XX
THE GEOLOGIST
It was Miss Craigmiles herself who gave Ballard the exact date ofProfessor Gardiner's coming; driving down to the construction camp alonein the little motor-car for that avowed purpose.
A cloud-burst in the main range had made the stage road from Alta Vistaimpassable for the moment, leaving the Arcadia Company's railroad--bysome unexplained miracle of good fortune--unharmed. Hence, unless theexpected guest could be brought over from Alta Vista on the materialtrain, he would be indefinitely detained on the other side of themountain. Miss Elsa came ostensibly to beg a favour.
"Of course, I'll send over for him," said Ballard, when the favour hadbeen named. "Didn't I tell you he is going to be _my_ guest?"
"But he isn't," she insisted, playfully. Bromley was out and at work,Wingfield had entirely recovered from the effects of his electric shock,and there had been no untoward happenings for three peaceful weeks.Wherefore there was occasion for light-heartedness.
Ballard descended from the bungalow porch and arbitrarily stopped thebuzzing engines of the runabout by cutting out the batteries. "This isthe first time I've seen you for three weeks," he asserted--which was alover's exaggeration. "Please come up and sit on the porch. There is anynumber of things I want to say."
"Where is Mr. Bromley?" she asked, making no move to leave thedriving-seat.
"He is out on the ditch survey--luckily for me. Won't you please 'lightand come in?--as we say back in the Blue-grass."
"You don't deserve it. You haven't been near us since Mr. Bromley wentback to work. Why?"
"I have been exceedingly busy; we are coming down the home-stretch onour job here, as you know." The commonplace excuse was the only oneavailable. He could not tell her that it was impossible for him toaccept further hospitalities at Castle 'Cadia.
"Mr. Bromley hasn't been too busy," she suggested.
"Bromley owes all of you a very great debt of gratitude."
"And you do not, you would say. That is quite true. You owe us nothingbut uncompromising antagonism--hatred, if you choose to carry it to thatextreme."
"No," he returned gravely. "I can't think of you and of enmity at thesame moment."
"If you could only know," she said, half absently, and the troubleshadow came quickly into the backgrounding depths of the beautiful eyes."There is no real cause for enmity or hatred--absolutely none."
"I am thinking of you," he reminded her, reverting to the impossibilityof associating that thought with the other.
"Thank you; I am glad you can make even that much of a concession. It ismore than another would make." Then, with the unexpectedness which wasall her own: "I am still curious to know what you did to Mr. Wingfield:that day when he so nearly lost his life in the laboratory?"
"At what time in that day?" he asked, meaning to dodge if he could.
"You know--when you had him here in your office, with Jerry and Mr.Bromley."
"I don't remember all the things I did to him, that day and before it. Ibelieve I made him welcome--when I had to. He hasn't been using hiswelcome much lately, though."
"No; not since that day that came near ending so terribly. I'd like toknow what happened."
"Nothing--of any consequence. I believe I told you that Wingfield wasboring us with the plot of a new play."
"Yes; and you said you couldn't remember it."
"I don't want to remember it. Let's talk of something else. Is youranxiety--the trouble you refuse to share with me--any lighter?"
"No--yes; just for the moment, perhaps."
"Are you still determined not to let me efface it for you?"
"You couldn't; no one can. It can never be effaced."
His smile was the man's smile of superior wisdom.
"Don't we always say that when the trouble is personal?"
She ignored the query completely, and her rejoinder was totallyirrelevant--or it seemed to be.
"You think I came down here to ask you to send over to Alta Vista forProfessor Gardiner. That was merely an excuse. I wanted to beg you onceagain to suspend judgment--not to be vindictive."
Again he dissimulated. "I'm not vindictive: why should I be?"
"You have every reason; or, at least, you believe you have." She leanedover the arm of the driving-seat and searched his eyes pleadingly:"Please tell me: how much did Mr. Wingfield find out?"
