My hands dropped to my knees and I sat staring at the fire, seeing in my mind the old man writing that last pitiful plea, knowing that there were people down in the valley who hated him enough to climb through a snowstorm to give him the bad news before winter closed in on him.
“I’d like to get my hands on the man that took that report up to him.” My voice grated harshly on the silence of the room.
“If they’d killed him with their own hands,” Jean whispered, “they couldn’t have done it more cruelly.”
“Oh, George Riley, the Trevedians, the McClellans, Daniel Smith, Ed Sclueffer — everybody who’d lost money.”
She turned to me suddenly. “You’ve got to prove him right. He had such faith in you.”
I leaned back and stared at the fire. That was all very well, but it meant arming. It meant time and money, and I hadn’t much of either. “I’ll see what Bladen has to say.”
She nodded and then rose slowly to her feet. “You must go now. He’ll be here shortly, and I don’t want him to meet you before I’ve talked to him. Besides—” She hesitated. “He has fits of moodiness that I don’t think you’d understand, and I want you to like him. He’s half Indian, a queer mixture of daring, poetry and utter wretched silence. But he’s one of the nicest men—” She turned toward the door. “Pauline will be getting tired of waiting.”
She took me back to the Victorian drawing room and the two old ladies. A few minutes later I was walking through wet snow in the dark, dismal street of Come Lucky.
When the people of Come Lucky, British Columbia, learned that I was Bruce Campbell Wetheral, most of them grew hostile. A few weeks earlier, on the day I learned from my doctor that I had at most six months left to live, I was notified that I was the sole legatee to the will of my grandfather, Stuart Campbell. My inheritance was a large tract of land in the Rockies called Campbell’s Kingdom, and all the stock in the Campbell Oil Exploration Company. My grandfather had spent most of his life trying to prove there was oil in the Rockies. His last request to me was to prove him right.
Although I had an offer of $50,000 for the Kingdom, I turned it down. When I got to Come Lucky I discovered that a dam was nearing completion just below my property. When it was finished, the Kingdom would be flooded.
I visited Jean Lucas, who had been one of my grandfather’s friends. She gave me some of his papers. Among them was another letter to me. Campbell had Been the results of a survey made there the year before by a man named Boy Bladen, Although the report said there was no possibility of oil being in the Kingdom, Stuart Campbell wanted me to test his beliefs by drilling — the only sure way of proving him right or wrong — before the Kingdom was flooded.
Jean told me that Bladen was enthusiastic about the possibilities of oil in the Kingdom. But I had seen Bladen earlier, and he had evaded my direct questions on this subject. I saw now why the people of Come Lucky didn’t trust me. If I refused to sell the Kingdom and started digging for oil, the dam would be delayed. But why had Boy Bladen evaded me? Did he have some scheme of his own?
III
While I was walking back to the hotel, my mind unconsciously dwelt on the hatred these people had for my grandfather. I think something of this communicated itself to Pauline. As we reached The Golden Calf she paused with her hand on the door, and said, “Things that are small to you become big to us hero at this time of the year.”
She pressed the latch of the door and pushed it open. The murmur of voices died as we entered. There were TuIly a dozen men clustered round the fire. “Here he is now,” one of them hissed. “Give him the telegram. Hut.” I saw Peter Trevedian watching me. He was sitting with his brother at one of the tables. Bladen was there, too, talking to Mac.
The telegram was creased and much thumbed. I opened it out and took it to the lamp. The message read:
HAVE PERSUADED LARSEN COMPANY TO INCREASE OFFER. URGENT I SEE YOU. HOPE ARRIVE COME LUCKY TUESDAY. BRINGING HENRY FERGUS, CHAIRMAN LARSEN MINES. PLEASE AWAIT OUR ARRIVAL. VITAL WE FINALLY COME TO TERMS FOR PURCHASE OF KINGDOM OR ALTERNATIVE PLAN WILL DEFINITELY BE ADOPTED. SIGNED, ACHESON.
The silence in the room was intense as I stuffed it into my pocket. The men’s eyes were fixed hungrily on my face and it was obvious that they knew the contents of that wire. I turned and started far the door, intent upon escaping to my room.
But the old man who had given me the wire barred my way.
“What is it?” I asked him.
He tugged awkwardly at his mustache. “We-ell. What we want to know is: Are you going to sell or not?”
“I don’t see that it concerns you.”
He stared at me “You wouldn’t understand. I guess. You’re a stranger here. But the completion of the Solomon’s Judgment dam means a lot to us.”
They were all eying me, all silent now, waiting.
“Well?”
“I’m not selling,” I said.
Peter Trevedian’s chair flung back against the wall with a crash as he got to his feet. “You said you were going to think it over.”
“I’ve done so,” I said. “And I’ve made up my mind. I’m not selling.”
He swung round on the others. “I told you what it would be. We’re going to have the same nonsense all over again.” He got control of himself then and came toward me. “Look.” His tone was considered and reasonable, but his eyes were hard and angry. “You owe it to the people your grandfather ruined.”
“And suppose he was right?” I said.
“Then show us the river of oil!” somebody called out.
And another shouted, “Aye! You drown Come Lucky with oil! We’ll drown the Kingdom with water! See who’s flooded out first!”
