Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 142, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1916 — The City of Numbered Days [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The City of Numbered Days

By FRANCIS LYNDE

SYNOPSIS. —l2 Brouillard, chief engineer of the Niquofa irrigation dam, meets J. Wesley Cortwright and explains the reclamation work to him. Cortwright organizes a company nit government contracts to furnish power and material. Steve Massingale threatens to start a gold rush if Brouillard does not use his influence to bring a railroad branch to the place, thus opening an easy market for the “Little Susan" mine ore. Brouillard tells Amy Massingale of his need for money to pay off his dead father’s debts. She tells him to' be true to himself. He decides for the extension. Mirapolis, the city of numbered days, booms. Cortwright persuades Brouillard to become consulting engineer of the power company in return for SIOO,000 stock. Stoppage of work on the railroad threatens a panic. Brouillard spreads the Massingale story of placer gold in, the river bed and starts a gold rush, which promises to stop the reclamation project Amy tells Brouillard that her father Is in Cortwright’s financial clutches. He tells her he has made SIOO,000 and declares his love. She loves him, but shows him that he has become demoralized. A real gold find is made. Brouillard *Hs his stock but does not pay his father's debts. Cortwright’s son shoots Steve Massingale. Brouillard threatens Cortwright with exposure if he pushes Massingale to the wall. The magnate promises to give the old man a free field. Stories of the dam’s abandonment revive. Foreclosure on the “Little Susan” is impending and Brouillard loans Dave Massingale his SIOO,OOO to clear him. Massingale gambles away the entire amount.

Once more Brouillard Is tempted by Cortwright. If he accepts Cortwright’s offer he can make money and stand a chance of defeating the crooked capitalist’s purposes In the long run. If he refuses, he loses not only his Job but his savings. What would you do—considering that acceptance is wrong?

CHAPTER XVlll—Continued. For the better part of a fortnight the tidal waves of prosperity, as evinced by increasing speculative values, kept on rolling in, each one apparently a little higher than its immediate predecessor. Then the flood began to subside, though so slowly that at first it was only by a careful comparison of the dally transfers that the recession could be measured. Causes and consequences extraneous to the city itself contributed to the almost imperceptible reactionary tendency. For one, the Buckskin Mining and Milling company reluctantly abandoned its pastime of plowing barren furrows on Jack’s mountain, and a little later went into liquidation, as the phrase ran, though the eastern bondholders probably called it bankruptcy. About the same time the great cement plant, deprived of the government market by the slackening of the work on the dam, reduced its output to less than one-fourth of its full capacity. Most portentous of all, perhaps, was the rumor that the placers at Quadjenal were beginning to show signs of exhaustion. It was even whispered about that the two huge gold dredges recently installed were not paying the expenses of operating them. Quite naturally, the pulse of the Wonder city beat sensitive to all these depressive rumors and incidents, responding slowly at first but a little later in accelerated throbbings which could no longer be Ignored by the most optimistic bidder at the "curb” exchanges.

Still there was no panic. As the activities in local sales fell off and the Mirapolitans themselves were no longer crowding the curbs or standing in line at the real estate offices for their turn at the listings, the prudent ones, with Mr. Cortwright and his chosen associates far in advance of the field, were placing Mirapolis holdings temptingly on view in distant markets; placing them and selling them with blazonry of advertising worthy of the envy of those who have called themselves the suburb builders of Greater New York.

It was after this invasion of the distant market was fully in train that Cortwright once more sent for Brouillard, receiving the engineer this time in the newest offices of the power company, on the many-times-bougbt-and-sold corner opposite Bongras’. "Hello, Brouillard!" said the magnate jocosely, indicating a chair and the never-absent open box of cigars in the same gesture. “You’re getting to be as much of a stranger as a man might wish his worst enemy to be." “You sent for me?" Brouillard broke In tersely. ' More and more he was coming to acknowledge a dull rage when he heard the call of his master. "Yes. What about the dam ?Is -your work going to start up again? Or is it going off for good?” Brouillard bit his lip to keep back the exclamation of astoundment that the blunt inquiry threatened to evoke. To assume that Mr. Cortwright did not know all there was to be known was to credit the Incredible. "I told you a good while ago that I was only the government’s hired man," be replied. "You doubtless have much better information than any I cah give you." "You can tell me wbat your orders are—that's,what I want to know." The young chief of construction frowned first, then he laughed. ’ "What has given you the impression

that you own me, Mr. Cortwright? I have often wondered.” “Well, I might say that I have made you what you are, and —” “That’s true; the truest thing you ever said,” snapped Brouiiiard. "And, I was going to add, I can unmake you Just as easily. But I don’t want to be savage with you. All I’m asking is a little information first, and a little Judicious help afterward. What are your orders from the department?” Brouillard got up and stood over the stocky man in the office chair, with the black eyes blazing. "Mr. Cortwright, I said a moment ago that you have made me what I am, and you have. lam Infinitely a worse man than you are, because I know better and you don't. It is no excuse for me that I have had a motive which I haven’t explained to you, because, as I once told you, you couldn’t understand it in a thousand years. The evil has been done and the consequences, to you, to me, and to everyone in this cursed valley are certain. Facing them as I am obliged to face them, I am telling you—but what’s the use? You can’t make a tool of me any longer—that’s all. You must cook your meat over your own fire. I’m out of it.” "I can smash you,” said the man in the chair, quite without heat. “No, you can’t even do that,” was the equally -cool retort. “No man’s fate Is In another man’s hands.” He was moving toward the door, but Cortwright stopped him.

