Brouillard

“ An hour later, when the afternoon shadow of Jack's Mountain was lying all across the shut-in valley and pointing like the angle of a huge gnomon to the Quadjenàï Hills, Brouillard was closeted in his log-built office quarters with a big, fair-faced man, whose rough tweeds and unbrushed, soft hat proclaimed him fresh from the dust-dry reaches of the Quesado trail.
"It is your own opinion that I want, Victor," the fair-faced man was saying, "not the government engineer's. Can we make the road pay if we bring it here? That is a question which you can answer better than any other living man. ”

“ Brouillard tried to remember that he was the Reclamation Service construction chief, that the pricking of the Mirapolitan bubble early or late concerned him not at all,—tried it and failed.
"I am afraid you are right," he said thoughtfully. "We've had a good many applications from men hunting work in the past two days, more than would be accounted for by the usual drift from the railroad camps." ”

“ Castner accepted the implied challenge soberly, and together they ascended to Brouillard's offices. Once behind the closed door, Brouillard struck out viciously.
"You fellows claim to hold the keys of 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?" ”

“ Shall I go over to the Spot-Light office and tell Harlan what I know?"
"You can't bluff me that way, Brouillard, and you ought to sense it by this time. Do you suppose I don't know how you are fixed?—that you've got money—money that you used to say you owed somebody else—tied up in Mirapolis investments?"
Brouillard rose and buttoned his coat.
"There is one weak link in your chain, Mr. Cortwright," he said evenly; "you don't know men. Put on your coat and come over to Harlan's office with me. It will take just about two minutes to satisfy you that I'm not bluffing." ”

“ Brouillard was working it out in his own way, tramping the streets, hanging on the outskirts of arguing groups of newsmongers, or listening to the bonanza talk of the loungers in the Metropole lobby. Soon after dark the gold-seekers began to drop in, by twos and threes and in squads, all with the same story of disappointment. By nine o'clock the town was full of them, and since the liquor was flowing freely across many bars, the mutterings of disappointment soon swelled to a thunder roar of drunken rage, with the unknown exhibitor of the specimen nuggets for its object. ”

“ But at the entrance to the Niquoia he 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 back-load of my own to carry. Come up to my 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." ”

“ Brouillard agreed. He was still wrestling with his own besetment—the prompting which involved a deliberate plunge where up to the present crisis he had been merely wading in the shallows. A little thing stung him alive to the imperative call of the moment—the sight of Amy Massingale walking down the street with Tig Smith, the Triangle-Circle foreman. It was of the death of her hopes that he was thinking when he said coolly: "You have sized it up precisely, Mr. Cortwright; that is a panic in the making, and the bubble won't stand for very much pricking. ”

“ If it ain't one thing, it's another. 'Bout as soon as I got that tangle with the Red Butte smelter straightened out, the railroad hit me."
"How was that?" queried Brouillard, with quickening interest coming alive at a bound.
"Same old song, no cars; try and get 'em to-morruh, and to-morruh it'll be next day, and next day it'll be the day after. Looks like they don't want to haul any freight out o' here."
"I see," said Brouillard, and truly he saw much more than David Massingale did. Then: "No shipments means no money for you, and more delay ”

“ 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-bought-and-sold corner opposite Bongras's.
"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. Gene says you are neglecting her shamefully, but she seems to be making a pretty good Jack-at-a-pinch of the English lord." ”

“ Cortwright sat back in his chair, and once more Brouillard saw in the sandy-gray eyes the look which had been in the son's eyes when the derelict fought for freedom to finish killing Stephen Massingale.
"It's a pretty dangerous thing to try to hold a man up unless you've got the drop on him, Brouillard," he said significantly. "I've got you covered from my pocket; I've had you covered that way ever since you began to buck and rear on me a couple of months ago. One little wire word to Washington fixes you for good and all. ”

“ Brouillard shook his head slowly.
"Odd as it may seem to you, I'm out of your market this time, Mr. Cortwright—quite out of it."
"Oh, no, you're not. You've got property to sell—a good bit of it. We can turn it for you at a figure that will——"
"No; you are mistaken," was the quick reply. "I have no property in Mirapolis. I am merely a squatter on government land, like every one else in the Niquoia valley."
"For Heaven's sake!" the promoter burst out. "What's got into you? Don't you go around trying to stand that corpse on its feet; it's a dead one, I tell you! ”

“ It was the promoter's turn to laugh.
"What sort of a bug have you got in your cosmos this morning, Brouillard? Why, man, you're crazy!"
Brouillard rose and relighted his cigar.
"If that is your last word, Mr. Cortwright, I may as well go back to my office. You don't need me."
"Oh, hold on; don't go off in a huff. You're too thin-skinned for any common kind of use. I was only trying you to see how far you'd carry it. Let it stand. Assume, for the sake of argument, that I do want the 'Little Susan' and that I've got a good friend or two in the Red Butte smelters who will help me get it. ”

“ There was need for a commander; for a cool head to bring order out of chaos, and for the rare faculty which is able to accomplish Herculean tasks with whatever means lie at hand. Brouillard descended upon his disheartened subordinates like a whirlwind of invincible energy, electrifying everybody into instant action. Gassman was told off to bring the Indians, who alone were loyally indifferent to the gold craze, down from the crushers. Anson was despatched to impress the waiters and bell-boys from the Metropole; Leshington was sent to the shops and the bank to turn out the clerks ”

