THE GOD OF TEN PER CENT
It was the nature of the Widow to resort to violence in every crisis of
her life and at each fresh memory of the effrontery of Wiley Holman she
searched the empyrean for words. From the very start he had come to Keno
with the intention of stealing her mine. First it was his father, who
pitied her so much he was willing to buy her shares; then it was the tax
sale, and he had sneaked in at night and tried to jump the Paymaster;
then he had deceived her and stood in with Blount to make her sell all
her stock for a song; and then, oh hateful thought, he had actually sold
out to Blount for a hundred dollars, cash; only to put Blount in the
hole and buy the mine back again for the price of the ore on the dump!
The Widow poured forth her charges without pausing for breath or
noticing that her audience had fled, and as Wiley went on about his
business she raised her voice to a scream. The rest of the Kenoites, and
some of the workmen, were out staking the nearby hills; but whenever she
stopped she thought of some fresh duplicity which made reason totter on
its throne. He had refused half the mine from Blount as a gift and then
turned around and bought it all. He had refused to buy her shares, time
and again, when he knew they were worth a million; and then, to cap the
climax, he had let her sell to Blount and bought them for nothing from
him. And even Death Valley Charley--poor, crazy, brain-sick Charley--he
had robbed him of all ten of his claims!
It was a damning arraignment, and Wiley's men listened grimly, but he
only twisted his lip and nodded his head ironically. With one eye on his
accuser, who was becoming hysterical, he hustled the ore into the empty
trucks and started them off down the road; and then, as Virginia led her
mother away, he re-engaged his cook. They had supper that night in the
old, abandoned cook-house; and, so wonderfully do great minds work, that
a complete bill of grub was discovered among the freight. Not only flour
and beans and canned goods and potatoes, but baking powder and matches
and salt; and the cook observed privately that you'd think Mr. Holman
had intended to make camp all the time. It is thus that foresight leaps
ahead into the future and robs life of half its ills; and the Widow
Huff, still unpacking plates and saucers, was untroubled by clamorous
guests. She had had her say and, as far as Wiley was concerned, there
were no more favors to be expected.
Yet the Widow was wise in the ways of mining camps and she prepared to
feed a horde--and the next day they came, by automobile and
motor-truck, until every table was filled. The rush was on, for
four-thousand dollar ore will bring men from the ends of the world.
Before the sun had set in the red glow of a sandstorm the desert was
staked for miles. From the chimneys of old houses, long abandoned to
the rats, rose the smokes of many fires and the rush and whine of
passing automobiles told of races to distant grounds. All the old
mines in the district, and of neighboring districts where the precious
"heavy spar" occurred, were re-located--or jumped, as the case might
be--and held to await future developments. The first thing was to
stake. They could prospect the ground later. Tungsten now was king.
Men who had never heard the name, or pronounced it haltingly, now
spoke learnedly of tungsten tests; and he was a poor prospector indeed
who lacked his bottle of hydrochloric acid and his test-tubes and
strip of shiny tin. They swarmed about the base of the old Paymaster
dump like bees around a broken pot of honey and when, pounded up and
boiled in the hydrochloric acid, the solution bit the tin and turned
bright blue, there was many a hearty curse at the fickle hand of
fortune which had led Wiley Holman to that treasure.
It had lain there for years, trampled down beneath their feet. Now this
kid, this mining-school prospector, had come back and grabbed it all.
Not only the Paymaster with its tons of mined ore, but the ten claims to
the north, all showing good scheelite, which Death Valley Charley had
located--he had held them down as well. Two hundred dollars down and a
carefully worded option had tied them up for five thousand dollars, and
there were tungsten-mad men in that crowd of boomers who would have
given fifty thousand apiece. They came up to the mine where Wiley was
working and waved their money in his face, and then went off grumbling
as he refused all offers and went busily about his work. So they came,
and went, until at last the great wave brought Samuel J. Blount himself.
He came up the trail smiling, for there was nothing to be gained by
making belated complaints; but when he saw the pile of precious white
rock the smile died away in spite of him. It was the boast of Blount
that, buying or selling, he always held out his ten per cent; but that
pile of ore had cost him dear and he had sold it out for next to
nothing. And it was his other boast that he could read men's hearts when
they came to buy or sell, but here was a young man who had seen him
coming twice and gained the advantage both times. So the smile grew
longer in spite of his best efforts and when at last he found Wiley
Holman in the office of the company it was perilously near a sulk.
"Well, good morning, Wiley," he began with unction, and then he looked
grievously about. The expensive gas engine which he had bought and
installed was already unwatering the mine; spare timbers were going
down, the new blacksmith-shop was running and Wiley was sitting at his
desk. Everything was there, just the way he had left it, except that it
belonged to Wiley. Blount heaved a heavy sigh and then set his features
resolutely, for the battle was not over yet. To be sure the mine was
bonded for a measly fifty thousand dollars, and his stock was tied up
under an option; but many things can happen in six months' time and
Wiley was only a boy. Granted that he was a miner and understood ore,
there is such a thing as an "Act of God." Cables break without reason,
mines cave and timbers fall; and certainly if there is a God of Ten Per
Cent his just wrath would be visited upon Wiley. Blount knew that great
god and worshipped him continually and he felt certain that something
would happen, for when boys out of college take money away from bank
presidents it comes dangerously close to sacrilege.
"Well, well," murmured Blount, "quite a change, quite a change. Are you
sure that stuff is tungsten, Wiley?"
"Yes," responded Wiley, affecting a becoming modesty to cover up his
youthful smirk. "Would you like to see it tested?"
"Very much," answered Blount, and followed after him to the assay
office, which Wiley had hurriedly fitted up. Wiley took a piece of
scheelite and pounded it in a mortar until it was fine as flour, then
dropped it into a test-tube and boiled it over a flame in a solution of
hydrochloric and nitric acids.
"Now," he said, when the tungstic acid had been dissolved, and he had
dropped a small bar of tin into the solution. It turned a dark blue and
Blount sighed again, for he had looked up the test in advance. "If it
turns blue," a prospector had told him, "like the color of me overalls,
then, sure as hell, it's tungsten."
"Well, well," commented Blount, gazing mildly about, for great men do
not stop to repine, "and what do you use these big scales for?"
"That's for the quantitative test," explained Wiley importantly. "By
weighing the sample first and extracting the tungsten we get the
percentage, when it's been filtered and dried and weighed again, of the
tungstic acid in the ore. But it's quite an elaborate process."
"Yes, yes," assented Blount, still managing to smile pleasantly. "Rather
out of my line, I guess. What per cent do your samples average?"
"Oh, between sixty and seventy when I pick my specimens. I'm rigging up
a jigger to separate the ore until I can get capital to start up the
mill. It ought to be milled, by rights, and only the concentrates
shipped; but while I'm getting started----"
"Oh, draw on me--any time," broke in Blount, smiling radiantly. "I'd be
only too glad to accommodate you. That's my business, you know; loaning
out money on good security, and you're good up to fifty thousand
dollars."
"Do you mean it?" demanded Wiley after a startled silence, and Blount
slapped him heartily on the back.
"Just try me," he said. "I've been looking up the market and tungsten is
simply booming. It's quoted at forty-five for sixty per cent
concentrates, and you must have tons and tons on the dump."
"Yes, lots of it," admitted Wiley, "and say, now that you mention it, I
believe I'll take you up. I need a little money to install some
machinery and get the old mill to running. How about ten thousand
dollars?"
"Why--all right," assented Blount, after a moment's thought. "Of course
you'll give some security?"
"Oh, sure," agreed Wiley. "My option on the mine--I suppose that's what
you're after?"
Blount blinked for a moment, for such plain speaking was surprising
from one as shrewd as Wiley, but he summoned up his smile and nodded.
"Why--why, yes, that's all right. Say one per cent a month--payable
monthly--those are our ordinary short-time terms."
"Suits me," said Wiley. "But no cut-throat clauses--none of this Widow
Huff line of stuff. If I forget to pay my interest that doesn't make the
principal due and the security forfeit and so on, world without end."
"Oh, no; no, certainly," cried Blount with alacrity. "We'll make it a
flat loan, if you like, and endeavor to treat you right. Of course
you'll start a checking account and----"
"No," said Wiley, "if I borrow the money I'll take it out of your bank
and put it in another, right away. I never let friendship interfere with
business or warp my business judgment."
"Yes, but Wiley," protested Blount, "what difference does it make? Isn't
my bank perfectly safe and sound?"
"Undoubtedly," returned Wiley, "but--do you happen to remember a little
check for four hundred dollars? It was made out by me in favor of Death
Valley Charley and they cashed it through your bank--Virginia Huff, you
know--in payment for Paymaster stock. Well, if you're going to keep
track of my business like that----"
"Oh, no, no," exclaimed Blount, suddenly remembering the means by which
he had detected Wiley's purchase of Virginia's stock, "you misunderstand
me, entirely. If you want to wait a few days for the money you are
welcome to put it anywhere."
"Well, hold on," began Wiley. "Now maybe I'd better go to the other
bank----"
"Oh, no, no, no," protested Blount, "I wouldn't hear of it. I'll write
you the check, this minute. On your personal note--that's good enough
for me. You can put up the collateral later."
"Well, let's think this over," objected Wiley cannily. "I don't like to
put up that option for security. That bond and lease is worth half a
million dollars and----"
"Just give me your note," broke in Blount hurriedly, "and hurry up--here
comes Mrs. Huff."
"All right," cried Wiley, and scribbled out the note while Blount was
writing the check.