The Treasure of Hidden Valley
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The Major arose again and with great politeness replied: “Probably we would not declare a dividend. If we had but $30,000 that could be legitimately applied to dividend purposes, the amount would belong to the stockholders. But anything above this preferred dividend to the shareholders should be declared on the annual pay roll combined with and added to the capital stock of the company, both classes of investors participating in the surplus over and above six per cent, preferred dividend. The question with me,” added the Major, “is this? How many of you directors are in sympathy with the suggestion I have made?”
There came no answer, and he continued: “A while ago I expressed myself against your manager for a position on the directorate. I always have a reason for my decisions. It has come to me,” continued the Major, “that while the original cost of this plant may have been $500,000 yet by the wicked manipulation of the ‘system’ the original shareholders were completely frozen out – legally robbed if you please, of their investment and it is quite probable the Pennsylvania crowd, the present owners or at least those who were the owners before I purchased a control, paid very little in real money but much in duplicity and ripened experience in the ways of the fox and the jackal. I have learned on excellent authority that Mr. W. B. Grady, by stealth and cunning, secured the underlying bonds from one of the former builders of this great plant, and robbed him and left him penniless in his old age. Unless other means of restitution be devised, the reimbursing of those stolen sums out of my private purse will be one of my first duties and one of my greatest pleasures.”
Grady rose, his face flushed with passion. But Buell Hampton waved him down with his hand and calmly proceeded: “I will state another innovation. There are seven directors who control the destinies of this company. I now insist that the company’s attorney shall be instructed to have the by-laws so amended that the head of each department, beginning at the mine where we extract the ore, then the tramway which carries the ore to the smelter and all the various departments in the smelter including the converter – shall be elected annually by the workers themselves in each of the seven departments. In this way there will be seven foremen; and these seven foremen shall be officially recognized by the amended by-laws of this company as an advisory board of directors, entitled to sit and vote with the regular directors at each monthly meeting and likewise with the stockholders in their annual meeting.”
Had a bomb-shell been thrown into the stockholders’ meeting greater consternation could not have been evinced’. Finally Attorney Carlisle moved that an adjournment be taken until ten o’clock the next day, at which time the stockholders would re-assemble and further consider the unexpected and doubtless vital questions now under consideration. The motion prevailed.
Of course the entire matter hinged first of all upon the election of a directorate. During the adjournment Attorney Carlisle, peeved at Grady’s readiness to drop him from the directorate, called on Major Hampton and assured him he was in accord with the views he had expressed and that his every suggestion could be legally complied with by amending the by-laws.
Buell Hampton, however, did not take the hint implied. He was courteous but firm. The old régime had to go – the management must be changed, lock, stock and barrel. Therefore there could be no further utilization of Mr. Carlisle’s services as attorney for the company. Baffled and discomfited the lawyer withdrew. He was full of indignation, not against Major Hampton, but against Grady, for he had warned the latter against selling a certain block of stock to part with which had jeopardized control of the corporation. But Grady, in need of money, had replied that there was no risk, the buying being sporadic and the existing directorate in high favor with the stockholders because of its ability and readiness to vote big dividends.
Grady had little dreamed that already considerable blocks of the stock had passed, under various names, into the control of the Keokuk banker, Allen Miller, to whom he had some time before mortgaged his Mine and Smelter Company bonds, and who had reasons of his own for displacing Grady and crippling him still more badly in his finances. Nor had he sensed the danger that the scattered sales of stock in the East had been in reality for a single buyer, Major Buell Hampton. Therefore he had been caught quite unprepared for the combination of forces that was able now to throw him down and out at the first meeting of stockholders. For once the fox had slept and had been caught napping in the short grass, away from the tall timber.
Carlisle had of late been too busy “doing politics,” and had allowed matters to drift even though he had seen possible rocks ahead. Now the two old-time confederates were blaming each other – Carlisle denouncing Grady for parting with the stock control, Grady upbraiding Carlisle for neglect in not having taken steps to discover who were the real buyers of the shares being gradually transferred on the company’s stock books. The blow, however, had fallen, and there was no means of blocking the transfer of power into new hands.
