The Rim of the Desert Part 26

"Hollis Tisdale?" Jimmie suspended his pencil. "So you know the Sphynx of the Yukon, do you?"

"That's it. That's the name that blame newspaper called him. Sphynx nothing. Hollis Tisdale is the best known man in Alaska and the best liked. If the Government had had the sense to put him at the head of the Alaska business, there'd been something doing, my, yes."

The reporter finished his period. "Don't let this interview bother you,"

he said. "It's going into my paper straight, Mr. Banks, and in your own words."

While he spoke, his vigilant glance rested lightly on one of the several guests scattered about the lobby. He was a grave and thoughtful man and had seemed deeply engrossed in a magazine, but he had changed his seat for a chair within speaking distance, and Jimmie had not seen him turn a page.

"What I was going to say, then," resumed Banks, "was that afterwards, when the orchards are in shape, I am going back to Alaska and take a bunch of those abandoned claims, where the miners have quit turning up the earth, and just seed 'em to oats and blue stem. Either would do mighty well. The sun s.h.i.+nes hot long summer days, and the ground keeps moist from the melting snow on the mountains. I've seen little patches of grain up there and hay ripening and standing high as my shoulder. But what they need most in the interior is stock farms, horses and beeves, and I am going to take in a fine bunch of both; they'll do fine; winter right along with the caribou and reindeer."

"Well, that's a new idea to me," exclaimed Daniels. "Alaska to me has always stood for blizzards, snow, glaciers, impregnable mountains, bleak and barren plains like the steppes of Russia, and privation, privation of the worst kind."

Banks nodded grimly. "That's because the first of us got caught by winter unprepared. Why, men freeze to death every blizzard right here in the States; sometimes it's in Dakota; sometimes old New York, with railroads lacing back and forth close as shoestrings. And imagine that big, unsettled Alaska interior without a single railroad and only one wagon-road; men most of the time breaking their own trails. Not a town or a house sometimes in hundreds of miles to shelter 'em, if a storm happens to break. But you talk with any Swede miner from up there. He'll tell you they could make a new Sweden out of Alaska. Let us use the timber for building and fuel; let a man that's got the money to do it start a lumber-mill or mine the coal. Give us the same land and mineral laws you have here in the States, and homeseekers would flock in thick as birds in springtime."

The stranger closed his magazine. "Pardon me," he said, taking advantage of the pause, "but do you mean that Conservation is all that is keeping home-seekers out of Alaska?"

Banks nodded this time with a kind of fierceness; his eyes scintillated a white heat, but he suppressed the imminent explosion and began with forced mildness, "My, yes. But you imagine a man trying to locate with ninety-five per cent. of the country reserved. First you've got to consider the Coast Range. The great wall of China's nothing but a line of ninepins to the Chugach and St. Elias wall. The Almighty builds strong, and he set that wall to hold the Pacific Ocean back. Imagine peaks piled miles high and cemented together with glaciers; the Malispina alone has eighty miles of water front; and there's the Nanatuk, Columbia, Muir; but the Government ain't found names for more'n half of 'em yet, nor a quarter of the mountains. Now imagine a man getting his family over that divide, driving his little bunch of cattle through, packing an outfit to keep 'em going the first year or so. Suppose he's even able to take along a portable house; what's he going to do about fuel? Is he going to trek back hundreds of miles to the seaport, like the Government expects, to pack in coal? Australian maybe, or j.a.pan low grade, but more likely it's Pennsylvania sold on the dock for as high as seventeen dollars a ton. Yes, sir, and with Alaska coal, the best kind and enough to supply the United States for six hundred years, scattered all around, cropping right out of the ground. Think of him camped alongside a whole forest of spruce, where he can't cut a stick."

The little man's voice had reached high pitch; he rose and took a short, swift turn across the floor. The stranger was silent; apparently he was weighing this astonis.h.i.+ng information. But Daniels broke the pause.

"The Government ought to hurry those investigations," he said. "Foster, the mining engineer, told me never but one coal patent had been allowed in all Alaska, and that's on the coast. He has put thousands into coal land and can't get t.i.tle or his money back. The company he is interested with has had to stop development, because, pending investigation, no man can mine coal until his patent is secured. It looks like the country is strangled in red tape."

"It is," cried Banks. "And one President's so busy building a railroad for the Filipinos, and rus.h.i.+ng supplies to the Panama Ca.n.a.l he goes out of office and clear forgets he's left Alaska temporarily tied up; and the next one has his hands so full fixing the tariff and running down the trusts he can't look the question up. And if he could, Congress is working overtime, appropriating the treasury money home in the States. There's so many Government buildings to put up and harbors and rivers to dredge, it can't even afford to give us a few lights and charts, and s.h.i.+ps keep on feeling their way and going to destruction on the Alaska coast. Alaska is side-tracked. She's been left standing so long she's going to rust."

"If some of our senators could listen to you," said the stranger, with a swift and vanis.h.i.+ng smile, "their eyes would be opened. But that is the trouble; Alaska has had no voice. It is true each congressman has been so burdened with the wants of his own State that session after session has closed before the Alaska bills were reached. We have been accustomed to look on Alaska as a bleak and forbidding country, with a floating population of adventurers and lawless men, who go there with the intention to stay only long enough to reap a mineral harvest. If she had other great resources and such citizens as you, why were you not in Was.h.i.+ngton to exploit her?"

Lucky Banks shook his head. "Up to this year," he said and smiled grimly, "I couldn't have made the trip without beating my way, and I guess if I went to some of those senators now and escaped being put down for an ex-convict, they'd say I was engineering a trust. They'd turn another key on Alaska to keep me out."

He wheeled to tramp down the lobby, then stopped. Annabel had entered.

Annabel arrayed in a new, imported tailored suit of excellent cloth, in a shade of Copenhagen blue, and a chic hat of blue beaver trimmed with paradise. Instantly the mining man's indignation cooled. He put aside Alaska's wrongs and hurried, beaming, to meet his wife. "Why, you bought blue," he said with pleased surprise. "And you can wear it, my, yes, about as well as pink."

Annabel smiled with the little ironical curl of the lip that showed plainly her good sense held her steady, on the crest of that high wave whereon it had been fortune's freak to raise her. "Lucile showed me a place, on the next floor of the store, where I could get the tan taken off my face while I was waiting for alterations to my suit. They did it with a sort of cold cream and hot water. There's just a streak left around my neck, and I can cover that with the necklace." She paused then added with a gentle conciliation creeping through her confidential tone: "I am going to wear the pink chiffon to-night to hear Tarquina. Lucile says it's all right for a box party, opening night. I like her real well. I asked her to go with us, and she's coming early, in time for dinner, at seven."

"I thought you'd make a team," replied Banks, delighted. "And I'm glad you asked her, my, yes. It would have been lonesome sitting by ourselves 'mongst the empty chairs."

They were walking towards the elevator, and Daniels, who had learned from the clerk that the important looking stranger who had seemed so interested in Banks' information, was the head of the new coal commission, going north for investigation, stopped the prospector to say good-by.

"I want to thank you for that interview, Mr. Banks," he said frankly.

"I've learned more about Alaska from you in fifteen minutes than I had put together in five years."

"You are welcome, so's you get it in straight. But,"--and the little man drew himself proudly erect,--"I want to make you acquainted with Mrs.

Banks, Mr. Daniels."

"I am awfully glad to meet you, Mrs. Banks," said Jimmie cordially, offering his hand. "I understand you are from Hesperides Vale, and I grew up over there in the Columbia desert. It's almost like seeing friends from home."

"Likely," Banks began, but his glance moved from the reporter to his wife and he repeated less certainly, "likely we could get him to take one of those chairs off our hands."

Annabel's humor rose to her eyes. "He's hired a box for Carmen to-night; they were out of seats in the divans, and it worries him because our party is so small."

"I'd be delighted, only,"--Jimmie paused, flus.h.i.+ng and looking intently inside his hat--"the fact is, I am going to take the Society Editor on my paper. We have miserable seats, the first row in the orchestra was the best they could do for us, and she has to write up the gowns. She's an awfully nice girl, and she has a little trick of keeping her copy out of sight, so the people in the house never would catch on; would you think me very bold,"--and with this he looked up directly at Annabel--"if I asked you to give that place in your box to her?"

He was graciously a.s.sured it would make Mr. Banks "easy" if they both joined the party, and Annabel suggested that he bring the Society Editor to dinner, "so as to get acquainted" before the opera. All of which was speedily arranged by telephone. Miss Atkins accepted with pleasure.

The dinner was a complete success; so complete that the orchestra was concluding the overture when they arrived at the theater. A little flurry ran through the body of the house when Annabel appeared. Mrs. Feversham in the opposite box raised her lorgnette.

"I wonder who they are," she said. "Why, the girl in white looks like Miss Atkins, who writes the society news, and there is your reporter, Daniels."

"Other man is Lucky Banks; stunning woman in pink must be his wife."

Frederic, having settled in his chair and eased his lame knee, focussed his own gla.s.ses.

"George, Marcia," he exclaimed, "do you see that necklace? Nuggets, straight from the sluices of the Annabel, I bet. Nuggets strung with emeralds, and each as big as they grow. I suppose that chain is what you call barbarous, but I rather like it."

