Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 140, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1916 — The City of Numbered Days [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The City of Numbered Days

By Francis Lynde

SYNOPSIS. —lo— chief engineer of th® Niquoia irrigation dam, meets J. Wesley Cortwright and explains the reclamation work to him. -Cortwrlght organizes a company and obtains government contracts to furnish power and material. Steve Massin gale threatens to start a gold rush it BrouHlard does not use his influence to bring a railroad branch to the P lac ®; T^t V® opening an easy market for the LJttie Susan” mine ore. BrouHlard tells Amy Massingale of his need for money to P y off his dead father’s debts. She tells him to be true to himself. He decides for the extension. Mlrapolis, the city of numbered days, booms. Cortwrlght persuades BrouHlard to become consulting engineer of the power company In return for »100,000 stock. Stoppage of work on the raiiroad threatens a panic. BrouHlard spreads the Massingale story of placer gold i the river bed and starts a gold rus . which promises to stop the r e^! a J? at i° r project. Amy tells BrouHlard that her father Is In Cortwrlght s financial clutches. He tells her he has made SIOO, 000 and declares his love.- She lo ves him, but shows him that he has become demoralized. A real gold find is made. BrouHlard sells his stock but does not pay his father’s debts. Cortwrlght s son shoots Dave Masslngale. BrouHlard threatens •Cortwrlght with exposure if he pushes Masslngale to the wall.

CHAPTER—XV—Continued. The promoter pulled himself erec.t •with a grip on either arm of the chair. “BrouHlard, do you know what you are talking about?” he demanded. “No; it is only a guess. But as matters stand—with your son indictable for an attempted murder ... if I were you, Mr. Cortwright, I believe I’d give David Massingale a chance to pay those notes at the bank. ’ “And let him blackmail me? Not in a month of Sundays, BrouHlard! Let him sell his ore and pay the notes if he can. If he can’t, I’ll take the mine.” "All right,” said the visitor placably. “You asked, and I’ve answered. Now let’s come to something more vital to both of us. There is a pretty persistent rumor on the street that you and your associates succeeded in getting a resolution through both houses of congress at the last session, appointing a committee to Investigate this Coronida claim right here on the ground. Nobody seems to have any definite details, and It possibly hasn’t occurred to anyone that congress hasn’t been in session since Mirapolis was born. But that doesn’t matter. The committee Is coming; you have engaged rooms for it here in Bongras’. You are expecting the private-car special next week.” “Well?” said the magnate. "You’re a pretty good kindergartner. But what of it?”

“Oh, nothing. Only I think you might have taken me in on the little side play. What if I had gone about town contradicting the rumor?" “Why should you? It’s true. The congressional party will, be here next week, and nobody has made any secret of it.” , „ “Still, I might have been taken in, persisted Broulllard suavely. "You’ll surely want to give me my instructions a little beforehand, won’t you? Just think how easily things might get tangled. Suppose I should say to somebody—to Garner, for example—that the town was hugely mistaken; that no congressional committee had ever been appointed; that these gentlemen who are about to visit us are mere complaisant friends of yours, coming as your guests, on a junketing trip at your expense. Wouldn’t that be rather The mayor of Mirapolls brought his hands together, fist in palm, and for a flitting Instant the young engineer saw in the face of the father the same expression that he had seen in the face of the son when Van Bruce Cortwright was struggling for a second chance to

kill a man. “Damn you!'’ said the magnate javagely; ‘‘you always know too much! You’re bargaining with me!” “Well, you have bargained with me, first, last and all the time,” was the cool retort. "On each occasion I have had my price, and you have paid. it. Now you are going to pay it again. Shall I go over to the Spotlight office and tell Harlan what I know?" “You can’t bluff me that way, Broulllard, and you ought th sense it by this time. Do you suppose I don’t know how you are fixed? —that you’ve got money—money that you used jo saj you owed somebody else —tied up in Mirapolls investments?” _ Broulllard rose and buttoned his coat. „ , ~««phere is one weak link In your chain, Mr. Cortwright,” he said evenly; "you don’t know men. Put on your coat and come over to Harlan’s office with me. It will take just about two minutes to satisfy you that I’m not bluffing.” For a moment it appeared that the offer was to be accepted. But- when ho had one arm in a coat sleeve,

Brouillard’s antagonist in the game of hardihood changed his tactics. “Forget it,” he growled morosely. "What do you want this time?” “I want you to send a wire to Red Butte telling the smelter people that you will be glad to have them handle the 'Little Susan’ ore.” “And if I do?”

