Shadow Mountain Part 11

"Oh," observed Wiley, "that's two dollars for the marriage license and the rest for the wedding journey. Well, if it's as serious as that----"

He reached for his check-book and Charley cackled with merriment.

"Yes, yes," he said, "then I _would_ be crazy. Do you know what the Colonel told me?

"'Charley,' he says, 'whatever you do, don't marry no talking woman.

She'll drive you crazy, the same as I am; but don't you forget that whiskey.'"

"Oh, sure," exclaimed Wiley, beginning to write out the option, "this money is to buy whiskey for the Colonel!"

"That's it," answered Charley. "He's over across Death Valley--in the Ube-Hebes--but I can't find my burros. They--Heine, come here, sir!"

Heine came up cringing and Charley slapped him soundly. "Shut up!" he commanded and as Heine crept away Death Valley began to mutter to himself. "No, of course not; he's dead," he ended ineffectively, and Wiley looked up from his writing.

"Who's dead?" he inquired, but Charley shook his head and listened through the wall.

"Look out," he said, "I can hear her coming--jest give me that two hundred now."

"Well, here's twenty," replied Wiley, pa.s.sing over the money, and then there came a knock at the door.

"Come in!" called out Charley and, as he motioned Wiley to be silent, Virginia appeared in the doorway.

"Oh!" she cried, "I didn't know you were here!" But something in the way she fixed her eyes on him convinced Wiley that she had known, all the same.

"Just a matter of business," he explained with a flourish, "I'm considering an option on some of Charley's claims."

"Jest my b.u.m claims!" mumbled Charley as Virginia glanced at him reprovingly. "Jest them ten up north of the Paymaster."

"Oh," she said and drew back towards the door, "well, don't let me break up a trade."

"You'd better sign as a witness," spoke up Wiley imperturbably, and she stepped over and looked at the paper.

"What? All ten of those claims for five hundred apiece? Why, Charley, they may be worth millions!"

"Well, put it down five million, then," suggested Wiley, grimly. "How much do you want for them, Charley?"

"Five hundred dollars apiece," answered Charley promptly, "but they's got to be two hundred down."

"Well?" inquired Wiley as Virginia still regarded him suspiciously, and then he beckoned her outside. "Say, what's the matter?" he asked reproachfully. "Let the old boy make his touch--he wants that two hundred for grub."

"He does not!" she spat back. "I'm ashamed of you, Wiley Holman; taking advantage of a crazy man like that!"

"Well, I don't know," he began in a slow, drawling tone that cut her to the quick, "he may not be as crazy as you think. I've just been offered a half interest in the Paymaster if I'll come out and take charge of it."

"You _have_!" she cried, starting back and staring as he regarded her with steely eyes. "Well, are you going to take it?"

"I don't know," he answered. "Thought I'd better see you first--it might be taking advantage of Blount."

"Of Blount!" she echoed and then she saw his smile and realized that he was making fun of her.

"Yes," went on Wiley, whose feelings had been ruffled, "he may be crazy, too. He sure was looking the part."

"Now don't you laugh at me!" she burst out hotly. "This isn't as funny as you think. What's going to happen to us if you take over that mine? I declare, you've been standing in with Blount!"

"I knew it," he mocked. "You catch me every time. But what about Charley here--does he get his money or not?" He turned to Death Valley, who was standing in the doorway watching their quarrel with startled eyes. "I guess you're right, Charley," he added, smiling wryly. "It must be something in the air."

"Are you going to take that offer," demanded Virginia, wrathfully, "and rob me and mother of our mine?"

"Oh, no," he answered, "I turned it down cold. I knew you wouldn't approve."

"You knew nothing of the kind!" she came back sharply, the angry tears starting in her eyes. "And I don't believe he ever made it."

"Well, ask him," suggested Wiley, and went back into the house, whereupon Death Valley closed the door.

"Yes," whispered Charley, "it's in the air--there's electricity everywhere. But what about that option?"

Wiley sat at the table, his eyes big with anger, his jaw set hard against the pain, and then he reached for his pen.

