She ended up strong, but Wiley sensed a touch and his expressions of sympathy were guarded.

"Now, you're a business man," she went on unheedingly. "I'll tell you what I'll do--you lend me the money to get back that stock and I'll sell it all to your father!"

"To my father!" echoed Wiley and then his face turned grim and he laughed at some hidden joke. "Not much," he said, "I like the Old Man too much. You'd better sell it back to Blount."

"To Blount? Why, hasn't your father been hounding me for months to get his hands on that stock? Well, I'd like to know then what you think you're doing? Have you gone back on your promise, or what?"

"I never made any promise," returned Wiley pacifically. "It was my father that made the offer."

"Oh, fiddlesticks!" exploded the Widow. "Well, what's the difference--you're working hand and glove!"

"Not at all," corrected Wiley, "the Old Man is raising cattle. You can't get him to look at a mine."

"Well, he offered to buy my stock!" exclaimed the Widow, badly fl.u.s.tered. "I'd like to know what this means?"

"It's no use talking," returned Wiley wearily, "I've told you a thousand times. If you send your stock to John Holman at Vegas, he'll give you ten cents a share; but _I_ won't give you a cent."

"Do you mean to say," demanded the Widow incredulously, "that you don't want that stock?"

"That's it," a.s.sented Wiley. "I've just sold my tax t.i.tle for a hundred dollars, to Blount."

"Oh, this will drive me mad!" cried the Widow in a frenzy. "Virginia, come in here and help me!"

Virginia came in with the steak slightly scorched and laid his dinner before Wiley. Her eyes were rather wild, for she had been listening through the doorway, but she turned to her mother inquiringly.

"He says he's sold his tax claim," wailed the Widow in despair, "for one hundred dollars--to Blount. And then he turns around and says his father will buy my stock for ten cents a share in cash. But he won't lend me the money to pay my note to Blount and get my Paymaster stock back."

"That's right," nodded Wiley, "you've got it all straight. Now let's quit before we get into a row."

He bent over the steak and, after a meaning look at Virginia, the Widow discreetly withdrew.

"We saw you fighting George," ventured Virginia at last as he seemed almost to ignore her presence. "Weren't you afraid he'd get mad and shoot you?"

"Uh, huh," he grunted, "wasn't I hiding behind Blount? No, I had him whipped from the start. Bad conscience, I reckon; these crooks are all the same--they're afraid to fight in the open."

"But _your_ conscience is all right, eh?" suggested Virginia sarcastically, and he glanced up from under his brows.

"Yes," he said, "we've got 'em there, Virginia. Are you still holding onto that stock?"

A swift flood of shame mantled Virginia's brow and then her dark eyes flashed fire.

"Yes, I've got it," she said, "but what's the answer when you sell out your tax claim to Blount?"

"I wonder," he observed and went on with his eating while she paced restlessly to and fro.

"You told me to hold it," she burst out accusingly, "and then you turn around and sell!"

"Well, why don't _you_ sell?" he suggested innocently, and she paused and bit her lip. Yes, why not? Why, because there were no buyers--except Wiley Holman and his father! The knowledge of her impotence almost drove her on to further madness, but another voice bade her beware.

He had given her his advice, which was not to sell, and--oh, that accursed a.s.sayer! If she had his report she could flaunt it in his face or--she caught her breath and smiled.

"No," she said, "you told me not to!"

And Wiley smiled back and patted her hand.

CHAPTER X

THE BEST HEAD IN TOWN

What was Wiley Holman up to? Virginia paced the floor in a very unloverlike mood; and at last she sat down and wrote a scathing letter to the a.s.sayer, demanding her a.s.say at once. She also enclosed one dollar in advance to test the sample for gold and silver and then, as an afterthought, she enclosed another bill and told him to test it for copper, lead, and zinc. There was something in that rock--she knew it just as well as she knew that Wiley was in love with her, and this was no time to pinch dollars. For ten years and more they had stuck there in Keno, waiting and waiting for something to happen, but now things had come to such a pa.s.s that it was better to know even the worst. For if the mine was barren and Wiley, after all, was only trying in his dumb way to help, then she must pocket her pride and sell him her stock and go away and hide her head. But if the white quartz was rich--well, that would be different; there would be several things to explain.

Yet, if the quartz was barren, why did Wiley offer to buy her stock, and if it was rich, why did he sell his tax deed? And if his father stood ready to pay ten cents a share for two hundred thousand shares of stock why did Wiley refuse to redeem her mother's holdings for a petty eight hundred dollars? He must have the money, for his diamond ring alone was worth well over a thousand dollars; and he had tried repeatedly to get possession of this same stock which he now refused to accept as a gift.

