.
It appeared that Lowrey was still in the hotel. Furthermore he was sick and confined to his room.
As an attempt to see him that night might have given the impression that the matter was urgent, Mortimer decided to wait till morning, taking a chance on being before the letter which he had seen the Silver Queen man write a letter which doubtless bore on the value of the property but which the writer might have been too drunk to mail.
After breakfast he sent up his card Lowrey's room.
"Mr. Lowrey's sick," said the bell-hop, returning, "He don't want to see no one."
Mortimer slid a half-dollar into his receptive paw. "You just show me up," he said.
He entered the room and closed the door behind him. The blinds were down, throwing the interior into partial darkness. The occupant lay on the bed, his unshaven face gaunt against e pillows. A pair of angry blue eyes glared at Mortimer. A table flanking the bed was strewn with medicine-bottles: incongruous among them lay a pack of cards.
"Mr. Lowrey?" asked Mortimer, though he had no doubt of the other's identity.
"I'm Lowrey," said the sick man. "And who the devil are you, and what to blazes d'ye mean by butting into my room?"
"My name is Mortimer," said the other. "I sent up my card."
"And I sent you word I wouldn't see you," said Lowrey angrily. "I don't want to see you; I don't want to see anybody. It's hell enough to be laid up here by itself, but it's a heap worse to be stared at by a damn fool. Stop it, can't you. And get out."
"I'm sorry," lied Mortimer. "The boy must have made a mistake; he said you'd see me. But I'm here. I'd like to talk a little business if you feel able."
"You go to thunder," said Lowrey. "I won't buy any books and my life isn't worth insuring. I know you fellows. If I could stir off this cursed bed I'd jam you through the fan-light."
"I'm not selling books nor insurance," Mortimer protested. "I'm not selling anything. I want to buy."
"Want to buy, eh?" growled the other. "If you think I've got anything worth selling I wish you'd hold it next the light so I can see it myself. It's a cinch that I'd have to go out and steal anything 1 sold. And look here! It's not safe to josh an old prospector, even if he is flat on his back."
"I'm not trying to do anything of the kind." protested Mortimer. "I understand that you own some Silver Queen stock?"
The sick engineer raised himself on his elbow and eyed the interlocutor closely.
"Well, suppose I do?" he said, at length. "Is that what you want to buy?"
"I might make you an offer, if we can agree on terms," said Mortimer diplomatically.
"How do you figure we can agree on terms unless you make an offer?" said the engineer.
"What do you want for your whole block of stock?" inquired Mortimer in his most businesslike tone.
Lowrey scrutinized him in silence. Then:
"Did Farrel send you to buy me out?" he asked.
"Farrel?" repeated Mortimer, mystified.
"That's what I said, Farrel."
Mortimer had never heard of Farrel and was on the point of saying so when it occurred to him that it might be as well to assume a knowledge he did not possess.
"No, Farrel has nothing to do with it," he replied. "I'm here for myself, and for no one else. I'm buying for myself, if I buy at all."
"How much stock do you figure I have?" asked Lowrey.
"About one hundred thousand shares."
"Well, and if you buy a hundred thousand what good is that going to do you? The mine has been run rotten since Farrel's had it, and now they tell me the vein has pinched out. May be only a fracture, but anyway they've lost it. You must have some reason for wanting to buy, outside of the present value of the stock, and I want to know what it is. I've been away for months, and I'm not giving up anything in the dark. You say you're not from Farrel, and that goes. I wouldn't sell him a share of any stock, after the way he and his crowd have treated me. All the same you've got to show me. I've been a sucker often enough."
"What do you want to know?" asked Mortimer. "I ask you to set a figure on your stock. What does it matter why I want it?"
- I tell you I'm not letting go blind." said the engineer. "I never thought the Silver Queen was a world-beater, but I've spent a heap of time and some money on it, and my shares are all I've got to show. I know what they're worth on the market—about a winter's grub-stake and no more. That's why, when you come to buy them, I start asking questions, because you don't look like a man that would play a dead card across the board."
"Not if I knew it." said Mortimer, pleased at the other's estimate of his shrewdness, and repeated the words immediately. "But of course, a man has to take chances now and then; I'm willing to take one with these shares. 1 think I can handle them and make a fair profit, if you don't want too much."
"Not good enough," said Lowrey, shaking his head. "I don't ask you to let me in on the cellar, or even the basement, but I want a peep at the ground floor or we can't deal. That's whatever. And it's a safe bet that, sick and all as I am and so poor that if turkeys were a cent a pound I couldn't look pleasant at a jaybird, I can't be talked into a fool sale. You'll have to unbosom some more."
Mortimer thought rapidly. He had no doubt that Lowrey meant every word he said, and it was up to him to construct an impromptu yarn that should contain a fair element of probability and sound plausible. Thus up against it his conversations with Collingwood recurred to him.
