Bill sat in a deep chair and held out his arms. Timorously, as if she were taking a great risk, a white-capped nurse stooped starchily and placed within the curve of them a soft little bundle. Bill held his breath until the precious, warm little body lay cuddled against his chest.
Once each day, for a stingy ten minutes or so, Bill was permitted to hold his daughter in his arms. Sometimes, if the nurse and Doris forgot their vigilance for a space, Bill could fumble and uncover the smallest, pinkest, squirmiest feet he had ever seen in his life. On one memorable occasion, when fire engines went clanging past the silk-hung windows, he had been left unobserved long enough to brush the soft pink soles against his lips.
Little Miss Mary Dale was growing at the astonishing rate of a pound a week, which Bill considered phenomenal and told of whenever he decided that it would not be a breach of etiquette to admit that he was human enough to be proudof his baby; which tells the story of Bill's servitude to conventions which he hated even while he meekly obeyed the rules.
What Bill wanted to do was carry his daughter down into the lobby and show her off to everybody who came in. Why not, since there wasn't another baby in San Francisco that could come within a mile of her for looks and intelligence? What he did do was sneak up to the room set aside for the nursery—they were still living in a hotel, which at this particular time was the Palace—and pull down the silken coverlets and gaze at little Mary until he was discovered and shooed away. After two months of this, Bill was beginning to feel abused. She washisbaby, as well as Doris'. He believed that he had a right to look at her now and then, since Doris assumed the privilege of rocking her and talking unintelligibly to her by the hour.
Still, Bill was accustomed to carrying a proper sense of his limitations about with him. A year had convinced him that husbands didn't amount to much, after all; that they were frequently a real obstacle to a woman's pursuit of happiness. And since his whole soul was still fixed upon making Doris completely happy, he eliminated himself from the scene whenever he saw a certain look in the eyes of his wife, and ministered to herhappiness as unobtrusively as possible. One deep hurt remained with Bill, do what he would to forget it. Doris had not been pleased about little Mary,—until she had actually arrived and won her own place in the family. That had hurt Bill terribly and made his own eagerness seem a fault which he must hide as best he could.
Well, women had their own ideas of things, their own hopes and ambitions. Doris didn't seem to have had enough of the glitter of life, yet. She didn't want to have a house and settle down to real home life. Bill was beginning to feel that he did not understand her at all. Home life would be lonely, she complained; would shut her away from the things she loved best. For instance, Doris never tired of the big, beautiful dining places with the music and the soft lights, the flash of jewels and the hovering, obsequious servants. She wanted the deference that bowed and waited for largess. She loved the smiles and the nods from rich diners at other tables. She loved to have her maid telephone to the steward that he would please lay so many extra covers at the William Gordon Dale table. And would he please see that there were just a few orchids peeping out from dark-green foliage, massed very low,—that glossy green which Mrs. Dale likes so well?
And then she liked to forget all about the dinner until the guests had actually arrived, and to know that the arrangements would be perfect to the slightest detail,—with Doris herself the most perfect part of it, smiling and showing the dimple in her left cheek, and sparkling across at her husband, addressing him humorously as Bill-dear. Doris, Bill observed (because the good Lord gave him powers of observation which worked automatically) had begun calling him Bill-dear openly, in social gatherings, immediately after she heard Mrs. Baker Cole say "angel husband" in an adorably quizzical tone that never failed to bring a smile. It rather spoiled the Bill-dear for him in private, but Doris never guessed that.
Neither did she guess Bill's inner shame that his child should be born in a hotel. Bill flushed in secret over the thought that, years afterward, when little Mary asked about her birthplace, her parents must refer her to suite E, Palace Hotel,—which had housed thousands before their baby opened her eyes there, and would house thousands after she had been carried away. Being born in a hotel, in Bill's estimation, was a little better than being born on a train, but not much.
So Bill's dream of a home with Doris—a place of their very own—seemed as far off as ever; and the fact that he could have bought a mansion fine enough even for Doris with the money he hadpaid to hotel cashiers in the past twelve months did not help him to resignation.
A nomadic life; a life that to Bill seemed inexcusably shiftless, temporary. They had sampled several hotels, in the several cities they had visited during the first few months. They were all alike,—luxurious shelters for the traveling rich. He went about thinking how all the other guests had homes somewhere; places where they dropped anchor occasionally, at least, and took stock of themselves. He began to try and hide the fact that he and Doris had no home; that they were always tagged with a number and their mail messed up with forwarding addresses. And now, here was little Miss Mary without a home that she could look back to afterwards with affection. To Bill the thing was becoming a disgrace, the blame resting on his own shoulders. He had promised Doris that she should live where she pleased. Now he owed another duty to his daughter.
"She's beginning to notice things, Bill-dear." Doris came up and sat on the arm of a near-by chair. "To-day her eyes followed the flash of my rings—I tried her out, and she really did notice. Wake up, s'eepy thing! Show daddy how 'em can smile!"
"We'll have to get a place of our own," Billbegan tentatively, consciously treading thin ice. "We can't have her think a hotel like this is all the kind of home there is in the world. Honey, don't you think a nice house up on the hill—or maybe in some other town——"
"Oh, Bill, please don't start that! You're gone half the time, almost—running around the country playing you're doing important things. What would I do in a great big house with nobody around but servants? I'd go crazy, that's all. And then, if we wanted to go somewhere, like New York or Europe, there would be the house to worry about. As it is, all we have to do is pack our trunks—and we can hire professional packers to do that. We have every comfort we could possibly have at home, and a lot besides. And I can see people, Bill, without giving a dinner or a card party or something. I'm going to have an at-home day—lots of permanent guests here do. And if I want to entertain, look at the advantages.
"Besides," she added artfully, "you know you couldn't keep in touch with men half so easily if you were struck off in a big house on Nob Hill or somewhere."
Bill did not answer for a minute. He was apparently quite absorbed with the baby's hands; he had never seen such tiny, soft hands before.
