The Joyous Trouble Maker/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV
A MATTER OF LUCK
DR. GILCHRIST moved to Summit City without loss of time. Established there, his first act was to get into telegraphic communication with his aides in Southern California, his second to have Ed Hurley and Turk Wilson given sunny, comfortable rooms in the "inn" which was to be transformed without delay into a hospital, his third to close the deal with Bill Steele.
Beatrice Corliss, having irretrievably taken the first step in a transaction which galled her … she had Steele's note and visioned the laughter in Steele's teasing eyes … came promptly to Summit City to sign the necessary papers, abandoning all ownership of the town she had made and loved. Upon Bob Carruthers who perforce was on hand she bestowed a look of withering, ineffable scorn.
"Whew!" ejaculated Carruthers in a startled aside to his grinning friend Steele. "No wonder they call her the Queen! She thinks you are sticking her for ten thousand, does she? Better explain, Bill; she's got murder in her eye."
Beatrice's eyes had met Steele's in one flashing glance, eloquent of the contempt she meant that he should see there; then, head lifted, cheeks flushed, she passed by him and to the table where Dr. Gilchrist was seated with the papers in the case.
Gilchrist, for his part, both appeared and felt embarrassed and ill at ease. His was a position of accepting largely of Steele's generosity and in return allowing it to seem that the man who had been open-handedly munificent was even now triumphing in a bit of sharp business. Big hearted himself, Gilchrist had a moment ago allowed the Sacramento papers to write up the deal crediting Steele with a sweeping coup. That Steele himself had telephoned the misleading tip to Sacramento, while suspected by the physician, did not minimize his distaste for the deceit. So it was he, more than any one else, who fidgeted under Beatrice's cool look.
Steele, radiating his good humour as usual, presumed to make the introductions.
"Here's Trixie herself!" he cried pleasantly. "Looking as bright and happy as a lark. You've met Carruthers, I believe? He is interested with me in town building at Indian City and Bear Town. Didn't mention it to you, did he, when he called for the option! And this is Dr. Gilchrist. Doctor, my neighbour and very dear friend, Trixie Corliss. Known rather widely as the Young Queen."
"Fully appreciating the honour Mr. Steele does me," said Beatrice quickly at a moment whose equal for anger she had never known, "I do not care to accept his friendship. Since I wish to go as soon as possible shall we get the business over with, Dr. Gilchrist?"
"Mr. Steele here," floundered Dr. Gilchrist, "is a mighty fine man. Miss Corliss. I admire him immensely. I … I wish that …"
He broke off with a pleading look at Steele who only laughed joyously, tremendously pleased with his "joke" on the queen.
"He may be a little … shall we say keen in business matters," continued Gilchrist with a rather uncertain smile. "But …"
"You will pardon me if I am not interested in discussing the subject?" asked Beatrice stiffly.
"Read the Sacramento papers tomorrow," chuckled Steele. "Big business deals go forward in the Thunder River country … the well known Miss Corliss, famed for her business acumen, outdone by Bill Steele, mayor of Boom Town … Summit City, sold for twenty thousand dollars, resold immediately for thirty thousand … feverish real estate activity in the Sierra Nevada … new tourist towns promoted by the aforesaid Steele who has incurred the Corliss enmity and jealousy …"
"You brute!" cried Beatrice passionately, unable to restrain herself under his taunting. "You unthinkable brute! And if you think that I am through with you …"
She cut her words off, breathing quickly, for the second time looking straight into Steele's mirthful eyes, then turning her back on him.
A notary had been summoned and the business of the day was completed quickly. At a stroke of the pen Summit City was no longer hers but became Dr. Gilchrist's, having passed through the hands of Bill Steele.
"It's just as though you had made me a present …" Steele was saying. But Beatrice was gone with a whisk of skirts, hurrying out to Parker and the waiting car.
Steele stared after her until she had gone from sight. Slowly the dancing lights were subdued in his eyes. He had begun to wonder if he wasn't a bit overdoing all this. He had told himself all along that she was "a good little sport" and that, in time, she'd come to laugh with him at their rivalry and her own little losses. But he must admit, and he did admit rather sombrely for him, that the looks she had given him today were no such looks as he would care to see when one day he came to her soberly and showed her just what, in the depth of his heart, was his thought of her. A moment ago he had planned to go to the post office and drop a note to her, saying as he had said before, "Never, mind, Trixie; what you lose now you'll get back. I'm just saving it all for you!" But, when at last Parker and the car and Beatrice had disappeared, the unthinkable thing which Bill Steele did was to sigh heavily.
"I'd better look out what I'm doing," he admitted to himself thoughtfully. "The thing for me to do is begin making love. Real love, by the Lord, and no more funny monkey business. That's open and shut. And how in the name of Mike I'm going to do it when she won't even talk to me or let me talk to her, I don't know! I rather believe. … I'm damned sure of it! … I've been going at things backwards."
