Walter Rayfield reached out his hand with deliberate firmness and laid his forefinger upon the push button on his desk. In the distance could be heard a faint buzzing. Almost immediately thereafter, John Emmett opened a door and walked in, a yellow invoice in his hand and a look of inquiry on his face.
Rayfield waved a plump hand toward a chair.
"Sit down, John, and listen to the story that Bill has brought us this morning. The most outrageous thing I ever heard in my life. Go on, Bill—but go back to the beginning, if you don't mind. I want John to hear what you have just told me."
Impassively Bill obeyed. When he had finished—and he spared no details in the recital—he sat back and folded his arms, waiting to see how they would take it; watching, too, for some sign that should guide his judgment of the matter. He was still ashamed to doubt them, still ready to believe that Al, having overheard the parrot, and suspecting the significance of her remarks, had yet concocted the rest of the story from some dark purpose of his own; revenge, perhaps, but more likely in the hope of profiting by the tale. But Bill had not spoken of his own belief in the two. He had told them what Al said, making no comment of any kind, keeping his voice and his face carefully neutral.
Rayfield and Emmett looked at each other. Emmett smiled slightly, shrugged his shoulders and glanced down at the yellow invoice.
"Interesting bit of libel," he said contemptuously. "If there was any truth in it, I wouldn't be getting a hump in my shoulders and ruining my eyes over the Company books. Did you O K the order for these engine parts, Walter? This invoice is not correct. The total is wrong, and moreover the name of purchaser is not here. I wish you'd call up the shop and ask about it. Tell them I can't accept it as it stands. Make it plain that they must furnish a correct invoice, or take back the merchandise." He dropped the invoice before Rayfield. "And once more let me say that I absolutely refuse to accept anything that is not signed by the purchaser. Who did this buying? The engineer at the plant?"
"Now, now, never mind the invoice for a minute, John! I want to ask Bill just one question.It may not be beneath your dignity, either, to join me in wanting to know why Bill did not bring this Al Freeman to us with that story. That hurts me, Bill. I can't understand why you heard him out and did not give us the chance to face him with it. I—I dislike to think that you gave the story any credence; but since——"
Emmett turned and came back to the desk. His hard brown eyes fixed themselves upon Bill's face.
"If Bill took enough stock in the yarn to listen to it, there's just one thing for me to do. I'm responsible for the Company's funds. I think I shall demand that you bring an auditor to examine the books."
"An auditor has gone over the books, hasn't he? You showed his certificate at the annual meeting. And Al didn't say you had juggled the accounts, John."
"No, he could hardly say that," Rayfield put in. "At this late day—hoping, I suppose, that we could not prosecute him for stealing our outfit—he claims that we arranged for him to steal it so that we could board with Bill!" He threw back his head suddenly and laughed, his sides and rounded front shaking with mirth.
"A fine tribute to your cooking, Bill! You should have given him a dollar or two for that!"
"I thought you two ought to know what he'ssaying," Bill replied soberly. He had no heart for joking, that morning. "He was telling it in Tommy's Place, and Tommy overheard him and made him come to me and repeat what he had said to others. I thought it was no more than right to let you know."
"We appreciate your spirit, Bill, but I can't seem to understand his object. Did he give you any valid reason for concocting such a yarn?"
"He said that you hadn't played fair with him. He said you had paid him some money, but not what you had promised." Bill sighed,—a purely physical incident caused by his general depression and the ache in his heart for Doris. This conspiracy tale did not seem important, now that he had told it to Walter and John. The sunny, well-regulated offices, the sight of John and Walter on the job, busy with Parowan affairs, reassured and shamed him—though he reflected that he had not really doubted them, even in his midnight musings when a man's faith burns weakest.
"I told him you'd have paid enough to keep his mouth shut," he added. "And I wouldn't make enough of the yarn to bring him to you. I told Tommy to take him out and dump him outside the city limits."
"In that case," said John in a tone of displeasure, "I don't see just what you can expect us to do about it; or why you came to us with it during office hours. Walter may have all the time in the world to gossip—but I happen to have work to do. When you decide what you're going to do about it, let me know and I'll stand any investigation you may want to start. But I can't stand here discussing a crazy yarn like that unless it's of some importance to the Company."
Bill rose and picked up his hat.
"I came and told you the yarn so you'll know what to do if Al Freeman shows up again in Parowan. I won't be here for a week or two, maybe. I'm taking the noon train. You can get me at the Palace Hotel in Frisco, any time it's necessary."