It was blankly impossible to tell her the hideous truth, or anythingremotely approaching it. But his parrying of her question was passingskilless.
"Not being a mind-reader, I can't say what Wingfield knows--or thinks heknows. Our disagreement turned upon his threat to make literary materialout of--well, out of matters that were in a good measure my own privateand personal affairs."
"Oh; so there _was_ a quarrel? That is more than you were willing toadmit a moment ago."
"You dignify it too much. I believe I called him an ass, and he calledme an idiot. There was no bloodshed."
"You are jesting again. You always jest when I want to be serious."
"I might retort that I learned the trick of it from you--in the blesseddays that are now a part of another existence."
"Oh!" she said; and there was so much more of distress than ofimpatience in the little outcry that he was mollified at once.
"I'm going to crank the engines and send you home," he asseverated. "I'mnot fit to talk to you to-day." And he started the engines of themotor-car.
She put a dainty foot on the clutch-pedal. "You'll come up and see me?"she asked; adding: "Some time when you are fit?"
"I'll come when I am needed; yes."
He walked beside the slowly moving car as she sent it creeping down themesa hill on the brakes. At the hill-bottom turn, where the camp streetended and the roundabout road led off to the temporary bridge, shestopped the car. The towering wall of the great dam, with its dotting ofworkmen silhouetted black against the blue of the Colorado sky, rosehigh on the left. She let her gaze climb to the summit of the huge dike.
"You are nearly through?" she asked.
"Yes. Two other weeks, with no bad luck, will see us ready to turn onthe water."
She was looking straight ahead again.
"You know what that means to us at Castle 'Cadia?--but of course youdo."
"I know I'd rather be a 'mucker' with a pick and shovel out yonder inthe ditch than to be the boss here when the spillway gates are closed atthe head of the cut-off tunnel. And that is the pure truth."
"This time I believe you without reservation, Breckenridge--my friend."Then: "Will Mr. Pelham come out to the formal and triumphal opening ofthe Arcadian Irrigation District?"
"Oh, you can count on that--with all the trimmings. There is to be ademonstration in force, as Major Blacklock would say; special trainsfrom Denver to bring the crowd, a barbecue dinner, speeches, aland-viewing excursion over the completed portion of the railroad, andfireworks in the evening while the band plays 'America.' You can trustMr. Pelham to beat the big drum and to clash the cymbals vigorously andman-fashion at the psychological instant."
"For purely commercial reasons, of course? I could go a step further andtell you something else that will happen. There will be a good manytransfers of the Arcadia Company's stock at the triumphal climax."
He was standing with one foot on the car step and his hands buried inthe pockets of his short working-coat. His eyes narrowed to regard herthoughtfully.
"What do you know about such things?" he demurred. "You know altogethertoo much for one small bachelor maid. It's uncanny."
"I am the cow-punching princess of Arcadia, and Mr. Pelham's naturalenemy, you must remember," she countered, with a laugh that soundedentirely care-free. "I could tell you more about the stock affair. Mr.Pelham has been very liberal with his friends in the floating of thisgreat and glorious undertaking--to borrow one of his pet phrases. He hasplaced considerable quantities of the Arcadia Company's stock among themat merely nominal prices, asking only that they sign a 'gentlemen'sagreement' not to resell
any of it, so that my father could get it. Butthere is a wheel within that wheel, too. Something more than half of thenominal capitalisation has been reserved as 'treasury stock.' When theenthusiasm reaches the proper height, this reserved stock will be putupon the market. People will be eager to buy it--won't they?--with thework all done, and everything in readiness to tap the stream of suddenwealth?"
"Probably: that would be the natural inference."
"I thought so. And, as the company's chief engineer, you could doubtlessget in on the 'ground floor' that Mr. Pelham is always talking about,couldn't you?"
The question was one to prick an honest man in his tenderest part.Ballard was hurt, and his face advertised it.
