IV
IT was on the morning of this same day that Gregory sat alone in his cabin uncommonly idle, for he still spent the greater part of his time underground, when not away on business connected with his new investments and deals. For the last week he had not left the hill, and although he was on the alert to hear his geological acumen vindicated, he was in no mood to find pleasure in his mine. His conscience, an organ that troubled him little, was restive. In spite of his liberal disbursements, he knew that he had treated Ida unfairly. He had long since made up his mind to obliterate her from his personal life, and, if the truth must be told about a man who had snapped his fingers in the face of the most formidable combination of capital in the world, he was afraid to meet his wife. Vanity, he argued, in such women takes the place of warmth, and he had no mind to burden his memory and resource with an endless chain of subterfuges; nor had he any relish for the bald statement that since he could not have the woman he wanted he would have none; and that his mine, as complex and mysterious, as provocative of dreams, as capricious and satisfying as woman herself—to say nothing of hard work and increasing power—was to fill his life.
Ida might rage, stamp, scream, with her hands on her hips, her superb eyes flashing. Worse still, she might weep, lamenting that he loved her no longer—if he made her hurried friendly calls. Far, far worse, he might succumb to her beauty and superlative femaleness and hate himself ever after. His was to be a life of unremitting and constructive work; he must keep that blue flame burning on the altar in his sanctuary. If he never paused to draw it up into his consciousness he must know it was there.
Better stay away until she understood all that it was necessary she should know, wore out her pique in private,and accepted the situation. But he would have felt better this morning if he had heard that her train had arrived early in the evening. He might be ruthless, even where women were concerned, but he was also sensitive and capable of tenderness.
But he was not thinking of Ida alone. He was listening for the footsteps of Joshua Mann, and in a few moments he heard them, as well as the angry growl of his foreman’s voice. Mann entered without ceremony.
“I’ve been looking for you, sir. We’ve the devil’s own luck again——”
“Apex struck the Primo vein?”
“No, and won’t for fifty feet yet. But—well—I hate to say it—we’ve lost our vein—cut off as short as if it had been sawed. Of course, it’s faulted, and God only knows where its dropped to—or how far. A prettier shoot of ore was never uncovered. What’s worrying me is that—oh, hell!—just suppose that’s what Amalgamated is sinking on. My head’s going round. Can I have something?”
Gregory waved his hand toward the cupboard where his visitors found refreshment. When Mann had braced himself, his employer tapped a large sheet of paper that lay on the table.
“Come here,” he said. “I made this map some time ago, and calculated to a day when you would lose the vein. I guessed our vein had faulted before Amalgamated got busy. But don’t worry. They’re either on a parallel vein or on a mere fork.” His pencil moved along the vein already stoped, travelled over the fault line and recovered a vein further down. “Hundred feet,” he said. “With air drills and unless the fault breccia is uncommonly hard, which I don’t think is the case, we should find it in less than three weeks. They can’t get through that rock for at least a month. Even then they may not touch us, but then again they may, and we must be there first. Cut across the fault at once and follow it on the footwall side to the east. Get well into the footwall. If you don’t recover the vein inside of a hundred feet I’ll stand to lose a thousand dollars and you’ll be the winner.”
“I guess not,” said Mann admiringly. “But, by jing! I was worried. You never can tell about them faults. When the old earth split herself up and got to slipping she not only lost one side of herself sometimes,but twisted about as if she was having fun with the apex law of Montana in advance. But I figure out that you’re like old Marcus Daly—you’ve got a sort of X-ray in your eye that sees the ore winking below. So long.”
He departed to carry encouragement to the anxious miners, and Gregory went out and walked along his hill. By this time he knew every inch of it, and had found indications of ore in his other claims while superintending the development work necessary before perfecting his patents. If Amalgamated sank on his present vein and the courts enjoined him from working it until the matter of apex rights was settled, he would simply go ahead and sink through the carbonates in his other claims to those vast deposits of chalcopyrite with which he was convinced his hill was packed. He knew the geological history of every mine in Montana, and while he had given up all hope of finding gold on his estate save in small incidental values, he believed that he possessed one of the greatest copper deposits in the Rocky Mountains. And now that even one vein of his hill was threatened, he dismissed his old dreams with a shrug and transferred his undivided affection to the exciting treasure the earth had given him. There were few surprises in gold mines. A great copper mine might make geological history. In two districts, Butte and Castle Mountain, copper glance, an ore of secondary enrichment, had been found far down in the sulphide zone below chalcopyrite, chief of the primary ores. He believed that he should find glance at depth of nine hundred feet. If there were masses of it he should take out millions in a year, for chalcopyrite was the richest of the permanent copper ores of this region, running as high as 79.8.