"If you do, two things otherwise due to happen adversely will go over to your side of the market. I’ll agree to keep out of the way of the sham Washington delegation, and I think I can promise that Harlan won’t make a scarehead of the facts concerning the Coronida land titles.”

Mr. Cortwrlght thrust the other arm into the remaining coat sleeve and scowled. But the rebound to the norm of brusque good nature came almost immediately. “You are Improving wonderfully, BrouHlard, and that’s no joke. I have a large respect for a man who can outbid me in my own corner. You ought to be in business —and you will be, some time. I’ll send the wire, but I warn you in advance that I can’t make the smblter people take Massingale’s ore if they don’t want to, All I can do is to give the old man a free field.” “That is all he will ask —all I’ll ask, except one small personal favor: Don’t rub your masquerading Washington delegation into me too hard. A fine quality of noninterference is about all you are buying from me.” "Tell me one thing, BrouHlard r What is your stake in the Massingale game? Are you a silent partner in the ‘Little Susan’?” “No.”

"Then why are you so anxious to make old David a rich man’at my expense? Are you going to marry the girl?" The engineer did not resent the question as he would have resented it a few weeks earlier. Instead he smiled and said: "A little while ago, Mr. Cortwrlght, I told you that you didn't know men; now I’ll add that you don’t know women.”

CHAPTER XVIQ Flood Tide

Public opinion, skillfully formed upon models fashioned in Mayor Cortwrlght’s municipal laboratory, dealt handsomely with the little group of widely-heralded visitors—the “congressional committee.” When it was whispered about, some days before the auspicious arrival, that the visiting lawmakers wished for no public demonstration of welcome, it was resolved, both in the city council and in the Commercial club, that the wish should be rigidly respected..

Hence, after the farewell banquet at the Commercial club, at which even the toasts had ignored the official mission of Mayor Cortwright’s guests, tingling curiosity still restrained Itself, said nothing and did nothing until the train had stormed out on the beginning of its steep climb to War Arrow pass. Then the barriers went down. In less than half an hour after the departure of the visitors, the Spotlight office was besieged by eager tip hunters, and the Metropole case and lobby were thronged and buzzing like the compartments of an anxious beehive. Harlan stood the pressure at the newspaper office as long as he could. Then he slipped out the back way. There was a light in Broulllard s office on the sixth floor of the Niquola building, and thither he went, hoping against hope, for latterly the chief of the reclamation service had been more than usually reticent “What do you know, Broulllard?” was the form his demand took. "Go to Cortwright,” suggested the engineer. “He’s your man.” * "Just come from him, and I couldn’t get a thing there except his admission that he is buying Instead of selling.’’ “Well, what more do you want? Haven’t you any imagination?”

“Plenty of it, and, by Gad, I’m going to use it unless you put it to sleep! Tell me a few correlative things, Broulllard, and I’ll make a noise like going away. Is it true that you te had orders from Washington within the past few days to cut your force on the dam one-half?” The engineer was playing with the paperknife, absently marking little circles and ellipses on his desk blotter, and the ash on his cigar grew a full quarter of an inch before he replied. "Not for publication, Harlan, I’m sorry to say.” f “But you have the order?” "Yes.” "Good. Then I’ll ask only one more question, and if you answer it at all I know you’ll tell me the truth: Are you, Individually, buying or selling on the real estate exchange?” Broulllard did take time, plenty of it. Harlan was a student of men, but his present excitement was against him. Otherwise he would have interpreted differently the sudden hardening of the jaw muscles when Broulllard spoke. "I’m buying, Harlan; when I sell it is only to buy again.” -

