Rimrock Jones
by Dane Coolidge · English · Gutenberg #20076 · 425,526 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Rimrock Jones
Author: Dane Coolidge
Illustrator: George W. Gage
Release date: December 10, 2006 [eBook #20076]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20076
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIMROCK JONES ***
Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: And as he passed, he looked in
under the shadow of his hat, and touched
a bag that was tied behind his saddle]
RIMROCK JONES
BY
DANE COOLIDGE
AUTHOR OF
THE DESERT TRAIL
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
GEORGE W. GAGE
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE MAN WITH A GUN
II. WHEN RICHES FLY
III. MISS FORTUNE
IV. AS A LOAN
V. THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN
VI. RIMROCK PASSES
VII. BUT COMES BACK FOR MORE
VIII. A FLIER IN STOCKS
IX. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND
X. THE FIGHT FOR THE OLD JUAN
XI. A LITTLE TROUBLE
XII. RIMROCK'S BIG DAY
XIII. THE MORNING AFTER
XIV. RIMROCK EXPLAINS
XV. A GAME FOR BIG STAKES
XVI. THE TIGER LADY
XVII. AN AFTERTHOUGHT
XVIII. NEW YORK
XIX. WHERE ALL MEN MEET
XX. A LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY
XXI. THE SECOND ANNUAL MEETING
XXII. A FOOL
XXIII. SOLD OUT
XXIV. THE NEW YEAR
XXV. AN ACCOUNTING
XXVI. A CHAPTER OF HATE
XXVII. THE SHOW-DOWN
XXVIII. A GIFT
XXIX. RIMROCK DOES IT HIMSELF
ILLUSTRATIONS
And as he passed, he looked in under the shadow
of his hat, and touched a bag that was tied
behind his saddle . . . _Frontispiece_
Rimrock Jones left town with four burro-loads
of powder, some provisions and a cargo of tools
That was Rimrock's notice, but now it was void
for the hour was long after twelve
RIM ROCK JONES
CHAPTER I.
THE MAN WITH A GUN
The peace of midday lay upon Gunsight, broken only by the distant
_chang, chang_ of bells as a ten-mule ore-team came toiling in from the
mines. In the cool depths of the umbrella tree in front of the
Company's office a Mexican ground-dove crooned endlessly his ancient
song of love, but Gunsight took no notice. Its thoughts were not of
love but of money.
The dusty team of mules passed down the street, dragging their
double-trees reluctantly, and took their cursing meekly as they made
the turn at the tracks. A switch engine bumped along the sidings,
snaking ore-cars down to the bins and bunting them up to the chutes,
but except for its bangings and clamor the town was still. An aged
Mexican, armed with a long bunch of willow brush, swept idly at the
sprinkled street and Old Hassayamp Hicks, the proprietor of the Alamo
Saloon, leaned back in his rawhide chair and watched him with
good-natured contempt.
The town was dead, after a manner of speaking, and yet it was not dead.
In the Gunsight Hotel where the officials of the Company left their
women-folks to idle and fret and gossip, there was a restless flash of
white from the upper veranda; and in the office below Andrew McBain,
the aggressive President of the Gunsight Mining and Developing Company,
paced nervously to and fro as he dictated letters to a typist. He
paused, and as the clacking stopped a woman who had been reading a
novel on the veranda rose up noiselessly and listened over the railing.
The new typist was really quite deaf--one could hear every word that
was said. She was pretty, too,--and--well, she dressed too well, for
one thing.
But McBain was not making love to his typist. He had stopped with a
word on his lips and stood gazing out the window. The new typist had
learned to read faces and she followed his glance with a start. Who
was this man that Andrew McBain was afraid of? He came riding in from
the desert, a young man, burly and masterful, mounted on a buckskin
horse and with a pistol slung low on his leg. McBain turned white, his
stern lips drew tighter and he stood where he had stopped in his stride
like a wolf that has seen a fierce dog; then suddenly he swung forward
again and his voice rang out harsh and defiant. The new typist took
the words down at haphazard, for her thoughts were not on her work.
She was thinking of the man with a gun. He had gone by without a
glance, and yet McBain was afraid of him.
A couple of card players came out of the Alamo and stopped to talk with
Hassayamp.
"Well, bless my soul," exclaimed the watchful Hassayamp as he suddenly
brought his chair down with a bump, "if hyer don't come that locoed
scoundrel, Rimrock! Say, that boy's crazy, don't you know he is--jest
look at that big sack of rocks!"
He rose up heavily and stepped out into the street, shading his eyes
from the glare of the sun.
"Hello thar, Rimmy!" he rumbled bluffly as the horseman waved his hand,
"whar you been so long, and nothin' heard of you? There's been a woman
hyer, enquirin' for you, most every day for a month now!"
"'S that so?" responded Rimrock guardedly. "Well, say, boys, I've
struck it rich!"
He leaned back to untie a sack of ore, but Old Hassayamp was not to be
deterred.
"Yes sir," he went on opening up his eyes triumphantly, "a widdy
woman--says you owe her two-bits for some bread!"
He laughed uproariously at this pointed jest and clambered back to the
plank sidewalk where he sat down convulsed in his chair.
"Aw, you make me tired!" said Rimrock shortly. "You know I don't owe
no woman."
"You owe every one else, though," came back Hassayamp with a Texas
yupe; "I got you there, boy. You shore cain't git around that!"
"Huh!" grunted Rimrock as he swung lightly to the ground. "Two bits,
maybe! Four bits! A couple of dollars! What's that to talk about
when a man is out after millions? Is my credit good for the drinks?
Well, come on in then, boys; and I'll show you something good!"
He led the way through the swinging doors and Hassayamp followed
ponderously. The card players followed also and several cowboys,
appearing as if by miracle, lined up along with the rest. Old
Hassayamp looked them over grimly, breathed hard and spread out the
glasses.
"Well, all right, Rim," he observed, "between friends--but don't bid in
the whole town."
"When I drink, my friends drink," answered Rimrock and tossed off his
first drink in a month. "Now!" he went on, fetching out his sack,
"I'll show you something good!"
He poured out a pile of blue-gray sand and stood away from it
admiringly.
Old Hassayamp drew out his glasses and balanced them on his nose, then
he gazed at the pile of sand.
"Well," he said, "what is it, anyway?"
"It's copper, by grab, mighty nigh ten per cent copper, and you can
scoop it up with a shovel. There's worlds of it, Hassayamp, a whole
doggoned mountain! That's the trouble, there's almost too much! I
can't handle it, man, it'll take millions to do it; but believe me, the
millions are there. All I need is a stake now, just a couple of
thousand dollars----"
"Huh!" grunted Hassayamp looking up over his glasses, "you don't reckon
I've got that much, do you, to sink in a pile of _sand_?"
"If not you, then somebody else," replied Rimrock confidently. "Some
feller that's out looking for sand. I heard about a sport over in
London that tried on a bet to sell five-pound notes for a shilling.
That's like me offering to sell you twenty-five dollars for the English
equivalent of two bits. And d'ye think he could get anyone to take
'em? He stood up on a soap box and waved those notes in the air, but
d'ye think he could get anybody to buy?"
He paused with a cynical smile and looked Hassayamp in the eye.
"Well--no," conceded Hassayamp weakly.
"You bet your life he could!" snapped back Rimrock. "A guy came along
that knowed. He took one look at those five-pound notes and handed up
fifty cents."
"'I'll take two of 'em,' he says; and walks off with fifty dollars!"
Rimrock scooped up his despised sand and poured it back into the bag,
after which he turned on his heel. As the doors swung to behind him
Old Hassayamp looked at his customers and shook his head impressively.
From the street outside Rimrock could be heard telling a Mexican in
Spanish to take his horse to the corrals. He was master of Gunsight
yet, though all his money had vanished and his credit would buy nothing
but the drinks.
"Well, what d'ye know about that?" observed Hassayamp meditatively.
"By George, sometimes I almost think that boy is right!"
He cleared his throat and hobbled towards the door and the crowd took
the hint to disperse.
On the edge of the shady sidewalk Rimrock Jones, the follower after big
dreams, sat silent, balancing the sack of ore in a bronzed and
rock-scarred hand. He was a powerful man, with the broad, square-set
shoulders that come from much swinging of a double jack or cranking at
a windlass. The curling beard of youth had covered his hard-bitten
face and his head was unconsciously thrust forward, as if he still
glimpsed his vision and was eager to follow it further. The crowd
settled down and gazed at him curiously, for they knew he had a story
to tell, and at last the great Rimrock sighed and looked at his
work-worn hands.
"Hard going," he said, glancing up at Hassayamp. "I've got a ten-foot
hole to sink on twenty different claims, no powder, and nothing but
Mexicans for help. But I sure turned up some good ore--she gets richer
the deeper you go."
"Any gold?" enquired Hassayamp hopefully.
"Yes, but pocketty. I leave all that chloriding to the Mexicans while
I do my discovery work. They've got some picked rock on the dump."
"Why don't you quit that dead work and do a little chloriding yourself?
Pound out a little gold--that's the way to get a stake!"
Old Hassayamp spat the words out impatiently, but Rimrock seemed hardly
to hear.
"Nope," he said, "no pocket-mining for me. There's copper there,
millions of tons of it. I'll make my winning yet."
"Huh!" grunted Hassayamp, and Rimrock came out of his trance.
"You don't think so, hey?" he challenged and then his face softened to
a slow, reminiscent smile.
"Say, Hassayamp," he said, "did you ever hear about that prospector
that found a thousand pounds of gold in one chunk? He was lost on the
desert, plumb out of water and forty miles from nowhere. He couldn't
take the chunk along with him and if he left it there the sand would
cover it up. Now what was that poor feller to do?"
"Well, what did he do?" enquired Hassayamp cautiously.
"He couldn't make up his mind," answered Rimrock, "so he stayed there
till he starved to death."
"You're plumb full of these sayings and parables, ain't you?" remarked
Hassayamp sarcastically. "What's that got to do with the case?"
"Well," began Rimrock, sitting down on the edge of the sidewalk and
looking absently up the street, "take me, for instance. I go out
across the desert to the Tecolotes and find a whole mountain of copper.
You don't have to chop it out with chisels, like that native copper
around the Great Lakes; and you don't have to go underground and do
timbering like they do around Bisbee and Cananea. All you have to do
is to shoot it down and scoop it up with a steam shovel. Now I've
located the whole danged mountain and done most of my discovery work,
but if some feller don't give me a boost, like taking that prospector a
canteen of water, I've either got to lose my mine or sit down and
starve to death. If I'd never done anything, it'd be different, but
you know that I _made_ the Gunsight."
He leaned forward and fixed the saloon keeper with his earnest eyes and
Old Hassayamp held up both hands.
"Yes, yes, boy, I know!" he broke out hurriedly. "Don't talk to
me--I'm convinced. But by George, Rim, you can spend more money and
have less to show for it than any man I know. What's the use? That's
what we all say. What's the use of staking you when you'll turn right
around in front of us and throw the money away? Ain't I staked you?
Ain't L. W. staked you?"
"Yes! And he broke me, too!" answered Rimrock, raising his voice to a
defiant boom. "Here he comes now, the blue-faced old dastard!"
He thrust out his jaw and glared up the street where L. W. Lockhart,
the local banker, came stumping down the sidewalk. L. W. was tall and
rangy, with a bulldog jaw clamped down on a black cigar, and an air of
absolute detachment from his surroundings.
"Yes, I mean you!" shouted Rimrock insultingly as L. W. went grimly
past. "You claim to be a white man, and then stand in with that lawyer
to beat me out of my mine. I made you, you old nickel-pincher, and now
you go by me and don't even say: 'Have a drink!'"
"You're drunk!" retorted Lockhart, looking back over his shoulder, and
Rimrock jumped to his feet.
"I'll show you!" he cried, starting angrily after him, and L. W. turned
swiftly to meet him.
"You'll show me _what_?" he demanded coldly as Rimrock put his hand to
his gun.
"Never mind!" answered Rimrock. "You know you jobbed me. I let you in
on a good thing and you sold me out to McBain. I want some money and
if you don't give it to me I'll--I'll go over and collect from him."
"Oh, you want some money, hey?" repeated Lockhart. "I thought you was
going to _show_ me something!"
The banker scowled as he rolled his cigar, but there was a twinkle far
back in his eyes. "You're bad now, ain't you?" he continued
tauntingly. "You're just feeling awful! You're going to jump on Lon
Lockhart and stomp him into the ground! Huh!"
"Aw, shut your mouth!" answered Rimrock defiantly, "I never said a word
about fight."
"Uhhr!" grunted L. W. and put his hand in his pocket at which Rimrock
became suddenly expectant.
"Henry Jones," began the banker, "I knowed your father and he was an
honorable, hardworking man. You're nothing but a bum and you're
getting worse--why don't you go and put up that gun?"
"I don't have to!" retorted Rimrock but he moved up closer and there
was a wheedling turn to his voice. "Just two thousand dollars,
Lon--that's all I ask of you--and I'll give you a share in my mine.
Didn't I come to you first, when I discovered the Gunsight, and give
you the very best claim? And you ditched me, L. W., dad-burn you, you
know it; you sold me out to McBain. But I've got something now that
runs up into millions! All it needs is a little more work!"
"Yes, and forty miles of railroad," put in L. W. intolerantly. "I
wouldn't take the whole works for a gift!"
"No, but Lon, I'm lucky--you know that yourself--I can go East and sell
the old mine."
"Oh, you're lucky, are you?" interrupted L. W. "Well, how come then
that you're standing here, broke? But here, I've got business, I'll
give you ten dollars--and remember, it's the last that you get!"
He drew out a bill, but Rimrock stood looking at him with a slow and
contemptuous smile.
"Yes, you doggoned old screw," he answered ungraciously, "what good
will ten dollars do?"
"You can get just as drunk on that," replied L. W. pointedly, "as you
could on a hundred thousand!"
A change came over Rimrock's face, the swift mirroring of some great
idea, and he reached out and grabbed the money.
"Where you going?" demanded L. W. as he started across the street.
"None of your business," answered Rimrock curtly, but he headed
straight for the Mint.
CHAPTER II
WHEN RICHES FLY
The Mint was Gunsight's only gambling house. It had a bar, of course,
and a Mexican string band that played from eight o'clock on; besides a
roulette wheel, a crap table, two faro layouts, and monte for the
Mexicans. But the afternoon was dull and the faro dealer was idly
shuffling a double stack of chips when Rimrock brushed in through the
door. Half an hour afterwards the place was crowded and all the games
were running big. Such is the force of example--especially when you
win.
Rimrock threw his bill on the table, bought a stack of white chips,
placed it on the queen and told the dealer to turn 'em. The queen won
and Rimrock took his chips and played as the spirit moved. He won
more, for the house was unlucky from the start, and soon others began
to ride his bets. If he bet on the seven, eager hands reached over his
shoulder and placed more chips on the seven. Petty winners drifted off
to try their luck at monte, the sports took a flier at roulette; and as
the gambling spirit, so subtly fed, began to rise to a fever, Rimrock
Jones, the cause of all this heat, bet more and more--and still won.
It was at the height of the excitement when, with half of the checks in
the rack in front of him, Rimrock was losing and winning by turns, that
the bull-like rumble of L. W. Lockhart came drifting in to him above
the clamor of the crowd.
"Why don't you quit, you fool?" the deep voice demanded. "Cash in and
quit--you've got your stake!"
Rimrock made a gesture of absent-minded impatience and watched the slow
turn of the cards. Not even the dealer or the hawk-eyed lookout was
more intently absorbed in the game. He knew every card that had been
played and he bet where the odds were best. Every so often a long,
yellow hand reached past him and laid a bet by his stake. It was the
hand of a Chinaman, those most passionate of faro players, and at such
times, seeing it follow his luck, the face of Rimrock lightened up with
the semblance of a smile. He called the last turn and they paused for
the drinks, while the dealer mopped his brow.
"Where's Ike?" he demanded. "Well, somebody call him--he's hiding out,
asleep, upstairs."
"Yes, wake him up!" shouted Rimrock boastfully. "Tell him Rimrock
Jones is here."
"Aw, pull out, you sucker!" blared L. W. in his ear, but Rimrock only
shoved out his bets.
"Ten on the ace," droned the anxious dealer, "the jack is coppered.
All down?"
He held up his hand and as the betting ceased he slowly pushed out the
two cards.
"Tray loses, ace wins!" he announced and Rimrock won again.
Then he straightened up purposefully and looked about as he sorted his
winnings into piles.
"The whole works on the queen," he said to the dealer and a hush fell
upon the crowd.
"Where's Ike?" shrilled the dealer, but the boss was not to be found
and he dealt, unwillingly, for a queen. But the fear was on him and
his thin hands trembled; for Ike Bray was not the type of your
frozen-faced gambler--he expected his dealers to win. The dealer
shoved them out, and an oath slipped past his lips.
"Queen wins," he quavered, "the bank is broke." And he turned the box
on its side.
A shout went up--the glad yell of the multitude--and Rimrock rose up
grinning.
"Who said to pull out?" he demanded arrogantly, looking about for the
glowering L. W. "Huh, huh!" he chuckled, "quit your luck when you're
winning? Quit your luck and your luck will quit you--the drinks for
the house, barkeep!"
He was standing at the bar, stuffing money into his pockets, when Ike
Bray, the proprietor, appeared. Rimrock turned, all smiles, as he
heard his voice on the stairs and lolled back against the bar. More
than once in the past Bray had taken his roll but now it was his turn
to laugh.
"Lemme see," he remarked as he felt Bray's eyes upon him, "I wonder how
much I win."
He drew out the bills from his faded overalls and began laboriously to
count them out into his hat.
Ike Bray stopped and looked at him, a little, twisted man with his hair
still rumpled from the bed.
"Where's that dealer?" he shrilled in his high, complaining voice.
"I'll kill the danged piker--that bank ain't broke yet--I got a big
roll, right here!"
He waved it in the air and came limping forward until he stood facing
Rimrock Jones.
"You think you broke me, do you?" he demanded insolently as Rimrock
looked up from his count.
"You can see for yourself," answered Rimrock contentedly, and held out
his well-filled hat.
"You're a piker!" yelled Bray. "You don't dare to come back at me.
I'll play you one turn win or lose--for your pile!"
A hundred voices rang out at once, giving Rimrock all kinds of advice,
but L. W.'s rose above them all.
"Don't you do it!" he roared. "He'll clean you, for a certainty!" But
Rimrock's blue eyes were aflame.
"All right, Mr. Man," he answered on the instant, and went over and sat
down in his chair. "But bring me a new pack and shuffle 'em clean, and
I'll do the cutting myself."
"Ahhr!" snarled Bray, who was in villainous humor, as he hurled himself
into his place. "Y'needn't make no cracks--I'm on the square--and I'll
take no lip from anybody!"
"Well, shuffle 'em up then," answered Rimrock quietly, "and when I feel
like it I'll make my bet."
It was the middle of the night, as Bray's days were divided, and even
yet he was hardly awake; but he shuffled the cards until Rimrock was
satisfied and then locked them into the box. The case-keeper sat
opposite, to keep track of the cards, and a look-out on the stand at
one end, and while a mob of surging onlookers fought at their backs
they watched the slow turning of the cards.
"Why don't you bet?" snapped Bray; but Rimrock jerked his head and
beckoned him to go on.
"Yes, and lose half on splits," he answered grimly, "I'll bet when it
comes the last turn."
The deal went on till only three cards remained in the bottom of the
box. By the record of the case-keeper they were the deuce and the
jack--the top card, already shown, did not count.
"The jack," said Rimrock and piled up his money on the enameled card on
the board.
"You lose," rasped out Bray without waiting for the turn and then drew
off the upper card. The jack lay, a loser, in the box below and as he
shoved it slowly out the deuce appeared underneath.
"How'd you know?" flashed back Rimrock as Bray reached for his money,
but the gambler laughed in his face.
"I outlucked you, you yap," he answered harshly. "That dealer--he
wasn't worth hell room!"
"Gimme a fiver to eat on!" demanded Rimrock as Bray banked the money,
but he flipped him fifty cents. It was the customary stake, the sop
thrown by the gambler to the man who has lost his last cent, and Bray
sloughed it without losing his count.
"Go on, now," he said, still keeping to the formula, "go back and
polish a drill!"
It was the form of dismissal for the hardrock miners whose earnings he
was wont to take, but Rimrock was not particular.
"All right, Ike," he said and as he drifted out the door his prosperity
friends disappeared. Only L. W. remained, a scornful twist to his
lips, and the sight of him left Rimrock sick. "Yes, rub it in!" he
said defiantly and L. W., too, walked away.
In his sober moments--when he was out on the desert or slugging away
underground--Rimrock Jones was neither childish nor a fool. He was a
serious man, with great hopes before him; and a past, not ignoble,
behind. But after months of solitude, of hard, yegging work and hopes
deferred, the town set his nerves all a-tingle--even Gunsight, a mere
dot on the map--and he was drunk before he took his first drink. Drunk
with mischief and spontaneous laughter, drunk with good stories untold,
new ideas, great thoughts, high ambitions. But now he had had his
fling.
With fifty cents to eat on, and one more faro game behind him, Rimrock
stood thoughtfully on the corner and asked the old question: What next?
He had won, and he had lost. He had made the stake that would have
taken him far towards his destiny; and then he had dropped it,
foolishly, by playing another man's game. He could see it now; but
then, we all can--the question was, what next?