"I wouldn't run around so much, honey, if I had a home," he said quietly, looking up at Doris.
"Oh, fudge! Men with homes are gonemore. You can't fool me! I've heard the women talk who have homes. Their husbands are always gone somewhere, their servants are always stealing them blind or quitting, and the house is a white elephant. Besides, I don't know where I'd like to live permanently. I can't picture myself settling down in any one town—can you, Bill? Now be honest."
"Yes. Parowan."
Well, she had wanted him honest, and she got the truth. Nor did she relish it, judging from the look on her face.
"Parowan! Of all the places in the world——"
"It's where we got the money to spend here," Bill stated stubbornly. "I've had some mighty happy times there, even if I did eat bacon and beans and hike a hundred miles after them sometimes. It made our stake for us—that same Parowan. Only for that mountain, you'd still be hazing your dad's cattle away from thelocopatches, maybe, and helping your mother with the dishes. I don't wish you were—I'm tickled to death that you can wear diamonds and hire a nigger to comb your hair for you. But just thesame, Doris, let's not get our heads so high in the air we can't see what Parowan ought to mean to us.
"This baby's mine—and yours. We've got her, and we haven't got a roof for her to sleep under, except what we hire by the week. Only for Parowan, we couldn't have married at all; don't forget that. You wouldn't have married a poor prospector, and if you would, I wouldn't have let you. It was the gold I found on that mountain side that made it possible for me to ask you to marry me. And it was the gold that made you say yes."
He swallowed as if there were some obstruction in his throat and went on, staring straight before him,—seeing that cut in the gulch's side, perhaps, and the slim girl in the stained khaki riding skirt and cotton shirt waist staring at the vein of yellow-flecked rock.
"You can't think of any place where you want to give our child a home. Well, I can! She's going to have one, whether it's ever lived in or not. It's going to be at Parowan, on the spot where her daddy lived when he found the gold that made her possible. I wouldn't do it for you, against your wish. You like this froth, and I want you to have what you like best. ButMary's going to have a home."
He did not raise his voice; indeed he almost whispered the words. Yet they struck Doris like a lash. Never before had Bill opposed her wishes, or declared that he would do a thing which Doris had not first decided to do.
"You can't take her away from me," she said breathlessly.
"I don't intend to take her away from you." Bill's tone was flat, emotionless, because he dared not slip the leash from his emotions. "Some day, when she's old enough to know what she's missing, the kid may want to come—home. There's going to be one for her. It's her right."
"In that case," said Doris coldly, "why not build it in civilization, at least, where she can use it?"
"I'm hoping," said Bill, very quietly, "that when my girl grows up she'll have some sense."
Parowan sprawled over the slope of the mountain without much regularity in her streets and with no dignity whatever. Bill had read faithfully each copy of theParowan Recordas soon as he received it, and he had calmly believed that he was keeping in close touch with the town. For instance, he had studied the picture of the new, two-story concrete schoolhouse with its graded yard and young shade trees and the cement walks and all. He had told Doris proudly that the building would reflect credit on any California town,—which was true, so far as the picture went.
Just at first he did not recognize the schoolhouse as he came up the street from the pagoda-roofed, cement depot with its arches that purported to be Moorish or Mission, no one seemed to know which. The depot had looked cunning in the picture, Doris had thought, and Bill had enthusiastically agreed with her. It did not look so cunning in reality; merely pretentious in acheap way that irritated him. When he failed to recognize the schoolhouse, a cracker-box edifice of ugly cement blocks surrounded by raw, unpainted shacks, Bill was shocked. He had mistaken it for the jail until he observed the absence of bars at the windows, and the trampled ground in front.
He strode up the board walk—hastily laid, of cheap lumber and already showing wide cracks and broken sections where knot holes had weakened the wood and much trampling had done the rest. The Parowan Security and Trust Savings Bank stared at him from the next corner. This building he recognized the moment he saw it, and with reason. Parowan Consolidated occupied the entire front of the second story, and the building was printed in miniature upon the Company's letterheads, with the sign showing distinctly across the upper windows.
Across from the bank, the O'Hara House floated a green pennant with the O'Hara in white upon it; which was the sign of the O'Hara House in cities all through the West. Bill and Doris had tried one in Portland, and had found it almost good enough for Doris, although "two-rooms-and-bath" were the best accommodations the place afforded, with the bath connecting, which was terrible. But the cuisine was abovecriticism. O'Hara food always was perfect and immaculately served. Nevertheless, Bill curled his lips at the sign and went into a grocery store and bought a can of tomatoes, a pound of coffee, a little flour and butter and onions and potatoes and such other supplies as he happened to see or remember, and called a loafing Mexican to carry the stuff to his old camp, Bill walking ahead with his suitcase to show the way.
Tommy, it appeared, had been faithful to his trust. The camp was enclosed by a highboard fence, and there were signs which said, "KEEP OUT!! THIS MEANS YOU!!" Bill grinned happily and had the Mexican set the things down by the gate and go back whence he had come, an extra dollar in his overalls pocket and a wide smile on his face.
Tommy had sent the extra padlock key to Bill, perhaps in proof of his good faith. Bill opened the gate and was set upon with deadly intent by Hezekiah, who evidently failed to remember him until Bill spoke his name. Then his joy became hysterical and brought a lump into Bill's throat.
His tent stood just as he had left it, with the forge under the juniper tree and the dugout cellar in the bank. His bunk was neatly spread with his blankets, though dust lay on the calico-covered pillow. His dishes were placed in orderlyrows upon the box shelves, a pile of dry wood lay behind the cook stove. And from the ridgepole, suspended by a bit of rope tied through the handle, hung a black leather case,—the silver saxophone.