“One more word before you go, Brouillard. It is to be war between us from this on?” “I don’t say that. It would be awkward for us both now. Let is be armed neutrality if you like. Don’t interfere with me and I won’t interfere with you.” “Ah!” said the millionaire. “Now you have brought it around to the point I was trying to reach. You don’t want to have anything more to do with me, but you are not quite ready to cash in and pull out of the game. How much money have you got?” . The cool impudence of the question brought a dull flush to the young man’s face, but he would give the enemy no advantage in the matter of superior self-control. “That is scarcely a fair question—even between armed neutrals,” he objected. “Why do you want to know ?” “I’m asking because you have just proposed the noninterference policy, and I’d like to know how fairly you mean to live up to it. A little while back you interfered in a small busi-

ness matter of mine very pointedly. What became of the one hundred thousand dollars you gave old David Massingale?” “How do you know I gave hint a hundred thousand dollars?” “That’s dead easy," laughed the man in the pivot Chair, once more the genial buccaneer. “You drew a check for that amount and cashed It, and a few minutes later Massingale, whose account had been drawn down to nothing, bobs up at Schermerhorn’s window with exactly the same amount in loose cash. What did he do with it —gamble it?” “That is his own affair,” Brouillard countered briefly. "W’ell, the future —next month’s future —is my affair. It you’ve got money enough to interfere again—don’t. You’ll lose it, the same as you did before. And perhapk I sha’n’t take the second interference as good-naturedly as I did the first." "Is that all you have to say?” Broutllard asked Impatiently. “Not quite. I don’t believe you were altogether in earnest a minute ago when you expressed your desire to call it all off. You don’t want the Mirapolis well to go dry right now, not one bit more than I do.” "1 have been trying pretty hard to make you understand that it is a matter of utter indifference to me.” "But you haven’t succeeded very

well; It isn’t at all a matter of indifference to you,” the magnate insisted persuasively. "As things are shaping themselves up at the present speaking, you stand to lose, not only the hundred thousand you squandered on old David, but all you’ve made besides. I keep in touch —it’s my business to keep in touch. You’ve been buying bargains and you are holding them — for the simple reason that with the present slowing-down tendency, in the saddle you can’t sell and make any money.” “Well?” “I’ve got a proposition to make that ought to look good to you. What we. need Just now in this town is a little more activity—something doing. You can relieve the situation if you feel like it.” “How?”. . .c_ ■—- “If I tell you, you mustn’t go and use it against me. That would be a lowdown welcher’s trick. But yoif won’t. See here, your bureau at Washington is pretty well scared up over the prospect here. It is known in the capital that when congress convenes there is going to be a dead-open-and-shut fight to kill this Buckskin reclamation project. Very well; the way for you fellows to win out is to hurry—finish your dam and finish it quick, before congress or anybody else can get action.”

For a single instant Brouillard was puzzled. Then he began to understand. “Go on,” he said. “What I was going to suggest is this: You prod’your people at Washington with a hot wire; tell 'em now’s the time to strike and strike hard. They’ll see the point, and if you ask for an increase of a thousand men you’ll get it. Make it two thousand, just for the dramatic effect. We’ll work right along with you and make things hum again. We’ll start up the cement plant, and I don’t know but what we might give the Buckskin M. & M. folks a small hypodermic that would keep ’em alive while we are taking a few snap-shot pictures of Mirapolis on the jump again." “Let me get it straight,” said Brouillard, putting his back against the door. “You fully believe you’ve got us down; that eventually, and before the water is turned on, congress will pass a bill killing the Niquoia project. But in the meantime, to make things lively, you’d like to have the reclamation service go ahead and spend another million or so in wages that - can be turned loose in Mirapolis. Is that it?”

“You’ve surrounded it very neatly,” laughed the promoter. “Once, some little time ago, I might have felt the necessity of convincing your scruples, but you’ve cut away all that foolishness. It’s a little toiigh on our good old Uncle Samuel, I’ll admit, but it’ll be only a pin-prick or so in comparison to the money that is thrown away every time congress passes an appropiration bill. And, putting it upon the dead practical basis, Brouillard, It’s your’Awn and only salvation —personally, >mean. You’ve got to unload or go broke, and you can’t unload on a falling market. You think about it and then get quick action with the wire. There is no time to lose.” Brouillard was looking past Cortwright and out through the plate glass window which commanded a view of the great dam and its network of forms and stagings. “It is a gambler’s bet and a rather desperate one,” he said slowly. “You stand to win all or to lose all in making it, Mr. Cortwright. The town is balancing on the knife-edge of a panic at this moment. Would it go up, or down, with a sudden resumption of work on the dam?”

“The careless thinker would say that it would yell ‘Fire!’ and go up into the air so far that it could never climb down,’’ was the prompt reply. “But we’ll have the medicine dropper handy. In the first place, everybody can afford to stay and boost while Uncle Sam is spending his million or so right here in the middle of things. Nobody will want to pull out and leave that cow unmilked. In the second place, we’ve got a mighty good antidote to use in any sure-enough case of hydrophobia your quick dam building may start.” “You could let it leak out that, in spite of all the hurrah and rush on the dam, congress is really going to interfere before we are ready to turn the water on," said Brouillard musingly and as if it were only his slipping into unconscious speech, “Precisely. We could make'that prop hold If you were actually putting the top course on your wall and making preparations to drop the stop-gate in you? spillway." “I see,” was the rejoinder, and It was made In the same half-absent monotone. "But while we are still on' the knife-blade edge ... a little push . . .‘ Mr. Cortwright,-if there were one solitary righteous man left In Mirapolis—” “There isn't," chuckled the promoter, turning back to bls desk while the engineer was groping for the door knob —“at least, nobody with that particu-

lar brand of righteousness backed by the needful inside information. You go ahead and do your part and well do the rest.”

CHAPTER XIX $ The Man on the Bank

Brouillard, walking out of Mr. Cort•wright’s new offices with his thoughts afar, wondered if it were by pure coincidence that he found Castner apparently waiting for him on the sidewalk. "Once more you are Just the man I have been wanting to see,” the young missionary began, promptly making use of the chance meeting. “May I break in with a bit of bad news?” "There is no such thing as good news in this God-forsaken valley, Castner. What’s your grief?” "There is trouble threatening for the Cortwrights. Stephen Massingale is out and about again, and I was told this morning that he was filling himself up with bad whisky and looking for the man who shot him.” Brouillard nodded unsympathetically. “You will find that there is always likely to be a second chapter in a book

of that sort—if the first one Isn’t conclusive.” “But there mustn’t be this time," Castner insisted warmly. “We must stop it; it Is our business to stop it.” “Your business, maybe; it falls right in your line, doesn’t it?" “No more in mine than in yours,” was the quick retort. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” said the engineer pointedly, catching step with the long-legged stride of the athletic young shepherd of souls. “Not if you claim kinship with Cain, who was the originator of that very badly outworn query,” came the answer shotlike. Then: “What has come over you lately, Brouillard? You are a friend of the Massingales; I’ve had good proof of that. Why don’t' you care?" “Great heavens, Castner, I do care! But if you had a cut finger you wouldn’t go to a man in hell to get it tied up, would you?” ( “You mean that I have brought my cut finger to you?” “Yes, I meant that, and the rest of it, too. I’m no fit company for a decent man today, Castner. You’d better edge off and leave me alone.” Castner did not take the blunt intimation. For the little distance intervening between the power company’s new offices and the Niquoia building he tramped beside the young engineer tn silence. But at the entrance to the Niquoia fie would have gone his way if Brouillard had not said abruptly: “I gave you fair warning; I’m not looking for a chance to play the Good Samaritan to anybody—not even to Stephen Massingale, much less Van Bruce Cortwright. The reason is because I have a pretty decent backload of my own to carry. Come up to rny rooms if you can spare a few minutes. I want to talk to a man who hasn’t parted with his soul for a money equivalent—if there is such a man left in this bottomless pit of a town.” Castner accepted the implied challenge soberly, and together they ascended to Brouillard’s offices. Once behind the closed door, Brouillard struck out vicipusly.

“You fellows claim to hold the keys to the conscience shop; suppose you open up and dole out a little of the precious commodity to me, Castner. Is It ever justifiable to do evil that- good may come?” “No.” There was no hesitation in the denial. Brouillard’s laugh was harshly derisive. “I thought you’d say that. No qualifications asked for, no judicial weighing of the pros and .cons—the evil of the evil, or the goodness of the goodjust a plain, bigoted ‘No.’" The young'miuslonary left his chair and began to walk back and forth on his side of the office desk.

Will the clean-minded young missionary persuade the engineer to refuse Cortwright’s offer, or will he see the ultimate possibility of Brouillard’s winning and counsel him to accept?

(TO CONTINUED.)

Brouillard Got Up and Stood Over the Stocky Man in the Office Chair.

“There Is No Such Thing as Good News in This God-Forsaken Valley, Castner.”