Part 28 (1/2)

”Glad to have the pleasure of talking with, you, Mr. Eaton. You must accept my apologies for my methods of securing a meeting. They are rather primitive, but since you declined to call and see me, I can hold only you to blame.” An acid smile touched his lips for a moment, though his eyes were expressionless as a wall. ”Mr. Eaton, I have brought you here in this way to have a confidential talk with you, in order that it might not in any way reflect upon you in case we do not come to an arrangement satisfactory to both of us. Your friends cannot justly blame you for this conference, since you could not avoid it. Mr. Eaton, take a chair.”

The wills of the two men flashed into each other's eyes like rapiers.

The weaker man knew what was before him and braced himself to meet it.

He would not sit down. He would not discuss anything. So he told himself once and again to hold himself steady against the impulse to give way to those imperious eyes behind which was the impa.s.sive, compelling will.

”Sit down, Mr. Eaton.”

”I'll stand, Mr. Harley.”

”SIT DOWN.”

The cold jade eyes were not to be denied. Eaton's gaze fell sullenly, and he slid into a chair.

”I'll discuss no business except in the presence of Mr. Ridgway,” he said doggedly, falling back to his second line of defenses.

”To the contrary, my business is with you and not with Mr. Ridgway.”

”I know of no business you can have with me.”

”Wherefore I have brought you here to acquaint you with it.”

The young man lifted his head reluctantly and waited. If he had been willing to confess it to himself, he feared greatly this ruthless spoiler who had built up the greatest fortune in the world from thousands of wrecked lives. He felt himself choking, just as if those skeleton fingers had been at his throat, but he promised himself never to yield.

The fathomless, dominant gaze caught and held his eyes. ”Mr. Eaton, I came here to crush Ridgway. I am going to stay here till I do. I'm going to wipe him from the map of Montana--ruin him so utterly that he can never recover. It has been my painful duty to do this with a hundred men as strong and as confident as he is. After undertaking such an enterprise, I have never faltered and never relented. The men I have ruined were ruined beyond hope of recovery. None of them have ever struggled to their feet again. I intend to make Waring Ridgway a pauper.”

Stephen Eaton could have conceived nothing more merciless than this man's callous p.r.o.nouncement, than the calm certainty of his unemphasized words. He started to reply, but Harley took the words out of his mouth.

”Don't make a mistake. Don't tie to the paltry successes he has gained.

I have not really begun to fight yet.”

The young man had nothing to say. His heart was water. He accepted Harley's words as true, for he had told himself the same thing a hundred times. Why had Ridgway rejected the overtures of this colossus of finance? It had been the sheerest folly born of madness to suppose that anybody could stand against him.

”For Ridgway, the die is cast,” the iron voice went on. ”He is doomed beyond hope. But there is still a chance for you. What do you consider your interest in the Mesa Ore-producing Company worth, Mr. Eaton?”

The sudden question caught Eaton with the force of a surprise. ”About three hundred thousand dollars,” he heard himself say; and it seemed to him that his voice was speaking the words without his volition.

”I'm going to buy you out for twice that sum. Furthermore, I'm going to take care of your future--going to see that you have a chance to rise.”

The waverer's will was in flux, but the loyalty in him still protested.

”I can't desert my chief, Mr. Harley.”

”Do you call it desertion to leave a raging madman in a sinking boat after you have urged him to seek the safety of another s.h.i.+p?”

”He made me what I am.”

”And I will make you ten times what you are. With Ridgway you have no chance to be anything but a subordinate. He is the Mesa Ore-producing Company, and you are merely a cipher. I offer your individuality a chance. I believe in you, and know you to be a strong man.” No ironic smile touched Harley's face at this statement. ”You need a chance, and I offer it to you. For your own sake take it.”

Every grievance Eaton had ever felt against his chief came trooping to his mind. He was domineering. He did ride rough-shod over his allies'