falcon and wolf 16

 

Caveat Emptor or how to con a con-man

Chapter 16

 

“It snowed in the night,” said Wolf. “Not much; but you need to decide whether to winter here with old Joe, or head out.”

“I want to go pick up Blackwind, whatever we decide,” said Luke. “I think we’ll head out; the old man is happy with his own company.”

“Especially since that squaw moved in with him,” said Wolf.

“Be nice; she lost all her family,” said Luke, who had been as taken aback as Wolf when they went to visit Joe, and found he had a lady friend.

Wolf grunted agreement.

“I not want share cabin with couple,” he said.

Luke nodded.

He could concur with that. He was curious to know how the mining would go, but it wasn’t important. He had a pair of silver dice made with the silver from their own mine, just because it tickled his sense of humour, and a few bits of ore as a curiosity, but he was happy to move on.

Until the man with the machine turned up on the train, along with his companion.

He wore an old-fashioned suit, top hat, string tie and a watch chain on his waistcoat, and looked like a newspaper caricature of a senator or man of affairs. 

“Interesting gizmo, sir,” said Luke, looking at the box, about the size of a camera, almost a foot cube.

“Gizmo, you say, but this invention of mine will help every miner in the land once it’s patented and available,” said the man.

“Oh?” said Luke. Luke looked particularly guileless and innocent; his moustache had not as yet achieved more than the lightest fuzz upon his upper lip, and his hair, cut very short, was the model of that of a schoolboy.  Luke, with his youthful looks, could pass as sixteen, and from his patronising air, the man with his machine plainly took him as such.

“Indeed,” said the man. “Allow me to introduce myself; I am Aloyisius E. Scranbotter and my associate here is William Pierson.”

“Delighted, I’m sure,” said Luke. “You can call me Hank Solow.  What does your amazing machine do?”

“Do? It finds deposits of gold in mines thought to be worked out,” said Aloyisius E. Scranbotter.

“How remarkable,” said Luke. “Let me show you to the hotel.”

Having left Scranbotter to settle in, Luke nipped over to see Sheriff Carstairs.

“Jim, there’s a man whom I suspect is a con artist,” said Luke. “Now, if he has a genuine machine, I’ll be surprised but interested. But I keep my ear close to the ground over new technologies, and I never heard of anything like this.  I know they invented a machine to detect metal matter of three years ago, to find the bullet in President Garfield, and even the great Alexander Graham Bell forgot that the bed springs would interfere with that.  But I’ve not heard that it has been improved upon.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” said Jim Carstairs.

“Of course it’s possible,” said Luke. “That’s why I’m not calling for his arrest. I want you to find the deeds of a worked-out mine I can buy up, and I want to know which ones he buys.”

“I can do that,” said Jim.  “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to build a copy of Bell’s device, and check out any mines he buys, and keep a watch to see if he salts them with gold, to claim to be revivifying them for others to buy from him, which is the only way I can see him making money out of this,” said Luke.

“Keep me informed,” said Carstairs. “Here; this is Jim’s old mine, it’s a silver mine and all worked out.”

“It’s a gold mine, now,” said Luke. “And I’m Hank Solow, and my daddy died disappointed. You got that?”

“If you say so,” said Jim.

“What we do if man pull scam?” asked Wolf.

“I was thinking that we might just scam him back,” said Luke. He went to the hardware store and purchased some strange equipment which he proceeded to put together.

“What does it do?” asked Wolf.

“Basically, it is like a telephone system, and when metal is near it, it interferes with the system and makes a noise on the line,” said Luke. “I shall call it Olek Ding after its inventor, and you will crank the handles as fast as you can to cause current to flow.”

 

 

Luke had guessed correctly when he thought that Scranbotter would buy up several mining concessions for a song; and as soon as Jim Carstairs let him know which ones, he and Wolf went to inspect them, and check for themselves with Luke’s Induction Balance, as Bell had named it, that there was no detectable metal. He also had a good look round, having borrowed a Brush patent arc lamp for the purpose. 

“We ain’t very deep,” said Wolf.

