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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shadow Mountain, by Dane Coolidge
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Shadow Mountain
+
+Author: Dane Coolidge
+
+Illustrator: George W. Gage
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2009 [EBook #30574]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHADOW MOUNTAIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: She reached out smiling wistfully and touched him with
+her hand.]
+
+
+
+
+SHADOW MOUNTAIN
+
+BY
+
+DANE COOLIDGE
+
+AUTHOR OF THE DESERT TRAIL, ETC.
+
+FRONTISPIECE BY
+
+GEORGE W. GAGE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
+
+W. J. WATT & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  Chapter                                   Page
+       I.  The Last of Ten Thousand            1
+      II.  The Shotgun Widow                  10
+     III.  The Shadow                         22
+      IV.  The Ghost Man                      30
+       V.  A Load of Buckshot                 38
+      VI.  All Crazy                          48
+     VII.  Between Friends                    58
+    VIII.  The Tip                            68
+      IX.  A Peace Talk                       78
+       X.  The Best Head in Town              89
+      XI.  A Touch                            98
+     XII.  The Expert                        106
+    XIII.  A Sack of Cats                    118
+     XIV.  The Explosion                     127
+      XV.  The God of Ten Per Cent           135
+     XVI.  A Showdown With the Widow         143
+    XVII.  Peace--and the Price              151
+   XVIII.  On Christmas Day                  160
+     XIX.  The Enigma                        170
+      XX.  An Appeal To Charley              179
+     XXI.  The Dragon's Teeth                187
+    XXII.  Virginia Explains--Nothing        196
+   XXIII.  On Demand                         204
+    XXIV.  Double Trouble                    214
+     XXV.  Virginia Repents                  223
+    XXVI.  The Call                          231
+   XXVII.  The Thunder Clap                  239
+  XXVIII.  The Way Out                       248
+    XXIX.  Across Death Valley               259
+     XXX.  An Evening With Socrates          269
+    XXXI.  The Broken Trust                  279
+   XXXII.  A Huff                            290
+  XXXIII.  The Fiery Furnace                 299
+   XXXIV.  A Clean-up                        305
+
+
+
+
+SHADOW MOUNTAIN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE LAST OF TEN THOUSAND
+
+
+Under the rim of Shadow Mountain, embraced like a pearl of great price
+by the curve of Bonanza Point and the mined-out slope of Gold Hill, the
+deserted city of Keno lay brooding and silent in the sun. A dry, gusty
+wind, swooping down through the northern pass, slammed the great iron
+fire-doors that hung creaking from the stone bank building, caught up a
+cloud of sand and dirt and, whirling it down past empty stores and assay
+offices, deposited it in the doorways of gambling houses and dance
+halls, long since abandoned to the rats. An old man, pottering about
+among the ruins, gathered up some broken boards and hobbled off; and
+once more Keno, the greatest gold camp the West has ever seen, sank back
+to silence and dreams.
+
+A round of shots wakened the echoes of Shadow Mountain; a lonely miner
+came down the trail from Gold Hill, where in the old days the Paymaster
+had turned out its million a month; and then, far out across the floor
+of the desert on the road that led in from the railroad, there appeared
+an arrow-point of dust. It grew to a racing streak of white, the distant
+purring of the motor gave way to a deep-voiced thunder and as the
+powerful car glided swiftly up the street the doors of old houses opened
+unexpectedly and the last of ten thousand looked out.
+
+There were old men and cripples, left stranded by the exodus; and
+prospectors who had moved into the vacant houses along with the other
+desert rats; but out on the gallery of the old Huff mansion--where the
+creepers still clung to the lattice--there was a flutter of white and a
+girl came out with a kitten in her arms. In the days of gold--when ten
+thousand men, the choice spirits of two hemispheres, had tramped down
+this same deserted street--the house of Colonel Huff, the discoverer of
+the Paymaster, had been the social center of Keno. And so it was still,
+for the Widow Huff remained; but across the front of the hospitable
+gallery where the Colonel had entertained the town, a cheap cloth sign
+announced meals fifty cents and Virginia, his daughter, was the waiter.
+She stood by the sign, still high-headed and patrician, and when the
+driver of the car saw her he came to a sudden stop. He was long and
+gaunt, with deep lines around his mouth from bucking the wind and dust
+and after a moment's hesitation he threw on his brake and leapt out.
+
+"Did you want something?" she asked and, glancing warily about, he
+nodded and came up the steps.
+
+"Yes," he said, still eying her doubtfully, "what's the chance for
+something to eat?"
+
+"Why, good," she answered with a suspicion of a smile. "Or--well, come
+in; I'll speak to mother."
+
+She showed him into the spacious dining room, where the Colonel had
+once presided in state, and hurried into the kitchen. The young man
+gazed after her, looked swiftly about the room and backed away towards
+the door; then his strong jaw closed down, he smiled grimly to himself
+and sat down unbidden at a table. The table was mahogany and, in a
+case against the wall, there was a scant display of cut glass; but the
+linen was worn thin and the expensive velvet carpet had been ruined by
+hob-nailed boots. Heavy workingmen's dishes lay on the tables, the
+plating was worn from the knives, and the last echoing ghost of
+vanished gentility was dispelled by a voice from the kitchen. It was
+the Widow Huff, once the first lady of Keno, but now a boarding-house
+cook.
+
+"What--a dinner now? At half-past three? And with this wind fairly
+driving me crazy? Well, I can't _hire_ anybody to keep such hours
+for _me_ and----"
+
+There was a murmur of low-voiced protest as Virginia pleaded his cause
+and then, as the Widow burst out anew, the young man pushed back his
+chair. His blue eyes, half hidden beneath bulging brows, turned a
+steely, fighting gray, his wind-blown hair fairly bristled; and as he
+listened to the last of the Widow's remarks his lower lip was thrust up
+scornfully.
+
+"You danged old heifer," he muttered and then the kitchen door flew
+open. The baleful look which he had intended for the Widow was surprised
+on his face by Virginia and after a startled moment she closed the door
+behind her.
+
+"Why--Wiley Holman!" she cried accusingly and a challenge leapt into his
+eyes.
+
+"Well?" he demanded and gazed at her sullenly as she scanned him from
+head to foot.
+
+"I knew it," she burst out. "I'd know that stubborn look anywhere! You
+double up your lip like your father. Honest John!" she added
+sarcastically and brushed some crumbs from the table.
+
+"Yes--Honest John!" he retorted. "And you don't need to say it like
+that, either. He's my father--I know him--and I'll tell you right now he
+never cheated a man in his life."
+
+"Well, he did!" she flared back, her eyes dark with anger, "and I'll
+bet--I'll bet if my father was here he'd--he'd prove it to your face!"
+
+She ended in a sob and as he saw the tears starting the son of Honest
+John relented.
+
+"Aw, Virginia," he pleaded, "what's the use of always fighting? He's
+gone now, so let's be friends. I was just going by when I saw you on the
+gallery, and I thought--well, let's you and I be friends."
+
+"What? After old Honest John robbed Papa of the Paymaster, and then
+hounded him to his death on the desert?"
+
+"He did nothing of the kind--he never robbed anybody! And as for
+hounding your father to his death, the Old Man never even knew about it.
+He was down on the ranch, and when they told him the news----"
+
+"Yes, that's you," she railed, stifling back her sobs, "you can always
+prove an alibi. But you'd better drift, Mr. Holman; because if mother
+knows you're here----"
+
+"Well, what?" he demanded, truculently.
+
+"She'll fill you full of buckshot."
+
+"Pah!" he scoffed and snapped his fingers in the air, after which he
+lapsed into silence.
+
+"Well, she will," she asserted, after waiting for him to speak, but
+Wiley only grunted.
+
+"Wait till I get that dinner," he said at last and slumped down into a
+chair. He muttered to himself, gazing dubiously towards the kitchen, and
+turned impatiently to look at some specimens in a case against the wall.
+They were the usual chunks of high-grade gold ore, but he examined one
+piece with great care.
+
+"Where'd you get this?" he asked, holding up a piece of white rock, and
+she sighed and brushed away her tears.
+
+"Over on the dump," she answered wearily. "That's all Paymaster ore.
+Don't you think you'd better go?"
+
+"Never ran away yet," he answered briefly and balanced the rock in his
+hand. "Pretty heavy," he observed, "I'll bet it would assay. Have you
+got very much on the dump?"
+
+"What--_that_?" she cried, snatching the specimen away from him and
+bursting into a nervous laugh. "That assay? Well, you are a
+greenie--it's nothing but barren white quartz!"
+
+"Oh, it is, eh?" he rejoined and gazed at her hectoringly. "You seem to
+know a whole lot about mineral."
+
+"Yes, I do," she boasted. "Death Valley Charley teaches me. I've learned
+how to pan, and everything. But that rock there--that's the barren
+quartz that the Paymaster ran into when the values went out of the ore.
+Old Charley knows all about it."
+
+"Yes, they all do," he observed and as his lip went up her eyes dilated
+suddenly in a panic.
+
+"Oh, you went to that school--I forgot all about it--where they study
+about the mines! Are you in the mining business now?"
+
+"Why, yes," he acknowledged, "but that doesn't make much difference. I
+find I can learn something from most everybody."
+
+"Well, of course, then," she stammered, "I shouldn't have said that; but
+the whole Paymaster dump is covered with that heavy quartz, and
+everybody knows it's barren. Are you just looking around or----"
+
+She hesitated politely and as he reached for another specimen she
+noticed a ring on his finger. It was of massive gold and, set in
+clutching claws, there were three stupendous diamonds. Not imitation
+stones nor small, off-colored diamonds, but brilliants of the very first
+water, clear as dew, yet holding in their hearts the faintest suggestion
+of blue.
+
+"Oh!" she gasped, and as he did not seem to notice, she drew her skirts
+away with a flourish. "I'm surprised," she mocked, "that you condescend
+to speak to us--of course you own your own mines!"
+
+"Nope," he replied, shrugging his shoulders at her sarcasm, "I'm nothing
+but a prospector, yet. And you don't need to be so surprised."
+
+"No!" she retorted, giving way to swift resentment. "I guess I
+don't--when you consider how you got your money. Here's Mother out
+cooking for you, and I'm the waiter; and you're traveling around in
+racing cars with thousand-dollar rings on your hands. But if old
+Honest John hadn't sold all his stock while he was advising my father
+to hold on----"
+
+"He did not!"
+
+"Yes, he did! He did, too! And now, after Father has been lost in Death
+Valley, and we have come down to this, your father writes over and
+offers to buy our stock for just the same as nothing. That's _my_
+ring you're wearing, and the money that paid for it----"
+
+"Oh, all right then," he sneered, stripping off the ring and handing it
+abruptly over to her, "if it's your ring, take it! But don't you say my
+father----"
+
+"Well, he did," she declared, "and you can keep your old ring! It won't
+bring back my father--now!"
+
+"No, it won't," he agreed, "but while we're about it I just want to tell
+you something. My father went broke, buying back Paymaster stock from
+friends he'd advised to go in--and he's got the stock to prove it--and
+when he heard that the Colonel was dead he decided to buy in your
+mother's. He mortgaged his cows to raise the money for her and then that
+old terror--I don't care if she is your mother--she slapped him in the
+face by refusing it. Well, he didn't like to say anything, but you can
+tell her from me she don't have to cook unless she wants to! She can
+sell--or buy--a hundred thousand shares of Paymaster any day she says
+the word; and if that isn't honest I don't know what is! I ask you, now;
+isn't that fair?"
+
+"What, at ten cents a share? When it used to sell for forty dollars!
+He's just trying to get control of the mine. And as for offering to buy
+or sell, that's perfectly ludicrous, because he knows we haven't any
+money!"
+
+"Well, what _do_ you want?" he demanded irritably, and then he thrust
+up his lip. "I know," he said, "you want your own way! All right, I'll
+never trouble you again. You can keep right on guarding that
+hole-in-the-ground until you dry up and blow away across the desert.
+And as for that old she-devil----"
+
+He paused at a sudden slam from the kitchen, and Virginia's eyes grew
+big; but as he rose to face the Widow Huff he slipped the white rock
+into his pocket.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SHOTGUN WIDOW
+
+
+The Widow Huff was burdened with a tray and her eye sought wildly for
+Virginia but when she glimpsed Wiley moving swiftly towards the door she
+set down his dinner with a bang. The disrespectful epithet which he had
+applied to her had been lost in the clatter of plates, but the moment
+the Widow came into the room she sensed the hair-trigger atmosphere.
+
+"Here!" she ordered, taking command on the instant. "Come back here,
+young man, and pay me for this dinner! And Virginia Huff, you go out
+into the kitchen--how many times do I have to speak to you?"
+
+Virginia started and stopped, her resentful eyes on Wiley, a thin smile
+parting her lips.
+
+"He said----" she began, and then Wiley strode back and slapped down a
+dollar on the table.
+
+"Yes, and I meant it, too," he answered fiercely. "There's your pay--and
+you can keep your mine."
+
+"Why, certainly," responded the Widow without knowing what she was
+talking about, "and now you eat that dinner!"
+
+She pointed a finger to the tray of food and looked Wiley Holman in the
+eye. He wavered, gazing from her to the smiling Virginia, and then he
+drew up his chair.
+
+"I'll go you," he said and showed his teeth in a grin. "You can't hurt
+my feelings that way."
+
+He lifted the T-bone steak from the platter and transferred it swiftly
+to his plate and then, as he fell to eating ravenously, the Widow
+condescended to smile.
+
+"When I go to the trouble of cooking a man a steak," she announced with
+the suggestion of a swagger, "I expect him to stay and eat it."
+
+"All right," mumbled Wiley, and glancing fleeringly at Virginia, he went
+ahead with his meal.
+
+The Widow looked over her shoulder at her daughter and then back at the
+stranger, but as she was about to inquire into the cause of their
+quarrel she spied his diamond ring. She approached him closer under
+pretext of pouring out some water and then she sank down into a chair.
+
+"That is a very fine ring," she stated briefly. "Worth fifteen hundred
+dollars at the least. Haven't I seen you somewhere, before?"
+
+"Very likely," returned Wiley, not venturing to look up, "my business
+takes me everywhere."
+
+"I thought I recognized you," went on the Widow ingratiatingly; "you're
+a mining man, aren't you, Mister--er----"
+
+"Wiley," he answered, and at this bold piece of effrontery Virginia
+caught her breath.
+
+"Ah, yes, I remember you now," said the Widow. "You knew my husband, of
+course--Colonel Huff? He passed away on the twentieth of July; but there
+was a time, not so many years ago, that I wore a few diamonds myself."
+She fixed her restless eyes on his ring and heaved a discontented sigh.
+"Virginia," she directed, "run out into the kitchen and clean up that
+skillet and all. I declare, you do less and less every day--are you a
+married man, Mr. Wiley?"
+
+Without awaiting the answer to this portentous question, Virginia flung
+out into the kitchen and, left alone, the Widow drew nearer and her
+manner became suddenly confidential.
+
+"I'd like to talk with you," she began, "about my husband's mine. Of
+course you've heard of the famous Paymaster--that's the mill right over
+east of town--but there are very few men that know what I do about the
+reasons why that mine was shut down. It was commonly reported that
+Colonel Huff was trying to get possession of the property, but the truth
+of the matter is he was deceived by old John Holman and finally left
+holding the sack. You see, it was this way. My husband and John Holman
+had always been lifelong friends, but Colonel Huff was naturally
+generous while Holman thought of nothing but money. Well, my husband
+discovered the Paymaster--he was led to it by an Indian that he had
+saved from being killed by the soldiers--but, not having any money, he
+went to John Holman and they developed the mine together. It turned out
+very rich and such a rush you never saw--this valley was full of tents
+for miles--but it was so far from the railroad--seventy-four miles to
+Vegas--that the work was very expensive. The Company was reorganized and
+Mr. Blount, the banker, was given a third of the promotion stock. Then
+the five hundred thousand shares of treasury stock was put on the market
+in order to build the new mill; and when the railroad came in there was
+such a crazy speculation that everybody lost track of the transfers. My
+husband, of course, was generous to a fault and accustomed to living
+like a gentleman--and he invested very heavily in real estate, too--but
+this Mr. Blount was always out for his interest and Honest John would
+skin a dead flea."
+
+"Honest John!" challenged Wiley, looking up from his eating with an ugly
+glint in his eye, but the Widow was far away.
+
+"Yes, Honest John Holman," she sneered, without noticing his resentment.
+"They called him Honest John. Did you ever know one of these 'Honest
+John' fellows yet that wasn't a thorough-paced scoundrel? Well, old John
+Holman he threw in with Blount to deprive Colonel Huff of his profits
+and, with these street certificates everywhere and no one recording
+their transfers, the Colonel was naturally deceived into thinking that
+the selling was from the outside. But all the time, while they were
+selling their stock and hammering down the price of Paymaster, they were
+telling the Colonel that it was only temporary and he ought to support
+the market. So he bought in what he could, though it wasn't much, as he
+was interested in other properties, and then when the crash came he was
+left without anything and Blount and Holman were rich. The great panic
+came on and Blount foreclosed on everything, and then Mr. Huff fell out
+with John Holman and they closed the Paymaster down. That was ten years
+ago and, with the litigation and all, the stock went down to nothing.
+The whole camp went dead and all the folks moved away--but have you ever
+been through the mine? Well, I want you to go--that ground has hardly
+been scratched!"
+
+Wiley Holman glanced up doubtfully from under his heavy eyebrows and the
+Widow became voluble in her protests.
+
+"No, sir," she exclaimed, "I certainly ought to know, because the
+Colonel was Superintendent; and when he had been drinking--the town was
+awful, that way--he would tell me all about the mine. And that was his
+phrase--he used it always: 'That ground has hardly been scratched!' But
+when he fell out with old John Holman he--well, there was an explosion
+underground and the glory-hole stope caved in. They cleaned it out
+afterwards and hunted around, but all the rich ore was gone; but I'm
+just as certain as I'm sitting here this minute the Colonel knew where
+there was more! He never would admit it--he was peculiar, that way, he
+never would discuss his business before a woman. But he wouldn't deny
+it, and when he had been drinking--well, I know it's there, that's all!"
+
+She paused for her effect but Mr. Wiley, the mining man, was singularly
+unimpressed. He continued eating in moody silence and the Widow tried
+the question direct.
+
+"Well, what do you think about it?" she demanded bluffly. "Would you
+like to consider the property?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," he answered impersonally. "I'm on my way up
+north."
+
+"Well, when you come back, then. Since my husband is gone I'm so sick
+and tired of it all I'll consider any offer--for cash."
+
+"Nope," he responded, "I'm out for something different." Then to stem
+the tide of her impending protest, he broke his studious silence. "I'm
+looking for molybdenum," he went on quickly, "and some of these other
+rare metals that are in demand on account of the war. Ever find any
+vanadium or manganese around here? No, I guess they're all further
+north."
+
+He returned to his meal and the Widow surveyed him appraisingly with her
+bold, inquisitive eyes. She was a big, strapping woman, and handsome in
+a way; but the corners of her mouth were drawn down sharply in a sulky,
+lawless pout.
+
+"Aw, tell me the truth," she burst out at last. "What have you got
+against the property?"
+
+A somber glow came into his eyes as he opened his lips to speak, and
+then he veiled his smouldering hate behind a crafty smile.
+
+"The parties that I represent," he said deliberately, "are looking for a
+_mine_. But the man that puts his money into the Paymaster property
+is simply buying a lawsuit."
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded the Widow, rousing up indignantly in
+response to this sudden thrust.
+
+"I mean, no matter how rich the Paymaster may be--and I hear the whole
+district is worked out--I wouldn't even go up the hill to look at it
+until you showed me the title was good."
+
+The Widow sat and glowered as she meditated a fitting response and then
+she rose to her feet.
+
+"Well, all right, then," she sulked, "if you don't want to consider
+it--but you're missing the chance of your life."
+
+"Very likely," he muttered and reached for his hat. "Much obliged for
+cooking my dinner."
+
+He started for the door, but she flew swiftly after him and snatched him
+back into the room.
+
+"Now here!" she cried, "I want you to listen to me--I've got tired of
+this everlasting waiting. I waited around for ten years on the Colonel,
+to settle this matter up, and now that he's gone I'm going to settle it
+myself and get out of the cussed country. Maybe I don't own the mine,
+but I own a good part of it--I've got two hundred thousand shares of
+stock--and I could sell it to-morrow for twenty thousand dollars, so you
+don't need to turn up your nose. There must be something there after all
+these years, to bring an offer of ten cents a share; but I wouldn't take
+that money if it was the last act of my life--I just hate that Honest
+John Holman! He cheated my husband out of everything he had--and yet he
+did it in such a deceitful way that the Colonel would never believe it.
+I've called him a coward a thousand times for tolerating such an outrage
+for an instant, and now that he's gone I'm going to show Honest John
+that he can't put it over _me_!"
+
+She shook her head until her heavy black hair flew out like Medusa's
+locks and then Wiley laughed provokingly.
+
+"All right," he said, "but you can't rope me in on your feuds. If you
+want to give me an option on your stock in the company for five or ten
+cents a share I may take a look at your mine. But I'll tell you one
+thing--you'll sign an agreement first to leave the country and never
+come back. I'm a business man, working for business people, and these
+shotgun methods don't go."
+
+"Well, I'll do it!" exclaimed the Widow, passing by his numerous insults
+in a sudden mad grab at release. "Just draw up your paper and I'll sign
+it in a minute--but I want ten cents a share!"
+
+"Ten cents or ten dollars--it makes no difference to me. You can put it
+as high as you like--but if it's too high, my principals won't take it.
+I can't stop to inspect it now, because I'm due up north, but I'll tell
+you what I'll do. You give me an option on all your stock, with a
+written permission to take possession, and if the other two big owners
+will do as much I'll come back and consider the mine. But get this
+straight--the first time you butt in, this option and agreement is off!"
+
+"What do you mean--butt in?" demanded the Widow truculently, and then
+she bit her lip. "Well, never mind," she said, "just draw up your
+papers. I'll show you I'm business myself."
+
+"Huh!" he grunted and, whipping out a fountain pen, he sat down and
+wrote rapidly at a table. "There," he said tearing the leaf from his
+notebook and putting it into her hands, "just read that over and if you
+want to sign it we'll close the deal, right here."
+
+The Widow took the paper and, turning it to the light, began a labored
+perusal.
+
+"Memorandum of agreement," she muttered, squinting her eyes at his
+handwriting, "hmm, I'll have to go and get my glasses. 'For and in
+consideration of the sum of ten dollars--to me in hand paid by M. R.
+Wiley,' and so forth--oh well, I guess it's all right, just show me
+where to sign."
+
+"No," he said, "let me read it to you--you ought to know what you're
+signing."
+
+"No, just show me where to sign," protested the Widow petulantly, "and
+where it says ten cents a share."
+
+"Well, it says that here," answered Wiley, putting his finger on the
+place, "but I'm going to read it to you--it wouldn't be legal
+otherwise."
+
+He wiped the beaded sweat from his brow and glanced towards the kitchen
+door. In this desperate game which he was framing on the Widow the luck
+had all come his way, but as he cleared his throat and commenced to read
+Virginia came bounding in. She was carrying a kitten, but when she saw
+the paper between them she dropped it on the floor.
+
+"Virginia!" cried her mother, "go and hunt my glasses. They're somewhere
+in my bedroom."
+
+"All right," she responded, but when she came back she glanced
+inquiringly at the paper.
+
+"You can go now," announced the Widow, adjusting her glasses, but
+Virginia threw up her head.
+
+"Do you know who that is?" she demanded brusquely, pointing an accusing
+finger at Wiley.
+
+"Why--er--no," returned the Widow, now absorbed in the agreement.
+
+"Well, all right," she said after a hasty perusal, "but where's that sum
+of ten dollars? Now you hush, Virginia, and go--into--the--_kitchen_!
+Now, it says right here--oh, where is that place? Oh yes, 'the receipt
+whereof is hereby acknowledged'! _Virginia!_"
+
+She stamped her foot, but Virginia's blood was up and she made a grab at
+the paper.
+
+"Now, _listen!_" she screamed, stopping her mother in her rush.
+"That man there is Wiley Holman! Yes--Holman! Old Honest John's son!
+What's this you're going to sign?"
+
+She backed away, her eyes fixed on the agreement, while the Widow stood
+astounded.
+
+"Wiley _Holman_!" she shrieked, "why, you limb of Satan, you said
+your name was Wiley!"
+
+"It is," returned Wiley with one eye on the door, "the rest of my name
+is Holman."
+
+"But you signed it on this paper--you wrote it right there! Oh, I'll
+have the law on you for this!"
+
+She clutched at the paper and as Virginia gave it to her mother she
+turned an accusing glance upon Wiley.
+
+"Yes, that's just like you, Mr. M. R. Wiley," she observed with
+scathing sarcasm. "You were just that way when you were a kid here in
+Keno--always trying to get the advantage of somebody. But if I'd
+thought you had the nerve----" She glanced at the paper and gasped and
+Wiley showed his teeth in a grin.
+
+"Well, she crowded me to it," he answered with a swagger. "I'm strictly
+business--I'll sign up anybody. You can just keep that paper," he nodded
+to the Widow, "and send it to me by mail."
+
+He winked at Virginia and slipped swiftly out the door as the Widow
+made a rush for her gun. She came out after him, brandishing a
+double-barreled shotgun, just as he cranked up his machine to start.
+
+"I'll show you!" she yelled, jerking her gun to her shoulder. "I'll
+learn you to get funny with _me_!"
+
+She pulled the trigger, but Wiley was watching her and he ducked down
+behind the radiator.
+
+_Clank_, went the hammer and with a wail of rage the Widow snapped
+the other barrel.
+
+"You, Virginia!" she cried in a terrible voice, "have you been monkeying
+with my shotgun?"
+
+The answer was lost in a series of explosions that awoke every echo in
+Keno, and Wiley Holman leapt into his machine. He jerked off his brake
+and stepped on the foot throttle but as he roared off up the street he
+waved a grimy hand at Virginia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE SHADOW
+
+
+The old, settled quiet returned to sleepy Keno--the quiet of the desert
+and of empty, noiseless houses stretching in long, sunburned rows down
+the canyon. The black lava patch, laid across the gray rhyolite flank of
+Shadow Mountain like the shade of an angry cloud, still frowned down
+upon the town like a portent of storms to come. But the sky was hot and
+gleaming and no storms came; nor did Wiley Holman return, though the
+Widow waited for him patiently. After all his boldness, his unbelievable
+effrontery in trying to steal her Paymaster stock, he had gone on
+laughing to seek other adventures and left her with the mine on her
+hands. But he would come back, she knew it; and with her gun loaded with
+buckshot she watched from the shelter of the gallery.
+
+Yet the days went by and then the weeks and at last the Widow, with a
+sigh of vexation, put up her gun and retired within. Now that the
+episode was over she felt vaguely regretful that he had failed, after
+all, in his purpose. If he had procured his option, under cover of her
+blindness, and obtained her quit-claim to the mine, she would at least
+have had the satisfaction of obtaining her own terms--and she would have
+the twenty thousand to spend. It was maddening, disgusting, when she
+thought it over, that he had turned out to be Holman's son, and she
+never quite forgave Virginia for dinning the fact into her ears. For
+what you don't know will never hurt you, and she had lost her last
+chance to sell. When she went back into the house she went back into the
+kitchen, and there she would have to stay. Either that or take Honest
+John's money.
+
+But he wanted the property--the Widow knew it--else why had he sent his
+son? All the wise-acres in Keno agreed with the Widow that Honest John
+had designs on her property and Death Valley Charley, who had jumped
+half the claims in the district, began once more to carry his gun. It
+was by virtue of that, more than of assessment work done or of any other
+legal right, that Charley held title to his claims; and until Wiley had
+come through town and attempted to bond the Paymaster he had feared no
+one but Stiff Neck George. Stiff Neck George had been Blount's gunman
+on the momentous occasion when they had tried to jump the Paymaster--and
+the Widow Huff had put him to flight with one blast from her trusty
+shotgun. But now that big interests were sending in their experts and
+mining was picking up everywhere Stiff Neck George might forget that
+humiliating defeat, so Death Valley Charley put on his six-shooter.
+
+He was a little, stooping man, burned chocolate brown by the sun and
+with eyes half blinded by the glare, and as the Widow gave up her
+fruitless vigil, Death Valley Charley took her place. But he was not
+alone, for through all the weary weeks Virginia had been watching her
+mother. She had slipped in and out, now lingering on the gallery, now
+listening through the doorway, expectant but at the same time afraid.
+She knew Wiley Holman much better than her mother, and she knew that he
+would come back. He was patient, that was all, more patient than an
+Indian, and he had his eye on their mine. For ten years and more Colonel
+Huff, and now the Widow, had held physical possession of the Paymaster.
+Every great iron-bound door was locked and padlocked and the Huff family
+held the keys, but in all those ten years Holman had never come near it
+and Blount had merely seized it on a labor lien. The very title to the
+mine was shrouded in mystery, for no one could locate the shares, and to
+openly lay claim to it and produce a majority of the stock would be
+equivalent to a confession of treachery. All that anyone knew surely was
+that some one of the three original owners--or some unsuspected party
+outside--had bought in and sequestered the almost valueless stock and
+was patiently biding his time. Since the Huffs did not own the stock
+themselves they knew for a certainty that it was held by either Holman
+or Blount.
+
+As Virginia sat on the gallery, listening subconsciously for the
+drumming of Wiley's racing motor up the road, she ran over in her mind
+the circumstances of his visit; and she could explain them all but one.
+Why, after failing of his mission, and narrowly escaping her mother's
+gun, had he waved his hand and smiled so gayly as he thundered away up
+the street? Had he other schemes more subtle; or was he simply reckless,
+regarding even this adventure as a joke? As a boy he had been both--a
+crafty schemer and reckless doer--but now he was grown to a man. And if
+the lines about his mouth were any criterion he would soon be coming
+back to carry out by stealth what he failed to accomplish by assault. So
+she, too, waited patiently, to foil his machinations and uphold the
+honor of the Huffs.
+
+In the good old days it had never been forgotten that the Huffs belonged
+to the Virginia quality, while the Holmans came from Maine; hence the
+Colonel's relations with Honest John Holman had at first been strictly
+business. John Holman was a Northerner, with no social graces and
+abstemious to a fault, but when his commercial honor upon a certain
+occasion had saved the Colonel from bankruptcy he had cast the
+traditions of the South to the winds and taken Honest John as his
+friend. "My friend," he called him and neither his wife nor his enemies
+could shake the Colonel's faith in his partner. Then, after years of
+mutual trust, the panic had come on, and the crash in Paymaster stock;
+and as their fortunes went tumbling and ugly rumors filled the air they
+had broken their friendship completely. Yet so great was his love for
+his old-time friend that he had never openly accused him; and Honest
+John Holman, after months of somber silence, had moved away and started
+a cow ranch. But it was a question of honesty between the two men and
+their children had never forgotten. Ten years had passed since they had
+been boy and girl together, but the moment they met the old quarrel
+flashed up again and now the feud was on.
+
+A boisterous blast of wind, whirling dust and papers down the street,
+announced the beginning of another sandstorm; and Death Valley Charley,
+who had been sitting outside the gate, came muttering up the steps.
+Behind him trotted Heine, his worshipful little dog, and as Virginia's
+pet cat suddenly arched its back, Death Valley took Heine in his arms.
+
+"Can't you hear 'em?" he asked tiptoeing rapidly up to Virginia. "It's
+them big guns, over in Europe. It's them forty-two centimeter howitzers
+and the French seventy-fives in the trenches along the Somme."
+
+"Do you think so?" murmured Virginia, smoothing down her cat's back, "it
+sounds like blasting to me."
+
+"No--big guns!" repeated Charley, regarding her intently through his
+wavering, sun-blinded eyes, and then he burst into a laugh. "You can
+hear 'em, can't you, Heine?" he cried to his dog, and Heine squirmed
+ecstatically and sneezed. "Hah, that's my little dog--you're so
+confectionate! Now get down on the floor, and don't you go near that
+cat."
+
+He put down the dog and advanced closer to Virginia.
+
+"He's coming!" he whispered. "I can hear him, plain--jurrr, jurrr; hud,
+hud, hud, hud, hud!"
+
+"Who's coming?" demanded Virginia, looking swiftly up the road.
+
+"Why--him! The man you're waiting for. Can't you hear him! Hrrrr--rud!
+He's coming to grab you and take you away in his auto!"
+
+"Oh, Charley!" exclaimed Virginia, not entirely displeased, "and where
+will you go then?"
+
+"I'll go to Death Valley," he answered mysteriously. "There's lots of
+gold over there. I came back one time and they says to me: 'Charley,
+where've you been for such a long time?' 'In Death Valley,' I says,
+'in the Funeral Range. Working in the Coffin mine, on the graveyard
+shift.' Hah, hah; they can't get nothing out of me. I know where
+there's gold--in the Ube-Hebes; it's a place where nobody goes. I saw
+your father there, the last time I went through, and he sent word to
+you not to worry. 'But for Christ's sake,' he says, 'don't tell my
+wife I'm here--I'm tired of her devilish chatter!'"
+
+"Charley!" reproved Virginia, and as he subsided into mutterings, she
+looked about with shocked eyes. "You talk too much," she said at last.
+"Didn't I tell you not to say that again? Because if mother hears it
+she'll drive you out of the house, and then what will Heine do?"
+
+"Heine! Come here, sir!" commanded Charley abruptly, and slapped him
+until he yelped. "Well, now," he warned as Heine slunk away, "you look
+out or you lose your house."
+
+"I guess you'd better go now," said Virginia discreetly, and continued
+her vigil alone. Death Valley was harmless, but when he began hearing
+things there was no telling where he would stop. The next minute he
+would be seeing things, and then getting messages, and then looking
+through mountains with radium. He was harmless, of course, but when
+there was a sandstorm--well, some people thought he was crazy. And
+there was a sandstorm coming up. It was blowing in from the north and
+rushing clouds of dirt down the street; and along in the night, when it
+had gained its full force, the sand and gravel would fly. She rose to go
+in, but just at that moment she heard a low drumming up the street. It
+increased to a bubbling, a drumming, a thunder, and like the spirit of
+the rough north wind Wiley Holman went racing through the town. His hat
+was off and as he drifted by his hair thrashed wildly in his eyes, yet
+he glanced up in passing and it seemed to Virginia that he gave her a
+roguish smile. Then in a series of explosions that brought the Widow
+running he dashed on and whirled out across the desert.
+
+"Oh, that devil!" she raged, brandishing her heavy shotgun at the
+disappearing cloud of dust. "He's just making that hubbub to mock me!
+He'll be coming back--I know it, the scoundrel--but you wait, he won't
+fool me again!"
+
+She stood on the gallery while the food scorched in the kitchen and
+watched the boring arrow of dust, but it swept on and on across the
+boundless desert until at last it was lost in the storm. "Oh, he'll be
+back!" she screamed to the gathering neighbors. "I know him, he's after
+my mine. But he'd better watch out! If he ever goes near it, I'll shoot
+him, you mark my word!"
+
+"No, he won't," said Virginia, but when they were all gone she came back
+and gazed down the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GHOST-MAN
+
+
+As the sun paled to nothing in the yellow murk of dust, a high cloud of
+sand overleapt the northern peaks and came sifting down the slopes of
+Shadow Mountain. The gusts of wind began to wail in boding fury and then
+the storm struck the town. Dirt and papers flew before it; tin cans
+leapt forth from holes and alleys; and sticks and small stones, sucked
+up in the vortex, joined in on the devil's dance. Ancient signs creaked
+and groaned and threatened to leave their moorings, old houses gave up
+shingles and loose boards, and up the street on the deserted bank
+building, the fire-doors banged like cannon. Then the night came on and
+the streets of Keno were empty, except for the flying dirt.
+
+But it is nights such as this that move some men to greater daring and
+as Wiley Holman, far out on the desert, felt the rush and surge of wind
+he struck a swift circle and, turning back towards Keno, he bored his
+way into the teeth of the storm. The gravel from the road slashed and
+slatted against his radiator and his machine trembled before the buffets
+of the gale, but it was just such a night as he needed for his purpose
+and he ran with his lights switched off. If the Widow Huff, by any
+chance, should glance out across the plain she might notice their gleam
+and divine his purpose, which was to inspect the Paymaster mine. As a
+stockholder and part owner it was, of course, his right to enter the
+premises at will, but the Widow had placed her own personal mandate
+above the laws of the land, and it was better, and safer, to avoid all
+discussion by visiting the property after dark.
+
+Up the long slope of the valley the white racer moved slowly, shuddering
+and thundering as it took the first hill, and as the outlying houses
+leaped up from the darkness, Wiley muffled his panting exhaust. In the
+sheltered valley, under the lee of Shadow Mountain, the violence of the
+wind was checked and some casual citizen, out looking at the stars,
+might hear him above the storm. He turned off the main road and,
+following up a side street, glided quietly into the shelter of a barn,
+and five minutes later, with his prospector's pick and ore-sacks, he
+toiled up the trail to the mine.
+
+The Paymaster mine lay on the slope of Gold Hill, directly overlooking
+the town--first the huge, dismantled mill; then the white slide of the
+waste dump; and then, up the gulch, the looming gallows-frame of the
+hoist and the dim bulk of abandoned houses. The mine had made the town,
+and the town had clustered near it in the broad oval of the valley
+below; but in its day the Paymaster had been a community by itself, with
+offices and bunk-houses and stores. Now all was deserted and in the pale
+light of the moon it seemed the mere ghost of a mine. A loose strip of
+zinc on the corrugated-iron mill drummed and shuddered in a menacing
+undertone and at uncertain intervals some door inside smote its frame
+with a resounding bang. Straining timbers creaked and groaned, the wind
+mourned like a disembodied spirit, and as Wiley Holman jumped at a
+sudden sound he turned and glanced nervously behind him.
+
+It was not a shadow but the passing of a shadow that caught his roving
+eye and as he stripped off his wind-goggles and looked again he felt by
+instinct for his six-shooter. But it was not on his hip. He had taken
+his pick instead, and for the first time he felt a thrill of fear--not
+fear for his life nor of anything tangible, but that old, primordial
+fear of the night that only a gun can banish. He picked up a rock and
+walked back down the trail; but nothing leapt forth at him--even the
+shadow was gone, and he threw the rock petulantly away. It was the wind,
+and the noises, and the blinders on his goggles; but now that the great
+fear was born he jumped at every sound. He had been out before on worse
+nights than this--what was it, then, that he feared? With his back
+against a rock he stared about and listened until at last his nerve
+returned; then he went boldly to the dump, where the white quartz lay
+the thickest, and began to dig a hole with his pick.
+
+Deep as he could dig there was nothing but the white waste and he paced
+off the width of the pile; then very systematically he moved across the
+slope, grabbing handfuls of fine dirt at measured intervals and throwing
+them into an ore-sack. There was something about Virginia's piece of
+"barren quartz" that had appealed to his prospector's eye and even in
+the excitement of meeting the Widow he had not forgotten to sequester
+it. But a piece of rock from a girl's case of specimens is a far call
+from "ore in place" and he had come back that night to look the mine
+over and collect an average sample from the dump. There were hundreds of
+tons of that rock on the dump and it certainly was his right, as a part
+owner in the property, to sample it and have it assayed.
+
+Back and forth across the slide, now buffeted by the wind, now pelted by
+loosened stones, he continued his methodical test and then as he knelt
+to dig out a hole a great rock came bounding past. It came out of the
+darkness and went smashing down the hillside like some terrific engine
+of destruction and before he had more than scrambled from its path a
+second boulder was upon him. He dodged it by a hair's breadth and fell
+flat on his face, just as a stream of loose stone which the first flying
+rock had dislodged sent him rolling and tumbling down the slope in an
+avalanche of flying debris. For a minute he lay breathless while the
+waste rattled past him, and then he looked up the hill. No movement of
+his had started those great boulders. They had been launched by someone
+from above, and as he raised his head cautiously he beheld a gaunt
+figure standing outlined against the sky. It stood like a gibbet, its
+head to one side, a pistol in its hand; but as Wiley moved the man
+crouched and drew back as if he feared to be seen.
+
+Who he was Wiley did not know, nor could he divine his animus in thus
+attempting to take his life, but, being caught in the open without his
+gun, he played safe and lay quiet where he had fallen. The wind howled
+along the ridges and trailed off into silence and, looking around, Wiley
+caught the wink of a lantern as it came across the flat from town. The
+crash of the boulders as they bounded down the dump and then on through
+the brush below had undoubtedly aroused some inquisitive citizen, who
+was coming over to investigate. Wiley rose up quickly, for he did not
+wish to be discovered, but as he started towards the trail he met the
+ghost-man, creeping forward with his pistol ready to shoot.
+
+At times like this a man acts by instinct, and Wiley Holman dropped to
+the ground; then with the swiftness of an Indian he bellied off down the
+hill, looking back after every lightning move. The man was a murderer, a
+cold-blooded assassin; and, thinking him injured, he had been stealing
+up to his hiding-place to give him the _coup de grace_. Wiley
+rolled into a gulch and peered over the bank, his eyes starting out of
+his head with fear; and then, as the lantern began to bob below him, he
+turned and crept up the hill. Two trails led towards the mine, one on
+either side of the dump, and as the wind swept down with a sudden gust
+of fury, he ran up the farther trail. Once over the hill he could avoid
+both his pursuers and, cutting a wide circle, slip back to his machine
+and escape. The wind died to nothing as he neared the summit and he
+turned and looked back down the trail. Something moved--it was the man,
+his head twisted over his shoulder, his gun still held at a ready,
+creeping waspishly up the path.
+
+Wiley turned and fled, sick with rage at his own impotence, but as he
+whipped over the dump the earth opened up before him and he slipped
+and stopped on the brink of a chasm. It was the caved-in stope, the
+old glory-hole of the Paymaster, and it cut off his last escape. A
+sudden sinking of the heart, a feeling of fate being against him, came
+over him as he slunk along the bank; and then, as a path opened up
+before him, he took the steep slope at a bound. Further on in the
+darkness he saw the roof of the mill and the broken hummocks of the
+dump; beyond lay the other trail and the open country and his car--and
+the six-shooter--beyond! His feet seemed to fly as he dashed across
+the level and breasted a sudden ascent and then on its summit as the
+wind snatched him back someone struck him in full flight. "God!" he
+cried, and fought himself free but the other clutched him again.
+
+"Run!" she begged, and he knew it was Virginia, but he was in a panic
+for fear of what was behind.
+
+"No!" he cried, catching her roughly in his arms and starting the other
+way, "there's a crazy man back there and----"
+
+"No--no--no!" she clamored, bringing him to a halt with her struggles.
+"The other way--can't you hear what I'm saying to you----" And then
+Wiley saw the Widow.
+
+She was standing on the dump with her shotgun raised and pointed, and he
+hurled Virginia to one side.
+
+"Don't shoot!" he yelled, but as he ducked and started to run, the
+Widow's gun spoke out. A blow like that of a club struck his leg from
+under him and he fell to the ground in a heap, but even in his pain he
+remembered the presence which had followed with its head on one side.
+
+"You danged fool!" he cursed as the Widow ran up to him. "Keep that
+cartridge, whatever you do. There's a crazy man after me and----"
+
+"I see him!" shrieked the Widow, making a dash for the bank with her gun
+at her hip for the shot. "You git, you dastard!" she shrilled into the
+darkness and once more the old shotgun roared forth.
+
+"Oh, mother!" wept Virginia, throwing her arms about Wiley, and
+attempting to raise him up. "Oh, look what you've done--it's Wiley
+Holman--and now I hope you're satisfied!"
+
+"You bet I'm satisfied!" answered the Widow, exultingly. "That other
+fellow was Stiff Neck George!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A LOAD OF BUCKSHOT
+
+
+Since he had turned back, far out on the desert, and braved the storm to
+inspect the Paymaster Mine, Wiley Holman had met nothing but disaster;
+but as he lay on the ground with one leg full of buckshot he blamed it
+all on the Widow. Without warning or justification, without even giving
+him a chance, she had sneaked up and potted him like a rabbit; and now,
+as men came running to witness his shame, she gloried in her badness.
+
+"Aha-ah!" she jeered, coming back to stand over him and Wiley reached
+for a stone.
+
+"You old she-cat," he burst out, "you say another word to me and I'll
+bounce this rock off your head!"
+
+He groaned and dropped the rock to take his leg in both hands, and then
+Virginia rushed to the rescue.
+
+"How badly are you hurt?" she asked, kneeling down beside him, but he
+jerked ungraciously away.
+
+"Go away and leave me alone!" he shouted to the world at large and the
+Widow took the hint to withdraw. Then in a series of frenzied curses
+Wiley stripped off his puttee and felt of his injured leg. It was wet
+with blood and two shot-holes in his shin-bone were giving him the most
+exquisite pain; the rest were just flesh-wounds where the buckshot had
+pierced his leggings and imbedded themselves in the muscles. He looked
+them over hastily by the light of a flashing lantern and then he rose up
+from the ground.
