University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
KANUCK.

When he set forth upon his journey, Joseph had enough
of natural shrewdness to perceive that his own personal
interest in the speculation were better kept secret. The
position of the Amaranth property, inserted like a wedge
between the Fluke and Chowder Companies, was all the geography
he needed; and he determined to assume the character
of a curious traveller,—at least for a day or two,—to keep
his eyes and ears open, and learn as much as might be possible
to one outside the concentric “rings” of oil operations.

He reached Corry without adventure, and took passage in
the train to Oil City, intending to make the latter place the
starting-point of his investigations. The car was crowded,
and his companion on the seat was a keen, witty, red-faced
man, with an astonishing diamond pin and a gold watchchain
heavy enough to lift an anchor. He was too restless,
too full of “operative” energy, to travel in silence, as is the
universal and most dismal American habit; and before they
passed three stations he had extracted from Joseph the
facts that he was a stranger, that he intended visiting the
principal wells, and that he might possibly (Joseph allowing
the latter point to be inferred) be tempted to invest something,
if the aspects were propitious.

“You must be sure to take a look at my wells,” said the
stranger; “not that any of our stock is in the market,—it is
never offered to the public, unless accidentally,—but they
will give you an illustration of the magnitude of the business.

All wells, you know, sink after a while to what some people
call the normal flowing capacity (we oilers call it `the
everidge run'), and so it was reported of ourn. But since
we've begun to torpedo them, it's almost equal to the first
tapping, though I don't suppose it'll hold out so long.”

“Are the torpedoes generally used?” Joseph asked, in
some surprise.

“They're generally tried, anyhow. The cute fellow who
first hit upon the idea meant to keep it dark, but the oilers,
you'll find, have got their teeth skinned, and what they can't
find out isn't worth finding out! Lord! I torpedoed my
wells at midnight, and it wasn't a week before the Fluke
was at it, bustin' and bustin' all their dry auger-holes!”

“The what!” Joseph exclaimed.

“Fluke. Queer name, isn't it? But that's nothing:
we have the Crinoline, the Pipsissaway, the Mud-Lark, and
the Sunburst, between us and Tideoute.”

“What is the name of your company, if I may ask?”

“About as queer as any of 'em,—the Chowder.”

Joseph started, in spite of himself. “It seems to me I
have heard of that company,” he managed to say.

“O no doubt,” replied the stranger. “'T isn't often
quoted in the papers, but it's known. I'm rather proud of
it, for I got it up. I was boring—boss, though—at three
dollars a day, two years ago, and now I have my forty thousand
a year, `free of income tax,' as the Insurance Companies
say. But then, where one is lucky like the Chowder, a
hundred busts.”

Joseph rapidly collected himself while the man was speaking.
“I should very much like to see your wells,” he said.
“Will you be there a day or two from now? My name is
Asten,—not that you have ever heard of it before.”

“Shall be glad to hear it again, though, and to see you,”
said the man. “My name is Blenkinsop.”

Again it was all that Joseph could do to restrain his
astonishment.

“I suppose you are the President of the Chowder?” he
ventured to say.

“Yes,” Mr. Blenkinsop answered, “since it's a company.
It was all mine at the start, but I wanted capital, and I had
to work 'em.”

“What other important companies are there near you?”

“None of any account, except the Fluke and the Depravity.
They flow tolerable now, after torpedoing. To be sure, there
are kites and catches with all sorts o' names,—the Pennyroyal,
the Ruby, the Wallholler (whatever that is), and the
Amaranth,—ha, ha!”

“I think I have heard of the Amaranth,” Joseph mildly
remarked.

“Lord! are you bit already?” Mr. Blenkinsop exclaimed,
fixing his small, sharp eyes on Joseph's face.

“I—I really don't know what you mean.”

“No offence: I thought it likely, that's all. The Amaranth
is Kanuck's last dodge. He keeps mighty close, but
if he don't feather his nest in a hurry, at somebody's expense,
I ain't no judge o' men!”