"Going to bring the Missus back with you?" Rayfield pursed his lips good-humoredly. "Hope you mean to give a house-warming when you move into that mansion. I'd like to have some of these Parowan folks see what you've got there. Well, so-long, old man. And after all, I guess we're both grateful to you for warning us about Al Freeman. I'll put the Chief of Police on his trail. If he shows up we'll land him in the penitentiary for that robbery of our camp outfit. A man like that's dangerous, left running at large and slandering his betters."
Bill agreed with him and went down the stairs wondering just how much of a fool he had made of himself. But that thought was presently swallowed up in his anticipation of seeing Doris and little Baby Mary within twenty-four hours. He had not intended to leave so soon. He had meant to write Doris that the house was finished and furnished, and to invite her, in a purely joking way, to invite her to come and inspect his job. But up in the office he had suddenly sickened of the town, and of Walter and John. He had a fierce desire to look into one pair of eyes that he knew was loyal. Doris might not agree with him always, she might fall short of his ideal as a wife, but at least their interests were identical and she could never be guilty of treachery. He was not so sure of the rest of the world.
He hurried to camp and got Luella, taking her to Tommy's Place. He wanted Tommy to sleep up in the new house for safety's sake, and he wanted to know what had become of Al.
He found Tommy in a rather difficult mood and did not stay to explain his reasons for turning Al out with so little thought of his importance. It seemed to Tommy that Bill was playing into the hands of crooks, and as plainly as he dared Tommy told Bill so.
"Al's gone, Mr. Dale—but there'll be more tocome of it," he said carpingly. "Kape wan eye open, is my advice to yuh. For I tell yuh plain that Al was not lyin', though yuh might think it. He c'uldn't look yuh in the eye, Mr. Dale—an' when he's tellin' one of his lies he has that way of lookin' at yuh, he puts the school books t' shame that says a liar cannot look a man in the eye. So I know——"
"Train's whistling, Tommy. Keep your own eyes open and look after the new house." It disturbed Bill to have Tommy voice something which Bill himself would not concede to his consciousness. He did not believe Al's story, because he refused to doubt the integrity of his partners. He refused to doubt them, because to do so would pull down his faith in the stability of Parowan, which he had chosen for Mary's home. It was a round-about way to fight a doubt, but it was the best Bill could do at that time. For, as is well known, nothing ever thrives quite so luxuriantly as the seeds of suspicion.
Doris was glad to see Bill, though she was not enthusiastic over the invitation to Parowan. She had thought that they might take a trip east, now that the baby was old enough to travel, and had cut her first two teeth. Of course, Doris would like to see her mother and dad, but Parowan——
"Well, you've got a hundred-thousand-dollar house to step into, honey, if you want to go." Bill looked at her wistfully. "I've heard several women wishing they could visit a real mining camp, and I thought maybe you'd like to take a party over for a week or two, and give a sort of house-warming. Mrs. Baker Cole helped me choose the furnishings, and she thought the plan of the house was perfect. You won't be ashamed to have your friends see it. And there are some nice folks in Parowan now."
Doris considered the matter. If Sophy Cole had helped Bill, of course, that was different. The nice folks in Parowan, of course, did not appeal to her in the slightest degree; but the house-party idea was not a bad one. And she did want to see the old home again, she discovered.
"We'd have to take servants from here, Bill—and you know I positively couldn't think of staying longer than a couple of weeks or so. And I'd have to see the place first, before I could ask any one over. You're a dear, and all that, but a man simplycan'tknow about the little things that count when one is giving a party. And besides, I'd have to arrange for amusements for the guests. There is so little that one can do in the desert for entertainment."
"I'd like to have you go with me alone," Billconfessed. "I'd like to have you all to myself for a little while in the new home. Has it ever struck you, Doris, that we have lived before the public ever since we were married?"
"I don't see how you can call this public," Doris retorted, glancing around the room. "And until you went back to Nevada on this wild scheme of yours, I'm sure we were together all the time—and by ourselves too, an awful lot."
Bill extended an arm and tapped lightly against the wall. "Six or eight inches between us and our neighbors. I call that living in public. Well, shall we go over there together, just us two and the baby?"
"I'll see," said Doris lightly. "Perhaps—with servants, of course. I'm rather curious to see what kind of a house you and Sophy Cole would build, anyway."