"Well, I'll eat," he said at last and went across the street to Woo
Chong's. "The American Restaurant" was the way the sign read, but
Americans don't run restaurants in Arizona. They don't know how. Woo
Chong had fed forty miners when he ran the cookhouse for Rimrock, for
half what a white man could; and when Rimrock had lost his mine, at the
end of a long lawsuit, Woo Chong had followed him to town. There was a
long tally on the wall, the longest of all, which told how many meals
Rimrock owed him for; but Rimrock knew he was welcome. Adversity had
its uses and he had learned, among other things, that his best friends
were now Chinamen and Mexicans. To them, at least, he was still El
Patron--the Boss!
"Hello there, Woo!" he shouted at the doorway and a rapid-fire of
Chinese ceased. The dining-room was deserted, but from the kitchen in
the rear he could hear the shuffling slippers of Woo.
"Howdy-do, Misse' Jones!" exclaimed Woo in great excitement as he came
hurrying out to meet him. "I see you--few minutes ago--ove' Ike Blay's
place! You blakum falo bank, no?"
"No, I lose," answered Rimrock honestly. "Ike Bray, he gave me this to
eat on."
He showed the fifty-cent piece and sat down at a table whereat Woo
Chong began to giggle hysterically.
"Aw! Allee time foolee me," he grinned facetiously. "You no see me
the'? Me playum, too. Win ten dolla', you bet!"
"Well, all right, Woo," said Rimrock. "Just give me something to
eat--we won't quarrel about who won."
He leaned back in his chair and Woo Chong said no more till he appeared
again with a T-bone steak.
"You ketchum mine, pletty soon?" he questioned anxiously. "All lite,
me come back and cook."
Rimrock sighed and went to eating and Woo remembered the coffee, but
somehow even that failed to cheer.
A shadow of doubt came across Woo's watchful face and he hurried away
for more bread.
"You no bleakum bank?" he enquired at last and Rimrock shook his head.
"No, Woo," he said, "Ike Bray, he came down and win all my money back."
"Aw, too bad!" breathed Woo Chong and slipped quietly away; but after a
while he came back.
"Too bad!" he repeated. "You my fliend, Misse' Jones." And he laid
five dollars by his hand.
"Ah, no, no!" protested Rimrock, rising up from his place as if he had
suffered a blow. "No money, Woo. You give me my grub and that's
enough--I haven't got down to that!"
Woo Chong went away--he knew how to make gifts easy--and Rimrock stood
looking at the gold. Then he picked it up, slowly, and as slowly
walked out, and stood leaning against a post.
There is one street in Gunsight, running grandly down to the station;
but the rest is mostly vacant lots and scattered adobe houses, creeping
out into the infinitude of the desert. At noon, when he had come to
town, the street was deserted, but now it was coming to life.
Wild-eyed Mexican boys, mounted on bare-backed ponies, came galloping
up from the corrals; freight wagons drifted past, hauling supplies to
distant mining camps; and at last, as he stood there thinking, the
women began to come out of the hotel.
All day they stayed there, idle, useless, on the shaded veranda above
the street; and then, when the sun was low, they came forth like
indolent butterflies to float up and down the street. They sauntered
by in pairs, half-hidden beneath silk parasols, and their skirts
swished softly as they passed. Rimrock eyed them sullenly, for a black
mood was on him--he was thinking of his lost mine. Their faces were
powdered to an unnatural whiteness and their hair was elaborately
coiffed; their dresses, too, were white and filmy and their high heels
clacked as they walked. But who was keeping these women, these wives
of officials, and superintendents and mining engineers? Did they
glance at the man who had discovered their mine and built up the town
where they lived? Well, probably they did, but not so as he could
notice it and take off his battered old hat.
Rimrock looked up the road and, far out across the desert, he could see
his own pack-train, coming in. There was money to be got, to buy
powder and grub, but who would trust Rimrock Jones now? Not the
Gunsight crowd, not McBain and his hirelings--they needed the money for
their women! He gazed at them scowling as they went pacing by him,
with their eyes fixed demurely on space; and all too well he knew that,
beneath their lashes, they watched him and knew him well. Yes, and
spoke to each other, when they were off up the street, of what a bum he
had become. That was women--he knew it--the idle kind; they judged a
man by his roll.
The pack-train strung by, each burro with its saw-horse saddle, and old
Juan and his boy behind.
"Al corral!" directed Rimrock as they looked at him expectantly, and
then he remembered something.
"Oyez, Juan," he beckoned, calling his man servant up to him, "here's
five dollars--go buy some beans and flour. It is nothing, Juanito,
I'll have more pretty soon--and here's four bits, you can buy you a
drink."
He smiled benevolently and Juan touched his hat and went sidling off
like a crab and then once more the black devil came back to plague him,
hissing Money, _Money_, MONEY! He looked up the street and a plan,
long formless, took sudden shape in his brain. There was yet McBain,
the horse-leech of a lawyer who had beaten him out of his claim. More
than once, in black moments, he had threatened to kill him; but now he
was glad he had not. Men even raised skunks, when the bounty on them
was high enough, and took the pay out of their hides. It was the same
with McBain. If he didn't come through--Rimrock shook up his
six-shooter and stalked resolutely off up the street.
The office of the Company was on the ground floor of the hotel--the
corner room, with a rented office beyond--and as Rimrock came towards
it he saw a small sign, jutting out from the farther door:
MARY ROGET FORTUNE
TYPEWRITING.
He glanced at it absently, for strange emotions came over him as he
peered in through that plateglass window. It had been his office, this
same expensive room; and he had been robbed of it, under cover of the
law. He shaded his eyes from the glare of the street and looked in at
the mahogany desk. It was vacant--the whole place was vacant--and
silently he tried the door. That was locked. McBain had seen him and
slipped away till he should get out of town.
"The sneaking cur!" muttered Rimrock in a fury and a passing woman drew
away and half-screamed. He ignored her, pondering darkly, and then to
his ears there came a familiar voice. He listened, intently, and
raised his head; then tiptoed along the wall. That voice, and he knew
it, belonged to Andrew McBain, the man that stole mines for a living.
He paused at the door where Mary Fortune had her sign, then suddenly
forced his way in.
Without thinking, impulsively, he had moved towards that voice as a man
follows some irresistible call. He opened the door and stood blinking
in the doorway, his hand on the pistol at his side. Then he blinked
again, for in the gloom of the back office there was nothing but a desk
and a girl. She wore a harness over her head, like a telephone
operator, and rose up to meet him tremulously.
"Is there anything you wish?" she asked him quietly and Rimrock fumbled
and took off his hat.
"Yes--I was looking for a man," he said at last. "I thought I heard
him--just now."
He came down towards her, still looking about him, and there was a stir
from behind the desk.
"No, I think you're mistaken," she answered bravely, but he could see
the telltale fear in her eyes.
"You know who I mean!" he broke out roughly, "and I guess you know why
I've come!"
"No, I don't," she answered, "but--but this is my office and I hope you
won't make any trouble."
The words came with a rush, once she found her courage, but the appeal
was lost upon Rimrock.
"He's here, then!" he said. "Well, you tell him to come out. I'd like
to talk with him on business--alone!"
He took a step forward and then suddenly from behind the desk a shadow
rose up and fled. It was Andrew McBain, and as he dashed for the rear
door the girl valiantly covered his retreat. There was a quick slap of
the latch, a scuffle behind her, and the door came shut with a bang.
"Oho!" said Rimrock as she faced him panting, "he must be a friend of
yourn."
"No, he isn't," she answered instantly, and then a smile crept into her
eyes. "But he's--well, he's my principal customer."
"Oh," said Rimrock grimly, "well, I'll let him live then. Good-bye."
He turned away, still intent on his purpose, but at the door she called
him back.
"What's that?" he asked as if awakened from a dream. "Why, yes, if you
don't mind, I will."
CHAPTER III
MISS FORTUNE
It was very informal, to say the least, for Mary Fortune to invite him
to stay. To be sure, she knew him--he was the man with the gun, the
man of whom McBain was afraid--but that was all the more reason, to a
reasoning woman, why she should keep silent and let him depart. But
there was a business-like brevity about him, a single-minded
directness, that struck her as really unique. Quite apart from the
fact that it might save McBain, she wanted him to stay there and talk.
At least so she explained it, the evening afterwards, to her censorious
other-self. What she did was spontaneous, on the impulse of the
moment, and without any reason whatever.
"Oh, won't you sit down a moment?" she had murmured politely; and the
savage, fascinating Westerner, after one long look, had with equal
politeness accepted.
"Yes, indeed," he answered when he had got his wits together, "you're
very kind to ask me, I'm sure."
He came back then, a huge, brown, ragged animal and sat down, very
carefully, in her spare chair. Why he did so when his business, not to
mention a just revenge, was urgently calling him thence, was a question
never raised by Rimrock Jones. Perhaps he was surprised beyond the
point of resistance; but it is still more likely that, without his
knowing it, he was hungry to hear a woman's voice. His black mood left
him, he forgot what he had come there for, and sat down to wonder and
admire.
He looked at her curiously, and his eyes for one brief moment took in
the details of the headband over her ear; then he smiled to himself in
his masterful way as if the sight of her pleased him well. There was
nothing about her to remind him of those women who stalked up and down
the street; she was tall and slim with swift, capable hands, and every
line of her spoke subtly of style. Nor was she lacking in those
qualities of beauty which we have come to associate with her craft.
She had quiet brown eyes that lit up when she smiled, a high nose and
masses of hair. But across that brown hair that a duchess might have
envied lay the metal clip of her ear-'phone, and in her dark eyes,
bright and steady as they were, was that anxious look of the deaf.
"I hope I wasn't rude," she stammered nervously as she sat down and met
his glance.
"Oh, no," he said with the same carefree directness, "it was me, I
reckon, that was rude. I certainly didn't count on meeting a lady when
I came in here looking for--well, McBain. He won't be back, I reckon.
Kind of interferes with business, don't it?"
He paused and glanced at the rear door and the typist smiled,
discreetly.
"Oh, no," she said. And then, lowering her voice: "Have you had
trouble with Mr. McBain?"
"Yes, I have," he answered. "You may have heard of me--my name is
Henry Jones."
"Oh--_Rimrock_ Jones?"
Her eyes brightened instantly as he slowly nodded his head.
"That's me," he said. "I used to run this whole town--I'm the man that
discovered the mines."
"What, the Gunsight mines? Why, I thought Mr. McBain----"
"McBain _what_?"
"Why, I thought _he_ discovered the mines."
Rimrock straightened up angrily, then he sat back in his chair and
shook his head at her cynically.
"He didn't need to," he answered. "All he had to do was to discover an
error in the way I laid out my claim. Then he went before a judge that
was as crooked as he was and the rest you can see for yourself."
He thrust his thumb scornfully through a hole in his shirt and waved a
hand in the direction of the office.
"No, he cleaned me out, using a friend of mine; and now I'm down to
nothing. What do you think of a law that will take away a man's mine
because it apexes on another man's claim? I discovered this mine and I
formed the company, keeping fifty-one per cent. of the stock. I opened
her up and she was paying big, when Andy McBain comes along. A shyster
lawyer--that's the best you can say for him--but he cleaned me, down to
a cent."
"I don't understand," she said at last as he seemed to expect some
reply. "About these apexes--what are they, anyway? I've only been
West a few months."
"Well, I've been West all my life, and I've hired some smart lawyers,
and I don't know what an apex is yet. But in a general way it's the
high point of an ore-body--the highest place where it shows above
ground. But the law works out like this: every time a man finds a mine
and opens it up till it pays these apex sharps locate the high ground
above him and contest the title to his claim. You can't do that in
Mexico, nor in Canada, nor in China--this is the only country in the
world where a mining claim don't go straight down. But under the law,
when you locate a lode, you can follow that vein, within an extension
of your end-lines, under anybody's ground. _Anybody's_!"
He shifted his chair a little closer and fixed her with his fighting
blue eyes.
"Now, just to show you how it works," he went on, "take me, for
instance. I was just an ordinary ranch kid, brought up so far back in
the mountains that the boys all called me Rimrock, and I found a rich
ledge of rock. I staked out a claim for myself, and the rest for my
folks and my friends, and then we organized the Gunsight Mining
Company. That's the way we all do, out here--one man don't hog it all,
he does something for his friends. Well, the mine paid big, and if I
didn't manage it just right I certainly never meant any harm. Of
course I spent lots of money--some objected to that--but I made the old
Gunsight pay.
"Then--" he raised his finger and held it up impressively as he marked
the moment of his downfall--"then this McBain came along and edged into
the Company and right from that day, I lose. He took on as attorney,
but it wasn't but a minute till he was trying to be the whole show.
You can't stop that man, short of killing him dead, and I haven't got
around to that yet. But he bucked me from the start and set everybody
against me and finally he cut out Lon Lockhart. There was a man, by
Joe, that I'd stake my life on it he'd never go back on a friend; but
he threw in with this lawyer and brought a suit against me, and just
naturally took--away--my--mine!"
Rimrock's breast was heaving with an excitement so powerful that the
girl instinctively drew away; but he went on, scarcely noticing, and
with a fixed glare in his eyes that was akin to the stare of a madman.
"Yes, took it away; and here's how they did it," he went on, suddenly
striving to be calm. "The first man I staked for, after my father and
kin folks, was L. W. Lockhart over here. He was a cowman then and he
had some money and I figured on bidding him in. So I staked him a good
claim, above mine on the mountain, and sure enough, he came into the
Company. He financed me, from the start; but he kept this claim for
himself without putting it in with the rest. Well, as luck would have
it, when we sunk on the ledge, it turned at right angles up the hill.
Up and down, she went--it was the main lode of quartz and we'd been
following in on a stringer--and _rich_? Oh, my, it was rotten!"
He paused and smiled wanly, then his eyes became fixed again, and he
hurried on with his tale.
"I was standing out in front of my office one day when Tuck Edwards,
the boy I had in charge of the mine, came riding up and says:
"'Rim, they've jumped you!'
"'Who jumped me?' I says.
"'Andrew McBain and L. W.!' he says and I thought at first he was crazy.
"'Jumped our mine?' I says. 'How can they jump it when it's part their
own already?'
"'They've jumped it all,' he says. 'They had a mining expert out there
for a week and he's made a report that the lode apexes on L. W.'s
claim.'
"I couldn't believe it. L. W.? I'd made him. He used to be nothing
but a cowman; and here he was in town, a banker. No, I couldn't
believe it; and when I did it was too late. They'd taken possession of
the property and had a court order restraining me from going onto the
grounds. Not only did they claim the mine, but every dollar it had
produced, the mill, the hotel, everything! And the judge backed them
up in it--what kind of a law is that?"
He leaned forward and looked her in the eyes and Mary Fortune realized
that she was being addressed not as a woman, impersonally, but as a
human being.
"What kind of a law is that?" he demanded sternly and took the answer
for granted.
"That cured me," he said. "After this, here's the only law I know."
He tapped his pistol and leaned back in his chair, smiling grimly as
she gazed at him, aghast.
"Yes, I know," he went on, "it don't sound very good, but it's that or
lay down to McBain. The judges are no better--they're just promoted
lawyers----"
He checked himself for she had risen from her chair and her eyes were
no longer scared.
"Excuse me," she said, "my father was a judge." And Rimrock reached
for his hat.
"Whereabouts?" he asked, groping for a chance to square himself.
"Oh--back East," she said evasively, and Rimrock heaved a sigh of
relief.
"Aw, that's different," he answered. "I was just talking about the
Territory. Well, say, I'll be moving along."
He rose quickly, but as he started for the door a rifle-cartridge fell
from his torn pocket. It rolled in a circle and as he stooped swiftly
to catch it the bullet came out like a cork and let spill a thin yellow
line.
"What's that?" she asked as he dropped to his knees; and he answered
briefly:
"Gold!"
"What--real gold?" she cried rapturously, "gold from a mine? Oh, I'd
like----"
She stopped short and Rimrock chuckled as he scooped up the elusive
dust.
"All right," he said as he rose to his feet, "I'll make you a present
of it, then," and held out the cartridge of gold.
"Oh, I couldn't!" she thrilled, but he only smiled encouragingly and
poured out the gold in her hand.
"It's nothing," he said, "just the clean-up from a pocket. I run
across a little once in a while."
A panic came over her as she felt the telltale weight of it, and she
hastily poured it back.
"I can't take it, of course," she said with dignity, "but it was awful
good of you to offer it, I'm sure."
"Aw, what do we care?" he protested lightly, but she handed the corked
cartridge back. Then she stood off and looked at him and the huge man
in overalls became suddenly a Croesus in her eyes.
"Is that from your mine?" she asked at last and of a sudden his bronzed
face lighted up.
"You bet it is--but look at this!" and he fetched a polished rock from
his pocket. "That's azurite," he said, "nearly forty per cent. copper!
I'm not telling everybody, but I find big chunks of that, and I've got
a whole mountain of low-grade. What's a gold mine compared to that?"
He gave her the rich rock with its peacock-blue coloring and plunged
forthwith into a description of his find. Now at last he was himself
and to his natural enthusiasm was added the stimulus of her spellbound,
wondering eyes. He talked on and on, giving all the details, and she
listened like one entranced. He told of his long trips across the
desert, his discovery of the neglected mountain of low-grade copper
ore; and then of his enthusiasm when in making a cut he encountered a
pocket of the precious peacock-blue azurite. And then of his scheming
and hiring American-born Mexicans to locate the whole body of ore,
after which he engaged them to do the discovery work and later transfer
the claims to him. And now, half-finished, with no money to pay them,
and not even food to keep them content, the Mexicans had quit work and
unless he brought back provisions all his claims would go by default.
"I've got a chance," he went on fiercely, "to make millions, if I can
only get title to those claims! And now, by grab, after all I've done
for 'em, these pikers won't advance me a cent!"
"How much would it cost?" she asked him quickly, "to finish the work
and pay off the men?"
"Two thousand dollars," he answered wearily. "But it might as well be
a million."
"Would--would four hundred dollars help you?"
She asked it eagerly, impulsively, almost in his ear, and he turned as
if he had been struck.
"Don't speak so loud," she implored him nervously. "These women in the
hotel--they're listening to everything you say. I can hear all right
if you only whisper--would four hundred dollars help you out?"
"Not of your money!" answered Rimrock hoarsely. "No, by God, I'll
never come to that!"
He started away, but she caught him by the arm and held him back till
he stopped.
"But I want to do it!" she persisted. "It's a good thing--I believe in
it--and I've got the money!"
He stopped and looked at her, almost tempted by her offer; then he
shook his great head like a bull.
"No!" he said, talking half to himself. "I won't do it--I've sunk low
enough. But a woman? Nope, I won't do it."
"Oh, quit your foolishness!" she burst out impatiently, "I guess I know
my own mind. I came out to this country to try and recoup myself and I
want to get in on this mine. No sentiment, understand me, I'm talking
straight business; and I've got the money--right here!"
"Well, what do you want for it?" he demanded roughly. "If that's the
deal, what's your cut? I never saw you before, nor you me. How much
do you want--if we win?"
"I want a share in the mine," she answered instantly. "I don't
care--whatever you say!"
"Well, I'll go you," he said. "Now give me the money and I'll try to
make both of us rich!"
His voice was trembling and he followed every movement as she stepped
back behind her desk.
"Just look out the window," she said as he waited; and Rimrock turned
his head. There was a rustle of skirts and a moment later she laid a
roll of bills in his hand.
"Just give me a share," she said again and suddenly he met her eyes.
"How about fifty-fifty--an undivided half?" he asked with a dizzy smile.
"Too much," she said. "I'm talking business."
"All right," he said. "But so am I."
CHAPTER IV
AS A LOAN
Rimrock Jones left town with four burro-loads of powder, some
provisions and a cargo of tools. He paid cash for his purchases and
answered no question beyond saying that he knew his own business. No
one knew or could guess where he had got his money--except Miss
Fortune, and she would not tell. From the very first she had told
herself that the loan was nothing to hide, and yet she was too much of
a woman not to have read aright the beacon in Rimrock's eyes. He had
spoken impulsively, and so had she; and they had parted, as it turned
out, for months.
[Illustration: Rimrock Jones left town with four burro-loads of powder,
some provisions and a cargo of tools]
The dove that had crooned so long in the umbrella tree built a nest
there and cooed on to his mate. The clear, rainless winter gave place
to spring and the giant cactus burst into flower. It rained, short and
hard, and the desert floor took on suddenly a fine mat of green; and
still he did not come. He was like the rain, this wild man of the
desert; swift and fierce, then gone and forgotten. Once she saw his
Mexican, the old, bearded Juan, with his string of shaggy burros at the
store; but he brought her no word and went off the next day with more
powder and provisions in his packs.
It was all new to Mary Fortune, this stern and barren country; and its
people were new to her, too. The women, for some reason, had regarded
her with suspicion and her answer was a patrician aloofness and
reserve. When the day's work was done she took off her headband and
sat reading in the lobby, alone. As for the men of the hotel, the
susceptible young mining men who passed to and fro from Gunsight, they
found her pleasant, but not quite what they had expected--not quite
what Dame Rumor had painted her. They watched her from the distance,
for she was undeniably goodlooking--and so did the women upstairs.
They watched, and they listened, which was not the least of the reasons
why Mary Fortune laid her ear-'phone aside. No person can enjoy the
intimacies of life when they are shouted, ill-advisedly, to the world.