Joseph did not dare to mention the Amaranth again. He
parted with Mr. Blenkinsop at Tarr Farm, and went on to
Oil City, where he spent a day in unprofitable wanderings,
and then set out up the river, first to seek the Chowder
wells, and afterwards to ascertain whether there was any
perennial beauty in the Amaranth.

The first thing which he remarked was the peculiar topography
of the region. The Chowder property was a sloping

bottom, gradually rising from the river to a range of high
hills a quarter of a mile in the rear. Just above this point
the river made a sharp horseshoe bend, washing the foot of
the hills for a considerable distance, and then curving back
again, with a second tract of bottom-land beyond. On the
latter, he was informed, the Fluke wells were located. The
inference was therefore irresistible that the Amaranth Company
must be the happy possessor of the lofty section of hills
dividing the two.

“Do they get oil up there?” he asked of Blenkinsop's
foreman, pointing to the ragged, barren heights.

“They may get skunk oil, or rattle-snake oil,” the man
answered. “Them'll do to peddle, but you can't fill tanks
with 'em. I hear they've got a company for that place,—
th' Amaranth, they call it,—but any place'll do for derned
fools. Why, look 'ee here! We've got seven hundred feet
to bore: now, jest put twelve hundred more atop o' that, and
guess whether they can even pump oil, with the Chowder
and Fluke both sides of 'em! But it does for green 'uns, as
well as any other place.”

Joseph laughed,—a most feeble, unnatural, ridiculous
laugh.

“I'll walk over that way to the Fluke,” he said. “I
should like to see how such things are managed.”

“Then be a little on your guard with Kanuck, if you
meet him,” the man good-naturedly advised. “Don't ask
him too many questions.”

It was a hot, wearisome climb to the timber-skeletons on
the summit (more like gibbets than anything else), which
denoted shafts to the initiated as well as the ignorant eye.
There were a dozen or more, but all were deserted.

Joseph wandered from one to the other, asking himself,

as he inspected each, “Is this the splendid speculation?”
What was there in that miserable, shabby, stony region, a
hundred acres of which would hardly pasture a cow, whence
wealth should come? Verily, as stony and as barren were
the natures of the men, who on this wretched basis built
their cheating schemes!

A little farther on he came to a deep ravine, cleaving the
hills in twain. There was another skeleton in its bed, but
several shabby individuals were gathered about it,—the
first sign of life or business he had yet discovered.

He hastened down the steep declivity, the warning of the
Chowder foreman recurring to his mind, yet it seemed so
difficult to fix his policy in advance that he decided to leave
everything to chance. As he approached he saw that the
men were laborers, with the exception of a tall, lean individual,
who looked like an unfortunate clergyman. He had a
sallow face, lighted by small, restless, fiery eyes, which reminded
Joseph, when they turned upon him, of those of a
black snake. His greeting was cold and constrained, and
his manner said plainly, “The sooner you leave the better I
shall be satisfied.”

“This is a rough country for walking,” said Joseph;
“how much farther is it to the Fluke wells?”

“Just a bit,” said one of the workmen.

Joseph took a seat on a stone, with the air of one who
needed rest. “This well, I suppose,” he remarked, “belongs
to the Amaranth?”

“Who told you so?” asked the lean, dark man.

“They said below, at the Chowder, that the Amaranth
was up here.”

“Did Blenkinsop send you this way?” the man asked
again.

“Nobody sent me,” Joseph replied. “I am a stranger,
taking a look at the oil country. I have never before been
in this part of the State.”

“May I ask your name?”

“Asten,” said Joseph, unthinkingly.

“Asten! I think I know where that name belongs. Let
me see.”

The man pulled out a large dirty envelope from his
breast-pocket, ran over several papers, unfolded one, and
presently asked,—

“Joseph Asten?”

“Yes.” (Joseph set his teeth, and silently cursed his
want of forethought.)

“Proprietor of ten thousand dollars' worth of stock in
the Amaranth! Who sent you here?”