"Next week, then, let's go." Bill drew her toward him and kissed her. "It would be to-morrow, but I've got something to look after, first. Honey, don't think me a fool just because I love you so; and don't laugh at me for wanting to see my wife and my baby under our own roof. I can't help it. I'm human."
"You're extravagant," Doris corrected, patting him on the shoulder with a slight condescension which Bill did not miss. "Think of spendingall that money on a house in the desert! I never heard of such a thing. I'll bet folks over there are calling it Dale's Folly, this minute."
Bill's eyebrows drew together. He looked down at her somberly.
"They're sure mistaken, then," he said grimly. "That'snot Dale's folly."
"You don't mean me, I hope?" A sparkle came into her eyes.
But Bill took his hat and left the room without even remembering that he should ask to be excused, or make some courteous explanation of his sudden departure.
Bill stood on the south veranda and looked down upon the town, where smoke was rising lazily from bent stovepipe and brick chimney—the supper fires of Parowan's inhabitants—and away across the desert beyond, where the Funeral Mountains stood shoulder deep in purple shadows, the peaks smiling yet in rosetinted afterglow.
"Home!" he said between his teeth. "I made a mistake. I've only built a house. I'm a damned fool. It takes two to make a home."
Behind him came faint murmurs of talk, high-keyed laughter, little silences shattered suddenly by the refined babel of several women exclaiming in unison. The clink of china punctuating the pauses. Then, frank, uncompromising, came the voice of Luella, speaking with awful distinctness.
"What the hell! Damned bunch of gossips. Won't you ever settle down? Doris, for God sake listen."
A pause, then voices exclaiming once more. Slippered feet came tack-tack across polishedfloors, muffled on the rugs, clicking when the rug was passed. A ripple, rustle, quite close. Then silence. Without turning his head Bill knew that Doris was standing in the open doorway, looking at him in hot anger. Unconsciously he braced himself, his face setting into forced serenity.
It came.
"Bill, I wish to heaven you'd come and get that parrot! She's in there, walking up and down, looking at the floor and saying the most awful things! You'll have to explain it somehow to my guests—her calling them a bunch of damned gossips. It's beyond human endurance. She's talking somethingawful. I'll call a servant to take her out and wring her neck, if you don't come and get her. I mean that, Bill."
Bill clicked his teeth together and faced her, smiling. But in the pockets of his Palm Beach coat his hands were clenched, so that trimmed nails dug into flesh.
"Your guests wanted to see Luella and hear her talk," he reminded her with gentle raillery. "You told them how she would go up to baby Mary and smooth down the baby's dress with her beak, and make kissing sounds, and say, "She looks like you, Bill. Damned if she don't." I heard you telling them. She's heard Don saythat, every time he comes here. Yourguestsbegged to have her brought in——"
"Yes, and what did shedo?" Doris was almost in tears; but ladies with carefully powdered cheeks cannot afford tears, so Doris pressed a twenty-five-dollar handkerchief to her lips and controlled herself. "I'll tell you what she did! I brought the baby and held her down for the parrot to talk to. And what did shesay? 'What the hell! You damned huzzy, git outa here!'That'swhat she said, toyour own baby! Now those women will go home and say that's the way you talk to your family."
Bill's chuckle did not soothe her appreciably. She stood looking at him as if she wanted to box his ears. Bill in cream colored Palm Beach coat and trousers, soft silk shirt, white canvas shoes, was the handsomest man in Parowan,—or in all Esmeralda County, for that matter. The women guests of Doris recognized that fact, if Doris herself overlooked it. Wherefore, when he yielded the point and returned to the midst of the assembly, he saw eyes that brightened as he looked into them, lips that smiled, a subdued little flutter at his coming.
In the wide arch that Bill had designed to give Doris the long "vista" which she so admired in other houses, Luella was pigeon-toeing back andforth, her tail spread slightly, her eyes swift-flashing bits of amber. She was peeved at something, in Bill's opinion. She paused and tilted her head at him.
"Look who's here! Well, I'll be damned!"
Ladies laughed titteringly behind their fingers, and looked at one another. Bill, feeling himself an elephant at a doll's tea-party, stooped and let Luella step upon his hand.
"Hell of a note! I just can'tstandthis place! Not a soul worth knowing. Ignorant——"
Bill mercifully squelched her with his hand pressing down her head hard. He bit his lip, trying hard not to laugh right out in meeting, and turned to make a dignified retreat of it, when a pair of human-looking eyes in the crowd met his, and one lid drooped a bit.