"See here, little girl," he said, flinging the formalities to the winds;"I am the company's hired man at the present moment, but that isentirely without prejudice to my convictions, or to the fact that someday I am going to marry you. I hope that defines my attitude. As mattersstand, Mr. Pelham couldn't hand me out any of his stock on a silverplatter!"
"And Mr. Bromley?"
"You needn't fear for Loudon; he isn't going to invest, either. You knowvery well that he is in precisely the same boat that I am."
"How shocking!" she exclaimed, with an embarrassed little laugh. "Is Mr.Bromley to marry your widow? Or are you to figure as the consolationprize for his widow? Doubtless you have arranged it amicably betweenyou."
Having said the incendiary thing, he brazened it out like a man and alover.
"It's no joke. I suppose I might sidestep, but I sha'n't. You know verywell that Bromley is in love with you--up to his chin, and I'm afraidyou have been too kind to him. That is a little hard on Loudon, youknow--when you are going to marry some one else. But let that rest, andtell me a little more about this stock deal. Why should there be a'gentlemen's agreement' to exclude your father? To a rank outsider likemyself, Arcadia Irrigation would seem to be about the last thing in theworld Colonel Adam Craigmiles would want to buy."
"Under present conditions, I think it is," she said. "_I_ shouldn't buyit now."
"What would you do, O wise virgin of the market-place?"
"I'd wait patiently while the rocket is going up; I might even clap myhands and say 'Ah-h-h!' with the admiring multitude. But afterward, whenthe stick comes down, I'd buy every bit of Arcadia Irrigation I couldfind."
Again he was regarding her through half-closed eyelids.
"As I said before, you know too much about such things--altogether toomuch." He said it half in raillery, but his deduction was made seriouslyenough. "You think your father will win his law-suit and so break themarket?"
"No; on the contrary, I'm quite sure he will be beaten. I am going, now.Don't ask me any more questions: I've said too much to the company'sengineer, as it is."
"You have said nothing to the company's engineer," he denied. "You havebeen talking to Breckenridge Ballard, your future----"
She set the car in motion before he could complete the sentence, and hestood looking after it as it shot away up the hills. It was quite out ofsight, and the sound of its drumming motor was lost in the hoarsegrumbling of the river, before he began to realise that Elsa's visit hadnot been for the purpose of asking him to send for Gardiner, nor yet tobeg him not to be vindictive. Her real object had been to warn him notto buy Arcadia Irrigation. "Why?" came the unfailing question,shot-like; and, like all the others of its tribe, it had to gounanswered.
It was two days later when Gardiner, the assistant professor of geology,kept his appointment, was duly met at Alta Vista by Ballard's specialengine and a "dinkey" way-car, and was transported in state to theArcadian fastnesses. Ballard had it in mind to run down the line on theother engine to meet the Bostonian; but Elsa forestalled him byintercepting the "special" at Ackerman's with the motor-car and whiskingthe guest over the roundabout road to Castle 'Cadia.
Gardiner walked down to the construction camp at Elbow Canyon bright andearly the following morning to make his peace with Ballard.
"Age has its privileges which youth is obliged to concede, Breckenridge,my son," was the form his apology took. "When I learned that I mighthave my visit with you, and still be put up at the millionaire hostelryin the valley above, I didn't hesitate a moment. I am far beyond thepoint of bursting into enthusiastic raptures over a bunk shake-down in acamp shanty, steel forks, tin platters, and plum-duff, when I can liveon the fat of the land and sleep on a modern mattress. How are youcoming on? Am I still in time to be in at the death?"
"I hope there isn't going to be any death," was the laughing rejoinder."Because, in the natural sequence of things, it would have to be mine,you know."
"Ah! You are tarred a little with the superstitious stick, yourself, areyou? What was it you said to me about 'two sheer accidents and acommonplace tragedy'? You may remember that I warned you, and the eventproves that I was a true prophet. I predicted that Arcadia would haveits shepherdess, you recollect."
