Jim Lambert had known Bill Dale since the beginning of the boom that had broken Bill's father,—broken him mentally and financially. Jim was a broker in Goldfield and sold real estate and underwrote fire insurance as a side line. Lately, the side line had become the chief industry, since mines had begun to close down and adventurers were drifting on to later excitements.
Bill did not care much for Jim Lambert. Although he never troubled to explain to himself his indifference that edged close to dislike, he had no definite distrust of the man. Yet Jim Lambert had been active in his father's Myrtle Mine boom and had professed to suffer when the bubble burst. Bill's father had complained vaguely that Jim Lambert was largely responsible for the bursting of the bubble, but Bill had not paid much attention to that talk. He knew his dad too well. His dad always blamed some one for his misfortunes,—some one other than himself. Bill's nature was built of stiffer material. When his plans wentwrong, Bill set all his energies to work planning the next move and wasted little thought upon the reason for his last failure; unless, to be sure, in that reason lay his safety in the future. Thus, Bill flatly refused to help his father play the game of find-the-guilty-party. He went to work and earned and saved all he could out of it, and when he had enough to keep him going for five years, he set out deliberately to spend that five years in finding a mine.
Wherefore, Bill never did learn what part, if any, Jim Lambert had played in the failure of the Myrtle Mine. All he knew was that the mine had been attached and sold by its creditors, and his father had come out of it without a dollar. And he knew that he was not going to be caught that way when he had found his mine. He meant to steer clear of those speculating crooks who managed to loot every enterprise they got hold of and still kept out of jail.
Jim Lambert met Bill by accident—or so Bill believed. It was in the Great Northern bar, where Bill was treating himself to a glass of beer and a San Francisco paper in a quiet corner. Both were inexpressibly refreshing after his long exile, but Bill was not too engrossed to keep a quiet eye open for those who came and went, or remained to chat desultorily before the polished bar.
He was waiting for some one to approach him. Some one did, presently, and that one was Jim Lambert. Jim brought his schooner of beer over and sat down opposite Bill, grinning goodfellowship while he wiped his perspiring brow.
"Got baked out, eh? Must be pretty hot in the desert, now."
"Fair," said Bill, and folded the paper for politeness' sake. "Still, it hasn't been so bad. The man that cusses the desert is the man that strikes out into it and thinks he'll hurry up and get it over with. The desert's all right—if you know how to take it."
"I guess you're right. The old-timers don't seem to have much trouble."
"Not unless they're drunk, or have an accident," Bill agreed, and took two slow, satisfying swallows of beer.
"Well, how's she going? Hit that contact yet you were after?" Jim spoke over his beer mug carelessly.
"Not yet. Been doing location work on three claims. Located first and planned to prospect more thoroughly afterwards." He set down the mug and reached into his pocket for the specimen he had shown to the storekeeper. It was not a good sample of his ore; it was, in fact, the"leanest" rock he could find. But he pushed it across the table with an air of subdued pride.
Jim picked it up, testing its weight as he did so. Bill hooked his toes behind his chair legs and leaned forward expectantly, watching Jim Lambert's face. He thought he read there a shade of disappointment, and he leaned back satisfied. Luella, he told himself, did not talk to perfect strangers except when goaded to profanity by teasing. Jim she had seen many times.
"Good, lively-looking rock," Jim said at last, repeating the storekeeper's comment. "Carries gold, doesn't it?"
"You bet! Here, take this glass and look right there at the point of that iron stain. It shows color, there, under the glass. When I get depth on that, it ought to show good values, don't you think?"
"How deep is this?" Jim turned the rock under the glass. "Looks to me like surface rock."
"You're right. That's outcropping. If I had enough of it, I'll bet it would pay, just as she is. Or if it was close to a railroad, even."
Jim did not reply. He was pretending to study the rock; in reality he was studying Bill Dale. Bill's optimism was a byword, to be sure; yet Jim fancied he saw a slight discrepancy between Bill's keen eyes and the easy hopefulness of his words.He missed somewhere the good-natured twinkle and the drawl.
"Well, it's pretty good for surface rock," Jim said, when the silence became noticeable. "Nothing to get excited over, though, do you think?"
"I should say not! It'll have to look better than that before I get excited."
"Well, good luck to yuh, Bill. If you do get something good, let me know. I might be able to turn a deal for you. There's money in this town yet—if you can show something good enough. It's shy, but it's here. I'll be glad to help you out, any way I can."
"Thanks." Bill's drawl was quite apparent now. "I'll sure remember, if I want to turn anything, later on."
Jim looked at his watch and said he must go; a simple expedient for breaking off a conversation that has grown barren of interest, and one that can never be gainsaid. And Bill, having finished his beer to the dregs, went away also, quite satisfied in his mind.
His satisfaction was not so keen as Jim's, however. Had Bill Dale tiptoed to the door of Jim's office, half an hour later, and put his ear to the keyhole, he might have heard himself being talked about.
"He didn't get by, with me," Jim was saying positively. "Not for one minute. He showed me a piece of rock no better than you can pick up on any tailing dump in Goldfield, and claimed that was his best showing. It wasn't good enough to account for what that parrot of his let out. Remember? I jotted it down, first thing. Parrot talk is just parrot talk, but they don't invent nothing. They've got to hear it said before they'll say it. And if you might say Bill Dale was teaching it that stuff for fun, that don't sound reasonable—knowing Bill."
He fumbled for a minute and brought out a little, soiled, red book.
"Now here's what the parrot reeled off, and I'll gamble she got it straight. A man out alone by himself lets go and says what he really thinks. We all know that. Now, the parrot says, 'Boy, we've struck it rich! Got her traced now. Richest thing in Nevada. Goldfield can't show stuff like this. Tell you we're rich. Won't tell anybody—don't want a boom. Git a move on!' (That's something else, run in). 'They'd be down here like flies. Gold perch for you. Luck's turned. Luck's patting us on the back.'"