Bill laughed a little when he glanced up and saw the symbol of one secret hope, but there was no mirth in the laughter. He was thinking what a fool he had been to dream of playing "Love's Old, Sweet Song" with Doris. Doris never sang nowadays. She would not sing the old songs Bill loved, because they were so absolutely back-woodsy and she did not seem to care about learning the new ones. Besides, she explained, her voice had never been cultivated; an omission for which Bill thanked God in his heart, after hearing other women strain their vocal chords with technical skill and little melody. Doris did not even know about the saxophone. It seemed unlikely now that she ever would know.
Bill started a fire, laid his coat across the pillow, removed his cuffs and his collar and began to peel the potatoes. He missed Luella, but he knew that she was down in Tommy's Place, in the back room where her speech would not be too corrupted, and he did not want to meet any one until he had eaten and smoked and planned exactly what he would do. Until he was actually on theground he could not choose a site for the home he meant to build,—a home worthy his little Mary.
Doris had not seemed to mind his coming, and she had made no open objection to his errand. She had adopted a neutral attitude, a slightly tolerant manner toward Bill and his plan. If he wanted to build a house for the baby, years before the baby would be able to appreciate the gift, that was his own affair. She supposed he realized that the house would be all out of date long before Mary was big enough to live in it,—and did he actually mean to furnish the thing?
"It's going to be ready to step into and hang up your hat and the baby's bonnet, before I leave it," Bill had assured her steadfastly. "Whether you ever see the inside of it or not makes no difference. That will be up to you, honey. But I'm going to do my part. I'll make the home."
Well, he was here for that purpose. He had the plans in his suitcase, and the builders had ordered the material and shipped two carloads. He was to choose the site and wire whether Parowan could furnish cement workers competent to lay the foundation. He had left only one thing undone: he had not told any one in Parowan that he was coming. Wherefore, he was surprised to hear the gate open and shut, and to see Tommypresently thrust his spectacled face belligerently into the tent opening.
"An' it's yerself, is ut, Mr. Dale?" Tommy stood within the tent, goggling at Bill, his leathery face relaxing into a wide grin. "I was toold uh somewan makin' hisself free wit' this place, an' I left Dugan in charrge of the s'loon an' come along over t' have it out wit' the boorglar. I did that!"
For the first time in months, the old, sunny twinkle was back in Bill's eyes. He would not have believed that he would ever be so glad to see Tommy.
"You go back and get Luella, darn yuh," he commanded, trying to be harsh about it. "And don't let on I'm back, will you, Tommy? I want to surprise the boys. If you haven't eaten, we'll have a real feed. Good old onions and spuds fried in bacon grease!"
"I've been stoppin' at the O'Hara House, Mr. Dale," said Tommy stiffly. "They set a foine table—they do, that! Pie an' ice cream bot' at the same meal, Mr. Dale, an' no extry charrge fer that same. I been settin' the buttons forrard on my vest since I been boardin' wit' O'Hara, an' it's the trut' I'm tellin' yuh now." He took a step toward the doorway and stopped, loath to go.
"An' if it's the gin'ral manager uh Parowan yuh mean t' supprise, Mr. Dale, yuh'll do that same or I mistake. I ast 'im yisterday was yuh ever comin' back t' take holt, an' he says you was too busy makin' the money fly. An' I says to him, I says, 'It's to Parowan he sh'd come fer that,' I says, 'fer I never in all my born days seen the like.'"
Bill rescued the coffee from boiling over.
"Thought I was going broke or something, did he?"
"I dunno as to that, Mr. Dale. But he says you bin makin' it fly, an' c'llectin' yoor share fast as it comes in, he says. I take it he meant you been cuttin' a wide swathe, Mr. Dale—which nobody's got a better right, that I know. The best has been none too good, he says to me, an' named over the hotels yuh been boarding at. An' phwat business it was uh hisn I dunno, fer it's yer own money yuh been spendin'. An' I toold him that same, I did."
"I'm going to spend some more too," Bill declared, and smiled queerly to himself.
"Yuh'll never spend more than yuh've got, Mr. Dale—well I know that," drawled Tommy. "My last dime'd back that statement. It would that. An' it'd be well if I could put my good money on some others—which I would not."With that somewhat cryptic observation, Tommy withdrew to bring the parrot.
Bill sat himself down to what he considered the most satisfying meal he had eaten in many a day. He was not a primitive soul, fit only to enjoy the cruder things of life; but there was something within him that rebelled against smiles and handshakes where no good will begot them, and at the servility of hotel servants hoping for tips, and the insipid, painted faces of women who bared their shoulders and whispered malicious gossip behind jeweled hands. He could remember some wonderful evenings filled with music or the genius of great actors picturing life before him on the stage; and he could also remember evenings when he had been too bored and resentful to see the humor that lay beneath the surface of the peacock parade. And more than anything else, Doris had made mealtime an occasion for studied display that should seem unconscious. He had come to dread dinner especially.
Wherefore he enjoyed his onions and potatoes, his stewed tomatoes and fried corn all the more because he knew how certain eyebrows would lift in astonishment could their owners look in upon the wealthy William Gordon Dale, and see how he was enjoying his plebeian fare.
"Doris would like a taste of this grub," he told himself gayly as he filled his plate the second time. "She's hypnotized now with the novelty of it—dazzled with the glamor. But it's no natural life for anybody that has lived the real thing; seen life stripped down to reality. It's all pretense—and Doris is more than half pretending, herself. Pretending she likes that sort of thing—when she's probably half homesick, right now, for the desert, and won't admit it.
"Wait till she sees the house I'll build for her! No great barn of a place that she couldn't use, out here—but a jewel of a home. Everything she likes that will fit in here.Iknow! I've watched her eyes when we struck some new place. Big, rock fireplace—Parowan rock; beamed ceilings, broad stairway, hardwood floors—great, long stretches of space with arches—and a big window framing the desert like a picture. What she calls a vista. I know—you bet I know! She thinks I'm going to build some darned box of a place, perhaps of cement. I let her think so. It'll be all rock, and glass, and hardwoods that will last a century and longer.
