The stranger whose guise suggested a lawyer to the quidnuncs of Bison was not seen again in the township during the ensuing fortnight; but affrighting rumor, which soon became deadly fact, told of the mill closing down for lack of paying ore. Mr. Page, Marten’s representative, promised the sorrowing people that work would be found for everyone elsewhere. Though this guarantee alleviated the crushing effect of the blow, there was much grieving over the loss of more or less comfortable homes which had been won from the wilderness by years of patient effort. Men and women, even in strenuous America, twine their heartstrings around stocks and stones, and the threatened upheaval was grievous to them. It meant the breaking up of families and friendships, a transference to new districts and a strange environment, a scattering of the household gods which might never reassemble in the old and familiar order. Amid the general unrest none gave much heed to the news that the Dolores ranch had found a new owner—who, by the way, according to the joyous version of the foreman, One-thumb Jake, meant to raise horses instead of cattle—but all Bison felt its hair lifting in amazement when the Rocky Mountain News announced that Mr. Hugh Marten had sold the mill to Mr. Peter MacGonigal for a sum unnamed, but variously estimated between the ridiculous (though actual) price of twelve thousand dollars (toward which one-half was contributed by a mortgage on mill and ranch) and five times the amount as representing its cheap acquisition as a going concern.
Every practical miner knew that the ore bodies in the mines were exhausted, and many and quaint were the opinions privately uttered as to Mac’s sanity. Even the astute Page—once the deeds were signed and the money paid—expressed the hope that the storekeeper would not rue his bargain.
“Of course,” he said diplomatically, “you may find purchasers for some of the plant; but milling machinery is a special thing, and you will be lucky if you sell the stuff soon. I suppose you have a purpose in view for the buildings?”
“Guess there’s some stuff ter be found in the tailin’s, an’ a few pockets of ore in the mines,” said MacGonigal.
The manager shook his head. “You can take it from me that when Marten sucks an orange there isn’t much juice left for the next fellow,” he said. “You bought the place with your eyes open, and I still think you may get your money back, with a small profit; but I advise you strongly not to lose a day in advertising the rolls and accessories, while the man who has taken over the Dolores ranch may buy the buildings. They will come in useful as barns.”
“I’ll chew on that proposition,” said MacGonigal.
Page thought him slightly cracked; but shook hands affably, and caught the next train for Denver. He was completely flabbergasted when an assistant whom he had deputed to superintend the removal of Bison’s citizens to new spheres of labor informed him that Messrs. Power and MacGonigal were signing on the whole of the miners and mill-hands at established rates of pay, and that operations were to be started forthwith on a new strike in the Gulch. When he had recovered somewhat from the shock of this announcement he strolled into the government record offices, and examined the registry of recent mining claims. There he found that a location certificate had been obtained by John Darien Power for 1,500 feet by 300 feet on a well defined crevice, at least 10 feet deep, situated in the Gulch, Dolores Ranch, Bison, in the county of Bison and state of Colorado. Other certificates had been issued to cover more than a mile of the main contact, and, to clench the mining right, John Darien Power figured as the legal owner of the land. In a word, he was “a valid discoverer” on his own property.
Page was a shrewd man, and he did not commit the error of underestimating the ability of the rival who had engineered this subtle stroke.
“I’m buncoed this time, and no mistake,” he muttered, and hurried back to his office, pallid with wrath and foreboding.
There he met Benson, and told him what had happened. The private secretary, rather staggered at first, regained his complacency when he had glanced through some letters and cablegrams received from their common chief.