CHAPTER IX
A Peace Talk
While his blood was pounding and his heart was high, Wiley Holman went down into his mine. He rode down on the bucket, deftly balanced on the rim and fending off the wall with one hand, and when he came up he was smiling. Not smiling with his lips, but far back in his eyes, like a man who has found something good. Perhaps Blount surprised the look before it had fled for he beamed upon Wiley benevolently.
“Well, Wiley, my boy,” he began confidentially as he drew him off to one side, “I’m glad to see you’re pleased. The gold is there–I find that everyone thinks so–all we need now is a little co-operation. That’s all we need now–peace. We should lay aside all personal feelings and old animosities and join hands to make the Paymaster a success.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” agreed Wiley cheerfully, “there’s nobody believes in peace more than I do. But all the same,” he went on almost savagely, “you’ve got to get rid of old George. I’m for peace, you understand, but if I find him here again–well, I’ll have to take over the property. He’s nothing but a professional murderer.”
“Yes, I know,” explained Blount, “he’s a dangerous man–but I don’t like to let an old man starve. He’s got a right to live the same as any of us, and, since he can’t work–well, I gave him a job as watchman.”
“Well, all right,” grumbled Wiley, “if you want to be charitable; but I suppose you know that, under the law, you’re responsible for the acts of your agents?”
“That’s all right, that’s all right,” burst out Blount impatiently, “I’ll never hire him again. He refused to obey my orders and─”
“Andhe tried to kill me!” broke in Wiley angrily, but Blount had thrown up both hands.
“Oh, now, Wiley,” he protested, “why can’t we be reasonable? Why can’t we get together on this?”
“We can,” returned Wiley, “but you’ve got to show me that you’re not trying to jump my claim.”
“Oh, you know,” exclaimed Blount, “as well as I do that a tax sale is never binding. The owners of the property are given five years’ time─”
“It is binding,” corrected Wiley, “until the property is bought back–and I happen to be holding the deed. Now, here’s the point–what authority have you got for coming in here and working this property?”
“Well, you may as well know,” replied Blount shortly, “that I own a majority of the stock.”
“Aha!” burst out Wiley. “I was listening for that. So you’re the Honest John?”
“What do you mean?” demanded Blount and, seeing the anger in his eyes, he hastened to head off the storm. “No, now listen to me, Wiley; it’s not the way you think. I knew your father well, and I always found him the soul of honor; but I never liked to say anything, because Colonel Huff was my partner, too. So, when this trouble arose, I tried to remain neutral, without joining sides with either. It pained me very much to have people make remarks reflecting upon the honesty of your father, but as the confidant of both it was hardly in good taste for me to give out what I knew. So I let the matter go, hoping that time would heal the breach; but now that the Colonel is dead─”
“Aha!” breathed Wiley and Blount nodded his head lugubriously.
“Yes,” he said, “that is the way it was. Your father was absolutely honest.”
“Well, but who sold the stock, and then bought it back–and put all the blame on my father?”
“I can’t tell you,” answered Blount. “I never speak evil of the dead–but the Colonel was a very poor business man.”
“Yes, he was,” agreed Wiley, and then, after a silence: “How did it happen that you got all his stock?”
“Well, on mortgages and notes; and now as collateral on a loan that I made his widow. I own a clean majority of the stock.”
“Oh, you do, eh?” observed Wiley and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully while Blount looked mildly on. “Well, what are you going to do?”
“Why, I’d like to buy back that tax deed,” answered Blount amiably, “and get control of my property.”
“Oh,” said Wiley, and looked down the valley with eyes that squinted shrewdly at the sun. “All right,” he agreed, “just to show you that I’m a sport, I’ll give you a quit-claim deed right now for the sum of one hundred dollars.”
“You will?” challenged Blount, reaching tremulously for his fountain pen and then he paused at a thought. “Very well,” he said, but as he filled out the form he stopped and gazed uneasily at Wiley. Here was a mining engineer selling a possessory right to the Paymaster for the sum of one hundred dollars; while he, a banker, was spending a hundred dollars a day in what had proved so far to be dead work. “Er–I haven’t any money with me,” he suggested at length. “Perhaps–well, perhaps you could wait?”
“Sure!” replied Wiley, rising up from where he was seated, “I’ll wait for anything, except my supper. Where’s the best place to eat in town, now?”
“Why, at Mrs. Huff’s,” returned Blount in surprise. “But about this quit-claim, perhaps a check would do as well?”