He looked at his companions and grinned. "Don't tell me that wasn't picked up from Bill Dale's camp talk."
"Maybe he taught the parrot that lingo just tohaveher spill it in town and start a rush," one tight-faced man said cautiously.
Jim shook his head. "I saw him in the Great Northern—trailed him there. Most generally, when Bill's in town, he takes the parrot around with him, riding on his shoulder. She's a smart bird. Bill's proud of her and likes to show her off. Talks everything, just like a human; everything she hears and takes a notion to, that is. Well, he didn't have her with him to-day. He's left her somewhere. From the saloon he went into the barber shop. He's getting a haircut. Shave too, probably. Never saw him in a barber shop before without that green parrot. My guess is, he's afraid she'll let out something." Jim put the book back in his pocket with a self-satisfied air. Men who live by their wits are usually a bit vain of their shrewdness.
"Well, if you're right, he got scared too late to do any good," chuckled a jovial, round little man with one eye milky from cataract.
"He was just coming into town. Leaving her in the street for five minutes, up there at the courthouse, would look safe enough to anybody. It's just luck we happened along."
"Well, now, how's it to helpus?" The tight-faced man had brown eyes that stared intently,as do the near-sighted. He leaned forward, bringing the conference to a point.
Four heads went together, at that, and if Bill had been listening at the keyhole he wouldn't have heard much. They were a careful quartette, and they had worked in harmony through the complexities of several "deals."
Bill saw Jim Lambert again the next day. Jim was in the store, looking boredly impatient to be served. The storekeeper's signal to Bill, of tilted head and lowered eyelid did not pass unobserved. Bill followed him back among the piled boxes of canned goods, and Jim idled over to a pile of overalls and inspected them carefully while he tried to listen.
He did not hear as much as he desired, and much that he did hear was irrelevant. There was something about two burros leaving last night. Then, after some mumbling, he caught the storekeeper's earnest assurance, "—all right when he's sober. Just off a big drunk, so he's good for three months, anyway. Tommy's an old, hard-rock man; all around good guy if he takes a notion to yuh. And I got him cheap for yuh. Three dollars and found."
Jim Lambert could not guess what Tommy this might be, but he was glad to know that Bill was hiring a man by the underground route, and thatTommy liked whisky. Working through the storekeeper meant only one thing; the need of absolute secrecy. Which provided wonderful illumination for a man like Jim Lambert.
Jim moved carelessly back to the front of the store and was giving his order to the clerk when Bill emerged, carrying a spiteful-tongued parrot on one finger. Bill grinned a greeting at Jim.
"Say, 'Hello, Jim,'" he instructed Luella in his coaxing tone.
Luella's reply was just barely printable when the editor's sense of humor is keener than his puritanism. Luella blinked and said, "You damned hussy, git a move on!"
"She's peevish," Bill apologized. "She's getting such a darned nuisance in town I had to shut her up. Now you listen to me, old girl. Back you go in the box, if you don't behave. Be quiet—you know I mean it."
Luella turned and walked up Bill's arm to his shoulder, and leaned forward to click her beak against his neck. "Lord, what a world!" she murmured, and began daintily to eat half a banana which Bill gave her.
Jim Lambert took his few small packages and went out, and Bill saw him no more. Which does not mean that Jim ceased to take an interest in Bill Dale's prosperity and personal affairs.
From beside a camp fire at the springs which Bill Dale had designated as the rendezvous, an undersized, ape-bodied individual rose and goggled up at Bill through thick-lensed spectacles that magnified his eyelids grotesquely.
"Hello," said Bill, looking down at him whimsically. "Is this the outfit the Goldfield Supply Company sent out?"
"An' if ye'll tell me what business it might be uh yoors, I c'd maybe say yis er no to that," the undersized one retorted, raising his voice at the end of the sentence as if it were a question.
"All right, Tommy. You'll do, I reckon. I'm Bill Dale, and if I'm not mistaken you'll be looking to me for your pay."
"An' from the look of ye I'll be earnin' that same," Tommy suggested drily.
Bill lifted Luella and Sister Mitchell off Wise One, and began to unlash the heavy pack, Tommy helping him. The two studied each other with covert interest; Tommy seeking to discoverwhether Bill Dale would make a good boss, one easy to work for, which, next to the security of his pay, is a laborer's chief consideration. Bill measured Tommy shrewdly as a man who would work—and gossip. A man who could be loyal to the last gasp, but a man who might easily choose to be disloyal. He was a garrulous little Irishman, was Tommy; a man of indeterminate age and of problematic usefulness. But Bill was not inclined to carp. He was content to give Tommy a trial, which was as much as the best man could justly expect.
If Tommy had received any hint of the probable value of Bill's claims, he gave no sign of knowing. Until he slept he sat cross-legged by the fire and stared into the flames through his thick-lensed glasses, and regaled Bill with choice anecdotes culled from his past,—that endless, obvious odyssey of the common laborer whose world is bounded by his "job." His voice was a soft, complaining monotone saturated with the eternal vague question. Never did his inflection fall to a period. At a distance which would blur the words of his speech, his voice would inevitably give one the impression that Tommy was asking one reproachful question after another, with never a statement to relieve the endless inquiry.
Bill was amused, but he was also convinced thatTommy would presently become a bore. He was interested to note that Luella preserved a dignified silence all through the evening. One yellow eye on the latest recruit, she sat humped upon the crotch of a packsaddle with her green feathers ruffled moodily, still sulking over her incarceration with Sister Mitchell.
