# The Girl Of Ghost Mountain/Chapter 12

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CHAPTER XII
QUONG TALKS
It was late when Sheridan and Jackson got back from the Hidden Meadow, where, tired as they were, they helped to restore order and patch up the broken doors. And, on the way home. Red gratefully assented to Sheridan's proposition that they lay off on the morrow. Juanita was a burden to be shifted. It was necessary that she should stay at the Circle S overnight, and, much against her will, Sheridan had packed her off to bed and locked the door upon her. She was departing for Yuma and marriage. Any breath of scandal that might arise would pass off her person as mist from a mirror.
"You'll see her to the train, buy her ticket through to Yuma, and ride herd on her, Red. Better slip something to the conductor to see she doesn't miss connections."
Red assented without comment and the next day he escorted Juanita and carried out instructions to the letter, buying her pinto and saddle at a fair price for the ranch. Juanita, fortified with enough for an elaborate trousseau and some over for dowry, departed cheerfully. To the fate of Hollister she appeared absolutely indifferent. What love she might have ever held for him had been bullied, beaten out of her.
​"Hope you'll be happy," said Red gallantly, as the tram pulled out and Juanita leaned from the open window of the car.
"Eso no es impossible," she replied. "Dios bendiga a usted." (It is not impossible. God bless you.)
While Red was on his mission Sheridan sat in the ranch living room, reading a magazine on stock breeding. A tap came at the door and Quong entered to his invitation, suave, courteous. The Chinaman had a faculty of impressing his quality in a manner that was patent to even the cowboys of the outfit. Apart from his pots and pans his poise was that of a mandarin rather than a cook.i Sheridani instinctively rose.
"Want to see me, Quong? Have a chair?"
Quong took the seat with the grave dignity of an ambassador.
"Mr. Sheridan," he said, "I have heard some talk between you and others about the irrigation of Chico Mesa. Might I ask you to tell me the full details of the subject?"
Sheridan could not entirely veil his surprise.
"It may be as well if I tell you something of myself," went on the imperturbable Quong. "You have wondered why I, speaking as I do, came to Metzal. And you have not pressed the matter." He bowed in acknowledgment of the courtesy received, bending in his chair.
"My right name is Hi Luen. I am a mandarin of the third rank. In China I owned certain lands. These are irrigated, for rice. Not as you will irrigate. The fields are terraced from the hillsides. I am not ​altogether a layman in the matter of agriculture.
"I am not one of those who believe in a new order for China. I belong to the old party, not to the Republicans. I do not believe China ripe for a republic. It is easy for the young, who gather knowledge as a child picks up shells, to be ripe for change. It is easy for children to take apart a clock, not for them to build another from those works and start it running. Many countries have outlived kings. The many millions of my countrymen need a paternal direction. To set them loose would be the same as letting loose an orphan school.
"The world says, China sleeps. I say China waits. To wait, that is her strongest weapon. She has waited, secure in her philosophies and in her ability to acquire knowledge, while kingdoms have risen and fallen, since long before your ancestors stained themselves with woad and listened to the creeds of priests who cut mistletoe from the oak and worshiped it. The so-called conquering nations win with fire and sword. In China the most despised occupation is that of a soldier. The world will come to our way of thinking. We can wait. And we can absorb.
"But my leanings have made me many enemies. Even in San Francisco I was a marked man, if not proscribed. They made me cut off my queue, they watched me, they undermined me with false witness, they set traps for me, I went in danger of my life. At the last—never mind the details—I was forced to flee by stealth, leaving the wreck of my fortunes and my enterprises. And I came to Metzal. I shall ​never return to San Francisco. I shall go, perhaps to Siam, to Burmah, or an island I know in the South Seas where gold can build for me, with my brains as architect, a new principality. I came to Metzal for this gold."
Sheridan smoked on quietly, listening to every word. He did not think that Quong, or Hi Luen, used many idle ones. Nor was he disposed to consider even the connection of Metzal with gold a chimera. Quong might be mysterious, but he was not apt, in Sheridan's opinion, to be foolish. His statement was matter of fact, it carried conviction. And Sheridan resolved to let Quong see that he too could wait.