"I'll find a hillside where the town won't be right under her nose, and I'll frame a vista for her with every window in the house! She can have house parties, if she wants to—lots of thosecity folks would be crazy to come and spend a week or two over here. In fact, they've thrown out hints about it, some of them—only Doris wouldn't take it that way.
"Things'll grow, here," he went on, thinking and planning more hopefully than he had done for months. "I'll have grounds laid out, and things planted that will make our home a garden spot. It may cost something, but——" He grinned then, and offered Hez a bacon rind and held his chops for a minute so that he could gaze deep into his eyes.
"Hez, you old devil, I believe you're kind of glad I came home," he said, and lingered wistfully on the last word. "You can be bodyguard for little Mary, when she gets to toddling around. I'll have to put a fence around the place to keep her in, I expect. You'd take care of the snakes and scorpions and such, wouldn't you, old boy? Never saw a bug get away from you yet."
Tommy came, with Luella riding solemnly on his shoulder. Bill rose to greet her, having been schooled in his deportment toward ladies. Luella craned her neck and eyed him suspiciously while he coaxed her, then remembered and stepped gravely upon his inviting forefinger.
"I'll be damned," she observed, looking at himwith her head tilted. "Look who's here! When did you get in?"
"You can't tell me this bird ain't human," Bill exclaimed much impressed by the remark.
"She's heard that talk in the s'loon," Tommy discounted her intelligence. "If she don't speak worse things I'll be contint. Your turkle's gone, Mr. Dale. I'm thinkin' she's wandered away, an' I've a reward out fer her—if it's a her, which I dunno—an' I'm hopin' she'll be returned to yuh. It's a week ago she disappeared—she did that."
"Holed up for the winter, maybe. They do, you know."
"That's a hell of a note!" cried Luella sharply.
"Well, I must be gittin' back, Mr. Dale. An' when it pleases yuh, maybe yuh'll step into my place an' have a bit of a drink on the house. An' I'll be proud to see yuh enter the door—I will that."
"First place I hit, Tommy, will be yours. And mind you, I want to surprise the boys."
"It's the town itself'll be glad to see yer face, Mr. Dale," Tommy muttered and went off, wagging his head.
Bill was trying to persuade Luella to kiss him, and did not hear.
Bill brushed past the sleek-haired office girl who attempted to bar his way and turned the knob on the door marked PRIVATE. He did not know which man he would find within; he was slightly relieved to find Walter Rayfield sitting behind a great, mahogany desk, staring at him in blank astonishment.
"Hullo, Walter." Bill crossed the room, his hand outstretched in greeting, the old, humorous grin on his face that had lost much of its tan.
"Well, well! The prodigal come home for the fatted calf?" Rayfield pulled himself together and rose, his lips pursed. "Veal's bringing a good price, Bill. Have to make it a small calf."
Bill did not know what he meant by that; nothing, probably, unless he was aiming at a witty remark. A year had made a difference in Walter B. Rayfield. He was fatter, and there were heavy pouches under his eyes. The milky one was almost hidden under a drooping lid, which gave him a facetious appearance of winking slilyat whomever he chanced to be looking. His face had lines graven deep by the responsibilities of the past months. Altogether, Walter Rayfield looked older and less paternal, Bill thought.
"How are things going?" Bill sat down in the chair pulled close to the desk and reached for his tobacco and papers. "According to theRecord, things are still humming at Parowan."
Rayfield glanced down at a pile of correspondence on the desk. Then, knowing that Bill would probably stay until he had smoked one cigarette at least, he pushed the tray back resignedly and leaned forward, his fingers lightly clasped and tapping one another rhythmically.
"Things are humming," Rayfield confirmed guardedly. "I suppose you read of our shutdown to replace certain machinery?"
"Sure. That was last summer, sometime. Got it in, yet?"
Rayfield shook his head. "Those things take time," he said. "Stock has fallen off a few points in consequence—naturally. And how is Mrs. Dale and daughter?"
"Just fine. Doris sent regards."
"Which I return fourfold." Rayfield smiled gallantly. "When are you going back? Of course, I take it you did not bring them with you."
"No, I didn't bring them. They're camped atthe Palace for the winter. I'm going to stick here for awhile." Bill glanced out of the window and down into the squalid street, and wondered how Doris would like that particular vista. He did not see the peculiar stiffening of the muscles along Rayfield's jaw.
"Going to stay? That's great news, Bill. Come back to try and speed things up, I suppose?"
Bill looked at him. Did Walter resent his coming, as betraying a lack of confidence in the present management? His tone had sounded mildly aggrieved.
"No need of that, is there? Things seem to be going all right, far as I've heard. No, Walter, I came back to take charge—of building us a home here. I'd like to see a plan of the town and look over any available ground left in the residence district. I'll want a full block, at least; high ground, where there's a view of the desert and the hills. I expect it will take a few months to build it, but I'm going to rush it right through. And say, by the way! Can you tell me whether there's anybody in town that's able to lay the foundation? I've got all the plans and specifications—copies of them—with me. I'm going to have the builders come on from San Francisco, but they're just finishing up a contract now, and Ican save time by having the foundation ready when they're free to come. Think I'd better take bids on it, or just give the contract to the best man? A few dollars, one way or the other, won't make any difference. I want a good job; one that'll stand forever."
Rayfield's mouth had opened slightly in the beginning, and had closed in his genial smile. The paternal look was back in his face.
"My, my! That will be great news to the town, it surely will! I've had some little trouble, Bill, convincing people that you hadn't just made your clean-up and quit the town cold. When it's known that you are back and building a home, that will silence all criticism." Rayfield nodded and drummed his fingers animatedly.
"Criticism—of me?" Bill's face clouded. "I thought you kept writing I wasn't needed."
"Perfectly true. Unless you feel that John and I have shown that we are incompetent, you are not needed at all. But you know people will talk—and with you gone so long and showing no interest, it began to look to some of the leading business men as if you had—well, unloaded."