At Parowan, whither they arrived one sultry afternoon with a smell of rain in the air, Tommy went to work like an old hand on the desert. Bill watched him unobtrusively and decided that the storekeeper had shown pretty good judgment. While they were unpacking the burros, Tommy cocked an eye at the sullen clouds that tore themselves on Parowan Peak only to mend immediately and crowd lower down the slope, and began gathering heavy rocks which he piled in a row on the lower edge of Bill's tent, and to test the guy ropes and drive the pegs deeper.
"She's a cloud-burst comin', er I never seen wan," he observed complainingly, when he was again lugging the supplies into the tent. "Them taties c'd stay outside, but watter will cause the bacon t' mold, Mr. Dale. An' beans is never the same, wancet they've been wrinkled wit' rain watter an' dried agin. I dunno, but that's been my experience wit' grub. I'd git it all under cover, if it was mine, Mr. Dale."
"Does look bad, for a fact," Bill admitted. "I was going up to the workings; but I reckon we'd better make camp snug. Now, Hez, what'll happen if you bust a lung? What's on your fool mind?"
Hez appeared to have a good deal on his mind. Presently his excitement was explained by four loaded burros laboring up the draw, followed by three men who hurried the animals up the uneven slope. Bill frowned when he saw them, wondering if they had followed him.
But the men were strangers to him. If they came from Goldfield, he thought, they must have hurried,—because Bill himself had made the trip in record time. He nodded as they came up, and sent the impolite Hezekiah into the tent with his hindquarters drooping guiltily. Two of the men had the look of mining engineers (for your desert dwellers learn to judge a man's profession by the way he dresses and carries himself on the desert). The third, who evidently had charge of the burros, had "desert rat" written all over him.
"Spring up here still workin', mister?" the burro driver asked in a flat voice raised shrilly by way of attaining some volume. "Used to be a spring up here."
"The spring is still there," Bill replied neutrally.
A pleasant, short man came forward, smiling and holding out his hand, never doubting his welcome.
"Glad to see you, sir. My name is Rayfield; Walter B. Rayfield. My partner, here, is John S. Emmett, a mining expert of whom you may have heard, if you're the mining man you look to be. Working for the government, making a report of the gold, silver and copper possibilities of Nevada. I examine the country for gold and silver, and Emmett, here, takes care of the copper report. We've been allotted what is called the Furnace Creek quadrangle. We're working the northern part first, so as to have cooler weather for the Death Valley neighborhood."
"Glad to meet you." Bill's handshake was cordial, with a certain reticence behind it. Happy-go-lucky as he seemed, Bill Dale was slow in choosing his friends, while acquaintances never got below the surface of his mind. "My name is Dale; Bill for short, Hopeful Bill for sarcasm. You're just ahead of a big storm, by the looks, Mr. Rayfield."
"Yes, it does look like rain." Mr. Rayfield glanced at the heavy clouds that were now hiding the peak. "We expect to camp here for a while, if the spring is all right. Glad to have a neighbor. Most of the time we have to put up with our owncompany. Well, Al, suppose you find a place for camp. You'll have to hustle, my man, if we're to get our tents up before it rains."
"You've a nice little camp here," the man introduced as Emmett observed, his hard brown eyes taking in the surroundings appraisingly. It's certainly a great view you have here. We saw your tent from miles away, down there."
"You came from Vegas way, then," Bill stated calmly. From that direction only could they see his camp from any distance; the Goldfield trail twisted around the mountain.
"We started from Las Vegas. We've been out some time, though. Came down Forty Mile Canyon to the main road and followed that as far as we could." He pulled a pipe from his pocket and began filling it in leisurely fashion from a leather pouch while his gaze traveled sophisticatedly over the surrounding hills.
"Prospecting, I suppose?" His eyes came back to Bill's face. His tone had the casual note of one who wishes to be civil.
"Yes, a little," Bill replied guardedly. Even to research men he did not feel like telling all he knew. "She's a hard country to prospect in, though. Too much overburden. But I like the formation here. Seems to me there's a chancehere to run on to something, if a fellow keeps right after it."
"I see already why they call you Hopeful Bill," Mr. Emmett grinned over his pipe. "I don't think it's sarcasm, though." He gave another professional glance at the rough outcroppings near them. "Looks pretty fair, but my specialty is copper. Doesn't seem very promising for that—but one never can tell. You're looking for gold, I take it. That's more in Rayfield's line."
"I'm looking for anything I can find," Bill corrected lazily. "Anything from gold to diamonds; just so there's money in it."
The fitful breeze died suddenly to an ominous, stifling calm. The copper expert glanced up at the slatey mass moving up from the west and went to help the others set up the tent before the storm broke.
"Want any help?" Bill called after him. But Mr. Emmett shook his head, waved a hand and went on.
Tommy, who had retreated into the tent as the party drew near, pushed his head through the opening and goggled at the group fifty yards away. They were spreading a wall tent, preparing to make camp in the lee of a rocky ledge. Tommy wiped the tobacco stain from his lipswith the back of his hand and glanced sidelong up at Bill.
"That's Al Freeman they got wit' 'em," he drawled in his complaining, questioning way. "An' how he c'd git wit' 'em I dunno, fer I left him in Goldfield—I did—and him owin' me tin dollars and denying all knowledge of that same. He's a liar an' a t'ief, Mr. Dale, an' them that trusts him is like t' find their t'roats cut some marrnin' an' their pockets turned out.