“What, are the Huffs still here?” exclaimed Wiley, starting off. “Why, I thought─”
“No, they decided to stay,” answered Blount, following after him. “But now, Wiley, about this quit-claim?”
“Well, gimme your check! Or keep it, I don’t care–I came away without my breakfast this morning.”
He strode off down the trail and Blount pulled up short and stood gazing after him blankly, then he shouted to him frantically and hurried down the slope to where Wiley was waiting impatiently.
“Here, just sign this,” he panted. “I’ll write you out a check. But what’s the matter, Wiley–didn’t the mine show up as expected?”
Wiley muttered unintelligibly as he signed the quit-claim which he retained until he had looked over the check. Then he folded up the check and kissed it surreptitiously before he stored it away in his pocketbook.
“Why, yes,” he said, “it shows up fine. I’ll see you later, down at the house.”
Blount sat down suddenly, but as Wiley clattered off he shouted a warning after him.
“Oh, Wiley, please don’t mention that matter I spoke of!”
“What matter?” yelled back Wiley and at another disquieting thought Blount jumped up and came galloping after him.
“The matter of the Colonel,” he panted in his ear, “and here’s another thing, Wiley. You know Mrs. Huff–she’s absolutely impossible and–well, she’s been making me quite a little trouble. Now as a personal favor, please don’t lend her any money or help her to get back her stock; because if you do─”
“I won’t!” promised Wiley, holding up his right hand. “But say, don’t stop me–I’m starving.”
He ran down the trail, limping slightly on his game leg, and Blount sat down on a rock.
“Well, I’ll be bound!” he puffed and gazed at the quit-claim ruefully.
The tables were all set when Wiley re-entered the dining-room from which he had retreated once before in such haste, and Virginia was there and waiting, though her smile was a trifle uncertain. A great deal of water had flowed down the gulch since he had advised her to keep her stock, but the assayer at Vegas was worse than negligent–he had not reported on the piece of white rock. Therefore she hardly knew, being still in the dark as to his motives in giving the advice, whether to greet Wiley as her savior or to receive him coldly, as a Judas. If the white quartz was full of gold that her father had overlooked–say fine gold, that would not show in the pan–then Wiley was indeed her friend; but if the quartz was barren and he had purposely deceived her in order to boom his own mine–she smiled with her lips and asked him rather faintly if he wanted his supper at once.
But if Virginia was still a Huff, remembering past treacheries and living in the expectancy of more, the Widow cast aside all petty heart-burnings in her joy at the humiliation of Stiff Neck George. Leaving Virginia in the kitchen, to fry Wiley’s steak, she rushed into the dining-room with her eyes ablaze and all but shook his hand.
“Well, well,” she exulted, “I’ll have to take it back–you certainly did boot him good. I said you were a coward but I was watching you through my spy-glass and I nearly died a-laughing. You just walked right up to him–and you were cursing him scandalous, I could tell by the look on your face–and then all at once you made a jump and gave him that awful kick. Oh, ho, ho; you know I’ve always said he looked like a man that was watching for a swift kick from behind; and now–after waiting all these years–oh, ho ho–you gave him what was coming to him!”
The Widow sat down and held her sides with laughter and Wiley’s grim features, that had remained set and watchful, slowly relaxed to a flattered grin. He had indeed stood up to Stiff Neck George and booted him down the dump, so that the score of that night when he had been hunted like a rabbit was more than evened up; for George had sneaked up on an unarmed man and rolled down boulders from above, but he had outfaced him, man to man and gun to gun, and kicked him down the dump to boot. Yes, the Widow might well laugh, for it would be many a long day before Stiff Neck George heard the last of that affair.
“And old Blount,” laughed the Widow, “he was right there and saw it–his own hired bully, and all. Say, now Wiley, tell me all about it–what did Blount have to say? Did he tell you it was all a mistake? Yes, that’s what he tells everybody, every time he gets into trouble; but he can’t make excuses to me. Do you know what he’s done? He’s tied up all my stock as security for eight hundred dollars! What’s eight hundred dollars–I turned it all in to get the best of my diamonds out of pawn. It made me feel so bad, seeing that diamond ring of yours; I just couldn’t help getting them out. And now I’m flat and he’s holding all my stock for a miserable little eight hundred dollars!”
She ended up strong, but Wiley sensed a touch and his expressions of sympathy were guarded.
