from the remotest beginning of things for the southwest, canaan had been a "gre't taown." from the beginning she had been the county seat, and from the beginning there had poured through her one long street, with its two or three short tributaries, the whole volume of business of tigmore county; the strawberries, the chickens, the ginseng. almost from the beginning, too, she had had the newspaper and the hotel and some talk about a bank. canaanites held their heads high. so high that when it began to be rumoured that the railroad was showing a disposition to curve down toward tigmore county, the canaanites, unable to see past their noses, appointed a committee to go up to jefferson city to protest to the legislature against the proposed innovation. the committee contended to the legislature that the railroad would cut off trade by starting up rival towns. it also contended that ox-teams had been used for many years and were reliable, rain or shine, whereas in wet weather the railroad tracks would get slick and be impracticable. moreover, and moreunder, there was no danger of an ox-team blowin' up and bustin' and killin' somebody.
the railroad was melted to acquiescence by the appeal, and went its way some ten miles west of canaan. towns sprang into being along the line of the serpent's coil. canaan said all right, but wait till the spring rains come. the rains came, the trains went by over the slick tracks gracefully. canaan said all right, but wait till something busts. time passed, nothing busted. the county was careening westward. there was no stopping it. canaan kept her head high, but her heart grew as cold as ice. then the paper up at the new railroad station of shaleville crudely referred to canaan as "that benighted hamlet." it was too much. when crittenton madeira reached canaan from st. louis, the first thing that he proposed for the city of his adoption was the canaan short line, and, coming at the opportune moment, the consummation of that proposition placed madeira at the head of canaan's municipal life for the rest of his days. in a very short time after he came to canaan, canaan not only had a railroad, but her own railroad. reassured, bland, she caught step with progress, by and by saw that she was progress, and settled back into her old superiority. her trade prospered anew, the cotton came to her depot, she got accustomed to the noise of her two trains daily, and had lived through many contented years when the twentieth of september of 1899 opened up like a rose, fair, fragrance-laden, warm, around her.
out on the face of the day there was nothing to suggest change or crisis, nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be hopeful for, a day like yesterday, like to-morrow, a golden link in a golden monotony. at court house square, a few farm-teams, strapping mules and big studebakers, stood at the hitching rail. a few people came and went up and down and across the square. occasionally a mean-natured man said "huh-y!" to a cow or "soo-y!" to a hog in the middle of main street. some coatless clerks, with great elbow-deep sleeve protectors on their arms and large lumps of cravats at their throats, lounged in store doors. the most conspicuous, as the most institutional, feature of the landscape was the group idling on boxes in front of the old grange store--just as they had idled on boxes before the war. they were the same men, it was the same store, and it was not inconceivable that they were the same boxes. as the men idled they spat, somewhat to the menace of the passers-by, though in defence of this avocation it may be argued that any truly agile person, by watching carefully and seizing opportunity unhesitatingly, could get by undefiled. sometimes a vehicle rolled into the street toward the square, and when this happened it was amusement to the men to say whose vehicle without looking up--jack-knives, watch-fobs, and other valuables occasionally changing hands on an erring guess between the slow, solemn trot of mr. azariah's pringle's bess and the duck-like waddling of mrs. molly jenkins' tom, or between the swinging canter of miss sally madeira's kentucky blacks and the running walk of the small-hoofed texas ponies from we-all prairie. once a great waggon, piled high with cotton, creaked by; once a burnt-skinned boy, hard as a nut, shrieking with an irrepressible sense of being alive, loped past on a mustang. once a small, old man, in mean clothes and with a fine bearing, crossed the square, cracking his whip nervously, his spur clicking on his boot as he walked. once a large florid man and a tall girl came down the street and entered the door of a two-story brick building next the grange. the man had an expansive, blustering way. the girl looked as though she were accustomed to admire the man and to badger him; her face was turned up to his adoringly, while her fun-hunting eyes, just sheathed under her lids, gleamed gaily. the building had a plate-glass window across the front of it, and on the window, in gold letters bordered in black, two legends were flung to the public:
bank of canaan
crittenton madeira
when the man and the girl had gone into the bank of canaan, the group at the grange stopped gambling on the incoming teams and talked less drowsily.
"looks like that girl gets purdier and purdier."
"mighty pleasant ways she keeps. never gone back on her raisin'. never got too good for mizzourah."
"as far as i go, i like her ways better'n her pappy's ways."
"crit is a little toploftical."
"they mighty fond of each other, though. seems like she's not in a hurry to marry and leave her pappy."