+
+"Gimme that gun for a crutch!" he demanded of the Widow; and Mrs. Huff,
+who had been surveying her work with awe, passed over the shotgun in
+silence. "All right, now," he went on, turning to Death Valley Charley,
+who had been patiently holding his lantern, "just show me the trail and
+I'll get out of camp before some crazy dastard ups and kills me."
+
+"That was Stiff Neck George," observed Charley mysteriously. "He's
+guarding the Paymaster for Blount."
+
+"Who--that fellow that was after me?" burst out Wiley in a passion as he
+hobbled off down the trail. "What the hell was he trying to do? The
+whole rotten mine isn't worth stealing from anybody. What's the matter
+with you people--are you crazy?"
+
+"Well, that's all right!" returned the Widow from the darkness. "You
+can't sneak in and jump _my_ mine!"
+
+"_Your_ mine, you old tarrier!" yelled Wiley furiously. "You'd
+better go to town and look it up. The whole danged works is mine--I
+bought it in for taxes!"
+
+"You--what?" cried the Widow, brushing Virginia and Charley aside and
+halting him in the trail. "You bought the Paymaster for _taxes_!"
+
+"Yes, for taxes," answered Wiley, "and got stung at that! Gimme
+eighty-three dollars and forty-one cents and you can have it back,
+with costs. But now listen, you old battle-ax; I've taken enough off
+of you. You went up on my property when I was making an inspection of
+it and made an attempt on my life; and if I hear a peep out of you,
+from this time on, I'll go down and swear out a warrant."
+
+"I didn't aim to kill you," defended the Widow, weakly. "I just tried to
+shoot you in the leg."
+
+"Well, you did it," returned Wiley, and, pushing; her aside, he limped
+on down the trail. The Widow followed meekly, talking in low tones with
+her daughter, and at last Virginia came up beside him.
+
+"Take him right to our house," she said to Charley, "and I'll nurse him
+until he gets well."
+
+"No, you take me to the Holman house!" directed Wiley, obstinately. "I
+guess we've got a house of our own."
+
+"Well, suit yourself," she murmured, and fell back to the rear while
+Wiley went hobbling on. At every step he jabbed the muzzle of the
+shotgun vindictively into the ground, but as he reached the flat and met
+a posse of citizens, he submitted to being carried on a door. The first
+pain had passed and a deadly numbness seemed to take the place of its
+bite; but as he moved his stiffened muscles, which were beginning to
+ache and throb, he realized that he was badly hurt. With a leg like that
+he could not drive out across the desert, seventy-four long miles to
+Vegas; nor would he, on the other hand, find the best of accommodations
+in the deserted house of his father. It had been a great home in its
+day, but that day was past, and the water connections too, and somebody
+must be handy to wait on him.
+
+"Say," he said, turning to Death Valley Charley, "have you got a house
+here in town? Well, take me to it and I'll pay you well, and for
+anything else that you do."
+
+"It won't cost you nothing," answered Charley quickly. "I used to know
+your father."
+
+"Well, you knew a good man then," replied Wiley grimly, but Death Valley
+did not respond. The Widow Huff was listening behind; and besides, he
+had his doubts.
+
+"I'll run on ahead," said Charley noncommittally, and when Wiley arrived
+a canvas cot was waiting for him, fully equipped except for the sheets.
+Virginia came in later with a pair on her arm, and after a look at
+Charley's greasy blankets Wiley allowed her to spread them on the bed.
+Then, as Death Valley laid a grimy paw on his leg and began to pick out
+the shot Wiley jerked away and asked Virginia impatiently if she didn't
+have a little carbolic.
+
+"Aw, he'll be all right," protested Charley cheerfully, as Virginia
+pushed him aside; "them buckshot won't hurt him much, nohow. Jest put on
+some pine pitch and a chew of tobacco and he'll fall off to sleep like a
+child."
+
+He stood blinking helplessly as Virginia heated some water and poured in
+a teaspoonful of carbolic, then as she bathed the wounds and picked out
+the last shot, Charley placed a disc on his phonograph.
+
+"Does he want some music?" he inquired of Heine, who was sitting up and
+begging, but Virginia put down her foot. "No, Charley," she said with a
+forbidding frown, "you go ask mother for a needle and thread."
+
+"He's kind of crazy to-night," she whispered to Wiley, when Death Valley
+was safely out of sight, "you'd better come over to the house."
+
+"Huh, I guess we're all crazy," answered Wiley, laughing shortly. "I can
+stand it--but how does he act?"
+
+"Oh, he hears things--and gets messages--and talks about Death Valley.
+He got lost over there, three years ago last August, and the heat kind
+of cooked his brains. He heard your automobile, when you came back
+to-night--that's why mother and all the rest of them went over to the
+mine to get you. I'm sorry she shot you up."
+
+"Well, don't you care," he said reassuringly. "But she sure overplayed
+her hand."
+
+"Yes, she did," acknowledged Virginia, trying not to quarrel with her
+patient, "but, of course, she didn't know about that tax sale."
+
+"Well, she knows it now," he answered pointedly, and when Charley came
+back they were silent. Virginia bandaged up his wound and slipped away
+and then Wiley lay back and sighed. There had been a time when he and
+Virginia had been friends, but now the fat was in the fire. It was her
+fighting mother, of course, and their quarrel about the Paymaster; but
+behind it all there was the old question between their fathers, and he
+knew that his father was right. He had not rigged the stock market, he
+had not cheated Colonel Huff, and he had not tried to get back the mine.
+That was a scheme of his own, put on foot on his own initiative--and
+brought to nothing by the Widow. He had hoped to win over Virginia and
+effect a reconciliation, but that hole in his leg told him all too well
+that the Widow could never be fooled. And, since she could not be
+placated, nor bought off, nor bluffed, there was nothing to do but quit.
+The world was large and there were other Virginias, as well as other
+Paymasters--only it seemed such a futile waste. He sighed again and then
+Death Valley Charley burst out into a cackling laugh.
+
+"I heard you," he said, "I heard you coming--away up there in the pass.
+Chuh, chuh, chuh, chud, chud, chud, chud; and I told Virginny you was
+coming."
+
+"Yes, I heard about it," answered Wiley sourly, "and then you told the
+Widow."
+
+"Oh, no, I didn't!" exulted Charley. "She'd've killed you, sure as
+shooting. I just told Virginny, that's all."
+
+"Oh!" observed Wiley, and lay so still that Charley regarded him
+intently. His eyes were blue and staring like a newborn babe's, but
+behind their look of childlike innocence there lurked a crafty smile.
+
+"I told her," went on Charley, "that you was coming to git her and take
+her away in your auto. She's a nice girl, Virginny, and never rode in
+one of them things--I never thought you'd try to steal her mine."
+
+"I did not!" denied Wiley, but Death Valley only smiled and waved the
+matter aside.
+
+"Never mind," he said, "they're all crazy, anyhow. They get that way
+every north wind. I'm here to take care of them--the Colonel asked me
+to, and keep people from stealing his mine. It's electricity that does
+it--it's about us everywhere--and that's what makes 'em crazy; but
+electricity is my servant; I bend it to my will; that's how I come to
+hear you. I heard you coming back, away out on the desert, and I knowed
+your heart wasn't right. You was coming back to rob the Colonel of his
+mine; and the Colonel, he saved my life once. He ain't dead, you know,
+he's over across Death Valley in them mountains they call the Ube-Hebes.
+Yes, I was lost on the desert and he followed my tracks and found me,
+running wild through the sand-hills; and then Virginia and Mrs. Huff,
+they looked after me until my health returned."
+
+"You can hear pretty well, then," suggested Wiley diplomatically. "You
+must know everything that goes on."
+
+"It's the electricity!" declared Charley. "It's about us everywhere, and
+that's what makes them crazy. All these desert rats are crazy, it's the
+electric storms that does it--Nevada is a great state for winds. But
+when they comes a sandstorm, and Mrs. Huff she wraps up her head, I feel
+the power coming on. I can hear far away and then I can hear close--I
+make the electricity my slave. But the rest, they go crazy; they have
+headaches and megrims, and Mrs. Huff she always wants to fight; but I'm
+here to take care of 'em--the Colonel asked me to, so you keep away from
+that mine."
+
+"Oh, sure," responded Wiley, "I won't bother the mine. As soon as I'm
+well I'll go home."
+
+"No, you stay," returned Charley, becoming suddenly confidential.
+"I'll show you a mountain of gold. It's over across Death Valley, in
+the Ube-Hebes; the Colonel is over there now."
+
+"Is that so?" inquired Wiley, and Charley looked at him strangely, as if
+dazed.
+
+"Aw, no; of course not!" he burst out angrily. "I forgot--the Colonel is
+dead. You Heine; come over here, sir."
+
+Heine crept up unwillingly and Charley slapped him. "Now--shut up!" he
+admonished and went off into crazy mutterings.
+
+"What's that?" he cried, rousing up suddenly to listen, and a savage
+look replaced the blank stare. "Can't you hear him?" he asked. "It's
+Stiff Neck George--he's coming up the alley to kill you. Here, take my
+gun; and when he opens the door you fill him full of holes!"
+
+Wiley listened intently, then he reached for the heavy pistol and sat
+up, watching the door. The wind soughed and howled and rattled at the
+windows, over which Charley had stretched heavy blankets, and it seemed
+to his startled imagination that someone was groping at the door. The
+memory of the skulking form that had followed him rose up with the
+distinctness of a vision and at a knock on the door he cocked his pistol
+and beckoned Death Valley to one side.
+
+"Come in!" he called, but as the door swung open it was Virginia who
+stood facing his gun.
+
+"O--oh!" she screamed, and then she flushed angrily as Charley began to
+laugh.
+
+"Well, laugh then, you fool," she said to Wiley, "and when you're
+through, just look at this that we found!"
+
+She held up the ore-bag that Wiley had lost and strode dramatically in.
+"Look at that!" she cried, and strewing the white quartz on the table
+she pointed her finger in his face. "You stole my specimen!" she cried
+accusingly. "That's why you came back for more. But you give it back to
+me--I want it this minute. I see you're honest--like your father!"
+
+She spat it out venomously, more venomously than was needful, for he
+was already fumbling for the rock; and when he gave it back he smiled
+over-scornfully and his lower lip mounted up.
+
+"All right," he said, "you don't have to holler for it. You're getting
+to be just like your mother."
+
+"I'm not!" she denied, but after looking at him a minute she burst into
+tears and fled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ALL CRAZY
+
+
+The wind was still blowing when Wiley was awakened by the cold of the
+October morning. In the house all was dark, on account of the blankets
+which Death Valley had nailed over the windows, but outside he could
+hear the thump of an axe and the whining yelp of a dog. Then Charley
+came in, his arms full of wood, and lit a roaring fire in the stove.
+Wiley dozed off again, for his leg had pained him and kept him awake
+half the night, and when he woke up it was to the strains of music and
+the mournful howls of Heine.
+
+"Ah, you are so confectionate!" exclaimed Charley in honeyed tones and
+laughed and patted him on the back. "Don't you like the fiddle, Heine?
+Well, listen to this now; the sweetest song of all."
+
+He stopped the rasping phonograph to put on another record and when
+Heine heard "Listen to the Mocking-bird" he barked and leapt with joy.
+Wiley listened for awhile, then he stirred in bed and at last he tried
+to get up; but his leg was very stiff and old Charley was oblivious, so
+he sank back and waited impatiently. Heine sat upon the floor before the
+largest of three phonographs, which ground out the Mocking-bird with
+variations; and each time he heard the whistled notes of the bird he
+rolled his eyes on Charley with a soulful, beseeching glance. The
+evening before, when his master had cuffed him, Wiley had considered
+Heine badly abused; but now as the concert promised to drag on
+indefinitely he was forced to amend his opinion.
+
+"Say," he spoke up at last, in a pause between records, "what's the
+chance of getting something to eat?"
+
+"Yes, there's plenty," answered Charley, and went on with his frolic
+until Wiley rose up in disgust. He had heated some water, besides
+tearing down a blanket and letting the daylight in, when there came a
+hurried knock at the door and the Widow appeared with his breakfast. She
+avoided his eyes, but her manner was ingratiating and she supplied the
+conversation herself.
+
+"Good morning!" she smiled,--"Charley, stop that awful racket and let
+Heine go out for his scraps. Well, I brought you your
+breakfast--Virginia isn't feeling very well--and I hope you're going
+to be all right. No, get right back into bed and I'll prop you up with
+pillows; Charley's got a hundred or so. I declare, it's a question
+which can grab the most; old Charley or Stiff Neck George. Every time
+anyone moves out--and sometimes when they don't--you'll see those two
+ghouls hanging around; and the minute they're gone, well, you never
+saw anything like it, the way they will fight for the loot. Charley's
+got a whole room filled up with bedding, and stoves and tables and
+chairs; and George--he's vicious--he takes nearly everything and piles
+it up down in his warehouse. It isn't his, of course, but----"
+
+"He hauls it off in a wheelbarrow," broke in Charley, virtuously. "He
+don't care what he does. They was a widow woman here whose daughter got
+sick and she had to go out for a week, and when she came back----"
+
+"Yes, her whole house was looted--he carried off even her
+sewing-machine!"
+
+"And a deep line of wheelbarrow tracks," added Charley, unctuously,
+"leading from her house right down to his. She nailed up all her windows
+before she went, but he----"
+
+"Yes, he broke in," supplied the Widow. "He's a desperate character
+and everybody is afraid of him, so he can do whatever he pleases; but
+you bet your life he can't run it over me--I filled him up with
+buckshot twice. Oh--that is--er--did you ever hear how he got his head
+twisted? Well, go right ahead now and eat up your toast. I asked him
+one time--that was before we'd had our trouble--what was the cause of
+his head being to one side. He looks, you know, for all the world like
+he was watching for a good kick from behind; but he tried to appear
+pathetic and told me a long story about saving a mother and her child
+in a flood. And when it was all over, according to him, he fell down
+in a faint in the mud; but the best accounts I get say he was dead
+drunk in the gutter and woke up with his head on one side."
+
+She ended with a sniff and Wiley glanced at Charley, but he was staring
+blankly away.
+
+"I don't like that man," spoke up Charley at last, "he kicked my dog,
+one time."
+
+"And he bootlegs something awful," added the Widow, desperately, for
+fear that the chatter would lag. "There doesn't a day go by but some
+drunken Piute comes whooping up the road, and that bunch of
+Shooshonnies----"
+
+"Yes, he sells to the bucks," observed Death Valley, slyly. "They're no
+good--they get drunk and tell. But you can trust the squaws--I had one
+here yesterday----"
+
+"You what?" shrieked the Widow, and Charley looked up startled, then
+rose and whistled to his dog.
+
+"Go lay down!" he commanded and slapped him till he yelped, after which
+he slipped fearfully away.
+
+"The very idea!" exclaimed the Widow frigidly and then she glanced at
+Wiley.
+
+"Mr. Holman," she began, "I came out here to talk business--there's
+nothing round-the-corner about me. Now what about this tax sale, and
+what does Blount mean by allowing you to buy it in for nothing?"
+
+"Well, I don't know," answered Wiley. "He refused to pay the taxes, so I
+bought in the property myself."
+
+"Yes, but what does he _mean_?"
+
+The Widow's voice rose to the old quarrelsome, nagging pitch, and Wiley
+winced as if he had been stabbed.
+
+"You'll have to ask _him_, Mrs. Huff, to find out for sure; but to
+a man with one leg it looks like this. Whatever you can say about him,
+Samuel J. is a business man, and I think he decided that, as a business
+investment, the Paymaster wasn't worth eighty-three, forty-one.
+Otherwise he would have bought it himself."
+
+"Unless, of course," added the Widow scornfully, "there was some
+understanding between you."
+
+"Oh, yes, sure," returned Wiley, and went on with his eating with a
+wearied, enduring sigh.
+
+"Well, I declare," exclaimed the Widow, after thinking it over,
+"sometimes I get so discouraged with the whole darned business you could
+buy me out for a cent!"
+
+She waited for a response, but Wiley showed no interest, so she went on
+with her general complaint.
+
+"First, it was the Colonel, with his gambling and drinking and inviting
+the whole town to his house; and then your father, or whoever it was,
+started all this stock market fuss; and from that time it's gone from
+bad to worse until I haven't a dollar to my name. I was brought up to be
+a lady--and so was Virginia--and now we're keeping a restaurant!"
+
+Wiley pulled down his lip in masterful silence and set the breakfast
+tray aside. It was nothing to him what the Widow Huff suffered--she had
+brought it all on herself. And whenever she was ready to write to his
+father she could receive her ten cents a share. That would keep her as a
+lady for several years to come, if she had as many shares as she
+claimed; but there was nothing to his mind so flat, stale and
+unprofitable as a further discussion of the Paymaster. Indeed, with one
+leg wound up in a bandage, it might easily prove disastrous. So he
+looked away and, after a minute, the Widow again took up her plaint.
+
+"Of course," she said, "I'm not a business woman, and I may have made
+some mistakes; but it doesn't seem right that Virginia's future should
+be ruined, just because of this foolish family quarrel. The Colonel is
+dead now and doesn't have to be considered; so--well, after thinking it
+over, and all the rest of it, I think I'll accept your offer."
+
+"Which offer?" demanded Wiley, suddenly startled from his ennui, and the
+Widow regarded him sternly.
+
+"Why, your offer to buy my stock--that paper you drew up for me. Here it
+is, and I'm willing to sign it."
+
+She drew out the paper and Wiley read it silently, then rolled it into a
+ball and chucked it into the corner.
+
+"No," he said, "that offer doesn't hold. I didn't know you then."
+
+"Well, you know me now!" she flashed back resentfully, "and you'd better
+come through with that money. I've taken enough off of you and your
+father without standing for any more of your gall. Now you write me out
+a check for twenty thousand dollars and here's my two hundred thousand
+shares. I know you're robbing me but I simply can't endure it--I can't
+stay here a single day longer!"
+
+She burst into angry tears as he shook his head and regarded her with
+steady eyes.
+
+"No," he said, "you can't do business that way. I haven't got twenty
+thousand dollars."
+
+"But--you offered it to me! You wrote out this paper and put it right
+under my eyes----"
+
+"No," he said, "I never offered you twenty thousand--I offered to take
+an option at that price. I wanted to see that mine, and I wanted to see
+it peaceably, and I thought I could do it that way; but that piece of
+paper simply gave me the option of buying the stock if I wanted to."
+
+"Well, you wanted to buy the stock--you were crazy to get hold of
+it--and now, when I'm willing, you won't take it!"
+
+"No, that's right," agreed Wiley, leaning back against his pillow. "And
+now, what are you going to do about it?"
+
+"I'm going to kill you!" shrieked the Widow in a frenzy. "I'm going to
+_make_ you take it! I declare, it seems like every single soul is
+against me--and me a poor helpless woman!"
+
+She sank back in a chair and began to sob hysterically and Wiley looked
+about for the old shotgun. It was far too short, but it had served once
+as a crutch, and in a pinch it must serve him again. Keno was no place
+for him, he saw that very plainly, and it was better to risk the long
+drive across the desert than to stay with this weeping virago. If she
+didn't kill him then she would kill him later, and he was powerless to
+strike back in defense. She would take advantage of every immunity of
+her sex to obtain her own way in the end. He located the gun--it was
+down behind his bed where he had dropped it when they helped him in--but
+as he was fishing it up the door burst open and Virginia stood looking
+at her mother. Behind her appeared Death Valley Charley, his eyes
+blinking fearfully; but at sight of the Widow he ducked around the
+corner while Virginia came resolutely in.
+
+"Oh, mother!" she burst out in a pleading, reproachful voice, "can't you
+see that Wiley is sick? Well, what's the use of creating a scene when
+it's likely to make him worse?"
+
+"I don't care!" wailed the Widow. "I hope he dies. I wish I'd killed
+him--I do!"
+
+"You do not!" returned Virginia, and shook her reprovingly. "I declare,
+I wonder what poor father would think if he heard how we'd treated a
+guest. Now you go back to the house and don't you come out again until
+Mr. Holman sends for you."
+
+"You shut up!" burst out the Widow, pushing her brusquely aside. "I
+guess I know what I'm about. But I'll fool you," she cried, whirling
+about on Wiley as she started towards the door. "I'll sell my stock to
+Blount!"
+
+She paused for the effect but Wiley did not answer and she returned to
+pursue her advantage.
+
+"I know you!" she announced. "You and old Honest John--you're trying to
+steal my mine. But I'm going to fool you, I'm going right down to Vegas
+and sell every share to Blount!"
+
+"Well, go to it," returned Wiley after a long, defiant silence, "and I
+hope you stick him a-plenty!"
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" inquired the Widow, brushing Virginia away
+again and swaggering up to his bed. "I thought you and Blount were good
+friends."
+
+"Yeh, guess again," replied Wiley grimly. "I'll tell him the mine shows
+up fine."
+
+"Well, it does!" she asserted. "The Colonel said it wasn't scratched.
+And didn't you steal that piece of quartz from Virginia? Oh, you gave it
+back, eh? Well, how did it assay? I know you found _something_
+pretty good!"
+
+"How could I give it back, if I'd had it assayed?" asked Wiley with
+compelling calm.
+
+"Well what _did_ you come back for?" demanded the Widow,
+triumphantly. "You must have figured to win somewhere."
+
+"Yes, I did," sighed Wiley, "but I was badly mistaken. All I want now is
+to get out of town."
+
+"Well, how about your father? That offer he made me! Has he backed out
+on that, too?"
+
+"No, he hasn't," answered Wiley, "my father keeps his word. You can get
+your money any time."
+
+"Well, of all the crazy crooked deals," the Widow began to rave, and
+then Wiley grabbed for the shotgun.
+
+"It may be crazy!" he shouted savagely, "but believe me, it isn't
+crooked. My father never did a crooked thing in his life, and you know
+it as well as I do; and if it wasn't that you're such a crook
+yourself----"
+
+"Wiley Holman!" raged the Widow, but he rose up on his crutch and
+shouldered his way out the door.
+
+"You're crazy!" he yelled, "the whole danged town's crazy. All except
+old Charley and me."
+
+He jerked his head and winked at Charley as he hobbled towards the
+street and Death Valley nodded gravely. There was a long, hateful
+silence; then the great motor roared out and the white racer rushed away
+across the desert.
+
+"Well, I don't care!" declared the Widow as she gazed after his dust and
+when the stage went out that day it took a lady passenger to Vegas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+BETWEEN FRIENDS
+
+
+The madness of the Widow and Old Charley and Stiff Neck George was no
+mystery to Wiley Holman--it was the same form of mania which he
+encountered everywhere when he went to see men who owned mines. If he
+offered them a million for a ten-foot hole they would refuse it and
+demand ten million more, and if he offered them nothing they
+immediately scented a conspiracy to starve them out and gain
+possession of their mine. It was the illusion of hidden wealth, of
+buried treasure, which keeps half the mines in the West closed down
+and half of the rest in litigation; except that in Keno it seemed to
+be associated with gun-plays and a marked tendency towards homicide.
+So, upon his return from a short stay in the hospital he came up the
+main street silently, then stepped on the throttle and went through
+town a-smoking. But the Widow was out waiting for him in the middle of
+the road and, rather than run her down, he threw on both brakes and
+stopped.
+
+"Well, what now?" he inquired, frowning at the odor of heated rubber.
+"What's your particular grievance this trip?" He regarded her coldly,
+then bowed to Virginia and waved a friendly hand at Charley. "Hello,
+there, Death Valley," he called out jovially, as the Widow choked with a
+rush of words, "what's the news from the Funeral Range?"
+
+"Now, here!" exclaimed the Widow, advancing from the dust cloud, and
+glancing into the machine. "I want you to bring back that gun!"
+
+"I'm sorry, Mrs. Huff," he replied with finality, "but you'll have to
+get along without it. I turned it over to the sheriff, along with three
+buckshot and an affidavit regarding the shooting----"
+
+"What, you great, big coward!" stormed the Widow in a fury. "Did you run
+and complain to the sheriff?"
+
+"No, I walked," said Wiley, "and on one leg at that. But I might as well
+warn you that next time you make a gun-play you're likely to break into
+jail."
+
+"You're a coward!" she taunted. "You're standing in with Blount to beat
+me out of my mine. First you sneak off with my gun, so I can't protect
+my rights, and then Stiff Neck George comes up and jumps the Paymaster!"
+
+"The hell!" burst out Wiley, rising up in his seat and looking across at
+the mine.
+
+"Yes, the hell," she returned, "and he's warned off all comers and is
+holding the mine for Blount!"
+
+"For Blount!" he echoed and, seeing him roused at last, the Widow became
+subtly provocative.
+
+"For Samuel J. Blount," she repeated impressively. "He--he's got all my
+stock on a loan."
+
+"Oh!" observed Wiley, and as she raved on with her story he rubbed his
+chin in deep thought.
+
+"Yes, I went down to see him and he wouldn't buy it, so I left it as
+collateral on a loan. And then he came out here and looked over the mine
+again and told Stiff Neck George to stand guard. They're fixing to pump
+out the water."
+
+"Oho!" exclaimed Wiley, and his eyes began to kindle as he realized what
+Blount had done. Then reaching for the pistol that lay handy beside his
+leg, he leapt out with waspish quickness, only to stop short as he hurt
+his lame foot.
+
+"Go on!" hissed the Widow, advancing to his shoulder and pointing the
+way up the trail. "He stays right there by the dump. The mine is yours;
+go put him off--I would, if I had my gun."
+
+"Aw, pfooey!" he exclaimed, suddenly turning back and clamoring into his
+seat. "I've got one game leg already. Let 'im have the doggoned mine."
+
+"What? Are you going to back out? Well, you are a good one--and it
+stands in your name, this minute!"
+
+"Yes, and it isn't worth--that!" he said with conviction, and snapped
+his finger in the air. "He can have it. You can tell Blount, the next
+time you see him, he can buy in that tax title for the costs."
+
+He paused and muttered angrily, gazing off towards the dump where
+crooked-necked George stood guard, and then he hopped out to crank up.
+
+"Want a ride?" he asked, as he saw Virginia watching him and she
+hesitated and shook her head. "Come on," he smiled, casting aside his
+black mood, "let's take a little spin--just down on the desert and back.
+What's going on--getting ready to move?"
+
+He gazed with alarm at a pile of packing boxes that the Widow had
+marshaled on the gallery and then he looked back at Virginia. She was
+attired in a gown that had been very chic in the fall of nineteen ten,
+but, though it was scant for these bouffant days, she was the old
+Virginia still--slim and strong and dainty, and highbred in every line,
+with dark eyes that mirrored passing thoughts. She was the Virginia he
+had played with when Keno was booming and his own sisters had been there
+for company; and now after ten years he remembered the time when he had
+asked her, in vain, for a kiss.
+
+"I've got something to tell you," he said at last and Virginia stepped
+into the racer.
+
+"Virginia!" reminded the Widow, and then at a glance she turned round
+and flung into the house. There were times and occasions when she had
+found it safer not to press her maternal authority too far, and the look
+that she received was first notice from Virginia that such an occasion
+had arrived. The motor began to thunder, Wiley threw in the clutch, and
+with a speed that was startling, they whipped a sudden circle and went
+bubbling away down the road.
+
+It stretched on endlessly, this road across the desert, as straight as a
+surveyor's line, and as they cleared the rough gulches and glided down
+into its immensity Virginia glanced at the desert and sighed.
+
+"Pretty big," he suggested and as she nodded slowly he raised his eyes
+to the hills. "I don't know," he went on, "whether you'll like Los
+Angeles. You'll get lonely for this, sometimes."
+
+"Yes, but not for that"--she jerked a thumb back at Keno--"that place is
+pretty small. What's left, of course; but it seems to me sometimes
+they're all of them lame, halt and blind. Always quarreling and
+backbiting and jumping each other's claims--but--what do you think of
+the Paymaster?"
+
+She shot the question at him and it occurred suddenly to Wiley that
+perhaps she had a programme, too.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," he began, deftly changing his ground, "I'm in
+Dutch on that, all around. When I came home full of buckshot and the Old
+Man heard about it I got my orders to come back and apologize. Well,
+I'll do that--to you--and you can tell your mother I'm sure sorry I went
+up on that dump."
+
+He grinned and motioned to his injured foot, but Virginia was in no mood
+for a joke.
+
+"That's all right," she said, "and I accept your apology--though I don't
+know exactly what it's for. But I asked your opinion of the Paymaster."
+
+"Oh, yes," he replied and then he began to temporize. "You'd better tell
+me what you want it for, first."
+
+"What? Do you have one opinion for one set of people and another for
+somebody else? I thought!"---- She paused and the hot blood leapt to her
+cheeks as she saw where her temper had led her. "Well," she explained,
+"I've got a few shares of stock."
+
+She said it quietly and the suggestion of scolding gave way to a
+chastened appeal. She remembered--and he sensed it--that winged shaft
+which he had flung back when she had said he was honest, like his
+father. He had told her then she was becoming like her mother, and
+Virginia could never endure that.
+
+"Ah, I see," he answered and went on hurriedly with a new note of
+friendliness in his voice. "Well, I'll tell you, Virginia, if it will be
+any accommodation to you I'll take over that stock myself. But--well, I
+hate to advise you--because--how many shares have you got?"
+
+"Oh, several thousand," she responded casually. "They were given to me
+by father--and by different men that I've helped. Mr. Masters, you know,
+that I took care of for a while, he gave me all he had when he died. But
+I don't want to sell them--I know there's no market, because Blount
+wouldn't give Mother anything--but if he should happen to strike
+something----"
+
+She glanced across at him swiftly but Wiley's face was grim.
+
+"Yes, _him_ find anything!" he jeered. "That fat-headed old tub! He
+knows about as much about mining as a hog does about the precession of
+the equinox. No; miracles may happen but, short of that, he'll never get
+back a cent!"
+
+"No, but Wiley," she protested, "you know as well as I do that the
+Paymaster isn't worked out. Now what's to prevent my stock becoming
+valuable sometime when they open it up?"
+
+"What's to prevent?" he repeated. "Well, I'll tell you what. If Blount
+makes a strike he'll close that mine down and send the company through
+bankruptcy. Then he'll buy the mine back on a judgment and you'll be
+left without a cent."
+
+"But what about you?" she suggested shrewdly. "Will you let him serve
+_you_ like that?"
+
+"Don't you think it!" he answered. "I know him too well--my money is
+somewhere else."
+
+"But if you should buy the mine?"
+
+"Well----" he stirred uneasily and then shot his machine ahead--"I
+haven't bought it yet."
+
+"No, but you offered to, and I don't see why----"
+
+"Do you want to sell your stock?" he asked abruptly and she flushed and
+shook her head. "Well!" he said and without further comment he slowed
+down and swung about.
+
+"Oh, dear," she sighed, as they started back and he turned upon her
+swiftly.
+
+"Do you know why I wouldn't have that mine," he inquired, "if you'd hand
+it to me as a gift? It's because of this everlasting fight. I own it,
+right now, if anybody does, and I've never been down the shaft. Now
+suppose I'd go over there and shoot it out with George and get
+possession of my mine. First Blount would come up with some other hired
+man-killer and I'd have a bout with him; and then your respected
+mother----"
+
+"Now you hush up!" she chided and he closed down his jaw like a
+steel-trap. She watched him covertly, then her eyes began to blink and
+she turned her head away. The desert rushed by them, worlds of waxy
+green creosote bushes and white, gnarly clumps of salt bush; and
+straight ahead, frowning down on the forgotten city, rose the black
+cloud-shadow of Shadow Mountain.
+
+"Oh, turn off here!" she cried, impulsively as they came to a fork in
+the road and, plowing up the sand, he skidded around a curve and
+struck off up the Death Valley road. They came together at the edge of
+the town--the long, straight road to the south, and the road-trail
+that led west into the silence. There were no tracks in it now but the
+flat hoof-prints of burros and the wire-twined wheel-marks of desert
+buckboards; even the road was half obliterated by the swoop of the
+winds which had torn up the hard-packed dirt, yet the going was good
+and as the racer purred on Virginia settled back in her seat.
+
+"I can't believe it," she said at last, "that we're going to leave here,
+forever. This is the road that Father took when he left home that last
+time--have you ever been over into Death Valley? It's a great, big
+sink, all white with salt and borax; and at the upper end, where he went
+across, there are miles and miles of sand-hills. He's buried out there
+somewhere, and the hills have covered him--but oh, it's so awful
+lonesome!"
+
+She turned away again and as her head went down Wiley stared straight
+ahead and blinked. He had known the Colonel and loved him well, and his
+father had loved him, too; but that rift had come between them and until
+it was healed he could never be a friend of Virginia's. She distrusted
+him in everything--in his silence and in his speech, his laughter and
+his anger, in his evasions and when he talked straight--it was better to
+say nothing now. He had intended to help her, to offer her money or any
+assistance he could give; but her heart was turned against him and the
+most he could hope for was to get back to Keno without a quarrel. The
+divide was far ahead, where the road struck the pass and swung over and
+down into the Great Valley; and, glancing up at the sun, he turned
+around slowly and rumbled back into town. Shadow Mountain rose before
+them; it towered above the valley like a brooding image of hate but as
+he smiled farewell at the sad-eyed Virginia something moved him to take
+her hand.
+
+"Good-by," he said, "you'll be gone when I come back. But if you get
+into trouble--let me know."
+
+He gave her hand a squeeze and Virginia looked at him sharply, then she
+let her dark lashes droop.
+
+"I'm in trouble now," she said at last. "What good did it do to tell
+you?"
+
+He winced and shrugged his shoulders, then gazed at her again with a
+challenge in his eyes.
+
+"If you'd trust _me_ more," he said very slowly, "perhaps I'd trust
+_you_ more. What is it you want me to do?"
+
+"I want you to answer me--yes or no. Shall I keep my stock, or sell it?"
+
+"You keep it," he answered, and avoided her eye until she climbed out
+and entered the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE TIP
+
+
+"Well?" inquired the Widow as her daughter came back from her ride with
+Wiley Holman; but Virginia was not giving out confidences. At last, and
+by a trick, she had surprised the truth from Wiley and he had told her
+to keep her stock. For weeks, for months, he had told her and everybody
+else that the Paymaster was not worth having; but when she had drooped
+her lashes and asked him for his opinion he had told her not to sell.
+Not hesitatingly nor doubtfully, or with any crafty intent; but
+honestly, as a friend, perhaps as a lover--and then he had looked away.
+He knew, of course, how his past actions must appear in the light of
+this later advice; but he had told her the truth and gone. The question
+was: What should she do?
+
+Virginia returned to her room and locked the door while her mother
+stormed around outside and at last she came to a decision. What Wiley
+had told her had been said in strictest confidence and it would not be
+fair to pass it on; but if he advised her not to sell he had a reason
+for his advice, and that reason was not far to find. It was in that
+white stone that he had stolen from her collection, and in the white
+quartz he had gathered from the dump. He claimed, of course, that he had
+not had her specimen assayed; but why, then, had he come back for more?
+And why had he been so careful to tell her and everyone that he would
+not take the Paymaster as a gift? As a matter of fact, he owned it that
+minute by virtue of his delinquent tax-sale, and his goings and comings
+had been nicely timed to enable him to keep track of his property. He
+was shrewd, that was all, but now she could read him; for he had spoken,
+for once, from his heart.
+
+The mail that night bore a sample of white quartz to a custom assayer in
+Vegas, but Virginia guarded her secret well. She had gained it by wiles
+that were not absolutely straight-forward, in that she had squeezed
+Wiley's hand in return, and since by so doing she had compromised with
+her conscience she placated it by withholding the great news. If she
+told her mother she would create a scene with Blount and demand the
+return of her stock; and the secret would get out and everybody would be
+buying stock and Wiley would blame it on her. No, everything must be
+kept dark and she mailed her sample when even the postmistress was gone.
+Perhaps Wiley was right in his extreme subterfuges and in always
+covering up his hand, but she would show him that there were others just
+as smart. She would take a leaf from his book and play a lone hand, too;
+only now, of course, she could not leave town.
+
+"Virginia!" scolded the Widow, when for the hundredth time she had
+discovered her dawdling at her packing. "If you don't get up and come
+and help me this minute I'll unpack and let you go alone."
+
+"Well, let's both unpack," said Virginia thoughtfully, and the Widow sat
+down with a crash.
+
+"I knew it!" she cried. "Ever since that Wiley Holman----"
+
+"Now, you hush up!" returned Virginia, flushing angrily. "You don't know
+what you're talking about!"
+
+"Well, if I don't know I can guess; but I never thought a Huff----"
+
+"Oh, you make me tired!" exclaimed Virginia, spitefully. "I'm staying
+here to watch that mine."
+
+"That--mine!" The Widow repeated it slowly and her eyes opened up big
+with triumph. "Virginia, do you mean to say you got the best of that
+whipper-snapper and----"
+
+"No, nothing of the kind! No! Can't you hear me? Oh, Mother, you'd drive
+a person crazy!"
+
+"I--see!" observed the Widow and stood nodding her head as Virginia went
+on with her protests. "Oh, my Lord!" she burst out, "and I put up all my
+stock for a measly eight hundred dollars! That scoundrelly Blount--I saw
+it in his eye the minute I mentioned my stock! He's tricked me, the
+rascal; but I'll fool him yet--I'll pay him back and get my stock!"
+
+"You'll pay him back? Why, you've spent half the money to redeem your
+jewels and the diamonds!"
+
+"Well, I'll pawn them again. Oh, it makes me wild to think how that
+rascal has tricked me!"
+
+"But, Mother," protested Virginia, "_he_ hasn't done any work yet.
+They haven't made any strike at the mine. Why not let it go until they
+pump out the water and really find some ore? And besides, how could
+Wiley know anything about it? He's never been down the shaft."
+
+"But--why you told me yourself----"
+
+"I never told you anything!" burst out Virginia tearfully. "You just
+jump at everything like a flea. And now you'll tell everybody, and
+Wiley'll say I did it, and----"
+
+"Virginia Huff!" cried her mother, dramatically, "are you in love with
+that--thief?"
+
+"He is not! No, I am not! Oh, I wish you'd quit talking to me--I tell
+you he never told me _anything_!"
+
+"Well, for goodness sake!" exclaimed the Widow pityingly, and stalked
+off to think it over.
+
+"You, Charley!" she exclaimed as she found Death Valley on the gallery
+pretending to nail up a box, "you leave those things alone. Well, that's
+all right; we've changed our minds and now we're going to stay."
+
+"That's good," replied Charley, laying his hammer aside, "I've been
+telling 'em so for days. It's coming everywhere; all the old camps are
+opening up, but Keno will beat them all."
+
+"Yes, that's right," assented the Widow absently, and as she bustled
+away to begin her unpacking, Death Valley looked at Heine and leered.
+
+"Didn't I tell you!" he crowed and, scuttling back to get his
+six-shooter, he went out and began re-locating claims. That was the
+beginning. The real rush came later when the pumps began to throb in
+the Paymaster. A stream of water like a sheet of silver flowed down
+the side of the dump and as if it's touch had brought forth men from
+the desert sands, the old-timers came drifting in. Once more the
+vacant sidewalks resounded to the thud of sturdy hob-nailed boots; and
+along with the locaters came pumpmen and miners to sound the flooded
+depths of the Paymaster.
+
+It was a great mine, a famous mine, the richest in all the West; within
+twenty months it had produced twelve million dollars and the lower
+levels had never been touched. But what was twelve million to what it
+would turn out when they located the hidden ore-body? On its record
+alone the Paymaster was a world-beater, but the ground had barely been
+scratched. Even Samuel Blount, who was cold as a stone and had sold out
+the entire town, even he had caught the contagion; and he was talking
+large on the bank corner when Holman came back through town.
+
+Wiley drove in from the north, his face burned by sun and wind and his
+machine weighed down with sacks of samples, but when he saw the crowd,
+and Blount in the middle of it, he threw on his brakes with a jerk.
+
+"Hello!" he hailed. "What's all the excitement? Has the Paymaster made a
+strike?"
+
+All eyes turned to Blount, who stepped down ponderously and waddled out
+to the auto. He was a very heavy man, with his mouth on one side and a
+mild, deceiving smile; and as he shook hands perfunctorily he glanced
+uneasily at Wiley, for he had heard about the tax-sale.
+
+"Why, no," he replied, "no strike as yet. How's everything with you, Mr.
+Holman?"
+
+"Fine and dandy, I guess," returned Wiley civilly. "Where did all these
+men jump up from?"
+
+"Oh, they just dropped in, or stopped over in passing. Do you still take
+an interest in mines?"
+
+"Well, yes," responded Wiley. "I'm a mining engineer, and so naturally I
+do take quite an interest. And by the way, Mr. Blount, did it ever occur
+to you that the Paymaster has been sold for taxes? Oh, that's all right,
+that's all right; I didn't know whether you'd heard about it--do you
+recognize my title to the mine?"
+
+"Well," began Blount, and then he smiled appeasingly, "I didn't just
+know where to reach you. Of course, according to law, you do hold the
+title; but I suppose you know that the stockholders of the company have
+five years in which to buy back the mine. Yes, that is the law; but I
+thought under the circumstances--the mine lying idle and all--you might
+be willing to waive your strict rights in the interests of, well,
+harmony."
+
+"I get you," answered Wiley, glancing at the staring onlookers, "and
+of course these gentlemen are our witnesses. You acknowledge my title,
+and that every bit of your work is being done on another man's ground;
+but, of course, if you make a strike I won't put any obstacles in your
+way. I'm for harmony, Mr. Blount, as big as a wolf; but there's one
+thing I want to ask you. Did you or did you not employ this Stiff Neck
+George to act as guard on the mine? Because two months ago, after I'd
+bought in the Paymaster for taxes, I went over to inspect the ground
+and Stiff Neck George----"
+
+"Oh, no! Oh dear, no!" protested Blount vigorously. "He was acting for
+himself. I heard about his actions, but I had nothing to do with
+them--I never even knew about it till lately."
+
+"But was he in your employ at the time of the shooting, and did you tell
+him to drive off all comers? Because----"
+
+"No! My dear boy, of course not! But come over to my office; I want to
+talk with you, Wiley."
+
+The banker beamed upon him affectionately and, shaking out a white
+handkerchief, wiped the sudden sweat from his brow; and then Wiley leapt
+to the ground.
+
+"All right," he said, "but let's go and see the mine first."
+
+He strapped on his pistol and waited expectantly and at last Blount
+breathed heavily and assented. Nothing more was said as they went across
+the flat and toiled up the trail to the mine. Wiley walked behind and as
+they mounted to the shaft-house his eyes wandered restlessly about;
+until, at the tool-shed, they suddenly focussed and a half-crouching man
+stepped out. He was tall and gnarly and the point of his chin rested
+stiffly on the slope of his shoulder. It was Stiff Neck George and he
+kept a crook in his elbow as he glanced from Blount to Wiley.
+
+"How's this?" demanded Wiley, putting Blount between him and George,
+"what's this man doing up here?"
+
+"Why, that's George," faltered Blount, "George Norcross, you know. He
+works for me around the mine."
+
+"Oh, he does, eh?" observed Wiley, in the cold tones of an examining
+lawyer. "How long has he been in your employ?"
+
+"Oh, since we opened up--that's all--just temporarily. This gentleman is
+all right, George; you can go."
+
+Stiff Neck George stood silent, his sunken eyes on Wiley, his sunburned
+lips parted in a grin, and then he turned and spat.
+
+"Eh, heh; hiding!" he chuckled and, stung by the taunt, Wiley stepped
+out into the open. His gun was pulled forward, his jaws set hard, and he
+looked the hired man-killer in the eye.
+
+"Don't you think it," he said, "I know you too well. You're afraid to
+fight in the day-time; you dirty, sneaking murderer!"
+
+He waited, poised, but George only laughed silently, though his
+poisonous eyes began to gleam.
+
+"What are you doing on my ground?" demanded Wiley, advancing
+threateningly with his pistol raised. "Don't you know I own this mine?"
+
+"No," snarled Stiff Neck George, coming suddenly to a crouch, "and,
+furthermore, I don't give a damn!"
+
+"Now, now, George," broke in Blount, "let's not have any words. Mr.
+Holman holds the title to this claim."
+
+"Heh--Holman!" mocked George, "Honest John's boy--eh?" He laughed
+insultingly and spat against the wind and Wiley's lip curled up
+scornfully.
+
+"Yes--Honest John," he repeated evenly. "And it's a wonder to me you
+don't take a few lessons and learn to spit clear of your chin."
+
+"You shut up!" snapped George as venomous as a rattlesnake. "Your damned
+old father was a thief!"
+
+"You're a liar!" yelled Wiley and, swinging his pistol like a club, he
+made a rush at the startled gunman. His eyes were flashing with a wild,
+reckless fury and as Stiff Neck George dodged and broke to run he leapt
+in and placed a fierce kick. "Now you git, you old dastard!" he shouted
+hoarsely and as George went down he grabbed him by the trousers and sent
+him sprawling down the dump. Sand, rocks and waste went avalanching
+after him, and a loose boulder thundered in his wake, until, at the
+bottom George scrambled to his feet and stood motionless, looking back.
+His head sank lower as he saw Wiley watching him and he slunk down
+closer to the ground, then with the swiftness of a panther that has
+marked down its prey he turned and skulked away.
+
+"That's bad business, Wiley," protested Blount half-heartedly and Wiley
+nodded assent.