“Nope,” said Luke. “It’s my belief he wants to make a demonstration near the entrance and claim a seam that’s been overlooked in the desire to go deeper.”

“You have a nose for this sort of thing,” said Wolf.  “There’s no gold here. And we’ve checked every inch.”

It was the same in other mines.

Well, doubtless they would see about what Scranbotter was up to.

 

oOoOo

 

Scranbotter made his move in setting up a stall in the main street, calling upon the townsfolk to gather round and see his miraculous machine in action.

“Well, that about clinches it,” said Luke, to Wolf.  “I did wonder if he was an honest man, hoping to use a metal detector honestly.”

Mr. Scranbotter’s machine was considerably more sophisticated, supposedly, than that made by Alexander Graham Bell, and could be set to particular types of metal. He demonstrated it on silver dollars, nickels, dimes, and lead piping as well as a nugget of gold.

“How do you alter the induction current to pick up the type of metal?” asked Luke.

Mr. Scranbotter started to glare at him, then smiled, kindly.

“Ah, this is the trouble when a layman like yourself has a little knowledge, but is not a highly trained scientist as I am,” he said, loftily. “The different induction circuits invoked by moving the lever are how the different metals are detected. I doubt if you could understand it if I explained it.”

“I see,” said Luke. He muttered an aside to Wolf, “I doubt if Bell could understand such a charlatan either.”

“Him have heap big forked tongue,” opined Wolf.

“Big enough to knit a pair of socks one from each fork,” agreed Luke. “The problem is, most people are impressed by machines.”

The crowd was generally impressed by the machine.

“Ain’t no point comin’ round here,” said one old man. “Mines are mostly worked out. Unless y’re a-hopin’ to find new ones?”

“Ah, a sensible query,” said Scranbotter. “What I am hoping is to check out some old mines, long abandoned, and I will test a theory of mine, that when a vein is found, and followed in, there may be side veins missed as the mineshaft was driven deeper. There might even be some small gold to be found in the spoil heaps.”

“So, you likely to be hirin’ hands if you finds gold?” asked a man.

“To be honest, I was planning on selling any mines on where I find gold, for the benefit of the community,” said Scranbotter. “This device has made me sufficiently wealthy that I want to give back some to the community by sharing my good fortune.”

Luke almost gave him a slow hand clap, but managed to stop himself in time.

“I’m bound to say,” said Jim Carstairs, loudly, “That this sounds like a new-fangled kind of snake-oil to me, and iff’n any of you buy into a mine which really is worked out, then don’t come cryin’ to me. I’m givin’ the folks of this town fair warning that it’s my belief that this here fellow is a conman and that he has his own ways of making mines seem to come back to life.”

Scranbotter shot Jim a filthy look.

“Your sodbuster lawman is not a man of science,” he said. “O’ course, he done right to warn you folks, and if I was a crook, I’d slink right out of town for having been called on it.  But as I am a righteous man, and a scientist, I am staying right here. Haven’t I put my money where my mouth is, in buying up supposedly worked out mines? Would I buy them if I did not think I could make money from them?”

There was a murmur at this, being taken as reasonable. Jim threw up his hands.

“Well, then, on your own head be it.” Jim Carstairs shrugged, and walked away.

“Some people have such nasty, suspicious minds,” said Scranbotter, sadly. “I merely wish to benefit my fellow man with using my own discoveries to make life easier.”

“I take it you did base it on Alexander Graham Bell’s invention with which he tried so hard and fruitlessly to find the bullet which killed President Garfield?” asked Luke.

“Ah, my partly-educated young friend!  Indeed, it must be a basis for all research; and he did his best.  Of course, one hesitates to say that the Great Man had had his day….”

Scranbotter removed his hat, and held it, head bowed, whether showing mourning for President Garfield, or for the implied loss of the faculties of Alexander Graham Bell it was impossible to say.

As one ham actor of another, Luke acknowledged the man’s ability to lead people around by the nose.

“You know about this yere machine, then?” asked the old man who had asked if there might be jobs going. “You’re a friend of old Jim, ain’t yer?”