“Now, you’re a business man,” she went on unheedingly. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do–you lend me the money to get back that stock and I’ll sell it all to your father!”
“To my father!” echoed Wiley and then his face turned grim and he laughed at some hidden joke. “Not much,” he said, “I like the Old Man too much. You’d better sell it back to Blount.”
“To Blount? Why, hasn’t your father been hounding me for months to get his hands on that stock? Well, I’d like to know then what you think you’re doing? Have you gone back on your promise, or what?”
“I never made any promise,” returned Wiley pacifically. “It was my father that made the offer.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks!” exploded the Widow. “Well, what’s the difference–you’re working hand and glove!”
“Not at all,” corrected Wiley, “the Old Man is raising cattle. You can’t get him to look at a mine.”
“Well, he offered to buy my stock!” exclaimed the Widow, badly flustered. “I’d like to know what this means?”
“It’s no use talking,” returned Wiley wearily, “I’ve told you a thousand times. If you send your stock to John Holman at Vegas, he’ll give you ten cents a share; but Iwon’t give you a cent.”
“Do you mean to say,” demanded the Widow incredulously, “that you don’t want that stock?”
“That’s it,” assented Wiley. “I’ve just sold my tax title for a hundred dollars, to Blount.”
“Oh, this will drive me mad!” cried the Widow in a frenzy. “Virginia, come in here and help me!”
Virginia came in with the steak slightly scorched and laid his dinner before Wiley. Her eyes were rather wild, for she had been listening through the doorway, but she turned to her mother inquiringly.
“He says he’s sold his tax claim,” wailed the Widow in despair, “for one hundred dollars–to Blount. And then he turns around and says his father will buy my stock for ten cents a share in cash. But he won’t lend me the money to pay my note to Blount and get my Paymaster stock back.”
“That’s right,” nodded Wiley, “you’ve got it all straight. Now let’s quit before we get into a row.”
He bent over the steak and, after a meaning look at Virginia, the Widow discreetly withdrew.
“We saw you fighting George,” ventured Virginia at last as he seemed almost to ignore her presence. “Weren’t you afraid he’d get mad and shoot you?”
“Uh, huh,” he grunted, “wasn’t I hiding behind Blount? No, I had him whipped from the start. Bad conscience, I reckon; these crooks are all the same–they’re afraid to fight in the open.”
“But yourconscience is all right, eh?” suggested Virginia sarcastically, and he glanced up from under his brows.
“Yes,” he said, “we’ve got ’em there, Virginia. Are you still holding onto that stock?”
A swift flood of shame mantled Virginia’s brow and then her dark eyes flashed fire.
“Yes, I’ve got it,” she said, “but what’s the answer when you sell out your tax claim to Blount?”
“I wonder,” he observed and went on with his eating while she paced restlessly to and fro.
“You told me to hold it,” she burst out accusingly, “and then you turn around and sell!”
“Well, why don’t yousell?” he suggested innocently, and she paused and bit her lip. Yes, why not? Why, because there were no buyers–except Wiley Holman and his father! The knowledge of her impotence almost drove her on to further madness, but another voice bade her beware. He had given her his advice, which was not to sell, and–oh, that accursed assayer! If she had his report she could flaunt it in his face or–she caught her breath and smiled.
“No,” she said, “you told me not to!”
And Wiley smiled back and patted her hand.
CHAPTER X
The Best Head in Town
What was Wiley Holman up to? Virginia paced the floor in a very unloverlike mood; and at last she sat down and wrote a scathing letter to the assayer, demanding her assay at once. She also enclosed one dollar in advance to test the sample for gold and silver and then, as an afterthought, she enclosed another bill and told him to test it for copper, lead, and zinc. There was something in that rock–she knew it just as well as she knew that Wiley was in love with her, and this was no time to pinch dollars. For ten years and more they had stuck there in Keno, waiting and waiting for something to happen, but now things had come to such a pass that it was better to know even the worst. For if the mine was barren and Wiley, after all, was only trying in his dumb way to help, then she must pocket her pride and sell him her stock and go away and hide her head. But if the white quartz was rich–well, that would be different; there would be several things to explain.
