CHAPTER XXIII
AN OPTION ON SUMMIT CITY
BOB CARRUTHERS had come with Rose Hurley from Indian City, carrying little Eddie on the saddle in front of him. Having dropped back to give place to Hurley's wife and son as they hurried into the cabin, he now came up to join Steele and Dr. Gilchrist.
"So you are fighting about something or other again, are you, Billy?" he asked as his proffered hand was gripped hard. "Just what's the trouble?"
Steele sketched the situation briefly, Carruthers and Gilchrist hearing him through without comment. At the end the doctor said in his brisk way:
"My hospital might prove convenient in more than one way, eh, Mr. Carruthers? If this is the sort of thing to be expected along with the birth throes of new towns. Now, if Mr. Steele will oblige us by arranging for a man's size breakfast, I'll go inside again and give my attention to Mrs. Hurley's husband while the famous meal is in preparation."
Since here of late Steele had been taking his meals at the new lunch counter at Boom Town and there was nothing to eat at the cabin, he and Carruthers strode away together to the settlement, undertaking to bring back a hot breakfast with them. While they took their coffee and bacon and "stacks o' wheats," sitting upon high stools on the so-called street, the bustling cook prepared the generously supplied platters they were to carry back to the cabin with them.
Dr. Gilchrist had assured them that Ed Hurley, though badly hurt, would come through it alive and, ultimately, as good as new; Steele, a good deal shaken because of Hurley's injuries and the part he himself had innocently played in the matter, wanted to be further assured that Dr. Gilchrist could be trusted utterly in his decision. Carruthers, playing Oliver Twist not only to his coffee but the whole breakfast, waxed enthusiastic upon the physician's extraordinary ability.
Gilchrist was a friend of Carruthers' father, an old college mate, a friend of young Carruthers himself, adored by Sylvia and further distinguished by the unqualified endorsement of the Twins. He was a man who, Carruthers devoutly believed, could accomplish anything he set his hand to. Why, look at Rose and Eddie Hurley! Gilchrist had taken a keen interest in them, had made them what they were this morning from doomed people of a year ago. That interest and its natural outgrowth and a theory of the doctor's were responsible for the good fortune of his being on hand now. He had another sanatorium down in Southern California; he maintained that these two of his patients had graduated from it; he argued that with proper care they would progress safely and rapidly into perfect, rugged health; he held himself responsible for another sanatorium to which such "graduates" as they should go. The climatic conditions of Southern California was indicated for certain of his patients; the rarer, bracing and flawlessly clean air of the Sierra was the thing now for Rose and Eddie and others of his big and ever growing "family."
"You heard him mention his hospital? He came along with us and Mrs. Hurley, planning a good deal less on a much needed vacation for himself than upon selecting a site here for an extension of his treatment. Told me all about it on the way up. He will put up first a big hospital building, then, close by yet sufficiently removed to give privacy and a certain air of homelike independence, a number of cottages. Here, in the spring and summer months, he will personally oversee his work. He is tremendously enthusiastic over it; especially since he got up into the mountains. Says that the very ruggedness of the outlook itself will do a lot psychologically."
"Good business," agreed Steele heartily. "I wish him luck with it."
"As a matter of fact," smiled Carruthers, "his enthusiasm over it all is so great that he begrudges the time necessary for purchase of site and erection of buildings before he can get under way, matters that will hold him up until next summer, while he'd like to roll his sleeves up tomorrow. … By Jove, Billy, this is some coffee, eh? First time I've had three cups since …"
"Since the Twins were born? How's Sylvia?"
From the lunch counter, each carrying his share of hot coffee and bacon and bread and butter and whatever else the cook could suggest or they could see in his larder, they returned to the cabin. Steele was still too greatly concerned with Hurley's and Turk's condition to give thought as yet to the inspiration which a little later was to shape from Carruthers' words. And in the cabin, watching Rose Hurley with her hand locked in Ed's and her eyes always on his, he had in his mind room only for thoughts of the way in which human destiny worked forward to the unguessed end, how little events and big shaped themselves into Fate that Fate in turn might become Providence; how, in its way, Rose's sickness was now responsible for the presence here of Dr. Gilchrist in Ed Hurley's time of sorest need.
"Ed'll pull through," he said to himself with firm conviction, "just because it is meant that he should."
Later when Turk, at his own request, was moved to a tent in order to give the cabin over to the Hurleys, and when Dr. Gilchrist had come away leaving Rose as nurse in charge, Steele quieted all of his uneasiness over a pipe … and his inspiration blazed out upon him.
