The Gold Trail Part 50

commented Wannop, with a chuckle.

"It would be, in the meanwhile," said Stirling. "Well, you won't let your sales--if you make any--get out of hand. You'll have to put on one or two smart men, and cover or sell at a lower price through different ones when it appears advisable. I shall naturally lose a little on every deal of that kind, but the only real trouble will be when you quietly gather in as much as possible of the stock the other people are offering. It will have to be done without raising suspicions, and before their broker can report and ask for instructions."

Wannop struck the table. "There's some hazard in it--but it's a great idea," he said. "They'll club the Grenfell Consols down quite flat."

"Until settling day. Then, when the other people have to deliver, they can't get the stock. We'll shove the prices up on them to anything we like."

Wannop gazed at him in exultation, but presently he asked a disconnected question.

"Why are you doing all this?"

"For money, for one thing," said Stirling, with a little flush in his face. "For another, because I've been sweated and bluffed and bullied by people of the kind you're up against, and now I feel it's 'most a duty to strike back." He clenched a big, hard hand. "I've watched my wife scrubbing and baking and patching my clothes in the old black days when I lived in a three-roomed shack because I was bluffed out of half my earnings by people who sent their daughters to Europe every year. I've nothing to say against legitimate dealing, but it's another thing when these soft-handed, over-fed-men suck the blood out of every minor industry and make their pile by the grinding down of a host of struggling toilers. By next settling day one or two of them are going to feel my hand."

He reached out for his hat, rather red in face.

"If I've any other reasons, they don't concern you," he added in a different tone. "All I expect from you is to do your part judiciously, and, as a matter of fact, it will have to be done that way."

He went out, and left Wannop sitting with the light of a somewhat grim satisfaction in his eyes.

In the meanwhile, Weston went moodily back to his hotel, and spent an unpleasant hour or two before he proceeded irresolutely toward Stirling's house. He realized that this was in some respects most unwise of him, but he was going away on the morrow and he felt that he could not go without a word with Ida.

She was sitting near the fire, which burned upon the open hearth, when he was shown into a daintily-furnished room. After a swift glance at him she rose and followed the maid to the door.

"I cannot receive anybody else just now," she said.

Then she came back and sat down not far from him, feeling that there was a crisis on hand, for, though the man's manner was quiet, there was trouble in his face.

"You have something to tell me. About your meeting, perhaps?"

"Yes," said Weston. "I don't, however, wish to trouble you much about the meeting. I merely want to thank you for your sympathy before I go away. You see, I'm going west to-morrow."

"Will you be long away?"

"Yes," said Weston, with a strained quietness that jarred on her. "In fact, it's scarcely probable that I shall come back here at all. The game's up. My directors have lost their nerve. The Grenfell Consolidated must go down in the next few months."

It was evident to Ida that whatever could be done must be done by her, or the man would go away again without a word, and this time he would, as he had said, not come back at all. For a moment or two she sat very still.

"Ah," she murmured, "I needn't tell you that I'm sorry."

"No," said Weston, simply. "I know you are."

Then there was, for a minute or two, a silence that both found almost intolerable and that seemed emphasized by the snapping of the fire.

There was before the girl a task from which she shrank, but it was clear to her that, since she could not let him go, one of them must speak.

"What are you going to do in the west?" she asked.

"Push on the heading until we have to let the mine go."

"And then?"

Weston spread out his hands.

"I don't know. Act as somebody's camp-packer. Shovel on the railroads.

Work on the ranches."

It was very evident to Ida that his quietness was the result of a strenuous effort. The barrier of reticence between them was very frail just then, and she meant to break it down. She leaned forward in her chair with her eyes fixed on him, and now the signs of tension in his face grew plainer.

"You speak as if that would be easy for you," she said.

Weston shut his eyes to one aspect of the question. He had not the courage to face it, and he confined himself to the more prosaic one.

"As a matter of fact, I'm afraid it won't be," he admitted. "The life I've led here, and the few weeks I spent at Kinnaird's camp, have rather spoiled me for the bush. Some of the customs prevalent in the trail-choppers' shanties and the logging-camps are a little primitive, and one can't quite overcome a certain distaste for them."

"That was not quite what I meant," said Ida.

Weston was startled, but she saw that he would not allow himself to wonder what she really did mean.

"Anyway," he answered doggedly, "I suppose I can bear any unpleasantness of that kind, which is fortunate, because there's apparently no way out of it. After all, it's one consolation to feel that I'm only going back to what I was accustomed to before I found the mine."

"Ah," said Ida, "you are very wrong in one respect. You speak as if you could bear the trouble alone. Don't you think it would hurt anybody else as much to let you go?" Then, while the blood crept into her face, she fixed her eyes on him. "Yes," she added simply, "I mean myself."

Weston rose, and stood leaning on the back of his chair, with one hand tightly closed. He had struggled stubbornly, but it was evident that his strength had suddenly deserted him and that he was beaten now.

"It would hurt you as much?" he said, with a curious harshness.

"That's quite impossible. The hardest, bitterest thing I could ever have to face would be to go away from you."

He flung out the closed hand.

"Now," he said, "you know. I've thrown away common sense and prudence, all sense of what is fitting and all that is due to you. None of those things seem to count just now."

He drew a little nearer.

"I fell in love with you at Kinnaird's camp, and tried hard to crush that folly. Then I found the mine, and for a few mad weeks I almost ventured to believe that I might win you. After that, the fight to drive your memory out of my heart had to be made again."

"It was hard?" asked Ida very softly.

"It was relentlessly cruel." Weston's voice grew sharper. "Still, I tried to make it. I gave way in only one point--I came to see you now and then. Now it's so hard that I'm beaten. I've failed in this thing as I've failed in the other."

He straightened himself suddenly, with a little forceful gesture.

"I'm beaten all round, beaten to my knees; but I don't seem ashamed.

Even if you can't forgive me, I'm glad I've told you."

"I think," said Ida, "I could forgive you for one offense--the one you seem to think most important--rather easily. It would have been ever so much harder to do that had you gone away without telling me."

"You mean that?" cried Weston, and, stooping over her, he caught one hand and gripped it almost cruelly.

"Can't you take anything for granted?" Ida asked demurely. "Must one always explain in full to you?"