“Yes, I count Jim a friend,” said Luke.  “I know that Bell only failed because the president was on metal bedsprings which interfered with the machine; and that it’s possible to pick up metal. I’ve not heard of one that could tell one metal from another, mind.  I don’t know if it’s possible; my daddy had me taught enough science to understand any modern appliance, and I read plenty of books and magazines. But I don’t claim to be up-to-date on what’s newly invented. I’d be right interested to see this gizmo work in the wild, so to say, in one of the old mines.”

“And so you shall!” beamed Scranbotter. “The very first mine here, around which the town was built, Lee’s mine, is but a few minutes’ walk from here. Come, Pierson, bring the machine!”

Scranbotter set off at a brisk pace, with what seemed to be half the town surging along behind him, like a latter-day pied-piper charming the children of Hamelin. The long legs and curious gait of the man made Luke’s mind wander from one medieval figure to another.

“Oh, that I might see him in yellow stockings and cross-gartered,” he murmured.

“Is that from something Latin?” asked Wolf.

“No, it’s from Shakespeare.

“Ah, Wolf Shakespeare, very fine Cherokee brave. The plays sound better in original Cherokee,” said Wolf with a straight face.

“You’re a fool, my friend.”

“It irritates a lot of white men, though,” said Wolf. “Which was my whole point in coming up with it.”

“It could work, though,” said Luke. “The stories brought back at the same sort of time as tobacco.”

“Exactly,” said Wolf.

They followed Scranbotter whilst indulging in this whimsy, to the mine which had been the first, dug into the wall of the valley in which the town sat.

“And observe,” said Scranbotter, fiddling with his machine. “Gold has long gone from this mine, but let us see if I set it up to find gold, and move it up and down the walls… why, it is bleeping already!” he added, unnecessarily, as the machine made a squawking noise.  “A prominent citizen to come and see what we have here! Mr. Solow, perhaps?”

Luke remembered that he had thus introduced himself. His name was not well-known here, but those who did know it, gave him a sharp look.

He went forward.

“Why, it does look like gold,” he said.

“My vindication!” crowed Scranbotter.

“Well, with such a demonstration, perhaps I will ask you to look over the old mine my daddy left me,” said Luke. “I’ll be interested to see if Joe’s Hill goldmine has any gold left in it. I’ll pay you for your time, of course,” he added.

“I… yes, why not?” said Scranbotter.

Wolf had quietly laid a hand over the mouth of Joe’s friend, and took him outside the mine to explain a few things.

 

Mr. Scranbotter was a happy man. He had persuaded a local, a mine owner, as he thought, that he could find gold. Of course, Mr. Solow was going to be disappointed in his own mine, since there was no way Mr. Scranbotter could gain the deeds to it and sell it back to him, or not without some recrimination. However, to show one worked out mine to be truly worked out would help to prove his bonafides.

He had a date after breakfast next morning to ride over to Joe’s Hill.

He had no idea that Luke and Wolf were up half the night, salting the spoil heaps with high grade silver ore.

He was ready to saddle up with the dour Mr. Pierson at the appointed hour. Luke met them and they rode out for three quarters of an hour through the mountain passes to Joe’s old mine. Luke had arranged the silver ore in the spoil heaps to gleam in the morning sun.  Mr. Scranbotter gasped and he reined in to get a better look.

“That’s only the spoil,” said Luke.  “Nothing there; come on. I know there’s a gleam, but it ain’t gold.”

Scranbotter leaned over to murmur to Pierson to pick up a piece of the gleaming stone once he had Luke’s attention within. Luke had ears like a lynx, and he smiled to himself.  If Scranbotter knew his ores, he would recognise silver ore when he saw it. Letting a man think himself cleverer than his mark, but making him do his own identifying, was the way to hook him, and draw him in.

Luke hustled Scranbotter within.