"Well," he said, "I've no objection to giving you a look in. Here's how it is. Your friend Farrel and some more have a plan to amalgamate with another company, and any one who won't come in will be frozen out. Those who do come in will find so much water in the new stock which will be offered them in exchange for the old that they'll be disgusted, and besides, the new stock will likely be assessable. That's Farrel's scheme. Now some other capitalists and myself want sufficient stock to block it, because we think we can sell the mine at a profit We are willing to pay a good price, as compared with the market. That's the whole thing."
"Sounds all right," said Lowrey. "How would it be if I came in with you and agreed to vote my stock any way you wished?"
"It wouldn't do," said Mortimer promptly. "We are a syndicate, and we want the absolute control among ourselves."
"So that it's freeze-out anyway," said Lowrey bitterly. "If I don't sell I get amalgamated and assessed out of my holdings. I know how that works; I've seen it done before, and it's just plain robbery but legal as hell. And if I do sell you give me a few cents a share. Nice, isn't it?"
"Oh, I'll give you a fair price," said Mortimer. His heart was beating rapidly for he saw signs of yielding. He plumed himself on the adroitness of his invention. "You know that Silver Queen is unsalable at present, but I'll give you ten cents a share. That's ten thousand dollars. Not so bad, after all!"
"It wouldn't be if you could get it for that, but you can't," said Lowrey.
"How much do you want, then?" asked Mortimer.
Lowrey considered.
"I should think thirty cents a share would be about right."
"Thirty cents!" exclaimed Mortimer. "Why, man alive, your stock wouldn't sell on the market for five!"
"I'm not selling it there," retorted the sick engineer. "You want it pretty bad, or you wouldn't be here. I'm not fitting it go for ten cents, anyway."
After half an hour of bargaining Mortimer had raised his offer to fifteen cents and Lowrey had lowered his demands to twenty-five. There they stuck: a deadlock appeared imminent. Mortimer wondered if, after all, the rather had heard from the Silver Queen man.
"I can't do it," said the sick engineer. "Look here"—he drew a photograph from under his pillow and held t up to Mortimer—"there's my wife ind the kids. This stock is about all I have in the world; I'm crippled with rheumatism, and God knows what besides; the altitudes have got my heart, so I'm no good any more. Sooner than let my stock go at fifteen I'll keep it and take a chance, or I'll sell out to Farrel. There's something doing, and I believe it will pay me to hang onto it anyway."
Mortimer was alarmed. He had hung at an offer of fifteen as if it had been his maximum, but he did not wish to arouse the latent obstinacy which he was sure Lowrey possessed in plenty. And besides, at any moment that letter might be delivered, if it had not been delivered already, or an agent of Casimir's might appear on the scene. In either case it would be good-by to his chances. It behooved him to close the bargain at once, if it took his last cent.
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Lowrey," he said, with an air of generosity. "I'll give twenty cents. It's more than the stock is worth, and I only do it because you seem to be in hard luck. It you refuse that I'm through."
He waited for a reply, his heart in his mouth. The sick engineer looked long at the photograph of his family, and his chest rose and fell with some inward emotion.
"I'll take your offer," he said, "because I have to. I'd like to keep the stock, if it wasn't for the wife and the kiddies. It's hell being poor—when you've got a family. Not married, are you?"
"No," admitted Mortimer, thinking of Maisie.
"Then if you did happen to lose your money it wouldn't worry you much," said Lowrey with a grim smile. "Not that there seems to be much chance of your losing it. You can look after yourself, I guess. Take a pretty smart man to skin you, eh? But you want to look out for Farrel; he's crooked."
"I'll look out for him." said Mortimer. "Now, have you got those certificates?"
Luckily Lowrey had them. He had intended to negotiate a loan with them, or to endeavor to do so, but his sickness had prevented it. The certificates were apparently in order; the sick engineer signed the transfers and Mortimer counted out crisp hundred-dollar bills. The transfer duly completed, the latter consulted his watch and found that he had just time to catch a train for Galena. He shook hands with Lowrey, hurriedly wished him a speedy return to health, and made for the station.
Mortimer had barely left the room when the sick engineer leaped from the bed with surprising agility and pressed the button. The bell-boy who responded passed Mortimer on the way.
"Son," said the engineer, "do you want to earn real money?"
"You bet," said the boy emphatically. He had found Lowrey a generous tipper.
"Then rustle out and spot the man who has just left here. His name is Mortimer, and he came in last night. He'll be paying his bill now. Find out where he goes and if he leaves town. If they kick at the desk, say you had a note for him from me. I'll fix it with them. Now hump yourself."
For half an hour he lay quietly in bed, fingering the sheaf of bank-bills. At the end of that time the bell-boy returned.
"The guy left on sixty-four, goin' west," he said. "I see him get on the train."
The sick engineer handed him a twenty-dollar bill.
"That's for you. Bring me up a bottle of champagne and half a dozen four-bit cigars as quick as you can step, and rush this message over the wire."
He was shaved and half dressed when the wine arrived, and humming a tune. When the east-bound pulled out of Coppercliffe a couple of hours later Mr. William J. Lowrey, the sick engineer, spry as a boy, was subsidizing the porter with a view to securing his best services in the matter of stateroom accommodation.