CHAPTER VII
BETWEEN FRIENDS
The madness of the Widow and Old Charley and Stiff Neck George was nomystery to Wiley Holman--it was the same form of mania which heencountered everywhere when he went to see men who owned mines. If heoffered them a million for a ten-foot hole they would refuse it anddemand ten million more, and if he offered them nothing theyimmediately scented a conspiracy to starve them out and gainpossession of their mine. It was the illusion of hidden wealth, ofburied treasure, which keeps half the mines in the West closed downand half of the rest in litigation; except that in Keno it seemed tobe associated with gun-plays and a marked tendency towards homicide.So, upon his return from a short stay in the hospital he came up themain street silently, then stepped on the throttle and went throughtown a-smoking. But the Widow was out waiting for him in the middle ofthe road and, rather than run her down, he threw on both brakes andstopped.
"Well, what now?" he inquired, frowning at the odor of heated rubber."What's your particular grievance this trip?" He regarded her coldly,then bowed to Virginia and waved a friendly hand at Charley. "Hello,there, Death Valley," he called out jovially, as the Widow choked with arush of words, "what's the news from the Funeral Range?"
"Now, here!" exclaimed the Widow, advancing from the dust cloud, andglancing into the machine. "I want you to bring back that gun!"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Huff," he replied with finality, "but you'll have toget along without it. I turned it over to the sheriff, along with threebuckshot and an affidavit regarding the shooting----"
"What, you great, big coward!" stormed the Widow in a fury. "Did you runand complain to the sheriff?"
"No, I walked," said Wiley, "and on one leg at that. But I might as wellwarn you that next time you make a gun-play you're likely to break intojail."
"You're a coward!" she taunted. "You're standing in with Blount to beatme out of my mine. First you sneak off with my gun, so I can't protectmy rights, and then Stiff Neck George comes up and jumps the Paymaster!"
"The hell!" burst out Wiley, rising up in his seat and looking across atthe mine.
"Yes, the hell," she returned, "and he's warned off all comers and isholding the mine for Blount!"
"For Blount!" he echoed and, seeing him roused at last, the Widow becamesubtly provocative.
"For Samuel J. Blount," she repeated impressively. "He--he's got all mystock on a loan."
"Oh!" observed Wiley, and as she raved on with her story he rubbed hischin in deep thought.
"Yes, I went down to see him and he wouldn't buy it, so I left it ascollateral on a loan. And then he came out here and looked over the mineagain and told Stiff Neck George to stand guard. They're fixing to pumpout the water."
"Oho!" exclaimed Wiley, and his eyes began to kindle as he realized whatBlount had done. Then reaching for the pistol that lay handy beside hisleg, he leapt out with waspish quickness, only to stop short as he hurthis lame foot.
"Go on!" hissed the Widow, advancing to his shoulder and pointing theway up the trail. "He stays right there by the dump. The mine is yours;go put him off--I would, if I had my gun."
"Aw, pfooey!" he exclaimed, suddenly turning back and clamoring into hisseat. "I've got one game leg already. Let 'im have the doggoned mine."
"What? Are you going to back out? Well, you are a good one--and itstands in your name, this minute!"
"Yes, and it isn't worth--that!" he said with conviction, and snappedhis finger in the air. "He can have it. You can tell Blount, the nexttime you see him, he can buy in that tax title for the costs."
He paused and muttered angrily, gazing off towards the dump wherecrooked-necked George stood guard, and then he hopped out to crank up.
"Want a ride?" he asked, as he saw Virginia watching him and shehesitated and shook her head. "Come on," he smiled, casting aside hisblack mood, "let's take a little spin--just down on the desert and back.What's going on--getting ready to move?"
He gazed with alarm at a pile of packing boxes that the Widow hadmarshaled on the gallery and then he looked back at Virginia. She wasattired in a gown that had been very chic in the fall of nineteen ten,but, though it was scant for these bouffant days, she was the oldVirginia still--slim and strong and dainty, and highbred in every line,with dark eyes that mirrored passing thoughts. She was the Virginia hehad played with when Keno was booming and his own sisters had been therefor company; and now after ten years he remembered the time when he hadasked her, in vain, for a kiss.
"I've got something to tell you," he said at last and Virginia steppedinto the racer.
"Virginia!" reminded the Widow, and then at a glance she turned roundand flung into the house. There were times and occasions when she hadfound it safer not to press her maternal authority too far, and the lookthat she received was first notice from Virginia that such an occasionhad arrived. The motor began to thunder, Wiley threw in the clutch, andwith a speed that was startling, they whipped a sudden circle and wentbubbling away down the road.
It stretched on endlessly, this road across the desert, as straight as asurveyor's line, and as they cleared the rough gulches and glided downinto its immensity Virginia glanced at the desert and sighed.
"Pretty big," he suggested and as she nodded slowly he raised his eyesto the hills. "I don't know," he went on, "whether you'll like LosAngeles. You'll get lonely for this, sometimes."
"Yes, but not for that"--she jerked a thumb back at Keno--"that place ispretty small. What's left, of course; but it seems to me sometimesthey're all of them lame, halt and blind. Always quarreling andbackbiting and jumping each other's claims--but--what do you think ofthe Paymaster?"
She shot the question at him and it occurred suddenly to Wiley thatperhaps she had a programme, too.
"Well, I'll tell you," he began, deftly changing his ground, "I'm inDutch on that, all around. When I came home full of buckshot and the OldMan heard about it I got my orders to come back and apologize. Well,I'll do that--to you--and you can tell your mother I'm sure sorry I wentup on that dump."