Bill stopped short, took the second look to make sure, and turned toward the wives and daughters of Parowan's leading citizens. He grinned,—the old, Bill Dale smile in the face of discouragement, the smile and the twinkle that had gone far to win him his nickname of Hopeful Bill.
"Aw, shucks! You've all raised children that were brought out to act pretty before company, I guess." His voice wheedled them. "They generally wound up with a spanking after the company was gone, didn't they? Well, we're in thatfix right now. Luella's been and gone and done it, just like any other kid. That's what I get for leaving her with a—gentleman that keeps a saloon, while we were in California for about a year. And—you've caught me with the goods, I guess. I do cuss, now and then. Every time the baby tries to say something else, I'm apt to holler, 'Doris, for so-and-so listen!' Luella's got it down pat." He looked around at them with his Hopeful Bill smile. "I hope I shut her off before she told that on me," he said.
They laughed, much relieved, glad of his example so that they dared be human for a minute. Doris, with her perfect social manner, had kept them stiff-backed and guarding their tongues. One old lady who had been the wife of a governor and could afford to be herself on that account, waved half a wafer at Bill imperiously.
"Don't take her away, whatever you do," she cried. "That would be a confession of guilt. I wouldn't have a parrot that couldn't swear—or a monkey that wouldn't steal the guests' earrings. Put her down and let her cuss. It's about the only chance we'll ever get to hear how men talk when we're not around."
Bill hesitated, until he caught the eye of Doris, over by the door. Then he shook his head.
"My wife's trying to reform me before thebaby's old enough to repeat things," he said. "Luella's influence is considered bad enough as it is. It would never do to encourage her. The custom is to shut her in a dark closet whenever she speaks in an unrefined manner. We hope to purify her speech before little Mary is old enough to copy it."
He gave them all an endearing smile and carried Luella off. The awkwardness of the situation was considerably relieved, and Doris did her careful best to efface the memory of those last interrupted remarks of Luella's. She hoped that no one had noticed how the parrot's voice had changed, imitating her own tones. Luella never learned that in the saloon, at least; there was enough to set the ladies of Parowan thinking.
The ladies of Parowan did think—and they talked, as well. They had felt all along, they said, that Bill Dale's wife held herself above the rest of the town; though why she should was beyond their powers of imagination. Everybody knew she was Don Hunter's girl,—respectable enough, but nobody in particular, and certainly not rich. Don had made some money out of Parowan, but they still ate in the kitchen, and Mrs. Hunter didn't even keep a hired girl. And here was Doris, trailing silken gowns over the polished floors, the Persian rugs of the mansion on the hill,and speaking loftily of this servant and that servant—by their last names—and bewailing the hardships of living in Parowan and trying to entertain with no caterer in town and cut flowers a practical impossibility on short notice or if the trains happened to be late.
The ladies of Parowan descended to the satisfying luxury of speaking their minds. Some of the minds harbored spite and malice and envy, at that, and the things they said were not pleasant. It was fortunate that the series of "at homes" which Doris had condescended to give to the ladies in Parowan ended with what Bill unfeelingly dubbed "Luella's party."
Five afternoons had been devoted to that memorable series. Twenty-five women to an afternoon, and the house decorated differently each day, and the prizes for the card games real, costly trifles such as Mrs. Baker Cole and her set always gave. Parowan society would have been content with a china plate or a doily for first prize, even at the bridge table,—which was new to Parowan. Plain whist and five hundred were the games usually played by the ladies of Parowan, and Doris had overawed them, intimidated them even, with her "bridge tables" ever since her arrival.
Her house-party from Santa Barbara and San Francisco, arriving in a private car, twitteringthrough the "camp" for a week and departing as they had come, had impressed even the ex-governor's wife. There had been a grand, house-warming ball, and the very elect of Parowan had been permitted to attend it; but the house-party of wealthy strangers had held themselves a bit aloof, and one woman had been overheard to express her surprise and disappointment because the natives had neglected to appear in red shirts and high boots, with six-shooters dangling at their hips. Parowan hadn't quite forgiven that, even yet.
