If the Shoe Fits—/Chapter 8

ELL, Rand, it looks to me very much as if you held the cards on me.” Jasper Ruud helped himself to a glass of brandy and was facing John Rand with curious eyes. “What is it? A holdup?”

“Yes, I've got the cards. Let's see. I'm not sure that I couldn't continue to wear the shoes which you loaned me. I'm not sure that I couldn't continue to work things so that I should be Jasper Ruud until the end of time. I actually believe,” with twinkling eyes, “that using the influence which I have stepped into I could have you arrested and sent up the river for beating and robbing that fellow the other day! Funny, isn't it?”

Ruud grunted. “You want something. What is it?”

“I want something. Yes, that's it. For one thing, I want to stay here, in this house, for another day or two, and as Jasper Ruud. Which means, I am afraid, that you will have to keep pretty close to this room and let me smuggle your meals up to you.”

“What else?” demanded Ruud, suspiciously.

“I have called a meeting of the board of directors of the Eastern and Western Mining Corporation. It is set for five o'clock this afternoon, and the others are to come here at that time. When they come I want to continue to be Jasper Ruud.”

“But, man—”

“There are no buts about it, my dear Jasper Ruud. Remember that I am in a position to ask a great deal. I am asking very little.”

“Well, go on. What else?”

“I want to go to the theater to-night with a certain young lady—”

Jasper Ruud leaped to his feet.

“Bella!” he cried angrily. “You want to go with her and—”

“And put you in wrong again?” John Rand laughed. “No, not with your charming fiancée, Ruud. But—”

“With that little fool of a Chatterton girl!” snapped Ruud, suspiciously. “When you know that Bella would never forgive me.”

“And not with the little Chatterton girl,” coolly. “I don't mind telling you that it's with the girl I'm going to marry. And further, that just as soon as she will marry me I'm ready to go to Europe or anywhere else and not bother you any more.”

“So that's it. And,” eying him steadily, “you're not going to ask to be paid to give me back my place?”

“No. I'm not going to ask for anything that doesn't belong to me. And I want you to see right now that if I have been forced to draw against your account it hasn't been to squander your money on myself. I have taken for personal expenses merely what was necessary for a few days of living and enjoyment.”

He took a check book from his pocket and showed Ruud the stubs. There was the stub for the ten thousand paid as damages to Lon Kelton, those others for the payment of Audrey's indebtedness, a few smaller amounts. for household expenses.

“And there,” he tossed them to the table, “are the unendorsed checks you thrust upon me in the freight yards, and the thousand dollars in banknotes.”

Jasper Ruud was too much of a business man to hesitate when he saw the one thing which he must do. And he gave in with good grace, grinning back into Rand's glowing face, and sticking his hand out suddenly.

“Shake,” he said, and said it as though he meant it. “I've got this much coming to me. And I'm glad that my double happened to be a gentleman.”

“You might have known it,” as their hands gripped warmly. “For,” with his grin broader than Jasper's, “you could see that I looked like one!”

The five men who, besides Jasper Ruud, constituted the board of directors of the mining concern, and who in reality were the Eastern and Western, came a little before five and were shown up promptly to Jasper Ruud's private office. John Rand met them at the door and ushered them in. He waved a hand toward a darkened corner of the room where a man with his back to them sat at a table.

“My new secretary,” he said, by way of explanation. “Have chairs, gentlemen. There's something to smoke and a drop of mighty good brandy on the table.”

These men, with scarcely a glance at the “secretary” and his papers, entered immediately into the business that had called them together. It was their business to buy mines, to develop them, to sell them. And now there was the consideration of a matter left on the table at their meeting yesterday, to be further investigated. during the meantime. There had grown up suddenly in Nevada a new “boom town” about a new strike. The town was not yet a month old, and already the Eastern and Western had an option on what they had thought to be the most promising mine in the district, for fifteen thousand dollars.

“Will Carpenter and Maddox show up?” asked John Rand.

Maddox was the man who owned what he was pleased to call “The Big Lode,” Carpenter the expert whom New York capitalists had sent West to investigate the property.

“Yes.” It was “King” Houghton, a square-jawed, iron-gray-haired man, well known on the Street, who answered. “They'll be here in ten minutes. I told them to come shortly after five.”

“Then, before they come,” went on Rand, quietly, “what's the word among us? We've all had copies of Carpenter's report. He can't add much to it by explaining matters personally. Do we buy or don't we buy?”

They all stared at him. “King” Houghton voiced their thoughts when he blurted out:

“Buy! After Carpenter's report? Did you read it?”