His tone, though meant to be calm, was fierce and menacing.
Joseph rose, scanned the faces of the workmen, who
listened with a malicious curiosity, and finally answered,
with a candor which seemed to impress, while it evidently
disappointed the questioner:—

“No one sent me, and no one, beyond my own family,
knows that I am here. I am a farmer, not a speculator. I
was induced to take the stock from representations which
have not been fulfilled, and which, I am now convinced,
never will be fulfilled. My habit is, when I cannot get the
truth from others, to ascertain it for myself. I presume
you are Mr. Kanuck?”

The man did not answer immediately, but the quick,
intelligent glance of one of the workmen showed Joseph
that his surmise was correct. Mr. Kanuck conversed apart
with the men, apparently giving private orders, and then
said, with a constrained civility:—

“If you are bound for the Fluke, Mr. Asten, I will join
you. I am also going in that direction, and we can talk on
the way.”

They toiled up the opposite side of the ravine in silence.
When they had reached the top and taken breath, Mr.
Kanuck commenced:—

“I must infer that you have little faith in anything being
realized from the Amaranth. Any man, ignorant of the
technicalities of boring, might be discouraged by the external
appearance of things; and I shall therefore not endeavor to
explain to you my grounds of hope, unless you will agree to
join me for a month or two and become practically acquainted
with the locality and the modes of labor.”

“That is unnecessary,” Joseph replied.

“You being a farmer, of course I could not expect it.
On the other hand, I think I can appreciate your,—disappointment,
if we must call it so, and I should be willing,
under certain conditions, to save you, not from positive loss,
because I do not admit the possibility of that, but from
what, at present, may seem loss to you. Do I make my
meaning clear?”

“Entirely,” Joseph replied, “except as to the conditions.”

“We are dealing on the square, I take it?”

“Of course.”

“Then,” said Mr. Kanuck, “I need only intimate to you
how important it is that I should develop our prospects.
To do this, the faith of the principal stockholders must not
be disturbed, otherwise the funds without which the prospects
cannot be developed may fail me at the critical
moment. Your hasty and unintelligent impressions, if expressed
in a reckless manner, might do much to bring about
such a catastrophe. I must therefore stipulate that you

keep such impressions to yourself. Let me speak to you
as man to man, and ask you if your expressions, not being
founded on knowledge, would be honest? So far from it,
you will be bound in all fairness, in consideration of my
releasing you and restoring you what you have ventured, to
adopt and disseminate the views of an expert,—namely,
mine.”

“Let me put it into fewer words,” said Joseph. “You
will buy my stock, repaying me what I have disbursed, if,
on my return, I say nothing of what I have seen, and express
my perfect faith (adopting your views) in the success
of the Amaranth?”

“You have stated the conditions a little barely, perhaps,
but not incorrectly. I only ask for perfect fairness, as between
man and man.”

“One question first, Mr. Kanuck. Does Mr. Blessing
know the real prospects of the Amaranth?”

“No man more thoroughly, I assure you, Mr. Asten.
Indeed, without Mr. Blessing's enthusiastic concurrence in
the enterprise, I doubt whether we could have carried the
work so far towards success. His own stock, I may say to
you,—since we understand each other,—was earned by his
efforts. If you know him intimately, you know also that
he has no visible means of support. But he has what is
much more important to us,—a thorough knowledge of
men and their means.”

He rubbed his hands, and laughed softly. They had been
walking rapidly during the conversation, and now came suddenly
upon the farthest crest of the hills, where the ridge
fell away to the bottom occupied by the Fluke wells. Both
paused at this point.

“On the square, then!” said Mr. Kanuck, offering his

hand. “Tell me where you will be to-morrow morning,
and our business can be settled in five minutes. You will
carry out your part of the bargain, as man to man, when you
find that I carry out mine.”

“Do you take me for an infernal scoundrel?” cried
Joseph, boiling over with disgust and rage.

Mr. Kanuck stepped back a pace or two. His sallow face
became livid, and there was murder in his eyes. He put
his hand into his breast, and Joseph, facing him, involuntarily
did the same. Not until long afterwards, when other
experiences had taught him the significance of the movement,
did he remember what it then meant.

