Chapter XXVIII: Weston Stands Fast
Business called Weston to Winnipeg a few days after his interview with
Ida, and, as it happened, he met Stirling at the head of the
companionway when the big lake steamer steamed out into Georgian Bay. Neither of them had any other acquaintance on board, and they sat together in the shade of a deckhouse as the steamer ploughed her way smoothly across Lake Huron a few hours later. Weston had arranged to meet a Chicago stock-jobber who had displayed some interest in the mine, and he had chosen to travel up the lakes because it was more comfortable than in the cars in the hot weather, besides being somewhat cheaper, which was a consideration with him. Stirling, it seemed, was going to inspect the route for a railroad which an iron-mining company contemplated building. He lay in a deck-chair, with a cigar in his hand, apparently looking out at the shining water which stretched away before them, a vast sheet of turquoise, to the far horizon.
"Well," he asked at length, "how's the Grenfell Consolidated
progressing?"
"It seems to be making most progress backward," said Weston. "Still, I
suppose the fact that somebody evidently considered it worth while to
send up men to jump our claim might be considered encouraging."
He briefly related what had taken place at the mine, as far as
Saunders' letter had acquainted him with the facts, and Stirling
listened thoughtfully.
"It's a crude maneuver, so crude that, as you've nothing but
suspicions to go upon, it would be wiser not to mention them to
anybody else," he said. "After all, the jumpers may have been acting
on their own account."
"You believe they were?"
Stirling smiled. "I naturally don't know enough about the matter to
decide; but, in a general way, when I come across anything that seems
to the discredit of any gentleman of importance, or big combine with
which I may happen to be at variance, I keep it judiciously quiet
until I have the proofs in hand. I find it an excellent rule." Then he
added in a suggestive manner: "You probably have had another rather
more favorable offer since those jumpers failed?"
Weston admitted that this was the case and said that he had ignored
the offer. He further stated that, as he had found the mine, he meant
to keep it until he could dispose of it on satisfactory terms.
"That," said Stirling, dryly, "is a very natural wish, but one now and
then has some trouble in carrying out views of that kind. I've seen
your prospectus. Any applications for your shares?"
"They're by no means numerous." And a flush of anger crept into
Weston's face. "If that were the result of a depressed market or of
investors' indifference I shouldn't mind so much, but we are evidently
being subjected to almost every kind of unwarranted attack."
"Any mode of attack's legitimate in this kind of deal, and there's a
rather effective one your friends don't seem to have tried yet. Quite
sure it wouldn't be wiser to make what terms you can and let them have
the mine?"
"I'm afraid I haven't considered the wisdom of the course I mean to
adopt. Anyway, it's a simple one. If those people want that mine they
must break us first."
"Well," Stirling said, "I guess if I were you I'd allot very few of
those shares to what one might call general applicants. Locate them
among your friends and Wannop's clerks."
"There are uncommonly few general applicants, and my friends are not
the kind of men who have money to invest. The same thing probably
applies to Wannop's clerks. It's quite certain that nobody connected
with the Grenfell Consolidated could make them a present of the
shares."
"Considering everything, that's unfortunate, for, as I once pointed
out, the next move will probably be to sell your stock down. It's a
game that contains a certain hazard in the case of a small concern, because the stock is generally in few hands; but I've no doubt your friends will try it."
"Then we're helpless," said Weston. "We must raise sufficient money
among the general investors, or give up the mine."
"The situation," said Stirling, dryly, "seems unpleasant, but it's the
kind of one in which a little man who will neither make terms with a
big concern nor let his friends help him might expect to find
himself."