"Fifty thousand!" he exclaimed. "Only fifty thousand dollars? Well! What were the circ.u.mstances, Wiley?"

He stood expectant and as Wiley boggled and hesitated Virginia rose up and stood beside him.

"He got the bond and lease from Blount," she began, talking rapidly, "and when Blount found that the white quartz was tungsten ore, he did all he could to block Wiley. When Wiley first came through the town and stopped at our house he knew that that white quartz was tungsten; but he couldn't do anything, then. And then, by-and-by, when he tried to bond the mine, Blount came up himself and tried to work it."

"He did, eh?" cried the Colonel. "Well, by what right, I'd like to know, did he dare to take possession of the Paymaster?"

"Oh, he'd bought up all the stock; and Mother, she took yours and----"

"What?" yelled the Colonel, and then he closed down his jaw and his blue eyes sparkled ominously. "Proceed," he said. "The information, first--but, by the G.o.ds, he shall answer for this!"

"But all the time," went on Virginia hastily, "the mine belonged to Wiley. It had been sold for taxes--and he bought it!"

"Ah!" observed the Colonel, and glanced at him shrewdly for he saw now where the tale was going.

"Well," continued Virginia, "when Blount saw Wiley wanted it he came up and took it himself. And he hired Stiff Neck George to herd the mine and keep Wiley and everybody away. But when he was working it, why Wiley came back and claimed it under the tax sale; and he went right up to the mine and took away George's gun--and kicked him down the dump!"

"He did!" exclaimed the Colonel, but Wiley did not look up, for his mind was on the end of the tale.

"And then--oh, it's all mixed up, but Blount couldn't find any gold and so he leased the mine to Wiley. And the minute he found that the white quartz was tungsten, and worth three dollars a pound, he was mad as anything and did everything he could to keep him from meeting the payment. But Wiley went ahead and shipped a lot of ore and made a lot of money in spite of him. He cleaned out the mine and fixed up the mill and oh, Father, you wouldn't know the place!"

"Probably not!" returned the Colonel, "but proceed with your story. Who holds the Paymaster, now?"

"Why Blount, of course, and he's moved back to town and is simply shoveling out the ore!"

"The scoundrel!" burst out the Colonel. "Wiley, we will return to Keno immediately and bring this blackguard to book! I have a stake in this matter, myself!"

"Nope, not for me!" answered Wiley wearily. "You haven't heard all the story. I fell down on the final payment--it makes no difference how--and when I came back Blount had jumped the mine and Stiff Neck George was in charge. But instead of warning me off he hid behind a car and--well, I don't care to go back there, now."

"Why, certainly! You must!" declared the Colonel warmly. "You were acting in self defense and I consider that your conduct was justified.

In fact, my boy, I wish to congratulate you--Charley tells me he had the drop on you."

"Yes, sure," grumbled Wiley, "but you aren't the judge--and there's a whole lot more to the story. It happens that I took an option on Blount's Paymaster stock, but when I offered the payment he protested the contract and took the case to court. Now--he's got the town of Vegas in his inside vest pocket, the lawyers and judges and all; and do you think for a minute he's going to let me come back and take away those four hundred thousand shares?"

"Four hundred thousand?" repeated the Colonel incredulously, "do you mean to tell me----"

"Yes, you bet I do!" said Wiley, "and I'll tell you something else.

According to the dates on the back of those certificates it was Blount that sold you out. He sold all his promotion stock before the panic; and then, when the price was down to nothing, he turned around and bought it back. I knew from the first that he'd lied about my father and I kept after him till I got my hands on that stock--and then, when I'd proved it, he tried to put the blame on you!"

"The devil!" exclaimed the Colonel, and paced up and down, snapping his fingers and muttering to himself. "The cowardly dastard!" he burst out at last. "He has poisoned ten years of my life. I must hurry back at once and go to John Holman and apologize to him publicly for this affront. After all the years that we were pardners in everything, and then to have me doubt his integrity! He was the soul of honor, one man in ten thousand; and yet I took the word of this lying Blount against the man I called My Friend! I remember, by gad, as if it were yesterday, the first time I really knew your father; and Blount was squeezing me, then. I owed him fifteen thousand dollars on a certain piece of property that was worth fifty thousand at least; and at the very last moment, when he was about to foreclose, John Holman loaned me the money. He mortgaged his cattle at the other bank and put the money in my hand, and Blount cursed him for an interfering fool! That was Blount, the Shylock, and Honest John Holman; and I turned against my friend."

"Yes, that's right," agreed Wiley, "but if you want to make up for it, make 'em quit calling him 'Honest John'!"

"No, indeed," cried the Colonel, his voice tremulous with emotion. "He shall still be called Honest John; and if any man doubts it or speaks the name fleeringly he shall answer personally to me. And now, about this stock--what was that, Virginia, that you were saying about my holdings?"

"Why, Mother put them up as collateral on a loan, and Blount claimed them at the end of the first month."

"All my stock? Well, by the horn-spoon--how much did your mother borrow?

