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THE KING OF ARCADIA
BY FRANCIS LYNDE
Author of "A Romance in Transit," "The Quickening," etc.
ILLUSTRATED
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONSNEW YORK1909
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BYCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published February, 1909
To my daughter Dorothea, AMANUENSIS OF THE LOVING HEART AND WILLING HANDS IN ITS WRITING, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
"You must help me," she pleaded; "I cannot see the way asingle step ahead."]
CONTENTS
I THE CRYPTOGRAM
II THE TRIPPERS
III THE REVERIE OF A BACHELOR
IV ARCADY
V "FIRE IN THE ROCK!"
VI ELBOW CANYON
VII THE POLO PLAYERS
VIII CASTLE 'CADIA
IX THE BRINK OF HAZARD
X HOSKINS'S GHOST
XI GUN PLAY
XII THE RUSTLERS
XIII THE LAW AND THE LADY
XIV THE MAXIM
XV _HOSPES ET HOSTIS_
XVI THE RETURN OF THE OMEN
XVII THE DERRICK FUMBLES
XVIII THE INDICTMENT
XIX IN THE LABORATORY
XX THE GEOLOGIST
XXI MR. PELHAM'S GAME-BAG
XXII A CRY IN THE NIGHT
XXIII DEEP UNTO DEEP
ILLUSTRATIONS
"You must help me," she pleaded; "I cannot see the way a single stepahead."
"Senor Ballar', I have biffo' to-day killed a man for that he spik to melike-a-that!"
The muscles of his face were twitching, and he was breathing hard, likea spent runner.
"There is my notion--and a striking example of Mexican fair play."
THE KING OF ARCADIA
I
THE CRYPTOGRAM
The strenuous rush of the day of suddenly changed plans was over, andwith Gardiner, the assistant professor of geology, to bid him God-speed,Ballard had got as far as the track platform gates of the Boston &Albany Station when Lassley's telegram, like a detaining hand stretchedforth out of the invisible, brought him to a stand.
He read it, with a little frown of perplexity sobering his strong,enthusiastic face.
"_S.S. Carania_, NEW YORK.
"_To_ BRECKENRIDGE BALLARD, _Boston_.
"You love life and crave success. Arcadia Irrigation has killed its originator and two chiefs of construction. It will kill you. Let it alone.
"LASSLEY."
He signed the book, tipped the boy for his successful chase, and passedthe telegram on to Gardiner.
"If you were called in as an expert, what would you make of that?" heasked.
The assistant professor adjusted his eye-glasses, read the message, andreturned it without suggestive comment.
"My field being altogether prosaic, I should make nothing of it. Thereare no assassinations in geology. What does it mean?"
Ballard shook his head.
"I haven't the remotest idea. I wired Lassley this morning telling himthat I had thrown up the Cuban sugar mills construction to accept thechief engineer's billet on Arcadia Irrigation. I didn't suppose he hadever heard of Arcadia before my naming of it to him."
"I thought the Lassleys were in Europe," said Gardiner.
"They are sailing to-day in the _Carania_, from New York. My wire was towish them a safe voyage, and to give my prospective address. Thatexplains the date-line of this telegram."
"But it does not explain the warning. Is it true that the Coloradoirrigation scheme has blotted out three of its field officers?"
"Oh, an imaginative person might put it that way, I suppose," saidBallard, his tone asserting that none but an imaginative person would beso foolish. "Braithwaite, of the Geodetic Survey, was the originator ofthe plan for constructing a storage reservoir in the upper Boiling Waterbasin, and for transforming Arcadia Park into an irrigated agriculturaldistrict. He interested Mr. Pelham and a few other Denver capitalists,and they sent him out as chief engineer to stand the project on itsfeet. Shortly after he had laid the foundations for the reservoir dam,he fell into the Boiling Water and was drowned."
Gardiner's humour was as dry as his professional specialty. "One," hesaid, checking off the unfortunate Braithwaite on his fingers.
