Shadow Mountain.

by Dane Coolidge.

CHAPTER I

THE LAST OF TEN THOUSAND

Under the rim of Shadow Mountain, embraced like a pearl of great price by the curve of Bonanza Point and the mined-out slope of Gold Hill, the deserted city of Keno lay brooding and silent in the sun. A dry, gusty wind, swooping down through the northern pa.s.s, slammed the great iron fire-doors that hung creaking from the stone bank building, caught up a cloud of sand and dirt and, whirling it down past empty stores and a.s.say offices, deposited it in the doorways of gambling houses and dance halls, long since abandoned to the rats. An old man, pottering about among the ruins, gathered up some broken boards and hobbled off; and once more Keno, the greatest gold camp the West has ever seen, sank back to silence and dreams.

A round of shots wakened the echoes of Shadow Mountain; a lonely miner came down the trail from Gold Hill, where in the old days the Paymaster had turned out its million a month; and then, far out across the floor of the desert on the road that led in from the railroad, there appeared an arrow-point of dust. It grew to a racing streak of white, the distant purring of the motor gave way to a deep-voiced thunder and as the powerful car glided swiftly up the street the doors of old houses opened unexpectedly and the last of ten thousand looked out.

There were old men and cripples, left stranded by the exodus; and prospectors who had moved into the vacant houses along with the other desert rats; but out on the gallery of the old Huff mansion--where the creepers still clung to the lattice--there was a flutter of white and a girl came out with a kitten in her arms. In the days of gold--when ten thousand men, the choice spirits of two hemispheres, had tramped down this same deserted street--the house of Colonel Huff, the discoverer of the Paymaster, had been the social center of Keno. And so it was still, for the Widow Huff remained; but across the front of the hospitable gallery where the Colonel had entertained the town, a cheap cloth sign announced meals fifty cents and Virginia, his daughter, was the waiter.

She stood by the sign, still high-headed and patrician, and when the driver of the car saw her he came to a sudden stop. He was long and gaunt, with deep lines around his mouth from bucking the wind and dust and after a moment's hesitation he threw on his brake and leapt out.

"Did you want something?" she asked and, glancing warily about, he nodded and came up the steps.

"Yes," he said, still eying her doubtfully, "what's the chance for something to eat?"

"Why, good," she answered with a suspicion of a smile. "Or--well, come in; I'll speak to mother."

She showed him into the s.p.a.cious dining room, where the Colonel had once presided in state, and hurried into the kitchen. The young man gazed after her, looked swiftly about the room and backed away towards the door; then his strong jaw closed down, he smiled grimly to himself and sat down unbidden at a table. The table was mahogany and, in a case against the wall, there was a scant display of cut gla.s.s; but the linen was worn thin and the expensive velvet carpet had been ruined by hob-nailed boots. Heavy workingmen's dishes lay on the tables, the plating was worn from the knives, and the last echoing ghost of vanished gentility was dispelled by a voice from the kitchen. It was the Widow Huff, once the first lady of Keno, but now a boarding-house cook.

"What--a dinner now? At half-past three? And with this wind fairly driving me crazy? Well, I can't _hire_ anybody to keep such hours for _me_ and----"

There was a murmur of low-voiced protest as Virginia pleaded his cause and then, as the Widow burst out anew, the young man pushed back his chair. His blue eyes, half hidden beneath bulging brows, turned a steely, fighting gray, his wind-blown hair fairly bristled; and as he listened to the last of the Widow's remarks his lower lip was thrust up scornfully.

"You danged old heifer," he muttered and then the kitchen door flew open. The baleful look which he had intended for the Widow was surprised on his face by Virginia and after a startled moment she closed the door behind her.

"Why--Wiley Holman!" she cried accusingly and a challenge leapt into his eyes.

"Well?" he demanded and gazed at her sullenly as she scanned him from head to foot.

"I knew it," she burst out. "I'd know that stubborn look anywhere! You double up your lip like your father. Honest John!" she added sarcastically and brushed some crumbs from the table.

"Yes--Honest John!" he retorted. "And you don't need to say it like that, either. He's my father--I know him--and I'll tell you right now he never cheated a man in his life."