Eight--hundred? Eight hundred dollars? Well, that is enough, on the face of it--but never mind, I will recover the stock. It is certainly a revelation of human nature. The moment I am reported dead, these vultures strip my family of their all."

"Well, I was one of them," spoke up Wiley bluntly, "but you don't need to blame my father. When I was having trouble with Mrs. Huff he wrote up and practically disowned me."

"So you were one of them," observed the Colonel mildly. "And you had trouble with Mrs. Huff? But no matter?" he went on. "We can discuss all that later--now to return to this lawsuit, with Blount. Do I understand that you had an option on his entire four hundred thousand shares?"

"For twenty thousand dollars," answered Wiley, "and he was glad to get it--but, of course, when I opened up that big body of tungsten, the stock was worth into millions. That is, if he could keep me from making both payments. He fought me from the start, but I put up the twenty thousand; and the clerk of the court is holding it yet, unless the case is decided. But Blount knew he could beat it, if he could keep me from buying the mine under the terms of my bond and lease; and now that he's in possession, taking out thirty or forty thousand every day, I'm licked before I begin. In fact, the case is called already and lost by default if I know that blackleg lawyer of mine."

"But hire a good lawyer!" protested the Colonel. "A man has a right to his day in court and you have never appeared."

"No, and I never will," spoke up Wiley despondently. "There's a whole lot to this case that you don't know. And the minute I appear they'll arrest me for murder and railroad me off to the Pen. No, I'm not going back, that's all."

"But Wiley," reasoned the Colonel, "you've got great interests at stake--and your father will help you, I'm sure."

"No, he won't," declared Wiley. "There isn't anybody that can help me, because Blount is in control of the courts. And I might as well add that I was run out of Vegas by a Committee appointed for the purpose." He rose up abruptly, rolling his sullen eyes on Virginia and the Colonel alike. "In fact," he burst out, "I haven't got a friend on the east side of Death Valley Sink."

"But on the west side," suggested the Colonel, drawing Virginia to his side, "you have two good friends that I know----"

"Wait till you hear it all," broke in Wiley, bitterly, "and you're likely to change your mind. No, I'm busted, I tell you, and the best thing I can do is drift and never come back."

"And Virginia?" inquired the Colonel. "Am I right in supposing----"

"No," he flared up. "Friend Virginia has quit me, along with----"

"Why, Wiley!" cried Virginia, and he started and fell silent as he met her reproachful gaze. For the sake of the Colonel they were supposed to be lovers, whose quarrel had been happily made up, but this was very unloverlike.

"Well, I don't deserve it," he muttered at last, "but friend Virginia has promised to stay with me."

"Yes, I'm going to stay with him," spoke up Virginia quickly, "because it was all my fault. I'm going to go with him, father, wherever he goes and----"

"G.o.d bless you, my daughter!" said the Colonel, smiling proudly, "and never forget you're a Huff!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE FIERY FURNACE

To be a Huff, of course, was to be brave and true and never go back on a friend; but as the Colonel that evening began to speak on the subject, Virginia crept off to bed. She was tired from her night trip across the Sink of Death Valley, with only Crazy Charley for a guide; but it was Wiley, the inexorable, who drove her off weeping, for he would not take her hand. His mind was still fixed on the Gethsemane of the soul that he had gone through in Blount's bank at Vegas, and strive as she would she could not bring him back to play his poor part as lover. Whether she loved him or not was not the question--not even if she was willing to throw away her life by following him in his wanderings. Three times he had trusted her and three times she had played him false--and was that the honor of the Huffs?

She was penitent now and, in the presence of her father, more gentle and womanly than seemed possible; but next week or next month or in the long years to come, was she the woman he could trust? They pa.s.sed before his eyes in a swift series of images, the days when he had trusted her before; and always, behind her smile, there was something else, something cold and calculating and unkind. Her eyes were soft now, and gentle and imploring, but they had looked at him before with scorn and hateful laughter, when he had staked his soul on her word. He had trusted her--too far--and before Blount and all his sycophants she had made him a mock and a reviling.

The Colonel was talking, for his mood was expansive, but at last he fell silent and waited.

"Wiley, my boy," he said when Wiley looked up, "you must not let the past overmaster you. We all make mistakes, but if our hearts are right there is nothing that should cause vain regrets. I judged from what you said once that your present disaster is due to a misplaced trust--in fact, if I remember, to a woman. But do not let this treachery, this betrayal of a trust, turn your mind against all womankind. I have known many n.o.ble and high-minded women whom I would trust with my very life; and since Virginia, as I gather, has offered to bind up your wounds, I hope you will not remain embittered. She is my daughter, of course, and my love may have blinded me; but in all the long years she has been at my side, I can think of no instance in which she has played me false. Her nature is pa.s.sionate, and she is sometimes quick to anger, but behind it all she is devotion itself and you can trust her absolutely."

He paused expectantly, but as Wiley made no response he rose up and knocked out his pipe.

"Well, good night," he said. "It is time we were retiring if we are to cross the Valley to-morrow. Have a drink? Well, all right; it's just as well. You're a good boy, Wiley; I'm proud of you."