"The way this gulch is washed, I don't know whether I can show you anything or not," Bill explained worriedly, preparing for a flat failure of his little plan. "That was next thing to a cloud-burst last night, Doris—and I'll own now that I was uneasy last night when you said you had left your horses down the gulch. But then, I knew you wouldn't tie them in the bottom where they might get drowned out."
"Well, I hope not," Doris retorted with some asperity. No desert-bred girl likes to be thought ignorant of desert hazards. "You'll have to make this short, you know. They'll expect me home early to-day. I don't see why you can't go. Now you've staked yourself to the luxury of a mucker, you can leave him in charge, I should think. Do you really think you've struck anything, Bill?"
"You wait. If my location cut isn't filled in, I can show you in ten minutes. And—if it's good,you're in on it. I located a claim on the same ledge in your name."
"You did?" Doris looked up at him quickly, but she could see only Bill's left cheek as he swung his face away from her. "Why, why for me, particularly? I couldn't develop it—dad wouldn't let me. You ought to keep your claims for yourself, Bill. You—you'd give away your head, if you could get it off!"
"I might throw in the rest of me," Bill hinted meaningly, his heart pounding like a single-jack in a miners' contest. He stole a glance at her from the corner of his eye and was scared and a bit happy, too, at the flush on her cheek.
"Well, fortunately for you——" Doris bit her lip and left the sentence unfinished. She liked Bill Dale, but—there would always be unfinished sentences concerning her regard for him. A prospector is, paradoxically, not a good prospect for a girl. Doris had seen the poor, withered wives of miners who were forever just on the eve of striking something rich.
Walking beside Bill, she thought of the wistful eyes and the draggled, cheap clothes of certain women she had met. Some of them even wore overalls and helped dig. Bill had been prospecting ever since she first met him at a dance in Goldfield. He had talked optimistically of hisprospects then. He would always talk in the same vein. Always just going to strike rich ore,—never actually getting more than a bare living; if one could call grub and a tent a living.
"Fortunately for me—what?" Bill was in the mood to bring about a crisis of some kind between them. He considered that he had gone too far now to retreat.
"Fortunately for you, your friends have more regard for you than you have for yourself," Doris amended glibly. "Is it much farther, Bill? Because I really must——"
"It's just up around this first turn." Bill's face sobered a bit. After all, Doris didn't seem to care much, one way or the other. She didn't seem very enthusiastic over her claim; didn't she know he would take care of the development work for her—at least the assessment work?
"If a slide hasn't covered it up," he said heavily. "I wanted to show you what I—what I've got. Then——"
"Well, you know I'm no expert, Bill," Doris reminded him lightly. "I can tell silver—when it's in spoons. And gold is jewelry——"
Bill caught her arm, stopping her perforce. His grip left marks in her soft flesh. She looked at him, startled, and paled before the fixed stare in his eyes. He lifted a shaking finger and pointed.
Bill's cut in the side of the gulch had not been filled by any slide of the soft gravel higher up the slope. Instead it stood there naked, deep, clean as a dog's tooth. Even from where they stood the metal gleamed yellow in the ten-inch vein of quartz laid bare to the sunlight.
Slowly, almost reverently, Bill went forward, still holding the girl's arm in his strong, unconsciously painful grip. He led her into the cut, stooped and broke off a point of the vein with his fingers where his last shot had seamed the quartz. He laid the gold-flecked piece in her hand. He looked at her standing there so close with the symbol of a great fortune in her hand,—the symbol too of his worshipful love.
"Monte Cristo would enjoy this," he said and laughed unsteadily. "It's—I found it—it's yours—if you'll take me along with it. I couldn't—I had to strike something before I could dare——"
"Is—is it—gold?" Doris whispered it awesomely. Looking up wide-eyed into his face. "Oh—Bill!"
Bill took her in his arms, felt her yield, saw her head tilt back against his shoulder. He drew a deep breath that was like a sob, and bent and kissed her hair.
Doris was looking from the gold-speckedquartz in her hand to the gold-specked ridge lying naked to the sky. Her eyes were big and deep, like the blue of the sky.
"Do you love me, Doris?" Bill dared to lean and speak his one absorbing hunger, his lips close to her ear.
"Yes—Oh, Bill, it doesn't seem possible! I—I can't realize it. Can you? Doris was staring still at the gold.
"It's like a dream come true—a thousand times better than I'd ever dare to dream it." Bill was looking at the way the sunlight turned her brown hair to burnished copper, strand by strand. His voice broke. He laid his cheek against the copper shine. "You love me! God, I was always scared to dream you ever would!"
Doris stirred in his arms. She was lifting the piece of ore, turning it this way and that, watching it shine in the sun and in the shade alike. That was the test—pyrites wouldn't shine in the shade. It was gold, absolutely itmustbe gold!
"Oh, Bill, aren't you—excited?" She had turned so that she could look into his face. "It's an awfully rich strike, isn't it?"
"Why—yes, I suppose it is." Bill looked briefly at the vein. "Yes, it's the richest stuff I ever saw in the ground. But it doesn't mean anything to me, Doris, alongside your—love." Hewhispered the last word shyly against her cheek. "You'll marry me right away, won't you, Doris? I've—wanted you so long; ever since that first time I met you. I've thought and dreamed about you—but it didn't seem possible you could ever care. Only, I thought if I made a real stake, and you did like me well enough, I could give you everything in the world you wanted. It's as you say: I can't realize it yet. I—wish you'd say it again; just once more.Doyou—care?"
For answer Doris smiled up at him brilliantly. "You great, big silly," she said softly.