"How he got to Las Vegas t' join up with these fellers I dunno—fer he was in Goldfield whin I left, and there can't be two of 'im—an' the devil wit' his hands full a'ready just wit' wan of 'im. I'd tip off them gov-ment men, Mr. Dale, I sure would. He's worse ner a rattler in camp, an' he's the kind that'll lie wit' 'is ears open an' then run an' make bad use o' what he hears, Mr. Dale. He's a durrty claim-robber fer wan t'ing, an' if yuh've got annything here wort' robbin', Mr. Dale, yuh'd best set yer tent over it whilst Al Freeman's on the mountain. It's the Gawd's trut' I tellin' yuh—an' yuh better slip them experts the word—though how he got wit' 'em I dunno, fer I left him in Goldfield; I did that!"
"That's mighty queer," Bill assented dubiously. "If you're sure of that, we'll step lightly till we know the bunch better. Keep your eye onhim, Tommy, until I find out more about it. They won't get that tent up in time to save a wetting; I can see that right now."
The man Tommy said was Al had unpacked one burro, but it was certain they would not have time to make themselves even passably comfortable. Even now the tent they were erecting was bellying like a balloon in a sudden blast of wind, and while they struggled with it pegs and guy ropes snapped loose. The short man, whose name was Rayfield, evidently made a suggestion. All three looked toward Bill's camp. Then, as the earth quivered under a deafening crash of thunder, Al hurriedly tied the burros to a couple of stunted junipers, wadded the tent hastily into an ungainly bundle and thrust it between two rocks.
Heads down against the wind, holding their hats on with both hands, they came running. Bill opened the tent flaps and held it against the wind until the strangers and Tommy were inside. Then he double-tied the flaps and turned, grinning hospitably. His twelve-by-fourteen tent was more than comfortably full now, what with the piles of supplies, Bill's stove and table and bed, and the five men. But it was a shelter, set shrewdly against just such an emergency as thisstorm. It faced away from the wind, and a ledge protected it from the full force of the gale.
Thunder, lightning, wind—then an abrupt silence, a holding of the breath. Tommy, crouched down in his corner, his shoulder held carefully away from the canvas wall, stared owl-like through his thick glasses.
"She's comin'," he mumbled dolefully.
She came. All the water in the clouds seemed to have been dumped unceremoniously upon the tent. A fine mist beat through the roof and sides until warp and woof became saturated, and shrunk to a waterproof texture that sent the water running off in streams.
"She's a cloud-burst—I said she'd be a cloud-burst!" Tommy muttered again in melancholy triumph.
"You didn't get here any too soon," Bill observed cheerfully. "It would be pretty tough, climbing through this. You're lucky."
"We certainly are!" Mr. Rayfield's voice was raised almost to a shout, to carry above the storm. "Wouldn't want to be caught out in this!"
They sat and listened to it,—the boom and crash of the thunder, the vivid flashes that lightened blindingly the gloom of the tent, the roar of the falling water.
"She's a tough one, all right!" Bill rose and pried open the flaps with his fingers, and put an eye to the crack. "Now I know how old Noah felt when he shut the door of the ark. Nothing in sight but water—good Lord!"
Something sagged against the tent, beat upon the taut canvas. A voice was raised shrilly, frantically.
"Bill! Oh, Bill! Let me in!"
Bill's face had whitened at the first sound. His fingers clawed at the stiff, canvas knots that held the flaps shut. His hands, reaching out to loosen the outside fastenings, touched other fingers that tore nervously at the soaked knots. Bill was hampered by those other fingers, as a swimmer is hampered by the frenzied clutchings of a drowning man. But he managed the two lower fastenings and was beginning on the upper when the person outside stooped and ducked in past Bill's knees.
"Doris—— Miss Hunter! What——"
"Oh, it's perfectlyawful! I thought I'd never make it, Bill. I couldn't make the horses face it, so I tied them down the gulch and came on afoot. I could see your tent when it lightened—I'm justsoaked! It's the worst storm this year."
She was talking in gasping little rushes of words, talking because she must have some emotional outlet. Her hat had gone in the wind, and she wiped the water from her face with quick, impatient brushes of her palms outward from her nose. Her hair was wet as a drowned woman's, and as lank about her face and shoulders. She wore a khaki riding skirt and a striped cotton blouse that clung to her shoulders and arms like wet paper. Her high-laced boots squelched soppily when she moved. Had she been pulled from a river she could not have been wetter.
"Tommy, start a fire in the stove; you're the closest," Bill commanded. "Miss Hunter, let me introduce some other storm birds—only they were luckier than you were. They beat it in. This is Mr. Rayfield, and Mr. Emmett—both government experts making an examination of the country for mineral. That's Al Freeman over there; working for them" (Mr. Rayfield looked surprised) "and Tommy, over there by the stove, is going to work for me. Get over there in the corner and dry out. It'll be hot in a minute. You must be chilled."
The men moved back to leave clear passage to the stove, and she hurried toward it, nodding to them shyly as she went. Mr. Rayfield smiled upon her benignantly and drew a box from under the table for her to sit on.
"Take off those wet boots, Miss Hunter, andput your feet in the oven," he commanded, in the same tone which he might have used to his own daughter. "A cup of coffee will take the chill out of your bones. My, my! I've heard that it could rain pitchforks in this country, but nobody mentioned raining angels!" His own hearty laugh robbed the remark of any offensive familiarity, as he picked a blanket off the bunk—disturbing Mr. Emmett and Al Freeman to do so—and laid it matter-of-factly upon her shoulders.
"Here, let me unlace your boots. Tommy, get the coffee pot working." Bill knelt and reverently lifted her small, booted foot to his knee. "Mr. Emmett, if you'll pass that war-bag over here, I'll dig up some dry socks. And if you'll remember to hold out your arms, Miss Hunter, so you won't fall in outa sight, I'll lend you a pair of my boots. Or maybe we could tie a loop under your arms and hitch you somehow. Anyway, we'll fix you up comfortably as we can.