“I did,” in the same carelessly quiet tone. “He says that it was salted heavily, doesn't he? Loaded for bear? That if there is any gold there at all it is in such scattered, insignificant quantities that it would require a thousand dollars to take out a hundred. That's about it, isn't it?”

“Which settles it for us. When Carpenter makes a report like that he knows what he is talking about.”

“Yes,” agreed Rand, his eyes meditatively upon his upcurling cigarette smoke. “Carpenter knows.”

“The question,” put in Nelson, another of the directors, “is what we are going to do to Maddox. We've paid five hundred dollars for a two weeks' option. We've gone to the trouble and expense of investigating his fake mine. It was my understanding that we were to meet to-day to vote that we call upon him to refund everything we have been out; and that if he doesn't we sue him for it. There's altogether too much of that sort of thing going on.”

“I see.” Rand nodded thoughtfully. “Do you gentlemen all agree with Mr. Nelson?”

They did, most emphatically.

“I think,” went on Rand evenly, “that we'd be making a mistake. I, for one, vote that we close with Maddox this afternoon. That we pay him his fifteen thousand dollars and that we take over the mine. Does anyone stand with me?”

“Why?” demanded Houghton. “What do you know about that mine, Ruud?”

“I know a great deal about Maddox, that mine's present owner,” Rand evaded.

“He's crooked—”

“Very, very crooked. So crooked that it makes some other men crooked to associate with him! Further, I know a man, a miner, who has been in that new town since it grew up one night last month. I wired him last night. Here is his answer.”

He went to the table before which his new “secretary” was sitting, and took up a typewritten sheet of paper, handing it to Houghton. The “King” read it aloud:

“John Rand, New York.”

Houghton stopped there. “Who's John Rand?” he wanted to know.

“My new secretary! Goon. Read it.” And Houghton read:

“And,” said Rand quickly, “I know Bill Huskey, too. That is,” jerking his thumb over his shoulder, “John Rand here knows him well, they were partners once. You can believe what Huskey says, can't you, Rand?”

The man with his back to them didn't seem to have heard. John Rand, taking the paper from Houghton's hand, went back to the table.

“I asked you a question, Rand,” he said carelessly. “I want you to assure these gentlemen that you know from your own personal knowledge of the man that you can believe what Bill Huskey says.”

Jasper Ruud started, and turned a little in his chair, pulling the green shade lower over his eyes.

“Yes,” he answered. “That's right. Bill Huskey—is—ah—Bill's the right sort. You can tie to what he says.”

And he dropped his head and turned back to the table.

“But,” expostulated Houghton, “Bill Huskey may be an honest man and all that. But he's ignorant, his wire tells us that, and he'd be just the man to be fooled by careful salting! And Carpenter has seen the thing and assures us that it's plain bunk!”

“Nevertheless,” continued Rand, coming back to them, “I vote to buy the Big Lode for fifteen thousand. Huskey says it's worth fifty thousand!”

“And Carpenter says it's worth nothing!” retorted Houghton.

Rand laughed. “Experts sometimes make mistakes. And Rand has an idea that in this case it would be well to follow Bill Huskey's advice. You have, haven't you?” swinging about toward Ruud. “You advise buying the Big Lode, don't you?”

Jasper Ruud looked up suddenly, frowned and dropped his eyes.

“I—yes!” he blurted out, having caught the look in Rand's eye. And to himself he muttered, “Here's an-other fifteen thousand I'm out, making good to these fellows!”

“Shall we buy?” John Rand's eyes swept their wondering faces. “Shall we buy?”

“Fifteen thousand dollars is not to be thrown away on the haphazard guess of an ignorant miner—”

“He knows what he is talking about. Shall we buy?”

No. They would not buy. And they wondered at Rand's smile.

“Then I'm going to take a flyer at it.” Jasper Rudd started. “I'm going to buy it myself! No, not from Maddox, because he wouldn't sell to me and I know it. Not for fifteen thousand. But you fellows buy from him, and I'll take it off your hands—and pay over to you the five hundred the Eastern and Western is out for the option. Will you do it? Will you, Houghton?”

Houghton grumbled that it was plain damned idiocy, but shrugged his shoulders and said that he was willing to do it. And Nelson, and the rest in turn.

“Write a check for fifteen thousand, five hundred dollars,” cried John Rand, flinging the check book down in front of Jasper Ruud. “Payable to the Eastern and Western. I'll sign it right now and turn it over. And write a receipt for it. Mr. Houghton will sign that. And here, I think, come Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Maddox.”