The newspaper man rose and held out his hand. “You’re a man and a brother, BrouHlard, and I’m your friend for life. I’m going to stay until you give me the high sign to crawl out on the bank. Is that asking too much?” "No. If the time ever comes when 1 have anything to say. I’ll say it to you. But don’t lose sight of the ’if,’ and don’t lean too hard on me. I’m a mighty uncertain quantity these days, Harlan, and that’s the truest thing I’ve told you since you butted in. Good night." Mlrapolis awoke to a full sense or its opportunities on the morning following the departure of its distinguished guests. By ten o’clock it was the talk of the lobbies, the club, and the exchanges that the reclamation service was already abandoning the work on the great dam. One-half of the workmen were to be discharged at once, and doubtless the other half would follow as soon as the orders could come from Washington.

Appealed to by a mob of anxious inquirers, BrouHlard did not deny the fact of the discharges, and thereupon the city went mad in a furor of speculative excitement in comparison with which the orgy of the gold discoverers paled into insignificance. “Curb ’ exchanges sprang into being in the Metropole lobby, in the court of the Niquoia building, and at a dozen street corners on the avenue. Word went to the placers, and by noon the miners had left their sluice-boxes and were pouring into town to buy options at prices that would have staggered the wildest plunger otherwhere, or at any other time.

BrouHlard closed his desk at one o’clock and went to fight his way through the street pandemonium to Bongras’. At a table in the rear room he found David Masslngale, his long, white beard tucked into the closelybuttoned miner’s coat to be out of the way of the flying knife and fork, while he gave a lifelike imitation of a man begrudging every second of time wasted in stopping the hunger gap. BrouHlard took the opposite chair and was grimly amused at the length of time that elapsed before Massingale realized his presence. "Pity a man has to stop to eat on a day like this, isn’t it, Mr. Massingale?" he laughed;*, and then: “How is Steve?” t , Massingale nodded. .-"The boy s cornin’ along all right now. They’re sayin’ on the street that you’re lettin’ but half o’ your men —that so?” BrouHlard laughed again. "Yes, it’s true. Have you been doing something in real estate this morning, Mr. Massingale?” “All I could,” mumbled the old man between mouthfuls. “But I cayn t do

much. If it ain’t one thing, it’s another. 'Bout as soon as I got that tangle with the Red Butte smelter straightened out, the railroad hit me.’ 1 “How was that?” queried BrouHlard, with quickening interest coming alive at a bound. “Same old song, no cars; try and get ’em tomorruh, and tomorruh it’ll be next day, and next day it’ll be the day after. Looks like they don’t want to haul any freight out o’ here.” “I see,” said BrouHlard, and truly he saw much more than David Massingale did. Then: “No shipments

means no money for you, and more delay; and delay happens to be the one thing you can’t stand. When do those notes of yours fall due?” Massingale was troubled, and his fine old face showed it plainly. “I ain’t much of a man to holler when I’ve set the woods afire myself," he answered slowly. “But I don’t know why I shouldn’t yip a little to you if I feel like it. Today is the last day on them notes. I been to see Hardwick at the bank, and he gave me the ultimaytum good and cold.” - i One of Bongras’ rear-room luxuries was a portable telephone for every group of tables. Broulllard made a sign to the waiter, and the desk set was brought to him. If David Massingale recognized the number asked for, he paid no attention; and, since a man may spend his life digging holes in the ground and still retain’ the instincts of a gentleman —if he happens to have been born with them —he was equally oblivious to the disjointed half of the telephone conversation he might have listened to. "Hello! Is that Boyer—Niquola National? . . . Thia is Broulllard. Can you give me my present figure?

. . Not more than that? Oh, yes; you say the Hillman check is in; I had overlooked it. All right, thank you.” i 1 When the waiter had removed the desk set, the engineer leaned toward his table companion: "Mr. Massingale, I’m going to art you to tell me frankly what kind of a deal it was you'made with Cortwright and the bank people.'* “It was the biggest tom-fool razzle that any livin’ live man out of a lunatic ’sylum ever went into,” confessed the prisoner of fate. “I was to stock the ‘Susan’ for half a million —oh, she’s worth it, every dollar of it; you might say the ore's tn sight for it right now" —this in deference to Brouillard’s brow-lifting of surprise. “They was to put in a hundred thousand cash, and I was to put in the mine and the ore on the dump, just as she stood.” The engineer nodded and Massingala went on.