When the stockholders’ meeting reconvened the following morning, Major Buell Hampton submitted the names of five men whom he desired on the directorate. They were – Roderick Warfield, Grant Jones, Boney Earnest and himself, together with Ben Bragdon, who would also take up the duties of attorney for the company. This left only a couple of places to be filled by the eastern stockholders. Two names from among the old directors were offered and accepted. Indeed the selection of directors became a unanimous affair, for seeing themselves utterly defeated both Grady and Carlisle, glaring at each other, had left the room.
Major Hampton’s views on corporations and dividends, and his new plan of management for the Smelter Company spread all over the camp with astonishing rapidity, and there was general rejoicing among the miners and laborers.
One employee in the smelter who had been with the company for some three years made the discovery that, while he was receiving three dollars per day, which meant an annual income to himself and family of $1095, his dividend would bring him an extra lump sum of $219 annually.
When figuring this out to his wife he said: “Think of the pairs of shoes it will buy for our kiddies, Bess.”
And the woman, an Irishwoman, had replied: “Bless the little darlin’s. And hats and coats as well, not to speak of ribbons for the girls. God bless the Major. Sure but he’s a wonderful man.”
Several workers sitting in a corner of the Red Dog saloon were calculating with pencil and paper their annual dividends on the already famous Buell Hampton plan.
“Boys,” said one of them after they had their several accounts figured to the penny, “maybe we won’t make the dividend bigger next year – what?”
“I should say,” responded another. “I’ll do at least twice the work every day of the coming year, because there’s now an object for us poor devils to keep busy all the time. We’re sharing in the profits, that’s just what it means.”
“There’ll be a great reduction in breakage and waste,” remarked another employee.
“The directors can leave it to us to make the next year’s dividend a dandy one.”
These were just a few of the grateful encomiums flying around.
On the day following the stockholders’ meeting the newly elected directors convened, all except Grant Jones, who was over at Dillon and had not yet been advised of his election. After Major Buell Hampton had been voted into the chair a communication from W. B. Grady was read, stating that he wished to know at once if the directors desired his services for the ensuing year; if so he required a written contract, and should the directors not be ready to comply with this ultimatum they could interpret this letter as a formal resignation. There was a general smile around the directors’ table at this bluffing acceptance of the inevitable. It was promptly moved, seconded, and carried unanimously that Mr. W. B. Grady be at once relieved from all further connection with the Smelter Company’s plant and business.
Major Hampton then explained that in accordance with his scheme the men in the various departments would be invited at an early date to elect their foremen, and these foremen in turn would have the power, not to elect a general manager, but to recommend one for the final consideration of the directors. Until a permanent appointment was made he suggested that Boney Earnest, the blast furnace foreman dismissed by the late manager because of a personal quarrel, should take charge of the plant, he being a man of tried experience and worthy of absolute trust. This suggestion was promptly turned into a substantive motion and adopted by formal resolution. The meeting adjourned after Director Bragdon in his capacity as company attorney had been instructed to proceed immediately to the work of preparing the proper amendments to the by-laws and taking all legal steps necessary to put into operation the new plan.
Thus neither mine nor smelting plant was shut down, but everything went on without interruption and with greater vigor than before the momentous meetings of stockholders and directors. The only immediate visible effect of the company’s radical change in policy was Grady’s deposition from the post which had enabled him to exercise a cruel tyranny over the workingmen.
And in the solitude of his home the dismissed manager, broken financially although those around him did not yet know it, was nursing schemes of revenge against Buell Hampton, the man of mystery who had humiliated him and ousted him from power.
Where was his henchman, Bud Bledsoe? – that was the question throbbing in Grady’s brain. But Bud Bledsoe was now an outlaw among the hills, with a price on his head and a sheriff’s posse ready at a moment’s notice to get on his heels.
“By God, I’ve got to find him,” muttered Grady. And that night, in the falling dusk, he rode out alone into the mountain fastnesses.
CHAPTER XXIX – SLEIGH BELLS
THE morning after the directors’ meeting, when Roderick awakened and looked out of the window, he found the air filled with flakes of falling snow. He wasted no time over his toilet. Immediately after breakfast he bundled up snugly and warmly, went over to the livery stable and engaged a team and a sleigh. Soon after, the horses decorated with the best string of sleigh bells the livery could provide, he was holding the reins taut and sailing down through the main street of the little mining town headed for the country. He was going to the Shields ranch. Half a dozen invitations had been extended him during the past weeks, and he told himself he had been neglectful of his old employer.