+
+"Yes," he said, "he's dangerous now. I should have killed the dastard."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A PEACE TALK
+
+
+While his blood was pounding and his heart was high, Wiley Holman went
+down into his mine. He rode down on the bucket, deftly balanced on the
+rim and fending off the wall with one hand, and when he came up he was
+smiling. Not smiling with his lips, but far back in his eyes, like a man
+who has found something good. Perhaps Blount surprised the look before
+it had fled for he beamed upon Wiley benevolently.
+
+"Well, Wiley, my boy," he began confidentially as he drew him off to one
+side, "I'm glad to see you're pleased. The gold is there--I find that
+everyone thinks so--all we need now is a little co-operation. That's all
+we need now--peace. We should lay aside all personal feelings and old
+animosities and join hands to make the Paymaster a success."
+
+"That's right, that's right," agreed Wiley cheerfully, "there's nobody
+believes in peace more than I do. But all the same," he went on almost
+savagely, "you've got to get rid of old George. I'm for peace, you
+understand, but if I find him here again--well, I'll have to take over
+the property. He's nothing but a professional murderer."
+
+"Yes, I know," explained Blount, "he's a dangerous man--but I don't like
+to let an old man starve. He's got a right to live the same as any of
+us, and, since he can't work--well, I gave him a job as watchman."
+
+"Well, all right," grumbled Wiley, "if you want to be charitable; but I
+suppose you know that, under the law, you're responsible for the acts of
+your agents?"
+
+"That's all right, that's all right," burst out Blount impatiently,
+"I'll never hire him again. He refused to obey my orders and----"
+
+"_And_ he tried to kill me!" broke in Wiley angrily, but Blount had
+thrown up both hands.
+
+"Oh, now, Wiley," he protested, "why can't we be reasonable? Why can't
+we get together on this?"
+
+"We can," returned Wiley, "but you've got to show me that you're not
+trying to jump my claim."
+
+"Oh, you know," exclaimed Blount, "as well as I do that a tax sale is
+never binding. The owners of the property are given five years'
+time----"
+
+"It is binding," corrected Wiley, "until the property is bought
+back--and I happen to be holding the deed. Now, here's the point--what
+authority have you got for coming in here and working this property?"
+
+"Well, you may as well know," replied Blount shortly, "that I own a
+majority of the stock."
+
+"Aha!" burst out Wiley. "I was listening for that. So you're the Honest
+John?"
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Blount and, seeing the anger in his eyes,
+he hastened to head off the storm. "No, now listen to me, Wiley; it's
+not the way you think. I knew your father well, and I always found him
+the soul of honor; but I never liked to say anything, because Colonel
+Huff was my partner, too. So, when this trouble arose, I tried to remain
+neutral, without joining sides with either. It pained me very much to
+have people make remarks reflecting upon the honesty of your father, but
+as the confidant of both it was hardly in good taste for me to give out
+what I knew. So I let the matter go, hoping that time would heal the
+breach; but now that the Colonel is dead----"
+
+"Aha!" breathed Wiley and Blount nodded his head lugubriously.
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is the way it was. Your father was absolutely
+honest."
+
+"Well, but who sold the stock, and then bought it back--and put all the
+blame on my father?"
+
+"I can't tell you," answered Blount. "I never speak evil of the
+dead--but the Colonel was a very poor business man."
+
+"Yes, he was," agreed Wiley, and then, after a silence: "How did it
+happen that you got all his stock?"
+
+"Well, on mortgages and notes; and now as collateral on a loan that I
+made his widow. I own a clean majority of the stock."
+
+"Oh, you do, eh?" observed Wiley and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully while
+Blount looked mildly on. "Well, what are you going to do?"
+
+"Why, I'd like to buy back that tax deed," answered Blount amiably, "and
+get control of my property."
+
+"Oh," said Wiley, and looked down the valley with eyes that squinted
+shrewdly at the sun. "All right," he agreed, "just to show you that I'm
+a sport, I'll give you a quit-claim deed right now for the sum of one
+hundred dollars."
+
+"You will?" challenged Blount, reaching tremulously for his fountain pen
+and then he paused at a thought. "Very well," he said, but as he filled
+out the form he stopped and gazed uneasily at Wiley. Here was a mining
+engineer selling a possessory right to the Paymaster for the sum of one
+hundred dollars; while he, a banker, was spending a hundred dollars a
+day in what had proved so far to be dead work. "Er--I haven't any money
+with me," he suggested at length. "Perhaps--well, perhaps you could
+wait?"
+
+"Sure!" replied Wiley, rising up from where he was seated, "I'll wait
+for anything, except my supper. Where's the best place to eat in town,
+now?"
+
+"Why, at Mrs. Huff's," returned Blount in surprise. "But about this
+quit-claim, perhaps a check would do as well?"
+
+"What, are the Huffs still here?" exclaimed Wiley, starting off. "Why, I
+thought----"
+
+"No, they decided to stay," answered Blount, following after him. "But
+now, Wiley, about this quit-claim?"
+
+"Well, gimme your check! Or keep it, I don't care--I came away without
+my breakfast this morning."
+
+He strode off down the trail and Blount pulled up short and stood gazing
+after him blankly, then he shouted to him frantically and hurried down
+the slope to where Wiley was waiting impatiently.
+
+"Here, just sign this," he panted. "I'll write you out a check. But
+what's the matter, Wiley--didn't the mine show up as expected?"
+
+Wiley muttered unintelligibly as he signed the quit-claim which he
+retained until he had looked over the check. Then he folded up the check
+and kissed it surreptitiously before he stored it away in his
+pocketbook.
+
+"Why, yes," he said, "it shows up fine. I'll see you later, down at the
+house."
+
+Blount sat down suddenly, but as Wiley clattered off he shouted a
+warning after him.
+
+"Oh, Wiley, please don't mention that matter I spoke of!"
+
+"What matter?" yelled back Wiley and at another disquieting thought
+Blount jumped up and came galloping after him.
+
+"The matter of the Colonel," he panted in his ear, "and here's another
+thing, Wiley. You know Mrs. Huff--she's absolutely impossible and--well,
+she's been making me quite a little trouble. Now as a personal favor,
+please don't lend her any money or help her to get back her stock;
+because if you do----"
+
+"I won't!" promised Wiley, holding up his right hand. "But say, don't
+stop me--I'm starving."
+
+He ran down the trail, limping slightly on his game leg, and Blount sat
+down on a rock.
+
+"Well, I'll be bound!" he puffed and gazed at the quit-claim ruefully.
+
+The tables were all set when Wiley re-entered the dining-room from which
+he had retreated once before in such haste, and Virginia was there and
+waiting, though her smile was a trifle uncertain. A great deal of water
+had flowed down the gulch since he had advised her to keep her stock,
+but the assayer at Vegas was worse than negligent--he had not reported
+on the piece of white rock. Therefore she hardly knew, being still in
+the dark as to his motives in giving the advice, whether to greet Wiley
+as her savior or to receive him coldly, as a Judas. If the white quartz
+was full of gold that her father had overlooked--say fine gold, that
+would not show in the pan--then Wiley was indeed her friend; but if the
+quartz was barren and he had purposely deceived her in order to boom his
+own mine--she smiled with her lips and asked him rather faintly if he
+wanted his supper at once.
+
+But if Virginia was still a Huff, remembering past treacheries and
+living in the expectancy of more, the Widow cast aside all petty
+heart-burnings in her joy at the humiliation of Stiff Neck George.
+Leaving Virginia in the kitchen, to fry Wiley's steak, she rushed into
+the dining-room with her eyes ablaze and all but shook his hand.
+
+"Well, well," she exulted, "I'll have to take it back--you certainly did
+boot him good. I said you were a coward but I was watching you through
+my spy-glass and I nearly died a-laughing. You just walked right up to
+him--and you were cursing him scandalous, I could tell by the look on
+your face--and then all at once you made a jump and gave him that awful
+kick. Oh, ho, ho; you know I've always said he looked like a man that
+was watching for a swift kick from behind; and now--after waiting all
+these years--oh, ho ho--you gave him what was coming to him!"
+
+The Widow sat down and held her sides with laughter and Wiley's grim
+features, that had remained set and watchful, slowly relaxed to a
+flattered grin. He had indeed stood up to Stiff Neck George and booted
+him down the dump, so that the score of that night when he had been
+hunted like a rabbit was more than evened up; for George had sneaked up
+on an unarmed man and rolled down boulders from above, but he had
+outfaced him, man to man and gun to gun, and kicked him down the dump to
+boot. Yes, the Widow might well laugh, for it would be many a long day
+before Stiff Neck George heard the last of that affair.
+
+"And old Blount," laughed the Widow, "he was right there and saw it--his
+own hired bully, and all. Say, now Wiley, tell me all about it--what did
+Blount have to say? Did he tell you it was all a mistake? Yes, that's
+what he tells everybody, every time he gets into trouble; but he can't
+make excuses to me. Do you know what he's done? He's tied up all my
+stock as security for eight hundred dollars! What's eight hundred
+dollars--I turned it all in to get the best of my diamonds out of pawn.
+It made me feel so bad, seeing that diamond ring of yours; I just
+couldn't help getting them out. And now I'm flat and he's holding all my
+stock for a miserable little eight hundred dollars!"
+
+She ended up strong, but Wiley sensed a touch and his expressions of
+sympathy were guarded.
+
+"Now, you're a business man," she went on unheedingly. "I'll tell you
+what I'll do--you lend me the money to get back that stock and I'll sell
+it all to your father!"
+
+"To my father!" echoed Wiley and then his face turned grim and he
+laughed at some hidden joke. "Not much," he said, "I like the Old Man
+too much. You'd better sell it back to Blount."
+
+"To Blount? Why, hasn't your father been hounding me for months to get
+his hands on that stock? Well, I'd like to know then what you think
+you're doing? Have you gone back on your promise, or what?"
+
+"I never made any promise," returned Wiley pacifically. "It was my
+father that made the offer."
+
+"Oh, fiddlesticks!" exploded the Widow. "Well, what's the
+difference--you're working hand and glove!"
+
+"Not at all," corrected Wiley, "the Old Man is raising cattle. You can't
+get him to look at a mine."
+
+"Well, he offered to buy my stock!" exclaimed the Widow, badly
+flustered. "I'd like to know what this means?"
+
+"It's no use talking," returned Wiley wearily, "I've told you a thousand
+times. If you send your stock to John Holman at Vegas, he'll give you
+ten cents a share; but _I_ won't give you a cent."
+
+"Do you mean to say," demanded the Widow incredulously, "that you don't
+want that stock?"
+
+"That's it," assented Wiley. "I've just sold my tax title for a hundred
+dollars, to Blount."
+
+"Oh, this will drive me mad!" cried the Widow in a frenzy. "Virginia,
+come in here and help me!"
+
+Virginia came in with the steak slightly scorched and laid his dinner
+before Wiley. Her eyes were rather wild, for she had been listening
+through the doorway, but she turned to her mother inquiringly.
+
+"He says he's sold his tax claim," wailed the Widow in despair, "for one
+hundred dollars--to Blount. And then he turns around and says his father
+will buy my stock for ten cents a share in cash. But he won't lend me
+the money to pay my note to Blount and get my Paymaster stock back."
+
+"That's right," nodded Wiley, "you've got it all straight. Now let's
+quit before we get into a row."
+
+He bent over the steak and, after a meaning look at Virginia, the Widow
+discreetly withdrew.
+
+"We saw you fighting George," ventured Virginia at last as he seemed
+almost to ignore her presence. "Weren't you afraid he'd get mad and
+shoot you?"
+
+"Uh, huh," he grunted, "wasn't I hiding behind Blount? No, I had him
+whipped from the start. Bad conscience, I reckon; these crooks are all
+the same--they're afraid to fight in the open."
+
+"But _your_ conscience is all right, eh?" suggested Virginia
+sarcastically, and he glanced up from under his brows.
+
+"Yes," he said, "we've got 'em there, Virginia. Are you still holding
+onto that stock?"
+
+A swift flood of shame mantled Virginia's brow and then her dark eyes
+flashed fire.
+
+"Yes, I've got it," she said, "but what's the answer when you sell out
+your tax claim to Blount?"
+
+"I wonder," he observed and went on with his eating while she paced
+restlessly to and fro.
+
+"You told me to hold it," she burst out accusingly, "and then you turn
+around and sell!"
+
+"Well, why don't _you_ sell?" he suggested innocently, and she paused
+and bit her lip. Yes, why not? Why, because there were no buyers--except
+Wiley Holman and his father! The knowledge of her impotence almost
+drove her on to further madness, but another voice bade her beware.
+He had given her his advice, which was not to sell, and--oh, that
+accursed assayer! If she had his report she could flaunt it in his
+face or--she caught her breath and smiled.
+
+"No," she said, "you told me not to!"
+
+And Wiley smiled back and patted her hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE BEST HEAD IN TOWN
+
+
+What was Wiley Holman up to? Virginia paced the floor in a very
+unloverlike mood; and at last she sat down and wrote a scathing letter
+to the assayer, demanding her assay at once. She also enclosed one
+dollar in advance to test the sample for gold and silver and then, as an
+afterthought, she enclosed another bill and told him to test it for
+copper, lead, and zinc. There was something in that rock--she knew it
+just as well as she knew that Wiley was in love with her, and this was
+no time to pinch dollars. For ten years and more they had stuck there in
+Keno, waiting and waiting for something to happen, but now things had
+come to such a pass that it was better to know even the worst. For if
+the mine was barren and Wiley, after all, was only trying in his dumb
+way to help, then she must pocket her pride and sell him her stock and
+go away and hide her head. But if the white quartz was rich--well, that
+would be different; there would be several things to explain.
+
+Yet, if the quartz was barren, why did Wiley offer to buy her stock, and
+if it was rich, why did he sell his tax deed? And if his father stood
+ready to pay ten cents a share for two hundred thousand shares of stock
+why did Wiley refuse to redeem her mother's holdings for a petty eight
+hundred dollars? He must have the money, for his diamond ring alone was
+worth well over a thousand dollars; and he had tried repeatedly to get
+possession of this same stock which he now refused to accept as a gift.
+Virginia thought it over until her head was in a whirl and at last she
+stamped her foot. The assay would tell, and if he had been trying to
+cheat her--she drew her lips to a thin, hard line and looked more than
+ever like her mother.
+
+The work at the Paymaster went on intermittently, but Blount's early
+zest was lacking. For eight, yes, ten years he had waited patiently
+for the moment when he should get control of the mine; but now that he
+held it, without let or hindrance, somehow his enthusiasm flagged.
+Perhaps it was the fact that the timbering was expensive and that his
+gropings for the lost ore body came to nothing; but in the back of his
+mind Blount's growing distrust dated from the day he had bought
+Wiley's quit-claim. Wiley had come to the mine full of fury and
+aggressiveness, as his combat with Stiff Neck George clearly showed;
+but after he had gone down and inspected the workings he had sold out
+for one hundred dollars. And Wiley Holman was a mining engineer, with
+a name for Yankee shrewdness--he must have had a reason.
+
+Blount recalled his men from the drifts where they had been working and
+set them to crosscutting for the vein. It was too expensive, restoring
+all the square-sets and clearing out the fallen rock; and he had learned
+to his sorrow that Colonel Huff had blown up every heading with
+dynamite. In that tangle of shattered timbers and caved-in walls the
+miners made practically no progress, for the ground was treacherous and
+ten years under water had left the wood soft and slippery. To be sure
+the hidden chute lay at the breast of some such drift; but to clear them
+all out, with his limited equipment and no regular engineer in charge,
+would run up a staggering account. So Blount began to crosscut, and to
+sink along the contact, but chiefly to cut down expenses.
+
+With the railroad that had tapped the camp torn up and hauled away,
+every foot of timber, every stick of powder, cost twice as much as it
+ought. And then there was machinery, and gas and oil for the engine, and
+valves and spare parts for the pumps, and the board of the men, and
+overhead expenses--and not a single dollar coming in. Blount sat up late
+in his office, adding total to total, and at the end he leaned back
+aghast. At the very inside it was costing him two hundred dollars for
+every day that he operated the mine. And what was it turning back?
+Nothing. The mine had been gutted of every pound of ore that it would
+pay to sack and ship, and unless something was done to locate the lost
+ore body and give some guarantee of future values, well, the Paymaster
+would have to shut down. Blount considered it soberly, as a business man
+should, and then he sent for Wiley Holman.
+
+There were others, of course, to whom he might appeal; but he sent for
+Wiley first. He was a mining engineer, he had had his eye on the
+property and--well, he probably knew something about the lost vein. So
+he sent a wire, and then a man; and at last Holman, M. E., arrived. He
+came under protest, for he had been showing a mine of his own to some
+four-buckle experts from the east, and when Blount made his appeal he
+snorted.
+
+"Well, for the love of Miguel!" he exclaimed, starting up. "Do you think
+I'm going to help you for nothing? I'm a mining engineer, and the least
+it will cost you is five hundred dollars for a report. No, I don't think
+anything; and I don't know anything; and I won't take your mine on
+shares. I'm through--do you get me? I sold out my entire interest for
+one hundred dollars, cash. That puts me ahead of the game, up to date;
+and while I'm lucky I'll quit."
+
+He stamped out of the office--Blount having moved into the bank building
+where he had formerly officiated as president--and made a break for his
+machine; but other eyes had marked his arrival in town and Death Valley
+Charley button-holed him.
+
+"Say," he said, "do you want something good--an option on ten
+first-class claims? Well, come with me; I'll make you an offer that
+you can't hardly, possibly refuse."
+
+He led Wiley up an alley, then whisked him around corners and back to
+his house behind the Widow's.
+
+"Now, listen," he went on, when Wiley was in a chair and he had
+carefully fastened the door, "I'm going to show you something good."
+
+He reached under his bed and brought out ten sacks of samples which he
+spread, one by one, on the table.
+
+"Now, you see?" he said. "It's all that white quartz that you was after
+on the Paymaster dump. I followed the outcrop, on an extension of the
+Paymaster, and I took up ten, good, opened claims."
+
+"Umm," murmured Wiley, and examined each sample with a careful,
+appraising eye. "Yes, pretty good, Charley; I suppose you guarantee the
+title? Well, how much do you want for your claims?"
+
+"Oh, whatever you say," answered Charley modestly, "but I want two
+hundred dollars down."
+
+"And about a million apiece, I suppose, for the claims? It doesn't cost
+_me_ anything, you know, on an option."
+
+"Eh, heh, heh," laughed Charley indulgently and Heine, who had been
+looking from face to face, jumped up and barked with delight. "Eh, heh;
+yes, that's good; but you know me, Mr. Holman--I ain't so crazy as they
+think. No, I don't talk millions with my mouth full of beans; all I want
+is five hundred apiece. But I got to have two hundred down."
+
+"Oh," observed Wiley, "that's two dollars for the marriage license and
+the rest for the wedding journey. Well, if it's as serious as that----"
+He reached for his check-book and Charley cackled with merriment.
+
+"Yes, yes," he said, "then I _would_ be crazy. Do you know what the
+Colonel told me?
+
+"'Charley,' he says, 'whatever you do, don't marry no talking woman.
+She'll drive you crazy, the same as I am; but don't you forget that
+whiskey.'"
+
+"Oh, sure," exclaimed Wiley, beginning to write out the option, "this
+money is to buy whiskey for the Colonel!"
+
+"That's it," answered Charley. "He's over across Death Valley--in the
+Ube-Hebes--but I can't find my burros. They--Heine, come here, sir!"
+Heine came up cringing and Charley slapped him soundly. "Shut up!" he
+commanded and as Heine crept away Death Valley began to mutter to
+himself. "No, of course not; he's dead," he ended ineffectively, and
+Wiley looked up from his writing.
+
+"Who's dead?" he inquired, but Charley shook his head and listened
+through the wall.
+
+"Look out," he said, "I can hear her coming--jest give me that two
+hundred now."
+
+"Well, here's twenty," replied Wiley, passing over the money, and then
+there came a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in!" called out Charley and, as he motioned Wiley to be silent,
+Virginia appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "I didn't know you were here!" But something in the way
+she fixed her eyes on him convinced Wiley that she had known, all the
+same.
+
+"Just a matter of business," he explained with a flourish, "I'm
+considering an option on some of Charley's claims."
+
+"Jest my bum claims!" mumbled Charley as Virginia glanced at him
+reprovingly. "Jest them ten up north of the Paymaster."
+
+"Oh," she said and drew back towards the door, "well, don't let me break
+up a trade."
+
+"You'd better sign as a witness," spoke up Wiley imperturbably, and she
+stepped over and looked at the paper.
+
+"What? All ten of those claims for five hundred apiece? Why, Charley,
+they may be worth millions!"
+
+"Well, put it down five million, then," suggested Wiley, grimly. "How
+much do you want for them, Charley?"
+
+"Five hundred dollars apiece," answered Charley promptly, "but they's
+got to be two hundred down."
+
+"Well?" inquired Wiley as Virginia still regarded him suspiciously, and
+then he beckoned her outside. "Say, what's the matter?" he asked
+reproachfully. "Let the old boy make his touch--he wants that two
+hundred for grub."
+
+"He does not!" she spat back. "I'm ashamed of you, Wiley Holman; taking
+advantage of a crazy man like that!"
+
+"Well, I don't know," he began in a slow, drawling tone that cut her to
+the quick, "he may not be as crazy as you think. I've just been offered
+a half interest in the Paymaster if I'll come out and take charge of
+it."
+
+"You _have_!" she cried, starting back and staring as he regarded
+her with steely eyes. "Well, are you going to take it?"
+
+"I don't know," he answered. "Thought I'd better see you first--it might
+be taking advantage of Blount."
+
+"Of Blount!" she echoed and then she saw his smile and realized that he
+was making fun of her.
+
+"Yes," went on Wiley, whose feelings had been ruffled, "he may be crazy,
+too. He sure was looking the part."
+
+"Now don't you laugh at me!" she burst out hotly. "This isn't as funny
+as you think. What's going to happen to us if you take over that mine? I
+declare, you've been standing in with Blount!"
+
+"I knew it," he mocked. "You catch me every time. But what about Charley
+here--does he get his money or not?" He turned to Death Valley, who was
+standing in the doorway watching their quarrel with startled eyes. "I
+guess you're right, Charley," he added, smiling wryly. "It must be
+something in the air."
+
+"Are you going to take that offer," demanded Virginia, wrathfully, "and
+rob me and mother of our mine?"
+
+"Oh, no," he answered, "I turned it down cold. I knew you wouldn't
+approve."
+
+"You knew nothing of the kind!" she came back sharply, the angry tears
+starting in her eyes. "And I don't believe he ever made it."
+
+"Well, ask him," suggested Wiley, and went back into the house,
+whereupon Death Valley closed the door.
+
+"Yes," whispered Charley, "it's in the air--there's electricity
+everywhere. But what about that option?"
+
+Wiley sat at the table, his eyes big with anger, his jaw set hard
+against the pain, and then he reached for his pen.
+
+"All right, Charley," he said, "but don't you let 'em kid you--you've
+got the best business head in town."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A TOUCH
+
+
+The wrath of a man who is slow to anger cannot lightly be turned aside
+and, though Virginia drooped her lashes, the son of Honest John brushed
+past her without a word. She had followed him gratuitously to Death
+Valley's cabin and seriously questioned his good faith; and then, to fan
+the flames of his just resentment, she had suggested that he was telling
+an untruth. He had told her--and it seemed impossible--that Blount had
+offered him half the Paymaster, on shares; but the following morning,
+without a word of warning, the Paymaster Mine shut down. The pumps
+stopped abruptly, all the tools were removed, and as the foreman and
+miners who had been their boarders rolled up their beds and prepared to
+depart, the high-headed Virginia buried her face in her hands and
+retired to her bedroom to weep. And then to cap it all that miserable
+assayer sent in his belated report.
+
+"Gold--a trace. Silver--blank. Copper--blank. Lead--blank. Zinc--blank."
+
+The heavy white quartz which Wiley had made so much of was as barren as
+the dirt in the street. It had absolutely no value and--oh, wretched
+thought--he had offered to buy her stock out of charity! Out of the
+bigness of his heart--and then she had insulted him and accused him of
+robbing Death Valley Charley! In the light of this new day Death Valley
+was a magnate, with his check for two hundred dollars, and Virginia and
+her mother must either starve on in silence or accept the bounty of the
+Holmans. It was maddening, unbelievable--and to think what he had
+suffered from her, before he had finally gone off in a rage. But how
+sarcastic he had been when she had accused him of robbing Charley, and
+of standing in with Blount! He had said things then which no woman could
+forgive; no, not even if she were in the wrong. He had led her on to
+make unconsidered statements, smiling provokingly all the time; and
+then, when she had doubted that Blount had offered him the mine, he had
+said, "Well, ask him!" and shut the door in her face! And now, without
+asking, the question had been answered, for Blount had closed down the
+mine in despair and gone back to his bank in Vegas.
+
+The Paymaster was dead, and Keno was dead; and their eight hundred
+dollars was gone. All the profits from the miners which they had counted
+upon so confidently had disappeared in a single day; and now her mother
+would have to pawn her diamonds again in order to get out of town.
+Virginia paced up and down, debating the situation and seeking some
+possible escape, but every door was closed. She could not appeal to
+Wiley, for she knew her stock was worthless, and her hold on his
+sympathies was broken. He was a Yankee and cold, and his anger was
+cold--the kind that will not burn itself out. When he had loved her it
+was different; there was a spark of human kindness to which she could
+always appeal; but now he was as cold and passionless as a statue; with
+his jaws shut down like iron. She gave up and went out to see Charley.
+
+Death Valley was celebrating his sudden rise to affluence by a resort to
+the flowing bowl and when Virginia stepped in she found all three
+phonographs running and a two-gallon demijohn on the table. Death Valley
+himself was reposing in an armchair with one leg wrapped up in a white
+bandage and as she stopped the grinding phonographs and made a grab for
+the demijohn he held up two fingers reprovingly.
+
+"I'm snake-bit," he croaked. "Don't take away my medicine. Do you want
+your Uncle Charley to die?"
+
+"Why, Charley!" she cried, "you know you aren't snake-bit! The
+rattlesnakes are all holed up now."
+
+"Yes--holed up," he nodded; "that's how I got snake-bit. It was fourteen
+years ago, this month. Didn't you ever hear of my snake-mine--it was one
+of the marvels of Arizona--a two-foot stratum of snakes. I used to hook
+'em out as fast as I needed them and try out the oil to cure rheumatism;
+but one day I dropped one and he bit me on the leg, and it's been bad
+that same month ever since. Would you like to see the bite? There's the
+pattern of a diamond-back just as plain as anything, so I know it must
+have been a rattler."
+
+He reached resolutely for the demijohn and took a hearty drink whereat
+Virginia sat down with a sigh.
+
+"I'll tell you something," went on Charley confidentially. "Do you know
+why a snake shakes its tail? It's generating electricity to shoot in the
+pisen, and the longer a rattlesnake rattles----"
+
+"Oh, now, Charley," she begged, "can't you see I'm in trouble? Well,
+stop drinking and listen to what I say. You can help me a lot, if you
+will."
+
+"Who--me?" demanded Charley, and then he roused himself up and motioned
+for a dipper of water. "Well, all right," he said, "I hate to kill this
+whiskey----" He drank in great gulps and made a wry face as he rose up
+and looked around.
+
+"Where's Heine?" he demanded. "Here Heine, Heine!"
+
+"You drove him under the house," answered Virginia petulantly, "playing
+all three phonographs at once. Really, it's awful, Charley, and you'd
+better look out or mother will give you the bounce."
+
+"Scolding women--talking women," mused Charley drunkenly. "Well; what do
+you want me to do?"
+
+"I'm _not_ scolding!" denied Virginia, and then as he leered at her
+she gave way weakly to tears. "Well, I can't help it," she wailed, "she
+scolds me all the time and--she simply drives me to it."
+
+"They'll drive you crazy," murmured Charley philosophically. "There's
+nothing to do but hide out. But I must save the rest of that whiskey for
+the Colonel."
+
+He reached for the demijohn and corked it stoutly, after which he turned
+to Virginia.
+
+"Do you want some money?" he asked more kindly, bringing forth his roll
+as he spoke. "Well here, Virginny, there's one hundred dollars--it's
+nothing to your Uncle Charley. No, I got plenty more; and I'm going up
+the Ube-Hebes just as soon as I find my burros. They must be over to
+Cottonwood--there's lots of sand over there and Jinny, she's hell for
+rolling. No, take the money; I got it from Wiley Holman and he's got
+plenty more."
+
+He dropped it in her lap, but she jumped up hastily and put it back in
+his hands.
+
+"No, not that money," she said, "but listen to me, Charley; here's what
+I want you to do. I've got some stock in the Paymaster Mine that Wiley
+was trying to buy; but now--oh, you saw how he treated me yesterday--he
+wouldn't take it, if he knew. But Charley, you take it; and the next
+time you see him--well, try to get ten cents a share. We want to go
+away, Charley; because the mine is closed down and----"
+
+"Yes, yes, Virginny," spoke up Death Valley, soothingly, "I'll get you
+the money, right away."
+
+"But don't you tell him!" she warned in a panic, "because----"
+
+"You ought to be ashamed," said Charley reprovingly and went out to hunt
+up his burros. Virginia lingered about, looking off across the desert at
+the road down which Wiley had sped, and at last she bowed her head.
+Those last words of Charley's still rang in her ears and when, towards
+evening, he started off down the road she watched him out of sight.
+
+It was a long, dry road, this highway to Vegas, but twenty miles out, at
+Government Wells, there was water, and a good place to camp. Charley
+stopped there that night, and for three days more, until at last in the
+distance he saw Wiley's white racer at the tip of a streamer of dust. He
+went by like the wind but when he spied Charley he slowed down and
+backed up to his camp.
+
+"Hel-lo there, Old Timer," he hailed in surprise, "what are you doing,
+away out here?"
+
+"Oh, rambling around," responded Charley airily, waving his hand at the
+world at large. "It's good for man to be alone, away from them scolding
+women."
+
+The shadow of a smile passed over Wiley's bronzed face and then he
+became suddenly grim.
+
+"Bum scripture, Charley," he said, nodding shortly, "but you may be
+right, at that. What's the excitement around beautiful Keno?"
+
+"I don't know," lied Charley. "Ain't been in town since you was there,
+but she was sure booming, then. Say, I've got some stock in that
+Paymaster Mine that I might let you have, for cash. I'm burnt out on the
+town--they's too many people in it--I'm going back to the Ube-Hebes."
+
+"Well, take me along, then," suggested Wiley, "and we'll bring back a
+car-load of that gold. Maybe then I could buy your stock."
+
+"No, you buy it now," went on Charley insistently. "I'm broke and I need
+the money."
+
+"Oh, you do, eh?" jested Wiley. "Still thinking about that wedding trip?
+Well, I may need that money myself."
+
+"Eh, heh, heh," laughed Charley, and drawing forth a package he began to
+untie the strings. "Eh, heh; yes, that's right; I've been watching you
+young folks for some time. But I'll sell you this stock of mine cheap."
+
+He unrolled a cloth and flashed the certificates hopefully, but Wiley
+did not even look at them.
+
+"Nope," he said, "no Paymaster for me. I wouldn't accent that stock as a
+gift."
+
+"But it's rich!" protested Charley, his eyes beginning to get wild.
+"It's full of silver and gold. I can feel the electricity when I walk
+over the property--there's millions and millions, right there!"
+
+"Oh, there is, eh?" observed Wiley, and, snatching away the
+certificates, he ran them rapidly over. "Where'd you get these?" he
+asked, and Death Valley blinked, though he looked him straight in the
+eyes.
+
+"Why, I--bought 'em," he faltered, "and--the Colonel gave me some.
+And----"
+
+"How much do you want for them?" snapped Wiley, and Charley blinked
+again.
+
+"Ten cents a share," he answered, and Wiley's stern face hardened.
+
+"You take these back," he said, "and tell her I don't want 'em."
+
+"Who--Virginny?" inquired Death Valley, and then he kicked his leg and
+looked around for Heine.
+
+"Now, here," spoke up Wiley, "don't go to slapping that dog. How much do
+you want for the bunch?"
+
+"Four hundred dollars!" barked Charley, and stood watchful and expectant
+as Wiley sat deep in thought.
+
+"All right," he said, and as he wrote out the check Death Valley
+chuckled and leered at Heine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE EXPERT
+
+
+Like the way of an eagle in the air or the way of a man with a maid, the
+ways of a mining promoter must be shrouded in mystery and doubt. For
+when he wants to buy, no man will sell; and when he wants to sell, no
+man will buy; and when he will neither buy nor sell he is generally
+suspected of both. Wiley Holman had two fights and a charge of buckshot
+to prove that he wanted the Paymaster, and the fact that he had refused
+a half interest for nothing to prove that he did not want it. Also he
+had sold his tax-title to the property for the sum of one hundred
+dollars. What then did it signify when he bought Virginia's despised
+stock for four hundred dollars, cash down? The man who could answer that
+could explain the way of a man with a maid.
+
+Samuel J. Blount made the claim--and he had his pile to prove it--that
+he could think a little closer than most men. A little closer, and a
+little farther; but the Paymaster had been his downfall. He had played
+the long game to get possession of the mine, only to find he had bought
+a white elephant. Every day that he held it he had thrown good money
+after bad and he sent out a search party for Wiley Holman. Wiley had
+refused half the mine, but that only proved that half of the mine did
+not appeal to him--perhaps he would take it all. Samuel J. had been a
+student for a good many years in the school of predatory business and he
+had learned the rules of the game. He knew that the buyer always decried
+the goods and magnified each tiny defect, whereas the seller by as
+natural a process played up every virtue to the limit. But any man who
+inspected the goods was a potential buyer of the same, and Wiley had
+shown more than a passing interest in the fate of the unlucky Paymaster.
+And Wiley was a mining engineer.
+
+They met in the glassed-in office of Blount in the ornate Bank of Vegas
+and for a half an hour or more Wiley sat tipped back in his chair while
+Blount talked of everything in general. It was a way he had, never to
+approach anything directly; but Wiley favored more direct methods.
+
+"I understood," he remarked, bringing his chair down with a bang, "that
+you wanted to see me on business?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Wiley," soothed Blount, "now please don't rush off--I wanted
+to see you about the Paymaster."
+
+"Well, shoot," returned Wiley, "but don't ask my advice, unless you're
+ready to pay for it."
+
+He tipped back his chair and sat waiting patiently while Blount
+unraveled his thoughts. He could think closer than most men, but not
+quicker, and the Paymaster was a tangled affair.
+
+"I have been told," he began at last, "that you are still buying
+Paymaster stock. Or at least--well, a check of yours came through here
+endorsed by Death Valley Charley, and Virginia Huff. Oh, yes, yes;
+that's your business, of course; but here's the point I'm coming to; it
+won't do you any good to buy in that stock because I've got a majority
+of it right here in my vault. If you want to control the Paymaster,
+don't go to someone else--I'm the man you want to see."
+
+He tapped himself on the breast and smiled impressively, and Wiley
+nodded his head.
+
+"All right," he said imperturbably, "when I want the Paymaster Mine I'll
+know right where to go."
+
+"Yes, you come to me," went on Blount after a minute, "and I'll do the
+best I can." He paused expectantly, but Wiley did not speak, so he went
+on blandly, as before. "The stock, of course, is nonassessable and the
+taxes are very small. I intend from now on to keep them paid up, so
+there will be no further tax sales. The stock of Mrs. Huff, which I now
+hold as collateral security, is practically mine already, as she has
+defaulted on her first month's interest and is preparing to leave the
+state. Of course, there is the stock which your father is holding--as I
+calculate, something over two hundred thousand shares--and what little
+remains outside; but if you are interested in the mine I am the man to
+talk to, so what would you like to propose?"
+
+"Well," began Wiley, and then he stopped and seemed to be lost in
+thought. "I'll tell you," he said, "I was interested in the Paymaster--I
+believe there's something there; but I've got some other propositions
+that I can handle a little easier, so if you don't mind we'll wait a
+while."
+
+"No, but Wiley," protested Blount as his man rose up to go, "now just
+sit down; I'm not quite through. Now I know just as well as you do that
+you take a great interest in that mine. Your troubles with Mrs. Huff and
+Stiff Neck George prove conclusively that such is the case; and I am
+convinced that, either from your father or some other source, you have
+valuable inside information. Now I must admit that I'm not a mining man
+and my management was not a success; but with your technical education
+and all the rest, I am convinced that the results would be different.
+No, there's no use denying it, because I know myself that you've been
+buying up Paymaster stock."
+
+"Sure," agreed Wiley, "I bought four hundred dollars worth. That would
+break the Bank of Vegas. But you've got lots of money--why don't you
+hire a competent mining man and go after that lost ore-body yourself?"
+
+"I may do that," replied Blount easily, "but in the meantime why not
+make me a reasonable offer, or take the mine on shares?"
+
+"If the Paymaster," observed Wiley, "was the only mine in the world, I'd
+make you a proposition in a minute. But a man in my position doesn't
+have to buy his mines, and I never work anything on shares."
+
+"Well, now Wiley, I've got another proposition, which you may or may not
+approve; but there's no harm, I hope, if I mention it. You know there's
+been a difference between me and your father since--well, since the
+Paymaster shut down. I respect him very much and have nothing but the
+kindliest feelings towards him but he--well, you know how it is. But I
+have been informed, Wiley, that since Colonel Huff's death, your father
+has been bidding for his stock. In fact, I have seen a letter written to
+Mrs. Huff in which he offers her ten cents a share. Now, of course, if
+you want to gain control of the company, I'm willing to do what's right;
+and so, after thinking it over, I have come to the conclusion that I
+will accept that offer now."
+
+"Umm," responded Wiley, squinting his eyes down shrewdly, "how much
+would that come to, in all?"
+
+"Well, twenty-one thousand, eight hundred dollars, for what I received
+from Mrs. Huff; but of course--well, he'd have to buy a little more of
+me in order to get positive control."
+
+"How much more?" asked Wiley, but Blount's crooked mouth pulled down in
+a crafty smile.
+
+"We can discuss that later," he suggested mildly. "Do you think he will
+buy the stock?"
+
+"Not if he takes my advice," answered Wiley coldly. "I can buy the whole
+block for eight hundred."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Why, by loaning Mrs. Huff the eight hundred dollars with which to take
+up her note."
+
+"I doubt it," replied Blount, and his mild, deceiving eyes took on the
+faintest shadow of a threat. "Mrs. Huff has defaulted on her first
+month's interest and, according to the terms of her note, the collateral
+automatically passes to me."
+
+"Well, keep it, then," burst out Wiley, "and I hope to God you get stuck
+for every cent. Your old mine isn't worth a dam'!"
+
+"Why--Wiley!" gasped Blount, quite shaken for the moment by this
+disastrous piece of news, "what reason have you for thinking that?"
+
+"Give me a hundred dollars as an advising expert and I'll tell you--and
+show you, too."
+
+"No, I hardly think so," answered Blount at last. "And, Wiley, you don't
+think so, either."
+
+"No?" challenged Wiley. "Well, you just watch my smoke and see whether I
+do or not."
+
+He had closed the door before Blount dragged him back like a haggling,
+relentless pawn-broker.
+
+"Make me a proposition," he clamored desperately, "and if it's anywhere
+in reason I'll accept it."
+
+"All right," answered Wiley, "but show me what you've got--I don't buy
+any cat in a bag."
+
+"And will you make me an offer?" demanded Blount hopefully. "Will you
+take the whole thing off my hands?"
+
+"I will if it's good--but you'll have to show me first that you've got a
+controlling share of the stock. And another thing, Mr. Blount, since our
+time is equally valuable, let's cut out this four-flushing stuff. If I'd
+wanted your mine so awfully bad I'd have held on to it when the title
+was mine; but I turned it back to you, just to let you look it over, and
+to keep the peace for once. But now, if you're satisfied, I might look
+it over; but it'll be under a bond and lease. The parties I represent
+are strictly business, and we make it a rule to tie everything up tight
+before we put out a cent. I'll want an option on every share you have,
+and I can't offer more than ten per cent royalty; but to compensate for
+that I'll agree to pay in full or vacate within six months from date."
+
+"But how much?" demanded Blount, brushing aside all the details, "how
+much will you pay me a share?"
+
+"I'll pay you," stated Wiley, "what I paid Death Valley Charley, and
+that's five cents a share."
+
+"Five cents!" shrilled Blount, rising up in protest, yet jumping at the
+price like a trout, "five cents--why, that's practically nothing!"
+
+"Just five cents more than nothing," observed Wiley judicially and
+waited for Blount to rave.
+
+"But your father," suggested Blount with a knowing leer, "is in the
+market at ten."
+
+"No, not in the market. He offered that to the Widow, but now the deal
+is off, because all of her stock has changed hands."
+
+"Well, the stock is the same," suggested Blount insinuatingly. "Give me
+seven and a half and split the profits."
+
+"Now don't be a crook," rapped out Wiley angrily. "Just because you
+would rob your own father doesn't by any means prove that I will."
+
+"Well, you certainly implied," protested Blount with injured innocence,
+"that this stock was to be sold to your father. And if it is worth that
+to him, why is it worth less to you? You must be working together."
+
+"No, we're not," declared Wiley. "I'm in on this alone, and have been,
+from the start. And just to set your mind at rest--he didn't make that
+offer because he wanted the stock, but to kind of help out the Widow."
+
+"Ah," smiled Blount, and nodded his head wisely, but there was a playful
+light in his eyes.
+
+"Yes--ah!" flashed back Wiley, "and if you think you're so danged smart
+I'll let you keep your old mine a few months."
+
+He started for the door again but Blount dragged him back and laid a
+metal box on the table.
+
+"Well, let's get down to business," he said with quick decision, and
+spread a heap of papers before his eyes. "There are all my Paymaster
+shares, and if you'll take them off my hands you can have them for six
+cents, cash."
+
+"I said five," returned Wiley, as he ran through the papers, "and an
+option to buy in six months. But this stock of the Widow's--I can't take
+that at any price--the Colonel isn't legally dead."
+
+"What?" yelled Blount, and sat down in a chair while he stared at the
+inscrutable Wiley.
+
+"His body was never found and, under the law, he can't be declared dead
+for seven years. Mrs. Huff had no right to sell his stock."
+
+"Oh, but he's dead, Wiley," assured Blount. "Surely there's no doubt of
+that. They found his burro, and his letters and everything; and where he
+had run wild through the sand. If that storm hadn't come up they would
+certainly have found his body--the Indian trailers said so; so why stick
+on a technicality?"
+
+"That's the law," said Wiley. "You know it yourself. But of course, if
+you want to vote this stock at a Directors' meeting we can still do
+business on that lease."
+
+"Oh, my Lord!" sighed Blount, and after a heavy silence he rose up and
+paced the floor. As for Wiley, he ran through the papers, making notes
+of dates and numbers, and then grimly began to fill out a legal blank.
+
+"There's the option," he said, passing over a paper, "and I see now how
+you double-crossed my father. So you don't need to sign unless you want
+to."
+
+"Why--er--what's that?" exclaimed Blount, coming out of his abstraction
+as Wiley slapped down the bundle of certificates.
+
+"I see by these endorsements," replied Wiley, "that you sold out before
+the panic and bought in all this stock afterwards."
+
+Blount started and a red line mounted up to his eyes as he hastily
+glanced over the option.
+
+"Well, I'll sign it," he mumbled, and reached for the pen, but Wiley
+checked his hand.
+
+"No, you ring for a notary," he said. "I want that signature
+acknowledged."
+
+The notary came and ran perfunctorily through his formula, after which
+he left them alone.
+
+"Now here's the bond and lease," went on Wiley curtly, "so bring on your
+Board of Directors and let's get this business over. By rights I ought
+to kill you."
+
+There was a special meeting then of the Board of Directors of The
+Paymaster Mining and Milling Company, and when the bond and lease was
+properly drawn up, they signed it and had it witnessed. Then once more
+the tense silence came over the room and Wiley rose to go.
+
+"Well," he said, "I've been waiting for ten years just to get these
+papers in my hands. And now, you danged crook, just to hit you where you
+live, I'm going to make a fortune."
+
+"A fortune!" echoed Blount, and then he clasped his hands and sank
+down weakly in a chair. "I knew it!" he moaned, "I knew it all the
+time--you've been trying to get that mine for months. But what is it,
+Wiley? Have you located the lost vein? Oh, I knew it; all the time!"
+
+"Yes, you did," jeered Wiley, "you didn't know anything, except how to
+grab hold of the stock. What good was it to you after you'd got the old
+mine--you didn't know what to do with it! All you knew was how to rob
+the widow and the orphan and deprive better men of their good name. You
+wait till I tell my Old Man about this--and how you were selling him
+out, all the time. If it wasn't for you he'd never been called Honest
+John by a bunch of these tin-horns and crooks. But I'll show you who's
+honest--I'm going to skin you alive for what you did to my father. You
+wait till I make my clean-up!"
+
+"But what is it, Wiley?" cried Blount, despairingly. "Have you really
+discovered the lost vein?"
+
+"No," grinned Wiley, "but I've consulted an expert and he tells me the
+mine is worth millions!"