Bill kissed her lips and wondered if a man could bear greater joy than was his. Not to have just weary, wishful dreams of her; to have Doris herself, her love, her willingness to trust herself to him. He felt humbled, ashamed of every little human, masculine fault. In one sweeping, swift repentance as he stood there, he resolved to attain perfection for her sake—or as near to perfection as a man may approach.
"You know, daddy and mother will have to be asked before I can—promise absolutely," she reminded him prudently. "So let's not talk about it any more just now, Bill."
"Why, I—Icouldn'ttalk about it," Bill said slowly. "Some things go too deep. You justcan't find any words; or I can't. I'll just have to prove as I go along—what it means to me."
"Just think, Bill! We could go to California, couldn't we?" Doris suggested inconsistently. "Talk about dreams—I've dreamed of the ocean, and orange groves, and beautiful things, until sometimes I've nearly gone crazy. Bill, I almost hate the desert. It's beautiful, and of course I know it by heart and would probably miss it if I never saw it again; but all my life I've been hungry for California."
"You're kind of glad I found the big strike, aren't you?" Bill smiled down at her, his eyes worshipful. "I guess we can go to California, all right. We could go to the South Pole, if we wanted to badly enough. Anywhere in the world you say, Doris. You and I together have four claims along this contact—as near as I could judge from surface indications. That ought to bring your dreams to life, don't you think?" Then he sobered. "But it's going to take a little time, at that. We've got to dig it out, you know. Unless," he added dubiously, "I sold out for just what I could get. That would be quick money, but it wouldn't be enough to let us play the rest of our lives. I'd have to take some of it and get into some business or other. And that would tie us down to one spot more or less."
Doris shook her head at that. "No, we mustn't sell out. You remember what Mr. Rayfield said at the breakfast table, don't you? He certainly does know what he's talking about, and I know he'd be glad to advise—us." The last word she spoke with an adorable hesitation which registered an extra beat in Bill's pulse. "He's a government man, so of course you can trust him. I think we ought to show this vein to him, and let him tell us just what to do. His talk about corporations was awfully sensible, Bill."
"I don't know, Doris." Bill's eyes became shadowed with an unhappy memory. "I'm kind of scared of corporations. One of them broke my dad. He found a mine—not so good as this by a long way, but still pretty good—and some crooks incorporated it for him. When they got through with him, he had a bunch of stock and no mine. No money, either. It got him. He lived about two years after that, and he spent all his time cursing corporations. I don't know, Doris, but it kind of left me with a chill whenever I hear the word."
"Well, you say yourself that they were crooks. Mr. Rayfield and Mr. Emmett may have landed those very men in the penitentiary. "You've got nerves, Bill. I never would have suspected it."
"Maybe there's a good deal about me you'venever suspected," Bill hinted warily,—and almost told her about the saxophone. But he didn't. His courage was too new and timid, the mine was too wonderful, and the love of Doris too unbelievable.
"One thing I'd better do," he said, dragging his mind back to the practical, "and that is to cover up this vein before some one goes to 'high-grading' on us. Tommy says Al Freeman's a thief around mines."
He pulled shovel and pick from under a ridge of washed gravel and began artfully filling the cut so that it looked as if the dirt had caved in on the side where the vein had been exposed. There was nothing crude in Bill's work. When he had finished, a stranger would have sworn that the earth, gravel and rocks had rattled down from above. Doris kept watch for him, and mourned openly because all that beautiful ore must be buried out of sight. It seemed to her almost a sacrilege.
"That's all right," Bill comforted her, standing with his arm around her shoulders while he contemplated his camouflage. "It can't run away or spoil, you know. That vein would be enough to tempt any man whose honesty didn't reach to the middle of his bones. Now you go on up the gulch while I brush out our tracks around this cut.There's a little vein up in the next location hole that's just a stringer—but it's fairly rich, and will do to show. We'll go up there, and I'll do a little digging and get some samples. And then, if you want me to put it up to the government men, Doris, I'll do it. But I'll do it on the strength of what shows up in Parowan Number Two—and we'll just keep this Number One vein a secret between us. Shall we?"
"Yes-s, if you let me tell daddy and mother," Doris assented. "I don't believe I could keep it a secret from them, Bill."
"We'll tell them, sure. I'll leave Tommy in charge of camp and go over with you to the ranch. I'd like to ask your dad what he thinks of it before I talk to the government men."
"Well, I think that's a good plan. They'll all believe, of course, that you're going over to see about that water tunnel. You can't afford to dig tunnels for dad,now——" she gave his arm an ecstatic squeeze "——but they won't know that. Oh, I think it's just dandy to have to be secret about it!"
"Anyway, it's a darn sight safer," Bill told her laconically, and led the way to Number Two.
A short cut from Number Two claim led them straight over a low ridge to camp. Not only did this trail shorten the distance considerably; it also avoided altogether the gulch and Parowan Number One—with its secret.
Al Freeman was seen pottering around the camp by the junipers. Evidently the truce still held, for Tommy had finished his blacksmithing and was setting the camp to rights, mumbling unintelligibly over his work.
Bill's plans had taken definite form, which means that he had half-unconsciously conceded every point brought forth by Doris, who was accustomed to having her say about things on the ranch. In one particular only had Bill stood firm. He would not take the experts into his confidence until he had talked with Don Hunter. To this Doris readily assented, feeling fairly certain that her dad would advise whatever Doris herself wanted. Bill reluctantly left the girl's side and joined Tommy over by the forge.
