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—RimrockJones?"
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——"
"McBainwhat?"
"Why, I thoughthediscovered 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—andrich? 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."
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.
Rimrock Jones left town with four burro-loads of powder, some provisions and a cargo of tools[Illustration: Rimrock Jones left town with four burro-loadsof powder, some provisions and a cargo of tools]
Rimrock Jones left town with four burro-loads of powder, some provisions and a cargo of tools[Illustration: Rimrock Jones left town with four burro-loadsof 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 saywhatdeal, 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."
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. "Youstolefrom 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 putmeon 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'vequitye!"
"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 forpilon."
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."
"ButIhelped 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.