"wall naow, i shouldn't be s'prised ef miss sally never did git married, talkin' abaout marryin'. 'twould not s'prise me a-tall, 'twouldn't." mr. quin beasley was talking. mr. beasley was the keeper of the grange store and admittedly a man of fine conversational powers. his jaws worked on and he seemed able to get nutriment out of his ruminations long after a cow would have gone back to grass hungrily. "aint sayin' i never am s'prised, becuz am, but do say that that wouldn't s'prise me, an' no more would it." mr. beasley brought his jaws in from their loose meanderings just as the clatter of a horse's hoofs became audible down the side street that, a little way along, became the road to poetical.
"name the comer, beasley. up to the sugar-tree about now. name-er, name-er!" the challenger took from his pocket a huge horn knife, covered it with his hand and shook it in the face of mr. beasley, who responsively got his hand into his pocket and drew forth a knife, which he held covered after the manner of his opponent.
"unsight, unseen," said mr. beasley. "it's price mason's pony."
the challenger chuckled deprecatingly over the carelessness of judgment evinced: "price mason's pony comes down with a hippety-hop," he remarked pityingly--"lemme listen--it's--no, taint, aint favorin' his right front foot--it's--wy!" the challenger suddenly twisted his head to one side and held it there like a lean-crawed chicken deciding where to peck. simultaneously the other men glanced down the side street where it came into the square, and when someone said, or whistled, "wy, who the h-e-double-l is it?" everybody was waiting for an answer.
they had not long to wait. the horseman in question galloped straight toward the group and drew rein in front of them only a few minutes later. he was a big fellow, broad and lithe of shoulder and chest, and young and alert of face.
"gentlemen," he called from his horse's back, "i want to find mr. crittenton madeira. ah!" he laughed, a deep, rich note, as he saw the gold and black sign, "gentlemen, i have found mr. madeira!" he leaped from his horse and began to tether him to a staple, set in the pavement in front of the grange.
"yes," replied a member of the grange group, all of whom rose sociably, "crit and miss sally,"--the young man laughed again, softly, as though he could not help it,--"crit and miss sally jes went into the bank; i don't reckin they've come out again."
"miss sally's come out again," interposed another granger, "because i seen her."
"it's the father that i want to see," said the horseman, with smiling emphasis, "not the daughter, not miss sally." he passed through the bank door, still smiling, and the grange group looked at each other, rife with speculation on the instant.
"hadn't-a said not, i'd-a said it wuz miss sally he wanted to see. looks to me like he might be one of her beaux. wears sumpin the same clothes."
"looked like a yank to me."
"uh-huh, betchew he lets his biscuits cool before he butters 'em."
"haven't heard crit say he was looking for a stranger."
"reckon if you keep up with crit's business, my friend, you'll have to walk faster."
while the grangers were wondering, supposing, reckoning, the man who probably let his biscuits cool before he buttered them entered the bank of canaan.
when the cage for the clerical force had been put into the bank of canaan, there was not a great deal of the bank left, so the man stopped where he thought he was least apt to be scraped, in the little space in front of the force's window. the force put his pen behind his ear, and, without waiting for inquiry or request, called off to the rear of the room.
"mist' madeira! he's here! can he come on in? if you'll go right down there"--went on the force,--"to that door in front of you, you can go through it."
the thing seemed feasible, as the door was half open, so the visitor attempted it. as he reached the door, however, his way was temporarily blocked by a big red-faced man who held out both hands to him and took possession of him with violent cordiality.
"god bless my soul! howdy, howdy, howdy!" cried the big man. "been looking for you for a week. only last night i told sally that i wasn't going to look for you any longer. just eternally gave you up. how in the sam hill have you taken so long to get here? come on in and have a seat."
as he talked, the missourian led his guest inside a small private office, handed him to a chair and stood up before him, big, colossal, dominating the younger man, or at least meaning to.
"i am very rapidly concluding that you are mr. madeira, and that you know that i am steering," smiled the visitor, sinking into a chair adaptably, though he realised that, for two men who had never seen each other before, the meeting had been unusual. he also realised that, off somewhere in the sphere of imponderable influences, the effect when his hand clasped the big man's hand had been exactly that of the clashing of two swords.
"oh, god love you, there's no black magic about my knowing you for steering--only stranger that's been expected in canaan for six weeks!" cried madeira, "and as for your guessing that i'm madeira, you don't deserve a bit of credit for it. my sign's out." his manner conveyed that his sign was quite as much his personality as the black and gold letters on the window. "yes, i'm madeira, and you are steering, and we both might as well own up to it. and now what's kept you so long on the road? how'd you manage to put in a whole week between here and springfield?" madeira seated himself in a swivel chair in front of his desk and eyed his visitor with that aggressive geniality, that tremendous sense of himself, warm and vivid in his face and manner. and, as in the moment when he had faced missouri from the top of the tigmore hills, steering had a feeling that he was being claimed, absorbed.
"why, the explanation is of the simplest. at the very last minute, there at springfield, too late to get a word of advice out to you, i fell in with some fellows who were going to ride across country toward the canaan tigmores, and i joined them. they gave out at bessietown, but i've come every foot of the way over the ridge on horseback, and alone at that. i wanted to see missouri, get acquainted with the home of my ancestors, at close range, as it were."
madeira chuckled. "god bless you, you certainly went in at the back door to do it," he said. madeira's god-bless-you's and god-love-you's were valuable crutches to his conversation. with them and his bluster he seemed able to cover a great deal of ground.
"and then i didn't hurry," went on steering, "because i thought, from what you wrote me, that it would, without doubt, be some weeks before that amiable relative of mine could be dragged around to any real attention to our projects."
"ah, but that's where you missed out!" cried madeira, a great ring of triumph in his voice. he crossed his legs, leaned back in his chair, and pushed out his chest. "that's where you didn't know c. madeira. young man, i've been hammering at bruce grierson night and day ever since i got you interested in this scheme,"--steering looked at madeira with a little quick motion of inquiry, but madeira's arrangement of subject and object was evidently advised; madeira showed that it was by repeating, "ever since i got you interested, i've been trying to get grierson interested. we couldn't move hand or foot without him, you know that. the land is his, you know, even though you are the heir apparent, and there was no use trying to do anything with the land without him. i had got you into it without much trouble,"--madeira paused just long enough to take the cigar that steering offered him. (steering could always see better through smoke.) "yes, i had got you!" cried madeira, biting off the end of the cigar with a sharp snap of his teeth, "and having got you, the next thing was to get grierson. well, i got him, got him since you left new york." he chuckled his spill-over chuckle again, swung around to his desk and took from one of its pigeon-holes an envelope addressed to him in a deep-gouging hand. the expression of geniality lingered about the wings of his nose and the corners of his mouth, as though it had been moulded there by long habit, but his eyes narrowed and the play of light from them was by now like the whisk of a sharp knife through the air. "you know i chased that old fellow all over colorado with my letters about my scheme to open up the tigmores, until i got him mad," he said, holding the letter up to say it, as though the contents would be illumined by his saying it. then he handed it to steering, who took it from its cover, flapped it open, and read:
"dear crit:
"use this power of attorney to open up hell if you want to, but don't you write to me.
"your obedient servant,
"b. grierson."
it was the sort of letter to make a man laugh, and steering laughed. then the phrase "open up hell" caught his eye again, like a sign of sinister warning.
"i've never been able to understand," he began with a questioning inflection in his voice, "what's the trouble with the scion of the house of grierson. why is he so indifferent to a project for the development of his property that may mean a million to him?"
"aw, you know he's cracked!" replied madeira quickly and harshly.
"no, i don't know him at all, you will remember. never saw him, never had a line from him."
"well, he's cracked. he fooled around here in the tigmores for twenty years hunting silver, god bless you! spent everything he had riding that hobby, then got another hunch, for zinc this time, borrowed money, sank it, borrowed more, sank that, then got a feeling that he was abused and went away from here declaring that the canaan tigmores could slide into the di before he would ever raise a finger to stop them. that's why he wouldn't write you. i've handled his affairs--what's left of them--for years, and i've had enough trouble handling them, let me tell you." he took the letter from steering and replaced it in the pigeon-hole. "but i've got him settled now," he said, "and we can go right on--oh! for the matter of going on, things are pretty far on already." he began rummaging through his desk in other pigeon-holes. "i'll just show you what i've drawn up."
steering found himself unable to keep up with madeira. he took his cigar from his mouth, conscious of a sensation that he was being jerked along by the hair. he tried to get the best of the sensation by leaning back comfortably in his chair and observing madeira leisurely. he tried to feel that he was following madeira voluntarily, that he didn't have to if he didn't want to. when he had quitted new york he had been sustained by an idea that he had, in his correspondence, put before madeira a plan that had some merit and promise in it, in the way that it got around the terms of a will, under which he was heir apparent to a vast acreage of land whose title now rested in another man, his relative. he and carington had worked the thing over conscientiously, and, there in new york, they had taken some pride in the thought that they had hacked out a good base for the operations of a potential steering-grierson mining and development company. here, in missouri, in madeira's office, before the on-roll of madeira's manner, steering was no longer sure that he and carington had had anything to do with the case.