He had been on amiable terms with the manager and engineer of the Apex Mine since the battle underground, and he crossed the claim unmolested to make his daily inspection of the Primo shaft house. But there had been no further attempt to use the cross-cut, although the Apex people had managed before they were discovered to drive to the point upon which they expected to sink.
Gregory walked up the hill beyond to look at the cottage just completed, which was to be occupied by the manager and foreman of the Primo Mine as soon as Mark reopened it. He had been about to begin operations, cutting acrossthe fault Gregory had demonstrated—a fault parallel to the one in Perch of the Devil—when he was shot nearly to death.
The cottage was situated in a clearing in the pine woods, somewhat apart from the cabins, which were being renovated and made comfortable for the miners. Gregory was so positive that the pyroxenite vein would be recovered just beyond the row of aspens, some sixty feet below the tableland, that Mark, who believed his friend to be an inspired geologist, was preparing for a long period of mining; although if it had been a quartz mine Gregory, sure as he was of his judgment, would not have permitted him to put up a mill and concentrating plant until sufficient ore had been blocked out to warrant the expense. But pyroxenite went direct to the smelter, and a cottage could always be rented.
The little bungalow had two bedrooms besides one for a Chinese servant, a bathroom, and a large living-room with a deep fireplace, a raftered ceiling, and pine walls stained brown. Gregory, as he realised how cosy it would be when furnished, wondered that he had been satisfied with his two-roomed cabin for so long. He had been too absorbed to think of comfort, but today he felt a desire for something more nearly resembling a home than a perch. He looked through the windows at the sibilant pines, the pink carpet of primrose moss, the distant forests rising to the blue and white mountains; and then he sighed as he glanced slowly about the long room and pictured it furnished in warm tones of red and brown, wondering if either of the men would be married. It would be an ideal home for a honeymoon.
He twitched his shoulders impatiently and went outside. To his surprise he saw a wagon ascending the hill laden with lumber, the seats occupied by the contractor and carpenters that had built the bungalow.
“What’s up?” he asked, as the contractor leaped to the ground.
“Another bungalow. Perhaps you could suggest a site. It’s to be near this, and the same size. We had a telegram from Mr. Blake yesterday.”
“But what does he want of two cottages?”
“Can’t say, sir, unless he means to come out here to get well.”
“That’s nonsense. He knows he could stay at my house on the ranch.”
But Gregory was not in the habit of thinking aloud. After indicating a site he swung back to his hill, angry and apprehensive. Could it be possible that Mark intended to spend the summer at the mine and bring his wife with him? As soon as he reached his cabin he sat down at his table, and after getting his friend’s present address from Luning, telephoned a long distance message to Pony to be telegraphed to Mr. Mark Blake in Santa Barbara. Its gist was that the weather was abominable and that Mark must not think of anything so foolish as to bring his weakened heart and lungs to this altitude. His services would be imperative later when his solicitous friend locked horns with Amalgamated, and meanwhile he was, for heaven’s sake, to take care of himself and remain on the coast until he was in a condition to work day and night.
He received an answer that afternoon.
“No intention of leaving here for two months. Lungs pretty good, but shall wait for leg to heal. Ora wants present cottage for herself as she intends to spend summer at mine. Will you be on the lookout for a manager? He can live in the lessee’s shack until the new cottage is built. Might begin operations at once. Hope this not too much trouble. Mark.”
This message was transmitted over the telephone, and, to the excessive annoyance of the operator, who happened to be the belle of Pony, Gregory asked her three times, and with no excess of politeness, to repeat it. The third time he wrote it out and stared at the words as if the unsteady characters were recombining into a sketch of the infernal regions.
“Good God!” he thought. “And I can’t get away!”
Was Mark mad? Was she mad? Then he realised the blissful ignorance of both regarding the drama he so often had swept from the stage of his mind, that secret dweller in the most secret recesses of his soul. Doubtless Ora never had thrown him a thought since they parted at her gate. He remembered her expressed intention to live at her mine when the lease was up, her desire to adventure underground, her intense appreciation of the romance of mining. He closed his eyes, his face relaxed. So long as she cared nothing for him there was no danger; he mightdaydream about her a bit. At least—at last!—he should see her again, talk to her, work with her, help her as no one else could help her. If the association he would have avoided was inevitable why not welcome it as a brief oasis in what must be an arid life, so far as mortal companionship was concerned?
But he was not the man to dream long. Presently he opened his eyes, set his jaw until it looked a yard long, put on his overalls, and went underground.