Part 40 (1/2)

Smaltz went. He s.n.a.t.c.hed his coat from its nail as he pa.s.sed but did not stop for his hat. It was not until he reached the slab which served as a bridge over the water from the spillway that he recovered anything of his impudent nonchalance. He was in the centre of it when he heard Banule say:

”If it ud be me I'd a put a lash rope round his neck and drug him up that hill to jail.”

Smaltz wheeled and came back a step.

”Oh, you would, would you? Say, you fakir, I'm glad you spoke. I almost forgot you.” There was sneering, utter contempt in Smaltz's voice.

”_Fakir_,” he reiterated, ”you get that, do you, for I'm pickin' my words and not callin' names by chance. You're the worst that ever come off the Pacific coast--and that's goin' _some_.”

He turned sharply to Bruce.

”You know even a liar sometimes tells the truth and I'm goin' to give it to you straight now. I've nothin' to win or lose. _This machinery never will run._ The plant was a failure before it was put up. And,” he nodded contemptuously at Banule, ”n.o.body knew it better than that dub.”

”Jennings,” he went on ”advised this old-fas.h.i.+oned type of machinery because it was the only kind he understood and he wanted the job of putting it up, honestly believin' at the time that he could. When he realized that he couldn't, he sent for Banule to pull him through.

”Jennings failed because of his ignorance but this feller _knows_, and whatever he's done he has done knowin' that his work couldn't by any chance last. All he's thought of was gettin' the plant up somehow so it would run temporarily--any old way to get through--get his money, and get out. He's experimented continually at your expense; he's bungled the job from beginning to end with his carelessness--his 'good enough' work.

”You were queered from the start with them armatures he wound back there on the Coast. He and Jennings took an old fifty horse-power motor and tried to wind it for seventy-five. There wasn't room for the copper so they hammered in the coils. They ruptured the insulation in the armature and that's why it's always short-circuited and sparked. He rated it at seventy-five and it's never registered but fifty at its best. He rated the small motor at fifty and it developed thirty--no more. The blue print calls for 1500 revolutions on the big pump and the speed indicator shows 900. Even if the motors were all right, the vibration from that b.u.m foundation that he told you was 'good enough' would throw them out, in time.

”All through he's lied and bluffed, and faked. He has yet to put up his first successful plant. Look up his record if you think it ain't the truth. What's happened here is only a repet.i.tion of what's happened everywhere he's ever been. It would be a fortune if 'twas figured what his carelessness has cost the men for whom he's worked.

”In the eyes of the law I'm guilty of wreckin' this plant but in fact I only put on the finis.h.i.+n' touches. I've shortened your misery, Burt, I've saved you money, for otherwise you'd have gone tryin' to tinker it up. Don't do it. Take it from me it isn't worth it. From start to finish you've been stung.”

He turned mockingly to Banule:

”As we know, Alphy, generally there's a kind of honor among crooks that keeps us from squeakin' on each other, but that little speech of yourn about takin' a turn of a las' rope round my neck kind of put me on the prod. That virtuous pose of yours sort of set my teeth on edge, knowin'

what I do, and I ain't told half of what I could if I had the time.

However, Alphy,” he shot a look at Bruce's face, ”if you'll take the advice of a gent what feels as though a log had rolled over him, you'll sift along without puttin' up any holler about your pay.”

XXVI

FAILURE

Smaltz was a liar, as he said, but Bruce knew that he had told the truth regarding Banule's work. He confirmed the suspicions and fears that had been in Bruce's mind for months. Therefore, when he said quietly to Banule--”You'd better go up the hill!” there was that in his voice and eyes which made that person take his departure with only a little less celerity than Smaltz had taken his.

It remained for Bruce to gather up Banule's scattered tools, drain the pumps, and nail the pump-house door. When he closed the head gate and turned the water back into Big Squaw Creek, removed the belting from the pulleys in the power-house and shut the place up tight, he felt that it was much like making arrangements for his own funeral.

At last everything was done and Porcupine Jim, who had stayed on a day or so to help, was waiting for Bruce to finish his letter to Helen Dunbar so he could take it up the hill. Jim sat by the kitchen stove whistling dismally through his teeth while Bruce groped for words in which to break the news of his complete failure.

If only he could truthfully hold out some hope! But there was not the slightest that he could see. Harrah was out of it. The stockholders had lost both confidence and interest in him and his proposition and would sell out, as they had notified him they would do if the season's work was a failure--and consider themselves lucky to have the chance. It was a foregone conclusion that Sprudell would shortly own the controlling stock.

There was nothing for it but the blunt truth so Bruce wrote:

Sprudell boasted that he would down me and he has. Villainy, incompetency and carelessness have been too strong a combination for my inexperience to beat.

I've failed. I'm broke. I've spent $40,000 and have nothing to show for it but a burned-out plant of an obsolete type.