"Ah, my dear Miss Fortune," he began propitiatingly, "I hope you will reconsider, I'm sure. It's a habit I have, when dictating a brief, to speak as though addressing the court. Perhaps, under the circ.u.mstances, you could take off your instrument and my voice would be--ahem--just about right."

"No! It drives me crazy!" she cried in a pa.s.sion. "It makes everybody think I'm so deaf!"

She broke down at that and McBain discreetly withdrew and was gone for the rest of the day. It was best, he had learned, when young women became emotional, to absent himself for a time. And the next day, sure enough, she came back, smiling cheerfully, and said no more of leaving her job. She was, in fact, more obliging than before and he judged that the tantrum had pa.s.sed.

With L. W., however, the case was different. He claimed to be an Indian in his hates; and a mining engineer, dropping in from New York, told a story that staggered belief. Rimrock Jones was there, the talk of the town, reputed to be enormously rich. He smoked fifty-cent cigars, wore an enormous black hat and put up at the Waldorf Hotel.

Not only that but he was in all the papers as a.s.sociating with the kings of finance. So great was his prestige that the engineer, in fact, had been requested to report on his mine.

"A report?" shouted L. W., "what, a report on the Tecolotes? Well, I can save you a long, dusty trip. In the first place Rimrock Jones is a thorough-paced scoundrel, not only a liar but a crook; and in the second place these claims are forty miles across the desert with just two sunk wells on the road. I wouldn't own his mines if you would make me a present of them and a million dollars to boot. I wouldn't take them for a gift if that mountain was pure gold--how's he going to haul the ore to the railroad? Now listen, my friend, I've known that boy since he stood knee-high to a toad and of all the liars in Arizona he stands out, preeminently, as the worst."

"You question his veracity, then?" enquired the engineer as he fumbled for some papers in his coat.

"Question nothing!" raved L. W. "I'm making a statement! He's not only a liar--he's a thief! He robbed me, the dastard; he got two thousand dollars of my money without giving me the scratch of a pen.

Oh, I tell you----"

"Well, that's curious," broke in the engineer as he stared at a paper, "he's got your name down here as a reference."

CHAPTER V

THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN

It is an engineer's duty, when he is sent out to examine a mine, to make a report on the property, regardless. The fact that the owner is a liar and a thief does not necessarily invalidate his claims; and an all-wise Providence has, on several occasions, allowed such creatures to discover bonanzas. So the engineer hired a team and disappeared on the horizon and L. W. went off buying cattle.

A month pa.s.sed by in which the derelictions of Rimrock were capped by the machinations of a rival cattle buyer, who beat L. W. out of a buy that would have netted him up into the thousands. Disgusted with everything, L. W. boarded the west-bound at Bowie Junction and flung himself into a seat in the half-empty smoker without looking to the right or left. He was mad--mad clear through--and the last of his cigars was mashed to a pulp in his vest. He had just made this discovery when another cigar was thrust under his nose and a familiar voice said:

"Try one of mine!"

L. W. looked at the cigar, which was undoubtedly expensive, and then glanced hastily across the aisle. There, smiling sociably, was Rimrock Jones.

L. W. squinted his eyes. Yes, Rimrock Jones, in a large, black hat; a checked suit, rather loud, and high boots. His legs were crossed and with an air of elegant enjoyment he was smoking a similar cigar.

"Don't want it!" snarled L. W. and, rising up in a fury, he moved off towards the far end of the car.

"Oh, all right," observed Rimrock, "I'll smoke it myself, then." And L. W. grunted contemptuously.

They rode for some hours across a flat, joyless country without either man making a move, but as the train neared Gunsight Rimrock rose up and went forward to where L. W. sat.

"Well, what're you all bowed up about?" he enquired bluffly. "Has your girl gone back on you, or what?"

"Go on away!" answered L. W. dangerously, "I don't want to talk to you, you thief!"

"Oh, that's what's the matter with you--you're thinking about the money, eh? Well, you always did hate to lose."

An insulting epithet burst from L. W.'s set lips, but Rimrock let it pa.s.s.

"Oh, that's all right," he said. "Never mind my feelings. Say, how much do you figure I owe you?"

"You don't owe me nothing!" cried L. W. half-rising. "You _stole_ from me, you scoundrel--I can put you in the Pen for this!"

"Aw, you wouldn't do that," answered Rimrock easily. "I know you too well for that."

"Say, you go away," panted L. W. in a frenzy, "or I'll throw you out of this car."

"No you won't either," said Rimrock truculently. "You'll have to eat some more beans before you can put _me_ on my back."

Rimrock squared his great shoulders and his eyes sparkled dangerously as he faced L. W. in the aisle.

"Now listen!" he went on after a tense moment of silence, "what's the use of making a row? I know I lied to you--I had to do it in order to get the money. I just framed that on purpose so I could get back to New York where a proposition like mine would be appreciated. I was a b.u.m, in Gunsight; but back in New York, where they think in millions, they treated me like a king."

"I don't want to talk to you," rumbled L. W. moving off, "you lied once too often, and I've _quit_ ye!"

"All right!" answered Rimrock, "that suits me, too. All I ask is--what's the damage?"

"Thirty-seven hundred and fifty-five dollars," snapped back L. W.

venomously, "and I'd sell out for thirty-seven cents."

"You won't have to," said Rimrock with business directness and flashed a great roll of bills.

"There's four thousand," he said, peeling off four bills, "you can keep the change for _pilon_."

There was one thing about L. W., he was a poker player of renown and accustomed to thinking quick. He took one look at that roll of bills and waved the money away.

"Nope! Keep it!" he said. "I don't want your money--just let me in on this deal."

"Huh!" grunted Rimrock, "for four thousand dollars? You must think I've been played for a sucker. No, four hundred thousand dollars wouldn't give you a look-in on the pot that I've opened this trip."

"W'y, you lucky fool!" exclaimed L. W. incredulously, his eyes still glued to the roll. "What's the proposition, Rimmy? Say, you know me, Rim!"

"Yeh! Sure I do!" answered Rimrock dryly, and L. W. turned from bronze to a dull red. "I know the whole bunch of you, from the dog robber up, and this time I play my own hand. I was a sucker once, but the only friends I've got now are the ones that stayed with me when I was down."

"But _I_ helped you, Rim!" cried L. W. appealingly. "Didn't I lend you money, time and again?"

"Yes, and here it is," replied Rimrock indifferently as he held out the four yellow bills. "You loaned me money, but you treated me like dirt--now take it or I'll ram it down your throat."

L. W. took the money and stood gnawing his cigar as the train slowed down for Gunsight.

"Say, come over to the bank--I want to speak to you," he said as they dropped off the train.

"Nope, can't stop," answered Rimrock curtly, "got to go and see my friends."

He strode off down the street and L. W. followed after him, beckoning feverishly to every one he met.

"Say, Rimrock's struck it rich!" he announced behind his hand and the procession fell in behind.

Straight down the street Rimrock went to the Alamo where old Ha.s.sayamp stood shading his eyes, and while the crowd gathered around them he took Ha.s.sayamp's hand and shook it again and again.