Thus, with dry humour, the wise man from the East. But Ballard was notprepared at the moment for a plunge into the pool of sentiment with themildly cynical old schoolman for a bath-master, and he proposed, as thereadiest alternative, a walking tour of the industries.
Gardiner was duly impressed by the industrial miracles, and by themagnitude of the irrigation scheme. Also, he found fitting words inwhich to express his appreciation of the thoroughness of Ballard's work,and of the admirable system under which it was pressing swiftly to itsconclusion. But these matters became quickly subsidiary when he began toexamine the curious geological formation of the foothill range throughwhich the river elbowed its tumultuous course.
"These little wrinklings of the earth's crust at the foot of the greatmountain systems are nature's puzzle-pieces for us," he remarked. "Iforesee an extremely enjoyable vacation for me--if you have forgiven meto the extent of a snack at your mess-table now and then, and a possiblenight's lodging in your bungalow if I should get caught out too late toreach the millionaire luxuries of Castle 'Cadia."
"If I haven't forgiven you, Bromley will take you in," laughed Ballard."Make yourself one of us--when you please and as you please. The campand everything in it belongs to you for as long as you can persuadeyourself to stay."
Gardiner accepted the invitation in its largest sense, and the afternoonof the same day found him prowling studiously in the outlet canyon withhammer and specimen-bag; a curious figure of complete abstraction inbrown duck and service leggings, overshadowed by an enormous cork-linedhelmet-hat that had been faded and stained by the sun and rains of threecontinents. Ballard passed the word among his workmen. The absent-mindedstranger under the cork hat was the guest of the camp, who was to bepermitted to go and come as he chose, whose questions were to beanswered without reserve, and whose peculiarities, if he had any, wereto pass unremarked.
With the completion of the dam so near at hand, neither of the two youngmen who were responsible for the great undertaking had much time tospare for extraneous things. But Gardiner asked little of his secondaryhosts; and presently the thin, angular figure prowling and tapping atthe rocks became a familiar sight in the busy construction camp. It wasLamoine, the camp jester, who started the story that the figure in browncanvas was a mascot, imported specially by the "boss" to hold the"hoodoo" in check until the work should be done; and thereafter theBoston professor might have chipped his specimens from the facing stoneson the dam without let or hindrance.
The masons were setting the coping course on the great wall on a daywhen Gardiner's studious enthusiasm carried him beyond the dinner-hourat Castle 'Cadia and made him an evening guest in the engineer's adobe;and in the after-supper talk it transpired that the assistant in geologyhad merely snatched a meagre fortnight out of his work in the summerschool, and would be leaving for home in another day or two.
Both of the young men protested their disappointment. They had been toobusy to see anything of their guest in a comradely way, and they hadbeen looking forward to the lull in the activities which would followthe opening
celebration and promising themselves a more hospitableentertainment of the man who had been both Mentor and elder brother tothem in the Boston years.
"You are not regretting it half as keenly as I am," the guest assuredthem. "Apart from losing the chance to thresh it out with you two, Ihave never been on more fascinatingly interesting geological ground. Icould spend an entire summer among these wonderful hills of yourswithout exhausting their astonishing resources."
Ballard made allowances for scholastic enthusiasm. He had slightedgeology for the more strictly practical studies in his college course.
"Meaning the broken formations?" he asked.
"Meaning the general topsyturvyism of all the formations. Where youmight reasonably expect to find one stratum, you find others perhapsthousands of years older--or younger--in the geological chronology. Iwonder you haven't galvanised a little enthusiasm over it: you discredityour alma mater and me when you regard these marvellous hills merely asconvenient buttresses for your wall of masonry. And, by the way, thatreminds me: neither of you two youngsters is responsible for thefoundations of that dam; isn't that the fact?"