But if when she first came to town, worn and tired from her journey,
she had seemed more deaf than she was, Mary Fortune had learned, as her
hearing improved, to artfully conceal the fact. There was a certain
advantage, in that unfriendly atmosphere, in being able to overhear
chance remarks. But no permanent happiness can come from small talk,
and listening to petty asides; and, for better or worse, Mary took off
her harness and retired to the world of good books. She read and she
dreamed and, quite unsuspected, she looked out the window for him.
The man! There is always a man, some man, for every woman who dreams.
Rimrock Jones had come once and gone as quickly, but his absence was
rainbowed with romance. He was out on the desert, far away to the
south, sinking shafts on his claims--their claims. He had discovered a
fortune, but, strong as he was, he had had to accept help from her. He
would succeed, this fierce, ungovernable desert-man; he would win the
world's confidence as he had won her faith by his strength and the bold
look in his eyes. He would finish his discovery work and record all
his claims and then--well, then he would come back.
So she watched for him, furtively, glancing quickly out the window
whenever a horseman passed by; and one day, behold, as she looked up
from her typing, he was there, riding by on his horse! And as he
passed he looked in, under the shadow of his hat, and touched a bag
that was tied behind his saddle. He was more ragged than ever, and one
hand had a bandage around it; but he was back, and he would come. She
abandoned her typewriting--one of those interminable legal papers that
McBain was always leaving on her desk--and stepped out to look down the
street.
The air, warm and soft, was spiced with green odors and the resinous
tang of the greasewood; the ground dove in his tree seemed swooning
with passion as he crooned his throaty, Kwoo, kwoo-o. It was the
breath of spring, but tropical, sense-stealing; it lulled the brain and
bade the heart leap and thrill. This vagabond, this rough horseman
with his pistol and torn clothing and the round sack of ore lashed
behind; who would ever dream that an adventurer like him could make her
forget who she was? But he came from the mine she had helped him to
save and the sack might be heavy with gold. So she watched,
half-concealed, until he stopped at the bank and went striding in with
the bag.
As for Rimrock Jones, he rode by the saloon and went direct to L. W.,
the banker. It was life or death, as far as the Tecolote was
concerned, for his four hundred dollars was gone. That had given him
the powder to shoot out his holes to the ten feet required by law, and
enough actual cash to pay his Mexican locators and make a legal
transfer of the claims; but four hundred dollars will not last a
lifetime and Rimrock Jones was broke. He needed more money and he went
perforce to the only man who could give it. It would be a fight, for
L. W. was stubborn; but Rimrock was stubborn himself.
"L. W.," he said, when he found the banker in his private office in the
rear, "you used to be white and I want you to listen before you spit
out what you've got in your craw. You may have a grievance, and I
don't deny it; but remember, I've got one, too. No, it isn't about my
mine--I wouldn't sell you one share in it for your whole little
jim-crow bank. I've done my first work and I've recorded my claims,
and I'll offer them--somewhere's else. All you know is gold and before
we go any further, just run your eyes over that."
He dumped the contents of his bag on the polished desk and L. W.
blinked as he looked. It was picked gold quartz of the richest kind,
with jewelry specimens on top, and as L. W. ran his hand through it his
tight mouth relaxed from its bulldog grip on the cigar.
"Where'd you get it?" he grunted and Rimrock's eyes flashed as he
answered shortly:
"My mine."
"How much more you got?"
L. W. asked it suspiciously, but the gold-gleam had gone to his heart.
"About two tons of the best, scattered around on the different dumps,
and a whole scad more that will ship. I knew you wouldn't lend on
anything but gold-ore and I need money to pay off my Mexicans. I've
got to save some ore bags to sack that picked rock in, and hire
freighters to haul it in. Then there's the freight and the milling and
with one thing and another I need about two thousand dollars."
"Oh! Two thousand dollars. Seems to me," observed L. W., "I've heard
that sum mentioned before."
"You have, dad-burn ye, and this time I want it. What's the matter,
ain't that ore good for it all?"
"It is, if you've got it, but I've come to the point where I don't
place absolute confidence in your word."
"Oh, the hell you have!" said Rimrock sarcastically, "that sounds like
some lawyer talk. You might've learned it from Apex McBain when you
was associated with him in a deal. I won't say _what_ deal, but,
refreshing your memory now, ain't my word as good as yours?"
He gazed intently at the hard-visaged L. W. whose face slowly turned
brick red.
"Now to get down to business," went on Rimrock quietly, "I tell you
that ore is there. If you'll loan me the money to haul in that rock
I'll pay you back from my check. And I'll give you my note at one per
cent. a month, compounded monthly and all that. I guess a man that can
show title to twenty claims that turn out picked ore like that--well,
he's entitled, perhaps, to a little more consideration than you boys
have been showing me of late."
L. W. sat silent, his burning eyes on the gold, the cigar clutched
fiercely in his teeth--then without a word he wrote a check and threw
it across the desk.
"Much obliged," said Rimrock and without further words he stepped out
and cashed the check. And then Rimrock Jones disappeared.
The last person in Gunsight to hear what had happened was Mary Fortune.
She worked at her desk that day in a fever of expectation, now stopping
to wonder at the strange madness that possessed her, now pounding
harder to still her tumultuous thoughts. She did not know what it was
that she expected, only something great and new and wonderful,
something to lift her at last from the drudgery of her work and make
her feel young and gay. Something to rouse her up to the wild joy of
living and make her forget her misfortunes. To be poor, and deaf, and
alone--all these were new things to Mary Fortune; but she was none of
them when he was near. What need had she to hear when she could read
in his eyes that instant admiration that a woman values most? And
poor? The money she had given had helped him, perhaps, to gain
millions!
She worked late, that afternoon; and again, in the evening, she made an
excuse to keep her office lit up. Still he did not come and she paced
up the street, even listened as she passed by the saloons--then,
overwhelmed with shame that she had seemed to seek him, she fled to her
room and wept. The next day, and the next, she watched and listened
and at last she overheard the truth. It was Andrew McBain, the hard,
fighting Scotchman, who told the dreadful news--and she hated him for
it, always.
"Well, I'm glad he's gone," he had replied to L. W., who had beckoned
him out to the door. "He's a dangerous man--I've been afraid of
him--you're lucky to get off at that."
"Lucky!" yelled L. W., suddenly forgetting his caution, "he touched me
for two thousand dollars! Do you call that lucky? And here's the
latest--he hasn't got a pound of picked ore! Even took away what he
had; and that old, whiskered Mexican says he up and borrowed that from
him!"
"That's a criminal act," explained McBain exultantly, as he signaled L.
W. to be calm. "Shh, not so loud, the girl might hear you. Let him
go, and hold it over his head."
"No, I'll kill the dastard!" howled L. W. rebelliously and slammed the
door in a rage.
A swooning sickness came over Mary Fortune as she sat, waiting stonily,
at her desk; but when McBain came back and sat down beside her she
typed on, automatically, as he spoke. Then she woke at last, as if
from a dream, to hear his harsh, discordant voice; and a sudden
resentment, a fierce, passionate hatred, swept over her as he shouted
in her ear. A hundred times she had informed him politely that she was
not deaf when she wore her ear-'phone, and a hundred times he had
listened impatiently and gone on in his sharp, rasping snarl. She drew
away shuddering as he looked over some papers and cleared his throat
for a fresh start; and then, without reason that he could ever divine,
she burst into tears and fled.
She came back later, but the moment he began dictating she pushed back
her chair and rose up.
"Mr. McBain," she said tremulously, "you don't need to shout at me. I
give you notice--I shall leave on the first."
It was plainly a tantrum, such as he had observed in women, a case,
pure and simple, of nerves; but Andrew McBain let it pass. She could
spell--a rare quality in typists--and was familiar with legal forms.
"Ah, my dear Miss Fortune," he began propitiatingly, "I hope you will
reconsider, I'm sure. It's a habit I have, when dictating a brief, to
speak as though addressing the court. Perhaps, under the
circumstances, you could take off your instrument and my voice would
be--ahem--just about right."
"No! It drives me crazy!" she cried in a passion. "It makes everybody
think I'm so deaf!"
She broke down at that and McBain discreetly withdrew and was gone for
the rest of the day. It was best, he had learned, when young women
became emotional, to absent himself for a time. And the next day, sure
enough, she came back, smiling cheerfully, and said no more of leaving
her job. She was, in fact, more obliging than before and he judged
that the tantrum had passed.
With L. W., however, the case was different. He claimed to be an
Indian in his hates; and a mining engineer, dropping in from New York,
told a story that staggered belief. Rimrock Jones was there, the talk
of the town, reputed to be enormously rich. He smoked fifty-cent
cigars, wore an enormous black hat and put up at the Waldorf Hotel.
Not only that but he was in all the papers as associating with the
kings of finance. So great was his prestige that the engineer, in
fact, had been requested to report on his mine.
"A report?" shouted L. W., "what, a report on the Tecolotes? Well, I
can save you a long, dusty trip. In the first place Rimrock Jones is a
thorough-paced scoundrel, not only a liar but a crook; and in the
second place these claims are forty miles across the desert with just
two sunk wells on the road. I wouldn't own his mines if you would make
me a present of them and a million dollars to boot. I wouldn't take
them for a gift if that mountain was pure gold--how's he going to haul
the ore to the railroad? Now listen, my friend, I've known that boy
since he stood knee-high to a toad and of all the liars in Arizona he
stands out, preëminently, as the worst."
"You question his veracity, then?" enquired the engineer as he fumbled
for some papers in his coat.
"Question nothing!" raved L. W. "I'm making a statement! He's not
only a liar--he's a thief! He robbed me, the dastard; he got two
thousand dollars of my money without giving me the scratch of a pen.
Oh, I tell you----"
"Well, that's curious," broke in the engineer as he stared at a paper,
"he's got your name down here as a reference."
CHAPTER V
THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN
It is an engineer's duty, when he is sent out to examine a mine, to
make a report on the property, regardless. The fact that the owner is
a liar and a thief does not necessarily invalidate his claims; and an
all-wise Providence has, on several occasions, allowed such creatures
to discover bonanzas. So the engineer hired a team and disappeared on
the horizon and L. W. went off buying cattle.
A month passed by in which the derelictions of Rimrock were capped by
the machinations of a rival cattle buyer, who beat L. W. out of a buy
that would have netted him up into the thousands. Disgusted with
everything, L. W. boarded the west-bound at Bowie Junction and flung
himself into a seat in the half-empty smoker without looking to the
right or left. He was mad--mad clear through--and the last of his
cigars was mashed to a pulp in his vest. He had just made this
discovery when another cigar was thrust under his nose and a familiar
voice said:
"Try one of mine!"
L. W. looked at the cigar, which was undoubtedly expensive, and then
glanced hastily across the aisle. There, smiling sociably, was Rimrock
Jones.
L. W. squinted his eyes. Yes, Rimrock Jones, in a large, black hat; a
checked suit, rather loud, and high boots. His legs were crossed and
with an air of elegant enjoyment he was smoking a similar cigar.
"Don't want it!" snarled L. W. and, rising up in a fury, he moved off
towards the far end of the car.
"Oh, all right," observed Rimrock, "I'll smoke it myself, then." And
L. W. grunted contemptuously.
They rode for some hours across a flat, joyless country without either
man making a move, but as the train neared Gunsight Rimrock rose up and
went forward to where L. W. sat.
"Well, what're you all bowed up about?" he enquired bluffly. "Has your
girl gone back on you, or what?"
"Go on away!" answered L. W. dangerously, "I don't want to talk to you,
you thief!"
"Oh, that's what's the matter with you--you're thinking about the
money, eh? Well, you always did hate to lose."
An insulting epithet burst from L. W.'s set lips, but Rimrock let it
pass.
"Oh, that's all right," he said. "Never mind my feelings. Say, how
much do you figure I owe you?"
"You don't owe me nothing!" cried L. W. half-rising. "You _stole_ from
me, you scoundrel--I can put you in the Pen for this!"
"Aw, you wouldn't do that," answered Rimrock easily. "I know you too
well for that."
"Say, you go away," panted L. W. in a frenzy, "or I'll throw you out of
this car."
"No you won't either," said Rimrock truculently. "You'll have to eat
some more beans before you can put _me_ on my back."
Rimrock squared his great shoulders and his eyes sparkled dangerously
as he faced L. W. in the aisle.
"Now listen!" he went on after a tense moment of silence, "what's the
use of making a row? I know I lied to you--I had to do it in order to
get the money. I just framed that on purpose so I could get back to
New York where a proposition like mine would be appreciated. I was a
bum, in Gunsight; but back in New York, where they think in millions,
they treated me like a king."
"I don't want to talk to you," rumbled L. W. moving off, "you lied once
too often, and I've _quit_ ye!"
"All right!" answered Rimrock, "that suits me, too. All I ask
is--what's the damage?"
"Thirty-seven hundred and fifty-five dollars," snapped back L. W.
venomously, "and I'd sell out for thirty-seven cents."
"You won't have to," said Rimrock with business directness and flashed
a great roll of bills.
"There's four thousand," he said, peeling off four bills, "you can keep
the change for _pilon_."
There was one thing about L. W., he was a poker player of renown and
accustomed to thinking quick. He took one look at that roll of bills
and waved the money away.
"Nope! Keep it!" he said. "I don't want your money--just let me in on
this deal."
"Huh!" grunted Rimrock, "for four thousand dollars? You must think
I've been played for a sucker. No, four hundred thousand dollars
wouldn't give you a look-in on the pot that I've opened this trip."
"W'y, you lucky fool!" exclaimed L. W. incredulously, his eyes still
glued to the roll. "What's the proposition, Rimmy? Say, you know me,
Rim!"
"Yeh! Sure I do!" answered Rimrock dryly, and L. W. turned from bronze
to a dull red. "I know the whole bunch of you, from the dog robber up,
and this time I play my own hand. I was a sucker once, but the only
friends I've got now are the ones that stayed with me when I was down."
"But _I_ helped you, Rim!" cried L. W. appealingly. "Didn't I lend you
money, time and again?"
"Yes, and here it is," replied Rimrock indifferently as he held out the
four yellow bills. "You loaned me money, but you treated me like
dirt--now take it or I'll ram it down your throat."
L. W. took the money and stood gnawing his cigar as the train slowed
down for Gunsight.
"Say, come over to the bank--I want to speak to you," he said as they
dropped off the train.
"Nope, can't stop," answered Rimrock curtly, "got to go and see my
friends."
He strode off down the street and L. W. followed after him, beckoning
feverishly to every one he met.
"Say, Rimrock's struck it rich!" he announced behind his hand and the
procession fell in behind.
Straight down the street Rimrock went to the Alamo where old Hassayamp
stood shading his eyes, and while the crowd gathered around them he
took Hassayamp's hand and shook it again and again.
"Here's the best man in town," he began with great feeling. "An
old-time Arizona sport. There never was a time, when I was down and
out, that my word wasn't good for the drinks."
And Hassayamp Hicks, divining some great piece of good fortune, invited
him in for one more.
"Here's to Rimrock Jones," he said to the crowd, "the livest boy in
this town."
They drank and then Rimrock drew out his roll and peeled off an
impressive yellow bill.
"Just take out what I owe you," he said to old Hassayamp, "and let the
boys drink up the rest."
With that he was gone and the crowd, scarce believing, stayed behind
and drank to his health. Not a word was said by Rimrock or his friends
as to the source of this sudden wealth. For once in his life Rimrock
Jones was reticent, but the roll of bills spoke for itself. He came
out of Woo Chong's restaurant with a broad grin on his face and looked
about for the next man he owed.
"You can talk all you want to," he observed to the onlookers, "but a
Chink is as white as they make 'em. And any man in this crowd," he
added impressively, "that ever loaned me a cent, all he has to do is to
step out and say so and he gets his money back--and then some."
The crowd surged about, but no one stepped forward. Strange stories
were in the air, resurrected from the past, of Rimrock and the way he
paid. When the Gunsight mine, after many difficulties, began to pay
back what it had cost, Rimrock had appeared on the street with a roll.
And then, as now, he had announced his willingness to pay any bill,
good or bad, that he owed. He stood there waiting, with the bills in
his hand, and he paid every man who applied. He even paid men who
slipped in meanly with stories of loans when he was drunk; but he noted
them well and from that day forward they received no favors from him.
"Ah, there's the very man I'm looking for," exclaimed Rimrock in
Spanish as he spied old Juan in the crowd and, striding forward, he
held out his hand and greeted him ceremoniously. Old Juan it was of
whom he had borrowed the gold ore that had coaxed the two thousand
dollars from L. W.--and he had never sent the picked rock back.
"How are you, Juan?" he enquired politely in the formula that all
Mexicans love. "And your wife, Rosita? Is she well also? Yes, thank
God, I am well, myself. Where is Rico now? He is a good boy,
truly--will you do one more thing for me, Juan?"
"Sí, Sí, Señor!" answered Juan deferentially; and Rimrock smiled as he
patted his shoulder.
"You are a good man, Juan," he said. "A good friend of mine--I will
remember it. Now get me an ore-sack--a strong one--like the one that
contained the picked gold."
"Un momento!" smiled Juan hurrying off towards the store and the
Mexicans began to swarm to and fro. Some reward, they knew, was to be
given to Juan to compensate him for the loss of his gold. His gold and
his labor and all the unpaid debt that was owing to him and his son and
the rest. The streets began to clatter with flying hoofs as they rode
off to summon el pueblo, and by the time Old Juan returned with his
sack all Mexican town was there.
"Muy bien," pronounced Rimrock as he inspected the ore-sack, "now come
with me, Amigo!"
Amigo Juan went, and all his friends after him, to see what El Patron
would do. Something generous and magnificent, they knew very well, for
El Patron was gentleman, muy caballero. He led the way to the bank,
still enquiring most solicitously about Juan's relations, his children,
his burros and so on; and Juan, sweating like a packed jack under the
stress of the excitement, answered courteously, as one should to El
Patron, and clung eagerly to his sack. The crowd entered the bank and
as L. W. came out Rimrock placed Juan's sack on the table.
"Bring out new silver dollars, fresh from the mint," he said, "and fill
up this sack for Juan!"
"Santa Maria!" exclaimed Juan fervently as the cashier came staggering
forth with a sack, and Rimrock took the bag, containing a thousand
bulging dollars, and set it down before him. He broke the seal and as
the shining silver burst forth he spilled it in a huge windrow on the
table.
"Now fill up your ore-sack," he said to Juan, "and all you can stuff
into it is yours."
"For a gift?" faltered Juan, and as Rimrock nodded he buried his hands
in the coin. The dollars clanged and rattled as they spilled on the
table and a great silence came over the crowd. They gazed at Old Juan
as if he were an Aladdin, or All Baba in his treasure-cave. Old,
gray-bearded Juan who hauled wood for a living, or packed cargas on his
burros for El Patron! Yes, here he was with his fists full of dollars,
piling them faster and faster into his bag.
"Now shake the bag down," suggested El Patron, "and perhaps you can get
in some more."
"Some more?" panted Juan and quite mad with great riches he stuffed the
sack to the top.
"Very well," said Rimrock, "now take them home, and give part of the
money to Rosita. Then take what is left in this other bag and give a
fiesta to the boys who worked for me."
"Make way!" cried Juan and as the crowd parted before him he went
staggering down the street. A few shiny dollars heaped high on the
top, fell off and were picked up by his friends. They went off
together, Old Juan and his amigos, and L. W. came over to Rimrock.
"Now listen to me, Henry Jones," he began; but Rimrock waved him away.
"I don't need to," he said, "I know what you'll say--but Juan there has
been my friend."
"Well, you don't need to spoil him--to break his back with money--when
ten dollars will do just as well."
"Yes, I do!" said Rimrock, "didn't I borrow his picked rock? Well,
keep out then; I know my friends. He'll be drunk for a month and at
the end of his fiesta he won't have a dollar to his name, but as long
as he lives he can tell the other hombres about that big sack of money
he had."
Rimrock laid down one big bill, which paid for all the dollars, and
walked out of the bank on air. He was feeling rich--that wealthy
feeling that penny-pinchers never know--and all the world, except L. W.
Lockhart, seemed responsive to his smile. Men who had shunned him for
years now shook his hand and refused to take back what they had lent.
They even claimed they had forgotten all about it or had intended their
loans as stakes. With his pockets full of money it was suddenly
impossible for Rimrock to spend a dollar. In the Alamo Saloon, where
his friends were all gathered in a determined assault on the bar, his
popularity was so intense that the drinks fairly jumped at him and he
slipped out the back way to escape. There was one duty more--both a
duty and a pleasure--and he headed for the Gunsight Hotel.
The news of his success, whatever it was, had preceded him hours
before. Andrew McBain had hid out, the idle women were all a-twitter;
but Mary Roget Fortune was calm. She had heard the news from the very
first moment, when L. W. had dropped in on McBain; but the more she
heard of his riotous prodigality the more it left her cold. His return
to town reminded her painfully of that other time when he had come.
She had watched for him then, her knight from the desert, worn and
ragged but with his sack full of gold; but he had passed her by without
a word, and now she did not care.
She looked up sharply as he came at last, a huge form, half-blocking
the door; and Rimrock noticed the change. Perhaps his sudden
popularity had made him unduly sensitive--he felt instinctively that
she did not approve.
