Wiley rose up breathlessly and took down the receiver but no one answered his call. The 'phone was dead and yet it had rung--or was it only a dream? He hung up in disgust and went back to bed but something drew him back to the 'phone. He held down the hook and, with the receiver to his ear, let the lever rise slowly up. There was talking going on and men laughing in hoa.r.s.e voices and the tramp of feet to and fro, but no one responded to his shouts. He hung up once more and then suddenly it came over him, a foreboding of impending disaster. Something was wrong, something big that must be stopped at once; and a voice called insistently for action. He leapt into his clothes and started for the door--then turned back and strapped on his pistol. As the sun rose up he was a speck in the desert, rushing on through a blood-red sea.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE THUNDER CLAP

The broad streets of Vegas were swarming with traffic as Wiley glided swiftly into town and he noticed that people looked at him curiously.

Perhaps it was all imagination but it seemed to him they eyed him coldly. Yet what they thought or felt was nothing to him then--his business was with Samuel J. Blount. The mine was unprotected--he had not even told his foreman that he was leaving, or where he was going--and there was no time for anything but business. If there was any trouble for him, Samuel J. Blount was at the bottom of it, and he drove straight up to the bank. It was a huge, granite structure with ma.s.sive onyx pillars and smiling young clerks at the grilles; but he hurried past them all and turned down a hall to a room that was marked: President--Private. This was no time for dallying or sending in cards--he opened the door and stepped in.

Samuel Blount was sitting at the head of a table with other men grouped about him, but as Wiley Holman entered they were silent. He glanced at Blount and then again at the men--they were the directors of the Paymaster Mining and Milling Company!

"Good morning, Mr. Holman," spoke up Blount with asperity. "Please wait for me out in the hall."

"Since when?" retorted Wiley and then, leaping to the point, "what about that deed to the Paymaster?"

"Why--you must be misinformed," replied Blount slowly, at the same time pressing a b.u.t.ton, "this is a meeting of the Board of Directors."

"So I see," returned Wiley, "but I sent the money by Virginia to take up the option on the mine. Did you receive it or did you not?"

A broad-shouldered man, very narrow between the eyes, came in and stood close to Wiley, and Blount smiled and cleared his throat.

"No," he said, "we did not receive it?"

"Oh, you didn't, eh?" said Wiley, glancing up at the janitor. "Perhaps you will tell me if it was offered to you?"

"No, it was not offered to us," replied Blount, smiling blandly, "although Miss Huff did make a deposit."

"Of fifty thousand dollars?"

"No, it was more than that--fifty-two, I believe. It was deposited to your account."

"Oh," observed Wiley, and looked them over again as the directors turned around to scowl. "Well, perhaps I can see Miss Huff?"

"She is not here at present," replied Blount with finality, "and so I must ask you to withdraw."

"Just a moment," said Wiley, as the janitor moved expectantly. "I came here on a matter of business with you and this Board of Directors and, since the matter is urgent, I must request an immediate hearing. You don't need to be alarmed--all I want is my answer and then I'll leave you alone. In the first place, Mr. Blount, will you please tell me the circ.u.mstances under which this deposit was made? I gave Miss Huff instructions to offer the money to you in payment for the Paymaster Mine."

"Oh! Instructions, eh?" piped Blount with a satirical smile, and the Board stirred and nodded significantly. "Well, since you've just come in and are evidently unaware of the wide interest that has been taken in this case, I'll tell you a few things, Mr. Holman. The people of this town do not approve of the manner in which you have treated Mrs. Huff; and as for your 'instructions' to Virginia, let me tell you right now that we have saved her from becoming your victim."

"My victim!" repeated Wiley, moving swiftly towards him, but the janitor caught him by the arm.

"Yes, your victim," answered Blount with a venomous sneer, "or, at least, your intended victim. The people of Vegas had nothing to say when you deprived Virginia and her mother of their livelihood--it was your privilege as lessee of the mine to board your own men if you chose--but when you had the effrontery to send Virginia to this Board with 'instructions' to jeopardize her own interests, we felt called on to interfere."

"Why, you're crazy!" burst out Wiley. "What interests did she jeopardize by making that payment for me? As a matter of fact it was just the contrary--I gave her the money to get back the stock that you had practically stolen from her mother!"

"Now! Now!" spoke up Blount, "we won't have any personalities, or I'll ask Mr. Jepson to remove you. You must know if you know anything that Virginia herself had over twelve thousand shares of stock; while her mother left with me, as collateral on a note, more than two hundred thousand shares more. Yet you asked this innocent girl, who trusted you so fully, to wipe out her whole inheritance at one blow. You asked her to come here and make a payment that would beat her out of half a million dollars--_for fifty thousand dollars!_"

He paused and the men about the table murmured threateningly among themselves.