But Doris had responded to the involuntary deference which Parowan showed to the wife of Bill Dale. She had glowed secretly with pride in the house Bill had built on the hillside. It was a beautiful house; even her critical eye could find no flaw in its design, in its perfect appointments. Bill had been building a dream into the house. Love had gone into it, and a wistful longing for a home that should dumbly express his love for Doris and for his child. Hope had gone into the building of that house; the hope that Doris would love it and would want to call it home.
He had visioned her standing at the great window that was set like the frame of a picture into the west end of the long drawing-room. The scene it framed each day was the sunset,—glorious sunsets such as only the desert may know. A great window of flawless plate glass, framing the far peaks that flamed each night anew.
In the eastern wall the mate to that window was set cunningly so that it should frame a glory which Bill called dawn. Doris had never seen that picture, though Bill seldom missed it. But he had dreamed of her standing before the west window, looking upon the sunset. He had dreamed of other pictures of Doris in that house. Once or twice his heart had beat faster, believing that his dream was coming true. For Doris had been stimulated by the praise of her guests of the house-party. She had read in their faces a delight in this house set upon the edge of the wilderness. A few had asked if they might come back. So Doris was lingering in Parowan and playing great lady to the town,—and dramatizing herself to herself, with her California acquaintances for an imaginary audience. She had seen that they expected her to love the desert. Wherefore, she was professing to love the desert and the town, and to dread tearing herself away at the first frost. She meant to have her friends over again, she declared. She had thought of a perfectly original bit of fun for them. She would dress them all in miners' clothes and lead them right down into the mine, and let each one digsome gold for a souvenir. She wrote of this to Mrs. Baker Cole, who told her it was a wonderful idea.
And now, here were the Parowan women gossiping about that wretched parrot. Doris did not need to hear what they were saying, in order to be sure that they were talking. She felt a difference in their attitude; thinly veiled resentment—and some sentiments which were not veiled at all. She would have left Parowan then, spurning it contemptuously as an impossible place to live in, but for one thing.
Doris Hunter, born in the desert, knew desert ways and desert people. Though she would not admit it, she knew what would have been her own attitude, three or four years ago, toward a woman of wealth who lived in a mansion and patronized her friends. She knew that she would have resented the woman intensely, would have hated everything the woman said or did. And if the woman bungled her patronage and then left the place, Doris would have curled her lip and would have said that the woman left because she discovered that even in the desert people had their own ideas and refused to run after snobs.
Knowing all that, Doris stayed, holding her head up proudly, as was her privilege. She had her house-party, and could be seen merrymakingon the broad porches, with colored lights and music and dancing, on cool nights after the days had been hot. Parowan was not invited to those frolics, but must view the colored lights and listen to the music from a distance.
She returned with the party to Los Angeles and the beaches there, and was gone for a month or more. But she returned, quite unexpectedly to Bill and to the town, and made some pretense at being glad to be at home.
And all the while gossip was flowing, a turgid underground stream fed by some unknown source. All the while it was taking to itself a bitter flavor which had not been there when it had been merely a thin trickle of feminine resentment. Men were talking,—in confidential undertones at first, later with an uneasy hope that certain rumors would be proven false; rumors that held an ugly meaning for the town.
And Bill, keeping pretty much to himself when Doris was not at home, and devoting himself to her whims and her service when she was with him, leaving suddenly for short trips and returning more imperturbable than he had been before, never heard the gossip, or dreamed of what would happen when the whisperings grew into shouts.
Bill stood on the top step of the front porch, looking down into the scowling faces of a committee of workmen from the mine. Seamed, not too clean some of them, hard-eyed every one, they stood looking up at him, measuring as they were being measured. He had seen them coming up the hill, had thought some accident had happened, had come to meet them. There he stopped short, on guard. He had seen miners' committees before now. They needed no banner to announce their kind and purpose.
"Come in, boys," he said, when the silence became marked. "You seem to have something on your chests."
He turned to the door, and they followed him, saying nothing. That in itself was of unfriendly portent. Many of these men he knew by sight, a few had speaking acquaintance with him. He had returned the evening before from the Coast, and he felt a swift desire for a full record of the day since he had left Parowan. Something musthave happened, some grievance of which he was wholly in ignorance must have arisen in his absence.
Bill saw how they stared around at the beautiful room, and looked at one another afterwards with a grim significance. He stiffened mentally.
"All right, now, let's have it—since you are here. But the office is the proper place for business, you know. Why didn't you go there?"
