Read Ebook: The High Hander by Turner William Oliver

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1085 lines and 72042 words, and 22 pages

How an Illustrated Newspaper is Produced--Wood-Engraving--Boxwood--Blocks for Illustrated Newspapers--Rapid Sketching--Drawing on the Block--Method of Dividing the Block for Engraving--Electrotyping--Development of the Printing Machine--Printing Woodcuts--Machinery for Folding Newspapers--Special Artists--Their Dangers and Difficulties--Their Adventures in War and Peace.

THE PICTORIAL PRESS: ITS ORIGIN AND PROGRESS.

The inherent love of pictorial representation in all races of men and in every age is manifest by the frequent attempts made to depict natural objects, under the most unfavourable circumstances and with the slenderest means. The rude drawing scratched on the smooth bone of an animal by the cave-dweller of pre-historic times, the painted rocks of the Mexican forests, and the cave-paintings of the Bushmen, are all evidences of this deeply-rooted passion. The child of civilised life looks with delight on his picture-book long before he can make out the letters of the alphabet, and the untutored Esquimaux treasures up the stray number of an illustrated newspaper left in his hut by the crew of some whaling ship, though he cannot understand one word of the printed page. But the pictures speak a universal language, which requires no teaching to comprehend.

The development of the newspaper press and its unrestricted use as the exponent of public opinion is one of the most interesting signs of modern progress. When we consider the liberty of thought and action that prevails in our own day, it is difficult to believe that our forefathers were liable to the pillory and other degrading punishments when they ventured to publish their opinions without first obtaining the sanction of the ruling powers. We are accustomed to the daily exercise of the right which cost Prynne his ears and brought fines and imprisonment on Defoe. Newspapers have become almost as necessary to our daily life as bread itself. The mind demands its breakfast as well as the body; and to many a busy man the loss of his morning paper would be as great a deprivation as the want of his usual matutinal meal.

In London, and in all our great centres of population, the newspaper has become the unfailing accompaniment of the City man's journey to business. At the railway stations journals of every kind tempt the loitering passenger, while the illustrated papers appeal to him in a language of their own. Whether in the railway carriage, the omnibus, or the steam-boat, the newspaper is eagerly conned, and its contents form the food of conversation. Most of these newspapers are cast aside at the end of the twenty minutes' or half hour's journey; and then, at second hand, they amuse the leisure moments of the railway porter, or, better still, they are collected together, and perhaps serve to solace the sick poor during many lingering hours in hospitals and refuges. Day by day the demand is made, and the supply is ready. The printing-machine never sleeps and is never tired. Its voice is one of the voices of the night--most unmusical, yet with a mysterious meaning. The daily newspaper, so potent in diffusing the light of knowledge, is itself the offspring of darkness. The busy brains and active fingers which create it turn night into day in the execution of their quickly recurring tasks, and with unflagging energy they labour on, that the slumbering world may be properly amused and instructed when it wakes.

"He ain't the friendly kind," Pinky said.

"You tangled with him before?"

"Idaho. I had a tent saloon; big wall tent, cost me four hundred dollars. Had another thousand in liquor and gambling equipment. Set up close to a construction camp. Tesno come along, said to move. I had a territorial license and wouldn't do it. He knocked down the tent and worked it over with a disc harrow. Nothing left but a pile of whisky-soaked rags."

"You should have blasted him," Madrid said. "Law would have been on your side."

"It would? Listen, four reservation bucks come along, wrung out the rags, and got crazy drunk. Tesno brought out the sheriff, and I got arrested for peddling booze to Indians!"

"Hell of a thing," Madrid said, picking up the gunbelt and moving away. "Well, I got work to do."

Pinky knew what he meant. There were folks who ought to be notified that Tesno was in town.

Tesno turned into a pine-wrapped road that wound the short quarter-mile to the construction camp. The cool and fragrant solitude touched some deeply hidden need in him and pulled at him, but he shook off the mood and strode ahead, tense and swaggering, eager to see Ben Vickers.

He found him in a cabin behind the bunkhouse, hunched over a table cluttered with papers held down by rocks. Ben was talking with a dapper, white-bearded man who paced the room. When he saw Tesno, Ben snatched off bent spectacles and leaped to his feet.

"Never was so glad to see a man!" he exclaimed, bouncing around the table to shake hands. He had a bland face and a topknot of gray hair that gave him the look of a kewpie doll. This look, Tesno knew, was deceptive. Ben Vickers had his failings, but blandness wasn't one of them. "You can start in the morning."

"Not so fast," Tesno said, grinning. "I'm not sure I'll like the work. Your letter gave no details."