"Do you mind my cigar?" he asked, stopping awkwardly half way to her
desk; and he suddenly came to life as she answered:
"Why, yes. Since you ask me, I do."
That was straight enough and Rimrock cast his fifty-cent cigar like a
stogie out of the door. Then he came back towards her with his big
head thrust out and a searching look in his eyes. She had greeted him
politely, but it was not the manner of the girl he had expected to see.
Somehow, without knowing why, he had expected her to meet him with a
different look in her eyes. It had been there before, but now it was
absent--a look that he liked very much. In fact, he had remembered it
and thought, apropos of nothing, that it was a pity she was so deaf.
He looked again and smiled very slightly. But no, the look had fled.
CHAPTER VI
RIMROCK PASSES
In the big moments of life when we have triumphed over difficulties and
quaffed the heady wine of success there is always something--or the
lack of something--to bring us back to earth. Rimrock Jones had
returned in a Christmas spirit and had taken Gunsight by storm. He had
rewarded his friends and rebuked his enemies and all those who grind
down the poor. He had humbled L. W. and driven McBain into hiding; and
now this girl, this deaf, friendless typist, had snatched the cup from
his lips. The neatly turned speech--the few well-chosen words in which
he had intended to express his appreciation for her help--were effaced
from his memory and in their place there came a doubt, a dim
questioning of his own worth. What had he done, or neglected to do,
that had taken that look from her eyes? He sank down in a chair and
regarded her intently as she sat there, composed and still.
"Well, it's been quite a while," he said at last, "since I've been
round to see you."
"Yes, it has," she replied and the way she said it raised a more
poignant question in his mind. Was she miffed, perhaps, because he had
failed to call on her, that time when he came back to town? He had
borrowed her money--she might have been worried, that time when he went
to New York.
"I just got in, a little while ago--been back to New York about my
mine. Well, it's doing all right now and I've come around to see you
and pay back that money I owe."
"Oh, that four hundred dollars? Why, I don't want it back. You were
to give me a share in your mine."
Rimrock stopped with his roll half out of his pocket and gazed at her
like a man struck dumb. A share in his mine! He put the money back
and mopped the sudden sweat from his brow.
"Well, now say," he began, "I've made other arrangements. I've sold a
big share already. But I'll give you the money, it'll come to the same
thing!" He whipped out his roll and smiled at her hopefully but she
drew back and shook her head.
"No," she said, "I don't want your money. I want a share in that mine."
She faced him, determined, and Rimrock went weak for he remembered that
she had his word. He had given his word and unless she excused him he
would have to make it good. And if he did--well, right there he would
lose control of his mine.
"Say, now listen a minute," he began mysteriously, "I'm not telling
this on the street----"
"Well, don't tell it here, then," she interrupted hastily, "they're
listening, most of the time."
She pointed towards the door that led to the hotel lobby and Rimrock
tiptoed towards it. He was just in time, as he snatched it open, to
see McBain bounding up the back stairs; and a woman in a rocker, after
a guilty stare, rose up and moved hastily away.
"Well, well," observed Rimrock as he banged the door. "I don't know
which is worse, these women or peeping Andrew McBain. Are you still
working for that fellow?" he enquired confidentially as he sat down and
spoke low in her 'phone; and for the first time that day the smile came
back and dwelt for a moment in her eyes.
"Yes," she answered, "I still do his work for him. What's the
matter--don't you fully approve?"
Her gaze was a challenge and he let it pass with a grin and a jerk of
the head.
"Just sorry for you," he said. "You'd better take this money and get a
job with a man that's half white."
He drew out his roll and counted out four thousand dollars and laid
them before her on the desk.
"Now listen," he began. "That four hundred then was worth four
thousand to me now. I had to have it, and I sure appreciate it--now
just accept that as a payment in part."
He pushed over the money, but she shook her head and met his gaze with
resolute eyes.
"Not much," she said, "I don't want your money and, what's more, I
won't accept it. I gave you four hundred dollars--all the money I
had--to get me a share in that mine, and now I want it. I don't care
how much, but I want a share in that mine."
Rimrock shoved back his chair and once more the sweat appeared on his
troubled brow. He rose up softly and peeped out the door, then came
back and sat very close.
"What's the idea?" he asked. "Has some one been telling you who I've
got in with me on this deal? Well, what's the matter then? Why won't
you take the money? I'll give you more than you could get for the
stock."
"No, all my life it's been my ambition to own a share in a mine.
That's why I gave you the last of my money--I had confidence in your
mine from the start."
"Well, what did you think, then?" enquired Rimrock sardonically, "when
I jumped out of town without seeing you? You'd have sold out cheap, if
I'd've come to you then, but now everybody knows I've won."
"Never mind what I thought," she answered darkly, "I took a chance, and
I won."
"Say, you're strictly business, now ain't you?" observed Rimrock and
muttered under his breath. "How much of a share do you expect me to
give you?" he asked after a long anxious pause and her eyes lit up and
were veiled.
"Whatever you say," she answered quietly and then: "I believe you
mentioned fifty-fifty--an undivided half."
"My--God!" exclaimed Rimrock starting wildly to his feet. "You
don't--say, you didn't think I meant that?"
"Why, no," she said with a faint flicker of venom, "I didn't, to tell
you the truth. That's why I told you I was talking business; but you
said: 'Well, so am I.'"
"Well, holy Jehosophrats!" cursed Rimrock to himself and turned to look
her straight in the eyes.
"Now let's get down to business," he went on sternly, "what do you
want, and where am I at?"
"I want a share in that mine," she answered evenly, "whatever you think
is right."
"Oh, that's the deal! You don't want fifty-fifty? You leave what it
is to me?"
"That's what I said from the very first. And as for fifty-fifty--no,
certainly I do not."
There were tears, half of anger, gathering back in her eyes, but
Rimrock took no thought of that.
"Oh, you don't like my style, eh?" he came back resentfully. "All you
want out of me is my money."
"No, I don't!" she retorted. "I don't want your money! I want a share
in that mine!"
"Say, who are you, anyway?" burst out Rimrock explosively. "Are you
some wise one that's on the inside?"
"That's none of your business," she answered sharply, "you were
satisfied when you took all my money."
"That's right," agreed Rimrock rubbing his jaw reflectively, "that's
right, it was no questions asked. Now, say, I'm excited--I ought not
to talk that way--I want to explain to you just how I'm fixed. I went
back to New York and organized a company and gave one man forty-nine
per cent. of my stock. He puts up the money and I put up the mine--and
run it, absolutely. If I give you any stock I lose control of my mine;
so I'm going to ask you to let me off."
He drew out his roll--that banded sheaf of yellow notes that he loved
so dearly to flash--and began slowly to count off the bills.
"When you think it's enough," he went on ponderously, "you can say so,
but I need all that stock."
He laid out the bills, one after another, and the girl settled back in
her chair. "That's ten," he observed, "these are thousand-dollar
bills--well, there's twelve, then--I'll make it thirteen." He glanced
up expectantly, but she gave no sign and Rimrock dealt impassively on.
"Well, fourteen--lots of money. Say, how much do you want? Fifteen
thousand--you only gave me four hundred. Sixteen, seventeen--well, you
get the whole roll; but say, girl, I can't give you that stock."
He threw down the last bill and faced her appealingly, but she answered
with a hard little laugh.
"You've got to," she said. "I don't want your money. I want one per
cent. of your stock."
"What, of what I've got left? Oh, of the whole capital stock! Well,
that only leaves me fifty per cent."
"That's one way of looking at it. Now look at it another way. Don't
you think I'm entitled to that? Don't you think if I'd said when I
gave you that money: 'All I want is one per cent. of your mine'--don't
you think now, honestly, that you'd have said: 'All right!' and agreed
to it on the spot?"
She looked at him squarely and the fair-fighting Rimrock had to agree,
though reluctantly, that she was right.
"Well, now that you've won when nobody expected you to, now that you've
got money enough to get the whole town drunk, is that any reason why
you should come to a poor typist and ask her to give up her rights?
I'm putting it frankly and unless you can answer me I want you to give
me that stock."
"Well, all right, I'll do it," answered Rimrock impulsively. "I
promised you, and that's enough. But you've got to agree not to sell
that stock--and to vote it with me, every time."
"Very well," she said, "I'll agree not to sell it--at least not to any
one but you. And as far as the voting goes, I think we can arrange
that; I'll vote for whatever seems right."
"No, right or wrong!" challenged Rimrock instantly. "I'm not going to
be beat out of my mine!"
"What do you mean?" she demanded. "I hope you don't think----"
"Never mind what I think," answered Rimrock grimly, "I got bit once,
and that's enough. I lost the old Gunsight just by trusting my
friends, and this time I'm not trusting anybody."
"Oh, you're one of these cynics, these worldly-wise fellows that have
lost all their faith in mankind? I've seen them before, but it wasn't
much trouble to find somebody else that _they'd_ wronged!"
She said the words bitterly with a lash to her tongue that cut Rimrock
Jones to the quick. It had always been his boast that there was no man
or woman that could claim he had done them a wrong, and he answered
back sharply, while the anger was upon him, that he was not and there
was no such thing.
"Well, if that's the case, then," she suggested delicately but with a
touch of malice in her smile, "it seems rather personal to begin now
with me, and take away my right to vote. Did this man in New York,
when he bought into your company, agree to vote with you, right or
wrong? Well then, why should I? Wasn't my money just as necessary,
when I gave it to you, as his was when he gave it, later?"
"Oh--" Rimrock choked back an oath and then fell back on personalities
to refute her maddening logic.
"Say, your father was a judge," he burst out insultingly. "Was he a
promoted lawyer, too; or did you learn that line of talk from McBain?"
"Never mind about that. You haven't answered my question. Wasn't my
money just as necessary as his? It was! Yes, you know it. Well,
then, why should you choose me for the very first person that you ever
intentionally wronged?"
"Well, by grab," moaned Rimrock, slumping down in his chair as he saw
his last argument gone, "it was a black day for me when I took that
four hundred from you. I'd have done a heap better to have held up
some Chinaman or made old L. W. come through. And to be trimmed by a
woman! Well, gimme your paper and I'll sign whatever you write!"
She drew in her lips and gazed at him resentfully; then, sitting down
at her typewriter, she thought for a minute and rattled off a single
sentence. Rimrock took the paper and signed it blindly, then stopped
and read what it was.
"I, Henry (Rimrock) Jones, for value received, hereby agree to give to
Mary Roget Fortune, one per cent. of the total capital stock of the
Tecolote Mining Company."
"Yes, all right," he said. "You'll get your stock just as soon as I
get it from the East. And now I hope, by the Lord, you're satisfied."
"Yes, I am," she answered and smiled cryptically.
"Well, I pass!" he exploded and, struggling to his feet, he lurched out
upon the street.
CHAPTER VII
BUT COMES BACK FOR MORE
From the highest pinnacle of success to the black depths of despair is
a long way to drop in one hour and if Rimrock Jones went the way of all
flesh it is only another argument for prohibition. All the rest of the
town had got a good start before he appeared on the scene and to drown
that black thought--defeated by a woman--he drank deep with the crowd
at the Alamo. At the end of the bout when, his thoughts coming
haphazard, he philosophized on the disasters of the day, his brain
slipped a cog and brought two ideas together that piled Pelion on the
Ossa of his discontent.
The first vision to rise was that of the lady typist, exacting her full
pound of flesh; and then, groping back to that other catastrophe, his
mind fetched up--Andrew McBain! And then he remembered. She worked
for McBain. He straightened up in the bar-room chair and gusty curses
swept from his lips.
"You're stung, you sucker!" he cried in a fury. "You're sold out to
Andrew McBain! Oh, you dad-burned idiot--you ignorant baboon--you were
drunk, that's why you signed up!"
Rimrock's pitiful rage at that other personality that had marred his
fair hopes in his mine--that perverse, impulsive, overweening inner
spirit that took the helm at each crisis of his life--was a rage to
make the gods above weep if they did not laugh at the jest. And this
blind, drunken self that rose up within him to sit leeringly in
judgment on his acts, it judged not so ill, if the truth must be
spoken. He had gone to Mary Fortune with the bouquet of Bourbon subtly
blended with the aroma of his cigar and the fine edge of his reason had
been dulled by so much when he matched his boy's wit against hers. His
mind had not sought out the hidden motive that lay behind what she had
said; he had followed where she led and, finding her logic impregnable,
had yielded like a child, in a pique. Yes, yielded out of spite
without ever once thinking that she worked, day by day, for McBain.
A dull rage came over him and when he roused up next morning that fixed
idea was still in his brain. But in the morning it was different.
Those two personalities that had been so exalted, and differentiated,
by drink, snapped back into one substantial I Am; and his tumultuous,
fighting ego took command. Rimrock rose up thinking and the first hour
after breakfast found him working feverishly to build up a defense. He
had been jumped once before by Andrew McBain--it must not happen again.
No technicality must be left to serve as a handle for this
lawyer-robber to seize. Before noon that day Rimrock had two gangs of
surveyors on their way to his Tecolote claims; and for a full week they
labored, running side-lines, erecting monuments and taking angles on
every landmark for miles. The final blue-prints, duly certified and
witnessed, he took to the Recorder himself and then, still obsessed by
his premonition of evil, he came back to serve notice on McBain.
For every man there is always some person instinctively associated with
trouble; some person that he hates beyond all bounds and reason, and
intuitively fears and distrusts. In the jumping of the Gunsight there
had been others just as active, but Rimrock had forgiven them all but
McBain. Even the piratical L. W., for all his treachery, was still
within the pale of his friendship. But this tall, lanky Scotchman,
always lurking within the law as a spider hides for safety in its hole,
invoked nothing but his anger and contempt.
Rimrock dropped off the train that had brought him from the County
seat, and went straight up the street to the hotel. McBain was in his
office, stalking nervously up and down as he dictated to Mary Fortune,
when the door opened suddenly and Rimrock Jones stepped in and stood
gazing at him insolently.
"Good morning," he said with affected nicety of speech. "I hope that I
don't intrude. Yes, it is lovely weather, but I came here on a matter
of business. We've had our difficulties, Mr. Apex McBain, but all that
is in the past. What I came to say is: I've got my eye on you and I
don't want you out at my mine. Those claims are my property and, I
give you fair notice, if you trespass on my ground you'll get shot.
That's all for the present; but, because you've cleaned me once, don't
think you can do it again."
He bowed with mock politeness, taking off his hat with a flourish, and
as he backed out Mary Fortune turned pale. There was something in that
bow and the affected accents that referred indirectly to her. She knew
it intuitively and the hot blood rushed back and mantled her cheeks
with red. Then she straightened up proudly and when McBain began to
dictate her machine went on clacking defiantly.
There followed long days in which Rimrock idled about town or rode back
and forth to his mine, and then the gossips began to talk. A change,
over night, had taken place in Rimrock the day after his return from
New York. On the first great day he had been his old self--boasting,
drinking, giving away his money and calling the whole town in on his
joy. The next day he had been sober and from that day forth he had not
taken even a drink. It was noted also that nothing was doing in the
direction of developing his mine; and another quality, the rare gift of
reticence, had taken the place of his brag. He sat off by himself,
absent-minded and brooding, which was not like the Rimrock of old.
The first man to break loose from the spell he cast by the flash of his
big roll of bills was L. W. Lockhart, the banker. For some reason best
known to himself Rimrock still carried his roll in his pocket, whereas
any good business man will tell you that he should have deposited it in
the bank. And one thing more--not a man in Gunsight knew the first
thing about his associates in the mine.
"I'll tell you the truth," said the overbearing L. W. as he stood
arguing with Rimrock in front of the Alamo, "I don't believe you've got
any company. I believe you went East with that two thousand dollars
and won a stake at gentleman's poker; and then you come back, with your
chest all throwed out, and get mysterious as hell over nothing."
"Well, what do you care?" answered Rimrock scornfully. "You don't
stand to win or lose, either way!"
"Nope! Nope!" pronounced Hassayamp positively, "he's got a company--I
know that. I reckon that's what worries him. Anyhow, they's something
the matter; he ain't took a drink in a week. Seems like when he was
broke he was round hyer all the time, jest a-carousin' and invitin' in
the whole town; and now when he's flush and could buy me out with that
little wad right there in his jeans, he sits here, by George, like a
Keeley graduate, and won't even drink when he's asked."
"Well, laugh," grumbled Rimrock as Old Hassayamp began to whoop, "I
reckon I know what I'm doing. When you've got nothing to lose except
your reputation it don't make much difference what you do; but when
you're fixed like I am, with important affairs to handle, a man can't
afford to get drunk. He might sign some paper, or make some agreement,
and euchre himself out of millions."
"Aw! Millions! Millions!" mocked L. W., "your mine ain't worth a
million cents. A bunch of low-grade copper on the Papago Desert, forty
miles on a line from the railroad and everything packed in by burros.
Who's going to buy it? That's what I ask and I'm waiting to hear the
answer."
He paused and waited while Rimrock smiled and felt thoughtfully through
his clothes for a match.
"Well, don't let it worry you," he said at last. "I'm not telling
everything I know. If I did, by grab, there'd be a string of men from
here to the Tecolote Hills."
"Yes--coming back!" jeered the provocative L. W.; but Rimrock only
smiled again and gazed away through a thin veil of smoke.
"You just keep your shirt on, Mr. Know-it-all Lockhart, and remember
that large bodies move slowly. You'll wake up some morning and read
the answer written in letters ten feet high."
"Yes--For Rent!" grunted L. W., and shutting down on his cigar, he
stumped off up the street; but Old Hassayamp Hicks nodded and winked at
Rimrock, though at that he was no wiser than L. W.
Rimrock kept his own counsel, sitting soberly by himself and mulling
over what was on his mind; and at last he went to see Mary Fortune. It
was of her he had been thinking, though in no sentimental way, during
the long hours that he sat alone. Who was this woman, he asked
himself, and what did she want with that stock? And should he give it
to her? That was the one big question and it took him two weeks to
decide.
He came into her office while she was running her typewriter and nodded
briefly as he glanced out the rear door; then without any preliminaries
he drew out an engraved certificate and laid it down on her desk.
"There's your stock," he said. "I've just endorsed it over to you.
And now you can give me back that paper."
He did not sit down, did not even take off his hat; and he studiously
avoided her eyes.
"Oh, thank you," she replied, glancing hurriedly at the certificate,
"won't you sit down while I write out a receipt?"
She picked up the paper, a beautiful piece of engraving, and looked it
over carefully.
"Oh, _two_ thousand shares?" she murmured questioningly. "Yes, I see;
there are two hundred thousand in all. 'Par value, one hundred
dollars.' I suppose that's just nominal. How much are they really
worth?"
"A hundred dollars a share," he answered grimly and as she cried out he
picked up a pen and fumbled idly with its point.
"Oh, surely they aren't worth so much as that?" she exclaimed, but he
continued his attentions to the pen.
"No?" he enquired and then he waited with an almost bovine calm.
"Why, no," she ran on, "why, I'd----"
"You'd what?" he asked, but the trap he had set had been sprung without
catching its prey.
"Why, it seems so much," she evaded rather lamely.
"Oh, I thought you were going to say you'd like to sell."
"No, I wouldn't sell," she answered quickly as her breath came back
with a gasp.
"Because if you would," he went on cautiously, "I'm in the market to
buy. It'll be a long time before that stock pays any dividend. How'd
you like to sell a few shares?"
"No, I'd rather not--not now, at least. I'll have to think it over
first. But won't you sit down? Really, I'm quite overcome! It's so
much more than I had a right to expect."
"If you'd sell me a few shares," went on Rimrock without finesse, "you
wouldn't have to work any more. Just name your price and----"
"Oh, I like to work," she countered gaily as she ran off a formal
receipt; and, signing her name, she handed it back to him with a
twinkle of amusement in her eyes. "And then there's another
reason--sit down, I want to talk to you--I think it will be better for
you. Oh, I know how you feel about it; but did you ever consider that
other people like their own way, too? Well, when you're off by
yourself just think that over, it will help you understand life."
Rimrock Jones sat down with a thud and took off his hat as he gazed at
this astonishing woman. She was giving him advice in a most superior
manner; and yet she was only a typist.
"You said something one time," she went on seriously, "that hurt my
feelings very much--something about being trimmed, and by a woman! I
resolved right there that you needed to be educated. Do you mind if I
tell you why? Well, in the first place, Mr. Jones, I admire you very
much for the way you've kept your word. You are absolutely honest and
I won't forget it when it comes to voting my stock. But that cynical
attitude that you chose to affect when you came to see me before--that
calm way of saying that you couldn't trust anybody, not even the person
addressed--that won't get you very far, where a woman is concerned.
That is, not very far with me."
She looked him over with a masterful smile and Rimrock began to fumble
his hat.
"You took it for granted," she went on accusingly, "that I had set out
from the first to trim you but--and here's the thing that makes me
furious--you said: 'Trimmed, by grab, by a _woman_!' Now I'd like to
enquire if in your experience you have found women less honest than
men; and in the second place I'd like to inform you that I'm just as
intelligent as you are. It was no disgrace, as I look at the matter,
for you to be bested by me; and as for being trimmed, I'd like to know
what grounds you have for that remark? Did I ever ask more than you
yourself had promised, or than would be awarded in a court of law? And
couldn't I have said, when you went off without seeing me or writing a
single word; couldn't I have said, when you went off with my money and
were enjoying yourself in New York, that _I_ had been trimmed--by a
_man_?"
