"Oh, well! I dare say the story won't get out at all, but if it does I'll see the gossips get the right version. I suppose Sam Yesler will back it up."
"Of course. He's a white man. And I don't need to tell you that I'll be a whole lot obliged to you, Stevie."
"That's all right. Sometimes I'm a white man, too, Waring," laughed Steve. Ridgway circled the table and put a hand on the younger man's shoulder affectionately. Steve Eaton was the one of all his associates for whom he had the closest personal feeling.
"I don't need to be told that, old pal," he said quietly.
Chapter 8.
The Honorable Thomas B. Pelton
It was next morning that Steve came into Ridgway's offices with a copy of the Rocky Mountain Herald in his hands. As soon as the president of the Mesa Ore-producing Company was through talking with Dalton, the superintendent of the Taurus, about the best means of getting to the cage a quantity of ore he was looting from the Consolidated property adjoining, the treasurer plumped out with his news.
"Seen to-day's paper, Waring? It smokes out Pelton to a finish. They've moled out some facts we can't get away from."
Ridgway glanced rapidly over the paper. "We'll have to drop Pelton and find another candidate for the Senate. Sorry, but it can't be helped. They've got his record down too fine. That affidavit from Quinton puts an end to his chances."
"He'll kick like a bay steer."
"His own fault for not covering his tracks better. This exposure doesn't help us any at best. If we still tried to carry Pelton, we should last about as long as a snowball in hell."
"Shall I send for him?"
"No. He'll be here as quick as he can cover the ground. Have him shown in as soon as he comes. And Steve—did Harley arrive on the eight-thirty this morning?"
"Yes. He is putting up at the Mesa House. He reserved an entire floor by wire, so that he has bed-rooms, dining-rooms, parlors, reception-halls and private offices all together. The place is policed thoroughly, and nobody can get up without an order."
"I haven't been thinking of going up and shooting him, even though it would be a blessing to the country," laughed his chief.
"No, but it is possible somebody else might. This town is full of ignorant foreigners who would hardly think twice of it. If he had asked my advice, it would have been to stay away from Mesa."
"He wouldn't have taken it," returned Ridgway carelessly. "Whatever else is true about him, Simon Harley isn't a coward. He would have told you that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the permission of the distorted God he worships, and he would have come on the next train."
"Well, it isn't my funeral," contributed Steve airily.
"All the same I'm going to pass his police patrols and pay a visit to the third floor of the Mesa House."
"You are going to compromise with him?" cried Eaton swiftly.
"Compromise nothing, I'm going to pay a formal social call on Mrs. Harley, and respectfully hope that she has suffered no ill effects from her exposure to the cold."
Eaton made no comment, unless to whistle gently were one.
"You think it isn't wise?"
"Well, is it?" asked Steve.
"I think so. We'll scotch the lying tongue of rumor by a strict observance of the conventions. Madam Grundy is padlocked when we reduce the situation to the absurdity of the common place."
"Perhaps you are right, if it doesn't become too common commonplace."
"I think we may trust Simon Harley to see to that," answered his chief with a grim smile "Obviously our social relations aren't likely to be very intimate. Now it's 'Just before the battle mother,' but once the big guns begin to boor we'll neither of us be in the mood for functions social."
"You've established a sort of claim on him. It wouldn't surprise me if he would meet you halfway in settling the trouble between you," said Eaton thoughtfully.
"I expect he would," agreed Ridgway indifferently as he lit a cigar.
"Well, then?"
"The trouble is that I won't meet him halfway. I can't afford to be reasonable, Steve. Just suppose for an instant that I had been reasonable five years ago when this fight began. They would have bought me out for a miserable pittance of a hundred and fifty thousand or so. That would have been a reasonable figure then. You might put it now at five or six millions, and that would be about right. I don't want their money. I want power, and I'd rather fight for it than not. Besides, I mean to make what I have already wrung from them a lever for getting more. I'm going to show Harley that he has met a man at last he can't either freeze out or bully out. I'm going to let him and his bunch know I'm on earth and here to stay; that I can beat them at their own game to a finish."
"Did it ever occur to you, Waring, that it might pay to make this a limited round contest? You've won on points up to date by a mile, but in a finish fight endurance counts. Money is the same as endurance here, and that's where they are long."
Eaton made this suggestion diffidently, for though he was a stockholder and official of the Mesa Ore-producing Company, he was not used to offering its head unasked advice. The latter, however, took it without a trace of resentment.
"Glad of it, my boy. There's no credit in beating a cripple."
To this jaunty retort Eaton had found no answer when Smythe opened the door to announce the arrival of the Honorable Thomas B. Pelton, very anxious for an immediate interview with Mr. Ridgway.
"Show him in," nodded the president, adding in an aside: "You better stay, Steve."
Pelton was a rotund oracular individual in silk hat and a Prince Albert coat of broadcloth. He regarded himself solemnly as a statesman because he had served two inconspicuous terms in the House at Washington. He was fond of proclaiming himself a Southern gentleman, part of which statement was unnecessary and part untrue. Like many from his section, he had a decided penchant for politics.
"Have you seen the infamous libel in that scurrilous sheet of the gutters the Herald?" he demanded immediately of Ridgway.
"Which libel? They don't usually stop at one, colonel."
"The one, seh, which slanders my honorable name; which has the scoundrelly audacity to charge me with introducing the mining extension bill for venal reasons, seh."
"Oh! Yes, I've seen that. Rather an unfortunate story to come out just now."
"I shall force a retraction, seh, or I shall demand the satisfaction due a Southern gentleman.
"Yes, I would, colonel," replied Ridgway, secretly amused at the vain threats of this bag of wind which had been punctured.
"It's a vile calumny, an audacious and villainous lie."
"What part of it? I've just glanced over it, but the part I read seems to be true. That's the trouble with it. If it were a lie you could explode it."
"I shall deny it over my signature."
"Of course. The trouble will be to get people to believe your denial with Quinton's affidavit staring them in the face. It seems they have got hold of a letter, too, that you wrote. Deny it, of course, then lie low and give the public time to forget it."
"Do you mean that I should withdraw from the senatorial race?"
"That's entirely as you please, colonel, but I'm afraid you'll find your support will slip away from you."
"Do you mean that YOU won't support me, seh?"
Ridgway