"You are identified with this gold, in more ways than one," went on Quong. "For one thing, I have discovered its whereabouts through you. For another, I do not believe it possible for me to secure it without your aid. Will you tell me about your project?"
Sheridan fancied that Quong was watching to see if he had made his point in impressing the other with the probability of his talk of gold. He was inclined to concede it. He liked the Chinaman's methods. To a certain extent he would copy them. The word gold in the mouths of most men is pronounced with an unction, is rolled upon the tongue, accompanied by a glitter of the eyes, an excitement more or less subdued. Quong showed nothing of this. Sheridan curbed his own curiosity. He rose and took some rolls of paper from his desk.
"As an engineer and a surveyor," he said, "I am ​only a layman. But I have read much on the subject and the irrigation of Chico Mesa is a simple matter compared with many similar projects. It is my idea to create a community corporation, with community capital. I find that a hard matter. If I can secure the capital I shall still offer water rights on the same basis. In a way I am a Socialist.
"Here is the mesa. He unrolled a drawing. "This is drawn up crudely. There are no geodetic surveys to work from. But it is to scale and covers the present holdings and a broad margin of land that can come under the ditch. Until an expert goes over the matter, as engineer and surveyor, I am not prepared to state exactly either the amount of water gallons that may be furnished nor the acreage it can irrigate for alfalfa.
"I purpose to turn Chico Mesa into a high-grade, ultimately a thorough-bred cattle-raising community, those cattle fed upon home-grown alfalfa. To turn the water into alfalfa, the alfalfa into beef. These are my approximate working figures, reduced to a minimum, of the water supply and acreage."
Quong scanned the memoranda with close interest while Sheridan produced another map.
"I am honored by your confidence," he said. Sheridan bowed. The atmosphere was almost formal. And he was certain that his confidence was not misplaced. He had guarded already against usurpation of the main factors, so far as he was able to do so within his modest expenditures.
"Here is Lake of the Woods," he went on, "a reservoir already provided, fed by springs. It has ​a present underground outlet which must be plugged. It is not far below the surface. I have filed on the acreage, taking in the lake and the necessary margins and leads. No dam needs to be built, no tunnel run. A suction pump and a simple siphon will bring the water to a natural watercourse in this box canyon. Thence it must be flumed, a covered flume to prevent evaporation, or a pipe, to the main canal or ditch. That will be dredged without trouble in our soft soil, along this line. Most of it runs through my property."
He changed back to the first map.
"Laterals will be run as the cattlemen come into the scheme. I have traced the doubtful as well as probable lines of the ditches. The soil contains alkaline salts that will readily be diffused and will prove, in moderation, excellent as fertilizers, though this soil, as my own patch proves, will grow alfalfa without stimulus for the present. But these salts, in too great quantity, will make the land sour. There is a slight dip to the mesa, running transversely. As the water goes on the salts will leach to the bottom lands. We must have a drainage system, a canal. It is marked in red, approximately.
"I believe we can put water on the land at five dollars an acre, with a maintenance charge of fifty cents, that may be taken out in labor. That will be the charge to those who come into the original plan. Others, and later comers and buyers of the relinquishments and such properties under the ditch that the company may be able to acquire, will pay a greater price. Their money will go for extensions, ​or repairs, upkeep. Ultimately we shall pay dividends. But the great dividend will be in the increased value of the land the moment the water goes on it, the profits from the growing of alfalfa and improvements of the herds. The company may purchase bulls, sell the bull increase at a nominal sum to its stockholders, holding a forfeit interest for non-use or wrongful use, not giving absolute bills of sale.
"We shall extend the branch of the railroad, build a larger depot, create a larger, more substantial town, start a bank. There is a spot where a gravity siding may be built here. We shall aim to sell to nearby markets—Yuma, Phoenix, Bisbee—sell at home. Our cattle now go thin to the train and bring lean prices at distant stockyards where they have to be fed. There is always a demand at home for the best beef at a good price. I aim not to profiteer in those prices. We may be able to force the buyers to purchase at our end of the line. We shall do away with middlemen, commissioners, brokers. We may, when we have established ourselves, furnish money for necessary mortgages on long payments, a demortization plan where the man who wants to make improvements will pay back his borrowed capital in his interest—not more than six per cent.
