Shadow Mountain

CHAPTER IV

The Ghost-Man

As the sun paled to nothing in the yellow murk of dust, a high cloud of sand overleapt the northern peaks and came sifting down the slopes of Shadow Mountain. The gusts of wind began to wail in boding fury and then the storm struck the town. Dirt and papers flew before it; tin cans leapt forth from holes and alleys; and sticks and small stones, sucked up in the vortex, joined in on the devil’s dance. Ancient signs creaked and groaned and threatened to leave their moorings, old houses gave up shingles and loose boards, and up the street on the deserted bank building, the fire-doors banged like cannon. Then the night came on and the streets of Keno were empty, except for the flying dirt.

But it is nights such as this that move some men to greater daring and as Wiley Holman, far out on the desert, felt the rush and surge of wind he struck a swift circle and, turning back towards Keno, he bored his way into the teeth of the storm. The gravel from the road slashed and slatted against his radiator and his machine trembled before the buffets of the gale, but it was just such a night as he needed for his purpose and he ran with his lights switched off. If the Widow Huff, by any chance, should glance out across the plain she might notice their gleam and divine his purpose, which was to inspect the Paymaster mine. As a stockholder and part owner it was, of course, his right to enter the premises at will, but the Widow had placed her own personal mandate above the laws of the land, and it was better, and safer, to avoid all discussion by visiting the property after dark.

Up the long slope of the valley the white racer moved slowly, shuddering and thundering as it took the first hill, and as the outlying houses leaped up from the darkness, Wiley muffled his panting exhaust. In the sheltered valley, under the lee of Shadow Mountain, the violence of the wind was checked and some casual citizen, out looking at the stars, might hear him above the storm. He turned off the main road and, following up a side street, glided quietly into the shelter of a barn, and five minutes later, with his prospector’s pick and ore-sacks, he toiled up the trail to the mine.

The Paymaster mine lay on the slope of Gold Hill, directly overlooking the town–first the huge, dismantled mill; then the white slide of the waste dump; and then, up the gulch, the looming gallows-frame of the hoist and the dim bulk of abandoned houses. The mine had made the town, and the town had clustered near it in the broad oval of the valley below; but in its day the Paymaster had been a community by itself, with offices and bunk-houses and stores. Now all was deserted and in the pale light of the moon it seemed the mere ghost of a mine. A loose strip of zinc on the corrugated-iron mill drummed and shuddered in a menacing undertone and at uncertain intervals some door inside smote its frame with a resounding bang. Straining timbers creaked and groaned, the wind mourned like a disembodied spirit, and as Wiley Holman jumped at a sudden sound he turned and glanced nervously behind him.

It was not a shadow but the passing of a shadow that caught his roving eye and as he stripped off his wind-goggles and looked again he felt by instinct for his six-shooter. But it was not on his hip. He had taken his pick instead, and for the first time he felt a thrill of fear–not fear for his life nor of anything tangible, but that old, primordial fear of the night that only a gun can banish. He picked up a rock and walked back down the trail; but nothing leapt forth at him–even the shadow was gone, and he threw the rock petulantly away. It was the wind, and the noises, and the blinders on his goggles; but now that the great fear was born he jumped at every sound. He had been out before on worse nights than this–what was it, then, that he feared? With his back against a rock he stared about and listened until at last his nerve returned; then he went boldly to the dump, where the white quartz lay the thickest, and began to dig a hole with his pick.

Deep as he could dig there was nothing but the white waste and he paced off the width of the pile; then very systematically he moved across the slope, grabbing handfuls of fine dirt at measured intervals and throwing them into an ore-sack. There was something about Virginia’s piece of “barren quartz” that had appealed to his prospector’s eye and even in the excitement of meeting the Widow he had not forgotten to sequester it. But a piece of rock from a girl’s case of specimens is a far call from “ore in place” and he had come back that night to look the mine over and collect an average sample from the dump. There were hundreds of tons of that rock on the dump and it certainly was his right, as a part owner in the property, to sample it and have it assayed.

Back and forth across the slide, now buffeted by the wind, now pelted by loosened stones, he continued his methodical test and then as he knelt to dig out a hole a great rock came bounding past. It came out of the darkness and went smashing down the hillside like some terrific engine of destruction and before he had more than scrambled from its path a second boulder was upon him. He dodged it by a hair’s breadth and fell flat on his face, just as a stream of loose stone which the first flying rock had dislodged sent him rolling and tumbling down the slope in an avalanche of flying débris. For a minute he lay breathless while the waste rattled past him, and then he looked up the hill. No movement of his had started those great boulders. They had been launched by someone from above, and as he raised his head cautiously he beheld a gaunt figure standing outlined against the sky. It stood like a gibbet, its head to one side, a pistol in its hand; but as Wiley moved the man crouched and drew back as if he feared to be seen.

Who he was Wiley did not know, nor could he divine his animus in thus attempting to take his life, but, being caught in the open without his gun, he played safe and lay quiet where he had fallen. The wind howled along the ridges and trailed off into silence and, looking around, Wiley caught the wink of a lantern as it came across the flat from town. The crash of the boulders as they bounded down the dump and then on through the brush below had undoubtedly aroused some inquisitive citizen, who was coming over to investigate. Wiley rose up quickly, for he did not wish to be discovered, but as he started towards the trail he met the ghost-man, creeping forward with his pistol ready to shoot.

At times like this a man acts by instinct, and Wiley Holman dropped to the ground; then with the swiftness of an Indian he bellied off down the hill, looking back after every lightning move. The man was a murderer, a cold-blooded assassin; and, thinking him injured, he had been stealing up to his hiding-place to give him the coup de grace. Wiley rolled into a gulch and peered over the bank, his eyes starting out of his head with fear; and then, as the lantern began to bob below him, he turned and crept up the hill. Two trails led towards the mine, one on either side of the dump, and as the wind swept down with a sudden gust of fury, he ran up the farther trail. Once over the hill he could avoid both his pursuers and, cutting a wide circle, slip back to his machine and escape. The wind died to nothing as he neared the summit and he turned and looked back down the trail. Something moved–it was the man, his head twisted over his shoulder, his gun still held at a ready, creeping waspishly up the path.

Wiley turned and fled, sick with rage at his own impotence, but as he whipped over the dump the earth opened up before him and he slipped and stopped on the brink of a chasm. It was the caved-in stope, the old glory-hole of the Paymaster, and it cut off his last escape. A sudden sinking of the heart, a feeling of fate being against him, came over him as he slunk along the bank; and then, as a path opened up before him, he took the steep slope at a bound. Further on in the darkness he saw the roof of the mill and the broken hummocks of the dump; beyond lay the other trail and the open country and his car–and the six-shooter–beyond! His feet seemed to fly as he dashed across the level and breasted a sudden ascent and then on its summit as the wind snatched him back someone struck him in full flight. “God!” he cried, and fought himself free but the other clutched him again.

“Run!” she begged, and he knew it was Virginia, but he was in a panic for fear of what was behind.

“No!” he cried, catching her roughly in his arms and starting the other way, “there’s a crazy man back there and─”

“No–no–no!” she clamored, bringing him to a halt with her struggles. “The other way–can’t you hear what I’m saying to you─” And then Wiley saw the Widow.

She was standing on the dump with her shotgun raised and pointed, and he hurled Virginia to one side.

“Don’t shoot!” he yelled, but as he ducked and started to run, the Widow’s gun spoke out. A blow like that of a club struck his leg from under him and he fell to the ground in a heap, but even in his pain he remembered the presence which had followed with its head on one side.

“You danged fool!” he cursed as the Widow ran up to him. “Keep that cartridge, whatever you do. There’s a crazy man after me and─”

“I see him!” shrieked the Widow, making a dash for the bank with her gun at her hip for the shot. “You git, you dastard!” she shrilled into the darkness and once more the old shotgun roared forth.

“Oh, mother!” wept Virginia, throwing her arms about Wiley, and attempting to raise him up. “Oh, look what you’ve done–it’s Wiley Holman–and now I hope you’re satisfied!”

“You bet I’m satisfied!” answered the Widow, exultingly. “That other fellow was Stiff Neck George!”

CHAPTER V

A Load of Buckshot

Since he had turned back, far out on the desert, and braved the storm to inspect the Paymaster Mine, Wiley Holman had met nothing but disaster; but as he lay on the ground with one leg full of buckshot he blamed it all on the Widow. Without warning or justification, without even giving him a chance, she had sneaked up and potted him like a rabbit; and now, as men came running to witness his shame, she gloried in her badness.

“Aha-ah!” she jeered, coming back to stand over him and Wiley reached for a stone.

“You old she-cat,” he burst out, “you say another word to me and I’ll bounce this rock off your head!”

He groaned and dropped the rock to take his leg in both hands, and then Virginia rushed to the rescue.

“How badly are you hurt?” she asked, kneeling down beside him, but he jerked ungraciously away.