Miss Hunter laughed, which was exactly what Bill had intended that she should do. If every little happy nerve in his big body tingled while he unlaced her boots, that was his own business and none of his neighbors'. He did not mean to have Doris Hunter experience one moment's embarrassment if he could help it.
With a fine tact for which Bill was silentlygrateful, the two government men resumed their casual talk of the storm and of the desert,—the small talk of the region which is useful for filling in the awkward spots in strange situations. Tommy busied himself with a ham, a few cans and the coffee pot, and said not a word. Al Freeman, over by the door, made himself as inconspicuous as possible,—perhaps for reasons which Tommy could guess.
Bill casually turned his back upon Miss Hunter and the stove and stood there with his hands in his pockets and his legs slightly apart, throwing a sentence now and then into the talk of the others.
Thus hidden away in the corner, ignored for the time being, Doris Hunter pulled the blanket tighter around her slim person, and fumbled within its shelter. She was a sensible girl, and she had lived all of her twenty years on the edge of the desert, and knew nothing much about cads and crooks. So presently her khaki skirt was spread over her knees to dry, and she was holding the blanket open to dry the rest of her. And not a man of the five noticed the skirt, or paid any attention to her whatever.
But when Tommy said supper was ready, Bill moved from his position as screen, and pulled up a box to hold the girl's plate and cup so that shecould eat without moving away from the stove. It was casually done; so casually that it would not have cost a nun the quiver of an eyelash. Certainly Miss Hunter felt no confusion, for presently she was chatting quite as composedly as if she were at home with her family around her.
It rapidly grew dark, the lightning coming at more infrequent intervals as the downpour continued. Bill found a lantern, lighted it and hung it on a wire hook from the ridgepole, where it swayed to the spasmodic shuddering of the tent. Miss Hunter turned and turned her skirt, and Bill watched her boots that they did not dry too quickly. There seemed nothing unusual in this foregathering, which was but one more incident of the wilderness.
"Bill, you haven't asked me if I were lost or just going somewhere," Miss Hunter accused suddenly, setting down her cup which she had twice emptied of coffee. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Any one else would have asked me that before I got the water out of my eyes."
"Well—are you lost, or just going somewhere?" Bill inquired obediently. "I've known this young lady a good long while," he added to the others, glad of the opportunity. "She rides the range right alongside her dad, and can sling a pack or rope a critter better than lots of men that draw wages for doing it. She couldn't get lost to save her neck. Looking for cow brutes or horses, Miss Hunter?"
"Neither one. And don't call me Miss when I've been Doris all my life. These gentlemen don't demand the starch in your speech, and I know it. Dad sent me over to see if you'd come and help him out for awhile. He's going to runthe water by a tunnel through that little ridge back of the corrals, and water the lower meadow directly from the spring. It will save at least an inch" (she referred to a miner's inch of water, which is a cubic measurement) "that's lost now in seepage as it's carried around the hill.
"He's been sort of looking for you over to the ranch. But you didn't show up, so he sent me over to see if you'd drive the tunnel for him. He thinks your cautious disposition will make the blasting safe for the cattle, I reckon. Anyway, that's what I came for, and the storm did the rest. I guess the horses will be all right, but if they ever get loose they'll beat it for home—and that will worry the folks. I brought old Rambler with my camp outfit, and of course I rode Little Dorrit."
"My, my, if some of the young ladies back in Washington could hear you talk so calmly of traveling the desert alone with your own camp outfit!" Mr. Rayfield pursed his lips and then smiled at her. Mr. Rayfield was disfigured somewhat by a milky film over one eye, but for all that his face was a pleasant one that made friends for him easily.
"If you folks can make out with a candle," said Bill, "I'll take the lantern and go see aboutthe horses. I can bring them up closer to camp, maybe——"
"You'll do nothing of the kind, Bill Dale. Don't you suppose I made sure they would stay tied? Or do you think Iliketo take a chance on being set afoot? I was, once. That was a plenty, thank you. You stay right where you are."
Bill chuckled but declined to commit himself by any promise. Torrents of rain still pounded upon the roof with the hollow sound of a kettle-drum beaten at a distance. Like all the passionate outbursts in which Nature indulges throughout her desert lands, this was likely to be almost as brief as it was violent. Bill knew well the way of these sudden storms and did not worry over the immediate future. The present was sufficiently engrossing, and he was not loath to obey the command of his queen.
Having Doris Hunter there beside his stove, her boots drying beside his fire, her eyes meeting his with a smile in them now and then, her voice a melody he loved against the drumming accompaniment of the storm, was like a dream come true. Never before had Doris Hunter come to his camp fire save in his most secret dreams. Never before had she needed him, felt the comfort of his presence, his protection. It was well that these men were all strangers to Bill,—else theymight have read his secret in the shine of his eyes, the steady flush on his cheek bones, the smile that came twitching the corners of his lips at the slightest provocation.
If Doris saw, she gave no sign. Outwardly Bill held himself rigidly to the usual friendliness of a man who has known a girl since she was a little thing just past babyhood, eager to ride on his shoulder with her heels drumming his chest. His manner was indulgent, almost paternal. He did not look at her often, he did not need to look at her; indeed, he did not dare. To know that she was there, close beside him, was like drinking wine.
"Storm's letting up fast," he announced at length, his face raised, his eyes dwelling speculatively upon the roof. "I guess we're all tired enough to get under the covers—and I hope you won't take that as a hint to you fellows to go home to your own camp," he drawled meaningly. "I'll bunk with you to-night, Tommy, and let Miss Hunter have this tent. She's tired. I've caught her nodding twice in the last five minutes."