"I'll have to make a trip over to the Hunter ranch," he announced. "I guess our mining will have to wait until I get back—unless our neighbors should happen to move on. But I've about decided that we're going to need a dugout to store our grub in. Right here in this bank is a good place to dig. While I'm gone you can be making the dugout, Tommy—and you can keep an eye on the camp while you're doing it. Right now, while Miss Hunter is in camp, I'll take you up and show you the claims. I've got a pretty rich vein and I don't want any one monkeying around there while I'm gone. I'll leave it to you and Hez."
They went off together over the ridge, and Al Freeman stopped his work and openly watched their departure. When they were quite out of sight, he came shambling over to Bill's tent and pulled open the flap.
"Well?" Doris looked up from spreading jam between cold biscuits for their lunch on the trail. She might have been speaking to one of her father's ranch hands, for all the emotion she showed.
Al grinned slyly and placatingly.
"Excuse me," he said in his flat voice that grated unpleasantly on the ear. "I left my terbaccer in here somewhere this morning. If itain't botherin' ye none, I just thought I'd come over an' git it."
"It took you a long time to miss it," Doris observed coldly. "Why didn't you ask Bill for it?"
"I didn't think of it then," Al grinned, edging into the tent.
"Well, I can't let you go pawing around in here while he's gone." Doris continued to spread other split biscuits with jam. "Go on out, and wait till Mr. Dale comes."
"He ain't likely to be back very soon," Al argued insinuatingly. "I just about got to have a smoke, Miss Hunter—no two ways about it. Won't take me but a minute to look where I laid my terbaccer."
Doris straightened and stood eyeing him attentively, a butcher knife in her left hand.
"Whereabouts did you lay it, then?" she demanded.
"Right on a sack in this corner. I was gittin' up to go to breakfast, an' I laid my terbaccer down on a sack in this corner. I mind now that Mr. Emmett kinda joggled things 'round, pullin' out a box to set on. I never thought no more about it till I went to make a smoke." He turned to the corner and stooped, laying hold upon ahalf-filled sack of something. "It musta fell over behind," he mumbled.
"You get out of that corner and out of this tent," Doris commanded sternly, laying down the knife.
Al lifted his lip in a smile that was half a snarl. "Aw, you wouldn't make a man go without his terbaccer," he whined, lifting the sack and finding it unexpectedly heavy. "Must be gold bricks in this sack," he tittered. "I guess that sample he showed at breakfast ain't all he's got!"
"Willyou get out of here?" Doris took a step forward, her eyes, her whole face, hardening with anger.
"Now, now, no use gittin' excited," Al protested, leering at her. "I can't go off without my terbaccer—mebby it fell into this sack. I'll just take a look."
His hand was fumbling inside the sack when Doris fired. Hunkered down on his heels, Al gave a grotesque leap straight into the air, as the bullet spatted into the earthen floor and kicked dirt over his toes. He came down sidewise, sprawled awkwardly and clawing to get up.
"That's just a hint," Doris announced dispassionately through the drifting little smoke cloud. "In about one minute——"
Al went out on hands and knees and picked himself up and ran. Doris followed him out, saw him duck into his own tent and laughed a little.
Al, too, was laughing silently, showing his broken, tobacco-stained teeth. He was staring gloatingly down at the piece of ore he had dragged from the sack, hidden in the palm of his big hand.
Doris returned to the tent and stood looking reflectively down at the tilted sack. She stooped, reached inside it and brought out a lump of ore. She frowned over it, her under lip between her teeth.
"Bill certainly needs a guardian," she said to herself. "Leaving half a sack of this stuff right where the first sneak thief could help himself! That fellow must have suspected it was here, too. I'll bet he never lost any tobacco in here—but it's easy enough to find out."
She made a thorough search of the corner and convinced herself that Al had been lying to her and that his sole purpose was to get his hands on that ore. She tilted the sack again, spilling the contents out on the ground. She had no fear that Al would return. With her lifelong knowledge of the desert had come the understanding of desert types of men, and she needed no explanation of Al Freeman. She knew him for what he was: a coward at heart, mean and treacherous and capable of crime that might be hidden. Shedid not know that he had carried off a piece of the ore, but she knew that he suspected its richness. Only a tenderfoot will cumber his tent with valueless samples of mineral,—and Bill Dale was no tenderfoot.
"He thought he could fool me," she analyzed the incident contemptuously. "Or maybe he thought I'd be scared to say anything to him." She sorted the pieces of ore, choosing those that showed the largest specks and splotches of gold. She fondled them, turned them to the light, feasted her eyes upon them.
"Rich! Bill's rich, this minute. A millionaire, for all we know," she mused. "And maybe it's like this on my claim, too. Dear old Bill—he surely deserves a fortune. How he's worked to find it—and he's loved me all the time and wanted to strike it so we—I'm going to make him leave the working of the mine to some one else. He can afford to take life easy now—we'll live in Los Angeles, or maybe we'll travel——"
She was sitting cross-legged, with her lap full of rich pieces of quartz, when Bill looked in upon her. She scrambled up, her two hands clutching the prettiest specimens. Bill was laughing at her, his eyes adoring. Doris pulled her fine eyebrows together and shook her head at him.
"Good thing you've got some one to look afteryou, old boy," she scolded, half in earnest. "You'd have been robbed of all this, and maybe cleaned out of everything else, if I hadn't scared him off. He had his hand in the sack, mind you, when I shot at his feet. That put him on the run. Bill, you'd better tell Tommy to pack a gun while you're gone. That fellow, Al, needs a whole lot of watching. What in the world made you keep all this stuff here in the tent? He must have known it was here, or at least he suspected it——"
"I'll mighty quick settle withhim," Bill said grimly, and turned away.