He visited both Turk and Ed Hurley in their new quarters, chatted briefly with Rose, treated Eddie to a ride on his big shoulders and looked in on Dr. Gilchrist. Having arranged after some insistence that the nurse, when she came, was to be paid by him, he left Summit City to return to the Goblet and the work to be done there. As he rode down through the silent woods, he was unusually thoughtful. And repeatedly he found himself sighing after a fashion which, could Beatrice have heard and understood, would have surprised her considerably and satisfied her infinitely.
At the Goblet there was much requiring to be done. A trustworthy crew of men had been selected by Bill Rice, acting foreman now that Hurley was incapacitated, and no time was being lost in waste effort. For the first time in many a day the mountains hereabouts saw an ore-laden wagon with a guard riding at the driver's side, rifle on knee, turn toward the railroad. And never had such ore gone out of the Thunder River country; it was, as Steele had said, as if the river itself had long ago turned miser and now its treasure box were being looted. Though the men employed in the big cup were paid such wages as they had never gotten before. Bill Rice was unremitting in his watchfulness over them; for it would have been a simple trick for a man to take from this cache in his overalls pocket raw gold that would have spelled high wages for many a month.
"Your luck's sure runnin' high these days, Steele," said Rice with a shake of the head. "Play her to the limit while she lasts. You can't lose right now."
As Steele went about his numerous duties those words of Bill Rice, spoken with grave certainty, drummed continuously in his brain. His luck was running high! And it was; he had had the same thought himself. He couldn't lose right now. … He wondered!
"There is no such thing as luck," say the scientifically and mathematically inclined. And, scientifically and mathematically, they demonstrate their theorem utterly to their own satisfaction and that of their ilk.
"There is such a thing as luck," says the gambler. And, perchance, the gambler knows! For certainly it is his business, his chief affair in life, to know just this. The others, those gentlemen of logically minded research, are the hounds running after the rabbit for luncheon; he, often enough, is the rabbit running for his life.
"There is such a thing as Providence," says still another class. And the gambler is content to remark, "Well, the man who is selected for the bounty of Providence is sure in luck!"
Steele put in a day, after a fashion, not half as hilarious as Bill Rice as the ore continued to come up rich and full of promise. He went back and forth between the Goblet and his cabin many times, using his telephone frequently to keep in touch with all that was going forward at the two new towns at the ends of Sunrise Pass. But even the rarely observant Bill Rice noted that his employer seemed listless. …
At dark work shut down. Steele left Rice to post a guard at the Goblet and went up to Boom Town and the lunch counter. Now and then a man came up to him as he ate and sought to enter conversation. But only too plainly Steele's thoughts were wandering far afield; he was saying that if there were such an element as luck, if it were behaving kindly toward him just now, why then, taking advantage of its fickle propitiousness he ought to jump on his horse, smash a record getting to the Thunder River ranch house, break in on the maiden meditations of Beatrice Corliss and demand to be loved.
Coal oil lamps and tallow candles stuck in bottles or jammed down tight on window sills were casting their pale yellow lights from the saloon windows when he pushed away his plate and filled his pipe. Swinging about on his stool, he watched the men crowding through the doorway, listened to the many voices of men congregating at the long bar or taking their place about the tables at the far end of the room or seeking partners for the dance. Already the accordeon player was hard at it; the fiddler was just finishing his supper and wiping his moustache, preparatory to joining his fellow music maker.
Steele, with his pipe going, left his stool and stepped out into the street, planning to return to the cabin. As he did so he saw Joe Embry push through the crowd at the saloon's door and go inside. It was the first time he had seen Embry since the trouble at the Goblet. In swift obedience to the natural impulse, Steele followed him. He had the wish to know just what look would come into Embry's eyes when they two looked at each other.
Already, early as it was, there were many in the long room. The fiddler had joined his companion, the music was inspiring, dancing began immediately, big boots clumped noisily. Steele stepped close to the bar, to be out of the way of the dancers and saw Embry set down his glass and turn toward the door. Embry had not seen him and yet had turned quickly, a hand dropping in what looked like carelessness to his side. Flash Truitt, who had served him his liquor, reached out for the empty glass, his eyes on Steele.
Embry's gaze as usual was untroubled, clear. He had shown neither interest nor surprise at Steele's entrance. This Steele noted and, noting Truitt, also, suspected promptly that the gambler had in a quiet word prepared Embry for the coming of a man who might have a desire for trouble, a man who at the very least was Embry's enemy.
