Tregarvon

“ With a gently worded phrase of apology to his daughter’s guest, the judge had pleaded an old man’s privilege, dragging his chair to the farther end of the veranda and lighting his corn-cob pipe in courteous isolation. Tregarvon marked the bit of old-fashioned chivalric deference to Elizabeth, and wondered how many men of his own generation would be as thoughtfully considerate of the small amenities. ”

“ Among his better qualities Tregarvon was able to number a certain degree of resilience which, given time to take the full impact of a blow, could recover and rebound and make the best of the inevitable. Whatever might have come of the intimacy with Richardia Birrell—and he told himself that nothing could have come of it in any event—it was now an episode ended; and after a night of very much mingled emotions, he had risen up with the determination to play the man, for Carfax’s sake if not for his own, and to let the industrial battle fill all the horizons for one Vance Tregarvon. ”

“ Tregarvon fought away from the edge of the pit into which his incorrigible ingenuousness was about to precipitate him.
“Oh, there isn’t any reason why she should consider me. Within the past hour I have had the best possible proof of that.”
Hartridge was silent for a moment. Then he said: “Mr. Tregarvon, I trust you are a gentleman in all that the much-misused word implies.”
“A man may hardly assert that of himself,” was the quick retort. “But why?”
“What you have just said implies a knowledge of a secret which has been most carefully guarded by Miss Richardia’s friends. ”

“ After Uncle William’s mysterious advent the work on the mountain progressed the more rapidly by precisely the difference between a well-fed leader and an ill-fed. Tregarvon and his pick-up crew wrought manfully, and on the eighteenth day—the day of fresh surprises—the drilling machinery had been safely transported to the plateau, had been set up, and was ready to be started on the test upon which the Tregarvon hopes were building airy structures of future affluence. ”

“ When you are older, Mr. Tregarvon, and come to know human nature a little better, you will apprehend the truth of that worldly wise beatitude, ‘Blessed are they who expect little, for, verily, they shall not be disappointed.’ Consider a moment: you came here, the legal owner of the Ocoee, to be sure, and the innocent owner, inasmuch as your father was the unsuspecting purchaser of stolen goods. ”

“ The Townlander COINCIDENT with a miniature thunderclap shattering the summer afternoon silence of the mountain forest a bullet whipped through the foliage, leaving a half-severed twig to flutter and dangle within easy arm’s reach. Tregarvon had never before been under fire, and he was a product of twentieth-century civilization and the cities. ”

“ Tregarvon had little time in which to determine what he ought to say; time for nothing but a sudden and loyal resolve not to fail Richardia in her moment of need. Voices in the hall warned him that Carfax and the Caswells were returning, and at the same moment he heard the honk of the motor announcing Rucker’s approach. He was upon his feet when he said: “You have told me something that I didn’t know—didn’t suspect. I can scarcely believe it yet. But you need have no fears for anything that I shall do. You mustn’t worry for a single moment. It will all come out right in the end.” ”

“ The golden youth neither gave nor received the kiss of greeting; and he pointedly looked another way when Miss Wardwell offered her cheek for Tregarvon’s cousinly salute. Then he found himself shaking hands with Richardia’s father; realized vaguely that the judge was taxing him reproachfully for not having consented to occupy one of the many bed-rooms at Westwood House the night before, instead of returning to Highmount; realized also that Miss Wardwell was rallying Tregarvon gayly upon his discomfiture accomplished by means of the jesting telegram. ”

“ If it should prove only another failure, the opportunity to sell must not be allowed to lapse. But if the test should prove that he had at last discovered the workable mother-vein.... Tregarvon gasped at the golden possibility, and the offer of a paltry tenth of a million shrank to nothing.
He was wishing, for the hundredth time, that Carfax would come and help him to decide, when a buggy drawn by a high-stepping black horse appeared among the trees on the opposite side of the glade. Tregarvon recognized the equipage at once. It was Thaxter’s, and the round-bodied bookkeeper was alone. ”