Doris stopped him. "Better let it pass, Bill. You see, I couldn'tprovehe wasn't after his tobacco, just as he claimed. He may have lost it here. I don't believe it, but he had his excuse for coming. And he didn't steal anything. I scared him off before he had a chance. Perhaps I should have waited and got the goods on him.
"No, just gather up everything but that sample you had out in sight this morning, and we'll carry it over and show it to daddy. And have Tommy watch out. There really isn't anything Al can do, is there?"
"Not unless he bats Tommy on the head; and from all accounts, Tommy's good at that game. So you took a shot at him, did you?"
"And scared the life out of him, almost. We'll have to hurry, Bill. If you can pack my outfit on one of the burros, you could ride old Rambler. I wish you would. And can't we take Luella along?"
Bill said that they could, but he would not ride Rambler. On the desert a horse seldom travels faster than a walk on a long journey, especially with a pack animal along. Bill was accustomed to depending on his own legs, and a twenty-mile hike was his regular day's travel when on the trail. He therefore packed an emergency camp outfit on Wise One and set out quite happily, walking beside Doris, sometimes touching her hand caressingly, his soul still hushed and trembling lest all this would prove itself a dream.
In violet shadows they approached the house in its square of cottonwoods and saw a tall, rangy figure step leisurely down from the porch and come to meet them, holding a big-bowled, briar pipe from which lazy incense floated upward.
Leaning both arms upon the top board of the yard fence, Don Hunter waited placidly until they came up, Rambler shuffling into a trot as he remembered his stall. Occasionally Don placed the pipestem between his teeth and took comfort from the slow inhalation of smoke. Content emanated from his personality as perfume of a flower givesa soothing quality to the air about it. He was a strong man, meant to dominate those lesser souls with whom he came in contact, and some with souls as great as his, but humble in their greatness. He was not an aggressive man, but most men feared to incur his ill will or his contempt, and his opinion was rated above that of his neighbors; and although he was slow to give advice, scarcely a day passed but he was asked for it. Bill did not know a man whom he liked better or respected more, and his attitude was not greatly influenced by the fact that Don was the father of Doris. Indeed, he had known Don Hunter long before he first met the girl. And if his prospecting were frowned upon by the older man, Bill knew that Don would be the first to throw up his hat over Bill's success, and never think of his own possible benefit from the strike.
"Hello, Bill," Don called as the two came up, Bill walking briskly behind his burro. Doris had professed a reluctance to let daddy and mother know that night about the tentative engagement, and they had traveled apart for the last mile across the flat.
"Howdy, Don. Well, we're here, all right."
Don reached out a long arm and swung open the gate. Then he and Bill shook hands, lookinginto each other's eyes with frank pleasure in the meeting.
"Glad to see yuh, Bill. Just slip the bridles off—there's hay in the corral—and come on in. Supper's been waiting on yuh."
"We're half-starved, Daddy, and that's the truth," Doris declared, leaning from the saddle to kiss the top of his head as she rode past. "Bill's about all in, I reckon. We got a late start and hustled right along."
"Just keep that pace up till you hit the supper table," Don suggested, and fastened the gate behind them before he returned to the porch. "They're here, Momma," he called within, and stood in the dusk of the doorway, waiting.
Bill had stridden ahead and opened the corral gate, and Wise One nipped through the opening and made for the manger along one side where fresh hay was piled. Rambler crowded past Bill hurriedly and went trotting after the burro. Doris rode through, kicked her right foot free of the stirrup and swung down, landing unexpectedly in Bill's arms.
"Oh, Bill—daddy'll see us!" she protested weakly as Bill lifted her face with a palm under her chin.
"Just one more kiss—and say you love me," Bill pleaded softly. "I can't believe it—itseems it like a dream. Kiss me, little Doris." In the last few hours Bill had attained a certain masterful manner, though he still suffered uneasy moments of incredulity that demanded instant proof of the sweet reality.
Curiously, while they actually hurried, and Bill held her no longer than a few seconds in his arms, Don Hunter's voice came bellowing from the porch before they reached the corral gate. He looked at them searchingly too, when they came into the big kitchen where the light was mellow and homelike, and where Mrs. Don was spearing mealy, white potatoes out of an old-fashioned iron kettle.
They were sighing in gastronomic bliss over the thick, quivery custard pie when Doris looked across at Bill in mild dismay.
"Bill! You forgot Luella! I'll bet she's swearing herself black in the face, out there."
Bill pushed back his chair and rose. "She must be hungry—thirsty, too," he said contritely. "Excuse me just four seconds and I'll bring her in."
"First time I ever knew Bill to forget the parrot," Don observed drily. "Where's Sister Mitchell and Hezekiah? Didn't leave them behind, did he?"
"Oh, Bill has a fellow with him in camp. Yes,he only brought Luella. She doesn't seem to like Tommy very well. She wouldn't say a word, hardly. Oh, come on, Luella!" But the smile Doris sent toward the door was too intimate to be wasted on a mere parrot. Don Hunter lifted one eyebrow, then pulled them both together in a puzzled frown.
"Luella hungry? Let me have her, Bill. Here's a lovely wishbone, Luella."
Luella tilted her head sidewise and regarded the proffered dainty suspiciously.
"I can't believe it," she remarked with startling distinctness. "One more kiss—say you love me. Seems like a dream. Kiss me, Doris. Daddy'll see us. I can't believe it. We're rich, Bill, dear. I can't believe it. Do you love me?"