+
+"What--millions?" burst out Blount, struggling up to his feet. "Now
+here, Wiley Holman; I want that option back! You secured it by fraud and
+misrepresentation and by concealment of the actual facts. I'll have the
+law on you--I'll break the contract--you came here with intent to
+defraud!"
+
+"Don't you think it!" returned Wiley, thrusting out his lip. "You
+thought you were trimming me, like taking candy from a baby. Why didn't
+_you_ get an expert? I offered to hire out to you, myself!"
+
+"Oh--hell!" choked Blount. "Well, tell me the worst--where was it he
+told you to dig?"
+
+"Why right down the shaft," answered Wiley blandly. "He's a new kind of
+mining expert and he locates the gold by electricity."
+
+"By electricity!" exclaimed Blount, and as he perceived Wiley's smile he
+straightened up in a rage. "I don't believe a word of it. Who is this
+man, anyway? I never heard of such a thing before!"
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Wiley, as he stepped out the door, "you know the
+professor well. They call him Death Valley Charley."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A SACK OF CATS
+
+
+The weary work of packing had gone on endlessly in the bare rooms of the
+old Huff house and now Virginia, with two kittens in her arms and the
+mother cat following behind, was passing it all in review. A solid row
+of packing boxes, arrayed on the front gallery, awaited the motor truck;
+and here and there in corners lay piles of discarded treasures that were
+destined to go to Charley for loot. He was hanging about, with his
+pistol well in front, on the watch for Stiff Neck George; but up to that
+moment the Widow had not said the word that would start the mad rush for
+plunder. Her trunks were all packed, the china nested in barrels and the
+bedding sewed up in burlap; but still from day to day she put off the
+evil moment, and Virginia did not try to hurry her. The house had been
+their home for ten years and more and, though Los Angeles would be fine
+with its palm trees and bungalows, it was a strange land, far away. And
+what would they do in that city of strange faces and hustling, eager
+real-estate agents? It was that which held the Widow back.
+
+In the city there would be rent and water to pay for, and electric
+lights and wood; but in desolate Keno rent and water and wood were free,
+and the electric light company had taken down its poles. If the town
+were not so dead--if they could only make a living,--the Widow started
+up for the thousandth time, for she heard a racing auto down the street.
+It was Wiley Holman, as sure as shooting, and--well, Wiley was not so
+bad. It was his money, really, that had enabled them to pack up, and
+would enable them to go, when they started; and the Widow knew, as well
+as she knew anything, that he had designs upon the mine. He was after
+the Paymaster, and if he ever got hold of it--well, Keno would come back
+to its own. She rushed to the door and looked out into the street; and
+when she met Virginia, running away from meeting Wiley, she caught her
+and whirled her about.
+
+"Now you go back there," she hissed in her ear, "and I want you to be
+nice to him--he may have come back about the mine."
+
+Virginia went out the door and, as Wiley Holman saw her standing there,
+he leapt out and came up the steps.
+
+"Well, well," he said, "just in time to say good-by. And I wanted to see
+you, too." He smiled down at her boyishly and Virginia's eyes turned
+gentle as he took both her hands in his. "I've got some news to tell
+you," he burst out eagerly; "not news that will buy you anything but
+something to remember when you're gone."
+
+He led her to a box and, taking one of the kittens, sat down with his
+back to the door. Then he rose up hastily at a sudden rustle from behind
+and glanced inquiringly at Virginia.
+
+"It's just mother," she said and at the mention of her name Mrs. Huff
+came boldly out.
+
+"Why, good morning, Wiley," she said, smiling over-sweetly. "Seems to me
+you're awful early."
+
+"Yes," answered Wiley, trying vainly to seem polite, "I just stopped off
+to say good-by!"
+
+He offered her his hand, but the Widow ignored the hint and took the
+conversation to herself.
+
+"Well, I'm real glad you came," she went on sociably, "because I wanted
+to see you on a matter of business. In fact, I've been kind of waiting,
+on the chance that you might come through. Oh, I know that I don't
+count, but you can see Virginia afterwards; and I wanted to consult you
+about my stock. Yes, I know," she hastened on, as his face turned grim,
+"I haven't treated you fairly at all. I should have taken your offer,
+when you said you'd give ten cents for every share of stock that I had.
+But I took them to that Blount and he gave me next to nothing, and now
+he's holding the stock. But what I wanted to ask was: Isn't there some
+way we can arrange it to get it back and sell it to your father?"
+
+"No, I don't think so," answered Wiley, putting down the kitten,
+"and--well, I guess I'd better go."
+
+He rose up reluctantly, but the Widow would not hear to it and Virginia
+beckoned him to stay.
+
+"Well, now listen," persisted the Widow. "That stock certainly must be
+worth something."
+
+"Not to you," returned Wiley. "I saw Blount only yesterday and he says
+it belongs to him."
+
+"Well, it does not!" declared the Widow, but as no one contradicted her,
+she took a different tack. "Are you coming back?" she asked, smiling
+brightly. "Are you going to open up the mine?"
+
+Wiley's face fell for a moment.
+
+"What gave you that idea?" he inquired bluffly, but the Widow pointed a
+finger and laughed roguishly.
+
+"I knew it," she cried. "I've known it for months--and I wish you the
+best of good luck."
+
+"Oh, you do, eh?" grunted Wiley, and stood undecided as Mrs. Huff
+continued her assurances. He had come there to see Virginia, but
+business was business and the Widow seemed almost reasonable. "Huh,
+that's funny," he said at last. "I thought you had it in for me. What's
+the chance for getting a quit-claim?"
+
+"A quit-claim!" echoed the Widow, suddenly pricking up her ears. "Why,
+what do you want that for, now?"
+
+"Well, you're going away," explained Wiley quietly, "and it might come
+in handy, later, if I should want to take over the mine. Of course
+you've got no title--and no stock, for that matter--but I'll give you a
+hundred dollars, all the same."
+
+"I'll take it!" snapped the Widow and Wiley broke out laughing as he
+reached for his fountain pen.
+
+"Zingo!" he grinned and then he bit his lip, for the Widow was quick to
+take offence. "Of course," he went on, "this doesn't affect your stock
+if you should ever get it back from Blount. That is still your property,
+according to law, and this quit-claim just guarantees me free entry and
+possession. We'll get Virginia to witness the agreement."
+
+"All right," bridled the Widow and watched him cynically as he wrote out
+the quit-claim and check. "Oh! Actually!" she mocked as he put the check
+in her hands. "I just wanted to see if you were bluffing."
+
+"Well, you know now," he answered and sat in stony silence until she
+departed with a triumphant smirk. Then he glanced at Virginia and
+motioned towards the street, but she sighed and shook her head.
+
+"No," she said, "I can't leave the house--mother is likely to start any
+time, now."
+
+"I suppose you'll be glad to go," he suggested at last as she sat down
+and gathered up the kittens. "The old town is sure awful dead."
+
+"Yes--I guess so," she agreed half-heartedly. "You'd think so, but we
+don't seem to go."
+
+"Is there anything I can do for you?" he inquired after a silence. "You
+know what I told you once, Virginia."
+
+"Yes, I know," she answered bitterly, "but--Oh, I'm ashamed to let you
+help me, after the way I acted up about Charley."
+
+"Well, forget it," he said at length. "I guess I get kind of ugly when
+anyone doubts my good faith. It's on account of my father, and calling
+him Honest John--but say, I forgot to tell the news!"
+
+Virginia looked up inquiringly and he beckoned her into the corner where
+no one could overhear his words.
+
+"Blount sent for me yesterday--trying to sell me the mine," he whispered
+in her ear, "and I made him show me his stock. And when I looked on the
+back of his promotion certificates--the ones he got for promoting the
+mine--I found by the endorsements that he'd sold every one of them
+before or during the panic. Do you see? They were street certificates,
+passing from hand to hand without going to the company for transfer, but
+every broker that handled them had written down his name as a memorandum
+of the date and sale. Don't you see what he did--he set your father
+against my father, and my father against yours, and all the time, like
+the crook he is, he was selling them both out for a profit. I could have
+killed him, the old dog, only I thought it would hurt him more to
+whipsaw him out of his mine; but listen now, Virginia, don't you think
+we can be friends--because my father never robbed anybody of a cent! He
+thought more of the Colonel than he did of me; and I've started out,
+even if it is a little late, to prove that he was on the square."
+
+He stopped abruptly, for in his rush of words he had failed to note the
+anger in her eyes, until now she turned and faced him.
+
+"Oho!" she said, "so that's your idea--you're going to whipsaw Blount
+out of his mine?"
+
+"If I can!" hedged Wiley. "But for the Lord's sake, Virginia, don't tell
+what I said to your mother! It won't make any difference, because she's
+given me a quit-claim--but what's the use of having any trouble?"
+
+"Yes, sure enough!" murmured Virginia, with cutting sarcasm. "She might
+even demand her rights!"
+
+"Well, maybe you _like_ to fight!" burst out Wiley angrily, "and if
+you do, all right--hop to it! But I'll tell you one thing; if you can't
+be reasonable, I can be just as bullheaded as anybody!"
+
+"Yes, you can," she agreed and then she sighed wearily, and waved it all
+away with one hand. "Well, all right," she said, "I'm so sick and tired
+of it that I certainly don't want any more. And since I've taken your
+money, as you know very well, I'm going to go away and give you peace."
+
+Her eyes blinked fast, to hold back the tears, and once more the son of
+Honest John weakened.
+
+"No, I don't want you to go away," he answered gently, "but--isn't there
+something I can do before you go? I have to fight my way, you know that
+yourself, Virginia; but don't let that keep us from being friends. I'm a
+mining engineer, and I can't tell you all my plans, because that sure
+would put me out of business; but why can't you trust me, and then I'll
+trust you and--what is it you've got on your mind?"
+
+He reached for her hand but she drew it away and sat quiet, looking up
+the street.
+
+"You wouldn't understand," she said with a sigh. "You're always thinking
+about money and mines. But a woman is different--I suppose you'll laugh
+at me, but I'm worried about my cats."
+
+"About your cats!" he echoed, and she smiled up at him wistfully and
+then looked down at the kittens in her lap.
+
+"Yes," she said, "you know they were left to me when the people moved
+out of town, and now I've got eight of them and I just know that old
+Charley----"
+
+"He'll starve 'em to death," broke in Wiley, instantly. "I know the old
+tarrier well. You give 'em to me, Virginia, and I swear I'll take care
+of 'em just the same as I would of--you."
+
+"Oh," smiled Virginia, and then she gave him her hand and the old hatred
+died out in her eyes. "That's good of you, Wiley, and I certainly
+appreciate it; because no one would trust them with Charley. I'm going
+to take the two kittens, but you can have the rest of them and--you can
+write to me about them, sometimes."
+
+"Every week," answered Wiley. "I'll take 'em back to the ranch and the
+girls will look after them when I'm gone. We'll have to put them in
+sacks, but that will be better----"
+
+"Yes, that's better than starving," assented Virginia absently, and
+Wiley rose suddenly to go. There was something indefinable that stood
+between them, and no effort of his could break it down. He shook hands
+perfunctorily and started down the gallery and then abruptly he turned
+and swung back.
+
+"Here," he said, throwing her stock down before her, "I told you to hold
+onto that, once."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE EXPLOSION
+
+
+There are moments when his great secret rises to every man's lips and
+flutters to wing away; but a thought, a glance, a word said or unsaid,
+turns it back and he holds it more closely. Wiley Holman had a secret
+which might have changed Virginia's life and filled every day with joy
+and hope, but he shut down his lips and held it back and spoke kind
+words instead. There was a look in her eyes, a brooding glow of
+resentment when he spoke of his father and hers; and, while he spoke
+from the heart, she drooped her dark lashes and was silent beyond her
+wont. He gave her much but she gave him little--and the reason she was
+sorry to leave Keno was the parting with six suffering cats.
+
+There were girls that he knew who would have gone the limit and said
+something about missing Wiley Holman. So he gave her back her stock and
+put the cats in sacks and burnt up the road to the ranch. The next day
+the news came that he had bonded the Paymaster, but Wiley was far away.
+He caught the Limited and went speeding east, and then he came back,
+headed west; and finally he left Vegas followed by four lumbering auto
+trucks loaded down with freight and men. The time had come when he must
+put his fortunes to the test and Keno awaited him, anxiously.
+
+A cold, dusty wind raved down through the pass, driving even old Charley
+to shelter; but as the procession moved in across the desert the city of
+lost hopes came to life. Old grudges were forgotten, the dead past was
+thrust aside, and they lined up to bid him welcome--Death Valley Charley
+and Heine, Mrs. Huff and Virginia, and the last of ten thousand brave
+men. For nine years they had lived on, firm in their faith in the mighty
+Paymaster; and now again, for the hundredth time, the old hope rose up
+in their breasts. The town was theirs, they had seen it grow from
+nothing to a city of brick and stone, and they loved its ruins still.
+All it needed was some industry to put blood into its veins and it would
+thrill with energy and life. Even the Widow forgot her envy and her
+anger at his deception and greeted Wiley Holman with a smile.
+
+"Well--hello!" he hailed when he saw her in the crowd. "I thought you
+were going away."
+
+"Not much!" she returned. "Bring your men in to dinner. I'm having my
+dishes unpacked!"
+
+"Umm--good!" responded Wiley and, shrugging his shoulders, he led the
+way on to the mine. There were other faces that he would as soon have
+seen as the Widow's fighting mien, and he had brought his own cook
+along; but Mrs. Huff was a lady and as such it was her privilege to
+claim her woman's place in the kitchen. The town was part hers and the
+restaurant was her livelihood; and then, of course, there was Virginia.
+Having bidden her good-by, and taken care of her cats, he had reconciled
+himself to her loss, but not even the smile in her welcoming dark eyes
+could make him quite forget the Widow. She was an uncertain quantity,
+like a stick of frozen dynamite that will explode if it is thawed too
+soon; and there was a bombshell to come which gave more than even
+promise of producing spontaneous combustion. So Wiley sighed as he fired
+his cook, and told his men that they would board with the Widow.
+
+The first dinner was not so much, consisting largely of ham and eggs
+with the chickens out on a strike; but there was plenty of canned stuff
+and the Widow promised wonders when she got all her boxes unpacked. Yet
+with all her work before her and the dishes unwashed, she followed the
+crowd to the mine. That was the day of days, from which Keno would date
+time if Wiley made his promise good; and every man in town, and woman
+and child, went over to watch them begin. Up the old, abandoned road the
+auto trucks crept and crawled, and the shed and the houses that had been
+prepared by Blount now gave shelter to his hated successor. Only one man
+was absent and he sat on the hill-top, looking down like a lonely
+coyote. It was Stiff Neck George, that specter at the feast, the
+harbinger of evil to come; but as Wiley ordered the empty trucks to back
+up against the dump he glanced at the hill-top and smiled.
+
+"We'll take back a load of tungsten," he announced to the drivers and
+the crowd of onlookers stared.
+
+"Just load on that white stuff," he explained to the muckers and there
+was a general rush for the dump.
+
+"What did you say that stuff was?" inquired Death Valley Charley, after
+a hasty look at his specimen; and Keno awaited the answer, breathless.
+
+"Why, that's scheelite, Charley," replied Wiley confidentially, "and it
+runs about sixty per cent tungsten. It comes in pretty handy to harden
+those big guns that you hear shooting over in France."
+
+"Oh, tungsten," muttered Charley, blinking wisely at the rock while
+everyone else grabbed a sample. "Er--what do you say they use it for?"
+
+"Why, to harden high-speed steel for guns and turning-tools--haven't you
+read all about it in the papers?"
+
+"How much did you say it was worth?" asked the Widow cautiously, and
+Wiley knew that the bombshell was ignited.
+
+"Well, that's a question," he began, "that I can answer better when I
+get a report on this ore. It's all mixed up with quartz and ought to be
+milled, by rights, before I even ship it; but since the trucks are going
+back--well, if it turns out the way I calculate it might bring me forty
+dollars a unit."
+
+"A unit!" repeated the Widow, her voice low and measured. "Well, I'd
+just like to know how much a unit is?"
+
+"A hundredth of the standard of measure--in this case a ton of ore. That
+would come to twenty pounds."
+
+"Twenty pounds! What, of this stuff? And worth forty dollars! Well,
+somebody must be crazy!"
+
+"Yes, they're crazy for it," answered Wiley, "but it's just a temporary
+rage, brought on by the European war. The market is likely to break any
+time."
+
+"Why--tungsten!" murmured the Widow. "Who ever heard of such a thing?
+And it's been lying here idle all the time."
+
+"How much would that be a ton?" piped up someone in the crowd, and Mrs.
+Huff put her head to one side.
+
+"Let's see," she said, "forty dollars a unit--that's one hundredth of
+a ton. Oh, pshaw, it can't be that. Let's see, twenty pounds at forty
+dollars--that's two dollars a pound; and two thousand pounds,
+that's--oh, I don't believe it! I never even heard of tungsten!"
+
+"No, it's a new metal," replied Wiley ever so softly, "or rather, it's
+an acid. The technical magazines are full of articles that tell you all
+about it. It's found in wolframite, and hubnerite and so on; but this is
+calcium tungstate, where it is found in connection with lime. The others
+are combined variously with iron or manganese----"
+
+"Yes, manganese," broke in Charley importantly. "I know that well--and
+wolfite and all the rest. It certainly is wonderful how they build them
+big cannons that will shoot for twenty-two miles. But it's tungsden that
+does it, tungsden in connection with electricity and the invisible rays
+of raddium."
+
+"Oh, shut up!" burst out the Widow, thrusting him rudely aside and
+seizing a fresh handful of the rock. "I just can't hardly believe it."
+She gazed at the glossy fragments and then at the muckers, industriously
+loading the trucks; and then she cocked her head on one side.
+
+"Let's see--two times twenty--that's forty dollars a ton. No--four
+hundred! Why, no--four thousand!" She stopped short and made a hurried
+re-calculation, while a murmur ran through the crowd, and then Death
+Valley Charley gave a whoop.
+
+"Four thousand!" he shouted. "I told ye! I knowed it! I claimed she was
+rich, all the time!"
+
+"You did not!" snapped the Widow, putting her hand under his jaw and
+forcibly stifling his whoops. "You poor, crazy fool, you knew nothing of
+the kind--you sold out for five thousand dollars!" She pushed him away
+with a swift, disdainful shove that sent him reeling through the crowd
+and then she whirled on Wiley. "And I suppose," she accused, "that you
+knew all the time that this dump here was nothing but tungsten?"
+
+"Well, I had a good idea," he admitted deprecatingly, "although it's yet
+to be tested out. This is just a sample shipment----"
+
+"Yes, a sample shipment; and at two dollars a pound how much will it
+bring you in? Why, nothing, hardly; a mere bagatelle for a gentleman and
+a scholar like you; but what about me and poor Virginia, slaving around
+to cook your meals? What do we get for all our pains? Oh, I could kill
+you, you scoundrel! You knew it all the time, and yet you let me sell
+those shares!"
+
+She choked and Wiley shifted uneasily on the ore-pile, for of course he
+had done just that. To be sure he had urged her to sell them to his
+father for the sum of ten cents a share; but the mention of that fact,
+in her heated condition, would probably gain him nothing with the Widow.
+She was gasping for breath and, if nothing intervened, he was in for the
+scolding of his life. But it was all in the day's work and he glanced
+about for Virginia, to seek comfort from her smiling eyes. She would
+understand now why he had given her back her stock, and advised her from
+the start not to sell; but--he looked again, for her dark orbs were
+blazing and her lips were moving as with threats.
+
+"You knew it all the time!" screamed the Widow in a frenzy, but Wiley
+barely heard her. He heard her words, for they assaulted his ears in a
+series of screeching crescendos, but it was the unspoken message from
+the lips of Virginia that cut him to the quick. He had expected nothing
+else from the abusive Widow; but certainly, after all the kindnesses he
+had done her, he was entitled to something better from Virginia. Not
+only had he warned her to hold on to her stock, at a time when one word
+might ruin him; but he had bought it from Charley and then given it
+back, to show how he valued her friendship. And yet now, while the
+others were shouting with joy or rushing to stake out more claims, she
+stood by the Widow and with cruel, voiceless words added her burden to
+this paean of hate. And she looked just like her mother!
+
+"You shut up, you old cat!" he burst out fiercely, as the Widow rushed
+in to assault him. "Shut your mouth and get off my ground!" He drew back
+his palm to launch a swift blow and then his hand fell slack. "Well,
+holler then," he said, "what do I give a dam' whether you like the deal
+or not? You'd be yammering, just the same. But it's lucky for you you're
+a woman."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE GOD OF TEN PER CENT
+
+
+It was the nature of the Widow to resort to violence in every crisis of
+her life and at each fresh memory of the effrontery of Wiley Holman she
+searched the empyrean for words. From the very start he had come to Keno
+with the intention of stealing her mine. First it was his father, who
+pitied her so much he was willing to buy her shares; then it was the tax
+sale, and he had sneaked in at night and tried to jump the Paymaster;
+then he had deceived her and stood in with Blount to make her sell all
+her stock for a song; and then, oh hateful thought, he had actually sold
+out to Blount for a hundred dollars, cash; only to put Blount in the
+hole and buy the mine back again for the price of the ore on the dump!
+
+The Widow poured forth her charges without pausing for breath or
+noticing that her audience had fled, and as Wiley went on about his
+business she raised her voice to a scream. The rest of the Kenoites, and
+some of the workmen, were out staking the nearby hills; but whenever she
+stopped she thought of some fresh duplicity which made reason totter on
+its throne. He had refused half the mine from Blount as a gift and then
+turned around and bought it all. He had refused to buy her shares, time
+and again, when he knew they were worth a million; and then, to cap the
+climax, he had let her sell to Blount and bought them for nothing from
+him. And even Death Valley Charley--poor, crazy, brain-sick Charley--he
+had robbed him of all ten of his claims!
+
+It was a damning arraignment, and Wiley's men listened grimly, but he
+only twisted his lip and nodded his head ironically. With one eye on his
+accuser, who was becoming hysterical, he hustled the ore into the empty
+trucks and started them off down the road; and then, as Virginia led her
+mother away, he re-engaged his cook. They had supper that night in the
+old, abandoned cook-house; and, so wonderfully do great minds work, that
+a complete bill of grub was discovered among the freight. Not only flour
+and beans and canned goods and potatoes, but baking powder and matches
+and salt; and the cook observed privately that you'd think Mr. Holman
+had intended to make camp all the time. It is thus that foresight leaps
+ahead into the future and robs life of half its ills; and the Widow
+Huff, still unpacking plates and saucers, was untroubled by clamorous
+guests. She had had her say and, as far as Wiley was concerned, there
+were no more favors to be expected.
+
+Yet the Widow was wise in the ways of mining camps and she prepared to
+feed a horde--and the next day they came, by automobile and
+motor-truck, until every table was filled. The rush was on, for
+four-thousand dollar ore will bring men from the ends of the world.
+Before the sun had set in the red glow of a sandstorm the desert was
+staked for miles. From the chimneys of old houses, long abandoned to
+the rats, rose the smokes of many fires and the rush and whine of
+passing automobiles told of races to distant grounds. All the old
+mines in the district, and of neighboring districts where the precious
+"heavy spar" occurred, were re-located--or jumped, as the case might
+be--and held to await future developments. The first thing was to
+stake. They could prospect the ground later. Tungsten now was king.
+Men who had never heard the name, or pronounced it haltingly, now
+spoke learnedly of tungsten tests; and he was a poor prospector indeed
+who lacked his bottle of hydrochloric acid and his test-tubes and
+strip of shiny tin. They swarmed about the base of the old Paymaster
+dump like bees around a broken pot of honey and when, pounded up and
+boiled in the hydrochloric acid, the solution bit the tin and turned
+bright blue, there was many a hearty curse at the fickle hand of
+fortune which had led Wiley Holman to that treasure.
+
+It had lain there for years, trampled down beneath their feet. Now this
+kid, this mining-school prospector, had come back and grabbed it all.
+Not only the Paymaster with its tons of mined ore, but the ten claims to
+the north, all showing good scheelite, which Death Valley Charley had
+located--he had held them down as well. Two hundred dollars down and a
+carefully worded option had tied them up for five thousand dollars, and
+there were tungsten-mad men in that crowd of boomers who would have
+given fifty thousand apiece. They came up to the mine where Wiley was
+working and waved their money in his face, and then went off grumbling
+as he refused all offers and went busily about his work. So they came,
+and went, until at last the great wave brought Samuel J. Blount himself.
+
+He came up the trail smiling, for there was nothing to be gained by
+making belated complaints; but when he saw the pile of precious white
+rock the smile died away in spite of him. It was the boast of Blount
+that, buying or selling, he always held out his ten per cent; but that
+pile of ore had cost him dear and he had sold it out for next to
+nothing. And it was his other boast that he could read men's hearts when
+they came to buy or sell, but here was a young man who had seen him
+coming twice and gained the advantage both times. So the smile grew
+longer in spite of his best efforts and when at last he found Wiley
+Holman in the office of the company it was perilously near a sulk.
+
+"Well, good morning, Wiley," he began with unction, and then he looked
+grievously about. The expensive gas engine which he had bought and
+installed was already unwatering the mine; spare timbers were going
+down, the new blacksmith-shop was running and Wiley was sitting at his
+desk. Everything was there, just the way he had left it, except that it
+belonged to Wiley. Blount heaved a heavy sigh and then set his features
+resolutely, for the battle was not over yet. To be sure the mine was
+bonded for a measly fifty thousand dollars, and his stock was tied up
+under an option; but many things can happen in six months' time and
+Wiley was only a boy. Granted that he was a miner and understood ore,
+there is such a thing as an "Act of God." Cables break without reason,
+mines cave and timbers fall; and certainly if there is a God of Ten Per
+Cent his just wrath would be visited upon Wiley. Blount knew that great
+god and worshipped him continually and he felt certain that something
+would happen, for when boys out of college take money away from bank
+presidents it comes dangerously close to sacrilege.
+
+"Well, well," murmured Blount, "quite a change, quite a change. Are you
+sure that stuff is tungsten, Wiley?"
+
+"Yes," responded Wiley, affecting a becoming modesty to cover up his
+youthful smirk. "Would you like to see it tested?"
+
+"Very much," answered Blount, and followed after him to the assay
+office, which Wiley had hurriedly fitted up. Wiley took a piece of
+scheelite and pounded it in a mortar until it was fine as flour, then
+dropped it into a test-tube and boiled it over a flame in a solution of
+hydrochloric and nitric acids.
+
+"Now," he said, when the tungstic acid had been dissolved, and he had
+dropped a small bar of tin into the solution. It turned a dark blue and
+Blount sighed again, for he had looked up the test in advance. "If it
+turns blue," a prospector had told him, "like the color of me overalls,
+then, sure as hell, it's tungsten."
+
+"Well, well," commented Blount, gazing mildly about, for great men do
+not stop to repine, "and what do you use these big scales for?"
+
+"That's for the quantitative test," explained Wiley importantly. "By
+weighing the sample first and extracting the tungsten we get the
+percentage, when it's been filtered and dried and weighed again, of the
+tungstic acid in the ore. But it's quite an elaborate process."
+
+"Yes, yes," assented Blount, still managing to smile pleasantly. "Rather
+out of my line, I guess. What per cent do your samples average?"
+
+"Oh, between sixty and seventy when I pick my specimens. I'm rigging up
+a jigger to separate the ore until I can get capital to start up the
+mill. It ought to be milled, by rights, and only the concentrates
+shipped; but while I'm getting started----"
+
+"Oh, draw on me--any time," broke in Blount, smiling radiantly. "I'd be
+only too glad to accommodate you. That's my business, you know; loaning
+out money on good security, and you're good up to fifty thousand
+dollars."
+
+"Do you mean it?" demanded Wiley after a startled silence, and Blount
+slapped him heartily on the back.
+
+"Just try me," he said. "I've been looking up the market and tungsten is
+simply booming. It's quoted at forty-five for sixty per cent
+concentrates, and you must have tons and tons on the dump."
+
+"Yes, lots of it," admitted Wiley, "and say, now that you mention it, I
+believe I'll take you up. I need a little money to install some
+machinery and get the old mill to running. How about ten thousand
+dollars?"
+
+"Why--all right," assented Blount, after a moment's thought. "Of course
+you'll give some security?"
+
+"Oh, sure," agreed Wiley. "My option on the mine--I suppose that's what
+you're after?"
+
+Blount blinked for a moment, for such plain speaking was surprising
+from one as shrewd as Wiley, but he summoned up his smile and nodded.
+"Why--why, yes, that's all right. Say one per cent a month--payable
+monthly--those are our ordinary short-time terms."
+
+"Suits me," said Wiley. "But no cut-throat clauses--none of this Widow
+Huff line of stuff. If I forget to pay my interest that doesn't make the
+principal due and the security forfeit and so on, world without end."
+
+"Oh, no; no, certainly," cried Blount with alacrity. "We'll make it a
+flat loan, if you like, and endeavor to treat you right. Of course
+you'll start a checking account and----"
+
+"No," said Wiley, "if I borrow the money I'll take it out of your bank
+and put it in another, right away. I never let friendship interfere with
+business or warp my business judgment."
+
+"Yes, but Wiley," protested Blount, "what difference does it make? Isn't
+my bank perfectly safe and sound?"
+
+"Undoubtedly," returned Wiley, "but--do you happen to remember a little
+check for four hundred dollars? It was made out by me in favor of Death
+Valley Charley and they cashed it through your bank--Virginia Huff, you
+know--in payment for Paymaster stock. Well, if you're going to keep
+track of my business like that----"
+
+"Oh, no, no," exclaimed Blount, suddenly remembering the means by which
+he had detected Wiley's purchase of Virginia's stock, "you misunderstand
+me, entirely. If you want to wait a few days for the money you are
+welcome to put it anywhere."
+
+"Well, hold on," began Wiley. "Now maybe I'd better go to the other
+bank----"
+
+"Oh, no, no, no," protested Blount, "I wouldn't hear of it. I'll write
+you the check, this minute. On your personal note--that's good enough
+for me. You can put up the collateral later."
+
+"Well, let's think this over," objected Wiley cannily. "I don't like to
+put up that option for security. That bond and lease is worth half a
+million dollars and----"
+
+"Just give me your note," broke in Blount hurriedly, "and hurry up--here
+comes Mrs. Huff."
+
+"All right," cried Wiley, and scribbled out the note while Blount was
+writing the check.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A SHOW-DOWN WITH THE WIDOW
+
+
+If the benevolent Samuel Blount could have seen Wiley Holman's monthly
+statement from that mysterious "other bank" he would have crushed him
+with one blow of his ready, financial club and gone off with both
+bond-and-lease and option. But the pure, serene fire in those first
+water diamonds which graced the ring on Wiley's hand--that dazzled
+Samuel J. Blount as it had dazzled the Widow and many a store-keeper
+in Vegas. For it is hardly to be expected that a man with such a ring
+will have a bank account limited to three figures, any more than it is
+expected that a man with so little capital will be sitting in a game
+with millionaires. But Wiley was sitting in, holding his cards well
+against his chest, and already he had won ten thousand dollars. Which
+is one of the reasons why all mining promoters wear diamonds--and
+poker faces as well.
+
+Yet Blount was playing a game which had once won him a million dollars
+from just such plungers as Wiley, and if he also smiled as he tucked
+away the note it was not without excuse. There had been a time when this
+boy's father had sat in the game with Blount and now he was engaged in
+raising cattle on a ranch far back in the hills. And Colonel Huff, that
+prince of royal plungers, had surrendered at last to the bank. It was
+twelve per cent, compounded monthly, with demand, protest and notice
+waived, which had brought about this miracle of wealth; and since it is
+well known that history repeats itself, Mr. Blount could see Wiley's
+finish. The thing to do first was to regain his confidence and get him
+into his power and then, at the first sign of financial embarrassment,
+to call his notes and freeze him out. Such were the intentions of the
+benevolent Mr. Blount--if the Widow Huff did not kill him.
+
+She came toiling up the trail, followed by Virginia and Death Valley
+Charley and a crowd of curious citizens; and as they awaited the shock,
+Blount shuddered and smiled nervously, for he knew that she would demand
+back her stock. Wiley shuddered too, but instead of smiling he clenched
+his jaws like a vise; and as the Widow entered he signaled a waiting
+guard, who followed in close behind her. She halted before his desk, one
+hand on her hip the other on the butt of a six-shooter, and glanced
+insolently from one to the other.
+
+"Aha!" she exclaimed, "so you're talking it over,--how to take advantage
+of a poor widow! But I want to tell you now, and I don't care who knows
+it, I've been imposed upon long enough. Here you sit in your office,
+both of you worth up into the millions, and discuss the division of your
+spoils; while the daughter and the widow of the man that found this mine
+are slaving away in a restaurant."
+
+"Yes, I'm sorry, Mrs. Huff," interposed Blount, smiling gently. "We were
+just discussing your case. But it often happens that the best of us err
+in judgment, and in this case I've been caught worse than you were. Yes,
+I must admit that when I first heard about this tungsten and realized
+that I had sold out for nothing, I was moved for the moment to resent
+it; but under the circumstances----"
+
+"Aw, what are you talking about?" demanded the Widow scornfully. "Don't
+you think I can see through your game? You pretend to be enemies until
+you get hold of my stock and then you come out into the open. I always
+knew you were partners, but now I can prove it; because here you are,
+thick as thieves."
+
+"Yes, we're friendly," admitted Blount with a painful smile at Wiley,
+"but Wiley owns the mine. That is, he owns a bond and lease on the
+property, with the option of buying for fifty thousand dollars. And then
+besides that, I regret to say, he has an option on all my stock."
+
+"Oh! Yes!" scoffed the Widow. "You've been cleaned by this
+whipper-snapper that's just a few months out of college! He's taken
+away your mine and your stock and everything--but of course you don't
+mind a little thing like that. But what I want to know, and I came
+here to find out, is which of you has got my stock--because I'll tell
+you right now----" she whipped out her pistol and brandished it in the
+air--"I'll tell you right now I intend to get it back or kill the one
+or both of you!"
+
+Blount's lips framed a lie, and then he glanced at Wiley, who was
+standing with his hand by his gun.
+
+"Well, now, Mrs. Huff," he began at a venture, "I--perhaps this can all
+be arranged."
+
+"No! I want that stock!" cried the Widow in hot anger, "and I'm going to
+get it, too!"
+
+"Why--why yes," stammered Blount, "but you see it was this way--I had no
+idea of the value of the stock. And so when Wiley came to see me I gave
+him an option on it for--well, I believe it was five cents a share."
+
+"Ah!" triumphed the Widow, whirling to train her gun on Wiley, "so now
+I've got you, Mr. Man! You've been four-flushing long enough but I've
+got you dead to rights, and I want--that--Paymaster--stock!"
+
+She threw down on him awkwardly, but as the pistol was not cocked, Wiley
+only curled his lip and smiled indulgently, with a restraining glance at
+his guard.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Huff," he agreed quite calmly, "I don't doubt you want it
+back. You want lots of things that you'll never get from me by coming
+around with these gun-plays. So put up that gun before you pull it off
+and I'll tell you about your husband's stock."
+
+"My _husband's_ stock!" cried the Widow in surprise, letting the
+six-shooter wobble down to her side. "Well I'd just like to tell you
+that that stock is _mine_, and furthermore----"
+
+"Oh, yes! Sure! Sure!" shrugged Wiley scornfully. "Of course you know it
+all! But that stock wasn't yours, and you couldn't transfer it, and so I
+didn't take any option on it. It's in the bank yet; and if you want to
+get it, why, here's the man to talk to."
+
+He jerked his thumb towards the cringing Blount, and exchanged scornful
+glances with Virginia. She was standing behind her mother and her glance
+seemed to say that he was passing the buck again; but his feeling for
+Virginia had suffered a great change and he replied to her head-toss
+with a sneer.
+
+"Now--now Wiley!" protested Blount, rising weakly to his feet and
+regarding his pseudo-partner reproachfully, "you know very well----"
+
+"Gimme that stock!" snapped the Widow, suddenly cocking the heavy pistol
+and throwing down savagely on Wiley; and then things began to happen.
+The watchful guard, who had been standing at her side, reached over and
+struck up the gun and as it went off with a bang, shooting a hole in the
+ceiling, he seized it and wrenched it away.
+
+"You're under arrest, Madam," he said with some asperity, and flashed
+his officer's star.
+
+"Well, who are you, sir?" demanded the Widow, vainly attempting to
+thrust him aside.
+
+"I'm a deputy sheriff, ma'am," replied the officer respectfully, "and
+I'd advise you not to resist. It'll be assault with intent to kill."
+
+"Why--I wouldn't kill anybody!" exclaimed the Widow breathlessly. "I
+was--I didn't intend to do anything."
+
+"Will you swear out a warrant?" inquired the deputy and Wiley nodded his
+head.
+
+"You bet I will," he said, "this is getting monotonous. She took a shot
+at me, once before."
+
+"Oh, Wiley!" wailed the Widow suddenly weakening in the pinch. "You know
+I never meant it!"
+
+"Well, maybe not," replied Wiley evenly, "but you hit me in the leg."
+
+"But _he_ pulled off my gun!" charged the Widow angrily, "I never
+went to do it!"
+
+"Well, come on;" said the deputy, "you can explain to the judge." And he
+took her by the arm. She went out, sobbing violently, and in the
+succeeding silence Wiley found himself confronted by Virginia. He had
+seen her before when the wild light of battle shot forth from her angry
+eyes but now there was a glow of soft, feminine reproach and the
+faintest suggestion of appeal.
+
+"Oh, Wiley Holman!" she cried, "I'll never forgive you! What do you mean
+by treating Mother like this?"
+
+"I mean," replied Wiley, "that I've taken about enough, and now we'll
+leave it to the law. If your mother is right the judge will let her go,
+but I guess it's come to a showdown."
+
+"What? Are you going to let them put my mother in jail?" she asked with
+tremulous awe, and then she burst into tears. "You ought to be ashamed!"
+she broke out impetuously. "I wish my father was here!"
+
+"Yes, so do I," answered Wiley gravely. "I'd be dealing with a
+gentleman, then. But if your mother thinks, just because she is a woman,
+she can run amuck with a gun, then she gives up all right to be treated
+like a lady and she has to take what's coming to her."
+
+"But Wiley!" she appealed, "just let her off this time and she'll never
+do it again. She's over-wrought and nervous and----"
+
+"Nope," said Wiley, "it's gone past me now--she'll have to answer before
+the judge. But if you think you can restrain her I'll be willing to let
+it go and have her bound over to keep the peace."
+
+"Oh, that'll be fine! If she just promises not to bother you and----"
+
+"And puts up a five-thousand-dollar bond," added Wiley. "And the next
+time she makes a gun-play or comes around and threatens me the five
+thousand dollars is gone."
+
+"Oho!" she accused, "so that's your scheme! You've been framing this up,
+all the time!"
+
+"Sure," nodded Wiley, with his old cynical smile, "I just love to be
+shot at. I got her to come over on purpose."
+
+"Well, I'll bet you did!" cried Virginia excitedly. "Didn't you have
+that officer right there? You've just framed this up to rob us. And how
+are we going to give a five-thousand-dollar bond when you know we
+haven't a cent? Oh, I--I hate you, Wiley Holman; and if you put my
+mother in jail I'll--I'll come back and kill you, myself!"
+
+She stamped her foot angrily, but a light leapt into Wiley's eyes such
+as had flamed there when he had faced Stiff Neck George.
+
+"Very well," he said, "if you people think you can rough-house me I'll
+show you I can rough it, myself. I've tried to be friendly and to give
+you the best of it; but now it's all off, for good. I hate to fight a
+woman, but----"
+
+"You do not!" she challenged. "You're a coward, that's what you are! And
+you can take your old stock back!"
+
+She drew a package from her bosom and slammed it spitefully on the table
+and rushed out after her mother. Wiley picked up the envelope and
+regarded it absently, his lip curling to a twisted smile. It was the
+package of stock which he had bought from Death Valley Charley and
+returned, as a gift, to Virginia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+PEACE--AND THE PRICE
+
+
+In the justice court at Vegas the Widow Huff met her match in the person
+of the magistrate, who warned her peremptorily that if she interrupted
+again he would commit her for contempt of court. Then the bailiff smote
+his desk a resounding blow and there was silence in the presence of the
+law. It was a new thing to her, this power called the law and that
+accuser of all offenders, The People; and before she had finished she
+learned the great truth that no one is above the law. It governs us all
+and, but for the mercy of the courts, would land most of our hot-heads
+in jail. But though it was proved beyond the peradventure of a doubt
+that the Widow had attempted violence it was tacitly understood that,
+being a woman, there would be no actual commitment.
+
+Wiley Holman came forward and informed the court that the defendant had
+threatened his life and upon two occasions and had made assaults upon
+his person with the avowed intention of killing him. Upon being
+questioned by the judge he admitted recognizing a shotgun, and three
+buckshot which had been extracted from his leg; but in a voluntary
+statement he expressed the opinion that the defendant was hardly
+responsible. At the same time, he stated, since his place of business
+was not far from the defendant's home, he would respectfully request
+that she be placed in custody and bound over to keep the peace. The
+testimony of the officer and of other witnesses left no doubt as to the
+existence of a threat and after the Widow had made a chastened speech
+she was placed in the custody of the sheriff.
+
+To this humiliation was added the greater pang of depositing all her
+jewels with her bondsmen and when it was over and she was back in her
+home the Widow's proud spirit was broken. She retired to the kitchen and
+the balm of a great peace was laid upon tumultuous Keno. For years the
+bold ego of Colonel Huff's wife had dominated the very life of the camp,
+but the son of Honest John had at last found a way of putting her anger
+in leash. Rage as she might in the privacy of her kitchen, or pour out
+her woes to the neighbors, when Wiley Holman came by she turned away her
+face and allowed him to pass in silence. And Wiley himself never gave
+her a glance, nor Virginia when he met her in the street; for the memory
+of their insults was still hot in his brain, and all he asked for was
+peace.
+
+He was safe, at last, safe to remodel the mill and bring up the ore from
+the mine; but as his work grew and prospered the anger died in his
+breast and his heart turned back to Virginia. She was quiet now, with
+averted eyes and the sad, brooding face of a nun; and she worked early
+and late in the crowded dining-room, serving meals to the hard-rock
+miners. He had closed down his cook-house to give them some patronage,
+when the first mad rush of prospectors was past; but though they fed his
+men and took the money that he had paid them, they owned no obligation
+to him.
+
+In the Paymaster the pumps were working steadily now, clearing the water
+from the submerged passages, and as the first checks came back in
+payment for his tungsten he ordered more timbers and men. There was
+plenty of ore on the dump for the moment but, while he separated it from
+the waste and shipped it to town, he caught up the falling ground in the
+drifts and prepared to stope out the scheelite. In the old, dismantled
+mill he had a crew working over-time, installing a rock-crusher and a
+concentrating plant; and every truck that brought out timbers and
+supplies took back its tons of ore. The price of tungsten leapt from
+forty dollars a unit to sixty and sixty-five, and rival buyers clamored
+for his ore; the mills treated it for almost nothing in order to get
+control of it and his credit was A1 at the bank--but when he passed
+Virginia she turned her face away and his heart turned heavy as lead.
+
+It was the price of success, and Wiley recognized it, but he rebelled
+against his fate. What fault was it of his that her father and his
+father had fallen out over the mine? He had shown by the stock that the
+treachery had been Blount's and neither of them was to blame. What fault
+was it of his that she had a shrewish mother who was bent upon ruining
+her life? Had he not endured abuse and suffered grievous wounds before
+he had asserted his rights? And with Virginia herself, when had there
+ever been a time when he had forgotten his lover's part--except on that
+last day, when he had turned like a trodden worm and protested his right
+to live? And yet she blamed him for all her misfortunes and for every
+day that she slaved; and even took the stock which he had returned as a
+peace-offering and hurled it in his face!
+
+Wiley's lips set grimly as he gazed at the certificates for which men
+had striven and died. There were some from her father, transferred on
+her birthdays when the stock was around thirty and forty; and others
+from old prospectors like Henry Masters, who had left it to Virginia
+when they died. She had sent it to him by Charley, out of shame for her
+harsh words, and he had bought it for four hundred dollars, half the
+money that he had in the world. Those had been happy days, in spite of
+the anxiety, for he had made the sacrifice for her; and to prove his
+devotion--and make a peace-offering against the explosion that was bound
+to come--he had given the stock back to Virginia. That was when he was a
+prospector, doing business on a shoe-string, a racing car and a diamond
+ring; but now when he had made his _coup_ and could write his check
+for thousands she threw the stock back in his face.
+
+The stock had a value now for, under the terms of the bond and lease,
+one-tenth of the net mill returns were automatically withheld and turned
+in to the company as royalty; and if for any reason he failed to meet
+the payment when the fifty thousand-dollar option expired, then this
+stock and all Paymaster stock would take a sudden jump to five or ten
+dollars a share. And the stock was hers--she had received it from her
+father when he was the mining king of the West, and from old man Masters
+when he was dying in the cabin where she had helped to care for him for
+months--yet she would not accept it as a gift. Wiley pondered a long
+time and then, as Christmas drew near, he sent for Death Valley Charley.