"Oh, it's just the heat," Doris protested briskly. "I—really, Bill, I can't turn you out of your tent! I've my own outfit, you know, just down the gulch."
"Yours isn't set up," Bill pointed out to hercalmly. "These fellows got here some time before the storm broke. And Tommy has his tent, so it's not putting me out. I'll leave you Luella and Sister Mitchell and Hez for company. Oh, they're all at home," he answered her look of inquiry. "They hate rain, and they've hunted cover. Well, fellows?"
Obediently the two experts turned toward the doorway. Al Freeman had already untied the flaps and ducked out into the dark and the drizzle. Mr. Rayfield apologized weakly for keeping late hours, and herded the sour-faced Emmett out before him. Bill waited until they were gone.
"I want you to keep Hez inside," he told Doris then, his voice lowered. "These fellows are all right, probably, but I don't know them. And here's my gun. If you just call me, though, I'll hear and come a-running."
He started out, then turned and smiled at her whimsically. "There's a bundle of new blankets in that corner," he informed her. "Never been opened up. Help yourself. Good night."
Over by the junipers Bill could hear the mutter of voices. He turned that way and presently came upon the three, fumbling with wet pack ropes and swearing softly at the rain pattering down upon them. Talk ceased entirely when Bill approached.
"Hard luck, folks," he sympathized cheerfully."But not a darn bit harder than if you hadn't run across my camp at all. I'm sorry you got here so late. Want any help?"
They did not, but Bill remained and did what he could to help them raise the wet tent and get their stuff inside. They would not be comfortable, but they would be quite as comfortable as he would be.
"We've got some tent-raising to do ourselves," he told them cheerfully, when he could do no more. "It'll let up raining after a bit, I think. Come over to my camp for breakfast. I'll sling together some pancakes that'll melt in your mouths. And I've got a gallon of alleged maple syrup to swim 'em in. Life will look a thousand per cent. better, to-morrow morning."
"Oh, life looks all right to us now," Mr. Rayfield protested. "This is nothing—nothing at all. Don't apologize, Mr. Dale. Of course the young lady needed the tent; wouldn't think of such a thing as—but we'll just call you on that breakfast bluff—pancakes, maple syrup and all!"
"You're on," said Bill, and went back to help Tommy find his bedding and tent.
Tommy was ignoring his own troubles in a chortling glee at Al Freeman's discomfort.
"An' that's where he got 'is come-uppance,"he gloated. "Al planned it t' bunk in a warrm tent wit'out settin' up his own t'night!" He tittered while he groped for ten pegs. "That tent-settin' b'foor the starrm was a farce, as you know yerself, Mr. Dale. He's up to something sure as yuh live—and phwat it is I dunno, but I sleeps wit' wan eye open this night—I do."
It is likely that he did just that, as did Bill, lying so that he could peer out through the opening of Tommy's little tent and see his own bulking vaguely in the dark and drizzle. Hezekiah, shut inside, would have lunged at the throat of any stranger who sought entrance in the dark, and Doris Hunter did not need even that protection, since she probably carried her own gun and would know what use to make of it in an emergency.
But Bill discounted those things and himself kept watch; and smiled for sheer happiness while he pulled Tommy's soggy blankets over his shoulders. In the dark, so close in the dark—serene in the knowledge of her safety, the girl he loved lay asleep, her head touching the pillow where his head had lain while he dreamed of her. To-morrow she would go again. All the to-morrows thereafter Bill would have only the memory of her presence here to-night. But to-night he could lie and know that she was there,—and what foolwould waste the hours in sleep, when he might lie awake and think, and thrill at the sense of her nearness?
He wondered what she would say when he showed her his gold discovery; told her, too that she owned a claim quite as good as his. He hoped that the deluge of rain had not filled his cut and covered his vein of rich ore. But even if it had, there were his samples in the corner of the tent behind the door; and it would not take him and Tommy long to uncover the vein again.
He thought uneasily of the government men camped so close. Not that he was afraid of anything they might do; indeed, he could not imagine anything that could rob him now of his claims. He had located according to law, and his location work was done and on record in Goldfield. It was Al Freeman who troubled him; not alone because of what Tommy had said (he suspected Tommy of being an arrant gossip and not too gentle with men's reputations behind their backs) but because Al looked the sneak, acted the sneak, and undoubtedly was the sneak Tommy had declared him to be.
Still, there was nothing a sneak could do to harm him. Even if he were killed,—he thought swiftly of something he must do, and he smiled tenderly at the grayish blotch in the drizzlingdark. He must make his will, so that if anything happened to him, Doris would have the claims. There was no one else. His father had been the last relative he knew anything about. Distant ones—cousins—they didn't count.
No, Doris Hunter stood closer to him than any one else. He wasn't going to die yet awhile, but still accidentscouldhappen, he admitted to himself. There must be no slip-up, no last-minute regrets. Mining is always more or less risky. If he went out, then Doris must have the Parowan group. And as for the rest, Bill did not worry.
He fell asleep finally, thinking that these experts might be able to give him some good advice. There was no sense in trying to keep his discovery a secret from them. They meant to examine Parowan's mineral possibilities, and they would inevitably run across his claims. But he would not be in too great a hurry. First, he would tell Doris. It seemed to him a miracle of good fortune that had brought her to Parowan at that particular time, when he was aching to tell her and yet could not leave his claims and let Al Freeman—yes, and perhaps Tommy as well—"high-grade" his gold the minute his back was turned. Now he could show Doris, which was better than telling. And—the world could go hang, for all Bill cared.
After all it was Doris Hunter who called breakfast while Bill was yet busy with her horses and Tommy was profanely spreading damp blankets upon dry rocks that would presently be hot to the palm, when the sun had stared down at them for a few hours.