"All right, Charley," he said, "but don't you let 'em kid you--you've got the best business head in town."

CHAPTER XI

A TOUCH

The wrath of a man who is slow to anger cannot lightly be turned aside and, though Virginia drooped her lashes, the son of Honest John brushed past her without a word. She had followed him gratuitously to Death Valley's cabin and seriously questioned his good faith; and then, to fan the flames of his just resentment, she had suggested that he was telling an untruth. He had told her--and it seemed impossible--that Blount had offered him half the Paymaster, on shares; but the following morning, without a word of warning, the Paymaster Mine shut down. The pumps stopped abruptly, all the tools were removed, and as the foreman and miners who had been their boarders rolled up their beds and prepared to depart, the high-headed Virginia buried her face in her hands and retired to her bedroom to weep. And then to cap it all that miserable a.s.sayer sent in his belated report.

"Gold--a trace. Silver--blank. Copper--blank. Lead--blank. Zinc--blank."

The heavy white quartz which Wiley had made so much of was as barren as the dirt in the street. It had absolutely no value and--oh, wretched thought--he had offered to buy her stock out of charity! Out of the bigness of his heart--and then she had insulted him and accused him of robbing Death Valley Charley! In the light of this new day Death Valley was a magnate, with his check for two hundred dollars, and Virginia and her mother must either starve on in silence or accept the bounty of the Holmans. It was maddening, unbelievable--and to think what he had suffered from her, before he had finally gone off in a rage. But how sarcastic he had been when she had accused him of robbing Charley, and of standing in with Blount! He had said things then which no woman could forgive; no, not even if she were in the wrong. He had led her on to make unconsidered statements, smiling provokingly all the time; and then, when she had doubted that Blount had offered him the mine, he had said, "Well, ask him!" and shut the door in her face! And now, without asking, the question had been answered, for Blount had closed down the mine in despair and gone back to his bank in Vegas.

The Paymaster was dead, and Keno was dead; and their eight hundred dollars was gone. All the profits from the miners which they had counted upon so confidently had disappeared in a single day; and now her mother would have to p.a.w.n her diamonds again in order to get out of town.

Virginia paced up and down, debating the situation and seeking some possible escape, but every door was closed. She could not appeal to Wiley, for she knew her stock was worthless, and her hold on his sympathies was broken. He was a Yankee and cold, and his anger was cold--the kind that will not burn itself out. When he had loved her it was different; there was a spark of human kindness to which she could always appeal; but now he was as cold and pa.s.sionless as a statue; with his jaws shut down like iron. She gave up and went out to see Charley.

Death Valley was celebrating his sudden rise to affluence by a resort to the flowing bowl and when Virginia stepped in she found all three phonographs running and a two-gallon demijohn on the table. Death Valley himself was reposing in an armchair with one leg wrapped up in a white bandage and as she stopped the grinding phonographs and made a grab for the demijohn he held up two fingers reprovingly.

"I'm snake-bit," he croaked. "Don't take away my medicine. Do you want your Uncle Charley to die?"

"Why, Charley!" she cried, "you know you aren't snake-bit! The rattlesnakes are all holed up now."

"Yes--holed up," he nodded; "that's how I got snake-bit. It was fourteen years ago, this month. Didn't you ever hear of my snake-mine--it was one of the marvels of Arizona--a two-foot stratum of snakes. I used to hook 'em out as fast as I needed them and try out the oil to cure rheumatism; but one day I dropped one and he bit me on the leg, and it's been bad that same month ever since. Would you like to see the bite? There's the pattern of a diamond-back just as plain as anything, so I know it must have been a rattler."

He reached resolutely for the demijohn and took a hearty drink whereat Virginia sat down with a sigh.

"I'll tell you something," went on Charley confidentially. "Do you know why a snake shakes its tail? It's generating electricity to shoot in the pisen, and the longer a rattlesnake rattles----"

"Oh, now, Charley," she begged, "can't you see I'm in trouble? Well, stop drinking and listen to what I say. You can help me a lot, if you will."