“I was to have two-thirds of the stock and they was to have one-third. The hundred thousand for development we’d get at the bank, on my notes, because I was president and the biggest stockholder, with John Wes, as indorser. Then, to protect the bank accordin’ to law, they said, we’d put the whole bunch o’ stock —mine and their’n —into escrow in the hands of Judge Williams. When the notes was paid, the judge’d hand the stock back to us.” “Just a moment," interrupted BrouHlard. “Did you sign those notes personally, or as president of the new company?” “That’s where they laid for me,” said the old man shamefacedly. “Right there is where John Wes’ ten-dollar-a-bottle sody-pop stuff we was soppin’ up must ’a’ foolished me plumb silly.

“So it amounts to this: You have j given them a clean third of the ‘Susan for the mere privilege of borrowing one hundred thousand dollars on your own paper. And if you don t pay, you lose the remaining two-thirds as well.” “That’s about the way it stacks up I to a sober man. Looks like I needed a janitor to look after my upper story, don’t it? And I reckon mabby I do.” “One thing more,” pressed the relentless querist. “Did you really handle the hundred-thousand-dollar development fund yourself, Mr. Masslngale?"

“Well, no; not exactly. Ten thousand dollars of what they called a ‘contingent fund’ was put in my name; but the treasurer handled most of it nachurly, we bein’ a stock company. ’ BrouHlard took out his pencil and 1 began to make figures on the back of the menu card. He knew the equipment of the “Little Susan,” and bls I specialty was the making of estimates. Hence he was able to say, after a min-. ute or two of figuring: .“It’s a bad business any way you at-1 tack it. What you have really got for yourself out of the deal is the ten thou-sand-dollar deposit to your personal account, and nothing more; and they 11 probably try to make you a debtor for | that. Taking that amount and a fair j estimate of the company’s expendl- ’ tures to date —say thirty-five thousand in round numbers, which is fairly chargeable to the company’s assets as a whole—they still owe you about fiftyfive thousand of the original hundred thousand they were to put in. If there were time —but you say this is the last day?" “The last half o’ the last day,” Mas-

singale amended. “That being the case, there is no help for it; you’ll have to take your medicine and pay the notes. Do that, take an iron-clad receipt from the bank u —and get the stock released. After that, we 11 give them a whirl for the thirty-three and a third per cent they have practically stolen from you.” The old man’s face, remindful now, of his daughter’s, was a picture of dismayed incertitude. “I reckon you’re forgettin’ that I hain’t got money enough to lift one edge o’ them notes,” he said gently. Brouillard had found a piece of blank paper in his pocket and was rapidly writing the “iron-clad” receipt. “No, I hadn’t forgotten. I have something over a hundred thousand dollars lying idle in the bank. You’ll take it and pay the notes.”

It was a bolt out of a clear sky for the old man tottering on the brink of his fourth pit of disaster, and he evinced his emotion —and the tense strain of keyed-up nerves—by dropping his lifted coffee cup with a crash into his plate. The little accident was helpful in its way—it made a diversion—and by the time the wreck was repaired speech was possible. “Are you—are you plumb sure you can spare It?” asked the debtor huskily. And then: “I cayn’t seem to sort p’ surround it —all in a bunch, that way. I knowed J. Wesley had me down; the ‘Susan’s’ the only piece o’ real money in this whole blamed free-for-all, and he knows it.” After they had made their way through the excited sidewalk exchanges to the bank, and Brouillard had written his check, the old man, with the miraculously-sent bit of rescue paper In his hand, hesitated.

There comes a time in the life of every young man who is smothering his soul to gratify his senses and selling his character for money, when opportunity Is given him to turn about face, to rediscover his ideals and get back to common honesty. Has BrouHlard reached this point?

Will Old Dave Massingale go himself to Amy and tell her what Victor has done to get the Massingale mine out of Cortwright’s clytches? ■’>

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

"Looks Like I Need a Janitor to Look After My Upper Story, Don’t It?”