Maddox, a short, thick-set man with sly, furtive eyes and a “loud” waistcoat, and Carpenter, a slender, nervous-looking young fellow, came in together. Rand nodded to them, and before speaking handed the two papers to Houghton, receiving back the receipt.

“And now,” to Maddox, “what about that mine of yours? Is it salted or is it not salted?”

Maddox drew himself up pompously.

“It's worth every cent of what I've asked for it. And it's worth a damned sight more. Take it or leave it.”

“How about it, Carpenter?” went on Rand smoothly. “You made a thorough investigation?”

“Yes, Mr. Ruud, I did. And I regret to say that the greater part of the gold in it has been placed there very skilfully to—to catch suckers!”

“All right. Mr. Houghton, will you tell Mr. Maddox whether or not you and the others have decided to buy?”

“We've decided,” boomed Houghton, glaring wrathfully at Maddox, “that you're a damned scoundrel, and that your mine isn't worth the money we have put into the investigation of it.”

“You don't have to take it—”

“No,” from John Rand, genially, “they don't have to take it. But,” beaming good-humoredly upon Maddox, “I have decided to take it myself. I have the papers all ready. Rand, will you hand them to Mr. Maddox to sign? Fifteen thousand dollars—”

“I won't sell it for that!” exploded Maddox. “I've had enough of the bunch of you. If the Eastern and Western has refused its option I won't sell to Jasper Ruud.”

“No, Maddox,” said John Rand, looking at the man steadily. “You won't sell. But, shall I tell you what you will do?”

“Well, what?” angrily.

“You'll give me just sixty-five thousand dollars to keep from selling! Don't understand? You will in a minute. I happen to need exactly fifty thousand. I am giving Houghton my check for fifteen thousand. That means that the Eastern and Western will close with you at the figure you named before you had found out that you had one of the best gold mines in the West! And the Eastern and Western already has my check for fifteen thousand, five hundred for which they immediately turn the Big Lode over to me. Do you want me to keep it? Or will you pay me an extra fifty thousand dollars to get your option back?”

“Fifty thousand!” fumed Maddox. “It's an outrage. Why, Carpenter here tells you—”

“Just exactly what you have paid him to tell us! And I think,” as Carpenter drew instinctively back from him, “that Carpenter is not going to be expert for us much longer. Now, Mr. Maddox, you can consider that to all intents and purposes I am already owner of the Big Lode. I offer it to you for just fifty thousand dollars more than it cost me. You are the man who ought to know if it's worth that. I give you exactly two minutes,” jerking out his watch, “to accept. After that I pledge you my word the price goes up a thousand dollars!”

“But,” yelled Maddox, his face purple with its swelling veins. “It's a damned insane—”

“Never mind what it is,” coolly. “I believe that I could ask you seventy-five thousand and get it. Fifty thousand is all I want. And,” with another glance at his watch, “the two minutes are going!”

For two minutes Maddox poured out a pretty steady stream of Western profanity.

“Time's up,” laughed John Rand. “The price is sixty-six thousand now, Mr. Maddox. And I don't mind telling- you that I've had a tip from a man named Bill Huskey—”

“Oh, hell!” grunted Maddox, disgustedly. “Give me a pen.”

“Make it payable to my secretary, to John Rand,” the man playing the rôle of Jasper Ruud told him good-naturedly. “I'll have him cash it for me.

OW in the world did you know?” wondered Jasper Ruud when the directors of the Eastern and Western had gone, shaking their heads, in the wake of Maddox, tearing up his old option.

John Rand looked down upon the river where the sunlight still fell warmly as he put a check into his pocket.

“I came from South America a couple of months ago, busted. I landed in Nevada. I was one of the first men to rush into this new little mining camp. I saw the Big Lode just after Maddox had gotten possession. I knew then, what he had not guessed, that it was a real gold mine. I was still busted, flat busted. I caught the first freight out and came to New York to interest capital in that same mine. And, I guess you'll believe that I pretty nearly forgot it until the matter came up in a board meeting the other day. So I wired to Bill Huskey.”

“Who's Bill Huskey, anyway?”

“Bill can't read much, and I guess it took him an hour to write that message. But, by the Lord, he knows a mine! I actually believe that if you blindfolded Bill Huskey and carried him over a gold mine he'd smell it! Anyhow,” tapping the pocket into which the check had gone, “I'm almost ready for a little trip to Europe, and I pay my own way!”

“And the girl?”

“I'm going to see her about it right now!”