+
+"Charley," he began, when he came up that night, "did I understand you
+to say one time that you were acting as a kind of guardian to Virginia?
+Well, now here's a bunch of stock that you sold to me once when you were
+slightly off your cabeza. There's over twelve thousand shares and all
+you asked was four hundred dollars, when you knew they were worth eight
+hundred at least."
+
+"Yes, that's so," admitted Charley, blinking and rubbing his chin, "but
+you know them women, Wiley. They're crazy, that's all, and the Colonel
+he told me special not to let them lose their mine."
+
+"Well, never mind the mine," said Wiley wincing. "I'm talking about this
+stock. Don't you think it's your duty, by George, as guardian, to turn
+around and buy it back? You've got five thousand dollars coming to you
+on those claims of yours and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'm short,
+right now on account of buying machinery, and so I can't pay you much
+cash; but if you'll take this stock back in part payment of your claims
+I'll give you four hundred more."
+
+"Well, all right," agreed Charley after gazing at him thoughtfully, "but
+you ought to give back that mine. The Colonel, he told me----"
+
+"What do you mean, give it back?" demanded Wiley, irritably. "It isn't
+my property yet. I've got to pay for it first and get it away from old
+Blount before I can give it to anybody. That's fifty thousand dollars
+that I've got to make clear between now and the twentieth of May; but
+believe me, Charley, if I once get it paid for I'm going to do something
+noble."
+
+"That's good," assented Charley, "but you've got to pay me, right
+off--there's something going to happen!" His sun-dazed eyes opened up
+wide with excitement and he listened long and earnestly at the door
+before he tiptoed back to Wiley's desk. "I can hear 'em," he said.
+"They're going to blow up the mine and shake the mountains down.
+They're boring through the ground, but I can hear them working--it's
+like worms eating their way through wood."
+
+"Is that so?" queried Wiley. "Well, maybe we can stop 'em. I'll look
+after it, right away. But now about this stock----"
+
+"It's the Germans!" burst out Charley. "They've got boring machines that
+eat through mountains like wood. And then, _bumm_, it's them mines,
+and the dynamite bombs----"
+
+"Yes, it's awful," agreed Wiley, "but here's your money, Charley; so
+maybe you'd better go. And you keep this stock now, until it comes
+Christmas; and then, Christmas Eve, you slip into the house and put it
+in Virginia's stocking."
+
+"Oh--yes," agreed Charley, still listening to the Germans and then he
+became lost in deep thought. "The Colonel will kill me," he said at
+last. "It's Christmas, and I ain't brought his whiskey."
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" joshed Wiley. "Why didn't you deliver it? Did
+you get caught in a sandstorm, or what?"
+
+"Yes, a sandstorm," answered Charley, solemnly. "It came down the valley
+like a wall. And my burros got away; but the Colonel, he found me--I was
+digging a hole in the sand."
+
+"Say, where are these Ube-Hebes?" broke in Wiley impulsively. "I'd like
+to go over there some time."
+
+"They're across Death Valley," answered Charley smiling craftily, "--on
+the west side, in the Funeral Range. The Coffin mine is there--I used to
+work in it--but they put me underground with a stiff for a pardner so I
+quit and come back to town."
+
+"Yes, I heard about that; but you forgot something, Charley--how about
+that graveyard shift? But I'll tell you what I'll do, if you'll take me
+to the Colonel I'll help Virginia get back her mine."
+
+He plumped the statement at him, for Charley was an innocent who spoke
+out the truth when he was jumped, but for once he detected the ruse.
+
+"The Colonel's dead," he answered sulkily and picked up his hat to go.
+
+"I doubt it!" scoffed Wiley. "I met a man the other day who said he'd
+seen him--in the Ube-Hebes mountains."
+
+"He did?" exclaimed Charley, and then he drew back and his eyes flashed
+with angry resentment. "You're a liar!" he burst out. "The Colonel is
+dead. He never said anything of the kind."
+
+"Yes, he did," insisted Wiley, "and you know the man well. He's got a
+little dog like Heine."
+
+"He's a liar!" cried Charley savagely, "and don't you go to talking or
+I'll make you wish you hadn't."
+
+"No, I won't," assured Wiley, "but here's the proposition--the Colonel
+left a lot of stock. And Mrs. Huff, being crazy, gave it all to Blount
+on a loan of eight hundred dollars. But if the Colonel should come back
+that transfer would be illegal and he could fix it to get back the mine.
+So don't talk to me about giving Virginia her mine--you go out and bring
+in the Colonel."
+
+"He's dead!" yelled Charley, scrabbling madly out the door. "You're a
+liar--I tell you he's dead!"
+
+"Yes, he's dead," observed Wiley, "just the same as I am. I'll have to
+get old Charley drunk."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ON CHRISTMAS DAY
+
+
+Christmas came to Keno in a whirling snowstorm that shrouded Shadow
+Mountain in white and, as he stepped out in the morning and looked up at
+the peak, Wiley Holman felt a thrill of joy. The black shadow had
+bothered him, now that he had come to live under it; and a hundred times
+a day as it caught his eye he would glance up to find the dark cloud.
+But now it was gone and in place of the lava cap there was a mantle of
+gleaming snow. He looked down at the town and, on every graceless house,
+there had been bestowed a crown of white; all the tin cans were buried,
+the burned spots were covered over, and Keno was almost beautiful. A
+family of children were out in the street, trying to coast in their new
+Christmas wagons, and Wiley smiled to himself.
+
+He had brought back those children; he had brought the town to life and
+tenanted its vacant houses; and now, best of all, he had brought the
+spirit of Christmas, for he had sent a peace-offering to Virginia. She
+had spurned it once in the heat of passion, and called him a coward and
+a crook; but that package of stock would recall to her mind a time when
+she had known him for a friend. It would bring up old memories of their
+boy-and-girl love, which she knew he had never forgotten, and if there
+was anything to forgive she would know that he remembered it when he
+sent this offering by Charley.
+
+He was a crazy old rat, but he had his uses; and he had promised to give
+her the stock, without fail. It was to come, of course, from Charley
+himself, in atonement for selling it for nothing; but Virginia would
+know, even if she missed his flowered Christmas card, that the stock was
+a present from him. It had a value now far above the price he had paid
+for it when Charley had thrust it upon him and the dividend alone from
+the royalties on his lease would be twelve hundred dollars and more. And
+then her pro rata share, when he paid his fifty thousand dollars, would
+add another six hundred; and she knew that, for the asking, she could
+have half of what he had--or all, if she would take him, too.
+
+Wiley looked down on the house that sheltered Virginia and smiled to
+think of her there. She was waiting on miners, but the time would come
+when someone would be waiting on her. In the back of his brain a bold
+plan had been forming to feed fat his grudge against Blount and restore
+the Huffs to their own--and it needed but a word from her to put the
+plan into action. He held from Blount two separate and distinct papers;
+one a bond and lease on the mine, the other an option on his personal
+stock. But to grant the bond and lease--with its option for fifty
+thousand--Blount had been compelled to vote the Widow's stock; and if
+that stock was not his and had been illegally voted, then of course the
+bond and lease would be void.
+
+Yet even so he, Wiley Holman, had fully safeguarded his interests, for
+by his other option he could buy all Blount's stock for the sum of five
+cents a share. The four hundred thousand-odd shares would come to only
+twenty thousand dollars, as against fifty thousand on the bond and
+lease; and yet, by buying the stock at once, he could effectually debar
+Blount from any share in the accumulating profits. The small payments on
+past royalties and his five cents a share would be all that Blount would
+receive; and then he would be left, a spectacle for gods and men--a
+banker who had been beaten by a boy. It was the chicanery of Blount
+which had ruined his father and driven Colonel Huff to his death, and
+what could be better, as poetic justice, than to see him hoist on his
+own petard. And if the Colonel was not dead--as would appear from
+Charley's maunderings--if he could be discovered and brought back to
+town, then surely Virginia would forget the old feud and consent to be
+his wife. All this lay before him, a fairyland of imaginings, waiting
+only her magic touch to make it real; just a word, a smile, a promise of
+forgiveness--and of loyalty and love--and he, Wiley Holman, would go
+whirling on the errand that would win him wealth and renown.
+
+It would all be done for her, and yet he would not be the loser, for
+his own father held two hundred thousand shares of Paymaster; and he
+himself would save a fifty-thousand-dollar payment at an expense of a
+little over twenty. And if the Colonel could be found quickly--or his
+death disproved to make illegal the Widow's transfer of his
+stock--then the mine could be claimed at once and Blount deprived even
+of his royalties. Of course this could all be done without the help of
+Virginia or the co-operation of any of the Huffs for, although his
+father had refused from the first to have anything to do with the
+mine, Wiley knew that he could talk him over and persuade him to pool
+his stock. That would make six hundred thousand, a clean voting
+majority and a fortune in itself; but for the sake of Virginia, and to
+heal the ancient feud, it would be better to unite with the Huffs.
+
+Wiley paced up and down in the crisp, dry snow and watched for Virginia
+to come, and as his mind leapt ahead he saw her enthroned in a mansion,
+with him as her faithful vassal--when he was not her lord and king. For
+the Huffs were proud, even now in their poverty, and Virginia was the
+proudest of them all; and in this, their first meeting, he must remember
+what she had suffered and that it is hard for the loser to yield. It
+should be his part to speak with humility and dwell but lightly on the
+past while he pictured a future, entirely free from menial service, in
+which she could live according to her station. All her years of poverty
+and disappointment and loneliness would be forgotten in this sudden rise
+to wealth; and to complete the picture, Blount, the cause of all her
+suffering, would grovel, very unbankerlike, at their feet.
+
+Blount would grovel indeed when he felt the cold steel that would
+deprive him of all his stock, for he was still playing the game with his
+loans and extensions in the hope of winning back what he had lost. For
+money was his god, before whom there was no other, and he worshiped it
+day and night; and all his fair talk was no more than a pretense to lure
+Wiley into the net. Yet not for a minute would Wiley put up his option,
+or his bond and lease on the mine; and for all the money that Blount had
+loaned him he had given his mere note of hand. It was his promise to
+pay, unsecured by any collateral, and yet it was perfectly good. The
+money came and went--he could pay Blount at any time--but it was better
+to rehabilitate the mine.
+
+Wiley had a race before him, a race for big stakes, and he kept his eyes
+on the goal. To earn fifty thousand dollars in six months' time, earn it
+clean above all expense, required foresight and careful management, and
+a big daily output, for every day must count. The ore on the dump was in
+the nature of a grub-stake, a bonus for undertaking the game; and when
+it was all shipped the profits would drop to nothing unless he could
+bring up more ore. So he took his first checks, and what he could
+borrow, and timbered and cleaned out the mine; and, to save shipping out
+more ore, he had ordered expensive machinery to put the old mill into
+shape. It was the part of good judgment to spend quickly at first and
+build up the efficiency of his plant; and then the last few months, when
+Blount would begin to gloat, make a run that would put him in the clear.
+Clear not only of the bond and lease, but on Blount's stock as well, for
+it would pay for itself with the first dividend; and, to save paying any
+more royalties, Wiley was curtailing his wasteful shipments while he
+prepared to concentrate the ore in his mill.
+
+There were envious people in town who prophesied his failure and claimed
+that success had gone to his head, but he was confident he could show
+them that a man can take chances and yet play his cards to win. He had
+taken chances with Blount when he had accepted his money, for there were
+other banks that would lend on his mine; but in what more harmless way
+could he engage his attention and keep him from actual sabotage?
+
+It was that which he dreaded, the resort to open warfare, the fire and
+vandalism, and dynamite; and day and night he kept his eye on the works,
+and hired a night-watchman, to boot. But as long as Blount was convinced
+he could win back the mine peaceably he would not resort to violence
+and, though Stiff Neck George still hung about the camp, he kept
+scrupulously away from the Paymaster.
+
+As Christmas day wore on and the sun came out gleaming, Wiley swung off
+down the trail and through the town. He was a big man now, the man who
+had saved Keno after ten years of stagnation and lingering death; and
+yet there were those who disliked him. They recited old stories of his
+shrewd dealings with Mrs. Huff, and with Virginia and Death Valley
+Charley; and if any were forgotten the Widow undoubtedly recalled them.
+She was a shrewish woman, full of gossip and backbiting, and she let no
+opportunity pass; so that even old Charley cherished a certain
+resentment, though he disguised it as solicitude for the Huffs. And so
+on Christmas day, as Wiley walked down the street, many greetings lacked
+a holiday heartiness.
+
+The front room of the Huff house was full of children and, as Wiley
+walked back and forth, he caught a glimpse of Virginia; but she did
+not come out and, after lingering around for a while, he climbed up
+the trail to the mine. He had caught but a glimpse, but it was
+clean-cut as a cameo--a classic head, eagerly poised; dark hair,
+brushed smoothly back; and a smile, for some neighbor's child. That
+was Virginia, high-headed and patrician, but kind to lame dogs and
+lost cats. She had invited in the children but he, Wiley Holman, who
+had loved her since she was a child, had been permitted to pass
+unnoticed. He wandered about uneasily, then went back to his office
+and began to run over his accounts.
+
+Over a hundred thousand dollars had passed through his hands in less
+than a calendar month and yet the long haul across the desert from Vegas
+had put him in the hole. Besides the initial cost of cables and
+timbers--and of a rock breaker and the concentrating plant--there was a
+charge of approximately twenty dollars a ton for every pound of supplies
+he hauled out. And, because of the war, all supplies were high and the
+machinery houses were behind with their orders; yet so eager were the
+buyers to get hold of his tungsten that they almost took it out of the
+bins. He was storing up the ore, preparatory to milling it and shipping
+only the concentrates; but if they could have their way they would wrest
+it from his hands and rush it to the railroad post haste. One mysterious
+buyer had even offered him a contract at seventy dollars a unit--three
+dollars and a half a pound!
+
+Wiley opened up his notebook and made a careful estimate of what the ore
+on the dump would bring and his eyes grew big as he figured. At seventy
+dollars a unit it would come to more than he owed; and pay for the mine,
+to boot. It was a stupendous sum to come so quickly, before the mine was
+hardly opened up; but when the mill was running and the mine was sending
+up ore--he smiled dizzily and shook his head. A profit like that, if it
+ever became known, would make his position dangerous. It was too much of
+a temptation for Blount and his jumpers, and blackleg lawyers with fake
+claims. They could get out injunctions and tie up the work until he lost
+the mine by default!
+
+But would they dare do it? And how long would it take to raise fifty
+thousand dollars elsewhere? Wiley studied it all over in the silence of
+his office, for the mine was closed down for Christmas; and then once
+more he turned to his notebook and figured the ore underground. Then he
+figured the outside cost for installing his machinery, for freight and
+supplies and the payroll; and, adding twenty per cent for wear and tear
+and accidents, he figured the grand total for six months. That was
+astounding too but, when he put against it his ore and the price per
+ton, not even the chances that stood out against him could keep down
+that dizzy smile. He was made, he was rich, if he could just hold things
+level and do a day's work every day.
+
+The sun set at last as he sat planning details and, rising up stiffly,
+he pushed his papers aside and went out into the night. The snow had
+melted fast on the roofs and bare ridges and, as the last rays of sunset
+touched the peak with ruddy fingers, he noticed that the shadow had come
+back. The barren lava cap had thrown aside its Christmas mantle, melting
+the snow before it could pack; and now, grim and black, it stood out
+like a death-head above the white valley below. Lights flashed out from
+miners' windows, the scampering children ceased their clamor, and he
+wandered through the darkness alone.
+
+There was something he had forgotten, something big and significant, but
+his tired brain refused to respond. It was part of the scheme to beat
+Blount out of his stock, and the royalty from the shipments of ore;
+and--yes, it had to do with Virginia. It was going to make her rich, and
+both of them happy; but he could not recall it, at the moment. He was
+worn out, weary with the seething thoughts which had rioted through his
+mind all day, and he turned back dumbly to his office. It was dark and
+cold and as he groped for his matchbox his hand encountered a strange
+package. And yet it was not so strange--he seemed to remember it,
+somehow. He struck a hasty match and looked. It was the package of stock
+that he had sent to Virginia, but----The match burnt his fingers and he
+dropped it with a curse. She had refused his offer of peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE ENIGMA
+
+
+The heights and depths of life are sounded by emotions--cold reason lags
+behind. As thought cannot compass, so words cannot describe the
+anguished spirit's flight; and whether it soars to ecstasy or sinks to
+despair it comes back wide-eyed and silent. So any action which has been
+prompted by passion cannot be explained by a calculating mind, and to
+seek a reason where none exists is to stray still farther from the
+truth. Virginia Huff was poor and waited on the table for what she could
+eat and get to wear; and when she returned stock which was worth twelve
+hundred dollars without even a note of thanks it was not for any reason
+of the mind. It was a reason of the feelings, the soul, the human ego,
+which drives our minds and bodies to their tasks; a reason that soared
+up like a flaming aurora and stabbed the darkened sky with hate and
+passion. It was nothing to reason about, and yet Wiley reasoned.
+
+He put down the stocks and lit his lamp and examined the package
+carefully. Then he looked inside for some note of explanation and
+paused and swore to himself. No note was there, nor any sign that the
+stocks had ever passed through her hands. He rose up craftily and
+stepped out the door, passing silently from house to house, and then
+as he came back he threw his door open and examined the snow for
+tracks. If Death Valley Charley had failed of his mission, if he had
+neglected to place the shares in her stocking and then sneaked back to
+get rid of them--but Wiley put all thought of Charley aside for there
+in the snow was the print of a woman's shoe. Small and dainty it was
+and he knew in his heart that Virginia had been there and gone. She
+might have been watching him as he sat at his work, she might even be
+watching him now; but again something told him that, however she had
+come, she had gone away in a rage. The stab of the high heel, the
+heedless step into a mud-puddle, the swinging stride down the trail;
+all spoke of defiance, of a coming in the open and a return without
+fear of man or devil. She had come there to see him and, finding him
+away, she had thrown down the papers and gone home. And that was the
+answer to his love.
+
+Wiley sat down by the fire and tried to account for it. He imagined
+himself a woman, young and beautiful, but poor; working hard, as
+Virginia now worked, for her board and keep. Before her there was
+nothing--her father was dead or lost, her mother a hopeless scold, her
+fortune irretrievably gone--and yet she closed the only door out. As an
+earnest of his love, without asking anything in return, he had restored
+to her a portion of her stock; and she had promptly flung it back. Had
+Charley made some break in his method of presentation? But no, she would
+not mind if he had; it was something deeper, behind. He battered his
+brain, recalling every little incident that might have turned her heart
+against him, and it all brought him back to the trial.
+
+When he had had her mother arrested for coming into his office and
+demanding--what was it she had demanded? He remembered the six-shooter,
+and the deputy and Blount, and the Widow's rage and tears; and
+Virginia's return and all she had said to him--but what was it her
+mother had demanded? Her stock! All her stock! The stock she had refused
+to sell for ten cents a share and then had turned around and put up with
+Blount as security on a quick-action note. She had demanded it all back,
+without reason, without compensation, simply because she was a woman
+with a gun; and because he had invoked the law to protect him in his
+rights Virginia had sworn she would kill him. Wiley rose up swiftly and
+pulled the curtain across the window, and then he considered the matter
+again.
+
+It was not like Virginia to resort to any violence--she had been
+humiliated too often by her mother's--but she must still think he had
+deprived her of her rights. By what process of reasoning could they
+fix the blame on him for this stock which had been purloined by
+Blount, was beyond his strictly masculine mind; but women sometimes
+think by jumps. They skip a few processes, like a mathematical
+prodigy, and then arrive at some mammoth result. But, even if they
+exaggerated their grievance--was there anything behind it, any peg on
+which to hang this senseless hate?
+
+Well, of course he had deceived them about the mine. He had known it
+contained scheelite the moment he picked up that white rock that
+Virginia had placed in her collection, but naturally he had not
+announced it from the house-tops. With the Widow as a partner, or even
+as a stockholder, the best-natured man in the state of Nevada could not
+have worked the Paymaster at a profit. For that reason alone he had been
+fully justified in letting her freeze herself out; and if Virginia had
+taken his advice--but then, the poor girl had been distracted. She had
+been worn out and discouraged, hag-ridden by her mother and facing a
+trip to the city; and she had sold out for what she could get. She was a
+good girl, a brave girl, and a sweet and lovely one too; and it was
+foolish to blame her for anything. The thing to do, after all, was to
+find ways and means of bringing her back to her own. Just a word from
+Virginia and he could change her whole life, he could get back all her
+stock and her mother's as well and pour money into their laps--but first
+he must win her love. He must teach her to trust him, break down her
+suspicion and show her that he was her friend.
+
+Wiley thought a long time and the next morning at dawn he was up in his
+car and away. Virginia was a child. She did not reason about this and
+that, but was swayed by the impulses of the moment. Her life was ruled,
+not by her head but by her heart; and he had forgotten until that moment
+the sacks full of cats that he had taken from her house to the ranch.
+They were all her pets, and he had taken them as a trust when she was
+about to start for Los Angeles; but the mine had made him forget. They
+were safe at the ranch, with his sisters to look after them; but how
+many times since their estrangement began must some question have risen
+to her lips as to how they were, or if he would bring them back, or
+whether any had died or been lost? Yet she had turned her head away and
+refused to speak to him, even to demand back the pets she loved.
+
+The road was bad out across the desert, and on through Vegas to the
+ranch, but he came thundering back the next night. He had left the mine
+to run itself, for his thoughts were of Virginia, but as he slowed down
+at the sand-wash and listened for the pumps he noticed that the engine
+had stopped. Well, he had an engineer and that was his business--to keep
+the sump-hole pumped out; perhaps he had shut down for repairs. But the
+big thing, after all, was to restore Virginia her pets and win his way
+to a place in her heart. He drove boldly up the street and stopped
+before the house, but nobody came to the door. He waited a while, then
+leapt out uncertainly and released the mother of Virginia's pet kittens.
+She ran under the house and, as no one came out, Wiley let the rest of
+them go and turned disconsolately back towards the mine. If he had ever
+thought, when he had the Widow arrested, that Virginia was going to take
+it so hard--but then, of course, it had been absolutely necessary--and
+just wait till she found her kittens!
+
+There was trouble in the engine-house. He knew that the minute he saw
+the dancing torches in the dark, and he went up the trail on the run;
+but when he saw the wreckage, and the gear-wheel dismounted, he burst
+into a wailing curse. The mine had been all right, pumps operating,
+hoist running, when he had left the day before; but the minute he
+turned his back---- "What's the matter?" he demanded and then,
+pushing the engineer aside, he flashed a torch on the wreck. Wedged in
+the gearing of the shattered gear-wheel was a pair of engineer's
+overalls. They had jammed tight in the teeth and the resistless
+driving of the engine had cracked the great gear-wheel like an
+eggshell. Held solid by its base in the bolted concrete there had not
+been a half-inch's play and, since something must give, and the
+opposing wheel had stood, the enormous casting had smashed. The
+engineer and his helpers were pottering about, trying guiltily to
+remove the cause of the accident, but one look was enough to tell
+Wiley Holman that his mine was closed down for a week. No welding
+could ever repair that broken gear-wheel--he would have to wire for
+another.
+
+"Whose overalls are those?" he asked at last as the men sought to evade
+his eye and the engineer himself confessed ownership.
+
+"They're an old pair of mine," he explained, "that got caught when I was
+wiping up the grease."
+
+"What? Wiping up grease when the machinery was in motion? Why didn't you
+wait until it stopped?"
+
+"Well--I didn't; that's all. There was a big puddle of grease gathering
+dirt underneath there--and I thought I'd wipe it up."
+
+"I see," observed Wiley and his eyes narrowed down as he caught the
+aroma of whiskey. "Well, clear up this mess," he said at last and
+hurried to his office to telephone. A single line of wire stretched
+out across the plain, connecting Keno with Vegas and the world, and
+within half an hour he had dictated a rush order to be wired to his
+supply-house in Los Angeles. If money would buy it he would grab a new
+gear-wheel and have it shipped out by express; but if there was none
+in stock he would have to wait for it; and the machine-shops were
+months behind. Yet his whole mine was shut down on account of this
+accident and, if he only had the money, he could almost afford to buy
+a new engine and be done with it. He stopped and thought if there was
+one in the country that he could get hold of, second-hand, and then he
+thrust the matter aside. The problem of getting an engine on the
+ground was one that could be worked out later, but in the meanwhile
+the water was rising in the sump and the pumps would soon be
+submerged. There were two shifts of miners who would have to be
+discharged and--yes, the engine crew, too. It was against all the
+rules for an engineer to be wiping up his engine while it was running,
+and it was only by a miracle that the engineer himself had escaped
+unhurt from the smash?
+
+But was it a miracle? A swift stab of suspicion made Wiley's heart stand
+still. Was this the first treacherous move in Blount's battle to win
+back the mine? Had Blount, or some agent, suggested to the engineer that
+an accident would be followed by a reward; and then had not the
+engineer, when no one was looking, fed his overalls into the gearings?
+He was a surly young brute and he met Wiley's eyes with a stare that
+bordered on defiance, yet there was nothing to be gained by accusing
+him. If Blount had bribed his men it was best to get rid of them without
+the faintest suggestion of suspicion; and then take on a new crew,
+shipped in from San Francisco or some equally distant place.
+
+Wiley went underground with his men, opening up the air-cocks in the
+pumps, and bringing out the powder and steel; and then the next morning,
+just before the stage went out, he gave them all their time. They had a
+certain constraint, a sullen silence in his presence, that argued them
+against him at heart and, since the mine was closed down for some time
+to come, he made a clean sweep of them all. Yet it pained him somehow,
+being new at the game, to see all these miners against him and as they
+piled their rolls on the stage he lingered to see them off. He had paid
+them union wages and treated them right but now, with their time-checks
+in their pockets, they looked past him in stony silence. It puzzled him
+somehow, leaving him vaguely uneasy; but just as the stage pulled out he
+found the answer to his enigma. On the gallery of the Huff house as the
+automobile sped past there was a sudden flash of white and as Virginia
+appeared the young engineer rose up drunkenly and wafted her a kiss.
+After that the answer was plain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+AN APPEAL TO CHARLEY
+
+
+What is a kiss waved by a drunken hand, to a man whose love is like the
+hills? And yet that kiss, wafted so amorously to Virginia, stirred up a
+rage in Wiley Holman's heart. Was it not enough to wait on the table,
+without cultivating the acquaintance of her boarders? And this foolish
+affair, whatever it was, had cost him at least ten thousand dollars. It
+would come to that before he was through with it--in lost time and new
+machinery and unearned profits--and all because Virginia had smiled at
+this drunken engineer, who had promptly sent his overalls through the
+driving-gear. Yet that was the natural result of letting his men board
+in town where they could hear the Widow's ravings against him.
+
+In the midst of his telephoning and giving directions to his mill-crew,
+who were still rushing their work on the mill, Wiley turned the matter
+over in his mind and it left him sick with doubts. He had counted upon
+the opposition of Blount, but Virginia's almost staggered him. It would
+make a difference, before his six months was up, if she set all his men
+against him, and yet he could not stop her. If he withdrew his men and
+boarded them himself that would only inflame the neighborhood the more,
+for it would deprive the Huffs of their livelihood; and if he let things
+go on it might result in more wrecks that would seriously interfere with
+his plans. No, the thing to do was to see Virginia at once and come to
+an understanding.
+
+A telegram from his supply-house reported the engine an old type with
+all parts out of stock, and he worked for hours making tedious
+measurements before he ordered the new gear-wheel made. Then he sent an
+urgent wire to rush him the new engine that had been ordered to supply
+power to the mill, only to be told once more that it was held up by
+previous orders and could not be delivered for a month. A month! And
+with the water mounting up in his shaft like the interest on his notes.
+It was no time for half measures. He leapt into his racer and burned up
+the road to Vegas. Three days later he returned with an old gas engine
+that he had salvaged from an abandoned mine and by the end of the week,
+by working day and night, he had the pumps lifting water. And then again
+he remembered Virginia.
+
+He had thought of her, of course, when he was speeding to and fro, but
+he was hardly in the mood for sentiment. There were more things to go
+wrong than he had thought humanly possible in the management of a mine,
+and between ordering his machinery and taking on new men he had had
+scant leisure for affairs of the heart. He was young and inexperienced
+and the dealers took advantage of it to foist off old stock and odd
+parts, and then his engineers became fractious and disgruntled because
+he expected quick results. It was all very different from what he had
+expected when he had taken over the Paymaster lease, and yet it had to
+be endured and muddled through somehow until the mine was safely his
+own. Then out would come the engines, and all second-hand machinery and
+makeshift parts, and with a superintendent who knew his job he would
+lean back in comfort and learn the mining business by proxy.
+
+Wiley shaved that evening and went down through the town, but when he
+put his hand on the Widow's gate his resolution failed him. He had
+placed her under bonds to keep the peace, and she had lived up to the
+undertaking scrupulously, but within her own house she had certain
+rights and privileges which even he dared not invade. If he stepped in
+that doorway she would order him out; and unquestionably she would be
+within her rights, since every man's house is his castle. So, on the
+very threshold of Virginia's retreat, he drew back and went to see Death
+Valley Charley.
+
+Death Valley was drunk, but his conscience was still active and he burst
+into a voluble explanation.
+
+"No, I gave her that stock," he protested earnestly, "but she made me
+take it back.
+
+"'It ain't mine,' she says, 'and I'll work my hands off before I'll take
+charity from anybody.'
+
+"'No, you keep it,' I says, just exactly like you tole me, 'because I'm
+your guardian, and all; and Wiley he says that I'm a hell of a poor one,
+because I sold him that stock for nothing. No,' I says, just exactly
+like you tole me, 'I want you to keep this stock.'"
+
+"Well?" inquired Wiley, as Charley paused to take a drink, "and what did
+Virginia say, then?"
+
+"Oh, I couldn't repeat it," answered Death Valley virtuously. "She don't
+seem to like you now. She says you stole her mine."
+
+"Huh!" grunted Wiley, and looked about the cabin which was littered with
+bottles and flasks. "Well, where've _you_ been?" he went on at
+last, the better to change the subject, and Charley leered at him
+shrewdly.
+
+"Over across Death Valley," he chanted drunkenly, "--on the east side,
+in the Funeral Range. But they put me to work on the graveyard shift so
+I quit and come back to town."
+
+"Ye-es," jeered Wiley, "you've been on a big drunk. What are you doing
+with this demijohn of whiskey?"
+
+"Why, I got it for the Colonel," replied Charley, laughing childishly,
+"and I started to take it over to him, but my burros got away at
+Daylight Springs, so I made camp and drunk it all up."
+
+"But it's full!" objected Wiley.
+
+"Yes, I refilled it," answered Charley and helped himself to another
+nip. "Thas second time now I took that whiskey to the Colonel and both
+times I drunk it up. Thas bad--the Colonel will kill me."
+
+"Yes, and do a danged good job," grumbled Wiley morosely. "You sure got
+me in Dutch with Virginia."
+
+"She says you stole her mine," defended Charley stoutly. "And don't you
+say nothing against Virginia. She's noblest girl the sun ever shined.
+I'll _kill_ any man that says different!"
+
+"Oh yes, sure," agreed Wiley, "I'd do that myself. But Charley, I didn't
+steal her mine. I got it from Blount, and if she wants it back--say,
+Charley, you tell her I want to see her!"
+
+He leaned over eagerly and laid his hand on Charley's shoulder, but
+Death Valley shook him off.
+
+"No!" he declaimed. "The Huffs are poor but proud--they don't take
+charity from no one!"
+
+"Aw, but, Charley," he argued, "this isn't charity. We'll get it away
+from Blount!"
+
+"You're drunk!" declared Charley and turned sternly to the demijohn
+which was rapidly going down.
+
+"Well, maybe I am," admitted Wiley craftily, "but that's all right,
+isn't it, between friends?"
+
+"Sure thing--have another!" responded Charley cordially, and Wiley
+poured out a generous portion.
+
+"Here's to you," he said, "Old Chuckawalla Charley--the man that put the
+Death in Death Valley. You're some desert rat, now ain't you, Charley?
+You helped pack the mud to build the butte and stoped out the guest
+chamber down in hell! Well, here's luck!" and he nodded his health.
+
+"Yes, you bet I'm an old-timer," boasted Death Valley vaingloriously.
+"I was at Panamint and Ballarat, and all them camps. Me and old Shorty
+Harris--we used to lead every rush--we was first at Greenwater and
+Skidoo. But these damned lizzies can beat us to it now--the old
+burro-man is too slow."
+
+"But crossing the sand, Charley, you've got us there; and climbing up
+these rocky washes. I've got a good machine--it'll take me most
+anywhere--but when it comes to crossing Death Valley, give me some burros
+and old Uncle Charley." He slapped him on the back and Uncle Charley
+smiled doubtfully and took another drink. "You bet," went on Wiley, with
+method in his madness. "I'd like nothing better, when I get a little
+time, than to have you take me out across Death Valley. What's it like,
+over there, Charley? Is it very far to water? But I'll bet you know
+every trail!"
+
+"I know 'em all," announced Charley proudly, "but here's one that nobody
+knows. It's the trail to the Ube-Hebes. First you go from here to
+Daylight Springs, but they ain't no feed around there, so you go over
+the divide and down six miles and camp at Hole-in-the-Rock. And there
+they's good feed and plenty of good water and a tin house where the
+freighters used to camp; and then you fill your tanks and the next day
+you follow the wash till it takes you down to Stovepipe Wells. That
+water is bad but the burros will drink it if you bail the hole out
+first, and the next day you cross the sand-hills and the Death Valley
+Sink and head for Cottonwood wash. Many is the man that has started for
+that gateway and died before he reached the water, but the Colonel----"
+
+Charley stopped abruptly and looked around for Heine and then he poured
+out a drink.
+
+"He's dead now," he concluded, but Wiley caught his eye and shook his
+head disapprovingly.
+
+"Not between friends," he said. "Ain't we drunk here together? Well,
+tell me the truth now--where is he? And listen here, Charley; I'll tell
+you something first that will make it all right with the Colonel. All he
+has to do is to come back to Keno and I'll give him his share in the
+mine. Then we can throw in together, and, when we get through, old
+Blount will be left holding the sack. Do you get the idea? I'm trying to
+be friends, but you've got to take me over to the Colonel!"
+
+"The Colonel is dead!" repeated Charley doggedly and then he cocked his
+head to one side. "Don't you hear 'em?" he asked, "it's them Germans or
+something----"
+
+"Never mind!" said Wiley sharply. "I'm talking about the Colonel, and
+I'll tell you what I'll do. I can't give the mine to Virginia because
+she won't take it; but the Colonel is a gentleman. He's reasonable,
+Charley, and I'd get along with him fine; so come on, now--go over and
+tell him!"
+
+He patted him on the back and a look of indecision crept into Charley's
+drink-dimmed eyes, but in the end he shook his head.
+
+"Nope," he muttered, "the Colonel is dead!" And Wiley threw up his
+hands.
+
+"Well, then here," he ran on, "you know me Charley; and you know I'm
+not trying to steal that mine. Now here's what I want you to do. You
+tell Virginia I want to see her; and then some night you bring her
+over and--well, maybe that will do just as well."
+
+"Will you give her back her mine?" inquired Charley pointedly, and Wiley
+rose up in a rage.
+
+"Yes!" he yelled, "for cripes' sake, what's the matter with you? You
+talk like everybody was a crook. Didn't I give her back her stock? Well
+then, I'll give her back her mine! But she's got to accept it, hasn't
+she?"
+
+"That was her I heard coming," answered Charley simply, but when Wiley
+looked out she was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE DRAGON'S TEETH
+
+
+It is the curse of success that it raises up enemies as Jason's dragon
+teeth brought forth armed men. When he was skating around the country,
+examining mines and taking out options, Wiley could safely count every
+man his friend; but now that he had made his big _coup_ on the
+Paymaster they were against him, from Virginia down. If he went to her
+politely with a thousand-dollar bill and asked her to take it as a gift
+she would refuse to so much as look at him. And yet, as a matter of
+fact, he was the same old laughing Wiley--only now he did not laugh. It
+was not right, but it could not be helped.
+
+A long and weary month, full of vexatious delays and nerve-racking
+demands from his creditors, left its mark on Wiley's face; but in six
+weeks the mine and mill were running. Three shifts of men broke the ore
+at the face and sent it up the shaft to the grizzly and from there it
+was fed down through the enormous rock-crusher and then on through the
+ball-mills and rollers to the concentrating tables below. It was crushed
+and sorted and crushed again and ground fine in the revolving tubes, and
+then it was screened and washed and separated on vanners until nothing
+but the concentrates remained. The tail sluicings were sluiced off down
+the gulch, to add to the mighty dump that the Paymaster had left there
+in its prime. But even at its best, when it was working in gold ore that
+ran three or four thousand to the ton, even then the famous Paymaster
+had not turned out treasure like this.
+
+The banks were full of gold--they were shipping it to America in lots of
+ten and twelve million at a time--but tungsten was rare, it was
+necessary, almost priceless, and the demand for it increased by leaps
+and bounds. How could iron-masters harden the tools that were to turn
+out the mighty cannon that this gold had been sent over to buy, unless
+they could get the tungsten? Molybdenum, vanadium, manganese, and all
+the substitutes were commandeered to take its place; but month by month
+the price of tungsten crept up until now all the West was tungsten-mad.
+It had gone up from forty dollars to sixty, and now seventy, for a
+twenty-pound unit of concentrates--running sixty per cent or better of
+tungstic acid--and as Wiley resumed his shipments he received a frantic
+offer of seventy-five dollars a unit. And then once more he smiled.
+
+There had been a time when he had felt the cold hand of Blount closing
+down on his precious mine--and the other banks had refused to take over
+his notes. The property was not his, there was nothing tangible upon
+which to make a loan; and then, Blount had passed the word around. Wiley
+was indebted to him, and heavily indebted, and when he took the apple
+there would be no core for the rest. But now in a week the whole
+situation had changed and Wiley's smile brought forth answering smiles.
+The general store in Vegas extended his credit, even his supply-house
+had heard the good news; and Blount, who had grown arrogant, became
+suddenly friendly and fawning, trying vainly to cover up his hand. He
+was like a man who had clutched at a treasure and discovered himself a
+little too soon. The treasure was still Wiley's but--well, Blount was
+used to waiting, so he smiled and extended the notes.
+
+At three dollars and more a pound it would not take many tons of
+tungsten to put Wiley safely out of the hole, but when he ran over his
+accounts he was startled by the bills that were piling up against him. A
+thousand dollars was nothing to these mining machinery houses and his
+payroll was over two hundred a day; and then there was powder and timber
+and steel, and gasoline and oil, _and_ the freight across the
+desert. That went on everything, twenty dollars a ton whether they
+hauled both ways or one; and with so much at stake he had to treat
+everyone generously or run the chance of being tied up by a strike. Nor
+was there lacking the sinister evidence of some unfriendly if not
+hostile force, and as breakdowns recurred and unexpected accidents
+happened, Wiley came and went like a ghost. His gun was always on him
+and he watched each man warily, seeking out his enemies from his
+friends.
+
+As for Virginia and her mother, he had long since given up hope of
+stopping their venomous tongues; and Death Valley Charley, finding the
+pressure too strong, had conveniently dropped out of sight. In all that
+town, which he had found dead and unpeopled and had changed in a few
+months to a live camp, there was not a single soul that he could
+truthfully say was honestly and unquestionably his friend. It was not
+that they were against him, for most of them realized that their own
+success was bound up with his; but they were not actively for him, they
+did not boost and help him, but joined in on the old anvil chorus. He
+had cheated the Widow, he had beaten Virginia out of her stock, he had
+taken advantage of Death Valley Charley! But, they added--and this was
+what galled him--what else could you expect from the son of Honest John?
+
+Wiley gritted his teeth, but he did not speak his mind for the hour of
+vindication was at hand. When he had paid off his notes and his bills
+for supplies the first thing he would do, even before he took over the
+mine, would be to buy in Blount's Paymaster stock. And with that stock
+in his hands, with every tell-tale endorsement to prove the damning
+story of Blount's guilt, he would go to these old-timers and make them
+eat their words when they said his father was not honest. But as far as
+he was concerned, what difference did it make whether they considered
+him honest or not? Would they feel any more kindly towards his honest
+old father when he had proved that he had been faithful to the end? No,
+they thought they were virtuous and only denouncing injustice, but when
+that charge was taken out of their mouths they would clack on out of
+jealousy at his success. It was envy that really poisoned their minds
+and made them spit forth spleen, envy and chagrin at their own lack of
+foresight.
+
+The Paymaster dump had lain right at their doorway where all of them
+could inspect its ore, but no one had noticed the heavy spar. They had
+called it white quartz and dismissed it from their minds, but he had
+come among them with different eyes. He had gone to a school of mines,
+where he had learned to identify minerals, and he had kept up with the
+mining magazines; and while these poisonous knockers had been lamenting
+the results of the war he had jumped in and turned it to his advantage.
+He had done something practical, to the improvement of industry,
+something that might change in a certain measure, the very destiny of
+the world; but the moment he succeeded they had accused him of robbing
+half-wits and of oppressing the widow and the orphan. Wiley shut down
+his jaws and smiled dourly.
+
+There was small hope now of changing the widow and her "orphan" but if
+he could not convert them he could show them. As sure as he knew
+anything he was convinced that Colonel Huff had simply fled from his
+wife's nagging tongue and, when he got the time, Wiley intended to hire
+a pack-train and set out across Death Valley to find him. Virginia came
+and went, but always she avoided him scrupulously. Not once since she
+had returned from Vegas had she met his questioning eyes; and to all his
+advances she turned a deaf ear, if the statements of Charley could be
+trusted. The carefully thought out scheme of getting back the Huff stock
+and then forming an alliance against Blount had died before it was born;
+or it remained at best in suspended animation, pending Death Valley
+Charley's return. He had gone off with his burros but the longer Wiley
+waited on him the more he saw that Charley was a broken reed. No, the
+trimming of Blount, if it was done at all, would have to be done by
+him--and all he needed was time.
+
+Two months and a little more lay between him and the day of
+reckoning--the twentieth day of May. In that short time he must meet
+heavy obligations, pay off his notes, buy Blount's stock and purchase
+the mine; and if anything should happen--if the hoist should break
+down, the mill blow up, the market for tungsten fail--well, he could
+kiss the Paymaster good-by. The market and other influences were on
+the knees of the gods, but Wiley decided that there should be no more
+accidents. That was something preventable and no more love-sick
+engineers were going to use his gearings for a clothes mangle. He
+engaged two watchmen who were mechanics as well and then he kept watch
+over his watchmen. Neither by day nor by night did he go down the hill
+for more than a few minutes at a time and on dark, stormy nights he
+wandered about like a specter watching the shadows for Stiff Neck
+George. He was out there somewhere, Wiley knew it as instinctively as
+he knew that Virginia hated him, and yet he never appeared. He never
+made threats nor showed himself in the open but, somewhere, he was out
+there in the darkness; and sooner or later he would strike.
+
+The days dragged on slowly, with cold, March winds and sandstorms
+boiling in over Shadow Mountain; and then driving rain followed by
+bright, sunny weather and struggling flowers in the swales. It was
+spring, in a way, but not the spring of yester-year, with its songs and
+laughter and high hopes. Wiley felt the old call to be up and away, but
+his racer remained in its shed. He paced about restlessly, waiting for
+something to happen, observing the slightest signs--and then he found
+her tracks in the dust. Virginia had come up the trail in the night and
+had gone down past the mill. He knew her tracks well and, among the
+broad brogans of the miners, they stood out like the footprints of a
+fairy. Wiley's heart leapt up in his breast--and then it stood still.
+Had she come as an enemy or a friend?
+
+He followed her trail to where it had been trampled out by the
+watchman in making his regular rounds; and then, below the mill, he
+picked it up again as it went on down the path. Not once had she
+hesitated or turned from the beaten trail, but she had gone down after
+the graveyard shift. That went on at eleven and her tracks were
+superimposed on the hob-nailed boot-marks of the miners. When they had
+come off shift they had trampled them out again, except for a print
+here and there; and by the color of the dust Wiley shrewdly judged
+that she had visited him between twelve and one. Between the
+wind-blown footprints of the night-shift and the fresh red of the day
+shift as they had mounted the trail at seven, her high-arched steps
+had been made about midnight, for the dust had been whitened by the
+air. Wiley followed them silently, trampling them out as he went, and
+that night as the graveyard shift came on he slipped out and hid by
+the trail. What kind of a watchman was this, who let a woman come and
+go and never even saw her tracks in the dust? He could watch for
+Virginia; and meanwhile, incidentally, he could keep tab on this
+sleepy-headed guard.
+
+The _chuh_, _chuh_ of the engine echoed loud in the canyon as
+the hoist brought up the first cars, and then the rumble of the trams as
+they were pushed down the track and the clatter of the ore down the
+grizzly. A sharp _blap_, _blap_, from the compressor showed
+that the machine-men had set up their drills; and beneath all the rest
+there was the hushed rumble of the mill and the thunderous _rhump_,
+_rhump_, of the rock-breaker. It was a ponderous affair of the old
+jaw-type, surmounted by a fly-wheel of a full ton's weight that drove it
+rhythmically on; and as Wiley listened it made a music for his ears as
+sweet as any bass viol. In this mine of his there was an orchestration
+of busy sounds, from the clang of the bell to start or stop the engine,
+to this deep, rumbling undertone of the crusher; and every clang and
+crunch brought him that much nearer to the day when he would be free.
