"Very well," he said, "if you people think you can rough-house me I'll show you I can rough it, myself. I've tried to be friendly and to give you the best of it; but now it's all off, for good. I hate to fight a woman, but----"

"You do not!" she challenged. "You're a coward, that's what you are! And you can take your old stock back!"

She drew a package from her bosom and slammed it spitefully on the table and rushed out after her mother. Wiley picked up the envelope and regarded it absently, his lip curling to a twisted smile. It was the package of stock which he had bought from Death Valley Charley and returned, as a gift, to Virginia.

CHAPTER XVII

PEACE--AND THE PRICE

In the justice court at Vegas the Widow Huff met her match in the person of the magistrate, who warned her peremptorily that if she interrupted again he would commit her for contempt of court. Then the bailiff smote his desk a resounding blow and there was silence in the presence of the law. It was a new thing to her, this power called the law and that accuser of all offenders, The People; and before she had finished she learned the great truth that no one is above the law. It governs us all and, but for the mercy of the courts, would land most of our hot-heads in jail. But though it was proved beyond the peradventure of a doubt that the Widow had attempted violence it was tacitly understood that, being a woman, there would be no actual commitment.

Wiley Holman came forward and informed the court that the defendant had threatened his life and upon two occasions and had made a.s.saults upon his person with the avowed intention of killing him. Upon being questioned by the judge he admitted recognizing a shotgun, and three buckshot which had been extracted from his leg; but in a voluntary statement he expressed the opinion that the defendant was hardly responsible. At the same time, he stated, since his place of business was not far from the defendant's home, he would respectfully request that she be placed in custody and bound over to keep the peace. The testimony of the officer and of other witnesses left no doubt as to the existence of a threat and after the Widow had made a chastened speech she was placed in the custody of the sheriff.

To this humiliation was added the greater pang of depositing all her jewels with her bondsmen and when it was over and she was back in her home the Widow's proud spirit was broken. She retired to the kitchen and the balm of a great peace was laid upon tumultuous Keno. For years the bold ego of Colonel Huff's wife had dominated the very life of the camp, but the son of Honest John had at last found a way of putting her anger in leash. Rage as she might in the privacy of her kitchen, or pour out her woes to the neighbors, when Wiley Holman came by she turned away her face and allowed him to pa.s.s in silence. And Wiley himself never gave her a glance, nor Virginia when he met her in the street; for the memory of their insults was still hot in his brain, and all he asked for was peace.

He was safe, at last, safe to remodel the mill and bring up the ore from the mine; but as his work grew and prospered the anger died in his breast and his heart turned back to Virginia. She was quiet now, with averted eyes and the sad, brooding face of a nun; and she worked early and late in the crowded dining-room, serving meals to the hard-rock miners. He had closed down his cook-house to give them some patronage, when the first mad rush of prospectors was past; but though they fed his men and took the money that he had paid them, they owned no obligation to him.

In the Paymaster the pumps were working steadily now, clearing the water from the submerged pa.s.sages, and as the first checks came back in payment for his tungsten he ordered more timbers and men. There was plenty of ore on the dump for the moment but, while he separated it from the waste and shipped it to town, he caught up the falling ground in the drifts and prepared to stope out the scheelite. In the old, dismantled mill he had a crew working over-time, installing a rock-crusher and a concentrating plant; and every truck that brought out timbers and supplies took back its tons of ore. The price of tungsten leapt from forty dollars a unit to sixty and sixty-five, and rival buyers clamored for his ore; the mills treated it for almost nothing in order to get control of it and his credit was A1 at the bank--but when he pa.s.sed Virginia she turned her face away and his heart turned heavy as lead.

It was the price of success, and Wiley recognized it, but he rebelled against his fate. What fault was it of his that her father and his father had fallen out over the mine? He had shown by the stock that the treachery had been Blount's and neither of them was to blame. What fault was it of his that she had a shrewish mother who was bent upon ruining her life? Had he not endured abuse and suffered grievous wounds before he had a.s.serted his rights? And with Virginia herself, when had there ever been a time when he had forgotten his lover's part--except on that last day, when he had turned like a trodden worm and protested his right to live? And yet she blamed him for all her misfortunes and for every day that she slaved; and even took the stock which he had returned as a peace-offering and hurled it in his face!