Then, and then only, Luella accepted the wishbone and began daintily picking off tiny shreds of chicken meat.
Bill started for the door, stumbling against a chair in his flight. "I'll kill this darned bird!" he threatened viciously. "That's the second time she's tipped my hand lately."
Luella looked up at him sidewise and blinked in the effort to remember something.
"Bill Dale's parrot tipped Bill's hand," she muttered, and turned her head the other way. "We'll lay low. See the recorr-r——" She turned and walked up Bill's arm to his shoulder, tilting forward there and making kissy sounds against his crimson cheek. "I can't believe it. We're rich, Bill, dear." Then she laughed in a shrill falsetto.
"Better come on back and finish your pie before I boot you outside," Don observed drily. "I reckon maybe you can explain where the bird learned all that. Never saw yuh on the run before, Bill."
At that, Bill returned and stood behind hischair, looking down honestly into Don Hunter's searching eyes.
"She learnt it eavesdropping," Bill said bluntly. "She does that trick, every once in awhile. She got it straight, too. I—asked Doris to marry me, and she said it would be a good deal as you two say. I didn't ask her until I was dead certain I'd be able to give her luxuries a prospector couldn't afford. I struck the richest vein of gold-bearing quartz, Don, that I ever saw in the ground. I've got three claims on the lead, and I located one for Doris, too.
"I didn't come over to go to work. I came to ask you if you'd have me in the family, and I wanted to get your advice about what to do with my claims. There are several thousand dollars' worth in sight—at a rough guess. And the vein looks strong." He smiled at Mrs. Don, who smiled back mistily. "I didn't mean to spring it all on you folks this evening. I—kind of wanted to get my nerve tuned up, and tell you with trimmings. But the darned parrot beat me to it, so——"
"So you'd better sit right down and eat your pie," Mrs. Don finished for him, laughing tremulously. "You're a good boy, Bill. We—we'd hate awfully to lose our girl; she's all we've got. But—far as I'm concerned, I'd rather it wouldbe you—if you're sure you can take care of her."
"The boss has said it." Don gave his wife the look one bestows upon some treasured thing. "Sit down—sit down! Don't look as if you expected to be lynched for it. The women folks run this house, Bill. So you struck it rich! You say you're sure it ain't just a fluke?"
Doris rose hastily, asking permission with her eyes.
"Fluke!" She glanced eloquently at Bill, then at her father. "You wait a minute. I'll show you whether it's a fluke. There. I hid it under my gloves because I was going to wait till morning before we said anything. Look atthat, will you, Mother? And cast your critical glance atthat, Dad Hunter!" She placed a piece of ore beside each plate and returned triumphantly to her seat.
A lump came into Bill's throat as he watched those two, slipping past middle age, never quite reaching rainbow's end except in love. Mrs. Don lifted the sample, looked at it, leaned and held it under the direct rays of the lamp, glanced diffidently at Bill, then looked questioningly across the table at Don.
"It's—gold, isn't it? Without my glasses I—but it looks——"
Don deliberately produced his reading glassesfrom an inner pocket of his vest, tucked the bows over his ears and picked up the specimen which Bill had chipped off the vein and given to Doris. Don moved his tongue in his cheek while he looked, slanting the rock so that the lamp shone on it. He was not a miner himself, but he had lived too long in Nevada not to know minerals fairly well. He pushed his glasses down his nose until he could look over them at Bill.
"How much of this have you got in sight, did you say?"
"I estimated it roughly at about five thousand dollars. When I first located the vein I mortared and panned enough to get a fair idea of how it was running. The vein averaged about ten inches, fairly uniform so far. The storm last night uncovered it so now it stands out clean from the side of the cut like an outcropping; or it did, before I covered it up. I didn't want to come away and leave it open. There are some strangers camped right beside me. Government men—but I didn't like the look of their packer."
"Didn't like the look—my goodness, Mother! The fellow came to the tent when I was there getting ready to start home, and he started snooping around in the corner where Bill had a lot of this ore. He was bound and de-ter-mined he'd see what was in the sack. I told him more than onceto go—but I had to shoot into the ground beside him before he'd go. He went then, all right!"
Her mother looked alarmed. "Why, Doris! And where was Bill?"
"I was up at the claims with Tommy," Bill explained. "You can see, maybe, why I can't be away long—and why I covered up this vein."
"Oh dear!" Mrs. Hunter leaned her head on her hand as if she had become suddenly aware of a great weariness. "Mustyougo through all that fighting and grasping over gold? A boom always seems to me like a lot of wild animals fighting and tearing at one another, to get a bone which the first one on the hunting ground has already cleaned." She closed her eyes tightly for an instant, then looked wistfully from Doris to Bill. "I don't know but what gold costs more than it's worth, after all," she said. "And the more you have, the more terrible the price. I don't know but what I'd just about as soon see you two face poverty together, as to see you face a boom. You know," she added apologetically, "I was born in Virginia City. I've seen sudden wealth and sudden poverty. And the sudden wealth was worse, sometimes—though I never heard of a man shooting himself because he struck it rich, and they do sometimes when they lose everything."
"That's what Mr. Rayfield meant, I guess. He said if Bill had a lot of ore like the sample he saw, he'd have Bill's friends pray that wealth wouldn't spoil him." Doris smiled tolerantly at her mother, as youth is wont to smile at experience.