“ Through the open door of the tool-shack the two at the rope-coil table could see the plant, with the plume of escaping steam rising to the height of the tree-tops. As usual during the noon hour, there was not a man of the gang in sight. Tregarvon had early learned that a part of the country laborer’s reticence expressed itself in a dislike to eat under the boss’s eye. At the stopping of the machinery the drill-gang would scatter in the wood, each man to his fallen log. ”

“ Wilmerding or Duncan, or both of them, brought these rumors to Tregarvon, and were amazed to find that he refused to be either disturbed or greatly interested. In many ways the superintendent and the old Scotch engineer were discovering daily that they had to do with a man who had developed suddenly into a master of himself and others. The light-hearted young fellow who had thrown himself so joyously into the fray at the beginning had given place to a modern captain of industry, alert, strong-willed, a bit dictatorial, perhaps, but entirely capable. ”

“ For the moment Tregarvon was torn by conflicting emotions; a huge thankfulness that no life had been lost and bitter disappointment that the catastrophe had come at the instant when all the doubts as to the value of the Ocoee were to be either confirmed or swept away. He held himself together long enough to tell the [256] men that they might go home—that there would be nothing more done until a new power-plant could be bought; but when Rucker had gone out to the wood road to see if the yellow car had been hit, and the disappointed one was left alone with Carfax, the flood-gates gave way. ”

“ Tregarvon,” he began, between workman mouthfuls of Mrs. Tryon’s corn bread. “She ain’t much, just as I told you at first; and draggin’ her ’round over this mountain hain’t helped her none. She’s leakin’ like a sieve at the fire-box end of her flues, right now.”
“Here’s hoping that this is the last hole we’ll have to drill with it, Billy,” said Tregarvon cheerfully. “I bought it second-hand, and the Chattanooga junk man put one over on me.”
“He sure did,” Rucker returned with a grin. “She’s rotten. Every time the pop-valve goes off it makes me jump. ”

“ After they reached the head of the inclined track and had signalled to Tryon at the foot to let them down in the tip-car, Tregarvon outlined his plan for the broken day.
“We’ll go down and get out the auto and my engineering instruments, motor back to the drilling plant, and do a little surveying on our own account. Beyond that, you may take the car and kill time with it as you please. I’ll stay and help Rucker.” ”

“ After this, he beckoned to Carfax, and they went together down the shallow glade ravine to the spot where Rucker had found the burnt pine-knot torch and had driven his marking stake.
Out of hearing of the four men left at the drilling-stand, Tregarvon said: “Well, the McNabbs are eliminated, definitely. It is fair to assume that a man wouldn’t be so careless as to get caught in a trap of his own setting.” ”

“ I have a laboratory up at Whitlow, and I’ll be glad to help out to that extent.”
“You are an enemy, right, Mr. Wilmerding!” said Tregarvon heartily. “A fighting friend couldn’t make a fairer offer than that. But you will find that the two seams are one and the same. I made even canny old Captain Duncan admit that he couldn’t detect any difference in the coal taken from the two veins.” ”

“ Tregarvon turned quickly upon the questioner.
“Do you advise me to take the offer, Poictiers? You will remember that after our talk with Hartridge a week ago you said I was not to sell.”
“I know; but only idiots and corpses are unable to change their minds. You owe it to your people at home not to fall between two stools. After all is said, a sure hundred thousand is better than nothing.”
“Hartridge has been working on you again,” said Tregarvon accusingly. “And this time he has taken the other tack. Isn’t that so?”
[312] Carfax neither admitted nor denied a later talk with the schoolmaster. ”

“ Tregarvon refused flatly to accept the invitation.
“No; I want to know about my welcome at Highmount. I have had Mrs. Caswell’s warrant in the past. I have it yet. You can’t make me stay away.”
Miss Richardia’s pretty chin went up a quarter of an inch.
“Then you will compel me to be disagreeable; and I don’t like to be that. I always have plenty of work to do in the evenings; quite a number of the young women would like to take extra music lessons, and I have a piano in my rooms.”
Tregarvon gasped. “You don’t mean that you’d be hard-hearted enough to shut yourself up? to refuse to see me? ”

