kind to fools, my friend; sorrow is never their portion. I've led rather a humdrum life. I've worked hard and never had any fun or excitement to speak of, and in answering Billy's call I have a feeling that I am answering the call of a great adventure.”
He did not know how truly he spoke, of course, but if he had, that knowledge would not have changed his answer.
CHAPTER V
THE morning following his decision to play the rôle of angel to Billy Geary's mining concession in Sobrante, John Stuart Webster, like Mr. Pepys, was up betimes.
Nine o'clock found him in the office of his friend Joe Daingerfield, of the Bingham Engineering Works, where, within the hour, he had in his characteristically decisive fashion purchased the machinery for a ten-stamp mill and an electric light plant capability of generating two hundred and fifty horsepower two electric hoists with cable, half a dozen steel ore buckets, as many more ore-cars with five hundred feet of rail, a blacksmithing outfit, a pump, motors, sheet steel to line the crushing-bins and form shovelling platforms for the ore in the workings, picks, shovels drills, and so forth. It was a nice order and Dangerfield fwas delighted.
“This is going to cost you about half your fortune, Jack,” he informed Webster when the order was finally made up.
Webster grinned. “You don't suppose I'm chump enough to pay for it now, do you, Joe?” he queried.
“You'll pay at least half, my son. We love you, Jack; we honour and respect you; but this stuff is going to Central America, and in the event of your premature demise, we might not get it back. They have wars down there, you know, and when those people are war-mad, they destroy things.”
“I know. But I'm going first to scout the country, Joe, and in the meantime keep all this stuff in your warehouse until I authorize you by cable to ship, when you can draw on me at sight for the entire invoice with bill of lading attached. If, upon investigation, I find that this mine isn't all my partner thinks it is, I'll cable a cancellation, and you can tear that nice fat order up and forget it. I don't intend to have you and that gang of penny-pinching card-room engineers up at the Engineers' Club remind me of the old adage that a fool and his money are soon parted.”
From Daingerfield's office Webster went forth to purchase a steamer-trunk, his railway ticket and sleeping-car reservation—after which he returned to his hotel and set about packing for the journey.
He sighed regretfully as he folded his brand-new raiment, packed it in moth balls in his wardrobe-trunk, and ordered the trunk sent to a storage warehouse.
“Well, I was a giddy old bird of paradise for one night, at least,” he comforted himself, as he dressed instead in a suit of light-weight olive drab goods in which he hoped to enjoy some measure of cool comfort until he should reach Buenaventura and thus become acquainted with the foibles of fashion in that tropical centre.
The remainder of the afternoon he spent among his old friends of the Engineers' Club, who graciously tendered him a dollar table d'hote dinner that evening and saw him off for his train at ten o'clock, with many a gloomy prophecy as to his ultimate destiny—the prevailing impression appearing to be that he would return to them in a neat long box labelled: This Side Up—With Care—Use No Hooks.
Old Neddy Jerome, as sour and cross as a setting hen,' accompanied him in the taxicab to the station, loth to let him escape and pleading to the last, in a forlorn hope that Jack Webster's better nature would triumph over his friendship and boyish yearning for adventure. He clung to Webster's arm as they walked slowly down the track and paused at the steps of the car containing the wanderer's reservation, just as a porter, carrying some hand-baggage, passed them by, followed by a girl in a green tailor-made suit. As she passed, John Stuart Webster looked fairly into her face, started as if bee-stung, and hastily lifted his hat. The girl briefly returned his scrutiny with sudden interest, decided she did not know him, and reproved him with a glance that even passé old Neddy Jerome did not fail to assimilate.
“Wow, wow!” he murmured. “The next time you try that, Johnny Webster, be sure you're right——”
“Good land o' Goshen, Neddy,” Webster replied. “Fry me in bread-crumbs, if that isn't the same girl! Come to think of it, the conductor who gave me her name told me her ticket called for a stop-over in Denver! Let me go, Neddy. Quick! Good-bye, old chap. I'm on my way.”
“Nonsense! The train doesn't pull out for seven minutes yet. Who is she, John, and why does she excite you so?” Jerome recognized in his whimsical friend the symptoms of a most unusual malady—with Webster—and so he held the patient fast by the arm.
“Who is she, you ancient horse-thief? Why, if I have my way—and I'm certainly going to try to have it—she's the future Mrs. W.”
“Alas! Poor Yorick, I knowed him well,” Jerome answered. “Take a tip from the old man, John. I've been through the mill and I know. Never marry a girl that can freeze you with a glance. It isn't safe, and remember, you're not as young as you used to be. By the way, what's the fair charmer's name?”
“I've got it down in my memorandum book, but I can't recall it this minute—Spanish name.”
“John, my dear boy, be careful,” Neddy Jerome counseled. “Stick to your own kind of people——”
“I'll not. That girl is as trim and neat and beautiful as a newly minted guinea. What do I want with a Scotch lassie six feet tall and a believer in hell-fire and infant damnation?”
“Is this—a—er—a nice girl, John?”
“How do I know—I mean, how dare you ask? Of course she's nice. Can't you see she is? And besides, why should you be so fearful——”
“I'll have you understand, young man, that I have considerable interest in the girl you're going to marry. Drat it, boy, if you marry the wrong girl she may interfere with my plans. She may be a spoil-sport and not want to live up at the mine—after you return from this wild-goose chase, dragging your fool tail behind you. By the way, where did you first meet this girl? Who introduced you?”
“I haven't met her, and I've never been introduced,” Webster complained, and poured forth the tale of his adventure on the train from Death Valley. Neddy was very sympathetic.
“Well, no wonder she didn't recognize you when you saluted her to-night,” he agreed. “Thought you were another brute of a man trying to make a mash. By thunder, Jack, I'm afraid you made a mistake when you shed your whiskers and buried your old clothes. You don't look nearly so picturesque and romantic now, and maybe she'll refuse to believe you're the same man!”
“I don't care what she thinks. I found her, I lost her, and I've found her again; and I'm not going to take any further chances. I wired a detective agency to pick her up in Salt Lake and trail her to New Orleans and get me all the dope on her, while I was in temporary retirement with my black eye. Brainless fellows,
