The City of Numbered Days

In the middle distance, and backgrounding the buildings on the opposite side of the plaza, rose the false work of the great dam – a standing forest of sawed timbers, whose afternoon shadows were already pointing like a many-fingered fate toward the city of the plain. But, though the face of the speaker was toward the shadowing forest, his words ignored it. "The snow-capped Timanyonis," "the mighty Chigringo," and "the golden-veined slopes of Jack's Mountain" all came in for eulogistic mention; but the massive wall of concrete, with its bristling parapet of timbers, had no part in the orator's flamboyant descriptive.

Brouillard broke the spell of the grandiloquent rantings, and came back to what Miss Genevieve was saying.

"Yes, Murray is stubbornly honest," he agreed; adding: "He is too good for this world, or rather for this little cross-section of Pandemonium named Mirapolis."

"Which, inasmuch as we are making Mirapolis what it is, is more than can be said for most of us," laughed Miss Cortwright. Then, with a purposeful changing of the subject: "Where is Miss Massingale? As the original 'daughter of the Niquoia' she ought to have a place on the band-stand."

"She was with Tig Smith and Lord Falkland when the parade formed," rejoined the engineer. "I saw them on the balcony of the Metropole."

"Since you are the chairman of the reception committee, I think you ought to go and find her," said Miss Genevieve pointedly, so pointedly that Brouillard rose laughing and said:

"Thank you for telling me; whom shall I send to take my place here?"

"Oh, anybody – Lord Falkland will do. By the way, did you know that he is Lord Falkland now? His elder brother died a few weeks ago."

"No, I hadn't heard it. I should think he would want to go home."

"He does. But he, too, has contracted Mirapolitis. He has been investing any number of pounds sterling. If you find him send him to me. I want to see how the real, simon-pure American brand of oratory affects a British title."

Brouillard went, not altogether unwillingly. Loving Amy Massingale with a passion which, however blind it might be on the side of the higher moralities, was still keen-sighted enough to assure him that every plunge he made in the Mirapolitan whirlpool was sweeping him farther away from her; he found himself drifting irresistibly into the inner circle of attraction of which Genevieve Cortwright was the centre.

Whether Miss Cortwright's influence was for good or for evil, in his own case, or was entirely disinterested, he could never quite determine. There were times, like this present instant of blatant rejoicings, when she was brightly cynical, flinging a mocking jest at all things Mirapolitan. But at other times he had a haunting conviction that she was at heart her father's open-eyed ally and abettor, taking up as she might the burden of filial loyalty thrown down by her brother Van Bruce, who, in his short summer of Mirapolitan citizenship, had been illustrating all the various methods by which a spoiled son of fortune may go to the dogs.

Brouillard faced the impossible brother and the almost equally impossible father when he thought of Genevieve Cortwright. But latterly the barriers on that side had been crumbling more and more. Once, and once only, had he mentioned the trusteeship debt to Genevieve, and on that occasion she had laughed lightly at what she had called his strained sense of honor.

The laugh had come at a critical moment. It was in the height of the madness following the discovery of the placers, in an hour when Brouillard would have given his right hand to undo the love-prompted disloyalty to his service, that Cortwright, whose finger was on everybody's pulse, had offered to buy in the thousand shares of power company's stock at par. Brouillard had seen freedom in a stroke of the millionaire's pen; but it was a distinct downward step that by this time he was coming to look upon the payment of his father's honor debt as a hard necessity. He meant to pay it, but there was room for the grim determination that the payment should forever sever him from the handicapped past.

He had transferred the stock, minus a single share to cover his official standing on the power company's board, to Cortwright and had received the millionaire's check in payment. It was in the evening of the same eventful day, he remembered, that Genevieve Cortwright had laughed, and the letter, which was already written to the treasurer of a certain Indianapolis trust company, was not mailed. Instead of mailing it he had opened an account at the Niquoia National, and the ninety-nine thousand nine hundred dollars had since grown by speculative accretions to the rounded first eighth of a million which all financiers agree in calling the stepping-stone to fortune.