What Bill would have replied to that was not known. They were interrupted by the entrance of John Emmett, who had evidently been in a hurry, but forgot his haste to stare at Bill.
"Time I came home," said Bill, getting up to shake hands. "Everybody looks as if I were a ghost that ought to get back under my marble monument and stay there."
"Not at all," Emmett protested. "Your back was to the light, and I couldn't make out who you were, at first. Well, how are you?"
"News for the town, John," Rayfield interrupted briskly. "Bill's here to build a fine home for his family. I've promised to help him look up a building site, and get a contractor on the job to lay the foundation. Going to start right away—that right, Bill? I got the impression you were in something of a hurry to begin."
Emmett looked from one to the other and laughed a little.
"Thought you'd come to fire us because we're about to pass a dividend," he said. "I was just writing you to that effect."
Rayfield pursed his lips. "Bill is not a child," he said reprovingly. "He knows dividends aren't paid out of extension costs. Once we're running full blast again, we'll be paying double what we have in the past, and Parowan Consolidated will soar again. We've done well to pay last quarter's dividends—with the mill shut down and the men out on strike."
"I didn't know we'd had a strike," Bill said inquiringly.
Rayfield threw back his head and laughed silently.
"Well, it was sort of hushed up in the paper, naturally. The men did walk out—and we seized the opportunity to make the necessary changes and repairs in the plant. John and I were rather glad, on the whole. Saved us laying men off, which would have looked bad. Company wasn't out a dollar on the strike, and to keep the stockholders easy in their minds, we paid last quarter's dividends out of our sinking fund. Now, because the alterations are taking longer than we expected, we have thought it best to pass this dividend and explain just why. Your appearance, with the intention of building a home in Parowan, should counteract any ill effect on the public mind." He stopped and looked at Bill inquiringly as a thought seemed to strike him suddenly.
"You—er—you have sufficient funds, I take it, to carry out your plans," he ventured. "Because, in the event that you haven't, I should strongly advise you to postpone your building until the mine is producing again. These repairs and changes run into money, my boy, and the Company will not be able to advance anything, I'm afraid, for another three or four months. Iwas on the point of writing you to trim sails a bit—until we are turning the wheels again."
Bill chewed his lip thoughtfully, turning his eyes again to the window.
"I'm safe on the building, I reckon," he said, after a pause which was not too comfortable for the others. "I saved that out." He turned toward them smilingly. "She's going to be a dandy, too," he said. "Parowan will sit up and take notice when my shack is finished. Not so very big, you know—but a gem all the way through. I've calculated to put about seventy-five thousand dollars into the building itself. She'll stand me a round hundred thousand when she's ready to walk into.
His partners looked at each other. Rayfield sucked in his breath sharply.
"My, my! And I was afraid you were short of money!" he chuckled, when he had recovered his breath. "Bill, you're a wonder. Way you've been living——"
"About all the money I've spent," said Bill grimly, "is on hotel bills—and a few trinkets for Doris. Her income that you have been sending her she spent on clothes and truck. Didn't give me a chance. She liked to spend her own money, she said. So—I can build the house, all right. I've got money enough."
"And what about your wife?" Rayfield spoke unguardedly. "She won't be getting any more from this office, for awhile." He waved a deprecating hand. "Pardon my apparent presumption, Bill. I merely want to make sure that you can ride along for the next ninety days or so without any money from us."
"Why, sure! That's all right, Walter. I don't gamble or drink, you see. And I didn't play the races—which is gambling, too. So I didn't get away with all you sent me. I can make out all right for awhile."
He rose and picked his hat off the desk.
"I'll be going, I reckon. You've got work to do—hope your salaries will go on?" he looked at them.
"Yes—oh, yes. It's only the dividends that must be omitted this quarter," Rayfield hastened to assure him.
"Well, that's all fine, then. I'm afraid you'll have to go on earning your money. I've got this house to build, and I want to see that it's built the right way. I'm going to stand guard over them. Just now, I'm going downstairs and have an account opened for me. I've got the house money with me, and if it's in the bank, Parowan will know I'm not four-flushing about the home. If the public mind needs a tonic, that ought to help."
Rayfield stood up and leaned with his knuckles on the desk.
"It will help amazingly," he said solemnly. "It will serve to instil new life in the commercial veins of this town. I tell you frankly, Bill, I did not like to pass this dividend just now, when the town has passed the first fever of enthusiasm and should be stimulated to go on with full confidence in the future. The fact that you have sufficient confidence to invest in a fine house here will have a tremendous effect on the morale of the town."
"All right," Bill grinned. "I'll go slide a pinchbar under the public mind and give it a lift. And say! Who's the best man to talk foundation to?"
"Fellow name of McGaran," Emmett told him promptly. "You'll find his sign down the street in the next block. He did our cement work, and he's a good man."
Bill went out and down the stairs, humming a little tune just above his breath. Presently, the president of the Parowan Security, Trust and Savings Bank was giving his hands a dry wash and smiling and bowing at almost everything Bill said. Teller, cashier and assistant cashier were bustling out of sight with slips of paper in their hands, looking extremely important until the ground-glass partition hid them from the front,and whispering then, heads close together, with the bookkeeper, trying his best to edge in a question or two.
"Bill Dale—he's here—just deposited sixty-thousand dollars, cashier's check from the Hibernian, in 'Frisco!" The teller took hurried pity on the bookkeeper. "He's with the boss now. Come out in a minute and consult me about a check, and take a look at him. Boy, he looks like a regular fellow!"
The bookkeeper almost missed him, at that. Bill was having his busy day. Before the bank employees quit buzzing, Bill was conferring with McGaran about cement and making time the essence of the contract, as lawyers say.