Yet, if the quartz was barren, why did Wiley offer to buy her stock, and if it was rich, why did he sell his tax deed? And if his father stood ready to pay ten cents a share for two hundred thousand shares of stock why did Wiley refuse to redeem her mother’s holdings for a petty eight hundred dollars? He must have the money, for his diamond ring alone was worth well over a thousand dollars; and he had tried repeatedly to get possession of this same stock which he now refused to accept as a gift. Virginia thought it over until her head was in a whirl and at last she stamped her foot. The assay would tell, and if he had been trying to cheat her–she drew her lips to a thin, hard line and looked more than ever like her mother.
The work at the Paymaster went on intermittently, but Blount’s early zest was lacking. For eight, yes, ten years he had waited patiently for the moment when he should get control of the mine; but now that he held it, without let or hindrance, somehow his enthusiasm flagged. Perhaps it was the fact that the timbering was expensive and that his gropings for the lost ore body came to nothing; but in the back of his mind Blount’s growing distrust dated from the day he had bought Wiley’s quit-claim. Wiley had come to the mine full of fury and aggressiveness, as his combat with Stiff Neck George clearly showed; but after he had gone down and inspected the workings he had sold out for one hundred dollars. And Wiley Holman was a mining engineer, with a name for Yankee shrewdness–he must have had a reason.
Blount recalled his men from the drifts where they had been working and set them to crosscutting for the vein. It was too expensive, restoring all the square-sets and clearing out the fallen rock; and he had learned to his sorrow that Colonel Huff had blown up every heading with dynamite. In that tangle of shattered timbers and caved-in walls the miners made practically no progress, for the ground was treacherous and ten years under water had left the wood soft and slippery. To be sure the hidden chute lay at the breast of some such drift; but to clear them all out, with his limited equipment and no regular engineer in charge, would run up a staggering account. So Blount began to crosscut, and to sink along the contact, but chiefly to cut down expenses.
With the railroad that had tapped the camp torn up and hauled away, every foot of timber, every stick of powder, cost twice as much as it ought. And then there was machinery, and gas and oil for the engine, and valves and spare parts for the pumps, and the board of the men, and overhead expenses–and not a single dollar coming in. Blount sat up late in his office, adding total to total, and at the end he leaned back aghast. At the very inside it was costing him two hundred dollars for every day that he operated the mine. And what was it turning back? Nothing. The mine had been gutted of every pound of ore that it would pay to sack and ship, and unless something was done to locate the lost ore body and give some guarantee of future values, well, the Paymaster would have to shut down. Blount considered it soberly, as a business man should, and then he sent for Wiley Holman.
There were others, of course, to whom he might appeal; but he sent for Wiley first. He was a mining engineer, he had had his eye on the property and–well, he probably knew something about the lost vein. So he sent a wire, and then a man; and at last Holman, M. E., arrived. He came under protest, for he had been showing a mine of his own to some four-buckle experts from the east, and when Blount made his appeal he snorted.
“Well, for the love of Miguel!” he exclaimed, starting up. “Do you think I’m going to help you for nothing? I’m a mining engineer, and the least it will cost you is five hundred dollars for a report. No, I don’t think anything; and I don’t know anything; and I won’t take your mine on shares. I’m through–do you get me? I sold out my entire interest for one hundred dollars, cash. That puts me ahead of the game, up to date; and while I’m lucky I’ll quit.”
He stamped out of the office–Blount having moved into the bank building where he had formerly officiated as president–and made a break for his machine; but other eyes had marked his arrival in town and Death Valley Charley button-holed him.
“Say,” he said, “do you want something good–an option on ten first-class claims? Well, come with me; I’ll make you an offer that you can’t hardly, possibly refuse.”
He led Wiley up an alley, then whisked him around corners and back to his house behind the Widow’s.
“Now, listen,” he went on, when Wiley was in a chair and he had carefully fastened the door, “I’m going to show you something good.”
He reached under his bed and brought out ten sacks of samples which he spread, one by one, on the table.
“Now, you see?” he said. “It’s all that white quartz that you was after on the Paymaster dump. I followed the outcrop, on an extension of the Paymaster, and I took up ten, good, opened claims.”
“Umm,” murmured Wiley, and examined each sample with a careful, appraising eye. “Yes, pretty good, Charley; I suppose you guarantee the title? Well, how much do you want for your claims?”
“Oh, whatever you say,” answered Charley modestly, “but I want two hundred dollars down.”
“And about a million apiece, I suppose, for the claims? It doesn’t cost meanything, you know, on an option.”