She spat out the word with such obvious resentment that Rimrock jumped
and looked towards the door. It came over him suddenly that this mild,
handsome woman was at heart strictly anti-man. That was putting it
mildly, she was anti-Jones and might easily be tempted too far; for
right there in her hand she held two thousand shares of stock that
could be used most effectively as a club.
"Well, just let me explain," he stammered abjectly. "I want you to
know how that came about. When I came back from the claims I'd spent
all that money and I had to have two thousand more. I had to have it,
to get back to New York, or our mine wouldn't have been worth anything.
Well, I went to L. W., the banker up here, and bluffed him out of the
money. But I know him too well--he'd think it over and if he caught me
in town he'd renig. Demand back his money, you understand; so I ran
out and swung up on the freight. Never stopped for nothing, and that
was the reason I never came around to call."
"And your right hand?" she asked sweetly, "the one that you write with?
It was injured, I suppose, in the mine. I saw it wrapped up when you
rode past the window, so everything is nicely explained."
She kept on smiling and Rimrock squirmed in his chair, until he gave
way to a sickly grin.
"Well, I guess you've got me," he acknowledged sheepishly, "never was
much of a hand to write."
"Oh, that's all right," she answered gamely, "don't think I mean to
complain. I'm just telling you the facts so you'll know how I felt
when you suggested that you had been trimmed. Now suppose, for
example, that you were a woman who had lost all the money she had. And
suppose, furthermore, that you had an affliction that an expensive
operation might cure. And suppose you had worked for a year and a half
to save up four hundred dollars, and then a man came along who needed
that money ten times as badly as you did. Well, you know the rest. I
loaned you the money. Don't you think I'm entitled to this?"
She picked up the certificate of stock and readjusted the 'phone
receiver to her ear; and Rimrock Jones, after staring a minute, settled
back and nodded his head.
"Yes, you are," he said. "And furthermore----" He reached impulsively
for the roll of bills but she checked him by a look.
"No," she said, "I'm not asking for sympathy nor anything else of the
kind. I just want you to know that I've earned this stock and that
nobody here has been trimmed."
"That's right," he agreed and his eyes opened wider as he took her all
in, once more. "Say, was that the reason you were saving your money?"
he asked as he glanced at the ear-'phone. "Because if I'd a-known it,"
he burst out repentantly, "I'd never touched it--no, honest, I never
would."
"Well, that's all right," she answered frankly, "we all take a chance
of some kind. But now, Mr. Jones, since we understand each other,
don't you think we can afford to be friends?"
She rose smiling and back into her eye came that look he had missed
once before. It came only for a moment--the old, friendly twinkle that
had haunted his memory for months--and as Rimrock caught it he leapt to
his feet and thrust out his great, awkward hand.
"W'y, sure," he said, "and I'm proud to know you. Say, I'm coming
around again."
CHAPTER VIII
A FLIER IN STOCKS
It was as dazzling to Rimrock as a burst of sunshine to a man just come
up from a mine--that look in Mary Fortune's eyes. He went out of her
office like a man in a dream and wandered off by himself to think. But
that was the one thing he could not negotiate, his brain refused to
work. It was a whirl of weird flashes and forms and colors, like a
futurist painting gone mad, but above it all when the turmoil had
subsided was the thought of going back. He had told her when he left
her that he would come around again, and that fixed idea had held to
the end. But how? Under what pretext? And would she break down his
pretense with that smile?
Rimrock thought it over and it seemed best at the end to invite her to
take a ride. There were certain things in connection with their mine
which he wished very much to discuss, but how could he do it in the
hotel lobby with the Gunsight women looking on? Since his rise to
affluence one of them had dared to speak to him, but she would never do
it again. He remembered too well the averted glances with which they
had passed him, poor and ragged, on the street. No, he hated them
passionately as the living symbols of Gunsight fraud and greed; the
soft, idle women of those despicable parasites who now battened on what
he had earned.
But Mary Fortune, how else was he to meet her without envious eyes
looking on; or stealthy ears of prying women, listening at keyholes to
catch every word? And out on the desert, gliding smoothly along in the
best hired automobile in town, where better could he give expression to
those surging confidences which he was impelled against his judgment to
make? It was that same inner spirit that made all his troubles, now
urging him he knew not where. All he knew for certain was that the shy
woman-look had crept back for a moment into her eyes; and after that
the fate of empires was as nothing to the import of her smile. Did she
feel, as he felt, the mystic bond between them, the appeal of his young
man's strength; or was that smile a mask, a provocative weapon, to veil
her own thoughts while she read through his like a book? He gave it
up; but there was a way of knowing--he could call out that smile again.
The idle women of the Gunsight Hotel, sitting in their rockers on the
upper porch, were rewarded on that day for many a wasted hour. For
long months they had watched McBain's typist, with her proud way of
ignoring them all; and at last they had something to talk about.
Rimrock Jones in his best, and with a hired automobile, came gliding up
to her office; and as he went tramping in every ear on the veranda was
strained to catch his words.
"Aw, don't mind those old hens," he said after a silence, roaring it
out that all could hear. "They're going to talk anyway so let's take a
ride; and make 'em guess, for once, what I say."
There was nothing, after that, for the ladies to do but retire in the
best form they could; but as Mary Fortune came out in an auto' bonnet
with a veil and coat to match they tore her character to shreds from
behind the Venetian blinds. So that was her game--she had thrown over
McBain and was setting her cap for Rimrock Jones. And automobile
clothes! Well, if that wasn't proof that she was living down a past
the ladies would like to know. A typewriter girl, earning less that
seventy dollars a month, and with a trunk full of joy-riding clothes!
With such women about her it called for some courage for Mary Fortune
to make the plunge; but the air was still fragrant, spring was on the
wind and the ground dove crooned in his tree. She was tired, worn out
with the deadly monotony of working on day by day; and she had besides
that soul-stirring elation of having won in the great game for her
stock.
"It'll be a stockholders' meeting," Rimrock had explained in her ear.
"We represent a majority of the stock. I want to tell you something
big, where nobody else will hear. Come on, let your typewriting slide!"
And Mary Fortune had laughed and run scampering up the stairs and come
down with her gloves and veil, and as the automobile moved off she had
that joyous sensation of something about to happen. They drove out of
town on the one straight road that led to the Gunsight mine and Rimrock
was so busy with the mechanics of his driving that she had a chance to
view the landscape by herself. The white, silty desert, stretching off
to blue mountains, was set as regularly as a vineyard with the waxy,
dark-green creosote bushes; and at uncertain intervals the fluted giant
cactus rose up like sentinels on the plain. All the desert trees that
grew near the town--the iron-woods and palo verdes and cat-claws and
mesquite and salt-bushes--had been uprooted by the Mexicans in their
search for wood; but in every low swale the grass was still green and
the cactus was crowned with gorgeous blossoms.
"Isn't it glorious?" she sighed as she breathed the warm air and
Rimrock looked up from studying his clutches.
"The finest God ever made!" he said as his engine chugged smoothly
along. "By George, I was glad to get home. Ever been in New York?
Well, you know what it's like then; give me Arizona, every time. But
say, that's some town; I stayed at the Waldorf, where the tips are a
dollar a throw. Every time you turn around, or the boy grabs your hat,
you give him a dollar bill. Say, I put up a front--they all thought I
was a millionaire--have you ever been down to the curb market? Oh,
don't you know what that is? Why, it's the place near Wall street
where they sell stock in the middle of the street."
He negotiated a sand wash and nearly stripped a gear as he threw in the
low by mistake.
"You bet, quite a country!" he went on unconcernedly. "I thought I
knew sign language, but those curb brokers have got me beat. I can sit
down with an Indian and by signs and sand-pictures I can generally make
him savvy what I want, but those fellers back there could buy and sell
me while I was asking the price of a horse. I was down there on Broad
street and a man in the crowd jumped up and let out a yell.
"'Sold!' says a feller that's standing next to me, and began to make
signs to a fellow in a second-story window and writes something down on
a pad. I asked a man that was taking me around--they treated me right
in that town--what in the world was going on, and he told me they'd
made a trade in stock. The first fellow says:
"'Sell five hundred shares of So-and-So at seventy-nine!' and the
second man raises his right hand like an Indian how-sign and there's a
twenty thousand-dollar trade pulled off. They both write it down on a
slip of paper and the man in the window does the telephoning. Say, I'm
going back there when I got a stake, and try my hand at that game."
An expression of pain, as of some evil memory, passed swiftly over Mary
Fortune's face and she turned from gazing at the mountains to give him
a warning shake of the head.
"Don't you do it!" she said; but when he asked her why not she shut her
lips and looked far away.
"You must've got bit some time," he suggested cheerfully, but she
refused for the moment to be drawn out.
"Perhaps," she replied, "but if that's the case my advice is all the
more sound."
"No, but I'm on the inside," he went on impressively. "I know some of
those big ones personally. That makes the difference; those fellows
don't lose, they skim the cream off of everything. Say, I ought to
know--didn't I go in there lone-handed and fight it out with a king of
finance? That's the man we're in with--I can't tell you his name,
now--he's the one that owns the forty-nine per cent. They're crazy
about copper or he'd never have looked at me--there's some big market
fight coming on. And didn't he curse and squirm and holler, trying to
make me give up my control? He told me in years he had never gone into
anything unless he got more than half _for a gift_! But I told him
'no,' I'd been euchered out of one mine; and after his expert had
reported on the property he came through and gave me my way. And after
that! Say, there was nothing too good for me. He agreed to spend
several million dollars to pay for his share of the mine and then he
gave me that roll of bills to bind the bargain we'd made. By George, I
felt good, to go there with two thousand dollars and come back with a
big roll of yellowbacks; but before I went away he introduced me to a
friend and told him how to show me the sights.
"This friend was a broker, by the name of Buckbee, and believe me, he's
on the inside. He took me around and showed me the Stock Exchange and
put me wise to everything. We were up in the gallery and, on the floor
below us, there were a whole lot of posts with signs; and a bunch of
the craziest men in the world were fighting around those posts. Fight?
They were tearing each other's clothes off, throwing paper in the air,
yelling like drunk Indians, knocking each other flat. It was so rough,
by George, it scared me; but Buckbee told me they were selling stocks.
There were thousands of dollars in every yell they let out, they talked
signs like they were deaf and dumb, and every time a man held up his
right hand it meant: Sold! And they wrote it down on a slip."
Rimrock paused in his description to make some hurried adjustments as
his machine slowed down to a stop, but after a hasty glance he burst
into a laugh and settled back in his seat.
"Well, what do we care?" he went on recklessly. "This desert is all
the same. We can sit right here and see it all, and when it comes time
to go back I'll shake the old engine up. But as I was telling you,
playing the stock market is all right if you've got some one to put you
wise."
"No, it isn't," she answered positively. "I've been there and I know."
"Well, listen to this then," went on Rimrock eagerly, "let me show you
what Buckbee can do. I dropped in at his office, after I'd received my
roll, and he said: 'Want to take a flier?'
"'Sure,' I said, 'here's a thousand dollars. Put it on and see how far
it will go.' Well, you can believe me or not, in three days' time he
gave me back over two thousand dollars."
He nodded triumphantly, but the woman beside him shook her head and
turned wearily away.
"That's only the beginning," she answered sadly, "the end is--what
happened to me."
"What was that?" he asked and she gazed at him curiously with a look he
did not understand.
"Well, you can see for yourself," she said at last, "this is the first
pleasure I've had for a year. I used to have a home with servants to
wait on me; and music, and society and all, and when my father died and
left me alone I might even then have kept on. But--well, I'll tell it
to you; it may make you stop and think the next time you meet one of
those brokers. My father was a judge and the ethics of his profession
prevented him from speculating in stocks, but he had an old friend, his
college classmate, who had made millions and millions on the Stock
Exchange. He was one of the most powerful financiers in New York and
when my father died he made the request that Mr. Rossiter should invest
my legacy for me. My father knew that the money he left would barely
keep me, at the best; and so he asked this old friend of his to see
that it was safely invested.
"So when the estate had been administered I went to see Mr. Rossiter
and, after discussing different investments, he told me of a plan he
had. It seems he was at the head of a tremendous combination that
controlled the price of a certain stock and, although it was strictly
against the rules, he was going to give me a tip that would double my
money in a few weeks. I was afraid, at first, but when he guaranteed
me against loss I took all my money to a certain broker and bought
forty-three thousand shares. Then I watched the papers and every day I
could see the price of it going up. One day it nearly doubled and then
it went back, and then stopped and went up and up. In less than a
month the price went up from twenty-three cents to nearly fifty and
then, just at a time when it was rising fastest, Mr. Rossiter called me
to his office again. He took me back into his private room and told me
how much he had loved my father. And then he told me that the time had
come for me to take my profits and quit; that the market was safe for a
man of his kind who was used to every turn of the game, but the best
thing for me now was to get my money from my broker and invest it in
certain five per cent. bonds. And then he made me promise, as long as
I lived, never to buy a share of stock again."
She paused and sighed.
"Can you guess what I did?" she asked. "What would you do in a case
like that? Well, I went to the broker and sold back my shares and then
I stood watching the tape. I had learned to read it and somehow it
fascinated me--and my stock was still going up. In less than two hours
it had gone up twenty points--it was the only stock that was sold! And
when I saw what I could have gained by waiting--what do you think I
did?"
"You turned right around," answered Rimrock confidently, "and bought
the same stock again."
"No, you're wrong," she said with a twist of the lips, "I'm a bigger
gambler than that. I put up all my money on a ten-point margin and was
called and sold out in an hour. The stock went tumbling right after I
bought it and, before I could order them to sell, the price had gone
down far below my margin and the brokers were in a panic. They
wouldn't stop to explain anything to me--all they said was that I had
lost. I went back home and thought it over and decided never to let
him know--Mr. Rossiter, I mean; he had been so kind to me, and I hadn't
done what he said. I found out afterwards that, shortly after I had
left him, he had deliberately wrecked the price; and he, poor man, was
thinking all the time, what a favor he had done his old friend's
daughter."
She laughed, short and mirthlessly, and Rimrock sat looking at her, his
eyes once more big with surprise. She was not the inexperienced
creature he had taken her for, she was a woman with high spots in her
career.
"Well, then what did you do?" he enquired at last as she showed no
disposition to proceed. "How'd you come to get out here? Did you know
old McBain or----"
"Say, can't you start that engine?" she spoke up sharply. "Let's go on
and forget about the rest. I'm here, we know that; and I only told you
what I did to break you of gambling in stocks."
"No, that engine is stalled," he said with authority, "but I'll get it
to go, when it's time. But say, tell me something--we're going to be
friends, you know--does Rossiter know where you are now?"
"Oh, yes," she answered, "I write to him frequently. He thinks I'm out
here for my health. I have this trouble, you know, and the doctors
advised me to come out where the air is dry."
"Well, you're a peach," observed Rimrock admiringly. "And the old man
still thinks you're rich? What'll he say, do you think, when he hears
of your latest--getting in on this Tecolote strike?"
"Oh, I won't dare tell him," she answered quickly. "I'm afraid he
wouldn't approve. And may I make a suggestion? If you'll throw on
your spark I think your engine will run."
"Say, you scare me!" said Rimrock with a guilty grin. "You're so smart
you make me afraid. I'll crank her up, too--do you think that would
help some? Huh, huh; I get caught every time!"
CHAPTER IX
YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND
"Well, well," remarked Rimrock after he had started his machine and the
desert was gliding smoothly by, "so that's why they call you Miss
Fortune, eh? Losing all your money on that stock."
The silent woman who sat beside him closed her lips, but made no reply.
He glanced at her curiously. She was deaf, of course, though she
seldom showed it--perhaps she had failed to hear.
"But that can be fixed," he said, speaking louder, "you can cut off
that Miss, any time."
"Yes," she said with a touch of sarcasm, "I believe I've heard that
before."
"But I mean it!" he declared and she smiled rather grimly. "And that!"
she answered, whereupon Rimrock flushed. He had used those words
before in exactly the same connection. It must be madness, this insane
prompting that moved him to talk love to this girl. The first time he
had met her, after a scant hour of conversation, he had made that
equivocal remark: "How about fifty-fifty--an undivided half?" And many
times since, when he came to think of it, he had wondered how the words
had slipped out. It was a way he had, of speaking impulsively, but now
it was more than that. He had deliberately planned to take her out on
the desert and ask her that question again. There was something about
her that destroyed his judgment even when, as now, she made no effort
to charm.
"Then that shows I mean it!" he answered fatuously. "I meant it, the
very first time."
"Well, it's very flattering," she said, dimpling slightly, "but isn't
this rather sudden?"
"You bet it's sudden--that's the way I do things!" He dropped the
wheel and caught her in his arms.
"Oh, be careful," she cried and as he tried roughly to kiss her she
thrust him in the throat with her elbow. They struggled for a moment
and then, as the machine made a swerve, she laid her hands on the wheel.
"Just let me drive this machine," she said, "and remember--you are
supposed to be a gentleman."
"Well, I am!" protested Rimrock as he came out of his madness. "What's
the matter? Are you going back home?"
She had flung a quick turn out across a hard flat and was swinging back
into the road.
"I think we'd better," she answered quietly. "I hope you haven't made
any mistake?"
"Why--no!" he stammered. "Why? What do you mean? Don't you think I'm
on the square? Well, I certainly am; I'm asking you to marry me!"
"Yes, but even then; have I given you any reason to think I'm so madly
infatuated? Of course I was foolish to come out with you this way, but
I assure you I'm no flighty girl."
"Oh, I didn't mean that!" protested Rimrock abjectly. "Say, now
listen, you don't understand." He stopped and panted as he fought down
his emotions and the automobile sped smoothly on. It was eight or ten
miles across the level desert and a few minutes would bring them into
town. "You don't know my ways," he went on bluffly, "but say, you
don't need to be afraid. Just slow down a little, I want to talk with
you--you're the finest girl I know. I want you, don't you see? And
when I want anything----"
He stopped as she glanced at him swiftly.
"Yes, you try to take it," she said and curled her lip with scorn. "I
understand you, perfectly; but I want to tell you something--there are
some things you can't get that way. And one of them is love. That has
to be given to you--and you have to be worthy of it--I don't suppose
you ever thought about that."
She kept her eyes on the road ahead, but Rimrock could see that she was
biting her lip with anger.
"That's the thing I don't like about you," she burst out passionately,
"you never think about anybody else. You always resort to violence.
And just because you can walk in on Mr. McBain----"
"Ah!" exclaimed Rimrock, leaning forward accusingly; but she scorned to
meet his stare.
"--just because you can terrorize him with that pistol you carry----"
"So that's what's the matter," went on Rimrock significantly, "you're
thinking about Andy McBain!"
"Mr. Jones!" she burst out, bringing the auto to a stop, "I guess this
has gone far enough. Will you walk to town, or shall I?"
"Neither one," he said quietly, taking over the wheel, "I'll drive you
to the hotel myself."
"Very well," she said and sat back white with anger as mile after mile
sped past.
"Here you are," he said as he slowed down at the Gunsight and suddenly
she was her old, sweet self.
"Thank you very much," she said, stepping gracefully out of the car;
"the country was very beautiful." And she went smilingly in through
the door.
Rimrock Jones sat silent, struck dumb by her manner, so different from
her cold, silent wrath; and then he caught a flash of movement on the
veranda. She was hiding their quarrel from the women!
"Sorry you couldn't stay longer," he answered, taking off his hat with
a belated flourish. "Good evening," he added and then, jamming on his
hat, he drove off where he could be alone.
After twenty-four hours of conflicting emotions Rimrock weakened and
took his troubles to Hassayamp; and after a passionate presentation of
his side of the misunderstanding he acknowledged that the lady was
right. He was nothing but a brute, a despicable barbarian, not worthy
to look at her; a presumptuous hound, and so on. But he told
Hassayamp, as one friend to another, that there would soon be a dead
dog in camp; and if Andy McBain ever crossed his path he would shoot
him down in his tracks.
With all this on his mind he made very poor company and Gunsight had
just about decided he had failed on his mine when it awoke to a sudden
miracle. A large party of surveyors had come in during the night and
were running a line to the south. Straight out across the desert,
while the morning light was good, they had driven their line of stakes;
a line which sighted as true as a rifle to the Tecolote Hills. It was
for a wagon road, perhaps--but why these surveyors when the whole
desert was as flat as a board? A railroad! The whole town jumped to
the same conclusion at once and the rush for the Tecolotes was on.
The men who had laughed at Rimrock Jones for months were leaders in the
wild stampede and Hassayamp roused up Rimrock from where he was
brooding and warned him to get to his ground.
"They'll jump you," he bellowed, "the whole town is going. They'll
stake every claim for miles!"
"Let 'em stake!" answered Rimrock whose mood was vindictive, "and the
first man that jumps me, I'll jump him, by grab, with this!"
He patted his pistol which, in its ancient holster was once more slung
on his hip, and stalked sullenly out into the street. Every wagon and
buckboard in the town of Gunsight seemed lined up in front of the
stores. Men rushed to and fro with canteens and grub-sacks or
half-filled boxes and sacks.
"Is it a railroad?" they yelled as Rimrock appeared and he answered:
"You bet your life it is!"
That settled it, and soon across the desert there went a procession of
horsemen and wagons. Those who could travel no other way filled syrup
cans with water and started for the Tecolotes on foot. A railroad!