He grinned and motioned to his injured foot, but Virginia was in no moodfor a joke.
"That's all right," she said, "and I accept your apology--though I don'tknow exactly what it's for. But I asked your opinion of the Paymaster."
"Oh, yes," he replied and then he began to temporize. "You'd better tellme what you want it for, first."
"What? Do you have one opinion for one set of people and another forsomebody else? I thought!"---- She paused and the hot blood leapt to hercheeks as she saw where her temper had led her. "Well," she explained,"I've got a few shares of stock."
She said it quietly and the suggestion of scolding gave way to achastened appeal. She remembered--and he sensed it--that winged shaftwhich he had flung back when she had said he was honest, like hisfather. He had told her then she was becoming like her mother, andVirginia could never endure that.
"Ah, I see," he answered and went on hurriedly with a new note offriendliness in his voice. "Well, I'll tell you, Virginia, if it will beany accommodation to you I'll take over that stock myself. But--well, Ihate to advise you--because--how many shares have you got?"
"Oh, several thousand," she responded casually. "They were given to meby father--and by different men that I've helped. Mr. Masters, you know,that I took care of for a while, he gave me all he had when he died. ButI don't want to sell them--I know there's no market, because Blountwouldn't give Mother anything--but if he should happen to strikesomething----"
She glanced across at him swiftly but Wiley's face was grim.
"Yes, _him_ find anything!" he jeered. "That fat-headed old tub! Heknows about as much about mining as a hog does about the precession ofthe equinox. No; miracles may happen but, short of that, he'll never getback a cent!"
"No, but Wiley," she protested, "you know as well as I do that thePaymaster isn't worked out. Now what's to prevent my stock becomingvaluable sometime when they open it up?"
"What's to prevent?" he repeated. "Well, I'll tell
you what. If Blountmakes a strike he'll close that mine down and send the company throughbankruptcy. Then he'll buy the mine back on a judgment and you'll beleft without a cent."
"But what about you?" she suggested shrewdly. "Will you let him serve_you_ like that?"
"Don't you think it!" he answered. "I know him too well--my money issomewhere else."
"But if you should buy the mine?"
"Well----" he stirred uneasily and then shot his machine ahead--"Ihaven't bought it yet."
"No, but you offered to, and I don't see why----"
"Do you want to sell your stock?" he asked abruptly and she flushed andshook her head. "Well!" he said and without further comment he sloweddown and swung about.
"Oh, dear," she sighed, as they started back and he turned upon herswiftly.
"Do you know why I wouldn't have that mine," he inquired, "if you'd handit to me as a gift? It's because of this everlasting fight. I own it,right now, if anybody does, and I've never been down the shaft. Nowsuppose I'd go over there and shoot it out with George and getpossession of my mine. First Blount would come up with some other hiredman-killer and I'd have a bout with him; and then your respectedmother----"
"Now you hush up!" she chided and he closed down his jaw like asteel-trap. She watched him covertly, then her eyes began to blink andshe turned her head away. The desert rushed by them, worlds of waxygreen creosote bushes and white, gnarly clumps of salt bush; andstraight ahead, frowning down on the forgotten city, rose the blackcloud-shadow of Shadow Mountain.
"Oh, turn off here!" she cried, impulsively as they came to a fork inthe road and, plowing up the sand, he skidded around a curve andstruck off up the Death Valley road. They came together at the edge ofthe town--the long, straight road to the south, and the road-trailthat led west into the silence. There were no tracks in it now but theflat hoof-prints of burros and the wire-twined wheel-marks of desertbuckboards; even the road was half obliterated by the swoop of thewinds which had torn up the hard-packed dirt, yet the going was goodand as the racer purred on Virginia settled back in her seat.
"I can't believe it," she said at last, "that we're going to leave here,forever. This is the road that Father took when he left home that lasttime--have you ever been over into Death Valley? It's a great, bigsink, all white with salt and borax; and at the upper end, where he wentacross, there are miles and miles of sand-hills. He's buried out theresomewhere, and the hills have covered him--but oh, it's so awfullonesome!"
She turned away again and as her head went down Wiley stared straightahead and blinked. He had known the Colonel and loved him well, and hisfather had loved him, too; but that rift had come between them and untilit was healed he could never be a friend of Virginia's. She distrustedhim in everything--in his silence and in his speech, his laughter andhis anger, in his evasions and when he talked straight--it was better tosay nothing now. He had intended to help her, to offer her money or anyassistance he could give; but her heart was turned against him and themost he could hope for was to get back to Keno without a quarrel. Thedivide was far ahead, where the road struck the pass and swung over anddown into the Great Valley; and, glancing up at the sun, he turnedaround slowly and rumbled back into town. Shadow Mountain rose beforethem; it towered above the valley like a brooding image of hate but ashe smiled farewell at the sad-eyed Virginia something moved him to takeher hand.
"Good-by," he said, "you'll be gone when I come back. But if you getinto trouble--let me know."
He gave her hand a squeeze and Virginia looked at him sharply, then shelet her dark lashes droop.
"I'm in trouble now," she said at last. "What good did it do to tellyou?"
He winced and shrugged his shoulders, then gazed at her again with achallenge in his eyes.
"If you'd trust _me_ more," he said very slowly, "perhaps I'd trust_you_ more. What is it you want me to do?"
"I want you to answer me--yes or no. Shall I keep my stock, or sell it?"
"You keep it," he answered, and avoided her eye until she climbed outand entered the house.