"Well, well," she murmured as she gazed thoughtfully after him, "he's as impulsive as any child. Just a great, big boy—I rather like him—but he won't last long, in New York."
CHAPTER XVIII
NEW YORK
Rimrock Jones' return to New York was as dramatic and spectacular as his first visit had been pretentious and prodigal. With two thousand dollars and a big black hat he had passed for a Western millionaire; now, still wearing the hat but loaded down with real money, he returned and was hailed as a Croesus. There are always some people in public life whose least act is heralded to the world; whereas others, much more distinguished but less given to publicity, accomplish miracles and are hardly known. And then there are still others who, fed up with flattery and featured in a hundred ways, are all unwittingly the victims of a publicity bureau whose aim is their ultimate undoing.
A real Western cowboy with a pistol under his coat, a prospector turned multi-millionaire in a year, such a man—especially if he wears a sombrero and gives five-dollar tips to the bell-hops—is sure to break into the prints. But it was a strange coincidence, when Rimrock jumped out of his taxicab and headed for the Waldorf entrance, to find a battery of camera men all lined up to snap him and a squad of reporters inside. No sooner had Rimrock been shot through the storm door into the gorgeous splendors of Peacock Alley than they assailed him en masse—much as the bell-boys had just done to gain his grip and the five-dollar tip.
That went down first—the five-dollar tip—and his Western remarks on the climate. Then his naïve hospitality in inviting them all to the bar where they could talk the matter over at their ease, and his equally cordial agreement to make it tea when he was reminded that some reporters were women—it all went down and came out the same evening, at which Rimrock Jones was dazed. If he had telegraphed ahead, or let anyone know that he planned to return to New York, it would not have been surprising to find the reporters waiting, for he was, of course, a great man; but this was a quick trip, made on the spur of the moment, and he hadn't told a soul. Yet in circumstances like these, with a roomful of newspapers and your name played up big on the front page, it is hardly human nature to enquire too closely or wonder what is going on. Still, there was something up, for even coincidence can explain things only so far. Leaving out the fact that Mrs. Hardesty might have sent on the telegram herself, and that Whitney H. Stoddard might have motives of his own in inviting his newspapers to act; it did not stand to reason that the first man Rimrock ran into should have had such a sweet inside tip. Yet that was what the gay Buckbee told him—and circumstances proved he was right. The money that Rimrock put up that night, after talking it over in the cafe, that money was doubled within the next three days, and the stock still continued to advance. It was invested on a margin in Navajoa Copper, a minor holding of the great Hackmeister combine that Stoddard had set out to break.
Stoddard was selling short, so Buckbee explained, throwing great blocks of stock on a market that refused to break; and when the rush came and Navajoa started up Rimrock was there with the rest of his roll. It was a game that he took to—any form of gambling—and besides, he was bucking Stoddard! And then, there was Buckbee. He knew more in a minute than some brokers know in a lifetime; and he had promised to keep him advised. Of course it was a gamble, a man might lose, but it beat any game Rimrock had played. And copper was going up. Copper, the metal that stood behind it all, and that men could not do without.
There was a movement on such as Rimrock had never dreamed of, to control the copper product of the world. It had been tried before and had ended disastrously, but that did not prove it impossible. There were in the United States six or eight companies that produced the bulk of the ore. Two or three, like the Tecolote, were closed corporations, where the stock was held by a few; but the rest were on the market, the football of The Street, their stock owned by anybody and everybody. It was for these loose stocks that the combine and Stoddard were fighting, with thousands of the public buying in, and as the price of some stock was jigged up and down it was the public that cast the die.
If the people were convinced that a certain stock was good and refused to be shaken down, the price of that stock went up. But if the people, through what they had read, decided that the stock was bad; then there was a panic that nothing could stop and the big interests snapped up the spoils. So much Rimrock learned from Buckbee, and Mrs. Hardesty told him the rest. It was her judgment, really, that he came to rely upon; though Buckbee was right, in the main. He told the facts, but she went behind them and showed who was pulling the strings.