Well, why had they never thought of that in the long, wasted days
before? Even L. W., the scoffer, caught the sudden contagion; but
Andrew McBain did not stir. He was a cautious man and good friends had
told him that Rimrock Jones had threatened his life. He stayed in
town--and Rimrock stayed also--and soon the procession came back. It
was led by L. W. in his cactus-proof automobile, and he reported all
the ground as staked. He reported further that the ground was
worthless, but Rimrock Jones only smiled.
"Yes, all that's left," he answered grimly. "I made you out a sucker,
for once. I guess you remember when I offered you a share in my mine
for two thousand dollars or less; but now, by grab, I've staked it all
and you Gunsight boys can go bust. And I give you fair warning!" he
shouted fiercely, "I'll say it to all of you--the first man that jumps
me, I'll kill him!"
"Well, who's trying to jump you?" asked L. W. irritably. "What's
biting you, anyway? Ain't your claims all legal? Has anybody disputed
you? Well, get onto yourself, you danged fool!"
"Well, all the same," went on Rimrock insistently, "I know what some
people will do. I don't name no names, but I've been cleaned out
once----"
"Aw, you make me tired!" snapped back L. W., "you're crazy--and what's
more you're drunk! You're a hell of a subject to be Gunsight's first
citizen, a building ho-tels, and general stores and banks!"
"Well, all the same, you watch me do it! I'm going to make this town
over right. And I warn you all, you can't be friends with me and that
dastardly McBain outfit, too. It's a fight to a finish and I don't
care who knows it, I'm going to bust him if it takes my last cent. I'm
not talking about L. W. nor anybody else--you can jump any way you
please--but there's one man in this town that I'm out to get and I'll
kill him, by grab, if he peeps!"
"You talk too much!" answered L. W. scornfully. "Why don't you go and
put up that gun? If we had a town marshal that was worth the powder
he'd come around and take it away."
"He would not," retorted Rimrock, "because he knows I won't give it up.
I'm carrying that gun just to let people know that I'm out now to fight
for my rights. As long as I'm left alone in my legal rights I'm the
most peaceable man in this town, but the first man that builds a
monument on my claims is going to find that I can't be bluffed."
"Oh, cut it off," cried L. W. in disgust, "we know you're bad--you've
told us before. And as for Andrew McBain, you'd better not crowd him
too far; he'll fight, on a pinch, himself."
"All right, if he wants it. I've got my eye on him. I'm just waiting
till he makes the first move. I know it's coming, but as sure as he
does it----"
"Plain drunk," grunted L. W. contemptuously and stumped away up the
street.
It was easy enough to say Rimrock was drunk, but it was soon
demonstrated that he was not crazy. He was standing in front of the
Alamo Saloon, still holding forth against McBain, when a Mexican boy
beckoned him off to one side and slipped a note into his hand.
"Please come to my office at once.--M. F."
Rimrock read it over and thrust it into his pocket, then drew it out
and read it over again; after which he went up the street.
He stepped into the office with his eyes fixed and sullen and she met
him just inside the door.
"I'll accept your apology for your conduct the other day," she said
with compelling calm, "and then I want to tell you some news."
"All right," mumbled Rimrock, "I apologize, all right. I was a
miserable, pot-licking hound. I'd give my right hand----"
"Yes, yes, that's all right," she broke in hurriedly, "but here's what
I want to say. Mr. McBain has been up to Geronimo and got him a copy
of that survey of your claims!"
"I knowed it!" burst out Rimrock swinging his fist into his hand, "I
saw him get off that train!"
"No, listen!" she said, "you mustn't talk so loud! You mustn't talk at
all! Just listen to what I say. I depend on you to save our mine."
"I'll do it!" began Rimrock; but she made a motion for silence and went
swiftly on with her tale.
"More than that," she said. "I happen to know that he's looked up the
names of those Mexicans, the original locators of your claims; and I
think--I can't be sure--but I think that one or two of them were not
citizens of the United States. Now wait! I've not finished! I'm
looking to you to go out there and protect our claims!"
"Well--the dirty--thief!" rumbled Rimrock in his throat. "I didn't
think he had the nerve. But say," he went on, suddenly struck with an
idea, "how come you're telling me all this? I thought you and
McBain----"
"We won't discuss that, if you please," she broke in, blushing
painfully. "There are some things you don't understand. But I think,
under the circumstances, I have the right to take steps to protect my
own interests. Now will you go out to the claims and keep them from
being jumped, or----"
"Leave it to me," he said, the fighting light in his eyes. "Where's
McBain? He's the man I've got to stop."
"No, now let's not have any violence. I know something of the law.
All you need to do is to stay on the ground. If you're in
possession----"
"That's got nothing to do with it!" he burst out impatiently. "This
has gone beyond the law. I've warned this man McBain before all kinds
of witnesses not to set his foot on my ground; and if he does it--I'll
make him pay for it."
He started for the door, hitching up his belt, and she caught at his
pistol as he passed.
"No," she said, "I don't want you to shoot him. I'd rather we'd lose
the mine."
"You don't understand," he answered. "This has got nothing to do with
a mine." He took both her hands in one of his and put them firmly
away. "It's between me and him," he said and went off without looking
back.
CHAPTER X
THE FIGHT FOR THE OLD JUAN
When a man's honor is questioned--his honor as a fighting man--it is
the dictum of centuries of chivalry that he shall not seek to avoid the
combat. A great fortune was at stake, many millions of dollars and the
possession of a valuable mine, and yet Rimrock Jones did not move. He
walked around the town and held conferences with his friends until word
came at last that he was jumped.
"All right," he said and with Hassayamp and L. W. he started across the
desert to his mine. Red-handed as he was from a former treachery, L.
W. did not fail Rimrock in this crisis and his cactus-proof automobile
took them swiftly over the trail that led to the high-cliffed
Tecolotes. He went under protest as the friend of both parties, but
all the same he went. And Hassayamp Hicks, who came from Texas where
men held their honor above their lives; he went along as a friend in
arms, to stand off the gunmen of McBain.
The news had come in that Andrew McBain had left Geronimo under cover
of the night, with an automobile load of guards, and the next day at
dawn some belated stampeders had seen them climbing up to the dome.
There lay the apex of the Tecolote claims, fifteen hundred lateral feet
that covered the main body of the lode; and with the instinct of a mine
pirate McBain had sought the high ground. If he could hold the Old
Juan claim he could cloud the title to all the rich ground on both
sides; and at the end of litigation, if he won his suit, all the
improvements that might be built below would be of value only to him.
Always providing he won; for his game was desperate and he knew that
Rimrock would fight.
He had flung down the challenge and, knowing well how it would end, he
had had his gunmen barricade the trail. They were picked-up men of
that peculiar class found in every Western town, the men who live by
their nerve. There were some who had been officers and others outlaws;
and others, if the truth were known, both. And as neither officers nor
outlaws are prone to question too closely the ethics of their
particular trade so they asked no questions of the close-mouthed
McBain, except what he paid by the day. Now, like any hired fighters,
they looked well to their own safety and let McBain do the worrying for
the crowd. He was a lawyer, they knew that, and it stood to reason he
was acting within the law.
L. W.'s auto' reached Ironwood Springs, where Rimrock had made his old
camp, while the sun was still two hours high. From the Springs to the
dome, that great "bust-up" of porphyry which stood square-topped and
sheer against the sky, there was a single trail full of loose, shaly
rocks that mounted up through a notch in the rim. They started up in
silence, Rimrock leading the way and Hassayamp puffing along behind;
but as they neared the heights, where the shattered base of the butte
rose up from the mass of fallen debris, Rimrock forged on and left them
behind.
"Hey, wait!" called Hassayamp with the last of his breath, but neither
Rimrock nor L. W. looked back. It was a race to the top, Rimrock to
get his revenge and L. W. to stop his mad rush; but in this race, as
always, youth took the lead and L. W. lagged far behind. Like a
mountain sheep on some familiar trail Rimrock bounded on until his
breath came in whistling gasps; but, while the blood pounded against
his brainpan and his muscles quivered and twitched, the strength of ten
men pulsed through his iron limbs, and he kept his face to the heights.
He was all of a tremble when, in the notch of the trail, he was
challenged by a ringing:
"Halt!"
He stopped, sucked in a great breath and dashed the stinging sweat from
his eyes; and then, hardly seeing the barricade before him or the
rifles that thrust out between the rocks, he put down his head and
toiled on. Right on the rim, where the narrow trail nicked it, the
gunmen had built a low wall and as he came on unheeding they rose up
from behind it and threw down on him with their rifles.
"Stop right where you are!" a guard called out harshly and Rimrock
halted--and then he came on.
"Get back or we'll shoot!" shouted a grizzled gunman who now suddenly
seemed to take charge. "This claim is held by Andrew McBain and the
first man that trespasses get's killed!"
"Well, shoot then," panted Rimrock, still struggling up the pathway.
"Go ahead--it's nothing to me."
"Hey, you stop!" commanded the gunman as Rimrock gained the barricade,
and he struck him back with the muzzle of his gun. Rimrock staggered
and caught himself and then held on weakly as his breath came in
quivering sobs.
"That's all right," he gasped. "I've got no quarrel with you. I came
to get Andrew McBain."
"Well, stay where you are," ordered the gunman sternly, "or I'll kill
you, sure as hell."
Rimrock swayed back and forth as he clung to a bush that he had
clutched in his first lurching fall and as he labored for breath he
gazed about wildly at the unfamiliar faces of the men.
"Who are you boys?" he asked at last and as nobody answered him he
glanced swiftly back down the trail.
"It's no use to try that," said the gunman shortly, "you can't rush us,
behind the wall."
"Oh, I've got no men," answered Rimrock quickly, "those fellows are
just coming along. I'm Henry Jones and I came to warn you gentlemen
you're trespassing on one of my claims."
"Can't help it," said the guard, "we're here under orders to kill you
if you come over this line."
He indicated the wall which barred the way to the location notice of
the claim and Rimrock hitched his belt to the left.
"Show me your papers," he said. "You've got no right to kill any man
until you prove that this claim is yours."
That hitch of the belt had brought his heavy six-shooter well around on
the side of his leg and as the gunmen watched him he looked them over,
still struggling to get back his breath. Then as no one moved he
advanced deliberately and put his hand on the wall.
"Now," he said, "you show me your authority or I'll come over there and
put you off."
There was a stir in the ranks of the grim-faced gun-fighters and their
captain looked behind. Not forty feet away on the flat floor of the
mesa was the shaft of the Old Juan claim and, tacked to the post that
rose up from its rockpile was a new, unweathered notice.
"That's the notice," said the captain, "but you stay where you are.
You knock down that wall and you'll get killed!"
"Killed nothing!" burst out Rimrock contemptuously, "you're afraid to
shoot me!" And looking him straight in the eyes, he pushed the top
rock off the wall.
"Now!" he said after a moment's silence as the gunmen moved uneasily
about, "I'll do that again, and I'll keep on doing it until you show me
that this ain't my claim."
"Mr. McBain!" called the captain and as Rimrock clutched at his pistol
he found a gun thrust against his stomach.
"You make a crooked move," warned the captain sharply, "and----"
He stopped for up from the mouth of the Old Juan shaft came the head of
Andrew McBain.
"Ah, hiding in a hole," spoke up Rimrock sneeringly, as McBain opened
his mouth to talk. "I'd like to work for a man like you. Say, boys,
take on with me--I'll double your money; and what's more I'll stand up
for my rights!" He looked around at the line of gun-fighters, but
their set lips did not answer his smile. Only in their eyes, those
subtle mirrors of the mind, did he read the passing reflex of their
scorn. "You're scared, you coward," went on Rimrock scathingly as
McBain looked warily about. "Come out, if you're a man, and prove your
title, or by grab, I'll come in there and get you!"
He stopped with a grunt for the hard-eyed captain had jabbed him with
the muzzle of his gun.
"None of that," he said, but Rimrock took no notice--his eyes were
fixed on McBain.
He came out of the hole with a waspish swiftness, though there was a
wild, frightened look in his eyes; and as he advanced towards the
barricade he drew out a bulldog pistol and held it awkwardly in his
hand.
"Mr. Jones," he began in his harsh lawyer's voice, "don't think for a
moment you can bluff me. These men have their orders and at the first
show of violence I have told them to shoot you dead. Now regarding
this claim, formerly known as the Old Juan, you have no legal right to
the same. In the first place, Juan Soto, whom you hired to locate it,
is not an American citizen and therefore his claim is void. In the
second place the transfer for the nominal sum of ten dollars proves
collusion to perpetrate a fraud. And in the third place----"
"You're a liar!" broke in Rimrock, his breast heaving with anger, "he's
as much a citizen as you are. He's been registered in Gunsight for
twenty years and his vote has never been challenged."
"Juan Bautista Soto," returned McBain defiantly, "was born in Caborca,
Sonora, on the twenty-fourth day of June, eighteen sixty. I have a
copy of the records of the parish church to prove he is Mexican-born.
And in the third place----"
"And in the third place," burst out Rimrock, raising his voice to a
yell, "that proves conclusively that you've set out to steal my mine.
I don't give a damn for your thirdlys and fourthlys, nor all the laws
in the Territory. To hell with a law that lets a coyote like you rob
honest men of their mines. This claim is mine and I warn you now--if
you don't get off of it, I'll kill you!"
He dropped his hand to his pistol and the startled gunmen looked
quickly to their captain for a cue. But the captain stood
doubtful--there were two sides to the question, and a man will only go
so far to earn ten dollars a day.
"Now hear me," warned Rimrock as there fell a tense silence, "you get
off----"
"Shoot that man!" yelled McBain as he sensed what was coming, but
Rimrock was over the wall. He knocked it flat with the fury of his
charge, striking the gunmen aside as he passed. There was a moment of
confusion and then, as McBain turned to run, the bang of Rimrock's gun.
Andrew McBain went down, falling forward on his face, and as Rimrock
whirled on the startled gunmen they shot blindly and broke for cover.
The fight had got beyond them, their hearts were not in it--and they
knew that McBain was dead.
"You get off my claim!" cried Rimrock as he faced them and
instinctively they backed away. That look in his eyes they knew all
too well, it was the man-killing berserker rage. Many a time, on
foreign battlefields or in the bloody saloon fights of the frontier,
they had seen it gleaming in the eyes of some man whom nothing but
death would stop. They backed off, fearfully, with their guns at a
ready; and when they were clear they ran.
When L. W. looked over the shattered wall he saw Rimrock tearing down
the notice and crunching it into the ground. He was perfectly calm,
but in his staring blue eyes the death look still burned like live
coals; and it was only when Hassayamp, risking his life from heart
failure, toiled up and took charge of his claim that he could be
persuaded to give himself up.
CHAPTER XI
A LITTLE TROUBLE
Rimrock came back to Gunsight in charge of a deputy sheriff and with
the angry glow still in his eyes. The inquest was over and he was held
for murder, but he refused to retain a lawyer.
"I don't want one," he said when his friends urged it on him. "I wish
every lawyer was dead."
He sat in gloomy silence as the Gunsight justice of the peace went
through the formalities of a preliminary examination and then, while
they waited for the next train to Geronimo, he and the deputy dropped
in on Mary Fortune.
"Good morning," he said, flushing up as she looked at him, "can you
spare me a few minutes of your time?"
"Why, certainly," she answered, and he spoke to the deputy, who waited
outside the door.
"I've had a little trouble," went on Rimrock grimly as he sat down
where he could speak into her transmitter, "and I want you to help me
out. Mr. Hicks over here is guarding the mine and I've sent four more
boys out to help, but there's a whole lot of business coming up. Can
you hold down the job of Secretary?"
Mary Fortune thought a moment, then nodded her head and waited to hear
what he would say.
"All right," he said, "I'll telegraph East and have the appointment
O.K.'d. Then there's another matter. We're going to lay that railroad
across the desert as they never laid one before--six months will see it
done--but even that don't suit us. We're going to lay out our millsite
and have everything ready the day that railroad is done. Then we're
going to erect the mill and install the machinery and go to throwing
dirt. Eight months at the least and we'll have a producing property
shipping trainloads of ore every day. Well, what I was going to
say--there's a man named Jepson, a mining engineer, coming out to
superintend that work and I want you to give him all the assistance you
can and help boost the thing along. That's all--I'll send you a check
and the papers--you can address me at the County Jail."
He rose hastily and started for the door, then looked back with
questioning eyes.
"Very well," she said and he dropped his head and slouched heavily out
the door.
Mary Fortune sat alone, staring absently after him. What a
contradictory man he was. And yet, how well he understood. He knew
without telling that she would not take his hand so he kept it behind
his back; but he knew at the same time that she would attend to his
business while his address was the County Jail. And no plea for
sympathy, no word of explanation; just business, and then he was gone.
His life was at stake, and yet he spoke of nothing but the mine. "A
little trouble!" And he had killed a man. Was he a savage or a
superman?
The mail the next day brought a note from him, written with a lead
pencil on a piece of torn paper. It had the jail smell about it, a
rank, caged-animal odor that she learned to recognize later, but there
was no mention of any jail. He enclosed a check and a power of
attorney, with directions for buying some land--and then there came a
telegram from New York.
M. R. Fortune,
Gunsight, Arizona.
Wire from Henry Jones intimating trouble Tecolote claims. Your
appointment agreeable. Spare no expense safeguard claims. Jepson
superintendent arrives Friday. Wire particulars.
W. H. Stoddard.
One look at that signature and the Wall Street address and Mary Fortune
saw with sudden clearness what had been mystery and moonshine for
months. W. H. Stoddard was Whitney H. Stoddard, the man who controlled
the Transcontinental Railroad. His name alone in connection with the
Tecolote would send its stock up a thousand per cent. And what a
stroke of business that was--to make a feeder for his railroad while he
built up a great property for himself. Now at last she understood the
inexplicable reticence with which Rimrock had veiled his associate's
name and her heart almost stopped as she thought how close she had come
to parting with her Tecolote stock. Those two thousand shares, if she
held on to them to the end, might bring her in thousands of dollars!
Her brain cleared like a flash and she remembered Rimrock's
instructions concerning land for the Company's office. The wire could
wait--and Whitney H. Stoddard--the first thing to do was to get an
option, for even telegraph operators have been known to talk. She
slipped out quietly and a half hour afterward the papers were drawn up
and signed, and the whole vacant block across the street from the hotel
was tied up for the Tecolote Mining Company. And then the great news
broke.
It is a penal offense, punishable by heavy fine and imprisonment, for a
telegraph operator to disclose the secrets of his files; but within ten
minutes the whole street knew. The values on property went up in
meteor flights as reckless speculators sought to buy in on the ground
floor. All the land along the railroad, instead of being raw desert,
became suddenly warehouse sites; the vacant lots along the main street
were snatched up for potential stores and saloons, and all the drab
flats where the Mexican burros wandered became transformed to choice
residence properties. It had come at last, that time prophesied by
Rimrock when Gunsight would be transformed by his hand, but the prophet
was not there to see. After all his labors, and his patient endurance
of ridicule and unbelief, when the miracle happened Rimrock Jones the
magician was immured in the County Jail.
But it made a difference. Even Mary Fortune came to think of him with
more kindness in her heart. The Geronimo papers suddenly blossomed out
with accounts of the Gunsight boom; and Rimrock Jones, though held for
murder, was heralded as a mining king. The story was recalled of his
discovery of the Gunsight and of his subsequent loss of the same; and
the fight for the Old Juan, with the death of McBain, was rewritten to
fit the times. Then the grading crew came with their mules and
scrapers, and car-loads of ties and rails. Great construction trains
congested all the sidings as they dumped off tools and supplies. A
track-laying machine followed close behind them, and the race for the
Tecolotes was on. What a pity it was that poor Rimrock Jones was not
there to see the dirt fly!
And there were other changes. From a plain office drudge, Mary
Fortune, the typist, suddenly found herself the second in command.
Every day from Geronimo there came letters and telegrams from the
prisoner in the County Jail and his trenchant orders were put into
effect by the girl who had worked for McBain. Nothing more was said
about her mysterious past, nor the stigma such a past implies; the
women of the hotel now bowed to her hopefully and smiled if she raised
her eyes. Even Jepson, the superintendent, addressed her
respectfully--after stopping off at the County Jail--and all the
accounts of the Company, for whatever expense, now passed through her
competent hands.
She was competent, Jepson admitted it; yet somehow he did not like her.
It was his wife, perhaps, a proud, black-eyed little creature, who
first planted the prejudice in his breast; although of course no man
likes to take orders from a woman. To be sure, she gave no orders, but
she kept the books and that gave her a check on his work. But
Abercrombie Jepson was too busily occupied to brood much over this
incipient dislike, he had men by the hundred pouring out to the mine
and all the details of a great plant on his hands.
First out across the desert went the derricks of the well-borers, to
develop water for the concentrator and mill; and then diamond-drill men
with all their paraphernalia, to block out the richest ore; and after
them the millwrights and masons and carpenters, to lay foundations and
build the lighter parts of the plant; and, back and forth in a steady
stream, the long lines of teamsters, hauling freight from the end of
the railroad. It was an awe-inspiring spectacle, this invasion of the
desert, this sure preparation to open the treasure-house where the
Tecolotes had locked up their ore. But Rimrock was missing from it all!
