Shadow Mountain

“You’ll have to ask him, Mrs. Huff, to find out for sure; but to a man with one leg it looks like this. Whatever you can say about him, Samuel J. is a business man, and I think he decided that, as a business investment, the Paymaster wasn’t worth eighty-three, forty-one. Otherwise he would have bought it himself.”

“Unless, of course,” added the Widow scornfully, “there was some understanding between you.”

“Oh, yes, sure,” returned Wiley, and went on with his eating with a wearied, enduring sigh.

“Well, I declare,” exclaimed the Widow, after thinking it over, “sometimes I get so discouraged with the whole darned business you could buy me out for a cent!”

She waited for a response, but Wiley showed no interest, so she went on with her general complaint.

“First, it was the Colonel, with his gambling and drinking and inviting the whole town to his house; and then your father, or whoever it was, started all this stock market fuss; and from that time it’s gone from bad to worse until I haven’t a dollar to my name. I was brought up to be a lady–and so was Virginia–and now we’re keeping a restaurant!”

Wiley pulled down his lip in masterful silence and set the breakfast tray aside. It was nothing to him what the Widow Huff suffered–she had brought it all on herself. And whenever she was ready to write to his father she could receive her ten cents a share. That would keep her as a lady for several years to come, if she had as many shares as she claimed; but there was nothing to his mind so flat, stale and unprofitable as a further discussion of the Paymaster. Indeed, with one leg wound up in a bandage, it might easily prove disastrous. So he looked away and, after a minute, the Widow again took up her plaint.

“Of course,” she said, “I’m not a business woman, and I may have made some mistakes; but it doesn’t seem right that Virginia’s future should be ruined, just because of this foolish family quarrel. The Colonel is dead now and doesn’t have to be considered; so–well, after thinking it over, and all the rest of it, I think I’ll accept your offer.”

“Which offer?” demanded Wiley, suddenly startled from his ennui, and the Widow regarded him sternly.

“Why, your offer to buy my stock–that paper you drew up for me. Here it is, and I’m willing to sign it.”

She drew out the paper and Wiley read it silently, then rolled it into a ball and chucked it into the corner.

“No,” he said, “that offer doesn’t hold. I didn’t know you then.”

“Well, you know me now!” she flashed back resentfully, “and you’d better come through with that money. I’ve taken enough off of you and your father without standing for any more of your gall. Now you write me out a check for twenty thousand dollars and here’s my two hundred thousand shares. I know you’re robbing me but I simply can’t endure it–I can’t stay here a single day longer!”

She burst into angry tears as he shook his head and regarded her with steady eyes.

“No,” he said, “you can’t do business that way. I haven’t got twenty thousand dollars.”

“But–you offered it to me! You wrote out this paper and put it right under my eyes─”

“No,” he said, “I never offered you twenty thousand–I offered to take an option at that price. I wanted to see that mine, and I wanted to see it peaceably, and I thought I could do it that way; but that piece of paper simply gave me the option of buying the stock if I wanted to.”

“Well, you wanted to buy the stock–you were crazy to get hold of it–and now, when I’m willing, you won’t take it!”

“No, that’s right,” agreed Wiley, leaning back against his pillow. “And now, what are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to kill you!” shrieked the Widow in a frenzy. “I’m going to makeyou take it! I declare, it seems like every single soul is against me–and me a poor helpless woman!”

She sank back in a chair and began to sob hysterically and Wiley looked about for the old shotgun. It was far too short, but it had served once as a crutch, and in a pinch it must serve him again. Keno was no place for him, he saw that very plainly, and it was better to risk the long drive across the desert than to stay with this weeping virago. If she didn’t kill him then she would kill him later, and he was powerless to strike back in defense. She would take advantage of every immunity of her sex to obtain her own way in the end. He located the gun–it was down behind his bed where he had dropped it when they helped him in–but as he was fishing it up the door burst open and Virginia stood looking at her mother. Behind her appeared Death Valley Charley, his eyes blinking fearfully; but at sight of the Widow he ducked around the corner while Virginia came resolutely in.