There were hot cakes as good as Bill could have made, and bacon and coffee and potatoes sliced raw and fried just right. The eyes of Mr. Rayfield glistened when he saw them, and Bill drew his underlip between his teeth when he looked at the girl's flushed face bent solicitously over the coffee she was pouring; it was so like a daydream come true that he could scarcely trust himself to speak, for fear his tone would not be so normal as he meant it to be. But he had his part to play nevertheless.
"Morning! I meant to get breakfast myself, but I didn't want to get you out too early. You had a hard trip——"
"Oh, fudge! That wasn't a commencement tobeing caught out in a blizzard. Luella woke me about daylight. She came crawling up on the pillow, and the first I heard was 'What the'—something—in the most surprised tone you ever heard." Doris laughed at the memory of it. "Imagine hearing a man's voice sayingthatin your very ear when you're dreaming about putting up peaches! And that reminds me, Bill. Mother sent over a jar of preserves. If you'll watch these cakes, I'll get them out of the pack. I saw you had brought up the horses. Sit right down and eat, folks, I won't be a minute."
Bill's table was small, but Doris had somehow crowded a sufficient number of plates and cups upon it. Mr. Rayfield voiced his opinion of her efficiency as he seated himself on Bill's neatly spread bunk and drew the potatoes toward himself.
"My, my, what a difference there is in women nowadays!" he said cheerfully. "Take these Western-raised girls—you can't match them anywhere in the world for downright common sense and capableness. Seems to be a great climate for the growth of brain. Now a city girl out in a storm like that—well," he chuckled, "think of the hundreds of plays and stories that have been built around the fainting forms of beautiful maidens carried in from rightcenter, just rescued by the hero from the falling dew! And here's a girl can come out of it smiling, with a breakfast fit for a steel king! Mr. Dale, if you can beat these cakes, I'll resign from government employ and be your burro puncher for life!"
Into the responsive laugh walked Doris with a quart jar of peach preserves carried proudly in her two hands.
"I heard that about the cakes, Mr. Rayfield," she announced gravely. "And all I can say is, you come down to the ranch where we have real milk, and thick yellow cream, and fresh eggs. I'll show what hot cakes can be like!"
Mr. Emmett, pulling a box out of a corner for a seat, had stooped and picked up something from the ground,—something which the edge of the box had dragged forward. He turned it to the side where the sun was shining brightly on the canvas wall and examined the piece of ore interestedly.
"Good-looking rock, that," he observed, glancing up at Bill. "Didn't pick it up in this neighborhood, did you?"
Bill slanted a glance at the rock, and another at the sly, watchful eyes of Al Freeman. Mr. Emmett was holding in his fingers a bit of the richest ore Bill had taken from his vein on ParowanNumber One. He had concealed it under some sacks in the corner, and its appearance at the breakfast table was, to say the least, inopportune.
"That? That's a specimen I've been packing around for luck," he said carelessly. "Wish I had a mountain of it; then I could have fresh eggs and cream for breakfast too."
Mr. Emmett laid the rich specimen in Rayfield's outstretched hand and seated himself on the box, his hard, brown eyes glancing sharply now and then at Bill. Mr. Rayfield set down his cup of coffee and pursed his lips over the sample. His pleasant face glowed with professional admiration for a pretty bit of ore.
"Yes-s—a mountain of that would insure a man against canned milk for life!" he chuckled. "If you had even a good vein of ore like that, Mr. Dale, your friends would need to pray that millions wouldn't make you money-mad."
Doris held out her hand for it, and Mr. Rayfield smiled as he placed it in her palm. He did not say anything at all.
Doris bent her brown head over the sample, then looked up quickly at Bill, her eyes wide and questioning.
"O-oh—that's gold—isthat gold, Bill? All those yellow patches? It—it doesn't look just like pyrites——"
"That's gold, Doris." To save his life Bill could not have kept the tenderness, the deep exultation out of his voice.
"Gold! Why, it—it's almostsolidgold! Why, where——"
Bill pulled himself together, laughed lazily and helped himself to the fried potatoes.
"That's what drives prospectors crazy," he drawled. "Looking for more of the same. You keep that, Doris, if you like it. If I ever get hold of enough of that, I'll call it a mine." He laughed again disarmingly. "You know folks call me Hopeful Bill," he added quaintly.
"You'd be Sure-thing Bill, if you ever found a mine ofthat." Mr. Rayfield's good eye dwelt hungrily upon the sample. "I suppose you're on the trail of it. You wouldn't be human if you weren't looking for more of the same. Well, I hope you locate it. I do, for a fact. I know I wouldn't rest until I located that."
Bill's laugh betrayed nothing more than amusement, but his eyes forgot to twinkle. They were fixed rather intently on Mr. Rayfield's smooth, smiling face.
"And when you had it located—then what would you do?"
"Do?" Mr. Rayfield looked up, astonished. "Whatwoulda man do, with a gold mine likethat?" He returned to the spreading of peach preserves carefully between two hot cakes. "Organize a company and avail myself of the most modern methods of mining it. A good, clean corporation, Mr. Dale, is the most efficient, the most satisfactory methods I know of to-day. I certainly would organize at once and start out right to get the gold cheaply as possible and market the product as profitably as possible. There is no other intelligent method, these days."
Mr. Emmett looked up dissentingly. "There you go on your hobby," he remarked. "The country's been done to death with wild-cat organizations that found a showing of mineral and hustled a corporation together. Look at the companies we've been sent to investigate, Walter! I should think that would sicken you of corporations."