When he reached the ranch and his team was duly stabled, the sleigh run in out of the storm, he was cordially welcomed by the family before a roaring fire of cheerfulness, and a multitude of questions were poured upon him.
“Why did you not come sooner and what about Major Hampton and the smelter? We have heard all sorts of wonderful things?”
“Why, what have you heard about the Major?” inquired Roderick, endeavoring to get a lead to the things that had evoked such surprise.
“I will tell you,” said Barbara. “Papa heard of it the day before yesterday when he was in town. The stockholders were having a meeting, and people said it had turned out to the surprise of everyone that Major Hampton was the owner of a control of the company’s stock.”
“Yes,” replied Roderick, “the rumor is correct. Great things have indeed happened. But haven’t you heard from Ben Bragdon?”
“Not a word.”
“Well, I suppose he has been too busy reconstructing the by-laws and the company’s affairs generally. Major Hampton has put him in as attorney. There’s a financial plum for you, Miss Barbara.”
“And Mr. Carlisle?” she asked in great astonishment.
“Like W. B. Grady, he is down and out,” replied Roderick. “There’s been a clean sweep. And behold in me a full-blossomed member of the board of directors. Our chairman, the Major, has handed me over a small library of books about smelting of ores, company management, and so on. He tells me I’ve got to get busy and learn the business – that I’m slated as vice-president and assistant manager, or something of that kind. What do you think of all that, Mr. Shields? There’s a rise in the world for your cowboy and broncho-buster of a few months ago.”
The cattle king and all the others warmly congratulated Roderick on his rising fortunes. Dorothy now took the lead in the conversation.
“You folks, keep still a moment until I ask Mr. Warfield just one question,” she said eagerly.
“Oh,” exclaimed Roderick, quickly, “I can answer the question. No, Grant Jones has not been over to Encampment for quite a while.”
A general laugh followed.
“He has a devil over at his office,” added Roderick gravely.
“A what?” they exclaimed.
“A devil. You surely know what a devil in a printing office is? It is a young fellow who washes the ink from the rolls and cleans the type or something of that sort – sweeps out, makes fires and does a wholesale janitor business. If he is faithful for fifteen or twenty years, then he learns to set type and becomes a printer. Grant is breaking his new devil in. Scotty Meisch, formerly one of your father’s cowboys, is his name.”
“Oh, little Scotty,” exclaimed Barbara. “I remember him.”
“Well, does that necessarily keep Grant away?” asked Dorothy.
“Oh, no, he is not necessarily kept away. He is probably a believer, Miss Dorothy, that absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ I was very disappointed,” Roderick went hurriedly on, smiling, “that Grant was not in town to share the sleigh with me in coming over this morning. Of course he doesn’t know it yet, but he also has been elected as one of the directors of the Encampment Mine and Smelter Company.”
“He has?” exclaimed Dorothy, her face lighting: “My word, but he’ll be all puffed up, won’t he?”
“Oh, no,” replied Roderick, “Grant is a very sensible fellow and he selects his friends and associates with marked discrimination.”
“Well, that’s what I think,” concurred Dorothy emphatically.
She was not a little embarrassed by a second ebullition of general laughter. There was a flush of rising color on her pretty cheeks.
“Well, I don’t care,” she added bravely. “If I like anybody I let them know about it, and that’s all there is to be said.”
While luncheon was in progress, Roderick suggested that as the sleighing was very good and his sleigh a very large one – the seat exceedingly wide – the young ladies should come sleigh-riding with him in the afternoon.
“Splendid,” shouted the sisters in unison. “Certainly, we will be delighted provided mother has no objections.”
“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Shields, good-naturedly. “This first snow of the season makes me feel like having a sleigh-ride myself. But, there, your seat certainly won’t take four of us, and I know that Mr. Shields is too busy to think of getting out his sleigh this afternoon.”
“Well, I’LL tell you what I’ll do, Mrs. Shields,” said Roderick, stirring his coffee. “I’ll take you for a ride first. We will go as far as the river and back again, and then if the young ladies are real good why of course I’ll give them the next spin.”