"Well, he did!" she flared back, her eyes dark with anger, "and I'll bet--I'll bet if my father was here he'd--he'd prove it to your face!"

She ended in a sob and as he saw the tears starting the son of Honest John relented.

"Aw, Virginia," he pleaded, "what's the use of always fighting? He's gone now, so let's be friends. I was just going by when I saw you on the gallery, and I thought--well, let's you and I be friends."

"What? After old Honest John robbed Papa of the Paymaster, and then hounded him to his death on the desert?"

"He did nothing of the kind--he never robbed anybody! And as for hounding your father to his death, the Old Man never even knew about it.

He was down on the ranch, and when they told him the news----"

"Yes, that's you," she railed, stifling back her sobs, "you can always prove an alibi. But you'd better drift, Mr. Holman; because if mother knows you're here----"

"Well, what?" he demanded, truculently.

"She'll fill you full of buckshot."

"Pah!" he scoffed and snapped his fingers in the air, after which he lapsed into silence.

"Well, she will," she a.s.serted, after waiting for him to speak, but Wiley only grunted.

"Wait till I get that dinner," he said at last and slumped down into a chair. He muttered to himself, gazing dubiously towards the kitchen, and turned impatiently to look at some specimens in a case against the wall.

They were the usual chunks of high-grade gold ore, but he examined one piece with great care.

"Where'd you get this?" he asked, holding up a piece of white rock, and she sighed and brushed away her tears.

"Over on the dump," she answered wearily. "That's all Paymaster ore.

Don't you think you'd better go?"

"Never ran away yet," he answered briefly and balanced the rock in his hand. "Pretty heavy," he observed, "I'll bet it would a.s.say. Have you got very much on the dump?"

"What--_that_?" she cried, s.n.a.t.c.hing the specimen away from him and bursting into a nervous laugh. "That a.s.say? Well, you are a greenie--it's nothing but barren white quartz!"

"Oh, it is, eh?" he rejoined and gazed at her hectoringly. "You seem to know a whole lot about mineral."

"Yes, I do," she boasted. "Death Valley Charley teaches me. I've learned how to pan, and everything. But that rock there--that's the barren quartz that the Paymaster ran into when the values went out of the ore.

Old Charley knows all about it."

"Yes, they all do," he observed and as his lip went up her eyes dilated suddenly in a panic.

"Oh, you went to that school--I forgot all about it--where they study about the mines! Are you in the mining business now?"

"Why, yes," he acknowledged, "but that doesn't make much difference. I find I can learn something from most everybody."

"Well, of course, then," she stammered, "I shouldn't have said that; but the whole Paymaster dump is covered with that heavy quartz, and everybody knows it's barren. Are you just looking around or----"

She hesitated politely and as he reached for another specimen she noticed a ring on his finger. It was of ma.s.sive gold and, set in clutching claws, there were three stupendous diamonds. Not imitation stones nor small, off-colored diamonds, but brilliants of the very first water, clear as dew, yet holding in their hearts the faintest suggestion of blue.

"Oh!" she gasped, and as he did not seem to notice, she drew her skirts away with a flourish. "I'm surprised," she mocked, "that you condescend to speak to us--of course you own your own mines!"

"Nope," he replied, shrugging his shoulders at her sarcasm, "I'm nothing but a prospector, yet. And you don't need to be so surprised."

"No!" she retorted, giving way to swift resentment. "I guess I don't--when you consider how you got your money. Here's Mother out cooking for you, and I'm the waiter; and you're traveling around in racing cars with thousand-dollar rings on your hands. But if old Honest John hadn't sold all his stock while he was advising my father to hold on----"

"He did not!"

"Yes, he did! He did, too! And now, after Father has been lost in Death Valley, and we have come down to this, your father writes over and offers to buy our stock for just the same as nothing. That's _my_ ring you're wearing, and the money that paid for it----"

"Oh, all right then," he sneered, stripping off the ring and handing it abruptly over to her, "if it's your ring, take it! But don't you say my father----"

"Well, he did," she declared, "and you can keep your old ring! It won't bring back my father--now!"