dr. howard archie had come down to denver for a meeting of the stockholders in the san felipe silver mine. it was not absolutely necessary for him to come, but he had no very pressing cases at home. winter was closing down in moonstone, and he dreaded the dullness of it. on the 10th day of january, therefore, he was registered at the brown palace hotel. on the morning of the 11th he came down to breakfast to find the streets white and the air thick with snow. a wild northwester was blowing down from the mountains, one of those beautiful storms that wrap denver in dry, furry snow, and make the city a loadstone to thousands of men in the mountains and on the plains. the brakemen out on their box-cars, the miners up in their diggings, the lonely homesteaders in the sand hills of yucca and kit carson counties, begin to think of denver, muffled in snow, full of food and drink and good cheer, and to yearn for her with that admiration which makes her, more than other american cities, an object of sentiment.
howard archie was glad he had got in before the storm came. he felt as cheerful as if he had received a legacy that morning, and he greeted the clerk with even greater friendliness than usual when he stopped at the desk for his mail. in the dining-room he found several old friends seated here and there before substantial breakfasts: cattlemen and mining engineers from odd corners of the state, all looking fresh and well pleased with themselves. he had a word with one and another before he sat down at the little table by a window, where the austrian head waiter stood attentively behind a chair. after his breakfast was put before him, the doctor began to run over his letters. there was one directed in thea kronborg’s handwriting, forwarded from moonstone. he saw with astonishment, as he put another lump of sugar into his cup, that this letter bore a new york postmark. he had known that thea was in mexico, traveling with some chicago people, but new york, to a denver man, seems much farther away than mexico city. he put the letter behind his plate, upright against the stem of his water goblet, and looked at it thoughtfully while he drank his second cup of coffee. he had been a little anxious about thea; she had not written to him for a long while.
as he never got good coffee at home, the doctor always drank three cups for breakfast when he was in denver. oscar knew just when to bring him a second pot, fresh and smoking. “and more cream, oscar, please. you know i like lots of cream,” the doctor murmured, as he opened the square envelope, marked in the upper right-hand corner, “everett house, union square.” the text of the letter was as follows:—
dear doctor archie:—
i have not written to you for a long time, but it has not been unintentional. i could not write you frankly, and so i would not write at all. i can be frank with you now, but not by letter. it is a great deal to ask, but i wonder if you could come to new york to help me out? i have got into difficulties, and i need your advice. i need your friendship. i am afraid i must even ask you to lend me money, if you can without serious inconvenience. i have to go to germany to study, and it can’t be put off any longer. my voice is ready. needless to say, i don’t want any word of this to reach my family. they are the last people i would turn to, though i love my mother dearly. if you can come, please telegraph me at this hotel. don’t despair of me. i’ll make it up to you yet.
your old friend,
thea kronborg.
this in a bold, jagged handwriting with a gothic turn to the letters,—something between a highly sophisticated hand and a very unsophisticated one,—not in the least smooth or flowing.
the doctor bit off the end of a cigar nervously and read the letter through again, fumbling distractedly in his pockets for matches, while the waiter kept trying to call his attention to the box he had just placed before him. at last oscar came out, as if the idea had just struck him, “matches, sir?”
“yes, thank you.” the doctor slipped a coin into his palm and rose, crumpling thea’s letter in his hand and thrusting the others into his pocket unopened. he went back to the desk in the lobby and beckoned to the clerk, upon whose kindness he threw himself apologetically.
“harry, i’ve got to pull out unexpectedly. call up the burlington, will you, and ask them to route me to new york the quickest way, and to let us know. ask for the hour i’ll get in. i have to wire.”
“certainly, dr. archie. have it for you in a minute.” the young man’s pallid, clean-scraped face was all sympathetic interest as he reached for the telephone. dr. archie put out his hand and stopped him.
“wait a minute. tell me, first, is captain harris down yet?”
“no, sir. the captain hasn’t come down yet this morning.”