“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Shields, “you young people go on and have your sleigh ride and a good time.”
“No,” objected Barbara. “You shall have the first sleigh ride, Mama, and if you don’t go then Dorothy and I stay at home.”
“Come now, Mrs. Shields,” urged Roderick, “accept my invitation, for I see if you don’t I shall not be able to persuade the young ladies to come.”
“Yes, Mother,” said Dorothy, “it is just lovely of him to invite you, and certainly the sleigh ride will be invigorating. The truth is, we girls will enjoy the ride afterwards doubly if we know you have had the first ride of the season before we have ours.”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Shields, “since you all insist, so let it be.”
Soon after Roderick’s team was hitched to the sleigh and came jingling down to the front gate. Mrs. Shields was tucked snugly in under the robes and away they dashed with sleigh bells jingling, down the road towards the Platte River several miles away.
When they got back Barbara and Dorothy were in readiness, and Roderick started away with them amid much merry laughter and promises from the girls to be home when they got home but not before. The snow was still falling in great big flakes and the cushion beneath the runners was soft and thick. Mile followed mile, and it was late in the afternoon when the sleighing party found themselves in Encampment. Roderick insisted that the young ladies should have supper at the Hotel Bonhomme; they would start on the return trip home immediately afterwards.
When the sleigh drove up to the hotel, who should be looking out of the front door but Grant Jones? He rushed outside and assisted the sisters to alight.
“I will be back in a few minutes,” shouted Roderick, as he dashed away to the livery stable.
“Say, Joe,” said Roderick while the horses were being unhitched, “I will want the rig again after dinner, and Grant Jones will also want a sleigh.”
“All right,” replied the stableman. “I can fix him out all right and everything will be in readiness. Just telephone and I’ll send the rip over to the hotel.”
At the dinner table Grant Jones was at his best. He had already heard about the Smelter Company affairs and his own election as a director, and waved the topic aside. It was the surprise of seeing Dorothy that filled him with good-humor and joviality. As the meal progressed he turned to Roderick and said: “Oh, yes, Roderick, I’ve just been hearing from Scotty Meisch that during the summer months you learned to be a great trout fisherman.”
“Yes,” replied Roderick with a smile, “I certainly had a great trout-fishing experience.”
“Where?” asked Barbara quickly.
“On the South Fork of the Encampment River.”
“Now, Mr. Roderick Warfield,” said Barbara quite emphatically, “I invited you to go trout fishing with me a good many times, and you told me I should be the one to teach you the gentle art. Instead of this you go away and learn to catch trout all alone. How many did you catch?”
Roderick reddened with embarrassment.
“Twenty-six,” he said.
“Well, that was a pretty good catch for a novice. How big were they?”
“About two pounds,” Roderick answered, absent-mindedly.
Grant Jones was fairly choking with laughter. “I say, Barbara,” he began.
“I didn’t go trout fishing alone,” interrupted Roderick quickly.
“Look here, Barbara,” persisted Grant, calling to her across the table. But Barbara was all attention to Roderick.
“Who went with you?” she inquired.
“Miss Gail Holden,” he replied and his face was actually crimson.
Barbara laid down her knife and fork and leaned back in her chair, placed her arms akimbo with her pretty hands on her slender waist line, and looked at Roderick as if she were an injured child. Finally she said: “Trifler!” Then everybody laughed at Roderick’s confusion.
But he quickly recovered himself.
“Trifler yourself!” he laughed back in rejoinder. “What about Ben Bragdon? What would he have said had we gone trout-fishing together?”
“You were not out of the running then,” said Barbara archly.
“Oh, yes, I was, although the secret was to be kept until after the nomination for senator.”
It was Barbara’s turn now to blush. She looked around in some bewilderment. Grant had bestowed a vigorous kick on Roderick’s shins beneath the table. Only then did Roderick realize that he had broken a confidence. Dorothy was eyeing Grant reproachfully. It was a case of broken faith all round.
“Well, you sisters have no secrets from each other,” exclaimed Roderick, meeting the situation with a bright smile. “In just the same way Grant and I are chums and brothers. Besides it was a friendly warning. I was saved in time from the danger of shattered hopes and a broken heart, Miss Barbara.”
