Part 2 (1/2)

”Impeach the Government's witness?” repeated Feversham, then a sudden intelligence leaped into his face. ”Impeach Hollis Tisdale,” he added softly and laughed.

Presently, as the chauffeur slackened speed, looking for a stand among the waiting machines at the depot, the attorney said: ”If the syndicate sends Stuart Foster north to the Iditarod, he may be forced to winter there; that would certainly postpone the trial until spring.”

The next moment the chauffeur threw open the limousine door, and the delegate stepped out; but he lingered a little over his good-by, retaining his wife's hand, which he continued to shake slowly, while his eyes telegraphed an answer to the question in hers. Then, laughing again deeply, he said: ”My lady! My lady! Nature juggled; she played your brother Frederic a trick when she set that mind in your woman's head.”

CHAPTER III

FOSTER TOO

The apartment Tisdale called home was in a high corner of the Alaska building, where the western windows, overtopping other stone and brick blocks of the business center, commanded the harbor, caught like a faceted jewel between Duwamish Head and Magnolia Bluff, and a far sweep of the outer Sound set in wooded islands and the lofty snow peaks of the Olympic peninsula. Next to his summer camp in the open he liked this eyrie, and particularly he liked it at this hour of the night tide. He drew his chair forward where the stiff, salt wind blew full in his face, but Foster, who had found the elevator not running and was somewhat heated by his long climb to the ”summit,” took the precaution of choosing a sheltered place near the north window, which was closed. A shaded electric lamp cast a ring of light on the package he had laid on the table between them, but the rest of the room was in shadow, and from his seat he glanced down on the iridescent sign displays of Second Avenue, then followed the lines of street globes trailing away to the brilliant constellations set against the blackness of Queen Anne hill.

”She is to be out of town a week,” he said, ”and I hardly liked to leave Weatherbee's things with a hotel clerk; since I am sailing on the _Admiral Sampson_ tonight, I brought the package back. You will have to be your own messenger.”

”That's all right, Foster; I can find another when she returns. I'll ask Banks.”

”No.” Foster's glance came back from the street; his voice rang a little sharp. ”Take it yourself, Hollis.”

”I can trust it with Banks.” Tisdale paused a moment, still looking out on the harbor lights and the stars, then said: ”So you are going north again; back to the copper mine, I presume?”

”No, I shall be there later, but I expect to make a quick trip in to the Iditarod now, to look over placer properties. The syndicate has bonded Banks' claims and, if it is feasible, a dredger will be sent in next spring to begin operations on a big scale. I shall go, of course, by way of the Yukon, and if ice comes early and the steamers are taken off, return by trail around through Fairbanks.”

”I see.” Tisdale leaned forward a little, grasping the arms of his chair.

”The syndicate is taking considerable risk in sending you to the Iditarod at this time. Suppose those coal cases should be called, with you winter-bound up there. Why, the Chugach trial couldn't go on.”

”I am identified with the Morganstein interests there, I admit; but why should the Chugach claims be cla.s.sed with conspiracies to defraud the Government? They were entered regularly, fifty coal claims of one hundred and sixty acres each, by as many different persons. Because the President temporarily suspended Alaska coal laws is no reason those patents should be refused or even delayed. Our money was accepted by the Government; it was never refunded.”

”As I thought,” said Tisdale softly, addressing the stars; ”as I feared.”

Then, ”Foster, Foster,” he admonished, ”be careful. Keep your head. That syndicate is going to worry you some, old man, before you are through.”

Foster got to his feet. ”See here, Hollis, be fair. Look at it once from the other side. The Morgansteins have done more for Alaska than they will ever be given credit for. Capital is the one key to open that big, new, mountain-locked country, and the Government is treating it like a boa-constrictor to be throttled and stamped out. Millions went into the development of the El Dorado, yet they still have to s.h.i.+p the ore thousands of miles to a smelter, with coal,--the best kind, inexhaustible fields of it,--at our door. And go back to McFarlane. He put one hundred and fifty thousand into the Chugach Railway to bring out the coal he had mined, but he can't touch it; it's all tied up in red tape; the road is rotting away. He is getting to be an old man, but I saw him doing day labor on the Seattle streets to-day. Then there's the Copper River Northwestern. That company built a railroad where every engineer but one, who saw the conditions, said it could not be done. You yourself have called it the most wonderful piece of construction on record. You know how that big bridge was built in winter--the only time when the bergs stopped chipping off the face of the glacier long enough to set the piers; you know how Haney worked his men, racing against the spring thaw--he's paying for it with his life, now, down in California. In dollars that bridge alone cost a million and a half. Yet, with this road finished through the coast mountains, they've had to suspend operation because they can't burn their own coal. They've got to change their locomotives to oil burners.

And all this is just because the President delays to annul a temporary restriction the previous executive neglected to remove. We have waited; we have imported from British Columbia, from j.a.pan; s.h.i.+pped in Pennsylvania, laid down at Prince William Sound at fifteen dollars a ton, when our own coal could be mined for two and a quarter and delivered here in Seattle for five.”

”It could, I grant that,” said Tisdale mellowly, ”but would it, Stuart?

Would it, if the Morganstein interests had exclusive control?”

Foster seemed not to have heard that question. He turned restlessly and strode across the room. ”The Government with just as much reason might have conserved Alaska gold.”

Tisdale laughed. ”That would have been a good thing for Alaska,” he answered; ”if a part, at least of her placer streams had been conserved.

Come, Foster, you know as well as I do that the regulations early prospectors accepted as laws are not respected to-day. Every discovery is followed by speculators who travel light, who do not expect to do even first a.s.sessment work, but only to stay on the ground long enough to stake as many claims as possible for themselves and their friends. When the real prospector arrives, with his year's outfit, he finds hundreds of miles, a whole valley staked, and his one chance is to buy or work under a lease.

Most of these speculators live in the towns, some of them down here in Seattle, carrying on other business, and they never visit their claims.

They re-stake and re-stake year after year and follow on the heels of each new strike, often by proxy. We have proof enough of all this to convince the most lukewarm senator.”

”You think then,” said Foster quickly, ”there is going to be a chance, after all, for the bill for Home Rule?”

”No.” Tisdale's voice lost its mellowness. ”It is a mistake; it's asking too much at the beginning. We need amended mining laws; we should work for that at once, in the quickest concerted way. And, first of all, our special delegates should push the necessity of a law giving a defined length of shaft or tunnel for a.s.sessment work, as is enforced in the Klondike, and ask for efficient inspectors to see that such laws as we have are obeyed.”

Foster moved to the window and stood looking down again on the city lights. Presently he said: ”I presume you will see the President while you are in Was.h.i.+ngton.”