Gunsight Pass by William MacLeod Raine

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"I could 'a' told you Miller would weaken when you had the rope round his
soft neck. Shorty would 'a' gone through and told you-all where to get
off at."

"Yes. Miller's yellow. He didn't quit with the robbery, Bob. Must have
been scared bad, I reckon. He admitted that he killed George Doble--by
accident, he claimed. Says Doble ran in front of him while he was
shooting at me."

"Have you got that down on paper?" demanded Hart.

"Yes."

Bob caught his friend's hand. "I reckon the long lane has turned for you,
old socks. I can't tell you how damn glad I am. Doble needed killin', but
I'd rather you hadn't done it."

The other man made no comment on this phase of the situation. "This
brings Dug Doble out into the open at last. He'll come pretty near going
to the pen for this."

"I can't see Applegate arrestin' him. He'll fight, Dug will. My notion is
he'll take to the hills and throw off all pretense. If he does he'll be
the worst killer ever was known in this part of the country. You an'
Crawford want to look out for him, Dave."

"Crawford says he wants me to be treasurer of the company, Bob. You and I
are to manage it, he says, with Burns doing the drilling."

"Tha's great. He told me he was gonna ask you. Betcha we make the ol'
Jackpot hum."

"D' you ever hear of a man land poor, Bob?"

"Sure have."

"Well, right now we're oil poor. According to what the old man says
there's no cash in the treasury and we've got bills that have to be paid.
You know that ten thousand he paid in to the bank to satisfy the note. He
borrowed it from a friend who took it out of a trust fund to loan it to
him. He didn't tell me who the man is, but he said his friend would get
into trouble a-plenty if it's found out before he replaces the money.
Then we've got to keep our labor bills paid right up. Some of the other
accounts can wait."

"Can't we borrow money on this gusher?"

"We'll have to do that. Trouble is that oil isn't a marketable asset
until it reaches a refinery. We can sell stock, of course, but we don't
want to do much of that unless we're forced to it. Our play is to keep
control and not let any other interest in to oust us. It's going to take
some scratching."

"Looks like," agreed Bob. "Any use tryin' the bank here?"

"I'll try it, but we'll not accept any call loan. They say Steelman owns
the bank. He won't let us have money unless there's some nigger in the
woodpile. I'll probably have to try Denver."

"That'll take time."

"Yes. And time's one thing we haven't got any too much of. Whoever
underwrites this for us will send an expert back with me and will wait
for his report before making a loan. We'll have to talk it over with
Crawford and find out how much treasury stock we'll have to sell locally
to keep the business going till I make a raise."

"You and the old man decide that, Dave. I can't get away from here till
we get Number Three roped and muzzled. I'll vote for whatever you two
say."

An hour later Dave rode back to town.

CHAPTER XXVIII

DAVE MEETS A FINANCIER

On more careful consideration Crawford and Sanders decided against trying
to float the Jackpot with local money except by the sale of enough stock
to keep going until the company's affairs could be put on a substantial
basis. To apply to the Malapi bank for a loan would be to expose their
financial condition to Steelman, and it was certain that he would permit
no accommodation except upon terms that would make it possible to wreck
the company.

"I'm takin' the train for Denver to-morrow, Dave," the older man said.
"You stay here for two-three days and sell enough stock to keep us off
the rocks, then you hot-foot it for Denver too. By the time you get there
I'll have it all fixed up with the Governor about a pardon."

Dave found no difficulty in disposing of a limited amount of stock in
Malapi at a good price. This done, he took the stage for the junction and
followed Crawford to Denver. An unobtrusive little man with large white
teeth showing stood in line behind him at the ticket window. His
destination also, it appeared, was the Colorado capital.

If Dave had been a believer in fairy tales he might have thought himself
the hero of one. A few days earlier he had come to Malapi on this same
train, in a day coach, poorly dressed, with no job and no prospects in
life. He had been poor, discredited, a convict on parole. Now he wore
good clothes, traveled in a Pullman, ate in the diner, was a man of
consequence, and, at least on paper, was on the road to wealth. He would
put up at the Albany instead of a cheap rooming-house, and he would meet
on legitimate business some of the big financial men of the West. The
thing was hardly thinkable, yet a turn of the wheel of fortune had done
it for him in an hour.