"Then Billy Sanderson took it--you remember Billy, in my year? He madethe preliminary survey for an inlet railroad over the mountains, and puta few more stones on Braithwaite's dam. As they say out on the Westernedge of things, Sanderson died with his boots on; got into trouble withsomebody about a camp-following woman and was shot."
"Two," checked the assistant in geology. "Who was the third?"
"An elderly, dyspeptic Scotchman named Macpherson. He took up the workwhere Sanderson dropped it; built the railroad over the mountain andthrough Arcadia Park to the headquarters at the dam, and lived to seethe dam itself something more than half completed."
"And what happened to Mr. Macpherson?" queried Gardiner.
"He was killed a few weeks ago. The derrick fell on him. The accidentprovoked a warm discussion in the technical periodicals. A wire guycable parted--'rusted off,' the newspaper report said--and there was ahowl from the wire-rope makers, who protested that a rope made ofgalvanised wire couldn't possibly 'rust off.'"
"Nevertheless, Mr. Macpherson was successfully killed," remarked theprofessor dryly. "That would seem to be the persisting fact in thediscussion. Does none of these things move you?"
"Certainly not," returned the younger man. "I shall neither fall intothe river, nor stand under a derrick whose guy lines are unsafe."
Gardiner's smile was a mere eye wrinkle of good-natured cynicism. "Youcarefully omit poor Sanderson's fate. One swims out of a torrent--if hecan--and an active young fellow might possibly be able to dodge afalling derrick. But who can escape the toils of the woman 'whose handsare as bands, and whose feet----'"
"Oh, piff!" said the Kentuckian; and then he laughed aloud. "There is,indeed, one woman in the world, my dear _Herr_ Professor, for whose sakeI would joyfully stand up and be shot at; but she isn't in Colorado, bya good many hundred miles."
"No? Nevertheless, Breckenridge, my son, there lies your best chance ofmaking the fourth in the list of sacrifices. You are a Kentuckian; anardent and chivalric Southerner. If the Fates really wish to interposein contravention of the Arcadian scheme, they will once more bait thedeadfall with the eternal feminine--always presuming, of course, thatthere are any Fates, and that they have ordinary intelligence."
Ballard shook his head as if he took the prophecy seriously.
"I am in no danger on that score. Bromley--he was Sanderson's assistant,and afterward Macpherson's, you know--wrote me that the Scotchman'sfirst general order was an edict banishing every woman from theconstruction camps."
"Now, if he had only banished the derricks at the same time," commentedGardiner reflectively. Then he added: "You may be sure the Fates willfind you an enchantress, Breckenridge; the oracles have spoken. Whatwould the most peerless Arcadia be without its shepherdess? But we arejesting when Lassley appears to be very much in earnest. Could there beanything more than coincidence in these fatalities?"
"How could there be?" demanded Ballard. "Two sheer accidents and onecommonplace tragedy, which last was the fault--or the misfortune--ofpoor Billy's temperament, it appears; though he was a sober enoughfellow when he was here learning his trade. Let me prophesy awhile: Ishall live
and I shall finish building the Arcadian dam. Now let usside-track Lassley and his cryptogram and go back to what I was tryingto impress on your mind when he butted in; which is that you are not toforget your promise to come out and loaf with me in August. You shallhave all the luxuries a construction camp affords, and you can geologiseto your heart's content in virgin soil."
"That sounds whettingly enticing," said the potential guest. "And,besides, I am immensely interested in dams; and in wire cables that giveway at inopportune moments. If I were you, Breckenridge, I should makeit a point to lay that broken guy cable aside. It might make interestingmatter for an article in the _Engineer_; say, 'On the Effect of theAtmosphere in High Altitudes upon Galvanised Wire.'"
Ballard paid the tributary laugh. "I believe you'd have your joke if youwere dying. However, I'll keep the broken cable for you, and the poolwhere Braithwaite was drowned, and Sanderson's inamorata--only I supposeMacpherson obliterated her at the earliest possible.... Say, by Jove!that's my train he's calling. Good-by, and don't forget your promise."
After which, but for a base-runner's dash down the platform, Ballardwould have lost the reward of the strenuous day of changed plans at thefinal moment.