THE EXPLOSION
There are moments when his great secret rises to every man's lips and
flutters to wing away; but a thought, a glance, a word said or unsaid,
turns it back and he holds it more closely. Wiley Holman had a secret
which might have changed Virginia's life and filled every day with joy
and hope, but he shut down his lips and held it back and spoke kind
words instead. There was a look in her eyes, a brooding glow of
resentment when he spoke of his father and hers; and, while he spoke
from the heart, she drooped her dark lashes and was silent beyond her
wont. He gave her much but she gave him little--and the reason she was
sorry to leave Keno was the parting with six suffering cats.
There were girls that he knew who would have gone the limit and said
something about missing Wiley Holman. So he gave her back her stock and
put the cats in sacks and burnt up the road to the ranch. The next day
the news came that he had bonded the Paymaster, but Wiley was far away.
He caught the Limited and went speeding east, and then he came back,
headed west; and finally he left Vegas followed by four lumbering auto
trucks loaded down with freight and men. The time had come when he must
put his fortunes to the test and Keno awaited him, anxiously.
A cold, dusty wind raved down through the pass, driving even old Charley
to shelter; but as the procession moved in across the desert the city of
lost hopes came to life. Old grudges were forgotten, the dead past was
thrust aside, and they lined up to bid him welcome--Death Valley Charley
and Heine, Mrs. Huff and Virginia, and the last of ten thousand brave
men. For nine years they had lived on, firm in their faith in the mighty
Paymaster; and now again, for the hundredth time, the old hope rose up
in their breasts. The town was theirs, they had seen it grow from
nothing to a city of brick and stone, and they loved its ruins still.
All it needed was some industry to put blood into its veins and it would
thrill with energy and life. Even the Widow forgot her envy and her
anger at his deception and greeted Wiley Holman with a smile.
"Well--hello!" he hailed when he saw her in the crowd. "I thought you
were going away."
"Not much!" she returned. "Bring your men in to dinner. I'm having my
dishes unpacked!"
"Umm--good!" responded Wiley and, shrugging his shoulders, he led the
way on to the mine. There were other faces that he would as soon have
seen as the Widow's fighting mien, and he had brought his own cook
along; but Mrs. Huff was a lady and as such it was her privilege to
claim her woman's place in the kitchen. The town was part hers and the
restaurant was her livelihood; and then, of course, there was Virginia.
Having bidden her good-by, and taken care of her cats, he had reconciled
himself to her loss, but not even the smile in her welcoming dark eyes
could make him quite forget the Widow. She was an uncertain quantity,
like a stick of frozen dynamite that will explode if it is thawed too
soon; and there was a bombshell to come which gave more than even
promise of producing spontaneous combustion. So Wiley sighed as he fired
his cook, and told his men that they would board with the Widow.
The first dinner was not so much, consisting largely of ham and eggs
with the chickens out on a strike; but there was plenty of canned stuff
and the Widow promised wonders when she got all her boxes unpacked. Yet
with all her work before her and the dishes unwashed, she followed the
crowd to the mine. That was the day of days, from which Keno would date
time if Wiley made his promise good; and every man in town, and woman
and child, went over to watch them begin. Up the old, abandoned road the
auto trucks crept and crawled, and the shed and the houses that had been
prepared by Blount now gave shelter to his hated successor. Only one man
was absent and he sat on the hill-top, looking down like a lonely
coyote. It was Stiff Neck George, that specter at the feast, the
harbinger of evil to come; but as Wiley ordered the empty trucks to back
up against the dump he glanced at the hill-top and smiled.
"We'll take back a load of tungsten," he announced to the drivers and
the crowd of onlookers stared.
"Just load on that white stuff," he explained to the muckers and there
was a general rush for the dump.
"What did you say that stuff was?" inquired Death Valley Charley, after
a hasty look at his specimen; and Keno awaited the answer, breathless.
"Why, that's scheelite, Charley," replied Wiley confidentially, "and it
runs about sixty per cent tungsten. It comes in pretty handy to harden
those big guns that you hear shooting over in France."
"Oh, tungsten," muttered Charley, blinking wisely at the rock while
everyone else grabbed a sample. "Er--what do you say they use it for?"
"Why, to harden high-speed steel for guns and turning-tools--haven't you
read all about it in the papers?"
"How much did you say it was worth?" asked the Widow cautiously, and
Wiley knew that the bombshell was ignited.
"Well, that's a question," he began, "that I can answer better when I
get a report on this ore. It's all mixed up with quartz and ought to be
milled, by rights, before I even ship it; but since the trucks are going
back--well, if it turns out the way I calculate it might bring me forty
dollars a unit."