Wiley's lips set grimly as he gazed at the certificates for which men had striven and died. There were some from her father, transferred on her birthdays when the stock was around thirty and forty; and others from old prospectors like Henry Masters, who had left it to Virginia when they died. She had sent it to him by Charley, out of shame for her harsh words, and he had bought it for four hundred dollars, half the money that he had in the world. Those had been happy days, in spite of the anxiety, for he had made the sacrifice for her; and to prove his devotion--and make a peace-offering against the explosion that was bound to come--he had given the stock back to Virginia. That was when he was a prospector, doing business on a shoe-string, a racing car and a diamond ring; but now when he had made his _coup_ and could write his check for thousands she threw the stock back in his face.

The stock had a value now for, under the terms of the bond and lease, one-tenth of the net mill returns were automatically withheld and turned in to the company as royalty; and if for any reason he failed to meet the payment when the fifty thousand-dollar option expired, then this stock and all Paymaster stock would take a sudden jump to five or ten dollars a share. And the stock was hers--she had received it from her father when he was the mining king of the West, and from old man Masters when he was dying in the cabin where she had helped to care for him for months--yet she would not accept it as a gift. Wiley pondered a long time and then, as Christmas drew near, he sent for Death Valley Charley.

"Charley," he began, when he came up that night, "did I understand you to say one time that you were acting as a kind of guardian to Virginia?

Well, now here's a bunch of stock that you sold to me once when you were slightly off your cabeza. There's over twelve thousand shares and all you asked was four hundred dollars, when you knew they were worth eight hundred at least."

"Yes, that's so," admitted Charley, blinking and rubbing his chin, "but you know them women, Wiley. They're crazy, that's all, and the Colonel he told me special not to let them lose their mine."

"Well, never mind the mine," said Wiley wincing. "I'm talking about this stock. Don't you think it's your duty, by George, as guardian, to turn around and buy it back? You've got five thousand dollars coming to you on those claims of yours and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'm short, right now on account of buying machinery, and so I can't pay you much cash; but if you'll take this stock back in part payment of your claims I'll give you four hundred more."

"Well, all right," agreed Charley after gazing at him thoughtfully, "but you ought to give back that mine. The Colonel, he told me----"

"What do you mean, give it back?" demanded Wiley, irritably. "It isn't my property yet. I've got to pay for it first and get it away from old Blount before I can give it to anybody. That's fifty thousand dollars that I've got to make clear between now and the twentieth of May; but believe me, Charley, if I once get it paid for I'm going to do something n.o.ble."

"That's good," a.s.sented Charley, "but you've got to pay me, right off--there's something going to happen!" His sun-dazed eyes opened up wide with excitement and he listened long and earnestly at the door before he tiptoed back to Wiley's desk. "I can hear 'em," he said.

"They're going to blow up the mine and shake the mountains down.

They're boring through the ground, but I can hear them working--it's like worms eating their way through wood."

"Is that so?" queried Wiley. "Well, maybe we can stop 'em. I'll look after it, right away. But now about this stock----"

"It's the Germans!" burst out Charley. "They've got boring machines that eat through mountains like wood. And then, _b.u.mm_, it's them mines, and the dynamite bombs----"

"Yes, it's awful," agreed Wiley, "but here's your money, Charley; so maybe you'd better go. And you keep this stock now, until it comes Christmas; and then, Christmas Eve, you slip into the house and put it in Virginia's stocking."

"Oh--yes," agreed Charley, still listening to the Germans and then he became lost in deep thought. "The Colonel will kill me," he said at last. "It's Christmas, and I ain't brought his whiskey."

"Why, what's the matter?" joshed Wiley. "Why didn't you deliver it? Did you get caught in a sandstorm, or what?"

"Yes, a sandstorm," answered Charley, solemnly. "It came down the valley like a wall. And my burros got away; but the Colonel, he found me--I was digging a hole in the sand."

"Say, where are these Ube-Hebes?" broke in Wiley impulsively. "I'd like to go over there some time."

"They're across Death Valley," answered Charley smiling craftily, "--on the west side, in the Funeral Range. The Coffin mine is there--I used to work in it--but they put me underground with a stiff for a pardner so I quit and come back to town."

"Yes, I heard about that; but you forgot something, Charley--how about that graveyard shift? But I'll tell you what I'll do, if you'll take me to the Colonel I'll help Virginia get back her mine."

He plumped the statement at him, for Charley was an innocent who spoke out the truth when he was jumped, but for once he detected the ruse.