+
+He took shelter within the black mouth of a short tunnel by the trail
+and looked out at his little world--the huge mill, dimly lighted, the
+gaunt gallows-frame against the sky, and the sleeping town below. He had
+made them his own and now he must fight for them; and watch over them,
+day and night. Above him the stars shone out clean and cold, a million
+of them in the dry, desert air; and in the east the half moon rose up
+slowly above Gold Hill, where the wealth of ages lay hid. It had given
+up its gold but his hand had struck the blow that would open up its
+treasure vaults of tungsten. All it needed now was watchfulness and
+patience. The moon rose up higher and he dozed within the shadow and
+then a sound brought him to with a start. It was the crunch of gravel on
+the trail before him and as he looked out he saw Virginia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+VIRGINIA EXPLAINS--NOTHING
+
+
+She was covered by a cloak and there was a man's hat on her head, but
+Wiley knew her--it was Virginia Huff. The moon had mounted high and the
+chill of the morning was in the air, so he could hardly flatter himself
+that she had come to see him. Perhaps it was just to see the mine. But
+if, beneath that cloak, she carried some instrument of destruction--he
+stepped out and watched her covertly. She tiptoed up the trail, glancing
+nervously about her, starting back as a trammer dumped his ore; and
+then, very slowly, she crept past his house and disappeared in the
+direction of the mill. Instantly he whipped out of his tunnel and
+started after her, running swiftly up the trail; but as he neared the
+summit she came catapulting against him, running as swiftly the other
+way.
+
+"Here! Stop!" he commanded as she leapt back with a stifled scream and
+then as she made a dash he plunged resolutely after her and caught her
+like a child.
+
+"You let go of me!" she panted, but he flung one arm about her and held
+both her hands to her side.
+
+"No," he said, and she struck out violently only to find herself
+clutched the tighter.
+
+"Wiley Holman!" she exploded, "if you don't let me go! You'd better--I
+saw a man back there!"
+
+"It's my watchman," answered Wiley. "I keep him to guard the mill. But
+what are you doing up here?"
+
+"No! It wasn't! It was Stiff Neck George! And he had something heavy in
+his hand! You'd better go and watch him!"
+
+She was struggling in his arms, her breath hot against his cheek, fear
+and rage in every word, but he crushed her roughly to his side.
+
+"Never mind about George," he said. "What are _you_ doing up here,
+now?"
+
+"But he'll blow up your mine! I've heard him threaten to! I just came up
+to tell you!"
+
+"Oh, that's different!" returned Wiley, relaxing his grip, "but never
+mind--my watchman will get him."
+
+"No! The watchman is asleep--I didn't see him anywhere! Oh, Wiley;
+please run and stop him!"
+
+"Nope," replied Wiley, "he can blow the whole mill up--I want to ask you
+a question."
+
+He released her reluctantly, for the touch of her had thrilled him, and
+the sweetness of her breath on his cheek--but she darted down the trail
+like a rabbit.
+
+"Here! Wait!" he ordered and outran her in ten jumps, at which she
+stooped and snatched up a rock.
+
+"Put that down!" he said, and as she swung back the rock, he braved it
+and caught her anyway. "Now," he went on, trembling from the smash of
+the blow, but holding her in a grip of steel, "we'll see what all this
+is about!"
+
+"You will not!" she hissed back, "because I won't answer you a word! And
+I hope old George ruins your mill!"
+
+"That's all right," he said, shaking his bloody head, "but, Judas, you
+did smash me with that stone! After that, I guess, I've got something
+coming to me!" And he reached down and kissed her lips.
+
+"You--stop!" she panted. "Oh, I--I'll kill you for that!" But Wiley only
+laughed recklessly.
+
+"All right!" he said, "what's the difference--I'd die happy! I almost
+wish you'd hit me again."
+
+"Well, I will!" she threatened, but when he released her she drew back
+and hung her head. "That isn't fair," she said, "you know I can't
+protect myself, and----"
+
+"Well, all right," he agreed, "we'll call it square then. But--I want to
+tell you something, Virginia."
+
+"Are you going to stand here," she burst out sharply, "and let him blow
+up your mill?"
+
+"Yes, I am," he answered. "I don't care what happens to me if you and I
+can be friends. I love you, Virginia, you know it as well as I do, and
+that's all I want in the world. Let's just be friends, the way we used
+to be when we were playing around town together. I've been trying to see
+you for months--it's seemed like forty years--and Virginia, you've got
+to listen to me!"
+
+He paused and drew nearer, and she stood waiting passively, as if daring
+him to touch her again; but he stooped and peered into her face. The
+night was not dark and in the ghostly moonlight he could see the cold
+anger in her eyes.
+
+"Yes, I know," he said, "you hate me like poison--but Virginia, this is
+going too far. It's all right to hate me, if that's the way you're
+built, but you ought to give me a chance. It looks very much as if you'd
+come up here to-night to do some damage to my mine; but I'll let that
+pass and say nothing about it if you'll only give me a chance. Let me
+tell you how I feel and then, some other time----"
+
+"Well, go on," she said, "but if your old mine blows up----"
+
+"I wish it would!" he burst out passionately. "If it would make any
+difference, I wish it was blown off the map. I can't bear to fight you,
+Virginia; it makes my life miserable, and I've tried to be friendly from
+the first. But is it right to blame a man for something he can't help
+and not even give him a chance to explain? If you think I've stolen your
+mine, why, go ahead and say so and let me give it back. I'll do it, so
+help me God, if you'll only say the word."
+
+"What word?" she asked, and he threw out his hands in a helpless appeal
+to her pity.
+
+"Any word," he said, "so long as it's friendly. But I just can't stand
+it to be without you!"
+
+"Oh," she said, and looked back up the trail as if meditating another
+dash to escape.
+
+"Well, what is it?" he asked at last. "Won't you even listen to me? I've
+got a plan to propose."
+
+"Why, certainly," she responded, "go ahead and tell it. And then, when
+it's done, can I go?"
+
+"Yes, you can go," he answered eagerly, "if you'll only just listen
+reasonably and think what this means to us both. We used to be friends,
+Virginia, and while I was working up this deal I did everything I could
+to help you. I didn't have much money then or I'd have done more for
+you, but you know my heart was right. I wasn't trying to take advantage
+of you. But the minute I got the mine it seems as if everybody turned
+against me--and you turned against me, too. That hurt me, Virginia,
+after what I'd tried to do for you, but I know you had your reasons. You
+blamed me for things that I never had done and--well, you wouldn't even
+speak to me. But that was all right--it was perfectly natural--and on
+Christmas I sent you back your stock. I only bought it from Charley to
+help you get to Los Angeles, and I considered that I was holding it in
+trust; so I sent it back by Charley, but I suppose he made some break,
+because I found it on my table that night. But you'll take it back now;
+won't you, Virginia?"
+
+His voice broke like a boy's in the earnestness of his appeal and yet it
+was hopeless, too, for he saw that she stood unmoved. He waited for an
+answer, then as she shifted her feet impatiently he went on with dogged
+persistence. It was useless, he knew it; and yet, sometime in the
+future, she might recall what he had said and take advantage of it.
+
+"Well, all right, then," he assented, "but the stock's yours if you want
+it. I'm holding it for you, in trust. But now here's what I wanted to
+tell you--I'd hoped we could do it together; but you ought to do it,
+anyway. You know that stock that your mother lost to Blount? Well, I
+know how you can get it back."
+
+He paused for her to speak, to exclaim perhaps at his magnanimity in
+offering to help her against her will, but she shrouded herself
+pettishly in her cloak.
+
+"Oh, you don't care, eh?" he asked with a bitter laugh. "Well, I wish to
+God, then, I didn't. But I do, Virginia! I can't stand it to see you
+slaving when there's anything in the world that I can do. Now here's the
+proposition: according to law your father isn't legally dead--he won't
+be for seven years--and so your mother, not being his heir yet, had no
+right to hypothecate that stock. It still belongs to your father's
+estate and all you have to do is to go to a lawyer and demand the
+property back. You're his daughter, you see, and a co-heir with your
+mother, and Blount will not dare to oppose it!"
+
+"Yes, thanks," returned Virginia. "Is that all?"
+
+"Why--no!" he said at last, clutching his hands at his side.
+"There's--I'll lend you the money, Virginia."
+
+"No, thank you!" she answered, and started off down the trail, but he
+stepped in her way and stopped her. His mood had changed, for his voice
+was rough and threatening, but he struggled to keep it down.
+
+"Is that all?" he demanded and without waiting for the answer he reached
+out and caught her by the arm. "Virginia," he said, "I've tried to be
+good to you, but maybe you don't appreciate it. And maybe I've made a
+mistake. There's something about you when I'm around that reminds me of
+a man with a grouch--only a man would speak out his mind. Now I've given
+you a chance to clean up twenty thousand dollars and I expect something
+more than: 'No, thanks!'"
+
+"Well, what _do_ you expect?" she asked, struggling feebly against
+his grasp.
+
+"I expect," he answered, "that you'll state your grievance and tell me
+why you won't have me?"
+
+"And if I do, will you let me go?"
+
+"When I get good and ready," he responded grimly. "I don't know whether
+I'm in love with you or not."
+
+"Well, my grievance," she went on defiantly, "is that you went to work
+deliberately and robbed me and mother of our mine. And as for winning
+_me_, that's one thing you can't steal--and I'll kill you if you
+don't let go of that hand!"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I've heard that before--it seems to run in the family.
+But don't you think for a minute that I'm afraid of getting killed--or
+that I'm trying to steal you, either. If you were an Indian squaw you
+might be worth stealing, because I could beat a little sense into your
+head; but the way things are now I'll just turn you loose--and kindly
+keep off my ground."
+
+He flung back her hand and stepped out of the trail but Virginia did not
+pass. Her breast heaved tumultuously and she turned upon him as she
+sought for a fitting retort; but while they stood panting, each
+glowering at the other, there was a crash from inside the old mill. Its
+huge bulk was lit up by a flash of light which went out in Stygian
+darkness and as they listened, aghast, the ground trembled beneath them
+and a tearing roar filled the air. It began at the stone-breaker and
+went down through the mill, like the progress of a devastating host, and
+as Wiley sprang forward, there was a terrifying smash which seemed to
+shake the mill to its base. Then all was silent and as he looked around
+he saw Virginia dancing off down the trail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ON DEMAND
+
+
+If there was anything left of his mill but the frame, Wiley's ears had
+played him false; and yet he stood and looked after Virginia. This
+grinding crash, this pandemonium of destruction which had left him sick
+with fear, had put joy into her dancing feet. Yes, she had danced--like
+a child that hears good news or runs to meet its father--and he had
+thought her worthy of his love! He had battered his brain for weeks to
+devise some plan whereby he could make his peace; he had taken her blows
+like a dog; and she had answered with this. Whether it was Stiff Neck
+George or some other man, she had known both his presence and his
+purpose; and now she rejoiced in the catastrophe. A hundred dollars
+would buy him a squaw more worthy of confidence and love.
+
+There was darkness in the mill, but when they brought the flares,
+Wiley saw that the ruin was complete. From the rock breaker to the
+concentrators there was nothing but splintered wood, twisted iron and
+upturned tanks; and the demon of destruction which had raged down
+through its length was nothing but the fly-wheel of the rock crusher.
+What power had uprooted it he was at a loss to conjecture but, a full
+ton in weight, it had jumped from its frame and plowed its way down
+through the mill. The ore-bins were intact, for the fly-wheel had
+overleapt them, but tables and tanks and concentrating jigs were
+utterly smashed and ruined. Even the wall of the mill had given way
+before it and the cold light of dawn crept in through a jagged
+aperture that marked its resistless course. The fly-wheel was gone and
+the damage was done; but there was still, of course, the post mortem.
+What had caused that massive shafting, with its ponderous speeding
+wheels, to leap from its bearings and go crashing down the descent,
+laying everything before it in ruins? Wiley summoned his engineer and,
+in the shattered jaws of the rock-breaker, they found the
+innocent-looking instrument of destruction. It was not a stick of
+dynamite, but a heavy steel sledge-hammer that had been cast into the
+jaws of the crusher. They had closed down upon it, the hammer had
+resisted, and then all the momentum of that whirling double fly-wheel
+had been brought to bear against it. Yet the hammer could not be
+crushed and, as the wheel had applied its weight, the resistance to
+its force had caused it to leap from its bearings and go hurtling down
+the incline.
+
+It was a very complete job, even better than dynamiting, and yet Wiley
+did not blame it on Stiff Neck George. Some miner, some millman, who had
+seen it done before, had repeated the performance for his benefit. Or
+was it, perhaps, for Virginia's? He remembered the engineer who had fed
+his greasy overalls into the gearings of the hoist. He had boarded with
+Virginia and had waved her a parting kiss--but this time it would be
+some trammer. Wiley gave them all their time on general principles, but
+he did not go down to witness the farewell. Whether the trammer kissed
+her good-by or simply kissed her hand was immaterial to him now--and, in
+case it might have been a millman or some miner underground, he laid off
+the whole night shift. The night-watchman went too, and the stage the
+following evening brought out a cook to start up the boarding-house.
+
+Wiley did not guess it--he knew it--Virginia Huff was the witch who had
+mixed the hell-broth that had raised up all this treachery against him.
+She had poisoned his men's minds and incited them to vandalism, but it
+would not happen again. He had been a fool to endure it so long; but she
+could starve now, for all that he cared. If she thought she could twist
+him like a ring around her finger while she egged on these men to wreck
+his mill, she had one more guess coming and then she would be right, for
+he had come to his senses at last. This was not the Virginia that he had
+known and loved--the Virginia he had played with in his youth--but a
+warped and embittered Virginia, a waspish, heartless vixen who had never
+been anything but cold. She had worked him deliberately, resorting to
+woman's wiles to gain what was not her due, and now when his mill was
+smashed into kindling wood, she danced and laughed for joy.
+
+What kind of a mind could a woman have, to do such a senseless thing and
+then laugh at the man who had helped her? She was kind to her cats, the
+neighbors all liked her, to everyone else she seemed human; but when it
+came to him she was a devil of hate, a fiend of ruthless cunning. She
+would tell him to his face--at three in the morning, when he had caught
+her running away from the mill--that she hoped his old mill would be
+ruined. And now, when the trammer or some other soft-head had sent one
+of his sledges through the crusher, she was laughing up her sleeve. But
+there was a hereafter coming for Virginia and her mother and they would
+get no more favors from him. If they crept to his feet and said they
+were starving he would tell them to get out and hustle. Meanwhile they
+had sent him broke.
+
+There would be no more ore concentrated in the Paymaster mill during
+the life of his bond and lease; and unless he could raise some money,
+and raise it quick, he was due to lose his mine. Whether he had
+abetted it or not, Blount would not fail to take advantage of this
+last, staggering blow to his fortunes; and there were notes and paper
+due which would easily serve as a pretext for a writ of attachment on
+his mine. Bad news travels fast, but Wiley set out to beat it by
+snatching at his one remaining chance. His mill was ruined, his output
+was stopped, but he still had the ore underground--and the buyers were
+crazy to get it. He sent out identical messages to ten big consumers
+and then sat down to await the results. They came with a rush, ten
+scrambling frantic bids for his total output for one year--and one of
+them was for eighty-four dollars! It was from the biggest buyer of
+them all, a man who was reputed to be the representative of a foreign
+government, a man who had paid cash on the nail. Wiley pondered a
+while, looked up his obligations to Blount, and accepted immediately
+by wire. But there was one proviso--he demanded an advance payment,
+which the buyer promptly wired to his bank. Then Wiley twisted up his
+lip and waited.
+
+Blount appeared the next day, dropping in casually as was his wont; but
+there was a cold, killing look in his eye and he had a deputy sheriff as
+a witness. They looked through the mill and Blount asked several leading
+questions before he ventured to come to the point, but at last he
+cleared his throat and spoke up.
+
+"Well, Wiley," he said, drawing some papers from his pocket, "I'm sorry,
+but I'll have to call your notes. If it were my money it would be
+different; but I'm a banker, you understand, and your paper is long
+overdue. I've extended it before because I admired your courage and
+thought you might possibly pull through, but this accident to your mill
+has impaired the property and I can't let it run any longer."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Wiley, "but you don't need to apologize,
+because there won't be any attachments and judgments. Just tell me how
+much it comes to and I'll write you out a check." He took the notes from
+Blount's palsied hand and spread them on the desk before him, but as he
+was jotting down the totals Blount grabbed them wildly away.
+
+"Not much!" he exclaimed, "I don't surrender those notes until the money
+is put in my hands! Your check isn't worth a pen stroke!"
+
+"Well, I don't know," returned Wiley. "There may be two opinions about
+that. I had a hunch, Mr. Blount, that you might spring something like
+this and so I made arrangements to accommodate you."
+
+"But you're strapped! You owe everybody!" cried Blount in a passion. "I
+don't believe you've got a cent!"
+
+"Just a minute," said Wiley, and took down his telephone. "Hello," he
+called, "get me the First National Bank." He waited then, twiddling
+his pencil placidly, while Blount's great neck swelled out with venom.
+"I figure," went on Wiley, as he waited for the connection, "that I
+owe you twenty-two thousand dollars, with interest amounting to
+two-eighty-three, sixty-one. Here's your check, all filled out, and
+when I get the bank you can ask the cashier if it's good."
+
+"But, Wiley--," began Blount.
+
+"Hello! Hello! Is this the First National? This is Holman, out at the
+Paymaster. Mr. Blount is here and, as I'm closing my account with
+him----"
+
+"No! No!" cried Blount in a panic, but Wiley went on with his talk.
+
+"Yes," he said, "the check is for twenty-two thousand, two eighty-three,
+sixty-one. Will you please set that amount aside to meet the payment on
+this check? All right, Mr. Blount, here's the bank."
+
+He held out the instrument and Blount seized it roughly, for he had
+heard of fake telephone messages before, but when he listened he
+recognized the voice.
+
+"Oh, Agnew?" he hailed, smiling genially at the 'phone. "Well, sorry
+to have troubled you, I'm sure. Oh, yes, yes; I know Wiley is all
+right; he's good with us for twenty thousand more. No, never mind the
+certification; we may let the matter drop. Yes, thank you very
+much--good-by!"
+
+He hung up the receiver and turned to Wiley; but the cold, killing look
+was gone.
+
+"Wiley," he chuckled, slapping him heartily on the back, "you certainly
+have put one over. It isn't every day that I find a man waiting with the
+check all made out to a cent; and somehow--well, I hate to take the
+money."
+
+"Yes, I know how you suffer," replied Wiley, grimly, "but let's get the
+agony over." He held out the check and Blount accepted it reluctantly,
+passing over the notes with a sigh.
+
+But for the trifling detail that "demand" had not been waived Blount
+could have gone into court without even asking for his money and secured
+an attachment against the property. But Wiley's firm insistence that all
+cut-throat clauses should be omitted had compelled Blount to demand
+payment on the notes; and then, by some process which still remained a
+mystery, he had raised the full amount to meet the payment. And so once
+more, after going to all the trouble of bringing a deputy sheriff along,
+Blount found himself balked and his dreams of judgment and lien
+permanently banished to the limbo of lost hopes.
+
+Wiley's over-prompt payment had confused Blount for the moment and
+thrown him into a panic. He had counted confidently upon crushing him
+at a blow and cutting short his inimical activities, but now of a
+sudden he found himself threatened with the loss of all his interests.
+If Wiley had made profits beyond his calculations--but no, he could
+not, for under the terms of their bond and lease one-tenth of the net
+profit on all his shipments was sent direct to Blount. And if what
+Wiley had received was only ten times the Company's royalty, he was
+still in debt to someone. Blount had followed him closely and he knew
+that his expenses had absorbed all his profits, up to date. But
+perhaps--and Blount paused--perhaps the other bank, or some outside
+parties, were backing him in his enterprise. He would have to look
+that matter up--first. But if not--if he was still running his mine as
+he had from the first, on his nerve and his diamond ring--then there
+were ways and means which should be speedily invoked to prevent him
+from meeting his payments.
+
+Scarcely a month remained before the bond and lease lapsed--and Wiley's
+option on Blount's personal stock--but any day he might raise the money
+and, by taking over Blount's stock, place him out of the running for
+good. These tungsten buyers who were so avid for its product might
+purchase an interest in the mine; they might advance the fifty thousand
+and take it over under the bond and lease, and bring all his plans to
+naught. As Blount paced about the office he suddenly saw himself
+defrauded of that which he had worked for for years. He saw his stock
+bought up first, to deprive him of the royalties, and then the mine
+snatched from his hands; and all he would have left would be the
+forfeited Huff stock and the small payment it would earn from the sale.
+Something would have to be done, and done every minute, to prevent him
+from carrying out his purpose.
+
+Blount paused in his nervous pacing and held out a flabby hand to Wiley,
+who was writing away at his desk.
+
+"Well, Wiley," he said, "I guess I must be going. But any time you need
+money----" He stopped and smiled amiably, in the soft, easy way he had
+when he wished to appear harmless as a dove, and Wiley glanced up
+briefly from his work.
+
+"Yes, thank you, Mr. Blount," he said. But he did not take his hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+DOUBLE TROUBLE
+
+
+The next two weeks of Wiley Holman's life were packed so full of trouble
+that there were those who almost pitied him, though the word had been
+passed around to lay off. It was Samuel J. Blount who was making the
+trouble, and who notified the rest to keep out, and so great was his
+influence in all the desert country that no one dared to interfere. What
+he did was all legal and according to business ethics, but it gloved the
+iron hand. Blount was reaching for the mine and he intended to get it,
+if he had to crush his man. The attachments and suits were but the
+shadow boxing of the bout; the rough stuff was held in reserve. And
+somehow Wiley sensed this, for he sat tight at the mine and hired a
+lawyer to meet the suits. His job was mining ore and he shoveled it out
+by the ton.
+
+The distressing accidents had suddenly ceased since he began to board
+his own men at the mine and, while his lawyer stalled and haggled to
+fight off an injunction, he rushed his ore to the railroad. It was too
+precious to ship loose, for at eighty-four dollars a unit it was worth
+over four dollars a pound; he sent it out sacked, with an armed guard on
+each truck to see that it was delivered and receipted for. As the checks
+came back he paid off all his debts, thus depriving Blount of his
+favorite club; and then, while Blount was casting about for new weapons,
+he began to lay aside his profits.
+
+They rolled up monstrously, for each five-ton truck load added several
+thousand dollars to his bank account, but the time was getting short.
+Less than three weeks remained before the bond and lease expired, and
+still Wiley was playing to win. He crammed his mine with men, snatching
+the ore from the stopes as the bonanza leasers had done at Tonopah, and
+doubling the miner's pay with bonuses. Every truck driver received his
+bonus, and night and day the great motors went thundering across the
+desert. The ore came up from below and was dumped on a jig, where it was
+sorted and hastily sacked; and after that there was nothing to do but
+sent it under guard to the railroad. There was no milling, no smelting,
+no tedious process of reduction; but the raw picked ore was rushed to
+the East and the checks came promptly back.
+
+Blount was fully informed now of the terms of his contract and of the
+source of his sudden wealth, but there was no way of reaching the buyer.
+A great war was on, every minute was precious--and every ounce of the
+tungsten was needed. The munitions makers could not pause for a single
+day in their mad rush to fill their contracts. The only ray of hope that
+Blount could see was that the price had broken to sixty dollars a unit.
+Wiley's contract called for eighty-four, throughout the full year--but
+suppose he should lose his mine. And suppose Blount should win it. He
+could offer better terms, provided always that the buyer would
+accommodate him now. Suppose, for instance, that the fat daily checks
+should cease coming during the life of the lease. That could easily be
+explained--it might be an error in book-keeping--but it would make quite
+a difference to Wiley. And in return for some such favor Blount could
+afford to sell the tungsten for, say, fifty-five dollars a unit.
+
+Blount was a careful man. He did not trust his message to the wires, nor
+did he put it on paper to convict him; he simply disappeared--but when
+he came back Wiley's lawyer was waiting with a check. It was for twenty
+thousand dollars, and in return for this payment the lawyer demanded all
+of Blount's stock. Four hundred thousand shares, worth five dollars
+apiece if the bond and lease should lapse, and called for under the
+option at five cents! In those few short days, while Blount had been
+speeding East, Wiley had piled up this profit and more--and now he was
+demanding his stock!
+
+"No!" said Blount, "that option is invalid because it was obtained by
+deception and fraud, and therefore I refuse to recognize it."
+
+"Very well," replied the lawyer, who made his living out of
+controversies, and, summoning witnesses to his offer, he placed the
+money in the hands of the court and plunged into furious litigation. It
+was furious, in a way, and yet not so furious as the next day and the
+next passed by; for the lawyer was a business man and dependent upon the
+good will of Blount. It was a civil suit and, since Wiley could not
+appear to state his case in Court, it was postponed by mutual consent.
+
+It had come over Wiley that, as long as he stood guard, no accident
+would happen at the mine; but he was equally convinced that, the moment
+he left it, the unexpected would happen. So, since Blount had elected to
+fight his suit, he let the fate of his option wait while he piled up
+money for his _coup_. As an individual, Blount might resist the
+sale of his stock; but as President of the Company he and his Board of
+Directors had given Wiley a valid bond and lease and, acting under its
+terms, Wiley still had an opportunity to gain a clear title to the mine.
+What happened to the stock could be thrashed out later, but with the
+Paymaster in his possession he could laugh his enemies to scorn--and he
+did not intend to be jumped! For who could tell, among these men who
+swarmed about him, which ones might be hired emissaries of Blount; and,
+once he was out of sight, they might seize the mine and hold it against
+all comers.
+
+It was a thing which had been done before, and was likely to be done
+again; and as the days slipped by, bringing him closer to the end, he
+looked about for some agent. Had he a man that he could trust to hold
+the mine, while he went into town to gain title to it? He looked them
+all over but, knowing Blount as he did, and the weakness of human
+nature, he hesitated and decided against it. No, it was better by far
+that _he_ should hold the mine--for possession, in mining, is
+everything--and send someone to pay over the money. That would be
+perfectly legal, and anyone could do it, but here again he hesitated.
+The zeal of his lawyer was failing of late--could he trust him to make
+the payment, in a town that was owned by Blount? Would he offer it
+legally and demand a legal surrender, and come out and put the deed in
+his hand? He might, but Wiley doubted it.
+
+There was something going on regarding the payments for his shipments
+which he was unable to straighten out over the 'phone, and his lawyer
+was neglecting even that. And yet, if those checks were held up much
+longer it might seriously interfere with his payment. He had wired
+repeatedly, but either the messages were not delivered or his buyer was
+trying to welch on his contract. What he wanted was an agent, to go
+directly to the buyer and get the matter adjusted. Wiley thought the
+matter over, then he 'phoned his lawyer to forget it and wrote direct to
+an express company, enclosing his bills of lading and authorizing them
+to collect the account. When it came to collecting bills you could trust
+the express company--and you could trust Uncle Sam with your mail--but
+as to the people in Vegas, and especially the telephone girl, he had his
+well-established doubts. His telegraphic messages went out over the
+'phone and were not a matter of record and if she happened to be eating
+a box of Blount's candy she might forget to relay them. It was borne in
+upon him, in fact, more strongly every day, that there are very few
+people you can trust. With a suitcase, yes--but with a mine worth
+millions? That calls for something more than common honesty.
+
+The fight for the Paymaster, and Wiley's race against time, was now on
+every tongue, and as the value of the property went up there was a
+sudden flurry in the stock. Men who had hoarded it secretly for eight
+and ten years, men who had moved to the ends of the world, all heard of
+the fabulous wealth of the new Paymaster and wrote in to offer their
+stock. Not to offer it, exactly, but to place it on record; and others
+began as quietly to buy. It was known that the royalties had piled up an
+accruing dividend of at least twenty cents a share; and with the sale of
+it imminent--and a greater rise coming in case there was no sale--there
+would be a further increase in value. It was good, in fact, for thirty
+cents cash, with a gambling chance up to five dollars; and the wise ones
+began to buy. Men he had not seen for years dropped in on Wiley to ask
+his advice about their stock; and one evening in his office, he looked
+up from his work to see the familiar face of Death Valley Charley.
+
+"Hello there, Charley," he said, still working. "Awful busy. What is it
+you want?"
+
+"Virginia wants her stock," answered Charley simply and blinked as he
+stood waiting the answer. There was a war on now between the Huffs and
+Holmans into which Wiley's father had been drawn; and since Honest John
+had repudiated his son's acts and disclaimed all interest in his deal,
+Charley knew that Wiley was bitter. He had cut off the Widow from her
+one source of revenue but, when she had accused him of doing it for his
+father, Wiley had forgotten the last of his chivalry. Not only did he
+board all his men himself but he promised to fire any man he had who was
+seen taking a meal at the Widow's. It was war to the knife, and Charley
+knew it, but he blinked his eyes and stood firm.
+
+"What stock?" demanded Wiley, and then he closed his lips and his eyes
+turned fighting gray. "You tell her," he said, "if she wants her stock,
+to come and get it herself."
+
+"But she sent me to get it!" objected Charley obstinately.
+
+"Yes, and I send you back," answered Wiley. "I gave her that stock
+twice, and I made it what it is, and if she wants it she can come and
+ask for it."
+
+"And will you give it to her?" asked Charley, but Wiley only grunted and
+went ahead with his writing.
+
+It was apparent to him what was in the wind. The Widow had written to
+demand of his father some return for the damage to her business; and
+Honest John had replied, and sent Wiley a copy, that he was in no ways
+responsible for his acts. This letter to Wiley had been followed by
+another in which his father had rebuked him for persecuting Mrs. Huff,
+and Wiley had replied with five pages, closely written, reciting his
+side of the case. At this John Holman had declared himself neutral and,
+beyond repeating his offer to buy the Widow's stock, had disclaimed all
+interest in her affairs. But now, with her stock still in Blount's hands
+and this last source of revenue closed to her, the Widow was left no
+alternative but to appeal indirectly to Wiley. What other way then was
+open, if she was ever to win back her stock, but to get back Virginia's
+shares and sell them to raise the eight hundred dollars? Wiley grumbled
+to himself as Death Valley Charley turned away and went on writing his
+letter.
+
+It had been a surprise, after his break with Virginia, to discover that
+it left him almost glad. It had removed a burden that had weighed him
+down for months, and it left him free to act. He could protect his
+property now as it should be protected, without thought of her or
+anybody; and he could board his own men and keep the gospel of hate from
+being constantly dinned into their ears. They were honest, simple
+miners, easily swayed by a woman's distress, but equally susceptible to
+the lure of gold; and now with a bonus after the minimum of work they
+were tearing out the ore like Titans. They were loyal and satisfied,
+greeting his coming with a friendly smile; but if Virginia got hold of
+them, or her venomous mother, where then would be his discipline?
+
+He was deep in his work when a shadow fell upon his desk and he looked
+up to see--Virginia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+VIRGINIA REPENTS
+
+
+"I came for my stock," said Virginia coolly as she met his questioning
+eye and Wiley turned and rummaged in a drawer. The stock was hers and
+since she came and asked for it--he laid it on the desk and went ahead
+with his work. Virginia took the envelope and examined it carefully, but
+she did not go away. She glanced at him curiously, writing away so
+grimly, and there was a scar across his head. Could it be--yes, there
+her rock had struck him. The mark was still fresh, but he had given her
+the stock; and now he was privileged to hate her. That wound on his head
+would soon be overgrown and covered, but she had left a deeper scar on
+his heart. She had hurt his man's pride; and now he had hurt hers, and
+humbled her to ask for her stock. He looked up suddenly, feeling her
+eyes upon him, and Virginia drew back and blushed.
+
+"Oh--thank you," she stammered and turned to go, and yet she lingered to
+see what he would say.
+
+"You're welcome," he answered evenly, and took a fresh sheet of paper,
+but she refused to notice the hint. A sense of pique, of wonder at his
+politeness and half-resentment at his obliviousness of her presence,
+drew her back and she leaned against his desk.
+
+"What are you writing?" she asked as he glanced at her inquiringly. "Is
+it a letter to that squaw?"
+
+A sudden twitch of passion passed over his face at this reference to a
+dark page in their past and he drew the written sheet away.
+
+"No," he said, "I happened to remember a white girl----"
+
+"What?" burst out Virginia before she could check herself and he curled
+his lip up scornfully.
+
+"Yes," he nodded, "and she seems to think I'm all right."
+
+"Oh," she said and turned away her head with a painful twisted smile.
+Somehow she had always thought--and yet he must have met other girls--he
+was meeting them all the time! She tried to summon her anger, to carry
+her past this fresh stab, but the tears rose to her eyes instead.
+
+"I--we'll be going away soon," she went on hurriedly. "That is, if he
+gives us back our stock. Do you think he'll do it, Wiley? You know--the
+plan you spoke of. We're going to sell this stock to a broker and then
+pay Mr. Blount back."
+
+"I don't know," mumbled Wiley, and humped up over his letter, but it did
+not produce the effect he had hoped for.
+
+"Well--I'm sorry I hurt you," she broke out impulsively, rebuked by the
+long gash in his hair, "but you shouldn't have tried to stop me! I
+wasn't doing you any harm--I just came up there that night to see what
+was going on. And I did see Stiff Neck George, you can smile all you
+want to, and he had something heavy in his hand."
+
+She ran on with her explanation, only to trail off inconclusively as she
+saw his face growing grim. He did not believe her, he did not even
+listen; he just sat there patiently and waited.
+
+"Are you waiting for me to go?" she asked, smiling wanly, but even then
+he did not respond. There had been a time, not many weeks ago, when he
+would have risen up and offered her a chair; but he had got past that
+now and seemed really and sincerely to prefer his own company to hers.
+"I thought you might help us," she went on almost tearfully, "to get
+back our stock from Blount. It was nice of you to tell me, after the way
+I acted; but--oh, I don't know what it was that came over me! And I
+never even thanked you for telling me!"
+
+A cynical smile came into Wiley's eyes as he sat back and put down his
+pen, but even after that she hurried on. "Yes, I know you don't like
+me--you think I tried to wreck your mine and turned all your men against
+you--but I do thank you, all the same. You--you used to care, Wiley; but
+anyhow, I thank you and--I guess I'll be going now."
+
+She started for the door but he did not try to stop her. He even picked
+up his pen, and she turned back with fire in her eyes.
+
+"Well, you might say something," she said defiantly, "or don't you care
+what happens to me?"
+
+"No; I don't, Virginia," he answered quietly, "so just let it go at
+that. We can't get along, so what's the use of trying? You go your way
+and let me go mine."
+
+"Oh, I know!" she sighed, "you think I'm ungrateful--and you think I
+just came for my stock. But I didn't, altogether; I wanted to say I'm
+sorry and--oh, Wiley, _do_ you think he's alive?"
+
+"Who?" he asked; but he knew already--she was thinking about the
+Colonel.
+
+"Why, Father," she ran on. "I heard you that time when you got old
+Charley drunk. Do you think he's really alive? Because if he is!" She
+raised her eyes ecstatically and suddenly she was smiling into his.
+"Because if he is," she said, "and I can find him again--oh, Wiley;
+won't you help me find him?"
+
+"I'll think about it," responded Wiley, but his eyes were smiling back
+and the anger had died in his heart. After all, she was human; she could
+smile through her tears and reach out and touch his rough hand, and he
+could not bring himself to hate her. "After I pay for the mine," he
+suggested gently. "But now you'd better go."
+
+"Oh, no," she protested, "please tell me about it. Is he hiding in the
+Ube-Hebes? Oh, you don't know how glad I was when I heard you talking
+with Charley--I never did think he was dead. He sent me word once, not
+to worry about him, but--the Indians said he had died. That is--well,
+they said if it hadn't been for that sandstorm they would surely have
+found the body. And he'd thrown away his canteen, so he couldn't have
+had any water; and there wasn't any more for miles. He was lost, you
+know, and out of his head; and heading right out through the sand-hills.
+Oh, it's awful to talk about it, but of course we don't know for
+certain; and it might have been somebody else. Don't you think it was
+some other man?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Wiley, and sat staring straight ahead as she
+ran on with her arguments and entreaties. After all, what did he have
+to base his belief upon, except the babblings of brain-cracked
+Charley? They had found the Colonel's riding-burro, and his
+saddle-bags and papers, besides his rifle and canteen; and the
+Shoshone trailers had followed the tracks of a man until they were
+lost in the drifting sand-hills. And yet Charley's remarks, and his
+repeated attempts to get across the valley with some whiskey; there
+was something there, certainly, upon which to build hope--and Virginia
+was very insistent.
+
+"Yes, I think it was another man," he said at length. "Either that or
+your father escaped. He might have lost one canteen and still have had
+another, or he might have found his way to some water-hole. But from the
+way Charley talks, and tries to cover up his breaks, I feel sure that
+your father is alive."
+
+"Oh, goodie!" she cried and before he could stop her she had stooped
+over and kissed his bruised head. "Now you know I'm sorry," she burst
+out impulsively, "and will you go out and look for him at once?"
+
+"Pretty soon," said Wiley, putting her gently away. "After I make my
+payment on the mine. They'd be sure to jump me, now."
+
+"Oh, but why not now?" she pleaded. "They wouldn't jump your mine."
+
+"Yes, they would," he replied. "They'd jump me in a minute! I don't dare
+to go off the grounds."
+
+"But what's the mine," she demanded insistently, "compared to finding
+father?"
+
+"Well, not very much," he conceded frankly, "but this is the way I'm
+fixed. I've got the whole world against me, including you and your
+mother, and I've got to play out my hand. There's nobody I can
+trust--even my father has turned against me--and I've got to fight
+this out myself."
+
+"What? Just for the money? Do you think more of that than you do of
+finding my father?"
+
+"No, I don't," he said, "but I can't go now, and so there's no use
+talking."
+
+"No," she answered, drawing resentfully away from him, "there's no use
+talking to _you_! He might be dying, or out of food, but you don't
+think of anything but that money!"
+
+"Well, maybe so," he retorted tartly, "but if you'd just left me alone,
+instead of sicking all your dogs on me, I'd've been over there looking
+for him, long ago. Of course I'm wrong--that's understood from the
+start; but----"
+
+"What dogs did I set on you?" she demanded, flaring up, and he fixed her
+with sullen eyes.
+
+"Never mind," he said. "You know what you've done as well or better than
+I do. All I've got to say is that my conscience is clear and we'd better
+quit talking while we're friends."
+
+"Yes--friends!" she repeated, and then she stopped and at last she
+heaved a sigh. "Well, I don't care," she defended. "You drove me to it.
+A woman must protect herself, somehow."
+
+"Well, you can do it," he said, feeling tenderly of his head, and
+Virginia flew into a rage.
+
+"I told you I was _sorry_!" she cried, stamping her foot. "Isn't
+that enough? I'm sorry, I said!"
+
+"Yes, and I'm sorry," he answered, but his eyes were level and his jaw
+jutted out like a crag.
+
+"Sorry for what?" she demanded, and he sprang his trap.
+
+"Sorry I can't go out and hunt for your father."
+
+"Oh," she said, and drooped her head.
+
+"If we could pay for what we've done by just being sorry," he went on
+with a ghost of a smile, "we wouldn't be where we are. But you know we
+can't, Virginia. I'm sorry for some things myself, and I expect to pay
+for them, but I can't stop to do it now."
+
+"But will you go for him--sometime?" she asked, smiling wistfully.
+"Then--oh, Wiley; why can't we be friends?" She held out her hands
+and he rose up and took them, but with a startled look in his eyes.
+"You know that I'm sorry," she said, "and I'm willing to pay, too; if
+there's anything that I can do. Can't I help you, Wiley? Isn't there
+something I can do to help you pay for your mine? And I'll never
+oppose you again--if you'll only go and find my father!"
+
+She raised his hands and put them against her cheek and the quick tears
+sprang to his eyes.
+
+"I'll do it," he promised, "just the minute I can go. And--I'll try to
+be good to you, Virginia. Won't you give me a kiss, just to show it's
+all right? I'm sorry I treated you so rough. But it'll be all right now
+and we'll try to be friends again--I wasn't writing to any other girl."
+
+"Oh, weren't you?" she smiled. "Well, I'll kiss you, then--just once.
+But somehow, I'm afraid it won't last."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE CALL
+
+
+The long quarrel was over, they had made up--and kissed--and yet to
+Wiley it all seemed unreal. That is, all but the kiss. It was that,
+perhaps, which made the rest seem unreal, for it had changed the color
+of his life. Before, he had thought in terms of hard fact, but the
+kiss put a rainbow in the sky. It roused a great hope, a joy, an
+ecstasy, a sense of well-wishing for mankind; and yet it was only he
+who had changed. The world was the same; Samuel Blount was the same;
+and the miners, and Stiff Neck George. They were all there together in
+a rough-and-tumble fight to see who would get the Paymaster Mine and,
+even with the madness of her kiss in his soul, he pressed on towards
+the one, fixed goal.
+
+He had set out to win the Paymaster and win it he would if he had to
+shoot his way to victory. For Stiff Neck George, like a watchful coyote,
+had taken up his post on the hill; and from that sign alone Wiley knew
+that Blount had changed his tactics and appealed to the court of last
+resort. His attachments had failed, his injunction suit had failed, and
+his cheap attempt to cut off Wiley's checks. The money had come,
+promptly forwarded by the Express Company with a note of apology from
+the buyer, and it lay now in Wiley's office safe. All that was left to
+do was to send it to Blount and get back the deed to the property. Three
+days remained before the bond and lease expired, but that was not a day
+too much. The question was--who to send? Wiley thought the matter over,
+glanced at George up on the hill, and sent a note down to Virginia.
+
+She came up the trail smiling, for her proud reserve had vanished, and
+she even allowed him a kiss; but when he asked her to take the money to
+Blount she drew back and shook her head.
+
+"I'm afraid," she said, "--I'm afraid something might happen. Can't you
+send it by somebody else?"
+
+"No, that's just the point," he answered gravely. "Something is likely
+to happen if I do. My lawyer has turned crooked, and the bank won't
+touch it; so there's nobody to send but you. You can hide the money till
+you get there, so that no one will rob you on the way; and if anybody
+asks you, you can tell them about that stock deal and that you're going
+down to hold up Blount."
+
+"Why don't you go?" she objected and he pointed out the doorway at Stiff
+Neck George on the hill.
+
+"There he sits," he said, "like a red-necked old buzzard, just waiting
+for a chance to jump my mine. He may do it, anyhow--I wouldn't put it
+past him--but if he comes he'd better come a-shooting. You see, here's
+the point: the man that holds this mine can turn out ten thousand
+dollars a day, and that amount of money would hire enough lawyers to
+fight the outsiders to a standstill. If I get jumped I'm licked, because
+I haven't got any more money; and I'm going to stay right here and fight
+'em. But you take this money--there's fifty-two thousand dollars--and go
+down and make that payment. If you can't find Blount, then hunt up the
+clerk of the Superior Court and deposit the fifty thousand with him.
+Just bring me his receipt, with a memorandum of the payment, and he'll
+notify Blount himself."
+
+"I don't like to," she shuddered. "I'm afraid they won't take it, and
+then you'll----"
+
+"They've got to take it!" he broke in eagerly. "Just get the stage
+driver to go along as witness, and I'll give you a full power of
+attorney. And then listen, Virginia; you take the rest of this money and
+buy back your father's stock."
+
+"Oh, can I?" she cried and, reaching out for the money, she held it with
+tremulous hands. There were fifty thousand-dollar bills, golden yellow
+on the back and a rich, glossy black on the front; and others of smaller
+denominations, making fifty-two thousand in all. It was a fortune in
+itself, but in what it was to buy it was well worth over a million.
+
+"Aren't you afraid to trust me?" she asked at last, and when he smiled
+she hid it away. "All right," she said, "and as soon as I've paid it
+I'll call you up on the 'phone."
+
+She went out the next morning on the early stage and Wiley watched it
+rush across the plain. It was green as a lawn, that dry, treeless desert
+with its millions of evenly spaced creosote bushes; but as the sun rose
+higher it turned blood-red like an omen of evil to come. Many times
+before, in the glow of evening, he had seen the green change to red; but
+now it was ominous, with Stiff Neck George on the hill-top and Shadow
+Mountain frowning down behind. He paced about uneasily as the day wore
+on and at night he listened for the 'phone. She was to call him up, as
+soon as she had paid over the money; but it did not ring that night.
+
+The morning of the last day dawned fair and pleasant, with the fresh
+smell of dew in the air, and he awoke with a sense that all was well.
+Virginia was in Vegas and, when Blount came to his office, she would
+make the payment in his stead. There was no chance to fail, once she had
+found her man; and if Blount refused to accept it, which he could hardly
+do, she could simply leave the money with the court. There were no
+papers to confuse her, no forms to go through; Blount had made a legal
+contract to sell the property and she had a full power of attorney. All
+it called for was loyalty and faithfulness to her trust, and Wiley knew
+Virginia too well to think she would fail him now. She was proud and
+hot-headed, and she had fought him in the past; but, once she had given
+her word, she would keep her promise or die.