He had regarded this money – was still regarding it – as a loan; his lever with which to pry out something which he could really call his own. But more and more possession and use were dulling the keen edge of accountability and there were moments of insight when the grim irony of taking the price of honor to pay an honor debt forced itself upon him. At such moments he plunged more recklessly, in one of them taking stock in a gold-dredge company which was to wash nuggets by the wholesale out of the Quadjenàï bend, in another buying yet other options in the newest suburb of Mirapolis.

What was to come of all this he would not suffer himself to inquire; but two results were thrusting themselves into the foreground. Every added step in the way he had chosen was taking him farther from the ideals of an ennobling love and nearer to a possibility which precluded all ideals. Notwithstanding Grislow's characterization of her as a trophy hunter, Genevieve Cortwright was, after all, a woman, and as a woman she was to be won. With the naïve conceit of a man who has broken into the heart of one woman, Brouillard admitted no insurmountable obstacles other than those which the hard condition of being himself madly in love with another woman might interpose; and there were times when, to the least worthy part of him, the possibility was alluring. Miss Cortwright's distinctive beauty, her keen and ready wit, the assurance that she would never press the ideals beyond the purely conventional limits; in the course of time these might happily smother the masterful passion which had thus far been only a blind force driving him to do evil that good might ensue.

Some such duel of motives was fighting itself to an indecisive conclusion in the young engineer's thoughts when he plunged into the sidewalk throngs in search of the Englishman, and it was not until after he had found Falkland and had delivered Miss Genevieve's summons that the duel paused and immediate and more disquieting impressions began to record themselves.

With the waning of the day of celebrations the temper of the street throngs was changing. It is only the people of the Latinized cities who can take the carnival spirit lightly; in other blood liberty grows to license and the thin veneer of civilized restraints quickly disappears. From early dawn the saloons and dives had been adding fuel to the flames, and light-heartedness and good-natured horse-play were giving way to sardonic humor and brutality.

In the short faring through the crowded street from the plaza to the Metropole corner Brouillard saw and heard things to make his blood boil. Women, those who were not a part of the unrestrained mob, were disappearing from the streets, and it was well for them if they could find shelter near at hand. Twice before he reached Bongras's café entrance the engineer shouldered his way to the rescue of some badgered nucleus of excursionists, and in each instance there were frightened women to be hurriedly spirited away to the nearest place of seclusion and safety.

It was in front of Bongras's that Brouillard came upon the Reverend Hugh Castner, the hot-hearted young zealot who had been flung into Mirapolis on the crest of the tidal wave of mining excitement. Though Hosford – who had not been effaced, as Mr. Cortwright had promised he should be – and the men of his clique called the young missionary a meddlesome visionary, he stood in the stature of a man, and lower Chigringo Avenue loved him and swore by him; and sent for him now and then when some poor soul, hastily summoned, was to be eased off into eternity.

When Brouillard caught sight of him Castner was looking out over the seething street caldron from his commanding height of six feet of athletic man stature, his strong face a mask of bitter humiliation and concern.

"Brouillard, this is simply hideous!" he exclaimed. "If this devils' carnival goes on until nightfall we shall have a revival of the old Roman Saturnalia at its worst!" Then, with a swift blow at the heart of the matter: "You're the man I've been wanting to see; you are pretty close in with the Cortwright junta – is it true that free whiskey has been dealt out to the crowd over the bar in the Niquoia Building?"

Brouillard said that he did not know, which was true, and that he could not believe it possible, which was not true. "The Cortwright people are as anxious to have the celebration pass off peaceably as even you can be," he assured the young missionary, trying to buttress the thing which was not true. "When riot comes in at the door, business flies out at the window; and, after all, this feast of hurrahs is merely another bid for business."

But Castner was shaking his head.

"I can't answer for Mr. Cortwright personally. He and Handley and Schermerhorn and a few of the others seem to stand for respectability of a sort. But, Mr. Brouillard, I want to tell you this: somebody in authority is grafting upon the vice of this community, not only to-day but all the time."

"The community is certainly vicious enough to warrant any charge you can make," admitted Brouillard. Then he changed the topic abruptly. "Have you seen Miss Massingale since noon?"

"Yes; I saw her with Smith, the cattleman, at the other end of the Avenue about an hour ago."

"Heavens!" gritted the engineer. "Didn't Smith know better than to take her down there at such a time as this?"

The young missionary was frowning thoughtfully. "I think it was the other way about. Her brother has been drinking again, and I took it for granted that she and Smith were looking for him."