Virginia thought it over until her head was in a whirl and at last she stamped her foot. The a.s.say would tell, and if he had been trying to cheat her--she drew her lips to a thin, hard line and looked more than ever like her mother.

The work at the Paymaster went on intermittently, but Blount's early zest was lacking. For eight, yes, ten years he had waited patiently for the moment when he should get control of the mine; but now that he held it, without let or hindrance, somehow his enthusiasm flagged.

Perhaps it was the fact that the timbering was expensive and that his gropings for the lost ore body came to nothing; but in the back of his mind Blount's growing distrust dated from the day he had bought Wiley's quit-claim. Wiley had come to the mine full of fury and aggressiveness, as his combat with Stiff Neck George clearly showed; but after he had gone down and inspected the workings he had sold out for one hundred dollars. And Wiley Holman was a mining engineer, with a name for Yankee shrewdness--he must have had a reason.

Blount recalled his men from the drifts where they had been working and set them to crosscutting for the vein. It was too expensive, restoring all the square-sets and clearing out the fallen rock; and he had learned to his sorrow that Colonel Huff had blown up every heading with dynamite. In that tangle of shattered timbers and caved-in walls the miners made practically no progress, for the ground was treacherous and ten years under water had left the wood soft and slippery. To be sure the hidden chute lay at the breast of some such drift; but to clear them all out, with his limited equipment and no regular engineer in charge, would run up a staggering account. So Blount began to crosscut, and to sink along the contact, but chiefly to cut down expenses.

With the railroad that had tapped the camp torn up and hauled away, every foot of timber, every stick of powder, cost twice as much as it ought. And then there was machinery, and gas and oil for the engine, and valves and spare parts for the pumps, and the board of the men, and overhead expenses--and not a single dollar coming in. Blount sat up late in his office, adding total to total, and at the end he leaned back aghast. At the very inside it was costing him two hundred dollars for every day that he operated the mine. And what was it turning back?

Nothing. The mine had been gutted of every pound of ore that it would pay to sack and ship, and unless something was done to locate the lost ore body and give some guarantee of future values, well, the Paymaster would have to shut down. Blount considered it soberly, as a business man should, and then he sent for Wiley Holman.

There were others, of course, to whom he might appeal; but he sent for Wiley first. He was a mining engineer, he had had his eye on the property and--well, he probably knew something about the lost vein. So he sent a wire, and then a man; and at last Holman, M. E., arrived. He came under protest, for he had been showing a mine of his own to some four-buckle experts from the east, and when Blount made his appeal he snorted.

"Well, for the love of Miguel!" he exclaimed, starting up. "Do you think I'm going to help you for nothing? I'm a mining engineer, and the least it will cost you is five hundred dollars for a report. No, I don't think anything; and I don't know anything; and I won't take your mine on shares. I'm through--do you get me? I sold out my entire interest for one hundred dollars, cash. That puts me ahead of the game, up to date; and while I'm lucky I'll quit."

He stamped out of the office--Blount having moved into the bank building where he had formerly officiated as president--and made a break for his machine; but other eyes had marked his arrival in town and Death Valley Charley b.u.t.ton-holed him.

"Say," he said, "do you want something good--an option on ten first-cla.s.s claims? Well, come with me; I'll make you an offer that you can't hardly, possibly refuse."

He led Wiley up an alley, then whisked him around corners and back to his house behind the Widow's.

"Now, listen," he went on, when Wiley was in a chair and he had carefully fastened the door, "I'm going to show you something good."

He reached under his bed and brought out ten sacks of samples which he spread, one by one, on the table.

"Now, you see?" he said. "It's all that white quartz that you was after on the Paymaster dump. I followed the outcrop, on an extension of the Paymaster, and I took up ten, good, opened claims."

"Umm," murmured Wiley, and examined each sample with a careful, appraising eye. "Yes, pretty good, Charley; I suppose you guarantee the t.i.tle? Well, how much do you want for your claims?"

"Oh, whatever you say," answered Charley modestly, "but I want two hundred dollars down."

"And about a million apiece, I suppose, for the claims? It doesn't cost _me_ anything, you know, on an option."

"Eh, heh, heh," laughed Charley indulgently and Heine, who had been looking from face to face, jumped up and barked with delight. "Eh, heh; yes, that's good; but you know me, Mr. Holman--I ain't so crazy as they think. No, I don't talk millions with my mouth full of beans; all I want is five hundred apiece. But I got to have two hundred down."