There came a time when Mary Fortune acknowledged this to herself; and,
without knowing just why, she took the next train to Geronimo. The
summer had come on and the jail as she entered it was stifling with its
close, smelly heat. She sickened at the thought of him, caged up there
day and night, shut off even from light and air; and when the sheriff
let her in through the clanging outer gate she started back at sight of
the tanks. Within high walls of concrete a great, wrought-iron
cell-house rose up like a square box of steel and, pressed against the
bars, were obscene leering eyes staring out for a look at the woman.
"Oh, that's all right," said the sheriff kindly, "just step right down
this way. I regret very much I can't bring him outside, but he's in
for a capital offense."
He led the way down a resounding corridor, with narrow windows high up
near the roof; and there, staring out from a narrow cell, she saw
Rimrock Jones. His face was pale with the prison pallor and a tawny
growth covered his chin; but the eyes--they were still the eyes of
Rimrock, aggressive, searching and bold.
"A lady to see you," announced the sheriff and suddenly they were alone.
There had been some business, some important matter upon which she had
needed his advice, but as she saw him shut up like a common felon the
sudden tears came to her eyes.
"Kind of limited quarters," observed Rimrock, smiling wanly, "nothing
like that new hotel that we're building. Well, it won't be long now
till I'm out of this hole. Is there anything special you want?"
"Why, yes!" she said, getting control of herself, "can't--can't we get
you out on bail? I didn't know it was so awful inside here--I'm going
to engage the best lawyer in town!"
"No use," answered Rimrock, "I'm held for murder--and I don't want no
lawyer, anyhow."
The old stubborn tone had come back into his voice, but swift
compassion urged her on.
"But you certainly will have one when your case goes to trial! Mr.
Lockhart said he would hire one himself."
"Nope, don't want 'em," answered Rimrock. "They're a bunch of crooks.
I'll handle my case myself."
"Yourself? Why, you don't know the law----"
"That's why I'll win," broke in Rimrock impatiently. "I'm going to
pick out that jury myself."
"No, but the briefs and papers! And who will represent you in court?"
"Never mind," sulked Rimrock, "I'll take care of all that. But I won't
have a lawyer, if I swing for it!"
"Oh!" she gasped, but he gazed at her grimly without thinking about
anything but his case.
"All I want is justice," he went on doggedly. "I want a fair trial
before a jury of Arizona men. When I state my case I'll tell them the
truth and I don't want any lawyer butting in. And one thing more. I'm
going to ask you, Miss Fortune, to leave this case strictly alone. I
thank you just as much for your good intentions, but we don't look at
this matter the same. I quit the law when I lost title to the
Gunsight, and I'm going to play out my hand to the end. I claim
there's a law that's above all these lawyers--and judges and supreme
courts, too--and that's the will of the people. I may be mistaken, but
I'll gamble my life on it and if I lose--you can have the whole mine."
"I don't want the whole mine," she answered resentfully, "I want--I
want you to be free. Oh, I came to tell you about all we're
doing--about the construction and the mine work and all--but I just
can't say a word. Are you determined to plead your own case?"
"Why, certainly," he said. "Why shouldn't I do it? I don't consider
I've done anything wrong. I hope you don't think, just because I
killed McBain, that I'm suffering any regrets? Because I'm not, nor
nothing of the kind--I'm glad I killed him like I did. He had it
coming to him and, gimme a square jury, I'll make 'em say I did right."
"I guess I don't understand," she stammered at last, "but--but I'm glad
that it doesn't seem wrong. I can't understand how a man could do it;
but I'll help you, any way I can."
"All right," said Rimrock and looked at her strangely, "I'll tell you
what you can do. In the first place I want you to go back to Gunsight
and stay there until I come back. And in the second place--well, I
can't forget what I did--that day. I want you to say it's all right."
"It is all right," she answered quickly, "I guess that's what I came to
say. And will you forgive me, too, for letting you lie here and never
doing anything to help?"
"Oh, that's nothing," said Rimrock, "I don't mind it much. But say,
isn't there anything else?"
"No!" she said, but the hot blood mounted up and mantled her cheeks
with red.
"Come on," he beckoned. "Just to show you forgive me--it will help me
to win if you do."
She looked around, up and down the narrow corridor, and then laid her
cheek to the bars. Who would not do as much, out of Christian
kindness, for a man who had suffered so much?
CHAPTER XII
RIMROCK'S BIG DAY
The white heat of midsummer settled down on the desert and the
rattlesnakes and Gila monsters holed up. As in the frozen East they
hibernated in winter to escape the grip of the cold, so in sun-cursed
Papagueria, where the Tecolotes lie, they crawled as deep to get away
from the heat. But in the Geronimo jail with its dead, fetid air,
Rimrock Jones learned to envy the snakes. Out on the stark desert,
where the men laid the track, the hot steel burned everything it
touched; but the air was clean and in the nights, when he suffocated,
they lay cool and looked up at the stars. They did a man's work and
drew their pay; he lay in the heat and waited.
Then the first cool days came and the Tecolote Mining Company resumed
its work in feverish haste. An overplus of freight was jammed in the
yards; the construction gangs laid track day and night; and from the
end of the line, which crept forward each day, the freight wagons
hauled supplies to the mine. There was a world of work, back and forth
on the road; and in Tecolote and Gunsight as well. A magnificent
hotel, with the offices of the Company, was springing up across the
street from the Gunsight; at the mine there were warehouses and a
company store and quarters for the men on the flats where Rimrock had
once pitched his tent. But the man who built them was Abercrombie
Jepson--the master hand was slack.
It had killed a man and for that offense Rimrock Jones must wait on the
law. There was no bail for him, for he had made a threat and then
killed his man as he fled. And he would not deny it, nor listen to any
lawyer; so he lay there till the circuit court convened. All through
the slow inferno of that endless summer he had cursed the law's delay;
but it held him, regardless, until the calm-eyed judge returned for the
fall term of court. The jail was full to the last noisome cell-room
and, caught with the rest, was Rimrock.
Yet if Rimrock had suffered there had been compensation--Mary Fortune
had written him every day. He knew everything that Jepson was doing;
and he knew a little more about her. But only a little; there was
something about her that balked him a thousand times. She eluded him,
she escaped him, she ignored his hot words; she was his friend, and yet
only so far. She did not approve of what he was doing, and she had
taken him at his word. He had asked her, once, not to interfere in his
case; and from that day she kept her hands off.
The day of the trial came and Hassayamp Hicks, with L. W. and a host of
friends, went to Geronimo to cheer Rimrock by their presence. The
papers came back full of the account of the case, but Mary Fortune did
not appear in court. Even when the great day came when Rimrock was to
make his appeal to the jury she remained in her office in Gunsight--and
then came the telegram: "Acquitted!"
He had been right then, after all; he knew his own people! But then,
there were other things, too. Mary Fortune was not so innocent that
she had not noticed the strong interest which the newspapers had taken
in his case. They had hailed him, in those last days, the first
citizen of Geronimo County; and first citizens, as we know, are seldom
hanged. The wonderful development of the Tecolote Mining Company had
been heralded, month after month; and the name Rimrock Jones was always
spoken with a reverence never given to criminals. He was the man with
the vision, the big man of a big country, the man whose touch brought
forth gold. And now he had won; his man-killing had been justified;
and he was coming back--to see her.
She knew it. She even knew what he would hasten to say the first
moment he found her alone. He was simple, in those matters; which made
it all the more necessary to have the answer thought out in advance.
But was life as simple as he insisted upon making it? Was every one
either good or bad, and everything right or wrong? She doubted it, and
the answer was somewhere in there. That he was a great man, she
agreed. In his crude, forceful way he had succeeded where most men
would have failed; but was he not, after all, a great, thoughtless
giant who went fighting his way through life, snatching up what he
wanted most? And because his eyes were upon her, because she had come
in his way, was that any reason why the traditions of her life should
fall down and give way to his?
Even when the answer is "no" that is not any reason why a woman should
not appear at her best. Mary Fortune met the train in an afternoon
dress that had made an enemy of every woman in town. She had a friend
in New York who picked them out for her, since her salary had become
what it was. A great crowd was present--the whole populace of Gunsight
was waiting to see their hero come home--and as the train rolled in and
Rimrock dropped off, in the excitement she found tears in her eyes.
But then, that was nothing; Woo Chong, the restaurant Chinaman, was
weeping all over the place; and Old Hassayamp Hicks, hobbling off
through the crowd, wiped his eyes and sobbed, unashamed. And then
Rimrock seized her by both her hands and made her walk with him back to
the hotel!
It was no time for discipline, that night; Rimrock was feeling too
happy and gay. He would shake hands with a Mexican with equal
enthusiasm, or a Chinaman, or a laborer off the railroad. They were
all his friends, whether he knew them or not, and he called on the
whole town to celebrate. The Mexican string band that had met him at
the train was chartered forthwith for the night, Woo Chong had an order
to bring all the grub in town and feed it to the crowd at the hotel;
but Hassayamp Hicks refused to take any man's money, he claimed that
the drinks were on him. And so, with the band playing "Paloma" on the
veranda and refreshments served free to the town, Rimrock Jones came
back, the first citizen of Gunsight, and took up his life with a bang.
He stood in the rotunda of the Hotel Tecolote and gazed admiringly at
the striped marble pillars that he had ordered at great expense, and
his answer was always the same.
"Why, sure not! I knowed that jury wouldn't convict. I picked them
myself by the look in their eye, and every man had to be ten years in
the Territory. A fine bunch of men--every one of 'em square--they can
have anything I've got. That's me! You know Rimrock! He never
forgets his friends! And he don't forget his enemies, either!"
And then came the cheers, the shouts of his friends. The only enemy he
had was dead.
Mary Fortune had a room on the second floor of the hotel--one of the
nicest of them all, now that the painters and paperhangers had finally
left--and she came down late in an evening gown. The marble steps,
which Rimrock had insisted upon having, led up and then turned to both
sides and as she came down, smiling, with her ear-'phone left off and
her hair in a glorious coil, Rimrock paused and his eyes grew big.
"By Joe, like that Queen picture!" he burst out impulsively and went
bounding to meet her half way. And Mary Fortune heard him, in spite of
her deafness; and understood--he meant the Empress Louise. He had seen
that picture of the beloved Empress tripping daintily down the stairs
and, for all she knew, those expensive marble steps might have been
built to give point to the compliment.
"You sure look the part!" he said in her ear as he gallantly escorted
her down. "And say, this hotel! Ain't it simply elegant? We'll show
those Gunsight folks who's who!"
"They're consumed with envy!" she answered, smiling. "I mean the
women, of course. I heard one of them say, just before I moved over,
that you'd built it here just to spite them."
"That's right!" laughed Rimrock--"hello there, Porfilio--I built it
just to make 'em look cheap. By grab, I'm an Injun and I won't soon
forget the way they used to pass me by on the street. But now it's
different--my name is Mister, and that's one bunch I never will know."
"They know _me_, now," she suggested slyly, "but I'm afraid I'm part
Indian, too."
"You're right!" he said as he guided her through the crowd and led the
way out into the street. "Let's walk up and down--I don't dare to go
out alone, or the boys will all get me drunk. But that's right," he
went on, "I've been thinking it over--you can forgive, but you never
forget."
"Well, perhaps so," she replied, "but I don't spend much of my time in
planning out some elaborate revenge. Now those marble steps--do you
know what Mr. Stoddard said when he came out to inspect the mine?"
"No, and what's more, I don't care," answered Rimrock lightly. "I'm
fixed so I don't have to care. Mr. Stoddard is all right--he's a nice
able provider, but we're running this mine, ourselves."
He squeezed her hand where she had slipped it through his arm and
looked down with a triumphant smile.
"We, Us and Company!" he went on unctuously, "fifty-one per cent. of
the stock!"
"Does Stoddard know that?" she asked him suddenly, looking up to read
the words from his lips. "I noticed when he was here he treated me
very politely, whereas Mr. Jepson didn't fare nearly so well."
"You bet he knows it," answered Rimrock explosively. "And Jepson will
know it, too. The first thing I do will be to get rid of our dummy and
make you a Director in the Company. I'm going to take charge here and
your one per cent. of stock entitles you to a bona-fide place on the
Board."
"Well, I'd think that over first," she advised after a silence,
"because I foresee we sha'n't always agree. And if it's a dummy you
want you'd better keep Mr. Buckbee. I'm fully capable of voting you
down."
"No, I'll take a chance on it," he went on, smiling amiably. "All I
ask is that you let me know. If you want to buck me, why, that's your
privilege--you get a vote with me and Stoddard."
"Well, we'll talk that over," she said, laughing indulgently, "when
you're not feeling so trustful and gay. This is one of those times
I've heard you tell about when you feel like walking the wires. The
morning after will be much more appropriate for considering an affair
of this kind."
"No, I mean it!" he declared and then his face reddened. He had used
that phrase before, and always at an unfortunate time. "Let's go back
to the hotel," he burst out abruptly, "these boys are painting the town
right."
They turned back down the street, where drunken revellers hailed their
hero with cheers as he passed, and as they entered the hotel Rimrock
carried her on till they had mounted to the ladies' balcony. This was
located in the gallery where the ladies of the hotel could look down
without being observed and for the space of an hour Rimrock leaned over
the railing and gazed at the crowded rotunda. And as he gazed he
talked, speaking close in her ear since he knew she had left off her
'phone; and all the time, as the people thinned and dwindled, he strove
to win her over to his mood.
He was, as she had said, in one of those expansive moods when his
thoughts were lofty and grand. He opened up his heart and disclosed
hopes and ambitions never before suspected by her; and as she listened
it became apparent that she, Mary Fortune, was somehow involved in them
all. Yet she let him talk on, for his presence was like wine to her,
and his dreams as he told them seemed true. There was the trip to
Europe--he alluded to it very tactfully--but he did not speak as if it
were to be made alone.
And then he spoke of his plans for the Tecolote, and further conquests
that would startle the world. There was Mexico, a vast treasure-house,
barely scratched by the prospector; his star would soon lead him there.
All he needed was patience, to wait the short time till the Tecolote
began to pour out its ore. He asked her minutely of Jepson and his
work and of her interview with the great Whitney H. Stoddard, and then
he struck the stone rail with his knotted fist and told what would have
to be done. And then at last, as the lights grew dim, he spoke of his
long days in jail and how he had looked each day for her letter, which
had never failed to come. His voice broke a little as he told of the
trial and then he reached out and took her hand.
"I've learned from you," he said, leaning closer so she could hear him,
"I've learned to understand. And you like me; now, don't you? You
can't tell me different because I can see it right there in your eye?"
She looked away, but she nodded her head, and her hand still lay quiet
in his.
"Yes, I like you," she said. "I can't help but like you--but let's not
say any more. Aren't you happy enough without always having
things--can't you wait for some things in this world?"
"Yes, I can," he said. "I can wait for everything--the money, the
success and all--but I can't wait for you! No, that's asking too much!"
He drew her towards him and his strong arm swept about her, but she
straightened rebelliously in his clutch.
"Remember!" she warned and his arm relaxed though his breath was still
hot on her cheek. "Now I must be going," she said, rising swiftly.
"Good-night, Rimrock! I'm glad you're here!"
"Don't I get a kiss?" he demanded hoarsely as his hand reached again.
"Come on," he pleaded. "Didn't I turn you loose? You kissed me
once--in jail!"
"But you're free now, Rimrock, and--that makes a difference. You must
learn to wait, and be friends."
"Oh--hell!" he burst out as she flitted away from him. But she was
deaf--she turned back and smiled.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MORNING AFTER
The morning after found Rimrock without regrets and, for once, without
a head. He had subtly judged, from something she had said, that Mary
did not like whiskey breaths, nor strong cigars, nor the odors of the
two combined. So, having certain words to speak in her ear, he had
refrained, with the results as aforesaid. For the first time in her
life she had looked him in the eye and acknowledged, frankly, that she
liked him. But she had not kissed him--she drew the line there--and
once more in his shrewd unsophisticated way he judged it was never
done, in her set.
He found her in the office when he appeared the next morning, with her
harness over her head. It was the sign in a way that she was strictly
business and all personal confidences were taboo, but Rimrock did not
take the hint. It annoyed him, some way, that drum over her ear and
the transmitter hung on her breast, for when he had seen her the
evening before all these things had been set aside.
"What? Still wearing that ear-thing?" he demanded bluffly and she
flushed and drew her lips tight. It was a way she had when she
restrained some quick answer and Rimrock hastened on to explain. "You
never wore it last night and--and you could hear every word I said."
"That was because I knew what you were going to say."
She smiled, imperceptibly, as she returned the retort courteous and now
it was Rimrock who blushed. Then he laughed and waved the matter aside.
"Well, let it go at that," he said sitting down. "Gimme the books, I'm
going to make you a director at our next meeting."
Mary Fortune looked at him curiously and smiled once more, then rose
quickly and went to the safe.
"Very well," she said as she came back with the records, "but I wonder
if you quite understand."
"You bet I do," he said, laying off his big hat and spreading out the
papers and books. "Don't fool yourself there--we've got to be
friends--and that's why I'm going the limit."
He searched out the certificate where, to qualify him for director, he
had transferred one share of the Company stock to Buckbee, and filled
in a date on the back.
"Now," he went on, "Mr. Buckbee's stock is cancelled, and his
resignation automatically takes place. Friend Buckbee is all right,
but dear friend W. H. Stoddard might use him to slip something over.
It's We, Us and Company, you and me, little Mary, against Whitney H.
Stoddard and the world. Do you get the idea? We stand solid
together--two directors out of three--and the Tecolote is in the hollow
of our hand."
"Your hand!" she corrected but Rimrock protested and she let him have
his way.
"No, now listen," he said; "this doesn't bind you to anything--all I
want is that we shall be friends."
"And do you understand," she challenged, "that I can vote against you
and throw the control to Stoddard? Have you stopped to think that I
may have ideas that are diametrically opposed to your own? Have you
even considered that we might fall out--as we did once before, you
remember--and that then I could use this against you?"
"I understand all that--and more besides," he said as he met her eyes.
"I want you, Mary. My God, I'm crazy for you. The whole mine is
nothing to me now."
"Oh, yes, it is," she said, but her voice trailed off and she thought
for a minute in silence.
"Very well," she said, "you have a right to your own way--but remember,
this still leaves me free."
"You know it!" he exclaimed, "as the desert wind! Shake hands on
it--we're going to be friends!"
"I hope so," she said, "but sometimes I'm afraid. We must wait a while
and be sure."
"Ah, 'wait'!" he scolded. "But I don't like that word--but come on,
let's get down to business. Where's this Abercrombie Jepson? I want
to talk to him, and then we'll go out to the mine."
He grabbed up his hat and began to stride about the office, running his
hand lovingly over the polished mahogany furniture, and Mary Fortune
spoke a few words into the phone.
"He'll be here in a minute," she said and began to straighten out the
papers on her desk. Even to Rimrock Jones, who was far from
systematic, it was evident that she knew her work. Every paper was put
back in its special envelope, and when Abercrombie Jepson came in from
his office she had the bundle back in the safe.
He was a large man, rather fat and with a ready smile, but with a
harried look in his eye that came from handling a thousand details; and
as Rimrock turned and faced him he blinked, for he felt something was
coming.
"Mr. Jepson," began Rimrock in his big, blustering voice, "I want to
have an understanding with you. You're a Stoddard man, but I think
you're competent--you certainly have put things through. But here's
the point--I've taken charge now and you get your orders from me. You
can forget Mr. Stoddard. I'm president and general manager, and
whatever I say goes."
He paused and looked Jepson over very carefully while Mary Fortune
stared.
"Very well, sir," answered Jepson, "I think I understand you. I hope
you are satisfied with my services?"
"We'll see about that later," went on Rimrock, still arrogantly. "I'll
begin my tour of inspection to-day. But I'll tell you right now, so
there won't be any mistake, that all I ask of you is results. You
won't find me kicking about the money you spend as long as it comes
back in ore. You're a competent man, so I've been given to understand,
and, inside your field, you're the boss. I won't fire any of your men
and I won't interfere with your work without having it done through
you; but on the other hand, don't you forget for a single minute that
I'm the big boss on this dump. And whatever you do, don't make the
mistake of thinking you're working for Stoddard. I guess that will be
all. Miss Fortune is going to be a director soon and I've asked her to
go out with us to the mine."
A strange, startled look came over Jepson's face as he received this
last bit of news, but he smiled and murmured his congratulations. Then
he expressed the hope that he would be able to please them and withdrew
with the greatest haste.
"Well!" observed Rimrock as he gazed grimly after him, "I guess that
will hold Mr. Jepson."
"Very likely," returned Mary, "but as a prospective director may I
enquire the reason for this outburst?"
"You may," replied Rimrock. "This man, Abercrombie Jepson, was put
over on me by Stoddard. I had to concede something, after holding out
on the control, and I agreed he could name the supe. Well now, after
being the whole show, don't you think it more than likely that Mr.
Jepson might overlook the main squeeze--me?"
He tapped himself on the breast and nodded his head significantly.
"That's it," he went on as she smiled enigmatically. "I know these
great financiers. I'll bet you right now our fat friend Abercrombie is
down telegraphing the news to Stoddard. He's Stoddard's man but I've
got my eye on him and if he makes a crooked move, it's bingo!"
