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Here, with his clothing ripped, torn, and covered with dirt and blood, with one arm obviously broken and his head beaten, kicked, and cruelly gashed here, beyond a doubt, lay the man who nearly five years earlier had been the one obstacle between him and the goal of his ambition, the cadetship at West Point; here lay the son of the man probably most prominent in the conspiracy against the absent shareholders of Silver Shield; here, in fine, lay the almost lifeless body of the youth he had seen spying upon their arrival at Denver young Breifogle himself.
"We did the best we knew how, gentlemen," said he, "but I am bound to say Silver Shield would have been in ruins this minute, and most of us dead, if it hadn't been for Nolan the man you ordered thrown out." There was a silence almost dramatic for a moment. "Who ordered him thrown out?" asked Mr. Stoner, of Denver. "The directors, sir, unless young Mr. Breifogle lied. These men are my witnesses."
And now so said this former soldier and comrade now Nolan was here in Argenta, instead of up at the mines, here with a mob of strikers, their leader and spokesman, chief of the crew, possibly, that had nearly done to death the son of one of the principal directors of Silver Shield. That Breifogle was his father's enemy, and a leading spirit in the plot to rob him, Geordie Graham knew full well.
And the answer came straightway. "No such orders were given by the board. If Mr. Breifogle gave them, they were his alone." Whereupon a shout went up that shook the roof. But the end was not yet. Nolan was dragged forward to be grasped by the hand and smothered with congratulations, and old Nolan, in turn, would have none of it.
Its promoters and agents showed high-grade ore, and reports of expert mining engineers promised abundance of it. All that was needed was development. "Come in now, on the ground-floor, and you'll be coining money in a year's time," said Mr. Breifogle, and to the number of seven the commissioned force at Fort Reynolds had "come." So long as they remained close to the spot all seemed going well.
I knew him before ever you did, and would go ten miles to your one to help him. What you haven't sense enough to see is, that it won't be an hour before the sheriff's after him with a warrant, and if Breifogle dies he'll swing, sure as death.
"They are here to see the Silver Shield officers, and have been told they'd be up from Denver on No. 3. They chased old Breifogle out of his office yesterday afternoon, and he's been hiding ever since. Young Breifogle has been missing ever since yesterday noon." "That's him on the stretcher," said Big Ben, gloomily, for the news was already flying round. "Cullin says he's about done for.
Geordie did not know it, but that pound was the last that broke the hold of three. They had sold their stock for what it would bring, and Breifogle and his clique were laughing in their sleeves. They knew there was ore in abundance, both in sight and touch.
Then the men quit the mine and laid for Breifogle when he tried to get out. He hired a rig and drove t'other way, out to Miners' Joy, slid out on the Narrow Gauge last night, and there was a dozen of 'em headed him off down at the Junction. Nolan and his crowd had come down here to see the directors and get their rights. Of course some of them did it, and there you are!"
Bonner, a director in the Transcontinental, heard from Anthony and Cullin all about the young fireman they spirited up to the mines, and the elder Breifogle had to hear how that young fireman cared for the battered son and heir, after his "beating up" at the fists and feet of the rioters, and if Breifogle bore no love for the Grahams, he at least loved his own.
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