"It's you we want to see this morning, Mr. Dale," a small, shrewd-faced man said quietly. "Mr. Rayfield and Mr. Emmett have done all they can for us. We'll have to talk straight from the shoulder, now, so we came to the man who's responsible."
"All right." Bill sat down and crossed one leg over the other,—a habit of which Doris did not approve. "Responsible for what?"
"For getting away with the money, so our wages haven't been paid this month. And so the company can't go ahead and find the ore again. The boss has done his best. He's proved that. When the Company failed to meet the payroll, Mr. Rayfield and Mr. Emmett lent a lot of the boys money out of their own pockets to tide things over. And we had just stood a cut in wages——"
"If you'll excuse me just a minute," said Bill in his best city manner, "I'll call the office."
They seemed to suspect some trick, even in that. But the small man did nothing to prevent Bill from leaving the room, so no one else did anything. But Bill had only reached the door when he swung back.
"We'll go down to the office together," he said quietly. "You fellows aren't here just to pass the time away, I take it. And I just got back last night. I don't know what's happened while I was away, so we'll just go down where I can find out the truth of the matter."
They were a taciturn lot. They said nothing whatever to that, but rose and followed him out, skidding a little on the polished floor. Bill was thankful for their silence. He wanted to think, and he needed to think swiftly.
For two months, a new rule at the mine had shut him out almost entirely from the works. Rayfield had explained that it was because some one had tampered with the safety of the men,—had in fact set fire to a section of timbering. The effect was that no man was permitted on the works without a special, written permit from the general manager.
Bill had run into that restriction unawares. The superintendent had been sorry, but firm. Rayfield, he said, would not excuse any violation of the rule. Bill must go to him for a permit.Bill had gone and had received the permit, which was good only for one visit. Rayfield could not risk the misuses of a pass, he said. He had too much on his shoulders.
Bill had taken the permit and had torn it in two before Walter's eyes. "And who writes the permit foryou?" he had asked contemptuously and had stalked out. Rayfield had attempted to make light of the affront, but he had not recalled the order.
Bill would not run to him for permission when he wanted to go into his own mine, so he had kept away from the works, and as far as possible he had kept away from the office as well. Who was he to butt in? he had asked himself resentfully.Hewas only the president of the Company. And, having matters of his own to occupy his mind and his time, he had not concerned himself further with the management of the mine.
Two or three men whom he met on the street looked at them strangely, but the group continued to the office without being questioned by any,—though Bill fancied that he could read anxiety in more than one pair of eyes that met him on the street. The silence of the mine machinery was noticeable and depressing. Bill was bracing himself for the worst.
The worst met him in the office of ParowanConsolidated, and it met him with a soothing pat on the shoulder—which did not soothe—and a deprecatory shake of Walter Rayfield's head. Emmett was in the room, also, standing by the window with his hands in his pockets as if he were out of a job. Which he was, as a matter of fact.
"I was going to send for you, Bill," said Walter. "I wasn't sure you came home last night, however."
Bill passed the civilities by as of no moment.
"What's all this about the mine being on the rocks?" He did not mince matters. He was past that.
Walter looked at him reproachfully with his good eye and pursed his lips.
"You saw it coming," he said mildly. "I kept preaching retrenchment, you know, when our ore began to pinch out. Hopeful Bill wouldn't listen." He glanced swiftly at the committee of six. "So the result that I warned you of has come to pass. We have no ore, no money, and some debts. The boys haven't had their wages this payday, Bill." His tone was maddeningly reproachful. It implied that Bill was to blame for all this. Bill accepted the challenge.
"How do you blamemefor that?" Again he was clenching his hands in his pockets, holdinghis temper rigidly under control. He wanted to get to the bottom of this amazing state of affairs. Hehadto get to the bottom of it.
"Wel-l——" Walter fiddled with a pencil on the desk, "——of course we know it costs money to build fine houses, and dividends must be paid promptly to meet the needs of—the occasion. But one can't go on paying dividends unless there is some income to warrant it. I admit that I erred in my judgment in one respect. I was in hopes that the ore would hold out longer than it did. We might have carried things along until the first of the year, at least. Then, John and I intended to resign and let you take the load on your own shoulders. We have done the best we could but——" he shook his head regretfully "——we couldn't keep the dollars rolling in quite fast enough. Not—quite."
Bill stared at him stupidly. He looked at John Emmett, who had turned and was facing them, his hard eyes fixed on Bill.