"I've no time to chit-chat." Ben nodded toward the white-bearded man. "You ever met Jack Tesno, Mr. Jay?"

"Never had the pleasure." Clear blue eyes measured Tesno as they shook hands. Tesno had known of Jerome J. Jay for years. The man had made a reputation by taking over jobs other contractors had found too tough to finish. His being here might be a bad sign.

"If I barged in on something, I'll come back," Tesno said.

"I think we've finished our talk," Mr. Jay said, turning to Ben. "I'll see you again in a few days."

"If you can make better sense," Ben said.

"I've offered you a chance to get out with your shirt. Think damned good and hard about it." Mr. Jay touched his gray derby, nodded to Tesno, and strode out of the cabin.

"Sounds like he's trying to move in on you," Tesno said.

Ben strolled to his chair and sat down heavily. "I never cut a tunnel before. He has."

"He wants to buy your contract?"

"You could call it that. I'd lose what I've already sunk into the job--which is a fortune."

Tesno sat down and tilted his chair back against the log wall, his boot heels hooked over a rung.

"This job is do-or-die," Ben said. "I've mortgaged every horse, wagon, and harness snap I own. On top of everything else, I guaranteed the railroad I'd dig their damn tunnel in twenty-eight months. I backed up the guarantee by posting a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bond; cash money. If I hit daylight one hour late, I forfeit the bond.

"Mr. Jay offered to buy the contract for a hundred thousand, the amount of the bond. He would also take over my debts, but he'd save the cost of building the camp and a road and hauling men and equipment up here." Ben sighed, blowing upward at his kewpie-doll topknot. "He knows I'm forty days behind schedule and maybe can be tempted to pull out before I'm a complete pauper."

"Forty days!" Tesno said. "What cost you that much time?"

Ben made a sweeping gesture. "I had to build forty-five miles of mountain road. Had to build an all-weather camp. Set up an electric plant so we can light the bore with arc lamps. Got a sawmill going. Then there's the tunnel itself. Right at the exact spot marked on the map for the east portal, there was a damn waterfall. Had to move it--the waterfall. That cost me a week."

"You working from both ends toward the middle?"

"Naturally," Ben said. "But we're drilling by hand and the daily footage isn't half what it should be.... I've ordered a seven-ton boiler from Connecticut, Jack. With that, I can get compressors working and use Ingersoll drills. If it gets here soon enough, I might make it. If you can get the town in line...."

"I wondered when you'd get around to the town."

Ben wagged his head sadly, then smoothed his topknot. "Duke Parker got the jump on me there. Took out a townsite claim before I ever thought of such a thing. Jack this is the only spot within five miles that isn't practically straight up and down!"

"What happened to Duke, Ben?"

"The fool tried to skid a log down an icy slope. It ran over him. I guess they picked him up in a bucket."

"Seems like you might buy out his widow, run the town to suit yourself."

"Persia. She's got some kind of grudge against me, won't even set a price. Anyhow, it would be sky high. The saloons and faro tables are making her rich."

"And ruining you."

"You know what booze and gambling will do to a construction gang, Jack. And you've seen it bad, I know, but you've never seen anything like what I've got right now. Short crews every day: fights, accidents. Men broke all the time and grumbling. Best foreman I ever had got lucky at faro and got stabbed on his way back to camp. I've got a Swede tool-dresser in the hospital in Ellensburg, shot by a blackleg in a gambling argument."

"I don't know," Tesno said, scowling into the brightness as Ben lighted a lamp. "If this was the usual fly-by-night, tent-city type of operation, I'd know what to do. But a patented town with its own officials is a different animal."

"You cleaned up Spokane Falls."

"Sure, with a sizable group of decent businessmen to back me up. I'd guess there are precious few of those in Tunneltown."

Ben smiled mirthlessly. "You looked it over?"

"I ran into Pinky Bronklin and that candy-striped marshal."

"Madrid? He made a reputation as an express guard on the OR & N. Killed two bandits who tried to rob his car."

"I've heard the story," Tesno said. "I also heard they were half-frozen hoboes looking for a place to get warm."

Ben nodded grimly, then he spread his palms above the littered tabletop. "I'm not asking for miracles, Jack. I'll settle for midnight closing, no Sunday sales, no sales to drunks. Get rid of the knockout-drop artists and the drunk rollers. And the gambling. It causes as much trouble as the booze. There's a territorial statute that forbids casino gambling, but the county sheriff is the nearest law officer--sixty miles away at Ellensburg. The best he could do was agree to deputize any troublebuster I hire."

"Damned if I'll ride down there just to get a badge."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet