Shadow Mountain

She threw down on him awkwardly, but as the pistol was not cocked, Wiley only curled his lip and smiled indulgently, with a restraining glance at his guard.

“Yes, Mrs. Huff,” he agreed quite calmly, “I don’t doubt you want it back. You want lots of things that you’ll never get from me by coming around with these gun-plays. So put up that gun before you pull it off and I’ll tell you about your husband’s stock.”

“My husband’sstock!” cried the Widow in surprise, letting the six-shooter wobble down to her side. “Well I’d just like to tell you that that stock is mine, and furthermore─”

“Oh, yes! Sure! Sure!” shrugged Wiley scornfully. “Of course you know it all! But that stock wasn’t yours, and you couldn’t transfer it, and so I didn’t take any option on it. It’s in the bank yet; and if you want to get it, why, here’s the man to talk to.”

He jerked his thumb towards the cringing Blount, and exchanged scornful glances with Virginia. She was standing behind her mother and her glance seemed to say that he was passing the buck again; but his feeling for Virginia had suffered a great change and he replied to her head-toss with a sneer.

“Now–now Wiley!” protested Blount, rising weakly to his feet and regarding his pseudo-partner reproachfully, “you know very well─”

“Gimme that stock!” snapped the Widow, suddenly cocking the heavy pistol and throwing down savagely on Wiley; and then things began to happen. The watchful guard, who had been standing at her side, reached over and struck up the gun and as it went off with a bang, shooting a hole in the ceiling, he seized it and wrenched it away.

“You’re under arrest, Madam,” he said with some asperity, and flashed his officer’s star.

“Well, who are you, sir?” demanded the Widow, vainly attempting to thrust him aside.

“I’m a deputy sheriff, ma’am,” replied the officer respectfully, “and I’d advise you not to resist. It’ll be assault with intent to kill.”

“Why–I wouldn’t kill anybody!” exclaimed the Widow breathlessly. “I was–I didn’t intend to do anything.”

“Will you swear out a warrant?” inquired the deputy and Wiley nodded his head.

“You bet I will,” he said, “this is getting monotonous. She took a shot at me, once before.”

“Oh, Wiley!” wailed the Widow suddenly weakening in the pinch. “You know I never meant it!”

“Well, maybe not,” replied Wiley evenly, “but you hit me in the leg.”

“But hepulled off my gun!” charged the Widow angrily, “I never went to do it!”

“Well, come on;” said the deputy, “you can explain to the judge.” And he took her by the arm. She went out, sobbing violently, and in the succeeding silence Wiley found himself confronted by Virginia. He had seen her before when the wild light of battle shot forth from her angry eyes but now there was a glow of soft, feminine reproach and the faintest suggestion of appeal.

“Oh, Wiley Holman!” she cried, “I’ll never forgive you! What do you mean by treating Mother like this?”

“I mean,” replied Wiley, “that I’ve taken about enough, and now we’ll leave it to the law. If your mother is right the judge will let her go, but I guess it’s come to a showdown.”

“What? Are you going to let them put my mother in jail?” she asked with tremulous awe, and then she burst into tears. “You ought to be ashamed!” she broke out impetuously. “I wish my father was here!”

“Yes, so do I,” answered Wiley gravely. “I’d be dealing with a gentleman, then. But if your mother thinks, just because she is a woman, she can run amuck with a gun, then she gives up all right to be treated like a lady and she has to take what’s coming to her.”

“But Wiley!” she appealed, “just let her off this time and she’ll never do it again. She’s over-wrought and nervous and─”

“Nope,” said Wiley, “it’s gone past me now–she’ll have to answer before the judge. But if you think you can restrain her I’ll be willing to let it go and have her bound over to keep the peace.”

“Oh, that’ll be fine! If she just promises not to bother you and─”

“And puts up a five-thousand-dollar bond,” added Wiley. “And the next time she makes a gun-play or comes around and threatens me the five thousand dollars is gone.”

“Oho!” she accused, “so that’s your scheme! You’ve been framing this up, all the time!”

“Sure,” nodded Wiley, with his old cynical smile, “I just love to be shot at. I got her to come over on purpose.”

“Well, I’ll bet you did!” cried Virginia excitedly. “Didn’t you have that officer right there? You’ve just framed this up to rob us. And how are we going to give a five-thousand-dollar bond when you know we haven’t a cent? Oh, I–I hate you, Wiley Holman; and if you put my mother in jail I’ll–I’ll come back and kill you, myself!”

She stamped her foot angrily, but a light leapt into Wiley’s eyes such as had flamed there when he had faced Stiff Neck George.

“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 assaults 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 pass 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 passages, 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 passed 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 asserted 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 noble.”

“That’s good,” assented 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, bumm, it’s them mines, and the dynamite bombs─”