"A unit!" repeated the Widow, her voice low and measured. "Well, I'd
just like to know how much a unit is?"
"A hundredth of the standard of measure--in this case a ton of ore. That
would come to twenty pounds."
"Twenty pounds! What, of this stuff? And worth forty dollars! Well,
somebody must be crazy!"
"Yes, they're crazy for it," answered Wiley, "but it's just a temporary
rage, brought on by the European war. The market is likely to break any
time."
"Why--tungsten!" murmured the Widow. "Who ever heard of such a thing?
And it's been lying here idle all the time."
"How much would that be a ton?" piped up someone in the crowd, and Mrs.
Huff put her head to one side.
"Let's see," she said, "forty dollars a unit--that's one hundredth of
a ton. Oh, pshaw, it can't be that. Let's see, twenty pounds at forty
dollars--that's two dollars a pound; and two thousand pounds,
that's--oh, I don't believe it! I never even heard of tungsten!"
"No, it's a new metal," replied Wiley ever so softly, "or rather, it's
an acid. The technical magazines are full of articles that tell you all
about it. It's found in wolframite, and hubnerite and so on; but this is
calcium tungstate, where it is found in connection with lime. The others
are combined variously with iron or manganese----"
"Yes, manganese," broke in Charley importantly. "I know that well--and
wolfite and all the rest. It certainly is wonderful how they build them
big cannons that will shoot for twenty-two miles. But it's tungsden that
does it, tungsden in connection with electricity and the invisible rays
of raddium."
"Oh, shut up!" burst out the Widow, thrusting him rudely aside and
seizing a fresh handful of the rock. "I just can't hardly believe it."
She gazed at the glossy fragments and then at the muckers, industriously
loading the trucks; and then she cocked her head on one side.
"Let's see--two times twenty--that's forty dollars a ton. No--four
hundred! Why, no--four thousand!" She stopped short and made a hurried
re-calculation, while a murmur ran through the crowd, and then Death
Valley Charley gave a whoop.
"Four thousand!" he shouted. "I told ye! I knowed it! I claimed she was
rich, all the time!"
"You did not!" snapped the Widow, putting her hand under his jaw and
forcibly stifling his whoops. "You poor, crazy fool, you knew nothing of
the kind--you sold out for five thousand dollars!" She pushed him away
with a swift, disdainful shove that sent him reeling through the crowd
and then she whirled on Wiley. "And I suppose," she accused, "that you
knew all the time that this dump here was nothing but tungsten?"
"Well, I had a good idea," he admitted deprecatingly, "although it's yet
to be tested out. This is just a sample shipment----"
"Yes, a sample shipment; and at two dollars a pound how much will it
bring you in? Why, nothing, hardly; a mere bagatelle for a gentleman and
a scholar like you; but what about me and poor Virginia, slaving around
to cook your meals? What do we get for all our pains? Oh, I could kill
you, you scoundrel! You knew it all the time, and yet you let me sell
those shares!"
She choked and Wiley shifted uneasily on the ore-pile, for of course he
had done just that. To be sure he had urged her to sell them to his
father for the sum of ten cents a share; but the mention of that fact,
in her heated condition, would probably gain him nothing with the Widow.
She was gasping for breath and, if nothing intervened, he was in for the
scolding of his life. But it was all in the day's work and he glanced
about for Virginia, to seek comfort from her smiling eyes. She would
understand now why he had given her back her stock, and advised her from
the start not to sell; but--he looked again, for her dark orbs were
blazing and her lips were moving as with threats.
"You knew it all the time!" screamed the Widow in a frenzy, but Wiley
barely heard her. He heard her words, for they assaulted his ears in a
series of screeching crescendos, but it was the unspoken message from
the lips of Virginia that cut him to the quick. He had expected nothing
else from the abusive Widow; but certainly, after all the kindnesses he
had done her, he was entitled to something better from Virginia. Not
only had he warned her to hold on to her stock, at a time when one word
might ruin him; but he had bought it from Charley and then given it
back, to show how he valued her friendship. And yet now, while the
others were shouting with joy or rushing to stake out more claims, she
stood by the Widow and with cruel, voiceless words added her burden to
this paean of hate. And she looked just like her mother!
"You shut up, you old cat!" he burst out fiercely, as the Widow rushed
in to assault him. "Shut your mouth and get off my ground!" He drew back
his palm to launch a swift blow and then his hand fell slack. "Well,
holler then," he said, "what do I give a dam' whether you like the deal
or not? You'd be yammering, just the same. But it's lucky for you you're
a woman."