"All the same," defended Mary, "while I don't like him personally, I
think Jepson is remarkably efficient. And when you consider his years
of experience and the technical knowledge he has----"
"That has nothing to do with it, as far as I'm concerned--there are
other men just as good for the price--but I want him to understand so
he won't forget it that he's taking his orders from _me_. Now I happen
to know that our dear friend Stoddard is out to get control of this
mine and the very man that is liable to ditch us is this same efficient
Mr. Jepson. Don't ever make the mistake of giving these financiers the
credit of being on the level. You can't grab that much money in the
short time they've been gathering without gouging every man you meet.
So just watch this man Jepson. Keep your eye on his accounts, and
remember--we're pardners, now."
His big, excited eyes, that blazed with primitive emotion whenever he
roused from his calm, became suddenly gentle and he patted her hand as
he hurried off to order up the car.
All the way across the desert, as Mary exclaimed at the signs of
progress, Rimrock let it pass in silence. They left the end of the
railroad and a short automobile ride put them down at the Tecolote
camp. Along the edge of the canyon, where the well-borers had
developed water, the framework of a gigantic mill and concentrator was
rapidly being rushed to completion. On the flats below, where Old
Juan's burros had browsed on the scanty mesquite, were long lines of
houses for the miners and a power plant to run the great stamps. A big
gang of miners were running cuts into the hillside where the first of
the ore was to come out and like a stream of ants the workmen and teams
swarmed about each mighty task, but still Rimrock Jones remained
silent. His eyes opened wider at sight of each new miracle but to
Jepson he made no comments.
They went to the assay house, where the diamond drill cores showed the
ore from the heart of the hills; and there at last Rimrock found his
tongue as he ran over the assayer's reports.
"Pretty good," he observed and this time it was Jepson who tightened
his lips and said nothing. "Pretty good," repeated Rimrock and then he
laughed silently and went out and sat down on the hill. "A mountain of
copper," he said, looking upward. "The whole butte is nothing but ore.
Some rich, some low-grade, but shattered--that's the idea! You can
scoop it up with a steam shovel."
He whistled through his teeth, cocking his eye up at the mountain and
then looking down at the townsite.
"You bet--a big camp!" And then to Jepson: "That's fine, Mr. Jepson;
you're doing noble. By the way, when will that cook-house be done?
Pretty soon, eh? Well, let me know; I've got a friend that's crazy to
move in."
He smiled at Mary, who thought at once of Woo Chong, but Jepson looked
suddenly serious.
"I hope, Mr. Jones," he said, "you're not planning to bring in that
Chinaman. I've got lots of Bisbee men among my miners and they won't
stand for a Chinaman in camp."
"Oh, yes, they will," answered Rimrock easily. "You wait, it'll be all
right. And there's another thing, now I think about it; Mr. Hicks will
be out soon to look for a good place to locate his saloon. I've given
him the privilege of selling all the booze that is sold in Tecolote."
"Booze?" questioned Jepson, and then he fell silent and went to gnawing
his lip.
"Yes--booze!" repeated Rimrock. "I know these Cousin Jacks. They've
got to have facilities for spending their money or they'll quit you and
go to town."
"Well, now really, Mr. Jones," began Jepson earnestly, "I'd much prefer
to have a dry camp. Of course you are right about the average
miner--but it's better not to have them drunk around camp."
"Very likely," said Rimrock, "but Old Hassayamp is coming and I guess
you can worry along. It's a matter of friendship with me, Mr.
Jepson--I never go back on a friend. When I was down and out Old
Hassayamp Hicks was the only man that would trust me for the drinks;
and Woo Chong, the Chinaman, was the only man that would trust me for a
meal. You see how it is, and I hope you'll do your best to make them
both perfectly at home."
Abercrombie Jepson mumbled something into his mustache which Rimrock
let pass for assent, although it was plainly to be seen by the fire in
his eye that the superintendent was vexed. As for Mary Fortune, she
sat at one side and pretended not to hear. Perhaps Rimrock was right
and these first minor clashes were but skirmishes before a great
battle. Perhaps, after all, Jepson was there to oppose him and it was
best to ride over him roughshod. But it seemed on the surface
extremely dictatorial, and against public policy as well. Mr. Jepson
was certainly right, in her opinion, in his attitude toward Hicks'
saloon; yet she knew it was hopeless to try to move Rimrock, so she
smiled and let them talk on.
"Now, there's another matter," broke in Jepson aggressively, "that I've
been waiting to see you about. As I understand it, I'm Mr. Stoddard's
representative--I represent his interests in the mine. Very good;
that's no more than right. Now, Mr. Stoddard has invested a large
amount of money to develop these twenty claims, but he feels, and I
feel, that that Old Juan claim is a continual menace to them all."
At the mention of the Old Juan Rimrock turned his head, and Mary could
see his jaw set; but he listened somberly for some little time as
Jepson went on with his complaint.
"You must know, Mr. Jones, that the history of the Old Juan makes it
extremely liable to be jumped. We've had a strong guard set ever since
you--well, continuously--but the title to that claim must be cleared
up. It ought to be re-located----"
"Don't you think it!" sneered Rimrock with a sudden insulting stare.
"That claim will stay--just the way it is!"
"But the guards!" protested Jepson, "they're a continual expense----"
"You can tell 'em to come down," cut in Rimrock peremptorily. "I'll
look after that claim myself."
"But why not re-locate it?" cried Jepson in a passion, "why expose us
to this continual suspense? You can re-locate it yourself----"
"Mr. Jepson," began Rimrock, speaking through his teeth, "there's no
one that questions my claim. But if any man does--I don't care who he
is--he's welcome to try and jump it. All he'll have to do is whip me."
He was winking angrily and Jepson, after a silence, cast an appealing
glance at Mary Fortune.
"You've got a wonderful property here," he observed, speaking
generally, "the prospects are very bright. There's only one thing that
can mar its success, and that is litigation!"
"Yes," cried Rimrock, "and that's just what you'd bring on by your
crazy re-location scheme! That Old Juan claim is good--I killed a man
to prove it--and I'm not going to back down on it now. It won't be
re-located and the man that jumps it will have me to deal with,
personally. Now if you don't like the way I'm running this
proposition----"
"Oh, it isn't that!" broke in Jepson hastily, "but I'm hired, in a way,
to advise. You must know, Mr. Jones, that you're jeopardizing our
future by refusing to re-locate that claim."
"No, I don't!" shouted Rimrock, jumping fiercely to his feet, while
Mary Fortune turned pale. "It's just the other way. That claim is
good--I know it's good--and I'll fight for it every time. Your courts
are nothing, you can hire a lawyer to take any side of any case, but
you can't hire one to go up against this!" He patted a lump that
bulged at his hip and shook a clenched fist in the air. "No, sir! No
law for me! Don't you ever think that I'll stand for re-locating that
claim. That would be just the chance that these law-sharps are looking
for, to start a contest and tie up the mine. No, leave it to me. I'll
be my own law and, believe me, I'll never be jumped. There are some
people yet that remember Andrew McBain----"
He stopped, for Mary had risen from her place and stood facing him with
blazing eyes.
"What's the matter?" he asked, like a man bewildered; and then he
understood. Mary Fortune had worked for Andrew McBain, she had heard
him threaten his life; and, since his acquittal, this was the first
time his name had been mentioned. And he remembered with a start that
after he came back from the killing she had refused to take his hand.
"What's the matter?" he repeated, but she set her lips and moved away
down the hill. Rimrock stood and watched her, then he turned to Jepson
and his voice was hoarse with hate.
"Well, I hope you're satisfied!" he said and strode savagely off down
the trail.
CHAPTER XIV
RIMROCK EXPLAINS
It had not taken long, after his triumphant homecoming, for Rimrock to
wreck his own happiness. That old rift between them, regarding the
law, had been opened the very first day; and it was not a difference
that could be explained and adjusted, for neither would concede they
were wrong. As the daughter of a judge, conservatively brought up in a
community where an outlaw was abhorred, Mary Fortune could no more
agree to his program than he could agree to hers. She respected the
law and she turned to the law, instinctively, to right every wrong; but
he from sad experience knew what a broken reed it was, compared to his
gun and his good right hand. The return to Gunsight was a gloomy
affair, but nothing was said of the Old Juan. Abercrombie Jepson
guessed, and rightly, that his company was not desired; and they who
had set out with the joy of lovers rode back absent-minded and
distrait. But the question of the Old Juan was a vital problem,
involving other interests beside theirs, and in the morning there was a
telegram from Whitney H. Stoddard requesting that the matter be cleared
up. Rimrock read it in the office where Mary sat at work and threw it
carelessly down on her desk.
"Well, it's come to a showdown," he said as she glanced at it. "The
question is--who's running this mine?"
"And the answer?" she enquired in that impersonal way she had; and
Rimrock started as he sensed the subtle challenge.
"Why--we are!" he said bluffly. "You and me, of course. You wouldn't
quit me on a proposition like this?"
"Yes, I think I would," she answered unhesitatingly. "I think Mr.
Stoddard is right. That claim should be located in such a manner as to
guarantee that it won't be jumped."
"Uh! You think so, eh? Well, what do you know about it? Can't you
take my word for anything?"
"Why, yes, I can. In most matters at the mine I think you're entitled
to have your way. But if you elect me as a Director in this coming
stockholders' meeting and this question comes before the Board, unless
you can make me see it differently I'm likely to vote against you."
Rimrock shoved his big hat to the back of his head and stood gazing at
her fixedly.
"Well, if that's the case," he suggested at last, and then stopped as
she caught his meaning.
"Very well," she said, "it isn't too late. You can get you another
dummy."
"Will you vote for him?" demanded Rimrock, after an instant's thought,
and she nodded her head in assent.
"Well, dang my heart!" muttered Rimrock impatiently, pacing up and down
the room. "Here I frame it all up for us two to get together and run
the old Company right and the first thing comes up we split right there
and pull off a quarrel to boot. I don't like this, Mary; I want to
agree with you; I want to get where we can understand. Now let me
explain to you why it is I'm holding out; and then you can have you
say-so, too. When I was in jail I sent for Juan Soto and it's true--he
was born in Mexico. But his parents, so he says, were born south of
Tucson and that makes them American citizens. Now, according to the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo if any citizen of Mexico moves to the
United States, unless he moves back or gives notice within five years
of his intention of returning to Mexico he becomes automatically an
American citizen. Do you get the idea? Even if Juan was born in
Mexico he's never considered himself a Mexican citizen. He moved back
with his folks when he was a little baby, took the oath when he came of
age and has been voting the Democratic ticket ever since. But here's
another point--even if he is a Mexican, no private citizen can jump his
claim. The Federal Government can, but I happen to know that no
ordinary citizen can take possession of a foreigner's claim. It's been
done, of course, but that lawyer I consulted told me it wasn't
according to Hoyle. And here's another point--but what are you
laughing at? Ain't I laying the law down right?"
"Why, yes, certainly," conceded Mary, "but with all this behind you
what's the excuse for defying the law? Why don't you tell Mr. Jepson,
or Mr. Stoddard, that the Old Juan is a perfectly good claim?"
"I did!" defended Rimrock. "I told Jepson so yesterday. I used those
very same words!"
"Yes, but with another implication. You let it be understood that the
reason it was good was that you were there, with your gun!"
"Stop right there!" commanded Rimrock. "That's the last, ultimate
reason that holds in a court of law! The code is nothing, the Federal
law is nothing, even treaties are nothing! The big thing that counts
is--possession. Until that claim is recorded it's the only reason.
The man that holds the ground, owns it. And that's why I say, and I
stand pat on it yet, that my gun outweighs all the law!"
"Well, I declare," gasped Mary, "you are certainly convincing! Why
didn't you tell _me_ about it yesterday?"
"Well," began Rimrock, and then he hesitated, "I knew it would bring
up--well, another matter, and I don't want to talk about that, yet."
"Yes, I understand," said Mary very hastily, "but--why didn't you tell
Jepson this? I may do you an injustice but it seemed to me you were
seeking a quarrel. But if you had explained the case----"
"What? To Stoddard's man? Why, you must think I'm crazy. Jepson has
hired a lawyer and looked up that claim to the last infinitesimal
hickey; he knows more about the Old Juan than I do. And speaking about
quarrels, don't you know that fellow deliberately framed the whole
thing? He wanted to know just where I stood on the Old Juan--and he
wanted to get me in bad with you."
"With me?"
"Yes, with you! Why, can't you see his game? If he can get you to
throw your vote against me he can knock me out of my control. Add your
stock to Stoddard's and it makes us fifty-fifty--a deadlock, with
Jepson in charge. And if he thought for a minute that I couldn't fire
him he'd thumb his nose in my face."
Mary smiled at this picture of primitive defiance in a battle of
grown-up men and yet she saw dimly that Rimrock was right in his
estimate of Jepson's motives. Jepson did have a way that was subtly
provocative and his little eyes were shifty, like a boxer's. As the
two men faced each other she could feel the antagonism in every word
that they said; and, looking at it as he did, it seemed increasingly
reasonable that Rimrock's way was the best. It was better just to
fight back without showing his hand and let Jepson guess what he could.
"But if we'd stand together--" she began at last and Rimrock's face lit
up.
"That's it!" he said, leaping forward with his hand out, "will you
shake on it? You know I'm all right!"
"But not _always_ right," she answered smiling, and put her hand in
his. "But you're honest, anyway; and I like you for that. It's
agreed, then; we stand together!"
"No-ow, that's the talk!" grinned Rimrock approvingly, "and besides, I
need you, little Mary."
He held on to her hand but she wrested it away and turned blushing to
her work.
"Don't be foolish!" she said, but her feelings were not hurt for she
was smiling again in a minute. "Don't you know," she confided, "I feel
utterly helpless when it comes to this matter of the mine. Everything
about it seems so absolutely preposterous that I'm glad I'm not going
to be a Director."
"But you are!" came back Rimrock, "now don't tell me different; because
you're bull-headed, once you've put yourself on record. There ain't
another living soul that I can trust to take that directorship. Even
Old Hassayamp down here--and I'd trust him anywhere--might get drunk
and vote the wrong way. But you----"
"You don't know me yet," she replied with decision. "I won't get
drunk, but I've got to be convinced. And if you can't convince me that
your way is right--and reasonable and just, as well--I give you notice
that I'll vote against you. Now! What are you going to say?"
"All right!" he answered promptly, "that's all I ask of you. If you
think I'm wrong you're welcome to vote against me; but believe me, this
is no Sunday-school job. There's a big fight coming on, I can feel it
in my bones, and the best two-handed scrapper wins. Old W. H.
Stoddard, when he had me in jail and was hoping I was going to be sent
up, he tried to buy me out of this mine. He started at nothing and
went up to twenty million, so you can guess how much it's worth."
"Twenty million!" she echoed.
"Yes; twenty million--and that ain't a tenth of what he might be
willing to pay. Can you think that big? Two hundred million dollars?
Well then, imagine that much money thrown down on the desert for him
and me to fight over. Do you think it's possible to be pleasant and
polite, and always reasonable and just, when you're fighting a man
that's never quit yet, for a whole danged mountain of copper?" He rose
up and shook himself and swelled out his chest and then looked at her
and smiled. "Just remember that, in the days that are coming, and give
me the benefit of the doubt."
"But I don't believe it!" she exclaimed incredulously. "What ground
have you for that valuation of the mine?"
"Well, his offer, for one thing," answered Rimrock soberly. "He never
pays what a thing is worth. But did you see Mr. Jepson when I went
into the assay house and began looking at those diamond-drill cores?
He was sore, believe me, and the longer I stayed there the more fidgety
Jepson got. That ore assay's big, but the thing that I noticed is that
all of it carries some values. You can begin at the foot of it and
work that whole mountain and every cubic foot would pay. And that
peacock ore, that copper glance! That runs up to forty per cent. Now,
here's a job for you as secretary of the Company, a little whirl into
the higher mathematics. Just find the cubic contents of Tecolote
mountain and multiply it by three per cent. That's three per cent.
copper, and according to those assays the whole ground averages that.
Take twenty claims, each fifteen hundred feet long, five hundred feet
across and say a thousand feet deep; pile the mountain on top of them,
take copper at eighteen cents a pound and give me the answer in dollars
and cents. Then figure it out another way--figure out the human
cussedness that that much copper will produce."
"Why--really!" cried Mary as she sat staring at him, "you make me
almost afraid."
"And you can mighty well be so," he answered grimly. "It gets me going
sometimes. Sometimes I get a hunch that I'll take all my friends and
go and camp right there on the Old Juan. Just go out there with guns
and hold her down, but that ain't the way it should be done. The
minute you show these wolves you're afraid they'll fly at your throat
in a pack. The thing to do is to look 'em in the eye and keep your gun
kind of handy, so."
He tapped the old pistol that he still wore under his coat and leaned
forward across her desk.
"Now tell me this," he said. "Knowing what you know now, does it seem
so plain criminal--what I did to that robber, McBain?"
Mary met his eyes and in spite of her the tears came as she read the
desperate longing in his glance. He was asking for justification after
those long months of silence, but his deed was abhorrent to her still.
She had shuddered when he had touched that heavy pistol whose shot had
snuffed out a man's life; and she shuddered when she thought of it,
when she saw his great hand and the keen eyes that had looked death at
McBain. And yet, now he asked it, it no longer seemed criminal, only
brutal and murderous--and violent. It was that which she feared in
him, much as she was won by his other qualities, his instinctive resort
to violence. But when he asked if she considered it plain criminal she
was forced to answer him:
"No!"
"Well, then, what is the reason you always keep away from me and look
like you didn't approve? Ain't a man got a right, if he's crowded too
far, to stand up and fight for his own? Would you think any better of
me if I'd quit in the pinch and let McBain get away with my mine?
Wasn't he just a plain robber, only without the nerve, hiring
gun-fighters to do the rough work? Why, Mary, I feel proud, every time
I think about it, that I went there and did what I did. I feel like a
man that has done a great duty and I can't stand it to have you
disapprove. When I killed McBain I served notice on everybody that no
man can steal from me, not even if he hides behind the law. And now,
with all this coming up, I want you to tell me I did right!"
He thrust out his big head and fixed her eyes fiercely, but she slowly
shook her head.
"No," she said, "I can never say that. I think there was another way."
"But I tried that before, when he robbed me of the Gunsight. My God,
you wouldn't have me go to law!"
"You didn't need to go to law," she answered, suddenly flaring up in
anger. "I warned you in plenty of time. All you had to do was to go
to your property and be there to warn him away."
"Aw, you don't understand!" he cried in an agony. "Didn't I warn him
to keep away? Didn't I come to his office when you were right there
and tell him to keep off my claims? What more could I do? But he went
out there anyhow, and after that there was nothing to do but fight!"
"Well, I'm glad you're satisfied," she said after a silence. "Let's
talk about something else."
"No, let's fight this out!" he answered insistently. "I want you to
understand."
"I do," she replied. "I know just how you feel. But unfortunately I
see it differently."
"Well, how do you see it? Just tell me, how you feel and see if I
can't prove I'm right."
"No, it can't be proved. It goes beyond that. It goes back to the way
we've been brought up. My father was a judge and he worshiped the
law--you men out West are different."
"Yes, you bet we are. We don't worship any law unless, by grab, it's
right. Why, there used to be a law, a hundred years ago, to hang a man
if he stole. They used to hang them by the dozen, right over there in
England, and put their heads on a spike. Could you worship that law?
Why, no; you know better. But there's a hundred more laws on our
statute books to-day that date clear back to that time, and lots of
them are just as unreasonable. I believe in justice, and every man for
his own rights, and some day I believe you'll agree with me."
"That isn't necessary," she said, smiling slightly, "we can proceed
very nicely without."
"Aw, now, that's what I mean," he went on appealingly. "We can
proceed, but I want more than that. I want you to like me--and approve
of what I do--and love and marry me, too."
He poured it out hurriedly and reached blindly to catch her, but she
rose up and slipped way.
"No, Rimrock," she said as she gazed back at him from a distance, "you
want too much--all at once. To love and to marry are serious things,
they make or mar a woman's whole life. I didn't come out here with the
intention of marrying and I have no such intention yet. And to win a
woman's love--may I tell you something? It can never be done by
violence. You may take that big pistol and win a mountain of copper
that is worth two hundred million dollars, but love doesn't come that
way. You say you want me now, but to-morrow may be different. And you
must remember, you are likely to be rich."
"Yes, and that's why I want you!" burst out Rimrock impulsively. "You
can keep me from blowing my money."
"Absolutely convincing--from the man's point of view. But what about
the woman's? And if that's all you want you don't have to have me.
You'll find lots of other girls just as capable."
"No, but look! I mean it! I've got to have you--we can throw in our
stock together!"
There was a startled pause, in which each stared at the other as if
wondering what had happened, and then Mary Fortune smiled. It was a
very nice smile, with nothing of laughter in it, but it served to
recall Rimrock to his senses.
"I think I know what you mean," she said at last, "but don't you think
you've said enough? I like you just as much; but really, Rimrock,
you're not very good at explaining."
CHAPTER XV
A GAME FOR BIG STAKES
The next thirty days--before the stockholders' meeting--were spent by
Rimrock in trying to explain. In spite of her suggestion that he was
not good at that art he insisted upon making things worse. What he
wanted to say was that the pooling of their stock would be a
happy--though accidental--resultant of their marriage; what he actually
said was that they ought to get married because then they would stand
together against Stoddard. But Mary only listened with a wise,
sometimes wistful, smile and assured him he was needlessly alarmed. It
was that which drove him on--that wistful, patient smile. Somehow he
felt, if he could only say the right words, she would lean rig
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