II—CALLED IN FOR CONSULTATION.
That evident recognition, that low murmur of confidential speech, that friendly slap on the shoulder, turned the trick. This Robert Bowen of Tonopah was manifestly known to the great Dickover; was palpably a friend of the great Dickover; was clearly and openly a confidant of the great Dickover!
Realizing this, Bowen grinned to himself as the desk clerk doffed all haughtiness and became cordially human. He realized it with greater emphasis as he turned from the desk and found a brisk young man at his elbow with extended card.
“Mr. Bowen? I’m Harkness of the Chronicle. May I have two minutes of your time?”
Bowen affected to eye the young man in consideration.
Publicity! Well, why not? It might affect untold wonders for him. He was arriving in San Francisco unknown and unknowing. He had ore samples and assayers’ reports galore in his grip; but these might do him no good unless he got the impetus he needed. And publicity would give it to him. At least, publicity could not hurt him!
“Sure,” he said, nodding toward the parlors. “Come along and sit down.”
A moment later the two men pulled chairs together and relaxed comfortably.
“Shoot,” commanded Bowen laconically. The reporter grinned.
“I got a tip that you sold the Yellow Jack mine to Dickover for a million and—”
“Pause right there, Harkness!” Bowen lifted his hand, but smiled in his whimsical, likable fashion. “You’ve got it wrong. Dickover has just bought the Yellow Jack, but not from me. Don’t start me off with a false report like that, for the love of Mike!”
“Whew! Good thing you put me wise,” said Harkness frankly. “Well, do you mind telling me what mine you did sell to Dickover?”
Bowen gazed at him again, heavy-lidded. Was this rank deception? He decided that it was not. There was nothing crooked about it. Besides, Dickover had certainly known just how his words and manner to Bowen would be seen and recognized; Dickover had tried to do him a good turn. He was justified in taking advantage of the situation.
“Frankly, Harkness,” said Bowen slowly, “I don’t want to name any names. I’m here to try and dispose of some low-grade properties; rich in ore, but not in rich ore. Maybe you know that the Dickover people touch nothing but pretty rich propositions in the silver field.”
“Sure, I understand.” Harkness nodded assent. “But I heard a rumor that Dickover was here for the purpose of opening up a low-grade system; somebody had invented a means of smelting—”
“Nothing to it,” asserted Bowen. “At least, I was talking about it with Dickover on the train, and he didn’t say—”
He checked himself abruptly. He had no business talking like this. Harkness, however, came to his feet as if unwilling to detain the magnate further.
“Much obliged for your time, Mr. Bowen; mighty good of you, I’m sure! No special news from Tonopah way? Nothing on the inside that you’d pass along—”
“Oh, sure!” Bowen grinned. “The Yellow Jack was sold to Dickover by a Swede named Olafson. I sold the mine to Olafson two years ago—for five hundred beans!”
Harkness whistled. “Say—but you wouldn’t let me use that, of course.”
“Go ahead. I should worry!” Bowen chuckled. “The joke is on me, and everybody up at Tonopah knows it. Only don’t make me out a fool, Harkness; two years ago there was no ruby vein known in that property.”
“Trust me! Thanks, a thousand times.”
Bowen went to his room, and sighed at the luxury of it. After that talk with the mining reporter, he had almost believed in his own assured wealth.
When he sought the “hotel personals” in the next morning’s Chronicle, he smiled!
With Mr. Dickover, on the Overland, arrived Mr. Robert Bowen, of Tonopah, who, it is rumored, has recently disposed of large holdings in the Dickover interests. Mr. Bowen is heavily interested in low-grade silver properties near Tonopah.
And upon the mining page were separate stories; one concerning the Yellow Jack, the other, by the authority of Dickover himself, flatly contradicting the rumor that the Dickover interests had anything to do with low-grade silver ores.
“If nobody calls my little bluff, all right!” thought Bowen. “Now for work.”
Having a list of every one who might put capital into his holdings, Bowen engaged a car by the day and set forth.
At four that afternoon, with ten dollars left in his pocket and no hope left in his soul, Bob Bowen of Tonopah reentered his room at the hotel and threw down his grip.
He had covered everybody, even to those in whom he had looked for no interest. And always the same story: courtesy, a good reception, growing caution, flat refusal. It seemed that nobody in San Francisco would put a cent into low-grade silver. The Arizona crash had scared every investor away from mines for the next six months.
Bowen swore savagely to himself. Then, at the jingle of the telephone bell, he stumbled across the room to the instrument.
“Mr. Bowen? A party has called you three times since this morning. Left the number: Mission 34852. Do you wish to call them?”
“If you please.”
Bowen hung up. Sudden hope was reborn within him for a brief moment. Who was so infernally anxious to see him? Who but some one to whom he had talked that morning—some one who wanted him to return—some one who now wanted to invest!
The telephone jingled again.
“Mr. Bowen?” To his intense disappointment, a feminine voice impinged upon his ear. Then his feeling changed. It was a nice voice and he liked it. It held a softly appealing note. He imagined that it held a trace of tears.