"The Colonel's dead," he answered sulkily and picked up his hat to go.

"I doubt it!" scoffed Wiley. "I met a man the other day who said he'd seen him--in the Ube-Hebes mountains."

"He did?" exclaimed Charley, and then he drew back and his eyes flashed with angry resentment. "You're a liar!" he burst out. "The Colonel is dead. He never said anything of the kind."

"Yes, he did," insisted Wiley, "and you know the man well. He's got a little dog like Heine."

"He's a liar!" cried Charley savagely, "and don't you go to talking or I'll make you wish you hadn't."

"No, I won't," a.s.sured Wiley, "but here's the proposition--the Colonel left a lot of stock. And Mrs. Huff, being crazy, gave it all to Blount on a loan of eight hundred dollars. But if the Colonel should come back that transfer would be illegal and he could fix it to get back the mine.

So don't talk to me about giving Virginia her mine--you go out and bring in the Colonel."

"He's dead!" yelled Charley, scrabbling madly out the door. "You're a liar--I tell you he's dead!"

"Yes, he's dead," observed Wiley, "just the same as I am. I'll have to get old Charley drunk."

CHAPTER XVIII

ON CHRISTMAS DAY

Christmas came to Keno in a whirling snowstorm that shrouded Shadow Mountain in white and, as he stepped out in the morning and looked up at the peak, Wiley Holman felt a thrill of joy. The black shadow had bothered him, now that he had come to live under it; and a hundred times a day as it caught his eye he would glance up to find the dark cloud.

But now it was gone and in place of the lava cap there was a mantle of gleaming snow. He looked down at the town and, on every graceless house, there had been bestowed a crown of white; all the tin cans were buried, the burned spots were covered over, and Keno was almost beautiful. A family of children were out in the street, trying to coast in their new Christmas wagons, and Wiley smiled to himself.

He had brought back those children; he had brought the town to life and tenanted its vacant houses; and now, best of all, he had brought the spirit of Christmas, for he had sent a peace-offering to Virginia. She had spurned it once in the heat of pa.s.sion, and called him a coward and a crook; but that package of stock would recall to her mind a time when she had known him for a friend. It would bring up old memories of their boy-and-girl love, which she knew he had never forgotten, and if there was anything to forgive she would know that he remembered it when he sent this offering by Charley.

He was a crazy old rat, but he had his uses; and he had promised to give her the stock, without fail. It was to come, of course, from Charley himself, in atonement for selling it for nothing; but Virginia would know, even if she missed his flowered Christmas card, that the stock was a present from him. It had a value now far above the price he had paid for it when Charley had thrust it upon him and the dividend alone from the royalties on his lease would be twelve hundred dollars and more. And then her pro rata share, when he paid his fifty thousand dollars, would add another six hundred; and she knew that, for the asking, she could have half of what he had--or all, if she would take him, too.

Wiley looked down on the house that sheltered Virginia and smiled to think of her there. She was waiting on miners, but the time would come when someone would be waiting on her. In the back of his brain a bold plan had been forming to feed fat his grudge against Blount and restore the Huffs to their own--and it needed but a word from her to put the plan into action. He held from Blount two separate and distinct papers; one a bond and lease on the mine, the other an option on his personal stock. But to grant the bond and lease--with its option for fifty thousand--Blount had been compelled to vote the Widow's stock; and if that stock was not his and had been illegally voted, then of course the bond and lease would be void.

Yet even so he, Wiley Holman, had fully safeguarded his interests, for by his other option he could buy all Blount's stock for the sum of five cents a share. The four hundred thousand-odd shares would come to only twenty thousand dollars, as against fifty thousand on the bond and lease; and yet, by buying the stock at once, he could effectually debar Blount from any share in the acc.u.mulating profits. The small payments on past royalties and his five cents a share would be all that Blount would receive; and then he would be left, a spectacle for G.o.ds and men--a banker who had been beaten by a boy. It was the chicanery of Blount which had ruined his father and driven Colonel Huff to his death, and what could be better, as poetic justice, than to see him hoist on his own petard. And if the Colonel was not dead--as would appear from Charley's maunderings--if he could be discovered and brought back to town, then surely Virginia would forget the old feud and consent to be his wife. All this lay before him, a fairyland of imaginings, waiting only her magic touch to make it real; just a word, a smile, a promise of forgiveness--and of loyalty and love--and he, Wiley Holman, would go whirling on the errand that would win him wealth and renown.