The position in which Sanders found himself was possible only because
Crawford was himself a financial babe in the woods. He had borrowed large
sums of money often, but always from men who trusted him and held his
word as better security than collateral. The cattleman was of the
outdoors type to whom the letter of the law means little. A debt was a
debt, and a piece of paper with his name on it did not make payment any
more obligatory. If he had known more about capital and its methods of
finding an outlet, he would never have sent so unsophisticated a man as
Dave Sanders on such a mission.

For Dave, too, was a child in the business world. He knew nothing of
the inside deals by which industrial enterprises are underwritten and
corporations managed. It was, he supposed, sufficient for his purpose
that the company for which he wanted backing was sure to pay large
dividends when properly put on its feet.

But Dave had assets of value even for such a task. He had a single-track
mind. He was determined even to obstinacy. He thought straight, and so
directly that he could walk through subtleties without knowing they
existed.

When he reached Denver he discovered that Crawford had followed the
Governor to the western part of the State, where that official had gone
to open a sectional fair. Sanders had no credentials except a letter of
introduction to the manager of the stockyards.

"What can I do for you?" asked that gentleman. He was quite willing to
exert himself moderately as a favor to Emerson Crawford, vice-president
of the American Live Stock Association.

"I want to meet Horace Graham."

"I can give you a note of introduction to him. You'll probably have to
get an appointment with him through his secretary. He's a tremendously
busy man."

Dave's talk with the great man's secretary over the telephone was not
satisfactory. Mr. Graham, he learned, had every moment full for the next
two days, after which he would leave for a business trip to the East.

There were other wealthy men in Denver who might be induced to finance
the Jackpot, but Dave intended to see Graham first. The big railroad
builder was a fighter. He was hammering through, in spite of heavy
opposition from trans-continental lines, a short cut across the Rocky
Mountains from Denver. He was a pioneer, one who would take a chance
on a good thing in the plunging, Western way. In his rugged, clean-cut
character was much that appealed to the managers of the Jackpot.

Sanders called at the financier's office and sent in his card by the
youthful Cerberus who kept watch at the gate. The card got no farther
than the great man's private secretary.

After a wait of more than an hour Dave made overtures to the boy. A
dollar passed from him to the youth and established a friendly relation.

"What's the best way to reach Mr. Graham, son? I've got important
business that won't wait."

"Dunno. He's awful busy. You ain't got no appointment."

"Can you get a note to him? I've got a five-dollar bill for you if you
can."

"I'll take a whirl at it. Jus' 'fore he goes to lunch."

Dave penciled a line on a card.

If you are not too busy to make $100,000 to-day you had better see me.

He signed his name.

Ten minutes later the office boy caught Graham as he rose to leave for
lunch. The big man read the note.

"What kind of looking fellow is he?" he asked the boy.

"Kinda solemn-lookin' guy, sir." The boy remembered the dollar received
on account and the five dollars on the horizon. "Big, straight-standin',
honest fellow. From Arizona or Texas, mebbe. Looked good to me."

The financier frowned down at the note in doubt, twisting it in his
fingers. A dozen times a week his privacy was assailed by some crazy
inventor or crook promoter. He remembered that he had had a letter from
some one about this man. Something of strength in the chirography of the
note in his hand and something of simple directness in the wording
decided him to give an interview.

"Show him in," he said abruptly, and while he waited in the office rated
himself for his folly in wasting time.

Underneath bushy brows steel-gray eyes took Dave in shrewdly.

"Well, what is it?" snapped the millionaire.

"The new gusher in the Malapi pool," answered Sanders at once, and his
gaze was as steady as that of the big state-builder.

"You represent the parties that own it?"

"Yes."

"And you want?"

"Financial backing to put it on its feet until we can market the
product."

"Why don't you work through your local bank?"

"Another oil man, an enemy of our company, controls the Malapi bank."

Graham fired question after question at him, crisply, abruptly, and
Sanders gave him back straight, short answers.

"Sit down," ordered the railroad builder, resuming his own seat. "Tell me
the whole story of the company."

Dave told it, and in the telling he found it necessary to sketch the
Crawford-Steelman feud. He brought himself into the narrative as little
as possible, but the grizzled millionaire drew enough from him to set
Graham's eye to sparkling.

"Come back to-morrow at noon," decided the great man. "I'll let you know
my decision then."

The young man knew he was dismissed, but he left the office elated.
Graham had been favorably impressed. He liked the proposition, believed
in its legitimacy and its possibilities. Dave felt sure he would send an
expert to Malapi with him to report on it as an investment. If so, he
would almost certainly agree to put money in it.