“So went fishing for consolation,” she replied with a smile.
“And found it,” laughed Grant.
“Who says that?” demanded Roderick, sternly. “Miss Holden would have every reason seriously to object.”
“The devil says it,” replied Grant, assuming a grave countenance.
“That’s a poor joke,” said Roderick, offended.
“Oh, Scotty Meisch is an observant lad,” remarked the editor drily.
“The printer’s devil!” cried Dorothy, clapping her hands. And all four laughed heartily – Roderick most heartily of all despite his momentary dudgeon.
“Then since all these whispers are going about,” remarked Barbara when quiet was restored, “I think it will be advisable for me to have a heart-to-heart talk with Gail.”
“Oh, please don’t,” faltered Roderick. “Really, you know, there’s no foundation for all this talk – all this nonsense.”
“Indeed? Then all the more need for me to drop her a friendly warning – guard her against shattered hopes and a broken heart and all that sort of thing.”
The tables were fairly turned, but Barbara, with quick woman’s wit, saw that Roderick was really pained at the thought lest Gail Holden might learn of this jesting with her name.
“Oh, don’t be afraid,” she said, reassuringly. “We three will keep your secret, young man. We are all chums and brothers, aren’t we now?” And with one accord, laughing yet serious too, they all shook hands to seal the bond, and any breaches of confidence in the past were forgiven and forgotten.
It had been a merry supper party, but it was now time to be starting for the ranch. As they rose from the table Roderick turned to Grant and said: “You will have to excuse me, old boy, as I am taking the ladies home.”
“Taking the ladies home? Well, ain’t I goin’ along?” asked Grant, with a doleful look at Dorothy.
“No room in our sleigh,” said Roderick coldly.
“Roderick,” said Grant, half sotto voce, “you are cruel.” But Roderick was unsympathetic and did not even smile. He turned away indifferently. Drawing Barbara aside, he told her in an undertone of the arrangements he had made with the livery stable for an extra sleigh.
“Then you’ll be alone with me,” she said, with an amused smile. “Won’t you be afraid? Broken heart, etc?”
“Not now,” he replied sturdily.
“Or of Mr. Bragdon? He mightn’t like it, you know.”
“Oh, I’m not afraid of him,” laughed Roderick. “And I guess he will trust me – and you,” he added gently and with a chivalrous little bow.
Shortly the sleighs were brought round to the hotel. Grant was beside himself with delight when he discovered the extra rig for himself and Dorothy, and he laughingly shouted to Roderick: “I say, old man, you’re the best ever.” Soon the merrymakers were tucked snugly beneath the lap robes, and were speeding over the glistening expanse of snow to the joyous tinkle of the silver bells.
CHAPTER XXX – WHITLEY ADAMS BLOWS IN
RODERICK WARFIELD’S election to a seat on the board of directors of the Encampment Mine and Smelter Company had for him a series of most unexpected consequences. He had had no knowledge that Uncle Allen Miller and a number of his financial followers in Iowa were now large stockholders in the corporation. Nor had he been aware that Major Buell Hampton, after his journey to New York, had visited the Keokuk banker. The Major had learned from his brokers in Wall Street that Allen Miller was on the market for this particular stock and had already acquired a considerable holding. Hence his flying business visit to Keokuk, which had resulted in the combination of forces that had gained the control and ousted Grady, Carlisle, and their pawns on the old directorate.
Major Hampton had since been in continuous correspondence with the banker, but had never for a moment associated the names of Allen Miller and Roderick Warfield as having any possible connection by relationship or otherwise. The selection of the new board had been left entirely in Buell Hampton’s hands after the banker had given his assent to the profit-sharing scheme. That assent had not been won without considerable argument. The plan upset all the banker’s old theories about industrial enterprises. At the same time the shrewd old man of finance was reading the signs of the times, and had long since come to realize that a readjustment of the relations between capital and labor was inevitable. He was all the more inclined to make this experiment, in the first place because he was not going to be bothered with the working out of the practical details, and in the second place because the magnetic personality of Buell Hampton had at once inspired him with confidence both in his ability to do things and in his integrity. Therefore the shrewd old banker had fallen in with the Major’s plans, and given him a free hand when entrusting him with the powers of attorney for himself and the other Iowan stockholders.