The mere sight of Embry outside had quickened Steele's pulse, sent a surge of hot anger to his heart. That he was now looking into the steady, unwinking eyes of the man who had caused Turk Wilson his lacerated leg and who had shot down Ed Hurley he had not the vaguest doubt in the world. And yet, as he came on, walking slowly, he kept his face expressionless and told himself that the things which he more than suspected were still all unproven.
He paused just a brief fragment of an instant at Embry's side, his eyes stern and enquiring. He saw that Embry's hand at his hip was very still, that the fingers were tense. Then he passed on. At the far end of the bar he stopped again, this time calling for a cigar and carelessly collecting the change returned to him from a ten-dollar gold piece.
"Just lookin' 'em over, Mr. Steele?" said Truitt, who had come to serve him. "Or takin' a whirl at the wheel tonight?"
For as Steele stood he was looking toward the roulette table where a half dozen men were making "pikers'" bets or idly watching the speeding ivory ball.
Before replying Steele meditated upon a fact which seemed and perhaps was quite trifling: Truitt, on his way to get the box of cigars from a shelf under his counter opposite Embry, had had a quiet word with him. While upon the surface the two had not been friendly, Steele had imagined that their supposed dislike for each other was but a part of Embry's smooth work; he'd hardly care to let the impression go to Beatrice that he had anything in common with the man who managed the hateful saloon at Summit City. And now just the look in Flash Truitt's eyes … Embry's were absolutely cold and noncommittal … told Steele that they might have a very great deal in common.
"Two of a kind, after all," he reflected.
He was taking his time in answering Truitt's question. Truitt's voice was evidently meant to be casual and careless … and it failed to ring true. Truitt's face, usually very pale, was slightly flushed; Truitt, who, like most gamblers, drank little, had broken his rule today. It seemed obvious that he wanted to see Steele play roulette, and what need to seek for a reason for that? The more men to play, the bigger winnings for the house. That's what the wheel was there for.
"I'll watch her spin a while," said Steele coolly. Truitt had turned toward Embry again. Embry, however, showed him only his back with his elbows hooked over the edge of the bar, seeming to give his attention entirely to the dancers out in the middle of the floor. He was turning a big black unlighted cigar slowly between his lips. Embry, of course, would like to see him lose just because ...
A sudden thought brought a quick tensing of the muscles up and down Steele's big body! A sudden suspicion which, in a flash, was close to certainty; he wondered that it had never presented itself to him until now. Even now, if it had not been for the look he had surprised in Truitt's eyes when they went to Embry, he would not have thought of it. If he could but be sure! He had knocked out his pipe and put it into his pocket. If he could just be sure! Slowly he cut the end of his cigar, slowly lighted it. Then, his change in his hand, he stepped to the roulette table and placed a bet. The nine dollars and a half which Truitt had returned to him he piled on number five.
He had no thought of winning, no desire to win. But he thought that he saw the way to have the answer to his question. The dealer, a small, quick-fingered man, lifted tired eyes briefly, dropped them under a pair of long, dark lashes and lazily watched the ball. The first burst of its wild racing over, it loitered, clicking and ever seeming about to stop, and at last came to rest on number seventeen. No one had won; the dealer's hand raked in the chips with Steele's money and again set the ball circling.
"No luck?" laughed Truitt. "Maybe next time ...."
Steele shrugged.
"I don't carry my pockets full of coin these days," he returned lightly. "It isn't always wise, you know."
"I'll advance you something," suggested Truitt. "Just give me your i o u."
Here was just what Steele had lost his nine dollars and a half for; this and something else. He had moved back a little from the table so that, looking at Truitt and beyond him, he saw Joe Embry's back in the looking glass behind the bar.
"Will you cash my check for a thousand dollars?" he said abruptly.
For a moment Flash Truitt hesitated. The amount was large and he knew little of the man who asked it, nothing of his financial rating. Men in towns like Boom Town have been known to give worthless checks. As this went through his mind, as Steele had known it must go, something else happened which Steele had more than half expected. Truitt's look had flashed again to Joe Embry. Watching the mirror, Steele saw that Embry had half turned, moving quickly as the words "a thousand dollars" fell on his ears, and that his answer to Truitt's enquiry was a positive nod.
"Certainly, Mr. Steele," Truitt was saying, as though the matter were of negligible importance. "Glad to cash your check."
Steele did not move, did not shift his eyes from the mirror. Truitt looked at him wonderingly, then swung about, looking whither Steele was looking. Joe Embry, too, turned. And in the long glass he saw reflected the face of Bill Steele, smiling grimly.
"If I lost the whole wad," said Steele distinctly, "it would be worth it; for I've found out something I would have paid more than that to know!"
For in his heart, as he had watched Embry in the glass, he had been asking himself:
"Is Joe Embry the man who gives Truitt his orders, who owns this dive and the dive in Summit City and the string through the mountains?"
And, as though in answer to his question, Embry himself had nodded!