"And now!" went on Blount with heavy irony, "you come here and ask for your deed!"

"Yes, you bet I do!" snapped back Wiley, "and I'm going to get it, too.

If Virginia came here and offered you that money, that's enough, in the eyes of the law. It was a legal payment under a legal contract, entered into by this Board of Directors; and I call you gentlemen to witness that she came here and offered the money."

"She came to _me_!" corrected Blount, "and in no wise as the President of this Board!"

"Well, you're the man that I told her to go to--and if she offered you the money, that's enough!"

"Oh, it's enough, is it? Well, it may be enough for you, but it is not enough for the citizens of this town. We have organized a committee, of which Mr. Jepson is a member, to escort you out of Vegas; and I would say further that your bond and lease has lapsed and the Company will take over the mine."

"We'll discuss that later," returned Wiley grimly, "but I'll tell you right now that there aren't men enough in Vegas to run me out of town--not if you call in the whole town and the Janitors' Union--so don't try to start anything rough. I'm a law-abiding citizen, and I know my rights, and I'm going to see this through." He put his back to the wall and the burly Jepson took the hint to move further away.

"Now," said Wiley, "if we understand each other let's get right down to bra.s.s tacks. It's all very well to organize Vigilance Committees for the protection of trusting young ladies, but you know and I know that this is a matter of business, involving the t.i.tle to a mine. And I'd like to say further that, when a Board of Directors talks a messenger out of her purpose and persuades her to disregard her instructions----"

"Instructions!" bellowed Blount.

"Yes--instructions!" repeated Wiley, "--instructions as my agent. I sent Miss Huff down here to make this payment and I gave her instructions regarding it."

"Do you realize," bl.u.s.tered Blount, "that if she had followed those instructions she would have defrauded her own mother out of millions; that she would have ruined her own life and conferred her father's fortune upon the very man who was deceiving her?"

"No, I do not," replied Wiley, "but even if I did, that has nothing to do with the case. As to my relations with Miss Huff, I am fully satisfied that she has nothing of which to complain; and since it was you, and the rest of the gang, who stood to lose by the deal, your indignation seems rather far-fetched. If you were sorry for Miss Huff and wished to help her you have abundant private means for doing so; but when you dissuade her from her purpose in order to save your own skin you go up against the law. I'm going to take this to court and when the evidence is heard I'm going to prove you a bunch of crooks. I don't believe for a minute that Virginia turned against me. I know that she offered you the money."

"Oh, you know, do you?" sneered Blount as his Directors rallied about him. "Well, how are you going to prove it?"

"By her own word!" said Wiley. "I know her too well. You just talked her out of it, afterward."

"So you think," taunted Blount, "that she offered the money in payment, and demanded the delivery of the deed? And will you stand or fall on her testimony?"

"Absolutely!" smiled Wiley, "and if she tells me she didn't do it I'll never take the matter into court."

"Very well," replied Blount and turned towards the door, but the Directors rushed in and caught him. They thrust their heads together in a whispered, angry conference, now differing among themselves and now flying back to catch Blount, but in the end he shook them all off. "No, gentlemen," he said, "I have absolute confidence in the justice of my case. If you stand to lose a little I stand to lose a great deal--and I know she never asked for that deed!"

"Well, bring her in, then," they conceded reluctantly, and turned venomous eyes upon Wiley. They knew him, and they feared him, and especially with this girl; for he was smiling and waiting confidently.

But Blount was their czar, with his great block of stock pitted against their tiny holdings, and they sat down to await the issue.

She came at last, ushered in through the back door by Blount, who smiled benevolently; and her eyes leapt on the instant to meet Wiley's.

"Here is Miss Huff," announced Blount deliberately and the light died in Wiley's shining eyes. He had waited for her confidently, but that one defiant flash told him that Virginia had turned against him. She had thrown in her lot with Blount, and against her lover, and by her word he must stand or fall. She had been his agent, but if she had not carried out her trust---- "Any questions you would like to ask," went on Blount with ponderous calm, "I am sure Virginia will answer."

He turned rea.s.suringly and she nodded her head nervously, then stepped out and stood facing Wiley.

"It is a question," began Wiley, speaking like one in a dream, "of the way you paid Mr. Blount that money. When you took it to him first, before they had talked to you, did you tell him it was my payment on the option?"

Virginia glanced at Blount, then she took a deep breath and drew herself up very straight.

"No," she said, "I spoke to him first about buying back father's stock."