“So! that's your game, is it?” his antagonist said, hissing
the words through his teeth. “A spy, after all! Or a
detective, perhaps? I was a fool to trust a milk-and-water
face: but one thing I tell you,—you may get away, but
come back again if you dare!”

Joseph said nothing, but gazed steadily in the man's eyes,
and did not move from his position so long as he was within
sight. Then, breathing deeply, as if relieved from the dread
of an unknown danger, he swiftly descended the hill.

That evening, as he sat in the bar-room of a horrible
shanty (called a hotel), farther up the river, he noticed a
pair of eyes fixed intently upon him: they belonged to one
of the workmen in the Amaranth ravine. The man made
an almost imperceptible signal, and left the room. Joseph
followed him.

“Hush!” whispered the former. “Don't come back to
the hill; and get away from here to-morrow morning, if you
can!” With these words he darted off and disappeared in
the darkness.

The counsel was unnecessary. Joseph, with all his inexperience

of the world, saw plainly that his only alternatives
were loss — or connivance. Nothing was to be gained by
following the vile business any further. He took the earliest
possible train, and by the afternoon of the following day
found himself again in the city.

He was conscious of no desire to meet Mr. Blessing, yet
the pressure of his recent experience seemed to drive him
irresistibly in that direction. When he rang the bell, it was
with the hope that he should find nobody at home. Mr.
Blessing, however, answered the summons, and after the first
expression of surprise, ushered him into the parlor.

“I am quite alone,” he said; “Mrs. Blessing is passing
the evening with her sister, Mrs. Woollish, and Clementina
is still at Long Branch. I believe it is as good as settled
that we are to lose her; at least she has written to inquire
the extent of my available funds, which, in her case, is tantamount
to — very much more.”

Joseph determined to avoid all digressions, and insist on
the Amaranth speculation, once for all, being clearly discussed.
He saw that his father-in-law became more uneasy
and excited as he advanced in the story of his journey, and,
when it was concluded, did not seem immediately prepared
to reply. His suspicions, already aroused by Mr. Kanuck's
expressions, were confirmed, and a hard, relentless feeling of
hostility took possession of his heart.

“I — I really must look into this,” Mr. Blessing stammered,
at last. “It seems incredible: pardon me, but I would
doubt the statements, did they come from other lips than
yours. It is as if I had nursed a dove in my bosom, and
unexpectedly found it to be a — a basilisk!”

“It can be no serious loss to you,” said Joseph, “since
you received your stock in return for services.”

“That is true: I was not thinking of myself. The real
sting of the cockatrice is, that I have innocently misled you.”

“Yet I understood you to say you had ventured your
all?”

“My all of hope — my all of expectation!” Mr. Blessing
cried. “I dreamed I had overtaken the rainbow at last;
but this — this is senna — quassia — aloes! My nature is
so confiding that I accept the possibilities of the future as
present realities, and build upon them as if they were Quincy
granite. And yet, with all my experience, my acknowledged
sagacity, my acquaintance with the hidden labyrinths
of finance, it seems impossible that I can be so deceived!
There must be some hideous misunderstanding: I have calculated
all the elements, prognosticated all the planetary aspects,
so to speak, and have not found a whisper of failure!”

“You omitted one very important element,” Joseph said.

“What is that? I might have employed a detective, it
is true —”

“No!” Joseph replied. “Honesty!”

Mr. Blessing fell back in his chair, weeping bitterly.

“I deserve this!” he exclaimed. “I will not resent it.
I forgive you in advance of the time when you shall recognize
my sincere, my heartfelt wish to serve you! Go, go:
let me not recriminate! I meant to be, and still mean to
be, your friend: but spare my too confiding child!”

Without a word of good-by, Joseph took his hat and hastened
from the house. At every step the abyss of dishonesty
seemed to open deeper before his feet. Spare the too confiding
child! Father and daughter were alike: both mean,
both treacherous, both unpardonably false to him.

With such feelings he left the city next morning, and
made his way homewards.