There was nothing left in this mine.  Luke had checked it out with his own metal detector. There wasn’t even any of the yellowish-grey rock which apparently made an orange glaze, and was said to make folks sick.  Well, Joe knew about that, and knew to avoid that rock, or throw it all outside. Maybe it would turn out to be useful, one day.  Maybe not.  Meanwhile, Scranbotter was making little disappointed noises.

“No gold left?” asked Luke.

“Alas, no,” said Scranbotter, in the tones of a parson who has lost a soul and found a caterpillar.

“Oh, well, I suppose I hoped,” said Luke. “Well, maybe I can use it to rear mushrooms.”

“I might consider buying it to conduct experiments,” said Scranbotter.

“Out of the question,” said Luke. “My daddy left it to me, and he expected me to do the best I might with the land.  And mushrooms are big business, you know. Once I shovel in a load of horse shit, and get some mushrooms dug up to start off, I’m laughing all the way to the bank. Mushrooms grow all year round in underground conditions, you know, and they fetch premium prices fresh out of season. I could be selling them in New York in a year or two. Or to the Pullman carriages; think what a coup that would be.”

Scranbotter gave a sickly smile.

Silver was not as valuable as it had been before the so-called ‘crime of ‘73’ when America joined many European countries in stopping the minting of silver coins until the cost of silver dropped, as it was worth smelting dollars to get a higher price on them as silver metal at the time. Silver was, however, worth around one sixteenth the value of gold the same weight, but silver ore that pure, even with the costs of smelting at around ten dollars per ton, with the labour involved, would likely return, at a conservative estimate, a fiftieth of the ore  proving to be silver. Some was waiting for him, ready dug, in the spoil heaps, but even without that, that was thirty-five cents a pound, or seven hundred dollars per ton.  With the men digging perhaps four tons a day, Scranbotter almost fainted.

“I don’t see you farming mushrooms,” said Scranbotter. “Young fellow like you should be thinking about getting married, not grubbing in the dirt and darkness. Let me take it off your hands.”

“But I don’t want to sell,” said Luke, stubbornly.

Scranbotter glared covertly at him.

“How much would tempt you to change your mind?” he asked.

“Eh? Well, it would have to be a considerable sum to be tempting at all when I have quite made up my mind to farm for mushrooms,” said Luke. “I thought I would start to fill the deeper shafts with spoil from the spoil heaps; I started doing so before you brought out your amazing machine.”

Scranbotter suppressed a scream of outrage. He named a sum.

“Oh, no, not worth my time of day,” said Luke. “It might take me more time to make money on mushrooms than digging out ore, but it’s a regular little moneyspinner. Why do you want it so much?”

“I think it perfect to be so close to town, and yet far enough away to be out of the way to conduct experiments. You could buy another worked out mine if you really want to rear mushrooms.”

“I suppose so, but this is the mine my daddy left me,” said Luke, stubbornly. “And I could not give it up for a paltry sum.”

“You would have to take my note of hand to the city to my bank,” said Scranbotter. Recklessly, he scrawled a sum on a note of hand.

Luke glanced at it, and hid a grin.

“I… I suppose I cannot refuse such a generous sum,” he said. “It seems extraordinary to me that you could value it as much as I do.”

“Oh, but I do,” said Scranbotter. He planned to pick over the spoil heap and do some smelting whilst Luke was away cashing his cheque.

“I must have it in writing, you know, that you are aware the mine is worked out, on the bill of sale,” said Luke.

“Of course,” said Scranbotter. “Shall we go to the Land Office?”

“Certainly,” said Luke.  “Jim Carstairs oversees it now most of the mines are worked out; if there is a revival, then doubtless there will be a new land officer elected.”

 

Luke and Wolf were already packed, and they were on the train that came in at high noon, and were off to the city.  Here Luke presented the cheque, the copy of the bill of sale, and collected the cash to deposit in his own bank, before the furious wire arrived stopping the cheque.

Luke sent his own wire, as it happened shortly after Scranbotter discovered that he had spent the greater part of his own ill-gotten gains on a useless mine, and having learned too late that the mine involved had been a silver mine, not a gold mine.

Luke’s wire was two words.

Caveat Emptor.