"By the Lord!" he cried suddenly, slapping his this resoundingly. "Just the thing!"
"What is?" demanded Dr. Gilchrist.
But Steele, shaping that which had started up in his mind, grew suddenly silent. As his eyes brightened his silence grew the more marked.
"Another little joke on the Queen!" was what he said finally as he went away to see Carruthers who was "looking over" the Goblet and the scene of last night's fight. Whereupon Dr. Gilchrist set him down as eccentric and forgot all about the matter.
"Do me a favour, will you, Bob?" he cried in the first burst of his enthusiasm.
"Sure," answered Carruthers. "Just what, though? Cut that man Embry's liver out or what?"
"I'm forgetting Joe Embry this morning," said Steele. "After all he is beginning to strike me as the kind who, given a sufficiently long rope, will make a hangman's noose out of it. No," and his eyes were dancing; "just a little matter of business. Run over and have a talk with Miss Corliss of the Thunder River ranch. Get an option on Summit City!"
"What do you want Summit City for?" wondered Carruthers. "Before we get done we'll have run that place clean out of business …"
"Which, being no fool, she knows as well as we do. Hence this is the psychological moment to open negotiations. You'll get an option now dirt cheap."
"But we don't want the blamed town …"
"You don't. But I do. Just for about twenty-four hours. Bob. And I'll turn it over to … Can't you guess?"
"No. Who'd want it?"
"Dr. Gilchrist!"
"Dr. Gilchrist? Buy a defunct village? What's gone wrong with you, Bill Steele?"
But Steele only chuckled and, chuckling, explained in full. Dr. Gilchrist hated to think of wasting the summer in building a hospital; well, then, let him take the Summit City inn, already built and with a little alteration admirably suited for the purpose. He wanted neat, cheerful cottages? Let him take them as they had been built by Beatrice Corliss. Out of the world a bit? Not too far. They'll run a good road to Indian City, and in any case Gilchrist wanted to make this largely a summer sanatorium, didn't he? If Carruthers would just get the option, Steele would do the rest; he'd take Dr. Gilchrist to look the site over … and he'd close the deal before the day was out.
"I believe you could!" said Carruthers. "I believe you could. Bill. … Why don't you take it up with Miss Corliss yourself?"
Steele grinned.
"She'd call the royal body guard to drop me off the ranch," he chuckled. "She's my mortal enemy, you know. Bob. Wouldn't sell me a pin if I offered her a double eagle for it. Now go ahead, will you? You get the option in your name, never letting her suspect that you even know me, if you can help it. Then you turn it over to me and I'll deal with Gilchrist!"
But Carruthers was frowning.
"Look here, Bill," he said quietly. "Maybe you'll think me a fool and something of a sentimentalist; maybe I am since the Twins came," he admitted with the flicker of a smile. "But it sort of strikes me … Oh, well, I don't like the idea of holding Gilchrist up for so much as a penny. He's no money-maker; he doesn't try to make money out of his work. He'd lose a thousand dollars any day to make a cure. He is doing a big work for poor devils who need help and …"
"Whew!" whistled Steele. "Twins do make a difference, don't they?"
"Just the same …"
"Just the same," cut in Steele firmly. "I've asked a favour. If I want to put across a deal which the father of twins wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole he can simply say: 'I won't do what you ask.' That lets him out. It's up to you, Bob."
"Oh, well," said Carruthers. "I'll do it." He looked at Steele queerly. "You're not the man to go money mad, Bill."
"You never can tell," laughed Steele. "Now, I'll scare up a horse for you and you can make a call on Miss Corliss. Much obliged."
Whereupon he went away, followed by Carruthers' puzzled eyes.
Before noon Carruthers interviewed Beatrice. She admitted candidly at the outset that the change of railroad plans had been a severe blow to her hopes for Summit City and that she was, perforce, in a position to listen to an offer. Just how eager she was to save herself from a complete loss here she did not allow to appear; chiefly eager in the matter because she did not want that man Steele to be able to say that he had entirely succeeded in his threat to "put her little toy town out of business." Steele, by the way, was not mentioned during the transaction.
Carruthers had little difficulty in securing the option for ten days, the final figure agreed upon standing at twenty thousand dollars, and reported his success to Steele who was tremendously pleased.
"Good enough, Bob," he cried warmly, so warmly and with such a look of triumph in his eyes that again Carruthers was troubled to account for this new development of the "money grabbing" instinct in Bill Steele, reckless spender aforetime. "She's losing a good deal at that and yet she figures she'd better lose a few thousands now than the whole shooting works later on. Let's see; her inn must have cost between seven and eight thousand, say seventy-five hundred. Then there are a dozen or more cottages, say a thousand dollars each as they stand. That's something over nineteen thousand there. Then there's the store, the post office building, to say nothing of the land the town stands on and Corliss Lake. At twenty thousand it's a pick-up, Bob. Now, where's Gilchrist?"