From McGaran's office Bill went to a place said to be the Town-site Office,—just behind the bank, it was. And in fifteen minutes he was riding a hard-driven automobile over slopes which had furnished scant grazing for his burros not so long ago. For himself he would have built the house beside his tent, but for Doris that wouldn't do at all. The working class had crowded into that part of town, because it was close to the mine. Wherefore, Bill examined vacant plots far removed from the grime and the noise of money-getting.
Before noon he had acquired personal title to a knoll not too far from the business section, norso close that any part of the magnificent sweep of desert and distant mountains could ever be hidden from the windows and wide porches of his Mary's home. Laying aside his sentiment for his old camp ground, and trying to see all this with the eyes of Doris and, later, of his little Mary, Bill looked long and said to himself that he had done well.
By then, all Parowan knew that Bill Dale had returned and meant to start immediately upon the building of a mansion. A new light shone in the eyes of certain men who had been looking anxiously for some sign in the heavens to tell them whether the prosperity of Parowan would break or hold.
For this there was a reason. Other prospects had been exploited far beyond their deserts. Their little bubbles had glowed iridescent for a time, and were going the way of all bubbles. Parowan Consolidated was the only real mine behind the town, the one big industry that could hold prosperity upon the mountain side. Other small camps had appeared in near-by canyons, desert mushrooms more or less poisonous to the unwary.
At first it had been believed that the gold Bill Dale had found would be uncovered elsewhere in the district. The promoters of Parowan had carefully fostered that belief, and even yet the menon the outside were unaware of the fact that certain other opulently named companies were riding precariously up the tail of Bill Dale's kite. They advertised their properties as being "adjoining the Parowan Consolidated properties," and sold stock on the strength of that statement rather than because of any particular value in their own claims. And theParowan Recordwas doing all that any boom-town newspaper could do to discourage discouragement and foster faith in the district.
There was meaning in Rayfield's declaration that the passing of a dividend by Parowan Consolidated was unfortunate at that particular time, and that the coming of Bill was likely to prove a godsend to the town.
The business men watched Bill covertly for a time, still anxious. Then, when material for the big house began to arrive, and expert builders from the city; when trucks and men were busy on the knoll, certain of the watchers breathed freer and relinquished certain secret plans they had been making to leave Parowan as quietly as possible while they could pull out with a profit.
Bill himself was enough to put heart into the most timorous. He was so happy to be back and to be building his home that his voice lifted the spirits and set men to smiling at nothing in particular. The twinkle was back in his eyes; his laugh was a tonic. With Hez slouching along at his heels and Luella riding his shoulder, he walked the streets and had a word for every man who met his eye with friendly glance; bossed the job of the building. When he made brief visits to Doris and the baby, Parowan was uneasy until he returned.
The passing of the dividend created scarcely a ripple of comment, since Bill Dale was there, spending money on a home, and since Bill said that Parowan Consolidated was merely getting ready to shovel out the gold in chunks.
"Can't pay dividends, boys, when we're spending money on new machinery," he said easily, believing it all in the bottom of his heart.
Those who had begun to sell a little of their Parowan stock wished they had kept it. And those who could, bought more. Four times par they paid for it, and called it a good investment. Bill told them that it was beyond question a deep, rich, permanent mine, and that as long as he had anything to do with it, Parowan was not going to turn a dishonest dollar.
That winter the town continued to grow and to prosper. And on the fourteenth day of February Parowan Consolidated asked for extra guards for the express car, and made a valentine shipmentof gold. Almost immediately, stockholders were notified that the regular dividend would be made.
So Parowan had passed its critical period of uncertainty and was accepted as a permanent town that might even rival Goldfield and Tonopah in wealth, give it a little time.
Al Freeman, slouched forward on a box, dangled a cold cigarette from his loose lips and gave Bill the slinking, slant-eyed regard of a trapped coyote. Behind him, Tommy stood grim, with his underjaw lifted and thrust forward in a comical attempt to look as deadly as he felt. Thrust within the waistband of his sagging gray trousers was an ivory-handled revolver which had lately done its share toward intimidating the man before him. Bill held his underlip between his teeth, lest he smile and so spoil a dramatic situation evidently quite precious to the little Irishman, whom Nature had never meant for a swashbuckling hero.
"Spake up, now!" Thus Tommy cracked the whip of authority over Al. "Tell t' Mr. Dale phwat I heard yuh tellin' t' Jack Bole in my s'loon—an' tell it the same er I'll let the daylight t'rough yuh! I will, that." He rolled the words out with unction, with an eye canted up through his glasses to observe the effect of his harshnessupon Bill. A small boy patting a tame bear could never have felt himself more dare-devilishly courageous.
"'Tis a foine tale I heard him tellin', Mr. Dale, an' one that concerns you an' yoors. I'll have it outa him, never fear."
"Shall I heat the poker Tommy?" Bill's tone was innocent, if his eyes were not. "Or have you put the fear of the Lord in him already?"
"Aw, he ain't able t' scare a rabbit," Al protested with an ingratiating smile that managed to make itself mighty unpleasant, in spite of him. "What I tolt Jack Bole I'm willin' t' tell you, Mr. Dale—only I wisht to say that I never meant yuh no harm, an' fur as I kin see I ain't done yuh no harm neither. You made yer pile, an' I was only tryin' t' make a livin' best way I could. An' seein' yo're rich an' I'm broke, I cain't see as I done ye no harm. Which I wouldn't of wanted t' do yuh nohow."
"Clear as the Colorado River in flood time," Bill made cheerful comment. "Let's have the story, and never mind the footnotes. Go ahead. I'll keep Tommy off your back—if I can. He's a hard man to stop, once he gets started, but I'll protect you if possible."
Whereat Tommy scowled and clamped his jaws together anew, not perceiving the joke. And hiscaptive, actuated by motives of his own, proceeded to tell his story, which startled Bill more than he would like to own.