"I should like," said Bill, "to bring in an auditor to go over the books. How you've worked it I don't pretend to know—but I see you've done it. I don't suppose the books will show it either. I reckon you've been too cute for that—since you've been working out a plan from the start. But we'll go through the motions of getting at thebottom of this. And before we go any farther, I'll admit that I know almost exactly how much of a damned fool I've been. But you're slick, you two. It took me so long to figure you out that you got away with it before I was in a position to stop you. There's nothing," he sneered, "like the friendship game to skin a man with. It beats a knife in the dark, any time. John, let's see the cash balance—if there is any; or did you two dig out the corners?"
Rayfield sighed and shrugged his shoulders. Emmett lifted his lip at Bill like a wolf and did not move.
"No use trying to put up any bluff," he snarled. "You're the president of this Company—you sign all the checks, don't you? If you don't know where the Company stands, who would?"
The small, shrewd-faced man interrupted, standing a bit forward from the group.
"All this is interesting," he said, "but it don't get us fellows anywhere. We came to find out about the payroll. We've been stood off now for ten days. We want to know where we stand."
Bill turned his head and studied the men briefly, the small man longest.
"You stand in line, along with the rest of the bunch," he said, with a heartening grin. "Go backand tell the men to mosey down here to the office. They'll get their pay, all right."
They looked at him, and from him their eyes went to the other two. The small man turned to the door.
"They'll be here, Mr. Dale," he said. Bill never could decide afterwards just what lay behind the little man's words. They had sounded somewhat like a threat.
"Get out the payroll, John," he said crisply. "And the nice, big check book I've kept signed up for you. The men will be here, and they'll have to be paid."
"There's not enough money in the bank to pay them." Emmett's voice was surly.
"Get the books, I said. The men are going to be paid."
Perhaps Emmett thought it would not be worth while to oppose him. Perhaps he knew the temper the men would be in. He brought the books, slapping them down on Rayfield's desk ill-naturedly.
"They've waited ten days," said Bill. "You begin figuring their time up to and including to-day."
Rayfield ceased for a moment to drum his fingers. "They've been out for two days, Bill," he said. "Quit of their own accord."
"Up to and including to-day," Bill repeated distinctly. He picked up the telephone and called the bank, asked for the Company's balance and got it. The modesty of that balance astonished him, even now.
"Send up a messenger for a deposit," he said easily and put down the 'phone. "Now, what's the payroll?"
"Including our salaries, which have not been paid for the last three months——"
Bill reached out a long arm and got him by the front, pulling him close. "I'd love to smash every bone in your body, you tame bandit," he gritted. "But we won't add any rough stuff to this—yet. I want to find out, first, just how rough to make it."
He let John go with a savage push that slammed him against the wall. "I want you two crooks to know just where I stand," he said between his teeth. "You've raided and wrecked my Company, deliberately, and as completely as you could. You've squeezed the lemon dry, and you've been peddling lies about me and mine, to cover up your dirty work. I don't need to be knocked down with a club, once my eyes are open. You've asked me to accept paper for my dividends, all summer, so there would be a decent cut for the rest. I did it,—and don't you reckon I can'tproveit?
"Now, you're going to come clean. It won't get you anything but whole bones, because I mean to send you to the pen for this, if I can prove it on you. I fight for my own. And now, how much will it take to cover the payroll? The messenger's outside."
Emmett growled the amount, and Bill wrote a check, asked for the bank book and got it just as the messenger rapped on the door.
"Wait a minute, sonny," he called, when the boy was leaving. "I want you to do an errand for me, if you will."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Dale." Boys must worship heroes, and Bill was the man this youngster had chosen for his own. One read it in his eyes, in his voice, in his glowing eagerness to serve.
Bill scribbled a short note to Tommy, and held it out with a dollar. The boy shook his head at the money, took the note and bowed himself out with a quaint courtesy that would have amused Bill at any other time.
"Now, you'll write the checks, John. And you'll say no word to the men—that goes for both. Stay right where you are, Walter."
There was a heavy trampling on the stairs, and Bill threw open the door into the outer office.
"You can go," he said to the girl, sitting wide-eyed behind her typewriting desk. "Or, rather,come in here. I may need you later on." He raised his voice. "Come on in, boys. A's come first into the private office, B's follow, and so on. And as you get your checks, please go right on out. Saves crowding."