That afternoon Dr. Gilchrist, satisfied with the condition of Hurley and Turk and content to leave them to Mrs. Hurley and Bill Rice, was lured away from camp by Steele who "wanted to show him something." Never a hint of their destination or the purpose of their ride was forthcoming until they rode into Summit City.
"Neat little town, don't you think?" asked Steele carelessly.
Gilchrist, startled as were all newcomers to come without warning upon this spick and span little settlement here in the heart of the wilderness, nodded his approval.
"Pretty," he said enthusiastically. "Down-right pretty, Steele. Not the sort of thing you'd look for here, eh?"
They rode along the street, to the crest of the hill whence they could overlook the little lake with its canoes and launches mirroring themselves like so many Narcissuses, turned and came back to the inn.
"Look at that, will you?" Steele flung out his arm in a wide sweeping gesture. "Notice how they're all outside rooms; how they catch the sun; how airy and cheerful and convenient it all is. A little alteration here and there and it would make first rate place for you, wouldn't it, Doctor?"
"Believe you're right," said Dr. Gilchrist, still with no glimpse of Steele's purpose. "May run over here for a couple of days if I get the time later on. Right now I'm going to be busy looking for my hospital site."
"And then drawing up plans, clearing land, making a road to it and putting up the building? All the summer gone and only half way to completion when the snows come and stop you. When the sensible thing ..."
"Well?" queried Gilchrist as Steele paused abruptly.
"Is to take what lies all ready and at hand! All you've got to do here is wave your hand like a fairy's wand and here you've got Dr. Gilchrist's Sanatorium, ready for occupancy."
Gilchrist frowned and continued to stare.
"I mean it," laughed Steele. "I've got an option of the whole works, hotel, store, cottages, lake, everything. It's just the article for your purpose; you couldn't beat it if you took all year to look around. And it's ready. Ready for you to bring your patients into in a week!"
In a flash he had caught the physician's interest. In silence they made further investigations, Gilchrist going at last into the inn, while Steele waited with the horses. In fifteen minutes the doctor came out, his face flushed a little, his eyes bright.
"It would be just the thing!" he announced confidently. "If only the price happens to be right, Mr. Steele."
"As I said," replied Steele, "I have an option on the place and that option calls for an expenditure of twenty thousand dollars only."
Gilchrist, no business man and no pretender at bargain driving, allowed himself to look his surprise.
"That certainly sounds ridiculously cheap," he admitted. "But of course," smilingly, "you'd not be selling at the same figure. I'd quite forgotten that part of it. Just how big a difference would there be, Mr. Steele, between your buying and selling price?"
"Just exactly ten thousand dollars!" returned Steele coolly.
Gilchrist's eyebrows went up.
"You are not doing business just for fun, are you, Mr. Steele?" he said a trifle coldly.
Gilchrist wondered at Bill Steele's sudden mirth, at his big, booming laughter. Certainly he had set the man down as eccentric, but …
"In this particular instance," cried Steele warmly, "that is just exactly what I am doing business for; just for fun! I said that the difference between my buying and selling price would be just ten thousand dollars, didn't I? Well, so it will. If you will just keep your mouth shut about what concerns just you and me … if you will take good care not to refute any rumours which will get started real soon that I have sold to you at thirty thousand … well, then, I'll close the deal with you out of hand and you take Summit City … for ten thousand dollars!"
Eccentric … or simply stark, staring, raving mad?
"You mean that you offer to sell at a loss of ten thousand dollars?"
"With two provisos, yes. First that you use the property for a sanatorium. Second, that you let people think I got thirty thousand out of you."
"But I don't understand, Mr. Steele …"
Again Steele laughed at him joyously.
"I found a gold mine yesterday," he said lightly. "Also, I am in the way of making a lot of money with Carruthers. Besides, I'd be mighty glad to do my little bit to help in the good work you are doing, work such as has brought back Rose and little Eddie to Hurley. And besides … though you won't understand this, either! … it'll be worth something for the sake of another joke on Her Majesty the Queen! And finally, to get down to business I have made you an offer. Will you accept it?"
Of course Gilchrist accepted, warmly thanking Steele for his generosity. The details both were willing to wave aside for the present. But, asking Gilchrist to excuse him a moment, Steele went back to the post office, where he scrawled and mailed this letter to Beatrice: