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 thatthey'dwronged!"
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.
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,twothousand 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 awoman!' 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, thatIhad been trimmed—by aman?"
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."
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 halffor 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!"