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Gunsight Pass: How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West

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<h2 id="id01760">CHAPTER XXVIII</h2><h5 id="id01761">DAVE MEETS A FINANCIER</h5> On more careful consideration Crawford and Sanders decided against trying to float the Jackpot with local money except by the sale of enough stock to keep going until the company's affairs could be put on a substantial basis. To apply to the Malapi bank for a loan would be to expose their financial condition to Steelman, and it was certain that he would permit no accommodation except upon terms that would make it possible to wreck the company. "I'm takin' the train for Denver to-morrow, Dave," the older man said. "You stay here for two-three days and sell enough stock to keep us off the rocks, then you hot-foot it for Denver too. By the time you get there I'll have it all fixed up with the Governor about a pardon." Dave found no difficulty in disposing of a limited amount of stock in Malapi at a good price. This done, he took the stage for the junction and followed Crawford to Denver. An unobtrusive little man with large white teeth showing stood in line behind him at the ticket window. His destination also, it appeared, was the Colorado capital. If Dave had been a believer in fairy tales he might have thought himself the hero of one. A few days earlier he had come to Malapi on this same train, in a day coach, poorly dressed, with no job and no prospects in life. He had been poor, discredited, a convict on parole. Now he wore good clothes, traveled in a Pullman, ate in the diner, was a man of consequence, and, at least on paper, was on the road to wealth. He would put up at the Albany instead of a cheap rooming-house, and he would meet on legitimate business some of the big financial men of the West. The thing was hardly thinkable, yet a turn of the wheel of fortune had done it for him in an hour. The position in which Sanders found himself was possible only because Crawford was himself a financial babe in the woods. He had borrowed large sums of money often, but always from men who trusted him and held his word as better security than collateral. The cattleman was of the outdoors type to whom the letter of the law means little. A debt was a debt, and a piece of paper with his name on it did not make payment any more obligatory. If he had known more about capital and its methods of finding an outlet, he would never have sent so unsophisticated a man as Dave Sanders on such a mission. For Dave, too, was a child in the business world. He knew nothing of the inside deals by which industrial enterprises are underwritten and corporations managed. It was, he supposed, sufficient for his purpose that the company for which he wanted backing was sure to pay large dividends when properly put on its feet. But Dave had assets of value even for such a task. He had a single-track mind. He was determined even to obstinacy. He thought straight, and so directly that he could walk through subtleties without knowing they existed. When he reached Denver he discovered that Crawford had followed the Governor to the western part of the State, where that official had gone to open a sectional fair. Sanders had no credentials except a letter of introduction to the manager of the stockyards. "What can I do for you?" asked that gentleman. He was quite willing to exert himself moderately as a favor to Emerson Crawford, vice-president of the American Live Stock Association. "I want to meet Horace Graham." "I can give you a note of introduction to him. You'll probably have to get an appointment with him through his secretary. He's a tremendously busy man." Dave's talk with the great man's secretary over the telephone was not satisfactory. Mr. Graham, he learned, had every moment full for the next two days, after which he would leave for a business trip to the East. There were other wealthy men in Denver who might be induced to finance the Jackpot, but Dave intended to see Graham first. The big railroad builder was a fighter. He was hammering through, in spite of heavy opposition from trans-continental lines, a short cut across the Rocky Mountains from Denver. He was a pioneer, one who would take a chance on a good thing in the plunging, Western way. In his rugged, clean-cut character was much that appealed to the managers of the Jackpot. Sanders called at the financier's office and sent in his card by the youthful Cerberus who kept watch at the gate. The card got no farther than the great man's private secretary. After a wait of more than an hour Dave made overtures to the boy. A dollar passed from him to the youth and established a friendly relation. "What's the best way to reach Mr. Graham, son? I've got important business that won't wait." "Dunno. He's awful busy. You ain't got no appointment." "Can you get a note to him? I've got a five-dollar bill for you if you can." "I'll take a whirl at it. Jus' 'fore he goes to lunch." Dave penciled a line on a card. If you are not too busy to make $100,000 to-day you had better see me. He signed his name. Ten minutes later the office boy caught Graham as he rose to leave for lunch. The big man read the note. "What kind of looking fellow is he?" he asked the boy. "Kinda solemn-lookin' guy, sir." The boy remembered the dollar received on account and the five dollars on the horizon. "Big, straight-standin', honest fellow. From Arizona or Texas, mebbe. Looked good to me." The financier frowned down at the note in doubt, twisting it in his fingers. A dozen times a week his privacy was assailed by some crazy inventor or crook promoter. He remembered that he had had a letter from some one about this man. Something of strength in the chirography of the note in his hand and something of simple directness in the wording decided him to give an interview. "Show him in," he said abruptly, and while he waited in the office rated himself for his folly in wasting time. Underneath bushy brows steel-gray eyes took Dave in shrewdly. "Well, what is it?" snapped the millionaire. "The new gusher in the Malapi pool," answered Sanders at once, and his gaze was as steady as that of the big state-builder. "You represent the parties that own it?" "Yes." "And you want?" "Financial backing to put it on its feet until we can market the product." "Why don't you work through your local bank?" "Another oil man, an enemy of our company, controls the Malapi bank." Graham fired question after question at him, crisply, abruptly, and Sanders gave him back straight, short answers. "Sit down," ordered the railroad builder, resuming his own seat. "Tell me the whole story of the company." Dave told it, and in the telling he found it necessary to sketch the Crawford-Steelman feud. He brought himself into the narrative as little as possible, but the grizzled millionaire drew enough from him to set Graham's eye to sparkling. "Come back to-morrow at noon," decided the great man. "I'll let you know my decision then." The young man knew he was dismissed, but he left the office elated. Graham had been favorably impressed. He liked the proposition, believed in its legitimacy and its possibilities. Dave felt sure he would send an expert to Malapi with him to report on it as an investment. If so, he would almost certainly agree to put money in it. A man with prominent white front teeth had followed Dave to the office of Horace Graham, had seen him enter, and later had seen him come out with a look on his face that told of victory. The man tried to get admittance to the financier and failed. He went back to his hotel and wrote a short letter which he signed with a fictitious name. This he sent by special delivery to Graham. The letter was brief and to the point. It said: Don't do business with David Sanders without investigating his record. He is a horsethief and a convicted murderer. Some months ago he was paroled from the penitentiary at Cañon City and since then has been in several shooting scrapes. He was accused of robbing a stage and murdering the driver less than a week ago. Graham read the letter and called in his private secretary. "McMurray, get Cañon City on the 'phone and find out if a man called David Sanders was released from the penitentiary there lately. If so, what was he in for? Describe the man to the warden: under twenty-five, tall, straight as an Indian, strongly built, looks at you level and steady, brown hair, steel-blue eyes. Do it now." Before he left the office that afternoon Graham had before him a typewritten memorandum from his secretary covering the case of David Sanders. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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