"Later, we shall do away with the siphon. We shall build a power house. The water will first charge dynamos and then go on for irrigation. There will be electric lights on Chico Mesa. Telephones. Other improvements will follow. And all from natural sources, developed by legitimate property owners, profits and improvements going ​to those living on the land. All this has to be verified by experts, but I have gone pretty thoroughly into the thing and I believe that my figures substantially stand."
Despite his endeavor to adopt the manner of Quong there was a flash to Sheridan's eye and a ring to his voice that told of his spirit being in his plan.
"Modern altruism," said Quong quietly. "But possible. You mean to love your neighbor as yourself, Mr. Sheridan. You would make them prosperous against their own wills. In China, if such a scheme were possible, I should order the land owners to come in and pocket most of the profit as a tribute to my own brains. But you set an example of true democracy."
"I expect certain considerations for my origination," said Sheridan. "But they will be modest ones. Brains are held too cheaply in many ways in America."
"In your pulpits, in your schools, and in general by the moneyed class. Will you assume control of your company?"
"If possible, until it is launched. I shall not insist. It may be necessary to control the voting stock. I shall exercise that power, for the general good, if I possess it. But it is my intention to make the direction plastic, with short terms for the directors and simple rules incorporated in the by-laws. Suits for water rights in time of scarcity may occur. There will be provision for the board to be chosen from all sections of the property under the ditch."
"And, with your mixed community, with the ​apparent impossibility of getting the American rancher to combine, you are having difficulty to find local capital?" asked Quong with a slightly sarcastic emphasis.
"I am."
"I should like to supply the necessary capital for you to make a start, such a start as would furnish an object lesson that these people you propose to enrich cannot ignore."
"As a partner?"
Quong raised his eyebrows.
"It would be a new and not popular partnership, I fancy. White and—yellow." Again the vein of sarcasm cropped out slightly. "No.
"Mr. Sheridan, I am greatly in your debt. You saved me at Metzal Depot once. Again at Coyote Springs. But for you I should be run out of the country. Unwittingly, but truly, you have supplied me with information it might have taken me months—of waiting—to secure. I need your help, the help of a man who is honorable. As you have trusted me, I trust you. I do not ask a partnership, I offer one. I have no fancy for your cattle breeding, nor for your country—without offence. I am triply grateful to you. Words cannot repay it. I have not offered them. I have waited. I have knowledge of buried riches. I do not seek to erase my debt with cold metal against the services you have rendered with a warm heart. You are still necessary to my success. I can offer you the opportunity to develop your project, your object lesson, your answer to Bolshevism."
​There was the ghost of a gleam in his eyes. But it was not offensive. His courtesy was perfect.
"Is it a mine? A lost mine?"
"The product of a mine. In bullion. Probably a little over two thousand pounds of bullion. Virgin gold. More than a ton of virgin gold."
"A ton of gold and more. The way gold is jumping, that should mean close to three quarters of a million!" Sheridan could not keep the excitement out of his voice. But Quong's even tones did not vary.
"Between six and seven hundred thousand dollars. I think there is fully that amount. Waiting to be taken away. Belonging to no one. Once the sole property of a man who was killed in defense of it, who has left no heirs, no claimants, though, I think, their claims would have been idle. Beside myself—and you—only a man close to death, living in an opium heaven far superior to the one he will ultimately inhabit, or has so been taught to believe, knows the secret.
"This shipment of gold"—Quong had dropped his tones so that he exactly gauged the hearing distance between him and Sheridan, bending eagerly forward—came from a placer mine that yielded up this shipment and failed. Petered out, is the expression. It is now buried in the heart of one of the cliffs in the Painted Rocks, El Pueblo del Silencio. In return for what you have done, for what you will do as the ostensible leader of the enterprise, which would not be tolerated in me, I offer you half of the proceeds. Three hundred odd thousand dollars to be turned into water, alfalfa, beef, altruism!