Part 40 (1/2)
”It is,” Garnet explained. ”Think we're going to have was.h.i.+ng plant worth a good many thousand dollars left lying in the bush or dropped into rivers? You'll have to arrange for transport and break new trails. You can do it best when the snow's still on the ground, and that plant must start working soon after the thaw comes. We've got to justify our expenditure while the season's open.”
”You haven't got your authority to buy the plant yet.”
Garnet chuckled.
”It was ordered, provisionally, the day you came down; the makers are only waiting for a wire from the Board meeting. In fact, I shouldn't be astonished if some of the work isn't in progress now.”
Lisle was quick of thought and prompt in action, but he sometimes felt as if Garnet took his breath away.
”If you have it all arranged, I may as well agree,” he laughed. ”I'll take Crestwick back.”
”That reminds me; he said something about taking an interest--asked if I could get him shares at a moderate premium, though he owned that his trustees might make trouble about letting him have the money.”
”He's not to have them!” Lisle replied emphatically. ”What's more, the trustees won't part with a dollar unless I guarantee the project--I've been in communication with them. Rest a.s.sured that the idea won't get my endors.e.m.e.nt.”
”I could never get at the workings of the English mind,” Garnet declared.
”Now if my relatives had any money, I'd rush them all in. This is the safest and best-managed mining proposition on the Pacific Slope. What kind of morality is it that gathers in the general investor and keeps your friends out?”
”I don't know; it doesn't concern the point. I'm actuated by what you may call a prejudice. You can't remove it.”
”Well,” Garnet responded good-humoredly, ”it's a pretty tough country up yonder and I suppose the lad's of some service. You're saving us a pile of money in experts' fees and I don't see why you shouldn't put him on the company's payroll. I mentioned the thing to Walthew; he was agreeable.”
They talked about other matters and presently Crestwick came in, smartly dressed and looking remarkably vigorous and clear-skinned. There were many points of difference between his appearance now and when Lisle had first met him.
”Mr. Garnet has a proposition to make,” Lisle informed him; and the Canadian briefly stated it.
Crestwick did not seem surprised, nor did he display much appreciation.
”To tell the truth, I thought you might have mentioned the matter before,” he remarked. ”Still, if you want my services, you'll have to go up twenty dollars.”
”A week?” Garnet asked ironically. ”You promise well; if you stay here a year or two you'll make a useful and enterprising citizen. We could get an experienced boss packer for what I offered you.”
”Down here, yes. When he got to where the claims are, he'd almost certainly drop you and turn miner, and you couldn't blame him. A man deserves a hundred dollars a day merely for living up yonder. But it's a month I was speaking of. If you want me, you'll have to come up.”
Garnet laughed.
”I guess I can fix it; but we'll get our value out of you.”
”That's a compliment, if you look at it in one way,” Crestwick grinned in reply.
When Garnet had left them, he turned to Lisle.
”Thanks awfully. Of course, it was your idea.”
”Garnet suggested the thing; that's more flattering, isn't it?”
Crestwick looked at him, smiling.
”I'm not to be played so easily as I was when I first met you,” he said.
”Of course, in a sense, the pay's no great inducement to me; it's the idea of being offered it. I'm going to advise old Barnes, my trustee; he was fond of saying that I was fortunate in being left well off because I'd never earn sixpence as long as I lived, until I stopped the thing by offering him ten to one I'd go out and make it in a couple of hours by carrying somebody's bag from the station. Anyhow, this is the first move.”