"Who's Rayfield?" Don Hunter pushed back his chair with a rasping sound on the bare floor. "How did he come to see a sample? Doris, you help your mother with the dishes; you ought to have a lot to talk over. Bill, come on out on the porch and let's get at the bottom of this. So far I can't make head nor tail of anything."
Out on the porch the two men smoked in silence, watching the twinkling of camp fires half a mile away, where travelers were availing themselves of running water and shade for one comfortable camp on the desert. The Hunter ranch saw many such wayfarers, for it lay close to the highway (such as it was) and formed a sort of oasis, all the more enticing because one could buy fresh eggs and milk and, if one were lucky, a loaf or two of delicious bread. Mrs. Don called such revenue her pin money, and Don himself grinned and wondered sometimes what she ever did with it.
"Who's Rayfield?" Don repeated his question abruptly, after a lapse of several minutes.
Bill told him, making few words of it but contriving to paint a very clear picture in Don's mind.
"They didn't come this way—or if they did, they didn't stop." Don seemed to consider that omission somewhat derogatory to the character of the government men.
"They didn't mention this place at all," Bill said. "I got the idea they diverged from the trail and cut towards the likeliest mineral showings. That would put them south."
"What's your plan, Bill? Or haven't you got any?" Don inspected his pipe, prodding at the tobacco with his finger. "Yuh want to cash in as soon as yuh can, I reckon—anxious for the honeymoon."
"You've been there," Bill retorted. "Sure, I'm anxious. That little girl has been hankering for the ocean and palm trees all her life, she said."
"They won't run away in the next year or so, that I know of. Well, I'm no mining shark, but I reckon I better trail over to your diggin's and see what you've got. Maybe them fellows over there can be some help, and then again, maybe you want to steer clear of them. Just because a man draws down his pay from Uncle Sam don't give him any guarantee from the Almighty that he's a he angel. Doris seems to think so."
"What I want, Don, is for you to take a handand help me get started off on the right foot. I can see it's going to be a mighty big proposition, and I don't want to have the same experience my dad had. On the other hand, I don't want to act the darned fool sitting over my claims with a shotgun, afraid somebody's going to rob me. There's a safe line betwixt and between that I want to take and keep. And I wouldn't ask you to make the trip over there, if I didn'tknowthe stuff's there; acres of it, by the looks."
Don sucked at his pipe for some time before he spoke. Then,
"I'll do all I can, Bill. If you're going to be one of the family I might as well start bossing yuh now. I want to see yuh make good without hurting the other fellow. It can be done, and if it's done rightly, there ain't any cleaner money in the world than what comes out of the ground. Mines or ranches, you're giving the world something it never had before; something it needs. Most money-making is just swapping the ownership of necessities, or else changing the shape and form of them and selling them that way. But when you take something outa old Mother Earth, you've got it clean. What I can't stomach is the way crooks come flockin' around every new strike, and making it rotten business.
"Every boom suffers from 'em. When thenews of this leaks out—hasit leaked out, yet?"
Bill shook his head, though Don could not see him in the dark.
"Not so far as I know. I just brought down supplies and a mucker from Goldfield—and there's something funny happened up there. The darn parrot was outside while I was in recording the claims, and when I came out, she commenced talking a new speech that I'll swearInever taught her. She got it off to-night, if you noticed." Bill blushed consciously, but went on. "She said, 'Bill Dale's parrot has tipped Bill's hand. We'll lay low—see the recorder.' Only, she couldn't quite get the last word out. Now, she heard that said in Goldfield, while I was in the recorder's office, or she couldn't have repeated it. I've learned that much about parrots. She talks right along, and seems to know what she means—way she calls me down, sometimes, is right human—but she has to hear a sentence before she can say it. One hearing's enough, if she happens to take a notion to the words. But it was funny, her saying that." He flicked the ash off his cigarette. "I shut her up till I was ready to leave," he added. "I guess it didn't amount to anything. I wasn't trailed, anyway."
"What about these fellows camped up there? You sure they ain't——"
"Oh, they came from Las Vegas way. No, they're not on my trail—or if they are they're pretty damned smooth."
"Crooks are," Don remarked laconically. "How would the parrot be able to tip your hand? Ever think that out?"
"No-o—only, I talk to the menagerie in camp, of course. When a fellow doesn't see a human for weeks at a time, he'll talk to anything; and Luella's next to human, seems like. Yes, I talked about buying her a gold perch, I remember, and about striking it. I was one tickled man, Don, when I first uncovered that vein and saw the gold showing right up in the rock."
"Mh-hm—well, I reckon she must have overheard you talking about it. Same as she must have heard some remarks, coming over, that was kind of embarrassing for a minute, when repeated. I reckon I'll have to get you outa bed early, to-morrow morning, Bill. I'm getting mighty curious to see those government men and have a talk with them." He knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose. "I've learned that one hoof track is good as a dozen when you're trailin' stock. A critter's got to be present, to make one track. And I can't seem to see you teachin' that parrot to say that she's tipped your hand, and you'll lie low. Some other critter made that track, Bill. IfI don't miss my guess, you'll have somebody trying to horn in somehow. Let's go in. I want to talk to Doris about that feller she took a shot at, that was nosin' around your samples."
"I c'uldn't turrn 'em out, Mr. Dale," Tommy explained in a worried tone, and pensively inspected a plug of tobacco before helping himself. "Al Freeman packed the burros an' hit the trail yistiddy, he did—an' phwat was I t' do wit' them experts but leave 'em eat uh your grub? They're t' pay fer the board—I made that plain to 'em 'fore they swallied a mout'ful—I did that."