“Eh, heh, heh,” laughed Charley indulgently and Heine, who had been looking from face to face, jumped up and barked with delight. “Eh, heh; yes, that’s good; but you know me, Mr. Holman–I ain’t so crazy as they think. No, I don’t talk millions with my mouth full of beans; all I want is five hundred apiece. But I got to have two hundred down.”
“Oh,” observed Wiley, “that’s two dollars for the marriage license and the rest for the wedding journey. Well, if it’s as serious as that─” He reached for his check-book and Charley cackled with merriment.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “then I wouldbe crazy. Do you know what the Colonel told me?
“‘Charley,’ he says, ‘whatever you do, don’t marry no talking woman. She’ll drive you crazy, the same as I am; but don’t you forget that whiskey.’”
“Oh, sure,” exclaimed Wiley, beginning to write out the option, “this money is to buy whiskey for the Colonel!”
“That’s it,” answered Charley. “He’s over across Death Valley–in the Ube-Hebes–but I can’t find my burros. They–Heine, come here, sir!” Heine came up cringing and Charley slapped him soundly. “Shut up!” he commanded and as Heine crept away Death Valley began to mutter to himself. “No, of course not; he’s dead,” he ended ineffectively, and Wiley looked up from his writing.
“Who’s dead?” he inquired, but Charley shook his head and listened through the wall.
“Look out,” he said, “I can hear her coming–jest give me that two hundred now.”
“Well, here’s twenty,” replied Wiley, passing over the money, and then there came a knock at the door.
“Come in!” called out Charley and, as he motioned Wiley to be silent, Virginia appeared in the doorway.
“Oh!” she cried, “I didn’t know you were here!” But something in the way she fixed her eyes on him convinced Wiley that she had known, all the same.
“Just a matter of business,” he explained with a flourish, “I’m considering an option on some of Charley’s claims.”
“Jest my bum claims!” mumbled Charley as Virginia glanced at him reprovingly. “Jest them ten up north of the Paymaster.”
“Oh,” she said and drew back towards the door, “well, don’t let me break up a trade.”
“You’d better sign as a witness,” spoke up Wiley imperturbably, and she stepped over and looked at the paper.
“What? All ten of those claims for five hundred apiece? Why, Charley, they may be worth millions!”
“Well, put it down five million, then,” suggested Wiley, grimly. “How much do you want for them, Charley?”
“Five hundred dollars apiece,” answered Charley promptly, “but they’s got to be two hundred down.”
“Well?” inquired Wiley as Virginia still regarded him suspiciously, and then he beckoned her outside. “Say, what’s the matter?” he asked reproachfully. “Let the old boy make his touch–he wants that two hundred for grub.”
“He does not!” she spat back. “I’m ashamed of you, Wiley Holman; taking advantage of a crazy man like that!”
“Well, I don’t know,” he began in a slow, drawling tone that cut her to the quick, “he may not be as crazy as you think. I’ve just been offered a half interest in the Paymaster if I’ll come out and take charge of it.”
“You have!” she cried, starting back and staring as he regarded her with steely eyes. “Well, are you going to take it?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Thought I’d better see you first–it might be taking advantage of Blount.”
“Of Blount!” she echoed and then she saw his smile and realized that he was making fun of her.
“Yes,” went on Wiley, whose feelings had been ruffled, “he may be crazy, too. He sure was looking the part.”
“Now don’t you laugh at me!” she burst out hotly. “This isn’t as funny as you think. What’s going to happen to us if you take over that mine? I declare, you’ve been standing in with Blount!”
“I knew it,” he mocked. “You catch me every time. But what about Charley here–does he get his money or not?” He turned to Death Valley, who was standing in the doorway watching their quarrel with startled eyes. “I guess you’re right, Charley,” he added, smiling wryly. “It must be something in the air.”
“Are you going to take that offer,” demanded Virginia, wrathfully, “and rob me and mother of our mine?”
“Oh, no,” he answered, “I turned it down cold. I knew you wouldn’t approve.”
“You knew nothing of the kind!” she came back sharply, the angry tears starting in her eyes. “And I don’t believe he ever made it.”
“Well, ask him,” suggested Wiley, and went back into the house, whereupon Death Valley closed the door.
“Yes,” whispered Charley, “it’s in the air–there’s electricity everywhere. But what about that option?”
Wiley sat at the table, his eyes big with anger, his jaw set hard against the pain, and then he reached for his pen.
“All right, Charley,” he said, “but don’t you let ’em kid you–you’ve got the best business head in town.”