A man with prominent white front teeth had followed Dave to the office of
Horace Graham, had seen him enter, and later had seen him come out with a
look on his face that told of victory. The man tried to get admittance to
the financier and failed. He went back to his hotel and wrote a short
letter which he signed with a fictitious name. This he sent by special
delivery to Graham. The letter was brief and to the point. It said:

Don't do business with David Sanders without investigating his record. He
is a horsethief and a convicted murderer. Some months ago he was paroled
from the penitentiary at Canon City and since then has been in several
shooting scrapes. He was accused of robbing a stage and murdering the
driver less than a week ago.

Graham read the letter and called in his private secretary. "McMurray,
get Canon City on the 'phone and find out if a man called David Sanders
was released from the penitentiary there lately. If so, what was he
in for? Describe the man to the warden: under twenty-five, tall, straight
as an Indian, strongly built, looks at you level and steady, brown hair,
steel-blue eyes. Do it now."

Before he left the office that afternoon Graham had before him a
typewritten memorandum from his secretary covering the case of David
Sanders.

CHAPTER XXIX

THREE IN CONSULTATION

The grizzled railroad builder fixed Sanders with an eye that had read
into the soul of many a shirker and many a dishonest schemer.

"How long have you been with the Jackpot Company?"

"Not long. Only a few days."

"How much stock do you own?"

"Ten thousand shares."

"How did you get it?"

"It was voted me by the directors for saving Jackpot Number Three from an
attack of Steelman's men."

Graham's gaze bored into the eyes of his caller. He waited just a moment
to give his question full emphasis. "Mr. Sanders, what were you doing six
months ago?"

"I was serving time in the penitentiary," came the immediate quiet
retort.

"What for?"

"For manslaughter."

"You didn't tell me this yesterday."

"No. It has no bearing on the value of the proposition I submitted to
you, and I thought it might prejudice you against it."

"Have you been in any trouble since you left prison?"

Dave hesitated. The blazer of railroad trails rapped out a sharp,
explanatory question. "Any shooting scrapes?"

"A man shot at me in Malapi. I was unarmed."

"That all?"

"Another man fired at me out at the Jackpot. I was unarmed then."

"Were you accused of holding up a stage, robbing it, and killing the
driver?"

"No. I was twenty miles away at the time of the hold-up and had evidence
to prove it."

"Then you were mentioned in connection with the robbery?"

"If so, only by my enemies. One of the robbers was captured and made a
full confession. He showed where the stolen gold was cached and it was
recovered."

The great man looked with chilly eyes at the young fellow standing in
front of him. He had a sense of having been tricked and imposed upon.

"I have decided not to accept your proposition to cooperate with you in
financing the Jackpot Company, Mr. Sanders." Horace Graham pressed an
electric button and a clerk appeared. "Show this gentleman out, Hervey."

But Sanders stood his ground. Nobody could have guessed from his stolid
imperturbability how much he was depressed at this unexpected failure.

"Do I understand that you are declining this loan because I am connected
with it, Mr. Graham?"

"I do not give a reason, sir. The loan does not appeal to me," the
railroad builder said with chill finality.

"It appealed to you yesterday," persisted Dave.

"But not to-day. Hervey, I will see Mr. Gates at once. Tell McMurray so."

Reluctantly Dave followed the clerk out of the room. He had been
checkmated, but he did not know how. In some way Steelman had got to the
financier with this story that had damned the project. The new treasurer
of the Jackpot Company was much distressed. If his connection with the
company was going to have this effect, he must resign at once.

He walked back to the hotel, and in the corridor of the Albany met a big
bluff cattleman the memory of whose kindness leaped across the years to
warm his heart.

"You don't remember me, Mr. West?"

The owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle looked at the young man and
gave a little whoop. "Damn my skin, if it ain't the boy who bluffed a
whole railroad system into lettin' him reload stock for me!" He hooked an
arm under Dave's and led him straight to the bar. "Where you been? What
you doin'? Why n't you come to me soon as you ... got out of a job?
What'll you have, boy?"

Dave named ginger ale. They lifted glasses.

"How?"

"How?"

"Now you tell me all about it," said West presently, leading the way to a
lounge seat in the mezzanine gallery.

Sanders answered at first in monosyllables, but presently he found
himself telling the story of his failure to enlist Horace Graham in the
Jackpot property as a backer.

The cattleman began to rumple his hair, just as he had done years ago in
moments of excitement.

"Wish I'd known, boy. I've been acquainted with Horace Graham ever since
he ran a hardware store on Larimer Street, and that's 'most thirty years
ago. I'd 'a' gone with you to see him. Maybe I can see him now."

"You can't change the facts, Mr. West. When he knew I was a convict he
threw the whole thing overboard."

The voice of a page in the lobby rose in sing-song. "Mister Sa-a-anders.
Mis-ter Sa-a-a-anders."

Dave stepped to the railing and called down. "I'm Mr. Sanders. Who wants
me?"

A man near the desk waved a paper and shouted: "Hello, Dave! News for
you, son. I'll come up." The speaker was Crawford.

He shook hands with Dave and with West while he ejaculated his news in
jets. "I got it, son. Got it right here. Came back with the Governor this
mo'nin'. Called together Pardon Board. Here 't is. Clean bill of health,
son. Resolutions of regret for miscarriage of justice. Big story front
page's afternoon's papers."

Dave smiled sardonically. "You're just a few hours late, Mr. Crawford.
Graham turned us down cold this morning because I'm a penitentiary bird."

"He did?" Crawford began to boil inside. "Well, he can go right plumb to
Yuma. Anybody so small as that--"

"Hold yore hawsses, Em," said West, smiling.

"Graham didn't know the facts. If you was a capitalist an' thinkin' of
loanin' big money to a man you found out had been in prison for
manslaughter and that he had since been accused of robbin' a stage an'
killing the driver--"

"He was in a hurry," explained Dave. "Going East to-morrow. Some one must
have got at him after I saw him. He'd made up his mind when I went back
to-day."

"Well, Horace Graham ain't one of those who won't change his views for
heaven, hell, and high water. All we've got to do is to get to him and
make him see the light," said West.

"When are we going to do all that?" asked Sanders. "He's busy every
minute of the time till he starts. He won't give us an appointment."

"He'll see me. We're old friends," predicted West confidently.

Crestfallen, he met the two officers of the Jackpot Company three hours
later. "Couldn't get to him. Sent word out he was sorry, an' how was Mrs.
West an' the children, but he was in conference an' couldn't break away."

Dave nodded. He had expected this and prepared for it. "I've found out
he's going on the eight o'clock flyer. You going to be busy to-morrow,
Mr. West?"

"No. I got business at the stockyards, but I can put it off."

"Then I'll get tickets for Omaha on the flyer. Graham will take his
private car. We'll break in and put this up to him. He was friendly to
our proposition before he got the wrong slant on it. If he's open-minded,
as Mr. West says he is--"

Crawford slapped an open hand on his thigh. "Say, you get the _best_
ideas, son. We'll do just that."

"I'll check up and make sure Graham's going on the flyer," said the young
man. "If we fall down we'll lose only a day. Come back when we meet the
night train. I reckon we won't have to get tickets clear through to
Omaha."

"Fine and dandy," agreed West. "We'll sure see Graham if we have to bust
the door of his car."

CHAPTER XXX

ON THE FLYER

West, his friends not in evidence, artfully waylaid Graham on his way to
the private car.

"Hello, Henry B. Sorry I couldn't see you yesterday," the railroad
builder told West as they shook hands. "You taking this tram?"

"Yes, sir. Got business takes me East."

"Drop in to see me some time this morning. Say about noon. You'll have
lunch with me."

"Suits me. About noon, then," agreed West.

The conspirators modified their plans to meet a new strategic situation.
West was still of opinion that he had better use his card of entry to get
his friends into the railroad builder's car, but he yielded to Dave's
view that it would be wiser for the cattleman to pave the way at
luncheon.

Graham's secretary ate lunch with the two old-timers and the conversation
threatened to get away from West and hover about financial conditions in
New York. The cattleman brought it by awkward main force to the subject
he had in mind.

"Say, Horace, I wanta talk with you about a proposition that's on my
chest," he broke out.

Graham helped himself to a lamb chop. "Sail in, Henry B. You've got me at
your mercy."

At the first mention of the Jackpot gusher the financier raised a
prohibitive hand. "I've disposed of that matter. No use reopening it."

But West stuck to his guns. "I ain't aimin' to try to change yore mind on
a matter of business, Horace. If you'll tell me that you turned down the
proposition because it didn't look to you like there was money in it,
I'll curl right up and not say another word."

"It doesn't matter why I turned it down. I had my reasons."

"It matters if you're doin' an injustice to one of the finest young
fellows I know," insisted the New Mexican stanchly.

"Meaning the convict?"