+
+As the sun rose higher he imagined her at the bank with the sheaf of
+bills hidden in her bosom, and Blount's surprise and palavering when he
+found he was caught and that his deep-laid plans had failed. He had
+schemed to catch Wiley between the horns of a dilemma, and either jump
+his mine when he went in to make the payment or force him to lose it by
+default. But, almost by a miracle, Virginia had appeared at the very
+moment when he was seeking a messenger; and by an even greater miracle,
+they had composed all their difficulties just in time for him to send
+her to town. It was like an act of Providence, an answer to prayer, if
+people any longer prayed; and, more, even, than the money and the joy of
+success, was the consciousness of Virginia's love. She had seemed so
+hostile, so distant and unattainable; but the moment that he forgot her
+and abandoned all hope she fluttered to his hand like a dove.
+
+The noon hour came and went and as Wiley watched the 'phone it seemed to
+him strangely silent. To be sure, few people called him, but--he
+snatched the receiver from the hook. He had guessed it--the 'phone was
+dead! He rattled the hook and listened impatiently, then he shouted and
+listened again, and black fancies rose up in his brain. What was the
+meaning of this? Had they cut the wire on him? And why? It really made
+no difference! Virginia was there; he had heard it from the stage-driver
+who had driven her in the day before--and yet, there must be a reason.
+Perhaps it was an accident, for the line was old and neglected, but why
+should it happen now? He hung up the receiver and reviewed it all
+calmly. There were a hundred things which might happen to the line, for
+it passed through rough country near Vegas; but the weather was fair and
+there was no wind blowing to topple over the poles. No one used the line
+but him--it had been connected up by Blount when he had first taken over
+the mine--and yet the wire had been cut. But by whom? As he sat there
+pondering he raised his eyes to the hill-top, and Stiff Neck George was
+gone!
+
+"The dastard!" cursed Wiley, leaping furiously to his feet and reaching
+for his rifle, but though he scanned the line through his high-power
+field-glasses there was not a man in sight. Wiley ran down to the shed
+and got out his racer that had lain there idle for months, but as his
+motor began to thunder, a head popped up and he saw Stiff Neck George on
+the ridge. He too had a rifle and, as he saw Wiley watching him, he
+dropped back and hid from sight.
+
+"Oho!" said Wiley, and, leaving his machine, he strode angrily back to
+the mine. So that was their game, to get him to leave and then slip in
+and jump his mine. Perhaps it was all arranged with the men he had
+working for him and George would not even have a fight. Neither his
+foremen nor the guards were men he would care to trust in a matter
+involving millions--and yet something was wrong in Vegas. There was
+treachery somewhere or they would not cut the line to keep him from
+getting the news. He lingered irresolutely, his hands itching for the
+steering wheel, his eyes searching for Stiff Neck George.
+
+There was a feud between them--he had braved George's killing gun and
+rushed in and kicked him down the dump. Would George, then, withhold his
+hand? But, down in Vegas, Blount was framing up some game to deprive him
+of title to his mine. Wiley weighed them in the balance, the two forces
+against him, and decided to stay with the mine. As long as he held it
+there were lawyers a-plenty to prove that his title was good, but if
+Stiff Neck George jumped it he would have to kill him to get back
+possession of the property. Or rather, he would have to fight him, for
+George was a gunman with notches on the butt of his six-shooter. No, he
+would have to get killed, or give up the Paymaster, whether Blount was
+right or wrong.
+
+He set his teeth and settled down to endure it--but he knew that
+Virginia would not fail him. He had given her the money, she knew what
+to do, and as sure as she hoped to save her father, he knew that she
+would do it. His part was to hold down the mine. The men came and went,
+the engine puffed and panted, and the long, dragging hours went by. As
+the darkness came on Wiley stalked in the shadows, looking out into the
+night for Stiff Neck George; but nothing stirred, the work went on as
+usual, and at midnight he gave up the search. His option had expired and
+either the mine was his or the title had reverted to the Company. There
+was nothing to watch for and so he slept, but at dawn his telephone
+jangled.
+
+Wiley rose up breathlessly and took down the receiver but no one
+answered his call. The 'phone was dead and yet it had rung--or was it
+only a dream? He hung up in disgust and went back to bed but something
+drew him back to the 'phone. He held down the hook and, with the
+receiver to his ear, let the lever rise slowly up. There was talking
+going on and men laughing in hoarse voices and the tramp of feet to and
+fro, but no one responded to his shouts. He hung up once more and then
+suddenly it came over him, a foreboding of impending disaster. Something
+was wrong, something big that must be stopped at once; and a voice
+called insistently for action. He leapt into his clothes and started for
+the door--then turned back and strapped on his pistol. As the sun rose
+up he was a speck in the desert, rushing on through a blood-red sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE THUNDER CLAP
+
+
+The broad streets of Vegas were swarming with traffic as Wiley glided
+swiftly into town and he noticed that people looked at him curiously.
+Perhaps it was all imagination but it seemed to him they eyed him
+coldly. Yet what they thought or felt was nothing to him then--his
+business was with Samuel J. Blount. The mine was unprotected--he had
+not even told his foreman that he was leaving, or where he was
+going--and there was no time for anything but business. If there was
+any trouble for him, Samuel J. Blount was at the bottom of it, and he
+drove straight up to the bank. It was a huge, granite structure with
+massive onyx pillars and smiling young clerks at the grilles; but he
+hurried past them all and turned down a hall to a room that was
+marked: President--Private. This was no time for dallying or sending
+in cards--he opened the door and stepped in.
+
+Samuel Blount was sitting at the head of a table with other men grouped
+about him, but as Wiley Holman entered they were silent. He glanced at
+Blount and then again at the men--they were the directors of the
+Paymaster Mining and Milling Company!
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Holman," spoke up Blount with asperity. "Please wait
+for me out in the hall."
+
+"Since when?" retorted Wiley and then, leaping to the point, "what about
+that deed to the Paymaster?"
+
+"Why--you must be misinformed," replied Blount slowly, at the same time
+pressing a button, "this is a meeting of the Board of Directors."
+
+"So I see," returned Wiley, "but I sent the money by Virginia to take up
+the option on the mine. Did you receive it or did you not?"
+
+A broad-shouldered man, very narrow between the eyes, came in and stood
+close to Wiley, and Blount smiled and cleared his throat.
+
+"No," he said, "we did not receive it?"
+
+"Oh, you didn't, eh?" said Wiley, glancing up at the janitor. "Perhaps
+you will tell me if it was offered to you?"
+
+"No, it was not offered to us," replied Blount, smiling blandly,
+"although Miss Huff did make a deposit."
+
+"Of fifty thousand dollars?"
+
+"No, it was more than that--fifty-two, I believe. It was deposited to
+your account."
+
+"Oh," observed Wiley, and looked them over again as the directors turned
+around to scowl. "Well, perhaps I can see Miss Huff?"
+
+"She is not here at present," replied Blount with finality, "and so I
+must ask you to withdraw."
+
+"Just a moment," said Wiley, as the janitor moved expectantly. "I came
+here on a matter of business with you and this Board of Directors and,
+since the matter is urgent, I must request an immediate hearing. You
+don't need to be alarmed--all I want is my answer and then I'll leave
+you alone. In the first place, Mr. Blount, will you please tell me the
+circumstances under which this deposit was made? I gave Miss Huff
+instructions to offer the money to you in payment for the Paymaster
+Mine."
+
+"Oh! Instructions, eh?" piped Blount with a satirical smile, and the
+Board stirred and nodded significantly. "Well, since you've just come in
+and are evidently unaware of the wide interest that has been taken in
+this case, I'll tell you a few things, Mr. Holman. The people of this
+town do not approve of the manner in which you have treated Mrs. Huff;
+and as for your 'instructions' to Virginia, let me tell you right now
+that we have saved her from becoming your victim."
+
+"My victim!" repeated Wiley, moving swiftly towards him, but the janitor
+caught him by the arm.
+
+"Yes, your victim," answered Blount with a venomous sneer, "or, at
+least, your intended victim. The people of Vegas had nothing to say when
+you deprived Virginia and her mother of their livelihood--it was your
+privilege as lessee of the mine to board your own men if you chose--but
+when you had the effrontery to send Virginia to this Board with
+'instructions' to jeopardize her own interests, we felt called on to
+interfere."
+
+"Why, you're crazy!" burst out Wiley. "What interests did she jeopardize
+by making that payment for me? As a matter of fact it was just the
+contrary--I gave her the money to get back the stock that you had
+practically stolen from her mother!"
+
+"Now! Now!" spoke up Blount, "we won't have any personalities, or I'll
+ask Mr. Jepson to remove you. You must know if you know anything that
+Virginia herself had over twelve thousand shares of stock; while her
+mother left with me, as collateral on a note, more than two hundred
+thousand shares more. Yet you asked this innocent girl, who trusted you
+so fully, to wipe out her whole inheritance at one blow. You asked her
+to come here and make a payment that would beat her out of half a
+million dollars--_for fifty thousand dollars!_"
+
+He paused and the men about the table murmured threateningly among
+themselves.
+
+"And now!" went on Blount with heavy irony, "you come here and ask for
+your deed!"
+
+"Yes, you bet I do!" snapped back Wiley, "and I'm going to get it, too.
+If Virginia came here and offered you that money, that's enough, in the
+eyes of the law. It was a legal payment under a legal contract, entered
+into by this Board of Directors; and I call you gentlemen to witness
+that she came here and offered the money."
+
+"She came to _me_!" corrected Blount, "and in no wise as the
+President of this Board!"
+
+"Well, you're the man that I told her to go to--and if she offered you
+the money, that's enough!"
+
+"Oh, it's enough, is it? Well, it may be enough for you, but it is not
+enough for the citizens of this town. We have organized a committee, of
+which Mr. Jepson is a member, to escort you out of Vegas; and I would
+say further that your bond and lease has lapsed and the Company will
+take over the mine."
+
+"We'll discuss that later," returned Wiley grimly, "but I'll tell you
+right now that there aren't men enough in Vegas to run me out of
+town--not if you call in the whole town and the Janitors' Union--so
+don't try to start anything rough. I'm a law-abiding citizen, and I
+know my rights, and I'm going to see this through." He put his back to
+the wall and the burly Jepson took the hint to move further away.
+"Now," said Wiley, "if we understand each other let's get right down
+to brass tacks. It's all very well to organize Vigilance Committees
+for the protection of trusting young ladies, but you know and I know
+that this is a matter of business, involving the title to a mine. And
+I'd like to say further that, when a Board of Directors talks a
+messenger out of her purpose and persuades her to disregard her
+instructions----"
+
+"Instructions!" bellowed Blount.
+
+"Yes--instructions!" repeated Wiley, "--instructions as my agent. I sent
+Miss Huff down here to make this payment and I gave her instructions
+regarding it."
+
+"Do you realize," blustered Blount, "that if she had followed those
+instructions she would have defrauded her own mother out of millions;
+that she would have ruined her own life and conferred her father's
+fortune upon the very man who was deceiving her?"
+
+"No, I do not," replied Wiley, "but even if I did, that has nothing to
+do with the case. As to my relations with Miss Huff, I am fully
+satisfied that she has nothing of which to complain; and since it was
+you, and the rest of the gang, who stood to lose by the deal, your
+indignation seems rather far-fetched. If you were sorry for Miss Huff
+and wished to help her you have abundant private means for doing so; but
+when you dissuade her from her purpose in order to save your own skin
+you go up against the law. I'm going to take this to court and when the
+evidence is heard I'm going to prove you a bunch of crooks. I don't
+believe for a minute that Virginia turned against me. I know that she
+offered you the money."
+
+"Oh, you know, do you?" sneered Blount as his Directors rallied about
+him. "Well, how are you going to prove it?"
+
+"By her own word!" said Wiley. "I know her too well. You just talked her
+out of it, afterward."
+
+"So you think," taunted Blount, "that she offered the money in payment,
+and demanded the delivery of the deed? And will you stand or fall on her
+testimony?"
+
+"Absolutely!" smiled Wiley, "and if she tells me she didn't do it I'll
+never take the matter into court."
+
+"Very well," replied Blount and turned towards the door, but the
+Directors rushed in and caught him. They thrust their heads together in
+a whispered, angry conference, now differing among themselves and now
+flying back to catch Blount, but in the end he shook them all off. "No,
+gentlemen," he said, "I have absolute confidence in the justice of my
+case. If you stand to lose a little I stand to lose a great deal--and I
+know she never asked for that deed!"
+
+"Well, bring her in, then," they conceded reluctantly, and turned
+venomous eyes upon Wiley. They knew him, and they feared him, and
+especially with this girl; for he was smiling and waiting confidently.
+But Blount was their czar, with his great block of stock pitted against
+their tiny holdings, and they sat down to await the issue.
+
+She came at last, ushered in through the back door by Blount, who smiled
+benevolently; and her eyes leapt on the instant to meet Wiley's.
+
+"Here is Miss Huff," announced Blount deliberately and the light died
+in Wiley's shining eyes. He had waited for her confidently, but that
+one defiant flash told him that Virginia had turned against him. She
+had thrown in her lot with Blount, and against her lover, and by her
+word he must stand or fall. She had been his agent, but if she had not
+carried out her trust---- "Any questions you would like to ask," went
+on Blount with ponderous calm, "I am sure Virginia will answer."
+
+He turned reassuringly and she nodded her head nervously, then stepped
+out and stood facing Wiley.
+
+"It is a question," began Wiley, speaking like one in a dream, "of the
+way you paid Mr. Blount that money. When you took it to him first,
+before they had talked to you, did you tell him it was my payment on the
+option?"
+
+Virginia glanced at Blount, then she took a deep breath and drew herself
+up very straight.
+
+"No," she said, "I spoke to him first about buying back father's stock."
+
+"But after that," he said, "didn't you hand him over the money and say
+it was sent by me?"
+
+"No, I didn't," she answered. "After the way you had treated me I didn't
+think it was right."
+
+"Not right!" he repeated with a slow, dazed smile. "Why--why wasn't it
+right, Virginia?"
+
+"Because," she went on, "you were trying to deceive me and beat me and
+mother out of our rights. You knew all the time that father's stock was
+still ours--and that Mr. Blount never even claimed it!"
+
+"Never claimed it!" cried Wiley, suddenly roused to resentment. "Well,
+Virginia, he most certainly did! He offered to sell it to me for five
+cents a share when I took out that option on the Paymaster!"
+
+"Now, now, Wiley!" began Blount, but Virginia cut him short with a
+scornful wave of the hand.
+
+"Never mind," she said. "I'll attend to this myself. I just want to tell
+him what I think!"
+
+"What you _think_!" raved Wiley, suddenly coming up fighting.
+"You've been fooled by a bunch of crooks. Never mind what you think--did
+you give him the money and tell him it came from me?"
+
+"I did not!" answered Virginia, her eyes flashing with hot anger, "and
+while I may not be able to think, I certainly wasn't fooled by
+_you_. No, I took your money and put it in the bank, and I let your
+option expire!"
+
+"My--God!" moaned Wiley, and groped for the door, but in the hall he
+stopped and turned back. There was some mistake--she had not understood.
+He slipped back and looked in once more. She was shaking hands with
+Blount--and smiling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE WAY OUT
+
+
+When a woman treads the ways of deceit she smiles--like Mona Lisa. But
+was the great Leonardo deceived by the smile of his wife when she posed
+for him so sweetly? No, he read her thoughts--how she was thinking of
+another--and his master hand wove them in. There she smiles to-day,
+smooth and pretty and cryptic; but Leonardo, the man, worked with heavy
+heart as he laid bare the tragedy of his love. The message was for her,
+if she cared to read it, or for him, that rival for her love; or, if
+their hearts were pure and free from guilt, then there was no message at
+all. She was just a pretty woman, soft and gentle and smiling--as
+Virginia Huff had smiled.
+
+She had not smiled often, Wiley Holman remembered it now, as he went
+flying across the desert, and always there was something behind; but
+when she had looked up at Blount and taken his fat hand, then he had
+read her heart at a glance. If he had taken his punishment and not
+turned back he would have been spared this great ache in his breast; but
+no, he was not satisfied, he could not believe it, and so he had
+received a worse wound. She had been playing with him all the time and,
+when the supreme moment arrived, she had landed him like a trout; and
+then, when she had left him belly-up from his disaster, she had turned
+to Blount and smiled. There was no restraint now; she smiled to the
+teeth; and Blount and the Directors smiled.
+
+Wiley cursed to himself as he bored into the wind and burned up the road
+to Keno. The mine was nothing; he could find him another one, but
+Virginia had played him false. He did not mind losing her--he could find
+a better woman--but how could he save his lost pride? He had played his
+hand to win and, when it came to the showdown, she had slipped in the
+joker and cleaned him. The Widow would laugh when she heard the news,
+but she would not laugh at him. The road lay before him and his gas
+tanks were full. He would gather up his belongings and drift. He stepped
+on the throttle and went roaring through the town, but at the bottom of
+the hill he stopped. The mine was shut down, not a soul was in sight,
+and yet he had left but a few hours before.
+
+He toiled wearily up the trail, where he had caught Virginia running and
+held her fighting in his arms, and the world turned black at the
+thought. What madness had this been that had kept him from suspecting
+her when she had opposed his every move from the start. Had she not
+wrecked his engine and ruined his mill? Then why had he trusted her with
+his money? And that last innocent visit, when she had asked for her
+stock, and thanked him so demurely at the end! She would not be
+dismissed, all his rough words were wasted, until in the end she had
+leaned over and kissed him. A Judas-kiss? Yes, if ever there was one; or
+the kiss of Judith of Bethulia. But Judith had sold her kisses to save
+her people--Virginia had sold hers for gold.
+
+Yes, she had sold him out for money; after rebuking him from the
+beginning she had stabbed him to the heart for a price. It was always
+he, Wiley, who thought of nothing but money; who was the liar, the
+miser, the thief. Everything that he did, no matter how unselfish, was
+imputed to his love of money; and yet it had remained for Virginia,
+the censorious and virtuous, to violate her trust for gain. It was not
+for revenge that she had withheld the payment and snatched a million
+dollars from his hand; she had told him herself that it was because
+Blount had returned their stock and she would not throw it away. How
+quick Blount had been to see that way out and to bribe her by
+returning the stock--how damnably quick to read her envious heart and
+know that she would fall for the offer. Well, now let them keep it and
+smile their smug smiles and laugh at Honest Wiley; for if there ever
+was a curse on stolen money then Virginia's would buy her no
+happiness.
+
+He raised his bloodshot eyes to look for the last time at the Paymaster,
+which he had fought for and lost. What had they done to save it, to
+bring it to what it was, to merit it for their own? For years it had
+lain idle, and when he had opened it up they had fought him at every
+step. They had shot him down with buckshot, and beaten him down with
+rocks and threatened his life with Stiff Neck George. His eyes cleared
+suddenly and he looked about the dump--he had forgotten his feud with
+George. Yet if his men were gone, who then had driven them out but that
+crooked-necked, fighting fool? And if George had driven them out, then
+where was he now with his ancient, filed-down six-shooter? Wiley drew
+his gun forward and walked softly towards the house, but as he passed a
+metal ore-car a pistol was thrust into his face. He started back, and
+there was George.
+
+"Put 'em up!" he snarled, rising swiftly from behind the car, and the
+hot fury left Wiley's brain. His anger turned cold and he looked down
+the barrel at the grinning, spiteful eyes behind.
+
+"You go to hell!" he growled, and George jabbed the gun into his
+stomach.
+
+"Put 'em up!" he ordered, but some devil of resistance seized Wiley as
+his hands went up. It was close, too close, and George had the drop on
+him, but one hand struck out and the other clutched the gun while he
+twisted his lithe body aside. At the roar of the shot he went for his
+own gun, leaping back and stooping low. Another bullet clipped his shirt
+and then his own gun spat back, shooting blindly through the smoke. He
+emptied it, dodging swiftly and crouching close to the ground, and then
+he sprang behind the car. There was a silence, but as he listened he
+heard a gurgling noise, like the water flowing out of a canteen, and a
+sudden, sodden thump. He looked out, and George was down. His blood was
+gushing fast but the narrow, snaky eyes sought him out before they were
+filmed by death. It was over, like a rush of wind.
+
+Wiley flicked out his cylinder and filled it with fresh cartridges, then
+looked around for the rest. He was calm now, and calculating and
+infinitely brave; but no one stepped forth to face his gun. A boy, down
+in town, started running towards the mine, only to turn back at some
+imperative command. The whole valley was lifeless, yet the people were
+there, and soon they would venture forth. And then they would come up,
+and look at the body, and ask him to give up his gun; and if he did they
+would take him to Vegas and shut him up in jail, where the populace
+could come and stare at him. Blount and Jepson would come, and the Board
+of Directors; and, in order to put him away, they would tell how he had
+threatened George. They would make it appear that he had come to jump
+the mine, and that George was defending the property; and then, with the
+jury nicely packed, they would send him to the penitentiary, where he
+wouldn't interfere with their plans.
+
+In a moment of clairvoyance he saw Virginia before him, looking in
+through the prison bars and smiling, and suddenly he put up his gun. She
+had started this job and made him a murderer but he would rob her of
+that last chance to smile. There was a road that he knew that had been
+traveled before by men who were hard-pressed and desperate. It turned
+west across the desert and mounted by Daylight Springs to dip down the
+long slope to the Sink; and across the Valley of Death, if he could once
+pass over it, there was no one he need fear to meet. No one, that is,
+except stray men like himself, who had fled from the officers of the
+law. Great mountain ranges, so they said, stretched unpeopled and
+silent, beneath the glare of the desert sun; and though Death might
+linger near it was under the blue sky and away from the cold malice of
+men.
+
+From his safe in the office Wiley took out a roll of bills, all that was
+left of his vanished wealth; and he took down his rifle and belt; and
+then, walking softly past the body of Stiff Neck George, he cranked up
+his machine and started off. Every doorway in town was crowded with
+heads, craning out to see him pass, and as he turned down the main
+street he saw Death Valley Charley rushing out with a flask in his hand.
+
+"We seen ye!" he grinned as Wiley slowed down, and dropped the flask of
+whiskey on the seat.
+
+"You killed him fair!" he shouted after him, but Wiley had opened up the
+throttle and the answer to his praise was a roar.
+
+The sun was at high noon when Wiley topped the divide and glided down
+the canyon towards Death Valley. He could sense it in the distance by
+the veil of gray haze that hung like a pall across his way. Beyond it
+were high mountains, a solid wall of blue that seemed to rise from the
+depths and float, detached, against the sky; and up the winding wash
+which led slowly down and down, there came pulsing waves of heat. The
+canyon opened out into a broad, rocky sand-flat, shut in on both sides
+by knife-edged ridges dotted evenly with brittle white bushes; and each
+jagged rock and out-thrust point was burned black by the suns of
+centuries.
+
+He passed an ancient tractor, abandoned by the wayside, and a deserted,
+double-roofed house; and then, just below it where a ravine came down,
+he saw a sign-board, pointing. Up the gulch was another sign, still
+pointing on and up, and stamped through the metal of the disk was the
+single word: Water. It was Hole-in-the-Rock Springs that old Charley had
+spoken about and, somewhere up the canyon, there was a hole in the
+limestone cap, and beneath it a tank of sweet water. On many a scorching
+day some prospector, half dead from thirst, had toiled up that well-worn
+trail; but now the way was empty, the freighter's house given over to
+rats, and the road led on and on.
+
+A jagged, saw-tooth range rose up to block his way and the sand-flat
+narrowed down to a deep wash; and, then, still thundering on, he
+struggled out through its throat and the Valley seemed to rise up and
+smite him. He stopped his throbbing motor and sat appalled at its
+immensity. Funereal mountains, black and banded and water-channeled,
+rose up in solid walls on both sides and, down through the middle as far
+as the eye could see, there stretched a white ribbon, set in green. It
+swung back and forth across a wide, level expanse, narrow and gleaming
+with water at the north and blending in the south with gray sands. The
+writhing white band was Death Valley Sink, where the waters from
+countless desert ranges drained down and were sucked up by the sun. Far
+from the north it came, when the season was right and the cloudbursts
+swept the Grape-Vines and the White mountains; the Panamints to the west
+gave down water from winter snows that gathered on Telescope Peak; and
+every ravine of the somber Funeral Range was gutted by the rush of
+forgotten waters.
+
+The Valley was dry, bone-dry and desiccated, and yet every hill, every
+gulch and wash and canyon, showed the action of torrential waters. The
+chocolate-brown flanks of the towering mountain walls were creased, and
+ripped out and worn; and from the mouth of every canyon a great spit of
+sand and boulders had been spewed out and washed down towards the Sink.
+On the surface of this wash, rising up through thousands of feet, the
+tips of buried mountains peeped out like tiny hill-tops, yet black, and
+sharp and grim. The great ranges themselves, sweeping up from the
+profundity till they seemed to cut off the world, looked like molded
+cakes of chocolate which had been rained on and half melted down. They
+were washed-down, melted, stripped of earth and vegetation; and down
+from their flanks in a steep, even slope, lay the debris and scourings
+of centuries.
+
+The westering sun caught the glint of water in the poisonous,
+salt-marshes of the Sink; but, far to the south, the great ultimate
+Sink of Sinks was a-gleam with borax and salt. It was there where the
+white band widened out to a lake-bed, that men came in winter to do
+their assessment work and scrape up the cotton-ball borax. But if any
+were there now they would know him for a fugitive and he took the road
+to the west. It ran over boulders, ground smooth by rolling floods and
+burned deep brown by the sun, and as he twisted and turned, throwing
+his weight against the wheels, Wiley felt the growing heat. His shirt
+clung to his back, the sweat ran down his face and into his stinging
+eyes and as he stopped for a drink he noticed that the water no longer
+quenched his thirst. It was warm and flat and after each fresh drink
+the perspiration burst from every pore, as if his very skin cried out
+for moisture. Yet his canteen was getting light and, until he could
+find water, he put it resolutely away.
+
+The road swung down at last into a broad, flat dry-wash, where the
+gravel lay packed hard as iron, and as his racer took hold and began to
+leap and frolic, he tore down the valley like the wind. The sun was
+sinking low and the unknown lay before him, a land he had never seen;
+yet before the night came on he must map out his course and stake his
+life on the venture. Other automobiles might follow and snatch him back
+if he delayed but an hour in his flight; but, once across Death Valley
+and lost in those far mountains, he would leave the law behind. The men
+he met would be fugitives like himself, or prospectors, or wandering
+Shoshones; and, live or die, he would be away from it all--where he
+would never see Virginia again.
+
+The deep wash pinched in, as the other had done, before it gave out into
+the plain; and, then, as he whirled around a point, he glided out into
+the open. The foothills lay behind him and, straight athwart his way,
+stretched a sea of motionless sand-waves. As far north as he could see,
+the ocean of sand tossed and tumbled, the crests of its rollers crowned
+with brush and grotesque drift-wood, the gnarled trunks and roots of
+mesquite trees. To the east and west the high mountains still rose up,
+black and barren, shutting in the sea of sand; but across the valley a
+pass led smoothly up to a gap through the wall of the Panamints. It was
+Emigrant Wash, up which the hardy Mormons had toiled in their western
+pilgrimage, leaving at Lost Wagons and Salt Creek the bones of whole
+caravans as a tribute to the power of the desert.
+
+A smooth, steep slope led swiftly down to the edge of the Valley of
+Death and as Wiley looked across he saw as in a vision a massive gateway
+of stone. It was flung boldly out from the base of a blue mountain,
+enclosing a dark valley behind; and from between its lofty walls a white
+river of sand spread out like a flower down the slope. It was the
+gateway to the Ube-Hebes, just as Charley had described it, and it was
+only a few miles away. It lay just across the sand-flat, where the
+great, even waves seemed marching in a phalanx towards the south; and
+then up a little slope, all painted blue and purple, to the mysterious
+valley beyond. The sun, swinging low, touched the summits of distant
+sand-hills with a gleam of golden light and all the dark shadows moved
+toward him. A breath of air fanned his cheek, and as he drank deep from
+his canteen he nodded to the Gateway and smiled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+ACROSS DEATH VALLEY
+
+
+The way to the Ube-Hebes lay across a low flat, glistening white with
+crystals of alkali; and as his car trundled on Wiley came to a strip of
+sand, piled up in the lee of a prostrate salt bush. Other bushes
+appeared, and more sand about them, and then a broad, smooth wave. It
+mounted up from the north, gently scalloped by the wind, and on the
+south side it broke off like a wall. He drove along below it, glancing
+up as it grew higher, until at last it cut off his view. All the north
+was gone, and the Gateway to his hiding-place; but the south and west
+were there. To the south lay mud flats, powdery dry but packed hard; and
+the west was a wilderness of sand.
+
+A giant mesquite tree, piled high with clinging drifts, rose up before
+the crest of his wave, and as he plowed in between them the edge of the
+crest poured down in a whispering cascade. Then more trees loomed up,
+and hundreds of white bushes each mounted on its pedestal of sand; and
+at the base of each salt-bush there were kangaroo-rat holes and the
+tracery of their tails in the dust. Men called it Death Valley, but for
+such as these it was a place of fullness and joy. They had capered
+about, striking the ground with their tails at the end of each playful
+jump, and the dry, brittle salt-bushes had been feast enough to them,
+who never knew the taste of grass or water.
+
+The sand-wave rose higher, leaving a damp hollow behind it where
+ice-plants grew green and rank; and as he crept along the thunder of
+his exhaust started tons of sliding silt. His wheels raced and
+burrowed as he struck a soft spot, and then abruptly they sank. He dug
+them out carefully and backed away, but a mound of drifted sand barred
+his way. Twist and turn as he would he could not get around it and at
+last he climbed to its summit. The sun was setting in purple and fire
+behind the black shoulder of the Panamints and like a path of gold it
+marked out the way, the only way to cross the Valley. At the south was
+the Sink with its treacherous bog-holes and further north the
+sand-hills were limitless--the only way, where the wagon-wheels had
+crossed, was buried deep in the sand. Three great mountains of sand,
+like huge breakers of the sea, had swept in and covered the
+wheel-tracks; and far to the west in the path of the sun their summits
+loomed two hundred feet high.
+
+He went back to his car and drove it desperately at the slope, only to
+bury the rear wheels to the axles; and as he dug them out the sand from
+the wave crest began to whisper and slip and slide. He cleared a great
+space and started his motor, but at the first shuddering tug the sand
+began to tremble and in a rush the wave was upon him. It buried him deep
+and as he leapt from his machine little rills of singing sand flowed
+around it. So far it had carried him, this high-powered, steel-springed
+racer; but now he must leave it for the sand to cover over and cross the
+great Valley alone. On many a rocky slope and sliding sand-hill it had
+clutched and plunged and fought its way, but now it was smothered in the
+treacherous, silt-fine sand and he must leave it, like a partner, to
+die. Yet if die it must, then in its desert burial the last trace of
+Wiley Holman would be lost. The first wind that blew would wipe out his
+footprints and the racer would sink beneath the waves. Wiley took his
+canteen, and Charley's bottle of whiskey, his rifle and a small sack of
+food and dared the great silence alone.
+
+While his motor had done the work he had not minded the heat and the
+pressure of blood in his head, but as he toiled up the sandy slope,
+sinking deeper at each stride, he felt the breath of the sand. All day
+it had lain there drinking in the sun's rays and now in the evening,
+when the upper air was cool, it radiated a sweltering heat. Wiley
+mounted to the summit of wave after wave, fighting his way towards the
+Gateway to the north; and then, beaten at last and choking with the
+exertion, he turned and followed a crest. The sand piled up before him
+in a vortex of sharp-edged ridges, reaching their apex in a huge pyramid
+to the west, and as he toiled on past its flank he felt a gusty rush of
+air, sucking down through Emigrant Wash. It was the wind, after all,
+that was king of Death Valley; for whichever way it blew it swept the
+sand before it, raising up pyramids and tearing them down. Along the
+crest of the high wave a feather-edge of sand leapt out like a plume
+into space and as he stopped to watch it Wiley could see that the
+mountain was moving by so much across the plain.
+
+A luminous half-moon floated high in the heavens and the sky was
+studded thick with pin-point stars. In that myriad of little stars,
+filling in between the big ones, the milky way was lost and reduced to
+obscurity--the whole sky was a milky way. Wiley sank down in the sand
+and gazed up sombrely as he wetted his parching lips from his canteen,
+and the evening star gleamed like a torch, looking down on the world
+he had fled. Across the Funeral Range, not a day's journey to the
+east, that same star lighted Virginia on her way while he, a fugitive,
+was flung like an atom into the depths of this sea of sand. It was
+deeper than the sea, scooped out far below the level of the cool
+breakers that broke along the shore; deep and dead, except for the
+wind that moved the drifting sand across the plains. And even as he
+lay there, looking up at the stars and wondering at the riddle of the
+universe, the busy wind was bringing grains of sand and burying him,
+each minute by so much.
+
+He rose up in a panic and hurried along the slope, where the sand of the
+wave was packed hardest, and he did not pause till he had passed the
+last drift and set his foot on the hard, gravelly slope. The wind was
+cooler now, for the night was well along and the bare ground had
+radiated its heat; but it was dry, powder dry, and every pore of his
+skin seemed to gasp and cry out for water. There was water, even yet, in
+the bottom of his canteen; but he dared not drink it till the Gateway
+was in sight, and the sand-wash that led to the valley beyond.
+
+An hour passed by as he toiled up the slope, now breaking into a run
+from impatience, now settling down doggedly to walk; and at last, clear
+and distinct, he saw the Gateway in the moonlight, and stopped to take
+his drink. It was cool now, the water, and infinitely sweet; yet he knew
+that the moment he drained the last drop he would feel the clutch of
+fear. It is an unreasoning thing, that fear of the desert which comes
+when the last drop is gone; and yet it is real and known to every
+wanderer, and guarded against by the bravest. He screwed the cap on his
+canteen and hurried up the slope, which grew steeper and rockier with
+each mile, but the phantom gateway seemed to lead on before him and
+recede into the black abyss of night. It was there, right before him,
+but instead of getting nearer, the Gateway loomed higher and higher; and
+daylight was near before he passed through its portals and entered the
+dark valley beyond.
+
+A gaunt row of cottonwoods rose up suddenly before him, their leaves
+whispering and clacking in the wind, and at this brave promise all fear
+for water left him and he drained his canteen to the bottom. Then he
+strode on up the canyon, that was deep and dark as a pocket, following
+the trail that should lead him to the spring; but as one mile and two
+dragged along with no water, he stopped and hid his rifle among the
+rocks. A little later he hid his belt with its heavy row of cartridges,
+and the sack of dry, useless food. What he needed was water and when he
+had drunk his fill he could come back and collect all his possessions.
+Two miles, five miles, he toiled up the creek bed with the cottonwoods
+rustling overhead; but though their roots were in the water, the sand
+was still dry and his tongue was swelling with thirst.
+
+He stumbled against a stone and fell weakly to the ground, only to leap
+to his feet again, frightened. Already it was coming, the stupifying
+lassitude, the reckless indifference to his fate, and yet he was hardly
+tired. The Valley had not been hot, any more than usual, and he had
+walked twice as far before; but now, with water just around the corner,
+he was lying down in the sand. He was sleepy, that was it, but he must
+get to water first or his pores would close up and he would die. He
+stripped off his pistol and threw it in the sand, and his hat, and the
+bottle of fiery whiskey; and then, head down, he plunged blindly
+forward, rushing on up the trail to find water.
+
+The sun rose higher and poured down into the narrow valley with its
+fringe of deceptive green; but though the trees became bigger and
+bushier in their tops the water did not come to the surface. It was
+underneath the sand, flowing along the bed-rock, and all that was needed
+was a solid reef of country-rock to bring it up to the surface. It would
+flow over the dyke in a beautiful water-fall, leaping and gurgling and
+going to waste; and after he had drunk he would lie down and wallow and
+give his whole body a drink. He would soak there for hours, sucking it
+up with his parched lips that were cracked now and bleeding from the
+drought; and then--he woke up suddenly, to find himself digging in the
+sand. He was going mad then, so soon after he was lost, and with water
+just up the stream. The creek was dry, where he had found himself
+digging, but up above it would be full of water. He hurried on again
+and, around the next turn, sure enough, he found a basin of water.
+
+It was hollowed from the rock, a round pool, undimpled, and upon its
+surface a pair of wasps floated about with airy grace. Their legs were
+outstretched and on the bottom of the hole he could see the round
+shadows of their tracks. It was a new kind of water, with a skin that
+would bend down and hold up the body of a wasp, and yet it seemed to
+be wet. He thrust in a finger and the wasps flew away--and then he
+dropped down and drank deep. When he woke from his madness the pool
+was half empty and the water was running down his face. He was wet all
+over and his lips were bleeding afresh, as if his very blood had been
+dry; but his body was weak and sick, and as he rose to his feet he
+tottered and fell down in the sand. When he roused up again the pool
+was filled with water and the wasps were back, floating on its
+surface.
+
+When he looked around he was in a little cove, shut in by towering
+walls; and, close against the cliff where the rock had been hollowed
+out, he saw an abandoned camp. There were ashes between the stones, and
+tin cans set on boxes, and a walled-in storage place behind, and as he
+looked again he saw a man's tracks, leading down a narrow path to the
+water. They turned off up the creek--high-heeled boots soled with
+rawhide and bound about with thongs--and Wiley rushed recklessly at the
+camp. When he had eaten last he could hardly remember, (it was a day or
+two back at the best), and as he peered into cans and found them empty
+he gave vent to a savage curse. He was weak, he was starving, and he had
+thrown away his food--and this man had hidden what he had. He kicked
+over the boxes and plunged into the store-room, throwing beans and flour
+sacks right and left, and then in the corner behind a huge pile of pinon
+nuts he found a single can of tomatoes.
+
+Whoever had treasured it had kept it too long, for Wiley's knife was
+already out and as he cut out the top he tipped it slowly up and drained
+it to the bottom.
+
+"Hey, there!" hailed a voice and Wiley started and laid down the can.
+Was it possible the officers had followed him? "Throw up your hands!"
+yelled the voice in a fury. "Throw 'em up, or I'll kill you, you
+scoundrel!"
+
+Wiley held up his hands, but he raised them reluctantly and the fighting
+look crept back into his eyes.
+
+"Well!" he challenged, "they're up--what about it?"
+
+A tall man with a pistol stepped out from behind a tree and advanced
+with his gun raised and cocked. His hair was hermit-long, his white
+beard trembled, and his voice cracked and shrilled with helpless rage.
+
+"What about it!" he repeated. "Well, by Jupiter, if you sass me, I'll
+shoot you for a camp-robbing hound!"
+
+"Well, go ahead then," burst out Wiley defiantly, "if that's the way you
+feel--all I took was one can of tomatoes!"
+
+"Yes! One can! Wasn't that all I had? And you robbed me before, you
+rascal!"
+
+"I did not!" retorted Wiley, and as the old man looked him over he
+hesitated and lowered his gun.
+
+"Say, who are you, anyway?" he asked at last and glanced swiftly at
+Wiley's tracks in the sand. "Well--that's all right," he ran on
+hastily, "I see you aren't the man. There was a renegade came through
+here on the twentieth of last July and stole everything I had. I
+trailed him, dad-burn him, clear to the edge of Death Valley--he was
+riding my favorite burro--and if it hadn't been for a sandstorm that
+came up and stopped me, I'd have bored him through and through. He
+stole my rifle and even my letters, and valuable papers besides; but
+he went to his reward, or I miss my guess, so we'll leave him to the
+mercy of hell. As for my tomatoes, you're welcome, my friend; it's
+long since I've had a guest."
+
+He held out his hand and advanced, smiling kindly, but Wiley stepped
+back--it was Colonel Huff.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+AN EVENING WITH SOCRATES
+
+
+How the Colonel had come to be reported dead it was easy enough now to
+surmise. Some desperate fugitive, or rambling hobo miner seeking a
+crosscut to the Borax Mines below, had raided his camp in his absence;
+and, riding off on his burro, had met his death in a sandstorm. His
+were the tracks that the Indians had followed and somewhere in Death
+Valley he lay beneath the sand dunes in place of a better man. But the
+Colonel--did he know that his family had mourned him as dead, and
+bandied his stock back and forth? Did he know that the Paymaster had
+been bonded and opened up, and lost again to Blount? And what would be
+his answer if he knew the man before him was the son of Honest John
+Holman? Wiley closed down his lips, then he took the outstretched hand
+and looked the Colonel straight in the eye.
+
+"I'm sorry, sir," he said, "that I can't give you my name or tell you
+where I'm from; but I've got a bottle of whiskey that will more than
+make up for the loss of that can of tomatoes!"
+
+"Whiskey!" shrilled the Colonel and then he smiled benignly and laid a
+fatherly hand upon his shoulder. "Never mind, my young friend, what you
+have done or not done; because I'm sure it was nothing dishonorable--and
+now if you will produce your bottle we'll drink to our better
+acquaintance."
+
+"I threw it away," answered Wiley apologetically, "but it can't be
+very far down the trail. I was short of water and lost, you might say,
+and--well, I guess I was a little wild."
+
+"And well you might be," replied the Colonel heartily, "if you crossed
+Death Valley afoot; and worn out and hungry, to boot. I'll just take
+the liberty of going after that bottle myself, before some skulking
+Shoo-shonnie gets hold of it."
+
+"Do so," smiled Wiley, "and when you've had your drink, perhaps you'll
+bring in my rifle and the rest."
+
+"Whatever you've dropped," returned the Colonel cordially, "if it's only
+a cartridge from your belt! And while I am gone, just make yourself at
+home. You seem to be in need of rest."
+
+"Yes, I am," agreed Wiley, and before the Colonel was out of sight he
+was fast asleep on his bed.
+
+It was dark when he awoke and the light of a fire played and flickered
+on the walls of his cave. The wind brought to his nostrils the odor of
+cooking beans and as he rose and looked out he saw the Colonel pacing up
+and down by the fire. His hat was off, his fine head thrown back and he
+was humming to himself and smiling.
+
+"Come out, sir; come out!" he cried upon the moment. "I trust you have
+enjoyed your day's rest. And now give me your hand, sir; I regret beyond
+words my boorish conduct of this morning."
+
+He shook hands effusively, still continuing his apologies for having
+taken Wiley for less than a gentleman; and while they ate together it
+became apparent to Wiley that the Colonel had had his drink. If there
+was anything left of the pint bottle of whiskey no mention was made of
+the fact; but even at that the liquor was well spent, for it had gained
+him a friend for life.
+
+"Young man," observed the Colonel, after looking at him closely, "I am a
+fugitive in a way, myself, but I cannot believe, from the look on your
+face, that your are anything else than honest. I shall respect your
+silence, as you respect mine, for your past is nothing to me; but if at
+any time I can assist you, just mention the fact and the deed is as good
+as done. I am a man of my word and, since true friends are rare, I beg
+of you not to forget me."
+
+"I'll remember that," said Wiley, and went on with his eating as the
+Colonel paced up and down. He was a noble-looking man of the Southern
+type, tall and slender, with flashing blue eyes; and the look that he
+gave him reminded Wiley of Virginia, only infinitely more kind and
+friendly. He had been, in his day, a prince of entertainers, of the rich
+and poor alike; and the kick of the whiskey had roused up those genial
+qualities which had made him the first citizen of Keno. He laughed and
+told stories and cracked merry jests, yet never for a moment did he
+forget his incognito nor attempt to violate Wiley's. They were gentlemen
+there together in the heart of the desert, and as such each was safe
+from intrusion. The rifle and cartridge belt, Wiley's pistol and the
+sack of food, were fetched and placed in his hands; and then at the end
+the Colonel produced the flask of whiskey which had been slightly
+diluted with water.
+
+"Now," he said, "we will drink a toast, my far-faring-knight of the
+desert. Shall it be that first toast: 'The Ladies--God bless them!'
+or----"
+
+"No!" answered Wiley, and the Colonel silently laughed.
+
+"Well said, my young friend," he replied, nodding wisely. "Even at your
+age you have learned something of life. No, let it be the toast that
+Socrates drank, and that rare company who sat at the Banquet. To Love!
+they drank; but not to love of woman. To love of mankind--of Man! To
+Friendship! In short, here's to you, my friend, and may you never regret
+this night!"
+
+They drank it in silence, and as Wiley sat thinking, the Colonel became
+reminiscent.
+
+"Ah, there was a company," he said, smiling mellowly, "such as the world
+will never see again. Agatho and Socrates, Aristophanes and Alcibiades,
+the picked men of ancient Athens; lying comfortably on their couches
+with the food before them and inviting their souls with wine. They began
+in the evening and in the morning it was Socrates who had them all under
+the table. And yet, of all men, he was the most abstemious--he could
+drink or let it alone. Alcibiades, the drunkard, gave witness that night
+to the courage and hardihood of Socrates--how he had carried him and his
+armor from the battlefield of Potidaea, and outfaced the enemy at
+Delium; how he marched barefoot through the ice while the others, well
+shod, froze; and endured famine without complaining; yet again, in the
+feasts at the military table, he was the only person that appeared to
+enjoy them. There was a man, my friend, such as the world has never
+seen, the greatest philosopher of all time; but do you know what
+philosophy he taught?"