Brouillard buttoned his coat and pulled his soft hat over his eyes.

"I'm going to look for her," he said. "Will you come along?"

Castner nodded, and together they put their shoulders to the crowd. The slow progress northward was nearly a battle. The excursion trains returning to Red Butte and Brewster were scheduled to leave early, and the stream of blatant, uproarious humanity was setting strongly toward the temporary railroad station.

Again and again the engineer and his companion had to intervene by word and blow to protect the helpless in the half-drunken, gibe-flinging crush, and in these sallies Castner bore his part like a man, expostulating first and hitting out afterward in a fashion that left no doubt in the mind of his antagonist of the moment.

So, struggling, they came finally to the open square of the plaza. Here the speechmaking was concluded and the crowd was thinning a little. There was a clamorous demonstration of some sort going on around the band-stand, but they left it behind and pushed on into the less noisy but more dangerous region of the lower Avenue.

In one of the saloons, as they passed, a sudden crackling of pistol-shots began, and a mob of terrorized Reclamation-Service workmen poured into the street, sweeping all obstacles before it in a mad rush for safety.

"It was little less than a crime to turn your laborers loose on the town on such an occasion as this," said Castner, dealing out his words as frankly and openly as he did his blows.

Brouillard shrugged.

"If I hadn't given them the day they would have taken it without leave. You'll have to pass the responsibility on to some one higher up."

The militant one accepted the challenge promptly.

"It lies ultimately at the door of those whose insatiate greed has built this new Gomorrah in the shadow of your dam." He wheeled suddenly and flung a long arm toward the half-finished structure filling the gap between the western shoulders of Chigringo and Jack's Mountain. "There stands the proof of God's wisdom in hiding the future from mankind, Mr. Brouillard. Because a little section of humanity here behind that great wall knows the end of its hopes, and the manner and time of that end, it becomes demon-ridden, irreclaimable!"

At another time the engineer might have felt the force of the tersely eloquent summing up of the accusation against the Mirapolitan attitude. But now he was looking anxiously for Amy Massingale or her escort, or both of them.

"Surely Smith wouldn't let her stay down here a minute longer than it took to get her away," he said impatiently as a pair of drunken Cornishmen reeled out of Haley's Place and usurped the sidewalk. "Where was it you saw them, Castner?"

"They were in front of 'Pegleg John's', in the next block. Miss Massingale was waiting for Smith, who was just coming out of Pegleg's den shaking his head. I put two and two together and guessed they were looking for Stephen."

"If they went there Miss Amy had her reasons. Let's try it," said Brouillard, and he was half-way across the street when Castner overtook him.

There was a dance-hall next door to Pegleg John's barrel-house and gambling rooms, and, though the daylight was still strong enough to make the electrics garishly unnecessary, the orgy was in full swing, the raucous clanging of a piano and the shuffle and stamp of many feet drowning the monotonous cries of the sidewalk "barker," who was inviting all and sundry to enter and join the dancers.

Castner would have stopped to question the "barker" – was, in fact, trying to make himself heard – when the sharp crash of a pistol-shot dominated the clamor of the piano and the stamping feet. Brouillard made a quick dash for the open door of the neighboring barrel-house, and Castner was so good a second that they burst in as one man.

The dingy interior of Pegleg John's, which was merely a barrel-lined vestibule leading to the gambling rooms beyond, staged a tragedy. A handsome young giant, out of whose face sudden agony had driven the brooding passion of intoxication, lay, loose-flung, on the sawdust-covered floor, with Amy Massingale kneeling in stricken, tearless misery beside him. Almost within arm's-reach Van Bruce Cortwright, the slayer, was wrestling stubbornly with Tig Smith and the fat-armed barkeeper, who were trying to disarm him, his heavy face a mask of irresponsible rage and his lips bubbling imprecations.

"Turn me loose," he gritted. "I'll fix him so he won't give the governor's snap away! He'll pipe the story of the Coronida Grant off to the papers? – not if I kill him till he's too dead to bury, I guess."

Castner ignored the wrestling three and dropped quickly on his knees beside Stephen Massingale, bracing the misery-stricken girl with the needed word of hope and directing her in low tones how to help him search for the wound.