“i’ll wait here for him. if i don’t happen to catch him, nail him and get me. thank you, harry.”
the doctor spoke gratefully and turned away. he began to pace the lobby, his hands behind him, watching the bronze elevator doors like a hawk. at last captain harris issued from one of them, tall and imposing, wearing a stetson and fierce mustaches, a fur coat on his arm, a solitaire glittering upon his little finger and another in his black satin ascot. he was one of the grand old bluffers of those good old days. as gullible as a schoolboy, he had managed, with his sharp eye and knowing air and twisted blond mustaches, to pass himself off for an astute financier, and the denver papers respectfully referred to him as the rothschild of cripple creek.
dr. archie stopped the captain on his way to breakfast. “must see you a minute, captain. can’t wait. want to sell you some shares in the san felipe. got to raise money.”
the captain grandly bestowed his hat upon an eager porter who had already lifted his fur coat tenderly from his arm and stood nursing it. in removing his hat, the captain exposed a bald, flushed dome, thatched about the ears with yellowish gray hair. “bad time to sell, doctor. you want to hold on to san felipe, and buy more. what have you got to raise?”
“oh, not a great sum. five or six thousand. i’ve been buying up close and have run short.”
“i see, i see. well, doctor, you’ll have to let me get through that door. i was out last night, and i’m going to get my bacon, if you lose your mine.” he clapped archie on the shoulder and pushed him along in front of him. “come ahead with me, and we’ll talk business.”
dr. archie attended the captain and waited while he gave his order, taking the seat the old promoter indicated.
“now, sir,” the captain turned to him, “you don’t want to sell anything. you must be under the impression that i’m one of these damned new england sharks that get their pound of flesh off the widow and orphan. if you’re a little short, sign a note and i’ll write a check. that’s the way gentlemen do business. if you want to put up some san felipe as collateral, let her go, but i shan’t touch a share of it. pens and ink, please, oscar,”—he lifted a large forefinger to the austrian.
the captain took out his checkbook and a book of blank notes, and adjusted his nose-nippers. he wrote a few words in one book and archie wrote a few in the other. then they each tore across perforations and exchanged slips of paper.
“that’s the way. saves office rent,” the captain commented with satisfaction, returning the books to his pocket. “and now, archie, where are you off to?”
“got to go east to-night. a deal waiting for me in new york.” dr. archie rose.
the captain’s face brightened as he saw oscar approaching with a tray, and he began tucking the corner of his napkin inside his collar, over his ascot. “don’t let them unload anything on you back there, doctor,” he said genially, “and don’t let them relieve you of anything, either. don’t let them get any cripple stuff off you. we can manage our own silver out here, and we’re going to take it out by the ton, sir!”
the doctor left the dining-room, and after another consultation with the clerk, he wrote his first telegram to thea:—
miss thea kronborg,
everett house, new york.
will call at your hotel eleven o’clock friday morning. glad to come. thank you.
archie
he stood and heard the message actually clicked off on the wire, with the feeling that she was hearing the click at the other end. then he sat down in the lobby and wrote a note to his wife and one to the other doctor in moonstone. when he at last issued out into the storm, it was with a feeling of elation rather than of anxiety. whatever was wrong, he could make it right. her letter had practically said so.
he tramped about the snowy streets, from the bank to the union station, where he shoved his money under the grating of the ticket window as if he could not get rid of it fast enough. he had never been in new york, never been farther east than buffalo. “that’s rather a shame,” he reflected boyishly as he put the long tickets in his pocket, “for a man nearly forty years old.” however, he thought as he walked up toward the club, he was on the whole glad that his first trip had a human interest, that he was going for something, and because he was wanted. he loved holidays. he felt as if he were going to germany himself. “queer,”—he went over it with the snow blowing in his face,—“but that sort of thing is more interesting than mines and making your daily bread. it’s worth paying out to be in on it,—for a fellow like me. and when it’s thea—oh, i back her!” he laughed aloud as he burst in at the door of the athletic club, powdered with snow.
archie sat down before the new york papers and ran over the advertisements of hotels, but he was too restless to read. probably he had better get a new overcoat, and he was not sure about the shape of his collars. “i don’t want to look different to her from everybody else there,” he mused. “i guess i’ll go down and have van look me over. he’ll put me right.”
so he plunged out into the snow again and started for his tailor’s. when he passed a florist’s shop he stopped and looked in at the window, smiling; how naturally pleasant things recalled one another. at the tailor’s he kept whistling, “flow gently, sweet afton,” while van dusen advised him, until that resourceful tailor and haberdasher exclaimed, “you must have a date back there, doctor; you behave like a bridegroom,” and made him remember that he wasn’t one.
before he let him go, van put his finger on the masonic pin in his client’s lapel. “mustn’t wear that, doctor. very bad form back there.”