+
+"No, I don't," admitted Wiley, and the Colonel sighed as he poured out a
+small libation.
+
+"And yet," he said, "you are a man of parts, with an education, very
+likely, of the best. But our schools and Universities now teach a man
+everything except the meaning and purpose of life. When I was in school
+we read our Plato and Xenophon as you now read your German and French;
+but what we learned, above the language itself, was the thought of that
+ancient time. You learn to earn money and to fight your way through
+life, but Socrates taught that friendship is above everything and that
+Truth is the Ultimate Good. But, ah well; I weary you, for each age
+lives unto itself, and who cares for the thoughts of an old man?"
+
+"No! Go on!" protested Wiley, but the Colonel sighed wearily and shook
+his head gloomily in thought.
+
+"I had a friend once," he said at last, "who had the same rugged honesty
+of Socrates. He was a man of few words but I truly believe that he never
+told a lie. And yet," went on the Colonel with a rueful smile, "they
+tell me that my friend recanted and deceived me at the last!"
+
+"_Who_ told you?" put in Wiley, suddenly rousing from his silence
+and the Colonel glanced at him sharply.
+
+"Ah, yes; well said, my friend! Who told me? Why, all of them--except my
+friend himself. I could not go to him with so much as a suggestion that
+he had betrayed the friendship of a lifetime; and he, no doubt, felt
+equally reluctant to explain what had never been charged. Yet I dared
+not approach him, for it was better to endure doubt than to suffer the
+certainty of his guilt. And so we drifted apart, and he moved away; and
+I have never seen my good friend since."
+
+Wiley sat in stunned silence, but his heart leapt up at this word of
+vindication for Honest John. To be sure his father had refused him help,
+and rebuked him for heckling the Widow, but loyalty ran strong in the
+Holman blood and he looked up at the Colonel and smiled.
+
+"Next time you go inside," he said at last, "take a chance and ask your
+friend."
+
+"I'll do that," agreed the Colonel, "but it won't be for some time
+because--well, I'm hiding out."
+
+"Here, too," returned Wiley, "and I'm _never_ going back. But say,
+listen; I'll tell _you_ one now. You trusted your friend, and the
+bunch told you that he'd betrayed you; I trusted my girl, and she told
+me to my face that she'd sold me out for fifty thousand dollars. Fifty
+thousand, at the most; and I lost about a million and killed a man over
+it, to boot. You take a chance with your friends, but when you trust a
+woman--you don't take any chance at all."
+
+"Ah, in self defense?" inquired the Colonel politely. "I thought I
+noticed a hole in your shirt. Yes, pretty close work--between your arm
+and your ribs. I've had a few close calls, myself."
+
+"Yes, but what do you think," demanded Wiley impatiently, "of a girl
+that will throw you down like that? I gave her the stock and to make it
+worth the money she turned around and ditched me. And then she looked me
+in the face and laughed!"
+
+"If you had studied," observed the Colonel, "the Republic of Plato you
+would have been saved your initial mistake; for it was an axiom among
+the Greeks that in all things women are inferior, and never to be
+trusted in large affairs. The great Plato pointed out, and it has never
+been controverted, that women are given to concealment and spite; and
+that in times of danger they are timid and cowardly, and should
+therefore have no voice in council. In fact, in the ideal State which he
+conceived, they were to be herded by themselves in a community dwelling
+and held in common by the state. There were to be no wives and no
+husbands, with their quarrels and petty bickerings, but the women were
+to be parceled out by certain controllers of marriage and required to
+breed men for the state. That is going rather far, and I hardly
+subscribe to it, but I think they should be kept in their place."
+
+"Well, they are cowardly, all right," agreed Wiley bitterly, "but that's
+better than when they fight. Because then, if you oppose them, everybody
+turns against you; and if you don't, they've got you whipped!"
+
+"Put it there!" exclaimed the Colonel, striking hands with him
+dramatically. "I swear, we shall get along famously. There is nothing I
+admire more than a gentle, modest woman, an ornament to her husband and
+her home; but when she puts on the trousers and presumes to question and
+dictate, what is there left for a gentleman to do? He cannot strike her,
+for she is his wife and he has sworn to cherish and protect her; and
+yet, by the gods, she can make his life more miserable than a dozen
+quarrelsome men. What is there to do but what I have done--to close up
+my affairs and depart? If there is such a thing as love, long absence
+may renew it, and the sorrow may chasten her heart; but I agree with
+Solomon that it is better to dwell in a corner of the house-top than
+with a scolding woman in a wide house."
+
+"You bet," nodded Wiley. "Gimme the desert solitude, every time. Is
+there any more whiskey in that bottle?"
+
+"And yet--" mused the Colonel, "--well, here's to our mothers! And may
+we ever be dutiful sons! After all, my friend, no man can escape his
+duty; and if duty should call us to endure a certain martyrdom we have
+the example of Socrates to sustain us. If report is true he had a
+scolding wife--the name of Xanthippe has become a proverb--and yet what
+more noble than Socrates' rebuke to his son when he behaved undutifully
+towards his mother? Where else in all literature will you find a more
+exalted statement of the duty we all owe our parents than in Socrates'
+dialogue with Lamprocles, his son, as recorded in the Memorabilia of
+Xenophon? And if, living with Xanthippe and listening to her railings,
+he could yet attain to such heights of philosophy is it not possible
+that men like you and me might come, through his philosophy, to endure
+it? It is that which I am pondering while I am alone here in the desert;
+but my spirit is weak and that accursed camp robber made off with my
+volume of Plato."
+
+"Well, personally," stated Wiley, his mind on the Widow, "I think I
+agree more with Plato. Let 'em keep in their place and not crush into
+business with their talk and their double-barreled shotguns."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said the Colonel, drawing himself up gravely,
+"but did you happen to come through Keno?"
+
+"Never mind;" grumbled Wiley, "you might be the Sheriff. Tell me more
+about this married man, Socrates."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE BROKEN TRUST
+
+
+To seek always for Truth and Justice and the common good of mankind has
+seldom had its earthly reward but, twenty-three hundred and fifteen
+years after he drank the cup of hemlock, the soul of Socrates received
+its oration. Not that the Colonel was hipped upon the subject of the
+ancients, for he talked mining and showed some copper claims as well;
+but a similar tragedy in his own domestic life had evoked a profound
+admiration for Socrates. And if Wiley understood what lay behind his
+words he gave no hint to the Colonel. Always, morning, noon and night,
+he listened respectfully, his lips curling briefly at some thought; and
+at the end of a week the Colonel was as devoted to him as he had been
+formerly to his father.
+
+Yet when, as sometimes happened, the Colonel tried to draw him out, he
+shook his head stubbornly and was dumb. The problem that he had could
+not be solved by talk; it called for years to recover and forget; and if
+the Colonel once knew that his own daughter was involved he might rise
+up and demand a retraction. In his first rush of bitterness Wiley had
+stated without reservation that Virginia had sold him out for money, and
+the pride of the Huffs would scarcely allow this to pass unnoticed--and
+yet he would not retract it if he died for it. He knew from her own lips
+that Virginia had betrayed him, and it could never be explained away.
+
+If she argued that she was misled by Blount and his associates, he had
+warned her before she left; and if she had thought that he was doing her
+an injustice, that was not the way to correct it. She had accepted a
+trust and she had broken that trust to gain a personal profit--and that
+was the unpardonable sin. He could have excused her if she had weakened
+or made some mistake, but she had betrayed him deliberately and
+willfully; and as he sat off by himself, mulling it over in his mind,
+his eyes became stern and hard. For the killing of Stiff Neck George he
+had no regrets, and the treachery of Blount did not surprise him; but he
+had given this woman his heart to keep and she had sold him for fifty
+thousand dollars. All the rest became as nothing but this wound refused
+to heal, for he had lost his faith in womankind. Had he loved her less,
+or trusted her less, it would not have rankled so deep; but she had been
+his one woman, whose goings and comings he watched for, and all the time
+she was playing him false.
+
+He sat silent one morning in the cool shade of a wild grapevine, jerking
+the meat of a mountain sheep that he had killed; and as he worked
+mechanically, shredding the flesh into long strips, he watched the lower
+trail. Ten days had gone by since he had fled across the Valley, but the
+danger of pursuit had not passed and, as he saw a great owl that was
+nesting down below rise up blindly and flop away he paused and reached
+for his gun.
+
+"Never mind," said the Colonel who had noticed the movement. "I expect
+an old Indian in with grub. But step into the cave and if it's who you
+think it is you can count on me till the hair slips."
+
+Wiley stepped in quietly, strapping on his belt and pistol, and then the
+Colonel burst into a roar.
+
+"It's Charley," he cried, leaping nimbly to his feet and putting up his
+gun. "Come on, boy--here's where we get that drink!"
+
+Wiley looked out doubtfully as Heine rushed up and sniffed at the pans
+of meat, and then he ducked back and hid. Around the shoulder of the
+cliff came Death Valley Charley; but behind him, on a burro, was
+Virginia. He looked out again as the Colonel swore an oath and then she
+leapt off and ran towards them.
+
+"Oh--_Father_!" she cried and hung about his neck while the
+astonished Colonel kissed her doubtfully.
+
+"Well, well!" he protested as she fell to weeping, "what's the cause of
+all this distress? Is your mother not well, or----"
+
+"We--we thought you were _dead_!" she burst out indignantly, "and
+Charley there knew--all the time!"
+
+She let go of her father and turned upon Death Valley Charley, who was
+solicitously attending to Heine, and the Colonel spoke up peremptorily.
+
+"Here, Charley!" he commanded, "let that gluttonous cur wait. What's
+this I hear from Virginia? Didn't you tell her I was perfectly well?"
+
+"Why--why yes, sir; I did, sir," replied Charley, apologetically,
+"but--she only thought I was crazy. I told her, all the time----"
+
+"Oh, Charley!" reproached Virginia, "didn't you know better than that?
+You only said it when you had those spells. Why didn't you tell me when
+you were feeling all right--and you denied it, I know, repeatedly!"
+
+"The Colonel would kill me," mumbled Charley sullenly. "He told me not
+to tell. But I brought you the whiskey, sir; a whole big----"
+
+"Never mind the whiskey," said the Colonel sharply. "Now, let's get to
+the bottom of this matter. Why should you think I was dead when I had
+merely absented myself----"
+
+"But the body!" clamored Virginia. "We got word you were lost when your
+burro came in at the Borax works. And when we hired trackers, the
+Indians said you were lost--and your body was out in the sand-hills!"
+
+"It was that cursed camp-robber!" declared the Colonel with conviction.
+"Well, I'm glad he's gone to his reward. It was only some rascal that
+came through here and stole my riding burro--did they care for old Jack
+at the Works? Well, I shall thank them for it kindly; and anything I can
+do--but what's the matter, Virginia?"
+
+She had drawn away from him and was gazing about anxiously and Charley
+had slunk guiltily away.
+
+"Why--where's Wiley?" she cried, clutching her father by the arm. "Oh,
+isn't he here, after all?"
+
+"Wiley?" repeated the Colonel. "Why, who are you talking about? I never
+even heard of such a man."
+
+"Oh, he's dead then; he's lost!" she sobbed, sinking down on the ground
+in despair. "Oh, I knew it, all the time! But that old Charley----" She
+cast a hateful glance at him and the Colonel beckoned sternly.
+
+"What now?" he demanded as Charley sidled near. "Who is this Mr. Wiley?"
+
+"Why--er--Wiley; Wiley Holman, you know. I followed his tracks to the
+Gateway. Ain't he around here somewhere? I found this bottle----" He
+held up the flask that he had given to Wiley, and the Colonel started
+back with a cry.
+
+"What, a tall young fellow with leather puttees?"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes!" answered Virginia, suddenly springing to her feet again.
+"We followed him--isn't he here?"
+
+The Colonel turned slowly and glanced at the cave, where Wiley was still
+hiding close, and then he cleared his throat.
+
+"Well, kindly explain first why you should be following this gentleman,
+and----"
+
+"Oh, he's here, then!" sighed Virginia and fell into her father's arms,
+at which Charley scuttled rapidly away.
+
+"Mr. Holman," spoke up the Colonel, as Wiley did not stir, "may I ask
+you to come out here and explain?"
+
+There was a rustle inside the cave and at last Wiley came out, stuffing
+a strip of dried meat into his hip pocket.
+
+"I'll come out, yes," he said, "but, as I'm about to go, I'll leave it
+to your daughter to explain."
+
+He picked up his canteen and started down to the water-hole, but the
+Colonel called him sternly back.
+
+"My friend," he said, "it is the custom among gentlemen to answer a
+courteous question. I must ask you then what there is between you and my
+daughter, and why she should follow you across Death Valley?"
+
+"There is nothing between us," answered Wiley categorically, "and I
+don't know why she followed me--that is, if she really did."
+
+"Well, I did!" sobbed Virginia, burying her face on her father's breast,
+"but I wish I hadn't now!"
+
+"Huh!" grunted Wiley and stumped off down the trail where he filled his
+canteen at the pool. He was mad, mad all over, and yet he experienced a
+strange thrill at the thought of Virginia following him. He had left her
+smiling and shaking hands with Blount, but a curse had been on the
+money, and her conscience had forced her to follow him. It had been
+easy, for her, with a burro to ride on and Death Valley Charley to guide
+her; but with him it had been different. He had fled from arrest and it
+was only by accident that he had won to the water-hole in time. But yet,
+she had followed him; and now she would apologize and explain, as she
+had explained it all once before. Well, since she had come--and since
+the Colonel was watching him--he shouldered his canteen and came back.
+
+"My daughter tells me," began the Colonel formally, "that you are the
+son of my old friend, John Holman; and I trust that you will take my
+hand."
+
+He held out his hand and Wiley blinked as he returned the warm clasp of
+his friend. Ten days of companionship in the midst of that solitude had
+knitted their souls together and he loved the old Colonel like a father.
+
+"That's all right," he muttered. "And--say, hunt up the Old Man! Because
+he thinks the world of you, still."
+
+"I will do so," replied the Colonel, "but will you do me a favor? By
+gad, sir; I can't let you go. No, you must stay with me, Wiley, if that
+is your name; I want to talk with you later, about your father. But now,
+as a favor, since Virginia has come so far, I will ask you to sit down
+and listen to her. And--er--Wiley; just a moment!" He beckoned him to
+one side and spoke low in his ear. "About that woman who betrayed your
+trust--perhaps I'd better not mention her to Virginia?"
+
+Wiley's eyes grew big and then they narrowed. The Colonel thought there
+was another woman. How could he, proud soul, even think for a moment
+that Virginia herself had betrayed him? No, to his high mind it was
+inconceivable that a daughter of his should violate a trust; and there
+was Virginia, watching them.
+
+"Very well," replied Wiley, and smiled to himself as he laid down his
+gun and canteen. He led the way up the creek to where a gnarled old
+cottonwood cast its shadow against the cliff and smoothed out a seat
+against the bank. "Now sit down," he said, "and let's have this over
+with before the Colonel gets wise. He's a fine old gentleman and if his
+daughter took after him I wouldn't be dodging the sheriff."
+
+"Well, I came to tell you," began Virginia bravely, "that I'm sorry for
+what I've done. And to show you that I mean it I gave Blount back his
+stock."
+
+Wiley gazed at her grimly for a moment and then he curled up his lip.
+"Why not come through," he asked at last, "and acknowledge that he held
+it out on you?"
+
+Virginia started and then she smiled wanly.
+
+"No," she said, "it wasn't quite that. And yet--well, he didn't really
+give it to me."
+
+"I knew it!" exploded Wiley, "the doggoned piker! But of course you made
+a clean-up on your other stock?"
+
+"No, I didn't! I gave that away, too! But Wiley, why won't you listen to
+me? I didn't intend to do it, but he explained it all so nicely----"
+
+"Didn't I tell you he would?" he raged.
+
+"Yes, but listen; you don't understand. When I went to him first I asked
+for Father's stock and--he must have known what was coming. I guess he
+saw the bills. Anyway, he told me then that he had always loved my
+father, and that he wanted to protect us from you; and so, he said, he
+was just holding my Father's stock to keep you from getting it away from
+us. And then he called in some friends of his; and oh, they all became
+so indignant that I thought I couldn't be wrong! Why, they showed me
+that you would make millions by the deal, and all at our expense; and
+then--I don't know, something came over me. We'd been poor so long, and
+it would make you so rich; and, like a fool, I went and did it."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Wiley. "I forgive you, and all that; but
+don't let your father know. He's got old-fashioned ideas about keeping a
+trust and--say, do you know what he thinks? I happened to mention, the
+first night I got in, that a woman had thrown me down; and he just now
+took me aside and told me not to worry because he'd never mention the
+lady to you. He thinks it was somebody else."
+
+"Oh," breathed Virginia, and then she sat silent while he kicked a hole
+in the dirt and waited. He was willing to concede anything, agree to
+anything, look pleasant at anything, until the ordeal was over; and then
+he intended to depart. Where he would go was a detail to be considered
+later when he felt the need of something to occupy his mind; right now
+he was only thinking that she looked very pale--and there was a tired,
+hunted look in her eyes. She had nerves, of course, the same as he had,
+and the trip across Death Valley had been hard on her; but if she
+suffered now, he had suffered also, and he failed to be as sorry as he
+should.
+
+"You'll be all right now," he said at last, when it seemed she would
+never speak up, "and I'm glad you found your father. He'll go back with
+you now and take a fall out of Blount and--well, you won't feel so poor,
+any more."
+
+"Yes, I will," returned Virginia, suddenly rousing up and looking at him
+with haggard eyes. "I'll always feel poor, because if I gave you back
+all I had it wouldn't be a tenth of what you lost."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," grumbled Wiley. "I don't care about the money.
+Are they hunting me for murder, or what?"
+
+"Oh, no; not for anything!" she answered eagerly. "You'll come back,
+won't you, Wiley? Mother was watching you through her glasses, and she
+says George fired first. They aren't trying to arrest you; all they want
+you to do is to give up and stand a brief trial. And I'll help you,
+Wiley; oh, I've just got to do something or I'll be miserable all my
+life!"
+
+"You're tired now," said Wiley. "It'll look different, pretty soon;
+and--well, I don't think I'll go in, right now."
+
+"But where will you go?" she entreated piteously. "Oh, Wiley, can't you
+see I'm sorry? Why can't you forgive me and let me try to make amends,
+instead of making both our lives so miserable?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Wiley. "It's just the way I feel. I've got
+nothing _against_ you; I just want to get away and forget a few
+things that you've done."
+
+"And then?" she asked, and he smiled enigmatically.
+
+"Well, maybe you'll forget me, too."
+
+"But Father!" she objected as he rose up suddenly and started off down
+the creek. "He thinks we're lovers, you know." Wiley stopped and the
+cold anger in his eyes gave way to a look of doubt. "Why not pretend we
+are?" she suggested wistfully. "Not really, but just before him. I told
+him we'd quarreled--and he knows I followed after you. Just to-day,
+Wiley; and then you can go. But if my father should think----"
+
+"Well, all right," he broke in, and as they stepped out into the open
+she slipped her hand into his.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+A HUFF
+
+
+The Colonel was sitting in the shade of a wild grapevine rapping out a
+series of questions at Charley, but at sight of the young people coming
+back hand in hand, he paused and smiled understandingly.
+
+"What now?" he said. "Is there a new earth and a new heaven? Ah, well;
+then Virginia's trip was worth while. But Charley here is so full of
+signs and wonders that my brain is fairly in a whirl. The Germans, it
+seems, have made a forty-two centimeter gun that is blasting down cities
+in France; and the Allies, to beat them, are constructing still larger
+ones made out of tungsten that is mined from the Paymaster. Yes, yes,
+Charley, that's all right, I don't doubt your word, but we'll call on
+Wiley for the details."
+
+He laughed indulgently and poured Charley out a drink which made his
+eyes blink and snap and then he waved him graciously away.
+
+"Take your burros up the canyon," he suggested briefly, and when Charley
+was gone he smiled. "Now," he said, as Virginia sat down beside him,
+"what's all this about the Paymaster and Keno?"
+
+"Well," began Virginia as Wiley sat silent, "there really was tungsten
+in the mine. Wiley discovered it first--he was just going through the
+town when he saw that specimen in my collection--and since then,--oh,
+everything has happened!"
+
+"By the dog!" exclaimed the Colonel starting quickly to his feet. "Do
+you mean that Crazy Charley spoke the truth? Is the mine really open and
+the town full of people and----"
+
+"You wouldn't know it!" cried Virginia, triumphantly. "All that heavy,
+white quartz was tungsten!"
+
+"What? That waste on the dump? But how much is it worth? Old Charley
+says it's better than gold!"
+
+"It is!" she answered. "Why, some of that rock ran five thousand dollars
+to the ton!"
+
+"Five--thousand!" repeated the Colonel, and then he whirled on Wiley.
+"What's the reason, then," he demanded, "that you're hiding out here in
+the hills? Didn't you get possession of the mine?"
+
+"Under a bond and lease," explained Wiley shortly. "I failed to meet the
+final payment."
+
+"Why--how much was this payment?" inquired the Colonel cautiously, as he
+sensed the sudden constraint. "It seems to me the mine should have paid
+it at once."
+
+"Fifty thousand," answered Wiley, gazing glumly at the ground and the
+Colonel opened his eyes!
+
+"Fifty thousand!" he exclaimed. "Only fifty thousand dollars? Well! What
+were the circumstances, Wiley?"
+
+He stood expectant and as Wiley boggled and hesitated Virginia rose up
+and stood beside him.
+
+"He got the bond and lease from Blount," she began, talking rapidly,
+"and when Blount found that the white quartz was tungsten ore, he did
+all he could to block Wiley. When Wiley first came through the town and
+stopped at our house he knew that that white quartz was tungsten; but he
+couldn't do anything, then. And then, by-and-by, when he tried to bond
+the mine, Blount came up himself and tried to work it."
+
+"He did, eh?" cried the Colonel. "Well, by what right, I'd like to know,
+did he dare to take possession of the Paymaster?"
+
+"Oh, he'd bought up all the stock; and Mother, she took yours and----"
+
+"What?" yelled the Colonel, and then he closed down his jaw and his
+blue eyes sparkled ominously. "Proceed," he said. "The information,
+first--but, by the gods, he shall answer for this!"
+
+"But all the time," went on Virginia hastily, "the mine belonged to
+Wiley. It had been sold for taxes--and he bought it!"
+
+"Ah!" observed the Colonel, and glanced at him shrewdly for he saw now
+where the tale was going.
+
+"Well," continued Virginia, "when Blount saw Wiley wanted it he came up
+and took it himself. And he hired Stiff Neck George to herd the mine and
+keep Wiley and everybody away. But when he was working it, why Wiley
+came back and claimed it under the tax sale; and he went right up to the
+mine and took away George's gun--and kicked him down the dump!"
+
+"He did!" exclaimed the Colonel, but Wiley did not look up, for his mind
+was on the end of the tale.
+
+"And then--oh, it's all mixed up, but Blount couldn't find any gold and
+so he leased the mine to Wiley. And the minute he found that the white
+quartz was tungsten, and worth three dollars a pound, he was mad as
+anything and did everything he could to keep him from meeting the
+payment. But Wiley went ahead and shipped a lot of ore and made a lot of
+money in spite of him. He cleaned out the mine and fixed up the mill and
+oh, Father, you wouldn't know the place!"
+
+"Probably not!" returned the Colonel, "but proceed with your story. Who
+holds the Paymaster, now?"
+
+"Why Blount, of course, and he's moved back to town and is simply
+shoveling out the ore!"
+
+"The scoundrel!" burst out the Colonel. "Wiley, we will return to Keno
+immediately and bring this blackguard to book! I have a stake in this
+matter, myself!"
+
+"Nope, not for me!" answered Wiley wearily. "You haven't heard all the
+story. I fell down on the final payment--it makes no difference how--and
+when I came back Blount had jumped the mine and Stiff Neck George was in
+charge. But instead of warning me off he hid behind a car and--well, I
+don't care to go back there, now."
+
+"Why, certainly! You must!" declared the Colonel warmly. "You were
+acting in self defense and I consider that your conduct was justified.
+In fact, my boy, I wish to congratulate you--Charley tells me he had the
+drop on you."
+
+"Yes, sure," grumbled Wiley, "but you aren't the judge--and there's a
+whole lot more to the story. It happens that I took an option on
+Blount's Paymaster stock, but when I offered the payment he protested
+the contract and took the case to court. Now--he's got the town of Vegas
+in his inside vest pocket, the lawyers and judges and all; and do you
+think for a minute he's going to let me come back and take away those
+four hundred thousand shares?"
+
+"Four hundred thousand?" repeated the Colonel incredulously, "do you
+mean to tell me----"
+
+"Yes, you bet I do!" said Wiley, "and I'll tell you something else.
+According to the dates on the back of those certificates it was Blount
+that sold you out. He sold all his promotion stock before the panic; and
+then, when the price was down to nothing, he turned around and bought it
+back. I knew from the first that he'd lied about my father and I kept
+after him till I got my hands on that stock--and then, when I'd proved
+it, he tried to put the blame on you!"
+
+"The devil!" exclaimed the Colonel, and paced up and down, snapping his
+fingers and muttering to himself. "The cowardly dastard!" he burst out
+at last. "He has poisoned ten years of my life. I must hurry back at
+once and go to John Holman and apologize to him publicly for this
+affront. After all the years that we were pardners in everything, and
+then to have me doubt his integrity! He was the soul of honor, one man
+in ten thousand; and yet I took the word of this lying Blount against
+the man I called My Friend! I remember, by gad, as if it were yesterday,
+the first time I really knew your father; and Blount was squeezing me,
+then. I owed him fifteen thousand dollars on a certain piece of property
+that was worth fifty thousand at least; and at the very last moment,
+when he was about to foreclose, John Holman loaned me the money. He
+mortgaged his cattle at the other bank and put the money in my hand, and
+Blount cursed him for an interfering fool! That was Blount, the Shylock,
+and Honest John Holman; and I turned against my friend."
+
+"Yes, that's right," agreed Wiley, "but if you want to make up for it,
+make 'em quit calling him 'Honest John'!"
+
+"No, indeed," cried the Colonel, his voice tremulous with emotion. "He
+shall still be called Honest John; and if any man doubts it or speaks
+the name fleeringly he shall answer personally to me. And now, about
+this stock--what was that, Virginia, that you were saying about my
+holdings?"
+
+"Why, Mother put them up as collateral on a loan, and Blount claimed
+them at the end of the first month."
+
+"All my stock? Well, by the horn-spoon--how much did your mother borrow?
+Eight--hundred? Eight hundred dollars? Well, that is enough, on the face
+of it--but never mind, I will recover the stock. It is certainly a
+revelation of human nature. The moment I am reported dead, these
+vultures strip my family of their all."
+
+"Well, I was one of them," spoke up Wiley bluntly, "but you don't need
+to blame my father. When I was having trouble with Mrs. Huff he wrote up
+and practically disowned me."
+
+"So you were one of them," observed the Colonel mildly. "And you had
+trouble with Mrs. Huff? But no matter?" he went on. "We can discuss all
+that later--now to return to this lawsuit, with Blount. Do I understand
+that you had an option on his entire four hundred thousand shares?"
+
+"For twenty thousand dollars," answered Wiley, "and he was glad to get
+it--but, of course, when I opened up that big body of tungsten, the
+stock was worth into millions. That is, if he could keep me from making
+both payments. He fought me from the start, but I put up the twenty
+thousand; and the clerk of the court is holding it yet, unless the case
+is decided. But Blount knew he could beat it, if he could keep me from
+buying the mine under the terms of my bond and lease; and now that he's
+in possession, taking out thirty or forty thousand every day, I'm licked
+before I begin. In fact, the case is called already and lost by default
+if I know that blackleg lawyer of mine."
+
+"But hire a good lawyer!" protested the Colonel. "A man has a right to
+his day in court and you have never appeared."
+
+"No, and I never will," spoke up Wiley despondently. "There's a whole
+lot to this case that you don't know. And the minute I appear they'll
+arrest me for murder and railroad me off to the Pen. No, I'm not going
+back, that's all."
+
+"But Wiley," reasoned the Colonel, "you've got great interests at
+stake--and your father will help you, I'm sure."
+
+"No, he won't," declared Wiley. "There isn't anybody that can help me,
+because Blount is in control of the courts. And I might as well add that
+I was run out of Vegas by a Committee appointed for the purpose." He
+rose up abruptly, rolling his sullen eyes on Virginia and the Colonel
+alike. "In fact," he burst out, "I haven't got a friend on the east side
+of Death Valley Sink."
+
+"But on the west side," suggested the Colonel, drawing Virginia to his
+side, "you have two good friends that I know----"
+
+"Wait till you hear it all," broke in Wiley, bitterly, "and you're
+likely to change your mind. No, I'm busted, I tell you, and the best
+thing I can do is drift and never come back."
+
+"And Virginia?" inquired the Colonel. "Am I right in supposing----"
+
+"No," he flared up. "Friend Virginia has quit me, along with----"
+
+"Why, Wiley!" cried Virginia, and he started and fell silent as he met
+her reproachful gaze. For the sake of the Colonel they were supposed
+to be lovers, whose quarrel had been happily made up, but this was
+very unloverlike.
+
+"Well, I don't deserve it," he muttered at last, "but friend Virginia
+has promised to stay with me."
+
+"Yes, I'm going to stay with him," spoke up Virginia quickly, "because
+it was all my fault. I'm going to go with him, father, wherever he goes
+and----"
+
+"God bless you, my daughter!" said the Colonel, smiling proudly, "and
+never forget you're a Huff!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE FIERY FURNACE
+
+
+To be a Huff, of course, was to be brave and true and never go back on a
+friend; but as the Colonel that evening began to speak on the subject,
+Virginia crept off to bed. She was tired from her night trip across the
+Sink of Death Valley, with only Crazy Charley for a guide; but it was
+Wiley, the inexorable, who drove her off weeping, for he would not take
+her hand. His mind was still fixed on the Gethsemane of the soul that he
+had gone through in Blount's bank at Vegas, and strive as she would she
+could not bring him back to play his poor part as lover. Whether she
+loved him or not was not the question--not even if she was willing to
+throw away her life by following him in his wanderings. Three times he
+had trusted her and three times she had played him false--and was that
+the honor of the Huffs?
+
+She was penitent now and, in the presence of her father, more gentle and
+womanly than seemed possible; but next week or next month or in the long
+years to come, was she the woman he could trust? They passed before his
+eyes in a swift series of images, the days when he had trusted her
+before; and always, behind her smile, there was something else,
+something cold and calculating and unkind. Her eyes were soft now, and
+gentle and imploring, but they had looked at him before with scorn and
+hateful laughter, when he had staked his soul on her word. He had
+trusted her--too far--and before Blount and all his sycophants she had
+made him a mock and a reviling.
+
+The Colonel was talking, for his mood was expansive, but at last he fell
+silent and waited.
+
+"Wiley, my boy," he said when Wiley looked up, "you must not let the past
+overmaster you. We all make mistakes, but if our hearts are right there
+is nothing that should cause vain regrets. I judged from what you said
+once that your present disaster is due to a misplaced trust--in fact, if
+I remember, to a woman. But do not let this treachery, this betrayal of
+a trust, turn your mind against all womankind. I have known many noble
+and high-minded women whom I would trust with my very life; and since
+Virginia, as I gather, has offered to bind up your wounds, I hope you
+will not remain embittered. She is my daughter, of course, and my love
+may have blinded me; but in all the long years she has been at my side,
+I can think of no instance in which she has played me false. Her nature
+is passionate, and she is sometimes quick to anger, but behind it all
+she is devotion itself and you can trust her absolutely."
+
+He paused expectantly, but as Wiley made no response he rose up and
+knocked out his pipe.
+
+"Well, good night," he said. "It is time we were retiring if we are to
+cross the Valley to-morrow. Have a drink? Well, all right; it's just as
+well. You're a good boy, Wiley; I'm proud of you."
+
+He clapped him on the shoulder as he went off to bed, but Wiley sat
+brooding by the fire. Death Valley Charley took his blankets and rolled
+up in the creek bed, so that his burros could not sneak by him in the
+night, and Heine laid down beside him; but when all was quiet Wiley rose
+up silently and tiptoed about the camp. He strapped on his pistol and
+picked up his gun, but as he was groping in the darkness for his canteen
+Heine trotted up and flapped his ears. It was his sign of friendship,
+like wagging his tail, and Wiley patted him quietly; but when he was
+gone, he lifted the canteen and slung it over his shoulder. In the land
+where he was going there were more dangers than one, but lack of water
+was the greatest. He stepped out into the moonlight and then, from the
+cave, he heard a muffled sound. Virginia was there and he was running
+away from her. He listened again--she was crying! Not weeping aloud or
+in choking sobs but in stifled, heart-broken sighs. He lowered his gun
+and stood scowling and irresolute, then he turned back and went to bed.
+
+In the morning they started late, resting in the shade of the Gateway
+until the sun had swung to the west; and then, as the shadow of the
+Panamints stretched out across the Valley, they repacked and started
+down the slope. In the lead went old Jinny, the mother of the bunch, and
+Jack and Johnny and Baby; and following behind his burros, paced Death
+Valley Charley with a long, willow club in his hand. The Colonel strode
+ahead, his mind on weighty matters; and behind him came Virginia on her
+free-footed burro with Wiley plodding silently in the rear. At irregular
+intervals Heine would drop back from the lead and sniff at them each in
+turn, but nothing was said, for the air was furnace dry and they were
+saving their strength for the sand.
+
+At sundown they reached the edge of the first yielding sand-dune that
+presaged the long pull to come and Death Valley Charley stopped and
+opened up a water-can while the burros gathered eagerly around. Then he
+poured each of them a drink in his shapeless old hat and started them
+across the Sink.
+
+"Now, you see?" he said, "you see where Jinny goes? She heads straight
+for Stovepipe Hole. She knows she gits water there and that makes her
+hurry--and the others they tag along behind."
+
+He took another drink from the Colonel's private stock and smiled as he
+smacked his lips. "It's hot to-day," he observed, squinting down his
+eyes and gazing ahead through the haze; "yes, it's hot for this time of
+year. But Virginia, you ride; and when Tom won't go no further, git off
+and he'll lead you to camp."
+
+He went on ahead, swinging his club and laughing, and Heine trotted
+soberly at his side; and as he followed the trough of sand-wave after
+sand-wave, the rest plodded along behind. A dry, baking heat seemed to
+rise up from the ground and the air was heavy and still; the burros
+began to groan as they toiled up the slope and their flanks turned wet
+with sweat; and then, as they topped a wave, they felt the scorching
+breath of the Sink. It came in puffs like the waves of some great sea
+upon whose shores they had set their feet; a seething, heaving sea of
+heat, breathing death along its lonely beach. It struck through their
+clothes like a blast of wind or the shimmering glow of a furnace and at
+each drink of water the sweat damped their brows and trickled in streams
+down their faces. A wearied burro halted and, as Charley chased him with
+his club, the rest rushed ahead to escape; and then, as they came to the
+crest of the wave, Virginia's burro stopped dead.
+
+"I'll lead him," she said as Wiley came up, and started after the pack.
+Wiley walked along beside her, for he saw that she was spent; and as her
+slender feet sank deep in the yielding sand she lagged and slowed down,
+and stopped. Then as she turned to take her canteen from the saddle, she
+swayed and clutched at the horn.
+
+"You'd better ride," he said and, taking her in his arms, he lifted her
+to the saddle like a child. Then he walked along behind, flogging the
+burro into action, but still they lagged to the rear. The moon rose up
+gleaming and cast black shadows along the sand-dunes, and in the lee of
+the wind-wracked mesquite trees; and from the darkness ahead of them
+they could hear crazy shoutings as Charley belabored his fleeing
+animals. They showed dim and ghostly, as they topped a distant ridge;
+and then Wiley and Virginia were alone. The pack-train, the Colonel and
+Death Valley Charley had vanished behind the crest of a wave; and as
+Wiley stopped to listen Virginia drooped in the saddle and fell, very
+gently, into his arms.
+
+He held her a moment, overcome with sudden pity, and then in a rush of
+unexpected emotion, he crushed her to his breast and kissed her. She was
+his, after all, to cherish, and protect; a frail reed, broken by his
+hand; and as he gave her water and bathed her face he remembered her
+weeping in the night. Her tears had been for him, whom she had followed
+so far only to find him harsh and unforgiving; and now, weak from grief,
+she had fainted in his arms, which had never reached out to console her.
+He gathered her to his breast in a belated atonement and as he kissed
+her again she stirred. Then he put her down, but when she felt his hands
+slacken she reached up and caught him by the neck. So she held him a
+while, until something gave way within him and he pressed his lips to
+hers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+A CLEAN-UP
+
+
+A cool breeze drew down through Emigrant Wash and soothed the fever heat
+of Death Valley, and as the morning star rose up like a blazing beacon,
+Wiley carried Virginia to Stovepipe. They had sat for hours on the
+crest of a sand-hill, looking out over the sea of waves that seemed to
+ride on and mingle in the moonlight, and with no one to listen they had
+talked out their hearts and pledged the future in a kiss. Then they had
+gazed long and rested, looking up at the countless stars that obscured
+the Milky Way with their pin-points; and when the Colonel had found them
+Wiley was carrying her in his arms as if her weight were nothing.
+
+They camped at Stovepipe that day while Virginia gained back her
+strength, and at last they came in sight of Keno. She was riding now and
+Wiley was walking, with his head bowed down in thought; but when he
+looked up she reached out, smiling wistfully, and touched him with her
+hand. But the Colonel strode ahead, his head held high, his eagle eyes
+searching the distance; and when people ran out to greet him he thrust
+them aside, for he had spied Samuel Blount in the crowd.
+
+Blount was standing just outside the Widow's gate and a voice,
+unmistakable, was demanding in frantic haste the return of certain
+shares of stock. It was hardly the time for a business transaction, for
+her husband was returning as from the dead, but a sudden sense of her
+misused stewardship had driven the Widow to distraction.
+
+"What now?" demanded the Colonel, as he appeared upon the scene and his
+wife made a rush to embrace him. "Is this the time for scolding? Why,
+certainly I was alive--why should anybody doubt it? You may await me in
+the house, Aurelia!"
+
+"But Henry!" she wailed. "Oh, I thought you were dead--and this devil
+has robbed me of everything!"
+
+She pointed a threatening finger at Blount, who stepped forward, his
+lower lip trembling.
+
+"Why, how are you, Colonel!" he exclaimed with affected heartiness.
+"Well, well; we thought you were dead."
+
+"So I hear!" observed the Colonel, and looked at him so coldly that
+Blount blushed and withdrew his outstretched hand. "So I hear, sir!" he
+repeated, "but you were misinformed--I have come back to protect my
+rights."
+
+"He took all your stock," cried the Widow, vindictively, "on a loan of
+eight hundred dollars. And now he won't give it back."
+
+"Never mind," returned the Colonel. "I will attend to all that if you
+will go in and cook me some dinner. And next time I leave home I would
+recommend, Madam, that you leave my business affairs alone."
+
+"But Henry," she began, but he gazed at her so sternly that she turned
+and slipped away.
+
+"And you, sir," continued the Colonel, his words ringing out like pistol
+shots as he unloosed his wrath upon Blount, "I would like to inquire
+what excuse you have to offer for imposing on my wife and child? Is it
+true, as I hear, that you have taken my stock on a loan of eight hundred
+dollars?"
+
+"Why--why, no! That is, Colonel Huff----"
+
+"Have you the stock in your possession?" demanded the Colonel
+peremptorily. "Yes or no, now; and no 'buts' about it!"
+
+"Why, yes; I have," admitted Blount in a scared voice, "but I came by it
+according to law!"
+
+"You did not, sir!" retorted the Colonel, "because it was all in my name
+and my wife had no authority to transfer it. Do you deny the fact? Well,
+then give me back my stock or I shall hold you, sir, personally
+responsible!"
+
+Blount started back, for he knew the import of those dread words, and
+then he heaved a great sigh.
+
+"Very well," he said, "but I loaned her eight hundred dollars----"
+
+"Wiley!" called the Colonel, beckoning him quickly from the crowd. "Give
+me the loan of eight hundred dollars."
+
+And at that Blount opened up his eyes.
+
+"Oho!" he said, "so Wiley is with you? Well, just a moment, Mr. Huff."
+He turned to a man who stood beside him. "Arrest that man!" he said. "He
+killed my watchman, George Norcross."
+
+"Not so fast!" rapped out the Colonel, fixing the officer with steely
+eyes. "Mr. Holman is under my protection. Ah, thank you, Wiley--here is
+your money, Mr. Blount, with fifty dollars more for interest. And now I
+will thank you for that stock."
+
+"Do you set yourself up," demanded Blount with sudden bluster, "as being
+above the law?"
+
+"No, sir, I do not," replied the Colonel tartly. "But before we go any
+further I must ask you to restore my stock. Your order is sufficient, if
+the certificates are elsewhere----"
+
+"Well--all right!" sighed Blount, and wrote out an order which Colonel
+Huff gravely accepted. "And now," went on Blount, "I demand that you
+step aside and allow Wiley Holman to be taken."
+
+The Colonel's eyes narrowed, and he motioned the officer aside as he
+laid his own hand on Wiley's shoulder.
+
+"Every citizen of the state," he said with dignity, "has the authority
+to arrest a fugitive--and Mr. Holman is my prisoner. Is that
+satisfactory to you, Mr. Officer?"
+
+"Why--why, yes," stammered the Constable and as the Colonel smiled
+Blount forgot his studied repose. He had been deprived in one minute of
+a block of stock that was worth a round million dollars and the sting of
+his great loss maddened him.
+
+"You may smile, sir," he burst out, "but as sure as there's a law I'll
+put Wiley Holman in the Pen. And if you knew the truth, if you knew what
+he has done; I wonder, now, if you would go to such lengths? You might
+ask your wife how she has fared in your absence--or ask Virginia there!
+Didn't he send her as his messenger, to make a fake payment that would
+have deprived her and her mother of their rights? If it hadn't been for
+me your two hundred thousand shares wouldn't be worth two hundred cents.
+I ask Virginia now--didn't he send you to my bank----"
+
+"What?" demanded the Colonel, suddenly whirling upon his daughter, but
+Virginia avoided his eyes.
+
+"Yes," she said, "he did send me down--and I betrayed my trust. But it's
+just because of that that we'll stand by him now----"
+
+"Virginia!" said the Colonel, speaking with painful distinctness. "Do I
+understand that you were--that woman? And did Mr. Blount here, by any
+means whatever, persuade you to violate your trust?"
+
+"Yes, he did!" cried out Virginia, "but it was all my fault and I don't
+want Mr. Blount blamed for it. I did it out of meanness, but I was sorry
+for it afterwards and--oh, I wonder if I've got any mail." She broke
+away and dashed into the house and the Colonel brushed back his hair.
+
+"A Huff!" he murmured. "My God, what a blow! And Wiley, how can we ever
+repay you?"
+
+"Never mind," answered Wiley as he took the old man's hand. "I don't
+care about the money."
+
+"No, but the wrong, the disgrace," protested the Colonel, brokenly, and
+then he flared up at Blount.
+
+"You scoundrel, sir!" he cried. "How dared you induce my daughter to
+violate her sacred trust? By the gods, Sam Blount, I am greatly
+tempted----"
+
+"It's come!" called Virginia, running gayly down the steps, but at sight
+of her father she stopped. "Well, there it is," she said, putting a
+paper in his hand. "It shows that I was sorry, anyway."
+
+"What is this?" inquired the Colonel, fumbling feebly for his glasses,
+and Virginia snatched the paper away.
+
+"It's a letter from my lawyers!" she said, smiling wickedly. "And we'll
+show it to Mr. Blount."
+
+She took it over and put it in Blount's hands, and as he read the first
+line he turned pale.
+
+"Why--Virginia!" he gasped and then he clutched at his heart and reached
+out quickly for the fence. "Why--why, I thought that was all settled! I
+certainly understood it was--and what authority had you to interfere?"
+
+"Wiley's power of attorney," she answered defiantly, "I fired that
+crooked lawyer, after you'd got him all fixed, and hired a good one with
+my stock."
+
+"My Lord!" moaned Blount, "and after all I'd done for you!" And then he
+collapsed and was borne into the house. But Wiley, who had been so calm,
+suddenly leapt for the letter and read it through to the end.
+
+"Holy--jumping--Judas!" he burst out, running over to the Colonel who
+was standing with lack luster eyes. "Look here what Virginia has done!
+She's bought all Blount's stock, under that option I had, and cleaned
+him--down to a cent. She's won back the mine, and we can all go in
+together----"
+
+"Virginia!" spoke up the Colonel, beckoning her sternly to him. "Come
+down here, I wish to speak to you."
+
+She came down slowly and as her father began to talk the tears rose
+quickly to her eyes, but when Wiley took her hand she smiled back
+wistfully and crept within the circle of his arm.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Shadow Mountain, by Dane Coolidge
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