“How much?”
“I don’t know. Quite a smear. There’s going to be an awful squawk go up.”
“How about the Commissioner of Corporations?”
“Crumweather’s found a hole in the Blue Sky Act, or thinks he has.”
“Can’t we put him on the spot?”
“Not because of that. He’s too slick. He’s sitting back in the clear with a ten per cent rake-off. The officials of the company will get the jolt.”
“Well, what can we do?”
“The only thing to do,” I said, “is to find the stockholders and get them to sell their stock.”
He said, “Donald, that’s the first time I’ve known you to make an utterly asinine suggestion.”
Alta rushed to my defence. “Dad, it sounds perfectly feasible to me. Can’t you see it’s the only way?”
“Bunk,” he said, slouching down in his chair and chewing at his cigar. “The people who bought stock in that company bought it as a gamble, not as an investment, They’re looking forward to a hundred-to-one, or five-hundred-to-one, or five-thousand-to-one profit. Try to buy that stock at what they paid for it, and they’d laugh at you. Offer them ten times what they paid for it, and they’d think there’d been a strike, and you had inside information.”
I said, “I don’t think you understand what I’m driving at.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s only one person who could buy it back, and that’s Crumweather.”
“How could he buy it back?”
“He could suddenly discover that all the sales had been illegal transactions, have the salesmen go around and tell the prospects that the idea wasn’t feasible, and that the Commissioner of Corporations had ordered them to return the money received from stock sales.”
“How much would it cost to do that?” he asked dryly. “I’d say about half a million dollars.”
“I think we could do it for five hundred dollars.”
“What was that figure?” he asked.
“Five hundred dollars.”
He said, “Either you’re crazy, or I am.”
“Is it worth five hundred to you?”
“It’d be worth a cool fifty thousand.”
I said, “Alta’s car’s outside. Let’s go for a ride.”
“Can I come?” Alta asked.
“I don’t think so. We’re going to call on a bachelor who’s already retired.”
“I like bachelors.”
“Come on,” I said.
We sat three in the front seat, and I drove over the rough road through the tailings until the headlights, dancing along ahead, showed the outlines of Pete Digger’s old shack.
“You sit here,” I said. “I’ll get out and see if he’s ready to receive visitors.”
I slid out of the car and started toward the house. A cracked voice from the shadows said, “Hoist ’em brother, and hoist ’em high!”
I swung around and shot my hands up in the air. The illumination of the headlights showed my features, and Pete Digger said savagely, “Might have known you was a god-darn stool pigeon— All right, go ahead and try to find it, you cheap, tin-star, two-faced hypocrite. A writer, huh? That car looks like you was a writer. If you ain’t got a warrant, get the hell out of here. If you have, serve it.”
I said, “You’ve got me wrong, Pete. I want some more information, only this time I’m going to pay more money for it.”
The answer was under his breath and reflected on my parentage.
Suddenly the door of the car swung open. Alta got out and walked straight toward the shadows. She said, “Honestly, it’s all right. Donald brought my dad and me down to talk a little business with you.”
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Alta.”
“Get over there in the light where I can get a look at you.”
She moved over beside me in the light.
Henry Ashbury said cheerfully, “I guess I’m next.” He got out and came shambling over to stand beside us.
“Who the hell are you?” Pete Digger asked.
I said, “You damn fool, he’s Santa Claus,” and put my hands down.
Chapter ten
Pete Digger had pulled on a pair of pants and pushed his feet into boots when he had heard the car coming. He was a bit embarrassed about coming out and meeting people, but after I persuaded him it was all right, he seemed sheepish about the gun act. It was Alta who saved the day. She acted interested and perfectly natural.
Pete wanted to make up the bed before he had us come in, but Alta said, “Nothing doing,” and we all filed in. The windows were open, and the stove was cold, but I found a pile of twigs and dried bark and started the fire while Pete was apologetically getting into a shirt and coat. That seemed to make a hit with him.
There was one thing about the little shack. It heated up quickly, and the stove roared into a businesslike job. Pete came over and sat down, looked longingly at the fragrant Perfecto handed him by Ashbury, and said, “Nope. That’s rich man’s fodder. I’m a poor guy. My pipe is my friend, and I don’t go back on my friends. See?”
Alta and I had cigarettes. After we were all blowing smoke into a blue cloud which hung heavy over the table and the roaring fire made the place seem even warmer and more cosy than the thermometer would indicate, Pete said, “Okay. What you got on your mind?”
“Pete,” I said, “I’m going to give you a chance to make five hundred dollars.”
“Make what?”
“Five hundred dollars.”
“What’s the catch?” he asked.
I said, “You’ve got to salt a claim.”
“What for?”
“Can I trust you?”
“Damned if I know,” Pete said with a grin. “I don’t double-cross my friends, but I raise hell with my enemies. Pay your money and take your choice.”
I leaned over across the table. “I was stringing you when I told you that I was a writer looking for local color,” said.
Pete Digger threw back his head and roared. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in forty years,” he said.
“What is?” Ashbury asked.
“This young chap thinkin’ I didn’t know he was lyin’ when he told me he was a writer. He’s up here snoopin’ around. I figure he’s a young lawyer tryin’ to get somethin’ on that dredgin’ company. That’s what he was after. Writer, he? Haw haw haw!”
I grinned and said, “Well, we’ve got that over with. Now then, Pete, I’m stuck on that stock position.”
“You are?”
“Uh-huh. I got soft and bought some stock in there,” I said.
Pete’s face darkened. “The damn bunch of crooks,” he said. “We’d oughta go down there an’ dynamite their drill rig, give ’em a coat of tar and feathers, and dump ’em in the river to cool ’em off.”
“No,” I said. “There’s a better way.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you think they know how much gold they’re putting in those holes?”
“Sure, they do. The way a proposition like that figures the ground has to test uniform. If you get one hole that runs way up, an’ another hole that runs down, capital gets suspicious. A river don’t deposit gold that way. That gold’s been droppin’ down in that channel for millions of years. Get the idea?”
“All right, that’s the way I hoped it would be. Now, then, they’re keeping track of the gold they take out, aren’t they?”
“Sure.”
“Pete,” I said, “you mentioned that you could salt a claim artistically. What do you mean by it?”
Pete looked at us and said, “You said I could make five hundred bucks. What did you mean by it?”