While they talked Sam sat watching the men’s faces. They did not seem vile to him now as they had seemed that first evening in the hotel office. He began thinking of them silently and alertly at work all day long, surrounded by such influences as Ed and Bill, and the thought sweetened his opinion of them.
“Look here,” he said, “tell me of this matter. I was a business man before I came here and I may be able to help you fellows get what you want.”
Getting up, Jake took Sam’s arm and they walked down the ravine, Jake explaining the situation in the town.
“The game,” he said, “is to make the taxpayers pay for a millrace to be built for the development of the water power in the river and then, by a trick, to turn it over to a private company. Bill and Ed are both in the deal and they are working for a Chicago man named Crofts. He’s been up here at the hotel with Bill talking to Ed. I’ve figured out what they are up to.” Sam sat down upon a log and laughed heartily.
“Crofts, eh?” he exclaimed. “Say, we will fight this thing. If Crofts has been up here you can depend upon it there is some size to the deal. We will just smash the whole crooked gang for the good of the town.”
“How would you do that?” asked Jake.
Sam sat down on a log and looked at the river flowing past the mouth of the ravine.
“Just fight,” he said. “Let me show you something.”
He took a pencil and slip of paper from his pocket, and, with the voices of the men about the beer kegs in his ears and the red-haired man peering over his shoulder, began writing his first political pamphlet. He wrote and erased and changed words and phrases. The pamphlet was a statement of facts as to the value of water power, and was addressed to the taxpayers of the community. He warmed to the subject, saying that a fortune lay sleeping in the river, and that the town, by the exercise of a little discretion now, could build with that fortune a beautiful city belonging to the people.
“This fortune in the river rightly managed will pay the expenses of government and give you control of a great source of revenue forever,” he wrote. “Build your millrace, but look out for a trick of the politicians. They are trying to steal it. Reject the offer of the Chicago banker named Crofts. Demand an investigation. A capitalist has been found who will take the water power bonds at four per cent and back the people in this fight for a free American city.” Across the head of the pamphlet Sam wrote the caption, “A River Paved With Gold,” and handed it to Jake, who read it and whistled softly.