"here's my prospectus," madeira was saying, his voice ringing triumphantly again, "and here are the articles. god bless you, we are right up to the point where we can effect the organisation and issue the first one hundred thousand shares of stock. there are some tigmore county men that i want you to meet, some fellows who can be used to fill out the directorate, and, first thing you know, we'll be filing an application for a charter, my boy."
"just so," said steering absently. he had the papers in his hand, and was running them over. both men were pulling at their cigars with strong puffs, and the room was so vaporous with smoke that steering was beginning to see very clearly indeed, as he went through the papers. they were couched in good, clear english, the succinct english that carington used, with admirable changes here and there, which brought out carington's points still more clearly. "i am familiar with these," said steering, looking up presently. "you seem to have let it stand about as we drafted it in the new york office. what changes you have made i like."
"oh, god bless you! you can rely upon liking the things of this kind that i do." madeira's assumption was comprehensive and bland. there was absolutely no sense in going against that manner of his at this stage of developments. steering began to ask questions and to wait.
"now, according to what we set forth here,"--steering tapped the paper,--"the object and purpose of our corporation will be the mining of zinc and lead ore in the canaan tigmores. we are projecting upon the hypothesis that there is ore in the tigmores, but we can't go too far upon hypothesis. there in new york it seemed worth while to take up the idea that, as there was ore all around through southwestern missouri, there might be ore in the canaan tigmores. then, being equipped for theorising only, carington and i passed easily into the consideration of the possibilities if there were ore in the canaan tigmores. you say that we are ready to organise, but it looks to me just now as though before we organise it might be in order to solidify hypothesis into fact. i don't think organisation is the next step at all; the next step, according to my notion, is to get off paper into the ground. question now is, is there any ore in the canaan tigmores?"
"question now is," interrupted madeira baldly, "are there enough fools in the united states to donate us a fortune while we are finding out whether there is or isn't ore in the canaan tigmores? oh, god bless you, my boy, you must bear in mind that gold isn't the only thing that can be minted! you can mint a man's thirst for gold, if you are up to it. the southwest is zinc crazy right now. the time is as ripe as a nut----"
"well, one minute--what's your private opinion about the chance for ore in the canaan tigmores, mr. madeira?"
"i d'n know a thing about it. and god bless you, i don't care a thing about it. i know that old bruce grierson butted his brains out on the tigmore rocks, on the jack-trail, for twenty years, and i know, that all over the country,--not here in tigmore county, but farther southwest,--men are drilling into rock that looks rich, and cuts blind, quick enough to ruin them; and i know that we are not going into this thing to lose money, but to make it, coming and going; i know that we've got to stand to win, coming and going. that's business."
face to face with this sort of frank self-commitment to "business," steering was impressed into silence, and madeira took advantage of the silence to push on in the big way he had that was like the broad-paddling, tooting vehemence of a river steamer. "i'm for getting a drill into the hills right away, just as much as ever you can be, my boy, understand. it will look better. we'll do it. but lord love you, we won't hold back the organisation for that. just leave these things to me. i've got a programme arranged here that will suit you, i think. first thing is to take you around and let you see that document in the recorder's office,--i believe you said you wanted to read the bruce peele will,--then you can come out and have dinner with sally and me. i've got a nice place three miles out, and i've got a daughter that is not to be beat, in new york or out of it. then this evening we'll get together some of the fellows that i handle around here, and take up some of the preliminary business."
madeira had risen, preparatory to conducting steering to the recorder's office in accord with the first number of his programme, and steering got up, too. while madeira shut up his desk, steering threw away the stump of his cigar and brought his flexed arms back to his shoulders with an expansive pull on his chest that sent a big influx of air into his lungs. after his seance with madeira he felt as though he had been pummelled down flat. madeira had to open his desk again for something he had forgotten and steering passed on to the door, impatient for some outside air. as he opened the door, with his eyes rather thoughtfully fixed upon the floor, he saw, peeping around the curve where the force's cage elbowed its way out into the room, a foot. being a slender foot, in a well-fitting walking boot, it held him an unconscionably long time, then drew him on mandatorily, up the little space between the force's cage and the wall, until he had rounded the curve and had come out by the force's window, where a bare-headed girl leaned, talking merrily, gouging a hat-pin into the hat that she had taken off.