“ Cortwright personally. He and Handley and Schermerhorn and a few of the others seem to stand for respectability of a sort. But, Mr. Brouillard, I want to tell you this: somebody in authority is grafting upon the vice of this community, not only to-day but all the time."
"The community is certainly vicious enough to warrant any charge you can make," admitted Brouillard. Then he changed the topic abruptly. "Have you seen Miss Massingale since noon?"
"Yes; I saw her with Smith, the cattleman, at the other end of the Avenue about an hour ago."
"Heavens!" gritted the engineer. ”

“ Brouillard smiled again. "You see," he said; "it is second nature for you pencil-pushers to try to make two facts grow where only one grew before. Honestly, now, Harlan, what do you think about it yourself? You don't need any kindergartner of a construction man to help you solve a little problem like that, do you?" ”

“ Cortwright thrust the other arm into the remaining coat sleeve and scowled. But the rebound to the norm of brusque good-nature came almost immediately.
"You are improving wonderfully, Brouillard, and that's no joke. I have a large respect for a man who can outbid me in my own corner. You ought to be in business—and you will be, some time. I'll send the wire, but I warn you in advance that I can't make the smelter people take Massingale's ore if they don't want to. All I can do is to give the old man a free field." ”

“ Brouillard laughed and fell headlong into the pit of triteness.
"The world isn't so very big when you come to surround it properly, Mr. Cortwright," he asserted.
"That's a fact; and we're doing our level best nowadays to make and keep it little," buzzed the portly man cheerfully, with a wave of one pudgy arm toward the automobile. "It's about a hundred and twenty miles from this to El Gato, on the Grand Canyon, isn't it, Mr. Brouillard? Well, we did it in five hours yesterday afternoon, and we could have cut an hour out of that if Rickert hadn't mistaken the way across the Buckskin. ”

“ Brouillard said that he did not know, which was true, and that he could not believe it possible, which was not true. "The Cortwright people are as anxious to have the celebration pass off peaceably as even you can be," he assured the young missionary, trying to buttress the thing which was not true. "When riot comes in at the door, business flies out at the window; and, after all, this feast of hurrahs is merely another bid for business."
But Castner was shaking his head. ”

“ Every white man in the camp would chuck his job in the hollow half of a minute and go to gravel washing!"
"That's it precisely," Brouillard acquiesced gloomily. "Massingale is a young tough, but he is shrewd enough, when he is sober. He had me dead to rights, and he knew it. 'You don't want any gold camp starting up here in the bottom of your reservoir,' he said; and I had to admit it."
Grislow had found a magnifying-glass in the drawer of the mapping table, and he was holding it in focus over the small collection of grain gold and nuggets. ”

“ Brouillard's nod was for the man, but his words were for the young woman whose beauty refused to be quenched by the touring handicaps. "Yes, I am in charge of it," he said.
"Ha!" said the stout man, and this time the exclamation was purely approbative. "Chief engineer, eh? That's fine, fine! You're young, and you've climbed pretty fast. But that's the way with you young men nowadays; you begin where we older fellows leave off. I'm glad we met you. My name is Cortwright—J. Wesley Cortwright, of Chicago. ”

“ They often see more clearly than we do—the good women. Try it; and let me help where a man can help."
For a long hour after Castner went away Brouillard sat at his desk, fighting as those fight who see the cause lost, and who know they only make the ruin more complete by struggling on.
Cortwright's guess had found its mark. He was loaded to break with "front feet" and options and "corners." ”

“ The girl was shaking her head again.
"God sometimes saves us in spite of ourselves," she said gravely. "The excitement will die out. There are no placers in the Niquoia. The bars have been prospected again and again."
"They have been?——"
Brouillard turned on his heel and choked back the sudden malediction that rose to his lips. She had called Mirapolis a city of knaves and dupes; surely, he himself was the simplest of the dupes.
"I see—after so long a time," he went on. "Your brother merely 'salted' a few shovelfuls of sand for my especial benefit. ”

“ But we are all in the same boat. If the railroad work doesn't start up again within the next few days we are all due to go to pot. If you've got the odd ace up your sleeve and don't play it, you stand to lose out with the rest of us."
The door was open into the anteroom where the stenographers' desks were, and Brouillard was staring gloomily into the farther vacancies.
"I wonder if you know how little I care?" he said half musingly. Then, with sudden vehemence: "It is altogether a question of motive with me, Mr. Cortwright; of a motive which you couldn't understand in a thousand years. ”

“ That bar is comparatively rich placer dirt."
"Good Lord!" ejaculated the map-maker. "Comparatively rich, you say?—and you washed this spoonful out of a single pan?"
"Keep your head," said Brouillard coolly. "Massingale explained that I had happened to make a ten-strike; that the bar wasn't any such bonanza as that first result would indicate. I proved that, too, by washing some more of it without getting any more than a few 'colors.' But the fact remains: it's placer ground."
It was at this point that the larger aspect of the fact launched itself upon the hydrographer. ”

“ The transfer of view-points from the lower end of the canyon to the upper was effected without incident, save at its beginning, when the father would have called down to the young man who had waded ashore and was drying himself before the camp-fire. "Van Bruce won't care to go," the daughter hastened to say; and Brouillard, whose gift it was to be able to pick out and identify the human derelict at long range, understood perfectly well the reason for the young woman's hasty interruption. ”

“ Brouillard closed his desk at one o'clock and went to fight his way through the street pandemonium to Bongras's. At a table in the rear room he found David Massingale, his long, white beard tucked into the closely buttoned miner's coat to be out of the way of the flying knife and fork, while he gave a lifelike imitation of a man begrudging every second of time wasted in stopping the hunger gap.
Brouillard took the opposite chair and was grimly amused at the length of time that elapsed before Massingale realized his presence.
"Pity a man has to stop to eat on a day like this, isn't it, Mr. ”