"It is fit for a queen," admitted Marcia. "One of those barbarian queens we read about. No ordinary woman could wear it, but it seems made for her throat." And she added, dropping her lorgnette to turn her calculating glance on her brother's face, "Every woman her price."

Frederic laughed shortly. The purplish flush deepened in his cheeks, and his eyes rested on Beatriz Weatherbee. She was seated in the front of the box with Elizabeth, and as she leaned forward a little, stirred by the pa.s.sionate cry of the violins, her profile was turned to him.

"The price doesn't cut as much figure as you think," he said.

Then the curtain rose. Tarquina was a marvelous Carmen. The Society Editor, who had taken her notebook surrept.i.tiously from a silk evening bag and, under cover of a chiffon scarf, commenced to record the names and gowns of important personages, got no farther than the party in the opposite box during the first act. But she made amends in the intermission. It was then a smile suddenly softened her firm mouth, and she introduced Annabel to her columns with this item.

"Noticeable among the out of town guests were Mr. and Mrs. John Henry Banks, who entertained a box party, following a charming dinner at the New Was.h.i.+ngton. Mrs. Banks, a recent bride, was handsomely gowned in pink chiffon over messaline, and wore a unique necklace of nuggets which were gathered from her husband's mine near Iditarod, Alaska. The gold pieces were linked lengthwise, alternating with single emeralds, and the pendant was formed of three slender nuggets, each terminating in a matched diamond and emerald."

While Geraldine wrote this, Frederic Morganstein made his way laboriously, with the aid of a crutch, around to the box. "How do do, Miss Atkins," he said. "h.e.l.lo, Daniels! Well, Mr. Banks, how are you? Greatest Carmen ever sung in this theater, isn't it? Now, keep your seat. I find it easier to stand. Just came for a minute to be presented to--your wife."

His venture carried. The little man, rising, said with conscious pride: "Mrs. Banks, allow me to make you acquainted with Mr. Morganstein. He's the man that holds the option on the Annabel. And this is Miss Purdy, Mr.

Morganstein; Miss Lucile Purdy of Sedgewick-Wilson's. I see you know the rest of the bunch."

"I guess it's up to me to apologize, Mrs. Banks," said Frederic, heavily humorous. "I wouldn't believe my sister, Mrs. Feversham, when she told me there were some smart women in those Alaska towns." He paused, laughing, while his glance moved from Annabel's ironical mouth to her superb shoulders and rested on the nugget chain; then he said: "From that interview of yours in tonight's _Press_, Mr. Banks, there isn't much the country can't produce."

"Likely not," responded the little man quickly. "But my wife was an Oregon girl. We were engaged, my, yes, long before I saw Alaska. And lately she's been living around Hesperides Vale. She's got some fine orchard property over there, in her own right."

"Is that so?" Frederic's speculative look returned to Annabel's face.

"Hesperides Vale. That's in the new reclamation country, east of the mountains, isn't it? I was intending to motor through that neighborhood when this accident stopped me and put an end to the trip. They are turning out some fine apples in that valley, I understand. But it's curtain time.

Awfully glad I've met you; see you again. Lend me your shoulder, will you, Daniels--around to my box?"

While they were crossing the foyer, he said: "That enlargement came out fine; you must run up to my office, while it's there to-morrow, to see it.

And that was a great write-up you gave Lucky Banks. It was yours, wasn't it? Thought so. Bought a hundred copies. Mrs. Feversham is going to take 'em east to distribute in Was.h.i.+ngton. Double blue-pencilled one, 'specially for the President."

Jimmie smiled, blus.h.i.+ng. "That's more than I deserve, but I'm afraid, even if it reaches his hands, he won't take the time to read it."

"You leave that to Mrs. Feversham," replied Morganstein. "Saw that little scoop, too, about Tisdale. He's the closest oyster on record."

"The trouble was," said Jimmie wisely, "he started that Indian story and n.o.body thought to interrupt with more coal questions."

"You mean he told that yarn purposely to head us off?"

"That's the way it seemed to me afterwards. He spun it out, you know; it lasted to Bremerton, where I got off. But it was interesting; the best I ever heard, and I took it all down, word for word. It was little use, though. The chief gave one look at my bunch of copy and warned me, for the last time, the paper wasn't publis.h.i.+ng any novels. What I had gone aboard the _Aquila_ for was to write up her equipment and, incidentally, to pick up Hollis Tisdale's views on Alaska coal."

They had reached the entrance to the Morganstein box; the orchestra was playing again, the curtain began to rise on the second act, and Daniels hurried back to his place. But during the next intermission, an usher brought the young reporter a note. It was written concisely on a business card, but Jimmie read it through slowly a second time before he handed it to the Society Editor.