Part 38 (1/2)
Excitement ran high and the offices of Chase and Company were besieged by the curious and speculative among the smaller fry, but the moneyed interests still held aloof in spite of the artfully conservative bait dangled before them, and for a time developments were at a standstill.
It was during this period that one day Winnie North and Vernon Halstead found themselves compulsory room-mates at an overcrowded stag house-party in Westchester. The events of the preceding autumn had chastened and matured both of the genially irresponsible young men and the resultant change edified their immediate relatives even while it caused them to exhibit unflattering astonishment.
Winnie was making a determined effort to learn the intricacies of the brokerage game and Vernon had enrolled himself at the university on the Heights for a post-graduate course in mining and petroleum engineering.
It was natural, therefore, that the subject which arose for discussion between them over a night-cap and cigarette was that of the Almas Perderse well.
”It sounds mighty good, I admit,” Vernon remarked. ”If anybody but Starr Wiley stood sponsor for it I should have more faith in its possibilities, I suppose, but somehow I can't figure him in a bona-fide deal.”
”The governor doesn't share your prejudice, nor does your own father,”
Winnie remarked. ”I've heard them talking and I've a hunch that they're both going to invest pretty heavily in the Almas Perderse stock when it is issued. They have faith in Wiley's knowledge of a good thing when he sees it, and I fancy it's sound, at that. He's been more than ordinarily successful in the past with other propositions, you know, and whatever your opinions of him personally, you'll have to admit that Wiley's reputation on the Exchange is second to none as far as judgment and efficiency and a thorough comprehension of the oil game are concerned.”
”Yet the big investors are holding off, I understand,” Vernon observed thoughtfully. ”I wish my father wouldn't monkey with it. What's the game, Winnie? What are Chase and Wiley doing to launch the Almas Perderse?”
”Well, they've recently increased their capitalization to twenty-five million and they told the governor they want to raise ten million more at once. They're offering a million shares at ten dollars, par value, and they claim a jump to one hundred or better is inevitable within a few months, as soon as the development starts. The governor thinks he's being let in on the ground floor.”
”It would look like it, if the thing is on the level.” Vernon shook his head. ”They're liable to bring in a gusher that'll send the price soaring.”
”Whatever that means!” Winnie laughed. ”You'll be some little petroleum engineer yourself one of these days! I don't know anything about it myself, but it seems to me the figures that Wiley stated to the governor as the initial cost of development were pretty steep; twenty-five million, including an eight-inch pipe line to Limasito and tankage equipment there.”
”No, that's not excessive,” demurred Vernon. ”The pumping stations every ten miles will average fifty thousand alone, and every foot of the pipe must be transported by peons--laborers, you know--on their shoulders through the swamps. Moreover, now that it seems inevitable that we shall get in the war ourselves, it's going to be next to impossible to get tankers at any price to bring the oil up from Mexico.--But I'm only a tyro yet; Kearn Thode can give you the details far better than I can. What's become of him, by the way?”
”He's out West, somewhere.” Winnie ground out the stub of his cigarette. ”He went soon after your cousin----er----”
”By Jove!” Vernon rose. ”I'd give anything to see Willa again!
Wasn't she the most wonderful little thoroughbred that ever lived!”
”She was,” Winnie responded, his voice very low. ”We'll never know a girl just like her, Verne. There's not another in the world.”
Vernon glanced with unusual keenness at his friend and when he spoke his tone was roughly sympathetic.
”Hard hit, Winnie? Well, so was I, for that matter. Not that she would ever have looked at me, of course, but if she'd stayed another day I meant to ask her to stay always. She put me on the road to making a man of myself; some day I'll tell you how, maybe. It has a good deal to do with my distrust of Starr and his 'Almas Perderse'.”
At an unG.o.dly hour the next morning Winnie North was summoned to the telephone.
”h.e.l.lo! What the deuce is it?” he demanded sleepily, but the voice which came to him over the wire speedily dispelled his somnolence.
”That you, Win? This is Kearn Thode.”
”What! Gad, old man, it's good to hear your voice!” Winnie exclaimed.
”When did you get in?”
”Just last night. I tried to get hold of you, but your father told me you were up there at Stoney Crest----”
”Come on out! Jim would have asked you if he'd known where you were.
I'll tell him----”
”No,” Thode interrupted tersely. ”Sorry, but I can't waste a day!
I've got to see you at once, this morning if possible.”