“ By Jove, Vance—I have an idea! It has dawned upon the enemy, whoever he is, that it wasn’t worth while to efface us at a time when we were perseveringly going the right way about it to efface ourselves! I’d like to make a bet with you: when we begin drilling in the right place—if there is any right place—the trouble will blossom out again. What do you think?”
“I haven’t a thought left that isn’t too leg-weary to keep up with you,” Tregarvon confessed; whereat he fell to talking of Miss Richardia Birrell, dribbling on until Carfax, groaning in spirit, got up to light the bed-room candles. ”

“ Tregarvon chuckled. “You’ve missed your calling, Poictiers, by all the distance lying between Riverside Drive and the city detective department down-town. But, as you say, you took a long chance; unless Connolly is a bigger fool than he looks to be.”
“Didn’t I? But Connolly is simply an abysmal brute; a man-driver without any of the little gifts of perspicacity. He took me under his wing like a stepfather-in-law; advised me bluntly to put my money into Consolidated Coal at one-forty rather than to go gunning on my own hook, or yours, or anybody’s, in Consolidated Coal’s intimate back yard. ”

“ Beyond the Gap IT was a full fortnight before the Hesterville physician, driven at breakneck speed to Coalville in Wilmerding’s roadster on the night of woundings, pronounced Tregarvon out of danger and in a fair way to recover from the broken head.
Whatever the lapse of time may have meant for others, it had little significance for the man who tossed and rolled in his bed in an upper room of the Ocoee office-building. ”

“ That a man who had formerly been a judge and a champion of the law should become a feudist, carrying his vindictiveness over from those who had defrauded him to the defrauders’ innocent successor, appeared blankly incredible. Yet Tregarvon remembered that the South still held many archaic well-springs of thought and action—he had to fight anachronisms daily in his laborers—and that the older generation was not to be [189] judged by the standards of the new. ”

“ Tregarvon hesitated a moment and then glanced at his watch.
“I’ll go—a little later,” he decided abruptly. [434] “I don’t know that I owe the professor anything but an action at law for helping to destroy my drilling plant, but I’ll give him a chance to say what he has to say. Now run along and keep your dinner engagement. I can drive up in my own car when I am ready.”
“About what time will that be?” queried Carfax, hanging upon the threshold of the door of leave-takings. “I ought to let Hartridge know when to expect you.”
Again Tregarvon looked at his watch. “Say eight o’clock. Will that do?” ”

“ Tregarvon did not [249] take any of his men into his confidence to the extent of explaining the reason for the extra care, but during the swabbing process he stood aside and looked on, watchful to detect any sign of guilty knowledge on the part of his helpers. Particularly he studied the face of the younger McNabb, the one who had been hurt still being absent. The effort went for nothing. If isolation has been sparing of gifts to the native of the southern Appalachians, it has at least given him a face that no man can read. ”

“ Tregarvon. You’ve got a heap to l’arn ef ye allow to stay down yere in old Tennessee and get white men to work f’r ye.”
“Quit, then, and be damned to you!” Tregarvon exploded. “Show up at the office in Coalville to-morrow morning before I leave, and you’ll get your pay. I don’t carry your money around with me in my pocket.”
To a clattering of hoofs and a jingling of trace-chains the cavalcade moved off down the pike, leaving the deserted boss standing beside the stranded machinery truck. ”

“ Vance; the person who first taught you to put pen to paper ought to have been instantly hanged, drawn and quartered. I—I—” but here, apparently, speech failed him, and he turned abruptly to walk rapidly away toward Highmount, leaving Tregarvon standing, half-remorseful and wholly bewildered, in the middle of the road. ”

“ Some one, several [6] persons, as it presently appeared, were pushing through the tangle of low-hanging undergrowth toward the oak-tree. Tregarvon wondered that there should be no attempt cautionary on the part of the enemy ”

“ Over the moor and across the downs they all went like the wind, the witch keeping well in advance. Uphill and downhill and through the lanes they flew, and never once did they stop till they came to Place Hill, where the great stone gateway of Place House stood greyly out from a background of beech-trees and oaks. Here the six little maids stopped to get breath, but the old hag, though ready to drop from her broom with fatigue, paused not a second, and went on down the hill with little Thrush Betty, and Pincher the dog close behind her. ”