“Oh, mother!” she burst out in a pleading, reproachful voice, “can’t you see that Wiley is sick? Well, what’s the use of creating a scene when it’s likely to make him worse?”

“I don’t care!” wailed the Widow. “I hope he dies. I wish I’d killed him–I do!”

“You do not!” returned Virginia, and shook her reprovingly. “I declare, I wonder what poor father would think if he heard how we’d treated a guest. Now you go back to the house and don’t you come out again until Mr. Holman sends for you.”

“You shut up!” burst out the Widow, pushing her brusquely aside. “I guess I know what I’m about. But I’ll fool you,” she cried, whirling about on Wiley as she started towards the door. “I’ll sell my stock to Blount!”

She paused for the effect but Wiley did not answer and she returned to pursue her advantage.

“I know you!” she announced. “You and old Honest John–you’re trying to steal my mine. But I’m going to fool you, I’m going right down to Vegas and sell every share to Blount!”

“Well, go to it,” returned Wiley after a long, defiant silence, “and I hope you stick him a-plenty!”

“Why, what’s the matter?” inquired the Widow, brushing Virginia away again and swaggering up to his bed. “I thought you and Blount were good friends.”

“Yeh, guess again,” replied Wiley grimly. “I’ll tell him the mine shows up fine.”

“Well, it does!” she asserted. “The Colonel said it wasn’t scratched. And didn’t you steal that piece of quartz from Virginia? Oh, you gave it back, eh? Well, how did it assay? I know you found somethingpretty good!”

“How could I give it back, if I’d had it assayed?” asked Wiley with compelling calm.

“Well what didyou come back for?” demanded the Widow, triumphantly. “You must have figured to win somewhere.”

“Yes, I did,” sighed Wiley, “but I was badly mistaken. All I want now is to get out of town.”

“Well, how about your father? That offer he made me! Has he backed out on that, too?”

“No, he hasn’t,” answered Wiley, “my father keeps his word. You can get your money any time.”

“Well, of all the crazy crooked deals,” the Widow began to rave, and then Wiley grabbed for the shotgun.

“It may be crazy!” he shouted savagely, “but believe me, it isn’t crooked. My father never did a crooked thing in his life, and you know it as well as I do; and if it wasn’t that you’re such a crook yourself─”

“Wiley Holman!” raged the Widow, but he rose up on his crutch and shouldered his way out the door.

“You’re crazy!” he yelled, “the whole danged town’s crazy. All except old Charley and me.”

He jerked his head and winked at Charley as he hobbled towards the street and Death Valley nodded gravely. There was a long, hateful silence; then the great motor roared out and the white racer rushed away across the desert.

“Well, I don’t care!” declared the Widow as she gazed after his dust and when the stage went out that day it took a lady passenger to Vegas.

CHAPTER VII

Between Friends

The madness of the Widow and Old Charley and Stiff Neck George was no mystery to Wiley Holman–it was the same form of mania which he encountered everywhere when he went to see men who owned mines. If he offered them a million for a ten-foot hole they would refuse it and demand ten million more, and if he offered them nothing they immediately scented a conspiracy to starve them out and gain possession of their mine. It was the illusion of hidden wealth, of buried treasure, which keeps half the mines in the West closed down and half of the rest in litigation; except that in Keno it seemed to be associated with gun-plays and a marked tendency towards homicide. So, upon his return from a short stay in the hospital he came up the main street silently, then stepped on the throttle and went through town a-smoking. But the Widow was out waiting for him in the middle of the road and, rather than run her down, he threw on both brakes and stopped.

“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 a rush of words, “what’s the news from the Funeral Range?”

“Now, here!” exclaimed the Widow, advancing from the dust cloud, and glancing into the machine. “I want you to bring back that gun!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Huff,” he replied with finality, “but you’ll have to get along without it. I turned it over to the sheriff, along with three buckshot and an affidavit regarding the shooting─”

“What, you great, big coward!” stormed the Widow in a fury. “Did you run and complain to the sheriff?”

“No, I walked,” said Wiley, “and on one leg at that. But I might as well warn you that next time you make a gun-play you’re likely to break into jail.”