Since Al's illiterate speech is not particularly attractive and his manner of telling the tale wearisome with a frequent sez-e and sez-I, here is the gist of the matter which Tommy had thought fit for Bill's ears and best attention:
In coming to Parowan as packer for the government research men, Al had come with instructions to do exactly what he had done. He declared that the sole object of Rayfield and Emmett had been to discover what value there was in Bill's claims. They had been first attracted by the parrot, talking unguardedly in Goldfield—Al here repeated almost verbatim what the parrot had said, since Jim Lambert had jotted down the sentences and had seen fit to study them seriously—and had laid their plans carefully before ever they left the town.
Al said that he was taken up to Jim Lambert's office, and there he first heard of the scheme, agreed to play his part in it and was promised an interest in all that was gained. The three had followed Bill, keeping well out of sight. They had done this because they did not know just where he was going,—Parowan being a large mountain with wide shoulders and many gulches and canyons. They had timed their arrival so as to take advantage of the storm and share Bill's shelter, whatever it was. This, Al said, was intended to induce intimacy and the exchange of confidences.
They were to secure samples, and what details they could, whereupon Al was to carry off the camp equipment and leave Rayfield and Emmett stranded there, so that Bill must take them in. This, he said, was to induce further intimacy and to make it more permanent.
There Al's duty ended. After he had reported to Jim Lambert, he was to have the burro and the outfit, and could go where he pleased, so long as he kept his mouth shut and remained away from Goldfield. He was to be paid top packer's wages and a share in whatever was made out of Bill's claims.
"Then what are you breaking your word with them for?" was Bill's first surprising question. "Why aren't you keeping your mouth shut?"
"Wal, they hain't played square with me, Mr. Dale. They hain't give me the share they agreed to." Al lifted his dingy hat to scratch a head that looked as if it needed scratching.
"Haven't you got a written agreement?"
"No, I hain't. They wouldn't have any writin' on it. They said it wouldn't be best."
"Well, that's good sense. It wouldn't." Billgot up and put more wood in the stove, for a raw wind was blowing up from the desert. "Well, what do you expect me to do about it?" He turned on Al so abruptly that Al dodged, expecting a blow perhaps.
"Wal, I dunno—onless it might mebby be worth somethin' to yuh, t' know about the frame-up." Cupidity flared for a moment in Al's eyes. "Yo're a rich man, Mr. Dale," he whined. "I ain't got a dime to my name."
Bill replaced the lid on the stove, scraped pieces of bark from the surface with the poker and sat down again, eyeing Al contemptuously.
"Yes, I'm a rich man—according to your standard. Did you ever hear of crooks making a man rich, Al? Doesn't that strike you as kind of funny—a crook doing that?"
"Wal, I dunno's it does, Mr. Dale—not if they was gittin' five dollars, say, whilst you was gittin' one."
Bill laughed contemptuously.
"If they were all that generous, they'd be pretty apt to pay you enough to keep your mouth shut, anyway. Or give some one a few dollars to bump you off. There are thin spots in your yarn, Al. I'm afraid it isn't worth much."
"Wall, they paid me some," Al retorted with a craven kind of acrimony. "An' they don'tb'lieve in killin'. They say that's crewd an' danger'us."
"They'll pay you more," Bill snapped, "if they're afraid of your tongue. You're a cheap skate, Al—an awful cheap skate. If you'll take my advice, you'll get out of town—to-night. The world's full of places besides Parowan. Take him out, Tommy; and dump him somewhere outside the city limits. And if you want to bring any more like him into camp, give them a good scrubbing first. I'll have to clean house after him. Get!"
This last command was to Al, who overturned the box in his haste to get off it. Tommy herded him out with the ivory-handled gun, looking a bit crestfallen and a good deal puzzled. Tommy's thought processes were too simple to follow Bill's logic, or to understand his attitude. It seemed to him that Bill was almost criminally indifferent to his own interests, and that his leniency with Al Freeman fell but little short of approval. It had been labor wasted, bringing Al there to tell Bill his story, and he regretted now that he had not been content to kick Al out of the saloon and let it go at that.
But after he was gone, Bill sat dejectedly beside the stove, his arms folded across his lifted knees, feet in the oven, and brooded over the amazing story. It seemed incredible that Al could be telling the truth,—and yet, there were some things that Al could not possibly have imagined. If there were thin spots in his story, there were also details that carried conviction.
Luella, having retired under the bunk during the interview, came stalking out and climbed, beak and claws, up Bill's back and perched upon his shoulder, leaning forward and making kissing sounds against his cheek, which was her way of coaxing his attention. Bill reached up a hand and stroked her back absently.
"Speak up now," Luella admonished, having liked the sound of that phrase. "That's a hell of a note, ain't it?"
Bill pulled her down and held her on her back between his hands, rolling her gently from side to side.
"It is," he answered gravely. "You've stated the case exactly." He set the parrot on his knee, where she immediately began to preen her ruffled feathers.
That was the convincing part of Al's story,—repeating the things Luella had said before the courthouse. Al claimed to have been there, and to have heard her talk. He had chanced to pass by the steps just as Jim Lambert, Rayfield and Emmett were coming up to the courthouse from town. He claimed to have been in the offices ofJim Lambert later, when the plot was hatched. If that were a lie, how could Al repeat what the parrot must have said? How could he know that the burros, and the parrot with them, had waited before the courthouse steps alone or otherwise? Al had named the very day and the very hour of Bill's visit to the recorder's office. The date and hour were written upon his location filing, together with book and page of the record. Had Bill chanced to forget, that record would serve to remind him; but Bill did not forget. Al had never seen those papers. He could not possibly have told about Luella unless he had both seen and heard her there.
The incredible feature of the yarn was the fact that Rayfield and Emmett—John and Walter, he had come to call them in his mind—had been the chief instigators of the plot. And there again Bill floundered in vain speculation. Whatwasthe plot? Not the mere creation of jobs for themselves, surely? Al had professed ignorance of their governmental position. They may have been research men, as they claimed. He didn't know, and he had never heard that talked about, except as a plausible reason for their showing up at Bill's claims. He was sure that they had lied about working out from Las Vegas west, however; having been in Goldfield, they could nothave been prospecting Forty Mile Canyon at that particular time.