"We investigated a lot of crooked corporations, yes." Mr. Rayfield admitted it calmly. "We helped the government send more than one bunch of crooked officers to the penitentiary—where they belong. But crooks always will take advantage of the best machinery invented, John. And those very investigations taught me the details of organizing and operating corporations. They proved to me that a man is a fool to potter along by himself with any mine—I don't carehow rich it is! You can't work a mine as you would a farm. Why? Because your potential harvest is all there, in the ground, waiting for you to gather it. A farm yields its wealth season by season—on the installment plan, we'll say. Whereas the mineral in a mineis there; all of it. It was put there long before it was ever discovered. The faster and the cheaper you take it out, the greater your profit. That stands to reason. What man of intelligence would spend ten, twenty years, we'll say, taking out a million dollars, when an efficient corporation will get it for him in less than half that time?"
He held up his cup for more coffee and smiled blandly at Doris, who was listening to him with flattering attention.
"Miss Hunter, you see the point, don't you? I'll venture to say that you'd want your millions dug out by machinery, in the shortest time possible."
Doris laughed and looked again at the gold ore beside her plate.
"If I knew where there was a lot of that in the ground, and you could get a million dollars worth of it out in fifteen minutes," she said, "I'd—why, I'd probably stand around and abuse you because you weren't getting my million in ten minutes instead of fifteen!" She blushed a littleas she met Mr. Rayfield's understanding smile. "That's just human nature, isn't it?"
"That's human nature." Mr. Rayfield sugared his coffee with the satisfied air of a man who has gained his point with less difficulty than he had anticipated.
Then appeared Luella, walking offendedly out from under Bill's bunk, where she had retreated from the presence of strangers.
"Aw, cut it out!" Luella complained gruffly. "Let's eat! Git a move on, there!"
"And here we are, trying to starve poor Luella!" Doris stooped to her, and the bird eyed her hand sidewise and decided to trust it for once. She stepped solemnly upon the slim, brown wrist and so was lifted to a perch on the foot of the bunk where she gravely accepted a slice of fried potato. The advantages of a corporation over an individual miner got no further attention from any one, for a parrot is very much like a baby in its unfailing ability to monopolize attention. Luella would not talk, save now and then a curt ejaculation that was hailed with laughter. She was a temperamental bird and her manners were inhospitable; for which Bill was vaguely thankful.
Furthermore, he was grateful when Doris proceeded as a matter of course to clear away the breakfast. That little hint of hers, of rising andpicking up Bill's plate and cup, scattered the group. They went, ducking their heads under the flaps, and Bill followed them with the thought in his mind that he would see the three strangers safely off about their business before he made any move toward his own claims with Doris.
But the jovial Mr. Rayfield stuck to him like a burr, talking idly of many things save mineral. Bill wondered what he had on his mind; and as soon as they were out of hearing of the others, Mr. Rayfield proceeded to the subject uppermost.
"You'll pardon my apparent presumption, Mr. Dale, I know. We government fellows are instructed to help miners in any way we can, and—well, this man of yours; have you had him with you long enough to be sure of him?"
"I never," said Bill in his easy drawl, "consider that I'm sure of any man. Why?" And then he gave no time for an answer, but put a question of his own.
"How long have you had your pot-walloper?—if I may ask a question that's none of my business."
"Al Freeman? We picked him up just the other day. Our cook that we hired in Las Vegas was taken sick just as we struck the highway down there. We laid over, and did what we could; but he wasn't recovering, so when this Al Freemancame along with three other men in a car, headed for Las Vegas, we just made an exchange. Sent our man in to a doctor, and hired Al in his place." He laid his fingers lightly on Bill's arm, and lowered his voice confidentially. "He told us last night that your man, Tommy, is one of the toughest men out of Goldfield. They call him Slippery Tom up there, I believe. Al says he came near getting lynched, at one time—some murder and robbery, I believe."
"Then there's a pair of them," Bill observed imperturbably. "Al's a liar and a thief, according to Tommy."
Mr. Rayfield considered for a moment, then threw out his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
"Might be a good idea to watch 'em both, don't you think?" He chuckled. "Pot is very likely calling the kettle black. And I don't know of anything worth stealing in our camp. Just thought I'd give you a hint for what it may be worth, in case you don't know your man. And we'll keep an eye on Al."
"Aw, there's nothing they can do—but earn their wages," Bill dismissed the subject indifferently. "Time Tommy wrangles the burros and does the dirty work and slings a muck stick eight hours a day, crime won't look half so good to himas his blankets. Same with Al Freeman, if you handle him right."
Nevertheless, Bill stopped at the corner of the tent and unobtrusively watched Mr. Rayfield when he joined his companions.
So far as he could determine, Mr. Rayfield was concerning himself at present with the preparations for a day's fieldwork. Emmett was already waiting with his sample bag over his shoulder, his canteen at his feet ready to pick up at the last minute. Al, apparently, would be left in camp. Bill turned suddenly and beckoned to Tommy, who was glumly examining a dull pick.
"You say you can sharpen steel, Tommy. I'll just let you do a little blacksmithing, this fore-noon, while I show Miss Hunter a claim I located for her," he said, when Tommy had come close. Then he lowered his voice. "You can keep an eye on camp, too. I saw Al Freeman looking hungry at that sample of gold ore, Tommy. You'll know what to do if he makes a break. Only—don't kill him. I don't want to take in boarders, and those experts can't cook."
"I'll watch 'im, Mr. Dale. I will that!"
Bill grinned, took a last pull at his cigarette, and went in to wipe the dishes for Doris and watch the dimple in her left cheek.
And Destiny, that invisible, inscrutable companion whom men sometimes fear, sometimes curse and obey inevitably, smiled and waited to see how these souls would work out the problems she had set for them.