“Mr. Bowen, I’m a stranger to you; my name is Alice Ferguson. I used to be a stenographer for your friend Judge Lyman in Tonopah. In this morning’s paper I saw that you were here, and I wondered if I might see you for five minutes on a matter of business. It—it is about some stock in Apex Crown, and it means everything to me; and if I could possibly impose on you to the extent of asking your advice—”
“My dear Miss Ferguson,” exclaimed Bowen, warmth in his voice, “I remember you very well indeed, although I never met you formally. Sure, I’ll be only too glad to do anything in my power. Where are you now?”
“In my office at the Crothers Building. I’ll come over—”
“Not a bit of it! I’ll be there in five minutes. Good-by!”
Bob Bowen remembered Judge Lyman’s stenographer as a girl not particularly striking, but looking very feminine, capable, and as level-headed as a girl could be. He seized his hat and sought the quickest way to the Crothers Building.
As he strode along, his mind was busy—very busy. Apex Crown! That was a small producing mine over in the Tonopah district; like his own futures, Apex Crown was low-grade ore and barely paid expenses. It had been scraping alone for about three years with the stock down to five cents and less.
But on the train, the great Dickover had said to—buy Apex Crown!
Had Dickover been uttering a grim jest, thinking that the drummer and Bowen would rush to operate on his tip? Was Apex Crown worthless? And what was Alice Ferguson’s interest in this stock, this stock which on the curb market was unsought and unbought?
Bob Bowen reached the Crothers Building. The elevator-man informed him that Miss Ferguson was a public stenographer. Two minutes later he was shaking hands with her.
She was as he remembered her—dark, lithe, rather grave-eyed just at present but with merriment latent in her face; and altogether feminine. Bowen would have been amazed had he realized how he himself was smiling as he seldom smiled.
“I’ve often heard Judge Lyman say that you were the squarest man he knew, Mr. Bowen,” said the girl frankly, and smiled as Bowen stammered dissent. “Nonsense! That is why I called on you. I’m up against it and don’t know what I should do.”
“Neither do I,” returned Bowen cheerfully. “What’s the trouble?”
“Well, my father was a business man in Tonopah. He died three years ago, leaving me alone. After his death, it developed that he had sunk all his money in Apex Crown stock; this was in the early days, you know. The stock looked valuable, but there was no immediate demand for it. Then gradually it went down, and stayed down—”
“How much stock?” demanded Bowen.
“Ten thousand shares.”
“Whew! Say, that was a shame! A shame—”
“No. My father had good judgment as a rule,” was the grave rebuke, and Bowen fell silent. The girl pursued her subject coolly. “This morning a broker looked me up and made me an offer of ten cents a share for the stock. I refused him, and he went up to twenty cents—”
“He—what?” broke out Bowen. “Twenty cents?”
“Yes. I told him that I’d give him my answer to-morrow. The paper said that you were largely interested in low-grade ores, and I thought you might know something about this Apex Crown. If it’s really worth anything, of course I don’t want to throw it away—”
“Hold on a minute!” Bowen drew forth an afternoon paper which he had bought and had stuffed into his overcoat pocket without reading. “I don’t know anything definite, but if anything has broken loose—ah! Here we are! Look at this!”
Excitedly he laid on the desk before her the opened paper. His finger pointed to an obscure paragraph—a list of curb stocks. The first stock was Apex Crown. Five thousand shares had changed hands, at a price of five cents, before the paper had gone to press.
“Now, see here, Miss Ferguson!” exclaimed Bowen. “Yesterday on the train, I met Mr. Dickover; the big plunger, you know! He said to buy Apex Crown. Naturally, I thought he was handing me a stinger by way of a joke. But here five thousand shares have changed hands to-day! Do you realize that for the last year or two nobody would have that stock at any figure? And here a broker comes to you with an offer for your block—”
They stared at each other, wordless. A touch of crimson crept into the girl’s cheeks. Their eyes exchanged the same message of comprehension, of surmise.
“You think,” said the girl suddenly, “that Dickover is taking control of Apex Crown?”
Bowen was silent for so long that the silence became painful.
“No,” he returned at last. “No. I don’t think he is. My cool judgment says he is not. But what’s judgment anyhow? You hang on to that stock, Miss Ferguson!”
She flushed a little, but her eyes dwelt on his. “I—I need the money it would bring at twenty cents,” she faltered. “And yet—look here, Mr. Bowen! I suppose you’re a very busy man and I have no right to ask it—”
“I’m not busy,” said Bowen bitterly. “I’m on a vacation. I’ll do anything you ask.”
“I was wondering if—if you would let me indorse the stock over to you, and then you could act as you think best. Either sell it, or bargain for a higher figure—”
She paused, her grave eyes intent upon his lean-muscled face.
“If it’s too much to ask of you,” she went on, “please say so. I don’t want to make you trouble or to impose on you, Mr. Bowen; you’re been altogether too good in wasting this much of your time on me—”
“Wasting it? Great Jehu! I was just kicking myself for wasting so much time in not knowing you—I mean,” he added confusedly, “for not having wasted a little time in the past—no, I don’t mean that either. Well, if you’re willing to trust me, I’ll do my best in the matter! Where’s the stock?”
“I have the certificates here,” and the girl turned to the desk, but not quickly enough to hide the new tide of crimson that had welled into her face. It was not hard for any young lady to see that Bob Bowen of Tonopah was flustered. And Bob Bowen, as this young lady knew very well, had the reputation of never being flustered by anything or any one.
Why should she not blush, at such an unspoken compliment?