"Call him that if you've a mind to. The Governor pardoned him yesterday
because another man confessed he did the killin' for which Dave was
convicted. The boy was railroaded through on false evidence."

The railroad builder was a fair-minded man. He did not want to be unjust
to any one. At the same time he was not one to jump easily from one view
to another.

"I noticed something in the papers about a pardon, but I didn't know it
was our young oil promoter. There are other rumors about him too. A stage
robbery, for instance, and a murder with it."

"He and Em Crawford ran down the robbers and got the money back. One of
the robbers confessed. Dave hadn't a thing to do with the hold-up.
There's a bad gang down in that country. Crawford and Sanders have been
fightin' 'em, so naturally they tell lies about 'em."

"Did you say this Sanders ran down one of the robbers?"

"Yes."

"He didn't tell me that," said Graham thoughtfully. "I liked the young
fellow when I first saw him. He looks quiet and strong; a self-reliant
fellow would be my guess."

"You bet he is." West laughed reminiscently. "Lemme tell you how I first
met him." He told the story of how Dave had handled the stock shipment
for him years before.

Horace Graham nodded shrewdly. "Exactly the way I had him sized up till
I began investigating him. Well, let's hear the rest. What more do you
know about him?"

The Albuquerque man told the other of Dave's conviction, of how he had
educated himself in the penitentiary, of his return home and subsequent
adventures there.

"There's a man back there in the Pullman knows him like he was his
own son, a straight man, none better in this Western country," West
concluded.

"Who is he?"

"Emerson Crawford of the D Bar Lazy R ranch."

"I've heard of him. He's in this Jackpot company too, isn't he?"

"He's president of it. If he says the company's right, then it's right."

"Bring him in to me."

West reported to his friends, a large smile on his wrinkled face. "I got
him goin' south, boys. Come along, Em, it's up to you now."

The big financier took one comprehensive look at Emerson Crawford and did
not need any letter of recommendation. A vigorous honesty spoke in the
strong hand-grip, the genial smile, the level, steady eyes.

"Tell me about this young desperado you gentlemen are trying to saw off
on me," Graham directed, meeting the smile with another and offering
cigars to his guests.

Crawford told him. He began with the story of the time Sanders and
Hart had saved him from the house of his enemy into which he had been
betrayed. He related how the boy had pursued the men who stole his pinto
and the reasoning which had led him to take it without process of law. He
told the true story of the killing, of the young fellow's conviction, of
his attempt to hold a job in Denver without concealing his past, and of
his busy week since returning to Malapi.

"All I've got to say is that I hope my boy will grow up to be as good
a man as Dave Sanders," the cattleman finished, and he turned over to
Graham a copy of the findings of the Pardon Board, of the pardon, and of
the newspapers containing an account of the affair with a review of the
causes that had led to the miscarriage of justice.

"Now about your Jackpot Company. What do you figure as the daily output
of the gusher?" asked Graham.

"Don't know. It's a whale of a well. Seems to have tapped a great lake of
oil half a mile underground. My driller Burns figures it at from twenty
to thirty thousand barrels a day. I cayn't even guess, because I know so
blamed little about oil."

Graham looked out of the window at the rushing landscape and tapped on
the table with his finger-tips absentmindedly. Presently he announced a
decision crisply.

"If you'll leave your papers here I'll look them over and let you know
what I'll do. When I'm ready I'll send McMurray forward to you."

An hour later the secretary announced to the three men in the Pullman the
decision of his chief.

"Mr. Graham has instructed me to tell you gentlemen he'll look into your
proposition. I am wiring an oil expert in Denver to return with you to
Malapi. If his report is favorable, Mr. Graham will cooperate with you
in developing the field."

CHAPTER XXXI

TWO ON THE HILLTOPS

It was the morning after his return. Emerson Crawford helped himself to
another fried egg from the platter and shook his knife at the bright-eyed
girl opposite.

"I tell you, honey, the boy's a wonder," he insisted. "Knows what he
wants and goes right after it. Don't waste any words. Don't beat around
the bush. Don't let any one bluff him out. Graham says if I don't want
him he'll give him a responsible job pronto."

The girl's trim head tilted at her father in a smile of sweet derision.
She was pleased, but she did not intend to say so.

"I believe you're in love with Dave Sanders, Dad. It's about time for me
to be jealous."

Crawford defended himself. "He's had a hard row to hoe, and he's comin'
out fine. I aim to give him every chance in the world to make good. It's
up to us to stand by him."

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