Bill stood with his hands on his hips, looking across to the junipers, where trampled brush and a tin can or two marked the spot where the government men had made their camp. Al Freeman had evidently made a clean job of it, though Tommy had said that the blankets of Rayfield and Emmett had been left in a pile on a convenient rock. But no food of any kind. Their canteens and prospectors' picks and sample bags, and the clothes they walked in constituted their sole equipment for camping on the desert. Of course, there was nothing for Tommy to do but take them in and feed them, at least until Bill's return.
"What do you make of it, Don?" Bill relaxed his muscles and turned to unsaddle.
"Tell you better when I've sized up the experts," Don replied warily. "Of course, this Al Freeman could expect to hear from you when you got back; he maybe decided to go while the going was good and he could have burros and plenty of grub. When his bosses heard about his performance in your tent, I don't see how they could do anything less than haze him outa camp with a back pack—do you? The average skunk like him would beat 'em to it and choose his own pack. He seems to of been right liberal with himself."
"Wanted to fix it so they couldn't follow him up, I reckon," Bill added. "When did Rayfield and Emmett find it out, Tommy?"
"When they come in at night, Mr. Dale." Tommy had his chew, now, and felt more at ease. "Uh coorse, I seen him packin', an' I coulda stopped 'im easy. But not knowin' their plans, how sh'd I know they wasn't movin' on, an' Al under orrders t' pack an' go?"
"You couldn't butt in, of course," said Bill. "I'd have stood right here and watched him carry off the works, and I'd never have thought to say a word against it. It was sure bold—and he could get away with it, too. And you couldn't do anyless than feed the experts. Where did they sleep?"
Tommy tilted his head much like Luella. "They slept outa doors, Mr. Dale. They did, that! I seen 'em look longin' at your bunk, but I says I has me orrders, an' they slept outside. They did, that! It was Hez that had the tent to hisself, Mr. Dale—barrin' the turkle which I left alone, she was that bashful wit' me." He grinned, showing broken teeth. Then he thought of something.
"They was a growlin' an' a grumblin' from that dorg, Mr. Dale. "But if anny one wished to enter the tent, he changed his wish, I'm thinkin'. An' it might 'a' been Mr. Rayfield wantin' a drink from the bucket, fer I heard him tellin' that other how he was like to make a trip to the spring in the night, but recalled the canteen not bein' empty. He got no drink from the bucket befoor sun-up, that I c'ld swear to, Mr. Dale."
Bill nodded and went thoughtfully about his cooking of an early supper. Riding the desert—or walking, for that matter—puts an edge on one's hunger, and eating is the first thought on arriving in camp. There would still be time to show Don his gold vein on Number One, and he quizzed Tommy carefully about the movements of the experts. Tommy had a deep, wide cut inthe sidehill to show how his own time had been spent, and he had seen to it that Bill's tent had not been entered. Further than that he was vague. The experts had struck off to the west, that morning. They could have swung back around the hill and gone up the gulch without Tommy's knowledge, however, and Bill was uneasy; though with Al Freeman gone there could be no valid reason for being nervous.
But there is a certain hypnotic quality in native gold. The very sight of it in its natural form will leave a mark on any man's mind. The possessor is affected according to his mental caliber. He will lose his head and spend money recklessly, feeling that he has all nature behind him; or he will grow wary, eyeing his fellow men with suspicion, haunted by the fear of being robbed. The higher the mentality, the more subtle the effect; but it is there, nevertheless.
Don Hunter felt it when he stood beside Bill and stared at the vein which Bill had just uncovered. He stooped and laid a forefinger upon one great splotch of gold in the rock. His finger could not quite cover it from sight. He rubbed the gold almost caressingly. He feasted his eyes upon the many specks and splotches. Even when he got out his pipe and sat down on the edge ofthe cut, he could no more take his eyes off the gold than could Doris, when she first saw it.
"My God, Bill, that's the richest stuff I ever saw!" he sighed. "I couldn't help thinking, all along, that you and Doris had got too excited right in the start. I was afraid maybe you both had a disappointment coming to you—the way you talked about millions. I take it all back."
"I knew you felt that way about it," Bill grinned. "And I knew you'd change your tune when you saw it in the ground yourself. That's why I wanted you to see it and help me plan the next move. Doris wants to incorporate and let the company do the mining while we go off and play. Poor little kid, she wants to see something besides sagebrush, and I don't blame her. If this mine can't make Doris happy and give her the things she wants, then it's of no use to me. What do you think about forming a company, Don? Rayfield claims it's the only thing to do. I hate the very name 'corporation,' but I know that's partly prejudice. I don't want to be hidebound. I'm willing to leave it to you."
"And I ain't going to give snap judgment on a thing the size of this." Don opened his knife and went over to pick out that big splotch of gold which seemed to fascinate him. This thing is going to take some studying."
That night they talked long with the two research men. Don admired the careful conservatism of Mr. Emmett, but he responded more freely to Mr. Rayfield's genial manner and his clear, common-sense way of going at the heart of the subject. He had approached the acquaintance of the two men with mental reservations. In an hour he and Bill had both forgotten their caution; the conversation had drifted insensibly into a consultation.
"My, my! I wish that scoundrel had at least left us our grips," Mr. Rayfield exclaimed regretfully. It's rather embarrassing to be obliged to trust that you will take our word in the place of regular credentials. All our papers, instructions, reports—everything that could prove our identity and standing, carried off by that pitiful sneak thief! And I suppose," he added with a grimace, "they'll go to start his camp fire. I doubt if the man can read; if he can he'll probably burn our papers as a means of self-protection. You can't identify slabs of bacon—or burros, either, as far as I'm concerned. They all look alike to me, the same as Chinamen. So he'll probably burn all our personal belongings and travel like an honest prospector. I don't suppose he managed to get any inkling of what you have here, Mr. Dale?"