What had they gained? A block of stock for each of them, to be sure. Bill had been generous; had given them each fifty thousand shares of the promotion stock. He could scarcely credit any plot to get it, however. Still, that meant fifty thousand dollars immediately after the company was organized. Bill had known of many a murder committed for a fraction of that amount.
One discrepancy in the story eluded him for some time, though he groped for it vaguely. Then Al's retort came to him with force—"Not if they was gittin' five dollars where you was gittin' one"—and set him scowling, vacant-eyed, at the tent wall.
Werethey getting five dollars to his one? How? They had full control, to be sure. But their control seemed to be of the conservative, constructive kind that favored dividends. And there was the thing that seemed incredible. Would crooks, of the bold type that would follow a prospector and lay cunning plans to grab what he had found, play a straight game afterwards? It did not seem to Bill that it could be possible. A crook is a crook. Once in control, they could have raided and wrecked the company a dozentimes in his absence. Instead, they had worried over one passed dividend.
Bill lay that night staring up at the whitish blur of his tent roof with a cloudy moon above it, and thought circles around the thing. Walter and Johncouldn'tbe the thieves Al Freeman had called them. A thief cannot keep his fingers off other men's money. Walter and John had made money for many a man. But that painfully exact report of seeing and hearing Luella in Goldfield was true. It had to be true. That was something which no man could build convincingly out of his imagination; not to Bill, where Luella was concerned. She had a certain fixed idea in her talk, always. She seemed able to discriminate between subjects, and to stick to one for minutes at a time before drifting into other sentences that conveyed an entirely different impression of what might be going on back of those observant, yellow eyes. To one who did not know Luella, it would be impossible to simulate her uncanny imitation of intelligence,—which Bill more than half believed to be genuine reasoning power. Perhaps the bird was especially quick to read faces and to connect certain expressions on the countenance with certain groups of words. It could not be accident, in Bill's opinion. Accidents do not happen with consistent regularity, and Luella's remarks were usually pithy and to the point. It was therefore a fixed basis of reasoning, in Bill's mind, to grant the authenticity of Al Freeman's contention that Luella was at the bottom of the plot.
Beyond that point, however, Bill continued to flounder in doubts. He hated himself for even speculating upon the dishonesty of Walter and John, although he had found them a bit touchy, a shade jealous of their authority and their judgment. Walter had assumed executive control; John, as treasurer, had the responsibility of keeping the accounts impeccable. Bill had attended the annual stockholders' meeting, on the last afternoon of the year, and he had been almost awed by the meticulousness of John Emmett's financial report. It had sounded like some carefully compiled government statistics, and Bill had been compelled to sit and listen to a careful reading.
The reëlection of the Board of Directors had been a mere form. Bill, Walter and John were the directors,—Nevada demanding only three. They were as inevitably reëlected to the same offices. There had not been many stockholders present, the day being almost a holiday. Those who were present voted perfunctorily and with complete unanimity; indeed, so harmonious hadbeen the meeting that every one may as well have stayed at home, save the secretary, Bill thought.
Therefore, in their pardonable desire to be left alone to run the machinery, since they had started it in the first place, Bill saw the full approval of the resident stockholders. And if the stockholders whose very business life depended upon the success of Parowan Consolidated and the integrity of her officers were satisfied, surely there was no reason why the president should meddle. The business men of Parowan would be the first to know if anything went wrong, Bill told himself over and over.
Yet the story Al Freeman had told would not erase itself from his mind, nor could he call it a venomous bit of spite and so discount it. There had been bothersome details which a lawyer would call corroborative evidence. There was the ineffectual campsetting, the night of their arrival; rather, the late afternoon. Tommy had declared then that Al Freeman had been bluffing, that he had not tried to get their tent up and pegged down securely before the storm broke. Al confirmed Tommy's assertion. The plan, he declared, had been to manage to pass the night with Bill. They had decided that when they first glimpsed his tent.
Then the invasion of the tent while Doris wasthere alone he had explained. Emmett had seen the sample sack half full of ore, but had not dared to investigate the contents at the time. He had ordered Al to go back and see what was in that sack. It it were the rich ore they suspected, he was to abstract what he could, load the burros and hurry back to Goldfield, leaving Rayfield and Emmett nothing but their blankets. He said they knew that Bill had plenty of grub.
These details fitted in with what had occurred within Bill's knowledge. If Al were lying, he was assuredly making a fine, artistic job of it all. The inconceivable part was the personality of the two men he accused, and the part they had played and were still playing in Parowan Consolidated and in the town. They had promoted their campaign cleverly and efficiently, mostly by the power of suggestion.
"If it's true," said Bill harassedly at breakfast next morning, "they're the tamest bandits I ever saw in my life. I can't believe it."
"Seems like a dream," Luella assented promptly, pausing in her nibbling of coffee-soaked crust. "Ain't that a hell of a note! I can't believe it." Then, blinking rapidly as memory revived another speech, she added softly, "Kiss me, Doris. Say you love me."
Bill's face paled. He looked at the bird, sweptout an impulsive arm and pushed her off the table, soaked crust and all. He bit his lip, fighting the spasm of loneliness, or heartsick longing for the life he had dreamed of living with Doris.
Of a sudden his head went down upon a curved arm, his shoulders twitching a bit as he still fought. Luella, crawling up to forgive and be forgiven, made her clicking, kissing sounds in vain against his cheek.
"Hell of a note!" she complained at last, when Bill gave no sign of response. "I can't believe it. Seems like a dream. You don't say!" Then, spying the butter unguarded, she stepped down upon the table and pigeon-toed in that direction. "Help yourself," she invited gravely. "Plenty more where that came from. Help yourself."
And Bill, his soul flayed with bitter memories, with dreams slowly strangled and returning wraithlike to mock his loneliness, did not even hear.