"oh, it's mr. steering,--isn't it?" she asked at once, and put her hand out to him. "i heard father say that he was expecting you. and then, too, a friend of yours, who seemed much concerned about your fate over at poetical, rode to our house last night and made me promise to welcome you to canaan. i am sally madeira."
"hi, pet, you there?" madeira's big voice came through the door of the private office and took possession of the minute and the girl--"entertain the new yorker until i get through here, will you? i got to monkey with this blasted lock again."
"yes, father, i'm entertaining him," madeira's daughter called back, while bruce held helplessly to the hand she had given him. a peculiar mistiness had come over his senses. he could have sworn that through it he saw a picture that had been with him a good deal during the past year of his life, a picture of a woman's flower face, her fluffiness,--as of silk and lace,--lose colour, outline, significance, like a daguerreotype in the sunlight. a swift joy that he was in canaan possessed him. all he could say was, "so you are miss sally?" it sounded very dull, so dull that he hastened to add, "so you know piney?--awfully kind of piney to attract your attention to me." remembering with horror some of his conversation with piney about miss madeira, he repeated solemnly, "awfully kind."
"well, i think you can give the little vagabond credit for a kind heart." miss madeira laughed softly.
"i give him credit for much more than that," said bruce. he was envying piney, seeing that the tramp-boy's intuitive appreciations matched his vigorous young beauty, that he was far more poet than vagabond, that he, bruce, had attempted to play clownishly upon what was a worthy and lovely idyl in the boy's heart. as though she, too, had some faint, perturbing consciousness of piney, the girl flushed a little, laughed a little, and turned the subject readily.
"i know yet another friend of yours," said she.
"i am glad of that." bruce had released her hand, forgotten the business that had brought him to missouri, forgotten crittenton madeira, and stood with his arms folded, looking down upon her, glad that she was so tall, glad that he was taller, glad about everything.
"yes, another friend," she nodded with fleeting meaning, "i was at vassar with elsie gossamer."
face to face with a woman like sally madeira the thought of a woman like miss gossamer must necessarily stay hazy in a man's brain. as with another romeo, rosaline had but laid the velvet up which came the surer feet of juliet. "well," said steering happily, "all this is going to make us acquainted, isn't it?"
"it may, if you like." she had a splendid comradeship of manner. her father's energy stopped short of bluster in her. borne up on her breezy westernism was a fragrant reserve, a fine reticence that disengaged a tantalising promise.
"oh, i'll like!" cried bruce with conviction. "do you live in canaan?"
"out at madeira place. father said you were to come out to dine with us to-day. i hope you will."
"he will, he will! trust me for that!" madeira came through the space between the wall and the force's cage noisily. for the first time that morning steering felt no repugnance to that disposition of madeira's to take charge of him, and he went off with madeira, a moment later, across court house square to the recorder's office, with tread elastic and eyes sparkling.
when the two men had left her, the girl moved over to the plate-glass window and watched steering, a little smile on her lips, an adequate enjoyment of his undoing dancing mercilessly in her long amber-hued eyes.
steering stopped behind madeira at the door of the recorder's office and, looking back at the plate-glass window unexpectedly, saw the girl's eyes fixed demurely on the floor where her boot showed under the hem of her long straight gown. it was a very little moment that they stood thus, he with his eyes on her, she with her eyes on her boot, but it was an electric moment. with him it was a cycle of self-abuse for the unadvised rot that he had talked to piney, an era of gratitude to piney for being the sort who would not report any of it to miss madeira. (even so little did steering understand that a boy like piney would necessarily have to tell a woman like miss madeira about all that he knew; tell it exuberantly, bubblingly, without ever being quite conscious that he was telling anything.) steering followed madeira inside the recorder's office slowly, and the girl went on standing at the plate-glass window, studying her foot.
"yes, indeed, sir," she began calling to him soundlessly, and broke off abruptly and stood there at the window for a time, motionless and thoughtful. she was a tall girl, of a broad-shouldered, athletic type, a college girl by the sign of the austere cut of her gown, but a western girl by the sign of the flying ends of the scarf about her throat, the unafraid looseness of her bright hair. her face, lit by her amber eyes and crowned by those loose masses of hair, had a rare, dusky-gold beauty. despite her hair she was dark-skinned, smooth and warm like bisque, and that same gold-dusted radiance that was in her hair and that same amber-gold light that was in her eyes glowed ineffably from beneath her skin. she was a pulse of light, colourful and vibrant. "yes, indeed, sir," she resumed after a while, jabbing the hat-pin into the hat relentlessly, "this is what a missouri girl is like!"
