The Joyous Trouble Maker. Jackson Gregory
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burn up the roads on the way back. You know what that means. Bates. Oh, I don't want to hear your tale of woe; think all I've got to do is squat here and listen to a man cuss? Get busy."
In turn he called up the cattle foreman, the horse foreman, the superintendent of the new mine across the ridge some fifteen miles to the eastward, saying alike to each man of them:
"You'll report at the house office at one o'clock. Take a tip from me and come in early."
He went to his door and for a little stood looking out across the green valley stretched below, marking the roaming herds of cattle and horses, noting the men who rode among them or teamed along the winding road or appeared and disappeared as they went about their various duties, duties set them by Booth Stanton in the absence of the last of the Corliss blood who was returning today. Well, it was not unlike some petty kingdom, this Queen's Ranch, and he had ruled it like some petty king since the autmun of last year. His hard eyes brightened to the glorious expanse lying below them, his blood ran pleasantly, tingeing his weathered cheek. He had hired men and fired men, he had helped to make men and break men, he had directed day after day whatever must be done across many miles of valley and mountain; he, himself, had been in numerous matters a court of last appeal.
But now he knew within his soul that his monthly wage, ample though it was, was less a thing to grip with jealous fingers than something else that had grown dear to him, vastly less desirable than the sense of power that had been his, undisputed. His lungs filled deeply to the sweet mountain air, the muscles at the bases of his jaw hardened, his eyes running whither the road ran toward Boulder Gap were speculative. Now he was to be no longer absolute but rather majesty's prime minister. For a Corliss was returning to assume responsibility, a Corliss whose hand was eager to grasp the reins of affairs, a Corliss whose imperious and arbitrary disposition Stanton knew and recognized as the dynastic inheritance of a long line of vigorous, forcible men and women.
Clear enough as were the reasons why the expected arrival would irritate the man, it was evident that he experienced no unmixed emotions. There was a quick eagerness in the glance which he turned toward the lower valley, there was a springing quality in his step this morning, a tone in his voice which bespoke pleasurable excitation of a sort. His dark face expressed little of what lay in his mind at any time, but today it was easier to read satisfaction than distaste in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth.
Critically he noted what had been done in the flower gardens, approved and passed on. With a foot upon the first of the broad granite steps leading to the main entrance he paused, calling to a man whom he had seen through an open window.
"Bradford, come here," he commanded.
Bradford, tall, thin, immaculate, soft footed, came promptly, just the vague hint of a bow in his greeting.
"Good morning, Mr. Stanton," he said in a toneless voice. "It is good to be back, sir."
Stanton looked at him curiously.
"You are lying, Bradford, and we both know it," he returned shortly. "You'd a deal rather be in New York or even San Francisco. … You have everything ready?"
The majordomo, while his arms hung at his sides, lifted two thin white hands, flexing the wrists so that his palms were for an instant horizontal. Stanton's quick eyes that missed so little caught the gesture. It was the Bradford way of expressing annoyance.
"Almost, sir," spoke the man evenly. "I should have arrived at least another day earlier, that is all. But much can be done in the two or three hours still remaining us. Would you like to step in and see what I have done?"
"Later, perhaps. I wouldn't count upon more than two hours and a half, Bradford."
"Thank you. I'm glad to know."
"What have you done with the newspaper men?"
Again Bradford's palms right-angled his pendant arms.
"In the west wing, sir. I have turned over to them the billiard room and the little rest room. Lunch will be served them there."
"Three of them, aren't there?"
"Four. Another came alone after the others. He's the keenest one of the crowd; what he writes up will be worth reading. There he is having his pipe now."
Stanton looked in the direction indicated by Bradford's eyes. From the west exposure of the rambling edifice a winding gravelled path snaked its way between borders of wild laurels, leading to a little rustic pavilion which took advantage of a level space at the top of a slight fall of cliff. Cement posts with heavy chains run through them guarded the outer edge of the tiny plateau, affording an atmosphere of safety which added cosiness to the natural charm of the place. Here, his back turned to the house, lounged the man whom Bradford termed the keenest one of the reporters.
He was a big young man smoking a big black pipe, slow meditative puffs bespeaking a serene enjoyment of the moment. Soft shirt, riding breeches and boots proclaimed the manner of his coming; the others had driven out in an automobile hired in White Rock. He was bareheaded and the sun picked out the hint of dull copper in his hair.
"Steele, his name is," Bradford said by way of rounding out his information. "William Steele. Don't know which paper, but have an idea it's the San Francisco Chronicle. If there's nothing more, Mr. Stanton, I'll hurry things along inside."
Booth Stanton nodded absently, his eyes still upon William Steele's broad, loosely coated back. Bradford turned and went again into the house.
"I'll bet publicity was invented in the first place by a Corliss," muttered Stanton. "And it's good business at that. But if these news makers had waited a day or two I'd have been just as well pleased."
A hearty peal of young laughter issuing from the billiard room drew his eyes thither. Three men, one of them hardly more than a boy, the others veteran news writers, came out upon the broad veranda. Seeing Stanton they came toward him, a little round ruddy man in the lead.
"You're Booth Stanton, aren't you?" he asked pleasantly.
Stanton nodded.
"What's the cause of all the excitement?" he asked. "You fellows land on the job as though a big, new story had broken. Why all the haste?"
The ruddy man put out his hand, laughing.
"I'm Tom Arnold. This is Mr. Enright. This, Mr. Dibley. All we know is that our various rags will run a good big story with pictures, and that we're glad of the vacation. Swell view from here, eh?"
"Steele … that fellow out there … isn't one of your crowd?"
A slightly puzzled look crept into Tom Arnold's eyes.
"No," he admitted. "He's not a local man, either. Funny guy. Asked him what sheet he was with and he told me the funniest story I've heard in a year. We've doped it up, though, that he's the New York Sun man. High cost of living and all that sort of thing, you know, has stirred a tremendous interest in all kinds of rural production. If he is the Sun man he's out here doing a detail of all western ranching."
"What makes you think he's with the Sun?"
"I'm the gumshoe," grinned young Enright. "First, we'd heard they were sending out a man. Second, he had a Sun in his pocket and had been reading a report on California mining and timber lands."
"Come in, boys," said Stanton, dropping the subject abruptly. "I'm pretty busy this morning, but we'll round up Bradford and get something to drink. Oh, Steele," he called, "join us over a bottle?"
William Steele turned without removing the pipe-stem from between his strong white teeth which shone cleanly as he answered. Across the brief distance separating him from the four men there came with the look of his eyes a sense of ineffable and unruffled good humour. Be he whatever else time and circumstance might prove him, one had but to look into the merry eyes, note the humorous mouth, mark the vigorous carriage of head and shoulders to write him down a man who drank deep of the sheer joy of life.
"No, thanks." The deep toned voice in harmony with the bigness of his bulk was also