The Joyous Trouble Maker/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
A BELATED DISCOVERY
SAN FRANCISCO the virile, town for a man like Bill Steele when such a man was in mood for any city, clamorous and exultant as it was, blown through with the clean winds of the Pacific, stirring the pulses, today awakened slight response within him. From the lower deck of the Key Route ferry boat he watched the old landmarks impatiently, eager for the slip and a foot on Market Street. In the crowds at the Ferry Building, jostling with the rest, he hastened out to the street, with hand uplifted for the first taxicab to be had. Whirled to the Palace Hotel he registered, paid for a room and went to the telephone booth. From the telephone he went to breakfast, from breakfast straight back to the telephone.
It was nearly noon when he got track of the man he wanted. Rick Verril whom he caught "on the fly" at the Bohemian Club told him that Carruthers was not only in town, having arrived a day or so ago, but was looking for him. Verril would see him at lunch at the Club; wouldn't Steele run in on them then?
But Steele, with much to do and with knowledge gained aforetime of the sort of thing to be expected if Verril got hold of him, promised to drop in at some vague "later on," left word for Carruthers to meet him at the hotel, and went about his business.
At one o'clock Carruthers, a young, quick eyed, almost gaudily dressed young fellow, threw open Steele's door, bursting in upon him breezily.
"Hello, Bill," he cried warmly. "Been looking for you high and low. The melon's dead ripe and … Busted again? "
Bob Carruthers … known not so very long ago as Plunging Bobbie Carruthers … had reached that time of life when a man must stand upright on his own pair of legs or just wabble. And Bob Carruthers didn't wabble. Perhaps one reason was Sylvia Templeton, Mrs. Carruthers now for two years. At any rate what his father, Railroad Carruthers, had done before him in the East, Bobbie Carruthers was reported to be doing in his own way and a kindred line in the West.
As their hands fell apart the two men looked keenly into each other's eyes.
"Comparatively speaking," returned Steele, shoving a chair to his guest and sitting on the edge of his bed, his knee caught up between two strong, brown hands, "I'm busted. But I've got enough for a small bet yet, a sort of entering wedge, you know. If I scrape hard I can pry about twenty thousand loose. If the melon is ripe as you say, and you still figure that you want me in on the slicing, I'm ready. I've got a side line, however, and I want another fifty thousand to bear my little wad company."
"Mine, I suppose?" asked Carruthers.
Steele nodded. Carruthers shook his head and sighed.
"Why can't you let the other boobs dig the yellow dirt out of the ground and then take it when It's all nice and clean and minted, Billy? Well, I'll advance what you want if you are sure it won't cut in on the other game."
"I'll guarantee that. And you're still sure you want me in on your proposition?"
"Doubly sure!" Bobbie Carruthers' smile was entirely joyous. "Work has got to be started right away, options grabbed you know, and I can't touch it right now. And here's the reason, old Billy boy, the double reason. Look at it!"
From his wallet he had drawn a very bad photograph. Twins and no doubt of it; twins that couldn't be a week old old already their photograph, so vain about them was their young father, was pretty well worn out.
"How's Sylvia?" asked Steele.
"Bully. So's Bobbie the Third; so's Sylvia the Second. They're at the place out at San Mateo; I'll be taking you out tonight. And they are the reason. We're striking out southward just as soon as the Doctor will let us go, and in the meantime the Twins won't go to sleep unless they can hold my thumbs! It's a fact, Bill! You wouldn't believe it, but it's a fact! And you wouldn't believe how smart the little devils are; know me as soon as I come into the room."
Steele sighed. He was sincerely glad that they were Twins since that pleased Bobbie and Sylvia, glad that they were wise children according to the proverb and that they liked to hold their father's thumbs, but …
"Got their eyes open already, I see," he offered to Carruthers' obvious expectation that he would say something about them, and knowing considerably less of human babies and their way than of new born puppies. Carruthers grunted and returned the picture to his pocket.
"You see," he continued after a moment, "I wired Dad in New York that he was all of a sudden a double-barrelled grandfather and he was so tickled that I actually believe he went out and got drunk over it. Fact, Steele; teetotaller that he is, I actually believe he did that very thing. And in his second wire … he's been telegraphing every few hours ever since … he assured me positively that our tip was right and tipped me further we'd better not let any grass grow. Now I'm off to the Southland with Sylvia and the Twins; I put up the money and you run the job. We split fifty-fifty. What's the word?"
"Of course I'm ready." said Steele promptly. "A little bit more than ready. Bob," with a grin which Carruthers was in no position to understand correctly. "I've been up there, right on the ground, and I've looked things over. First, this is dead sure? I don't want to be laughed at pretty soon. Both White Rock and the Junction have been definitely discarded? Definitely and absolutely?"
Carruthers waved his hand widely.
"They're forgotten. Work begins sometime this year, probably in August, from neither of those jay towns but from Selby Flat that most people never heard of. Cuts in to the south of the Thunder River country, runs through Sunrise Pass and on over into Indian Valley that way. … What the devil are you laughing at?"
Again he was in no position to understand what thoughts teemed in Steele's brain. For Steele was indulging freely in a burst of mirth which startled the travelling man in the room across the hall no less than it did Bobbie Carruthers. And while Carruthers knew that his old friend was not the man to take leave of his senses just because a much-talked of golden harvest now looked ripe for the reaping, still …
"Oh, of course you don't understand," grinned Steele. "Why should you, you with your head full of twins? You can't see that I'd rather this had happened than … Look here, I'll start this proposition on the jump right now; you give me all the dope you've got corralled, put the cash in the bank for me, keep in touch, join me as soon as you can and … oh, Lordy! Won't I have the Young Queen where I want her now!"
"Queen?" frowned Carruthers. "Young Queen? What's that? Name of your new mine or something?"
"That?" Slowly a deep gravity came into Steele's eyes to dwell there serenely. He even put out a hand and laid it on Carruthers' shoulder. "It's the girl I'm crazy in love with, Bobbie … just guessed it myself, by George! Don't know why I blabbed it out to you; you're so infernally paternal, I suppose. I wouldn't have a soul know it. Yes, sir; it's me, Bill Steele, crazy in love with a girl … but I'm damned if I'd give her the satisfaction of knowing it!"
Carruthers was thoroughly mystified.
"What's the good loving a girl and hiding it from her?" he asked. "She's the one to tell first, you old fool."
"No; you're wrong there … By Jove, I'm in love!" He appeared to be fairly "bowled over by it," as Bobbie Carruthers told Sylvia that evening. "It's a fact. But don't you talk, Bobbie! If you tell a soul I'll murder you."
"Just the same," maintained Carruthers, "you ought to tell her. That's half the fun of it."
"Not yet." Steele shook his head with great positiveness. "She isn't ripe for it yet, old man. She … she's young yet. I've got to sort of educate her, train her up, you know …"
"Who is she? Do I know her?"
Steele, fearful of what might come of too great an interest on Carruthers' part and consequently on Sylvia's, answered cheerfully:
"No, you wouldn't know her. A young Italian widow."