"It is," said Bromley, answering for both. Then he added that thespecifications called for bed-rock, which Fitzpatrick, who had workedunder Braithwaite, said had been uncovered and properly benched for thestructure.
"'Bed-rock,'" said the geologist, reflectively. "That is a workman'sterm, and is apt to be misleading. The vital question, under suchabnormal conditions as those presenting themselves in your canyon, is,What kind of rock was it?"
Bromley shook his head. "You can't prove it by me. The foundations wereall in before I came on the job. But from Fitzpatrick's description Ishould take it to be the close-grained limestone."
"H'm," said Gardiner. "Dam-building isn't precisely in my line; but Ishouldn't care to trust anything short of the granites in such alocality as this."
"You've seen something?" queried Ballard.
"Nothing immediately alarming; merely an indication of what might be.Where the river emerges from your cut-off tunnel below the dam, it hasworn out a deep pit in the old bed, as you know. The bottom of this pitmust, in the nature of things, be far below the foundations of themasonry. Had you thought of that?"
"I have--more than once or twice," Ballard admitted.
"Very well," continued the Master of the Rocks; "that circumstancesuggests three interrogation points. Query one: How has the divertedtorrent managed to dig such a deep cavity if the true primitives--yourworkman's 'bed-rock'--under-lie its channel cutting? Query two: Whatcauses the curious reverberatory sound like distant thunder made by thestream as it plunges into this pit--a sound suggesting subterraneancaverns? Query three--and this may be set down as the most important ofthe trio: Why is the detritus washed up out of this singular pot-hole afriable brown shale, quite unlike anything found higher up in the bed ofthe stream?"
The two young men exchanged swift glances of apprehension. "Yourdeductions, Professor?" asked Bromley, anxiously.
"Now you are going too fast. True science doesn't deduce: it waits untilit can prove. But I might hazard a purely speculative guess. Mr.Braithwaite's foundation stratum--your contractor's 'bed-rock'--may notbe the true primitive; it may in its turn be underbedded by this brownshale that the stream is washing up out of its pot-hole."
"Which brings on more talk," said Ballard, grappling thoughtfully withthe new perplexities forming themselves upon Gardiner's guess.
"Decidedly, one would say. Granting my speculative answer to QueryNumber Three, the Arcadia Company's dam may stand for a thousandyears--or it may not. Its life may possibly be determined in a singlenight, if by any means the water impounded above it should find its waythrough Fitzpatrick's 'bed-rock' to an underlying softer stratum."
Ballard's eyes were fixed upon a blue-print profile of Elbow Canyonpinned upon the wall, when he said: "If that pot-hole, or some riftsimilar to it, were above the dam instead of below it, for example?"
"Precisely," said the geologist. "In five minutes after the opening ofsuch an underground channel your dam might be transformed into amakeshift bridge spanning an erosive torrent comparable in fierce anddestructive energy, to nothing milder than a suddenly released Niagara."
Silence ensued, and afterward the talk drifted to other fields; waschiefly reminiscent of the younger men's university years. It was whileBromley and Gardiner were carrying the brunt of it that Ballard got upand went out. A few minutes later the out-door stillness of the nightwas shattered by the sharp crack of a rifle, and other shots followed inquick succession.
Bromley sprang afoot at the first discharge, but before he could reachthe door of the adobe, Ballard came in, carrying a hatful of roughlycrumbled brown earth. He was a little short of breath, and his eyes wereflashing with excitement. Nevertheless, he was cool enough to stopBromley's question before it could be set in words.
"It was only one of the colonel's Mexican mine guards trying a littlerifle practice in the dark," he explained; and before there could be anycomment: "I went out to get this, Gardiner"--indicating the hatful ofearth. "It's a sample of some stuff I'd like to have you take back toBoston with you for a scientific analysis. I've got just enough of theprospector's blood in me to make me curious about it."
The geologist examined the brown earth critically; passed a handful ofit through his fingers; smelled it; tasted it.