He needn't have worried about their going right out. The first A headed straight down to the bank, and the second A was presently at his heels. The workmen of Parowan Consolidated had listened to ugly rumors too long to take chances.
A late comer squeezed past and into the private office, accompanied by inquiries as to how he spelled his name. Bill turned his head and nodded at Tommy.
"All right—you sit over there by the window," he said carelessly, and went on with his work of watching Emmett write the pay checks, taking each one damp from his fingers, calling out the name of the man to whom it belonged and placing a pen in his fingers for the signing of the payroll.
Bill saw the flare of surprise in more than one man's eyes as he read the amount of his pay. Bill's hand would clamp down on the man's shoulder for an instant with a friendly pressure as he spun the fellow out of the way of the next. He spoke to none, but he had a nod and a smile for many. He looked into the faces of men whomhe believed were guilty of treachery to the Company and to him, but he gave no sign of suspicion. There were others who could have told him much, but he asked no question. The routine of payday was observed without comment. The only change was the paying of the men in the office.
So presently the last man had clumped down the stairs and into the bank, and only Tommy remained, sitting grimly in his corner, staring owlishly through his thick-lensed glasses. Bill shot him a sidelong glance, lifted an eyebrow and bent over the check book before Emmett. John had a wonderful head for figures. The balance on the last stub would not have bought a dinner at the O'Hara House.
"Not much chance to graft off that," grinned Bill, and pointed at the figures. "Now, you spoke about debts. Dig 'em up, John."
"What's that roughneck doing here?" Emmett growled, looking at Tommy insultingly. "We don't owe him anything."
"Oh, yes, you do," Bill retorted evenly. "You owe him about the only thing in the world you're able to pay. Implicit obedience." He paused to let those two words sink in. "I never thought I'd ever have to call in a gun-man to camp on your shadow. But he's here, and he's got too many notches on his gun to be scared about adding another one or two. Tommy, you'll go with Mr. Emmett into the other office, and stand over him while he digs up Bills Payable. He should find them in a book—not in the right-hand drawer of his desk! You're a gun-man. You know what I mean, I guess."
"I do that, Mr. Dale," Tommy rumbled ominously. "He'll return wit' the Bills Payable, have no doubt of that."
"Bill, this is an outrage!" Walter Rayfield reached for the telephone, but Bill snatched it away from his finger tips.
"You're damned right, it's an outrage. But the remedy is going to be applied as fast as possible."
"You're letting the lies that Al Freeman told poison your mind. John and I have worked hard for this Company. We've gone without our salaries for three months now, because the funds were getting low. And this is all the thanks we get. You come blustering in here at the last minute, trying to bully and play the bad man. You can't get away with it, Bill." Rayfield shook his head sorrowfully. "Bluffing won't lift the Company out of the hole it's in. You've paid off the men—but there are the stockholders to think of, and the debts. And the ore has petered out, Bill. One of those rich surface deposits withno depth to it." He pursed his lips, drumming on the table with his fingers. "Your fine friends from San Francisco dug out the last of it, Bill, for souvenirs. A fitting end to Parowan and the fortunes of Hopeful Bill Dale. A picturesque ending—but the end, nevertheless."
Bill did not trouble to answer him. In a moment, Emmett returned with his arms full of books, the dangerous Tommy treading close on his heels.
"Not knowin' which would be the right wan, I had him bring them all, Mr. Dale. An' his gun was not in the right-hand drawer. It was in his pocket. Here it is, Mr. Dale,—in case yuh've neglected to pack wan yourself. An' if yuh don't mind, Mr. Dale, I'd like fer to have yuh search him fer a knife. Them's the kind of crooks that packs 'em, Mr. Dale,—as it's been my experience to know. An' I'd search the other wan whilst I was about it, Mr. Dale. I would that."
Tommy's suggestion was gravely complied with, in the presence and to the horror of the wide-eyed typist. Bill apologized to her with a smile, but he did not suggest that she leave the room. Messrs. Rayfield and Emmett were wily gentlemen. The girl might easily be in their confidence and their private pay. He did not know where they had gotten her, but he rememberedthat she had reigned supreme over the outer office ever since Parowan Consolidated had established itself there.
"Now, John, write checks for all these bills. All of them, that is, that are authentic. Have this girl get them ready for the mail. If you'll come with me, young lady, I'll help you bring your typewriter in here for sake of convenience. Mr. Emmett and Mr. Rayfield are not moving about much, to-day."