Bill replied that he didn't see how Al could have gotten wise to anything; though his prowling in the tent held a sinister meaning, he believed.
Mr. Rayfield pursed his lips. "I wouldn't think that would mean anything more than an attempt to steal whatever he could lay his hands on," he said judicially. "He had undoubtedly laid his plans to make off with our outfit, and he was quite willing to add as much of yours as he could steal. My, my, what a plucky young lady your daughter is, Mr. Hunter! There isn't a doubt in the world but what she saved Mr. Dale from being robbed. No," he returned to the point in question, "I don't see how Al could suspect that you had any rich claims here. He certainly had no time to locate any ground alongside you before he left. And that, I think, would be his first move. It would be very easy to sell his claims in Goldfield without ever showing up here again. That is, if he could get hold of some of your ore and show it to the right parties."
"You've been in Goldfield, Mr. Rayfield?" Don lifted one eyebrow at him.
"Oh, yes. Yes, we try to keep in touch more or less with all the mining camps. Emmett and I were there just this summer. Nice little camp there. But the speculators are ready for another stampede, nevertheless. Do you know, Mr.Hunter, this mining country has produced a type of men whom I should call professional boomers. A pernicious type, too, in the long run. For while they undoubtedly do start things moving when they rush to a new camp, they also knock the bottom out quite as unthinkingly when they rush off to the next boom camp.
"I suppose you realize, Mr. Dale, that you'll have to take into consideration that very thing. I don't see any possibility of avoiding a boom here at Parowan. The moment the news leaks out in Goldfield there'll be a rush down here. It will be humanly impossible to prevent it. The only thing that you can do is to prepare yourself to handle it when it comes and see to it that the undesirables don't get control."
"Has it occurred to you," Mr. Emmett asked abruptly, "that somebody's going to lay out a town site here? That's the first thing that will happen. If you'll take my advice, Mr. Dale, you'll beat them to it. If you own the town site, you can pretty nearly control the situation."
Bill and Don looked at each other questioningly. Don turned to the other two, eyeing them quizzically. "What's the matter with you two laying out the town site yourselves?" he asked. "Seems to me you're entitled to some benefit here, if it's only to break even on your outfit."
Mr. Rayfield laughed and threw out his hand in a gesture of helplessness.
"Our hands are tied, Mr. Hunter. So long as we are in the employ of the government we are not permitted to profit in any way from the work that we do or from any mineral which may be uncovered. Sort of sanctified to the service of Uncle Sam. We'd have to resign before we could take any active part in your strike, Mr. Dale."
Bill studied that for a moment. "You know all about the best way to handle this proposition," he said finally. "That town-site idea is a bird—only I'd be plumb helpless about starting a thing like that in country that isn't surveyed. I suppose you wouldn't think of such a thing as resigning from your jobs and taking hold here." He glanced at Don for approval.
Mr. Rayfield shook his head slowly. "That, I'm afraid, would need some ve-ry serious consideration. Of course, we're not mere chattels; we could resign at any time. But there's the ethical point to consider. Speaking for myself, Mr. Dale, I'd have to feel very sure that I could be of real service, and that in a field broad enough to justify my leaving this research work to others. Of course," he went on musingly, "if I could be sure that I might be able to help develop this district and make the name Parowan stand for clean,efficient mining, with a clean, orderly town here, that would be a tremendous achievement for any man. The research work in this particular district would almost take care of itself. This whole Parowan neighborhood would be gone over with a fine-tooth comb by prospectors."
He rose, glancing with his good eye at Mr. Emmett. "I think we'd all better sleep on the subject," he smiled disarmingly. "Mr. Emmett and I will in any event be glad to look over your claims and give you our honest opinion and as much advice as we feel competent to offer. And as to our resigning and taking hold here—we'll have to think that over. But I feel free to say, here and now, that wewillthink it over; and that, if you only knew it, is a very great compliment to you folks and to the mine we believe you have got here."
Mr. Emmett had also risen to his feet. He smiled slightly, glancing from one to the other.
"Walter is more impulsive than I am, more inclined to play hunches. But we stand pretty close together and I usually agree with him in the long run. I don't fall in with this idea of resigning. Right now I call it foolish. We've passed up dozens of chances to make a stake in some mining boom. I don't know what's got into him to-night. But it's only fair to tell you thatI'm going to talk him out of that notion if I can."
Mr. Rayfield threw back his head and laughed contagiously. "It isn't a notion," he denied jovially. "Bill Dale, here—HopefulBill Dale—paid us the high compliment of suggesting it. It's no treason, John, to think it over. Come along to bed and don't look so solemn." He turned to Don and Bill, smiling down at them almost paternally.
"Don't mind John Emmett, boys. He has no sense of humor, anyway. To-morrow, I think we'll just postpone our field work and go into this proposition very thoroughly with you. Our time and what scant knowledge we have is at your disposal, and free as the desert air. I hope you won't hesitate to use both as long as you feel the need. And whether we decide to roll up our sleeves and help make you a millionaire, Bill, or whether we go on pecking at rocks for the government, I hope you'll rely always upon our friendship and good will."
They had been gone some minutes before Don straightened from his hunched position on a box and knocked the cold ashes from his pipe.
"We'll try and get them in," he said slowly. "That town-site idea is worth darn near as much as your mine."