Colonel Carter of Cartersville Part 20

The next instant Chad's head peered through the tangled underbrush.

He carried the roll of maps, the judge, who followed, contenting himself with a package tied with red tape.

The old darky's face was one broad grin from ear to ear.

The judge unrolled a map and placed it on a flat rock with a stone at each corner. Then he untied the package, selected an ink-stained and faded doc.u.ment marked "Deed--John Carter to E. A. Barbour," and ran his eye along the quaint page, reading as he went:--

Starting from an oak, blazed diamond C, along a line S. E. to a rock marked C cross B, C+B, in all a distance of 1437 linear feet.

"Now, Chad, we will fust find the tree," said the judge, looking around for his map-bearer. "Where's that n.i.g.g.e.r? Chad!"

The old man had disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed him up. The next minute we heard a faint halloo below us near the edge of a small swamp. A man was waving his hat and shouting:--

"Eve'ybody come yer!"

Fitz started on a run, and the agent and I followed on the double-quick.

At the end of a crooked stone wall, half surrounded by water, was a great spreading oak, its branches reaching half way across the narrow marsh. Within touching distance of the yielding ground stood Chad pointing to a smooth blaze, stained and overgrown with lichen.

It bore this mark, [C in a diamond]!

"It tallies to a dot. Now, Chad, the rock! the rock!" said Fitz, hardly able to contain himself.

The darky pointed straight up the hill, the sky line of which could be seen entire from where we stood, and indicated an isolated rock jutting out above the tree-tops.

I thought Fitz would have hugged him.

"How do you know it is the rock with the crotch in it? Speak, you grinning lunatic!"

"I was dar dis mawnin' by daylight."

"What's it marked?" said Fitz, catching him by both shoulders. "What's it marked? Quick!"

"Wid a C an' a cross an' a B--so." And the old man traced it with his finger in the mud.

"Every pound of coal on the colonel's land!" said Fitz, with a yell that brought his host and Kerfoot as fast as their legs could carry them.

"Stop!" said Kerfoot. "This only settles the Caarter and Barbour division. There was another division here a year ago between Miss Ann Caarter and the colonel. With that I am mo' familiar, for I drew the deeds, which are here," holding up a bundle; "and I was also present with the surveyor. You are wrong, Mr. Fitzpatrick; this entire hill outside the Barbour division is Miss Ann Caarter's, and the coal is on her land. The colonel's portion is back there along the Tench."

CHAPTER XII

_The Englishman's Check_

An hour later I found Fitz flat on the gra.s.s under one of the apple-trees behind the house, completely broken up by the discoveries of the morning.

After all his work, here was the colonel worse off than ever. n.o.body could tell what a woman would do. Aunt Nancy was better than the average (Fitz was a bachelor), but then she had peculiar old family notions about selling land, and ten chances to one she would not sell a foot of it, and there right in the house sat a man with his pocket full of blank checks, any one of which was good for a million of pounds sterling. Even if she did sell it, she would pension the dear old fellow off on a stipend instead of an establishment. He wanted somebody to dig a hole and cover Fitzpatrick up. Anybody could see that the railroad scheme was deader than a last year's pa.s.s, the farm hopeless, and the house fast becoming a ruin. It was enough to make a man jump off a dock.

Fitz's tirade was interrupted by Chad, who appeared with a message.

The colonel wanted everybody in the library.

When we entered, the judge occupied the head of the table, surrounded by law papers, all of which were opened. The agent was bending over him, reading attentively, and entering extracts in his notebook. Every one became seated.

"Mr. Fitzpatrick," said the agent, "I have spent an hour with Judge Kerfoot going over the t.i.tle of this property, and I am prepared to make a proposition for its purchase. I have reduced it to writing,"--picking up a half-sheet of foolscap from the table,--"and I submit it to the owners through you."

Fitz read it without changing a muscle, and handed it to the colonel.

Yancey and the judge craned forward to catch the first syllables.

The colonel read it to the end, getting paler and paler as its meaning became clear, and then, with a certain pathos in his voice that was childlike, it was so genuine, said:--

"If this is accepted, I presume, suh, you will not look any further into my road?"

"You are right. My instructions cover only the purchase of this deposit.

I have room for only one operation."

The colonel rose from his chair, steadied himself on the low window-sill, and looked out across the Tench. The silence was oppressive--only the ticking of the clock in the next room and the bees among the flowers outside.

"Wait until I return," he said, crumpling the paper.

In a moment he was back, leading in his aunt by the hand. Miss Nancy entered with a half-puzzled look on her face, which deepened into certain anxiety as she began to realize the p.r.o.nounced formality of the proceedings. The colonel cleared his throat impressively.

"Nancy, an investigation begun in New York by my dear friend Fitz, and completed here to-day, results in the discov'ry that what you have always considered as slight outcroppin's of coal, and wuthless, is really of vehy great value." The colonel here unb.u.t.toned his coat, and threw out his chest. "A syndicate of English capitalists have, through our guest, offered you the sum of one hundred thousand dollars for the coal-hill, with a royalty of ten cents per ton for every ton mined over a certain amount, one thousand dollars to be paid now and the balance on the search of t.i.tle and signin' of the contract. I believe I have stated it correctly, suh?"

The agent bowed his head, and scrutinized Miss Nancy's face with the eye of a hawk.

The dear lady sank into a chair. For a moment she lost her breath.

Yancey handed her a fan with a quickness of movement never seen in him before, and the colonel continued:--

"This will of course still leave you, Nancy, this house and about half of the farm property transferred to you by me at the fo'closure sale."

The little woman looked from one to the other in a dazed sort of way, and her eye rested on Fitz.

"What shall I do, Mr. Fitzpatrick? It seems to me a grave step to sell any part of the estate."

Fitz blushed at the mark of her confidence, and said that with the royalty clause he thought the proposition a favorable one.

"And you, George?" turning to the colonel.

The colonel bowed his head. He must advise its acceptance.

"When do you want an answer, sir?"

"To-day, Madam," said the Englishman, who had not taken his eyes from her face.

"You shall have it in half an hour," she said gently, then rose hastily, and left the room.

I looked at the colonel. Whatever great wave of disappointment had swept over him when his own idol was broken, there was no trace of it in his face. Even the change this sudden influx of wealth into the family might make in his own condition never seemed to have crossed his mind. He did not follow her. He simply waited. Between his own plans and his aunt's good fortune there was but one course for him.