"How much have you got of this?" he asked, with interest palpablyaroused.
"Enough," rejoined the Kentuckian, evasively.
"Then your fortune is made, my son. This 'stuff,' as you call it, is thebasis of Colonel Craigmile's millions. I hope your vein isn't a part ofhis."
Again Ballard evaded the implied question. "What do you know about it,Gardiner? Have you ever seen any of it before?"
"I have, indeed. More than that, I have 'proved up' on it, as yourWestern miners say of their claims. A few evenings ago we were talkingof expert analyses--the colonel and young Wingfield and I--up at thehouse of luxuries, and the colonel ventured to wager that he could stumpme; said he could give me a sample of basic material carrying fabulousvalues, the very name of which I wouldn't be able to tell him after themost exhaustive laboratory tests. Of course, I had to take him up--ifonly for the honour of the Institute--and the three of us went down tohis laboratory. The sample he gave me was some of this brown earth."
"And you analysed it?" inquired Ballard with eagerness unconcealed.
"I did; and won a box of the colonel's high-priced cigars, for which,unhappily, I have no possible use. The sample submitted, like this inyour hat, was zirconia; the earth-ore which carries the rare metalzirconium. Don't shame me and your alma mater by saying that this meansnothing to you."
"You've got us down," laughed Bromley. "It's only a name to me; the nameof one of the theoretical metals cooked up in laboratory experiments.And I venture to say it is even less than that to Breckenridge."
"It is a very rare metal, and up to within a few years has never beenfound in a natural state or produced in commercial quantities,"explained the analyst, mounting and riding his hobby with apparent zest."A refined product of zirconia, the earth itself, has been used to makeincandescent gas-mantles; and it was M. Leoffroy, of Paris, whodiscovered a method of electric-furnace reduction for isolating themetal. It was a great discovery. Zirconium, which is exceedingly denseand practically irreducible by wear, is supplanting iridium for thepointing of gold pens, and its value for that purpose is far in excessof any other known substance."
"But Colonel Craigmiles never ships anything from his mine, so far asany one can see," Ballard cut in.
"No? It isn't necessary. He showed us his reduction-plant--run bywater-power from the little dam in the upper canyon. It is quiteperfect. You will understand that the actual quantity of zirconiumobtained is almost microscopic; but since it is worth much more thandiamonds, weight for weight, the plant needn't be very extensive. Andthe fortunate miner in this instance is wholly independent of thetransportation lines. He ca
n carry his output to market in his vestpocket."
After this, the talk, resolutely shunted by Ballard, veered aside fromArcadian matters. Later on, when Bromley was making up a shake-down bedin the rear room for the guest, the Kentuckian went out on the porch tosmoke. It was here that Bromley found him after the Bostonian had beenput to bed.
"Now, then, I want to know where you got that sample, Breckenridge?" hedemanded, without preface.
Ballard's laugh was quite cheerful.
"I stole it out of one of the colonel's ore bins at the entrance of themine over yonder."
"I thought so. And the shots?"
"They were fired at me by one of the Mexican night guards, of course.One of them hit the hat as I was running away, and I was scared stifffor fear Gardiner's sharp old eyes would discover the hole. I'm rightglad for one thing, Loudon; and that is that the mine is really a mine.Sometimes I've been tempted to suspect that it was merely a hole in theground, designed and maintained purely for the purpose of cinching theArcadia Company for damages."
Bromley sat up straight and his teeth came together with a little click.He was remembering the professor's talk about the underlying shales, anda possible breach into them above the dam when he said: "Or to--" butthe sentence was left unfinished. Instead, he fell to reproachingBallard for his foolhardiness.
"Confound you, Breckenridge! you haven't sense enough to stay in thehouse when it's raining out-of-doors! The idea of your taking suchreckless chances on a mere whiff of curiosity! Let me have a pipeful ofthat tobacco--unless you mean to hog that, too--along with all the otherrisky things."