“Go away and leave me alone!” he shouted to the world at large and the Widow took the hint to withdraw. Then in a series of frenzied curses Wiley stripped off his puttee and felt of his injured leg. It was wet with blood and two shot-holes in his shin-bone were giving him the most exquisite pain; the rest were just flesh-wounds where the buckshot had pierced his leggings and imbedded themselves in the muscles. He looked them over hastily by the light of a flashing lantern and then he rose up from the ground.

“Gimme that gun for a crutch!” he demanded of the Widow; and Mrs. Huff, who had been surveying her work with awe, passed over the shotgun in silence. “All right, now,” he went on, turning to Death Valley Charley, who had been patiently holding his lantern, “just show me the trail and I’ll get out of camp before some crazy dastard ups and kills me.”

“That was Stiff Neck George,” observed Charley mysteriously. “He’s guarding the Paymaster for Blount.”

“Who–that fellow that was after me?” burst out Wiley in a passion as he hobbled off down the trail. “What the hell was he trying to do? The whole rotten mine isn’t worth stealing from anybody. What’s the matter with you people–are you crazy?”

“Well, that’s all right!” returned the Widow from the darkness. “You can’t sneak in and jump mymine!”

“Yourmine, you old tarrier!” yelled Wiley furiously. “You’d better go to town and look it up. The whole danged works is mine–I bought it in for taxes!”

“You–what?” cried the Widow, brushing Virginia and Charley aside and halting him in the trail. “You bought the Paymaster for taxes!”

“Yes, for taxes,” answered Wiley, “and got stung at that! Gimme eighty-three dollars and forty-one cents and you can have it back, with costs. But now listen, you old battle-ax; I’ve taken enough off of you. You went up on my property when I was making an inspection of it and made an attempt on my life; and if I hear a peep out of you, from this time on, I’ll go down and swear out a warrant.”

“I didn’t aim to kill you,” defended the Widow, weakly. “I just tried to shoot you in the leg.”

“Well, you did it,” returned Wiley, and, pushing; her aside, he limped on down the trail. The Widow followed meekly, talking in low tones with her daughter, and at last Virginia came up beside him.

“Take him right to our house,” she said to Charley, “and I’ll nurse him until he gets well.”

“No, you take me to the Holman house!” directed Wiley, obstinately. “I guess we’ve got a house of our own.”

“Well, suit yourself,” she murmured, and fell back to the rear while Wiley went hobbling on. At every step he jabbed the muzzle of the shotgun vindictively into the ground, but as he reached the flat and met a posse of citizens, he submitted to being carried on a door. The first pain had passed and a deadly numbness seemed to take the place of its bite; but as he moved his stiffened muscles, which were beginning to ache and throb, he realized that he was badly hurt. With a leg like that he could not drive out across the desert, seventy-four long miles to Vegas; nor would he, on the other hand, find the best of accommodations in the deserted house of his father. It had been a great home in its day, but that day was past, and the water connections too, and somebody must be handy to wait on him.

“Say,” he said, turning to Death Valley Charley, “have you got a house here in town? Well, take me to it and I’ll pay you well, and for anything else that you do.”

“It won’t cost you nothing,” answered Charley quickly. “I used to know your father.”

“Well, you knew a good man then,” replied Wiley grimly, but Death Valley did not respond. The Widow Huff was listening behind; and besides, he had his doubts.

“I’ll run on ahead,” said Charley noncommittally, and when Wiley arrived a canvas cot was waiting for him, fully equipped except for the sheets. Virginia came in later with a pair on her arm, and after a look at Charley’s greasy blankets Wiley allowed her to spread them on the bed. Then, as Death Valley laid a grimy paw on his leg and began to pick out the shot Wiley jerked away and asked Virginia impatiently if she didn’t have a little carbolic.

“Aw, he’ll be all right,” protested Charley cheerfully, as Virginia pushed him aside; “them buckshot won’t hurt him much, nohow. Jest put on some pine pitch and a chew of tobacco and he’ll fall off to sleep like a child.”

He stood blinking helplessly as Virginia heated some water and poured in a teaspoonful of carbolic, then as she bathed the wounds and picked out the last shot, Charley placed a disc on his phonograph.

“Does he want some music?” he inquired of Heine, who was sitting up and begging, but Virginia put down her foot. “No, Charley,” she said with a forbidding frown, “you go ask mother for a needle and thread.”

“He’s kind of crazy to-night,” she whispered to Wiley, when Death Valley was safely out of sight, “you’d better come over to the house.”

“Huh, I guess we’re all crazy,” answered Wiley, laughing shortly. “I can stand it–but how does he act?”