ON CHRISTMAS DAY
Christmas came to Keno in a whirling snowstorm that shrouded Shadow
Mountain in white and, as he stepped out in the morning and looked up at
the peak, Wiley Holman felt a thrill of joy. The black shadow had
bothered him, now that he had come to live under it; and a hundred times
a day as it caught his eye he would glance up to find the dark cloud.
But now it was gone and in place of the lava cap there was a mantle of
gleaming snow. He looked down at the town and, on every graceless house,
there had been bestowed a crown of white; all the tin cans were buried,
the burned spots were covered over, and Keno was almost beautiful. A
family of children were out in the street, trying to coast in their new
Christmas wagons, and Wiley smiled to himself.
He had brought back those children; he had brought the town to life and
tenanted its vacant houses; and now, best of all, he had brought the
spirit of Christmas, for he had sent a peace-offering to Virginia. She
had spurned it once in the heat of passion, and called him a coward and
a crook; but that package of stock would recall to her mind a time when
she had known him for a friend. It would bring up old memories of their
boy-and-girl love, which she knew he had never forgotten, and if there
was anything to forgive she would know that he remembered it when he
sent this offering by Charley.
He was a crazy old rat, but he had his uses; and he had promised to give
her the stock, without fail. It was to come, of course, from Charley
himself, in atonement for selling it for nothing; but Virginia would
know, even if she missed his flowered Christmas card, that the stock was
a present from him. It had a value now far above the price he had paid
for it when Charley had thrust it upon him and the dividend alone from
the royalties on his lease would be twelve hundred dollars and more. And
then her pro rata share, when he paid his fifty thousand dollars, would
add another six hundred; and she knew that, for the asking, she could
have half of what he had--or all, if she would take him, too.
Wiley looked down on the house that sheltered Virginia and smiled to
think of her there. She was waiting on miners, but the time would come
when someone would be waiting on her. In the back of his brain a bold
plan had been forming to feed fat his grudge against Blount and restore
the Huffs to their own--and it needed but a word from her to put the
plan into action. He held from Blount two separate and distinct papers;
one a bond and lease on the mine, the other an option on his personal
stock. But to grant the bond and lease--with its option for fifty
thousand--Blount had been compelled to vote the Widow's stock; and if
that stock was not his and had been illegally voted, then of course the
bond and lease would be void.
Yet even so he, Wiley Holman, had fully safeguarded his interests, for
by his other option he could buy all Blount's stock for the sum of five
cents a share. The four hundred thousand-odd shares would come to only
twenty thousand dollars, as against fifty thousand on the bond and
lease; and yet, by buying the stock at once, he could effectually debar
Blount from any share in the accumulating profits. The small payments on
past royalties and his five cents a share would be all that Blount would
receive; and then he would be left, a spectacle for gods and men--a
banker who had been beaten by a boy. It was the chicanery of Blount
which had ruined his father and driven Colonel Huff to his death, and
what could be better, as poetic justice, than to see him hoist on his
own petard. And if the Colonel was not dead--as would appear from
Charley's maunderings--if he could be discovered and brought back to
town, then surely Virginia would forget the old feud and consent to be
his wife. All this lay before him, a fairyland of imaginings, waiting
only her magic touch to make it real; just a word, a smile, a promise of
forgiveness--and of loyalty and love--and he, Wiley Holman, would go
whirling on the errand that would win him wealth and renown.
It would all be done for her, and yet he would not be the loser, for
his own father held two hundred thousand shares of Paymaster; and he
himself would save a fifty-thousand-dollar payment at an expense of a
little over twenty. And if the Colonel could be found quickly--or his
death disproved to make illegal the Widow's transfer of his
stock--then the mine could be claimed at once and Blount deprived even
of his royalties. Of course this could all be done without the help of
Virginia or the co-operation of any of the Huffs for, although his
father had refused from the first to have anything to do with the
mine, Wiley knew that he could talk him over and persuade him to pool
his stock. That would make six hundred thousand, a clean voting
majority and a fortune in itself; but for the sake of Virginia, and to
heal the ancient feud, it would be better to unite with the Huffs.
Wiley paced up and down in the crisp, dry snow and watched for Virginia
to come, and as his mind leapt ahead he saw her enthroned in a mansion,
with him as her faithful vassal--when he was not her lord and king. For
the Huffs were proud, even now in their poverty, and Virginia was the
proudest of them all; and in this, their first meeting, he must remember
what she had suffered and that it is hard for the loser to yield. It
should be his part to speak with humility and dwell but lightly on the
past while he pictured a future, entirely free from menial service, in
which she could live according to her station. All her years of poverty
and disappointment and loneliness would be forgotten in this sudden rise
to wealth; and to complete the picture, Blount, the cause of all her
suffering, would grovel, very unbankerlike, at their feet.
Blount would grovel indeed when he felt the cold steel that would
deprive him of all his stock, for he was still playing the game with his
loans and extensions in the hope of winning back what he had lost. For
money was his god, before whom there was no other, and he worshiped it
day and night; and all his fair talk was no more than a pretense to lure
Wiley into the net. Yet not for a minute would Wiley put up his option,
or his bond and lease on the mine; and for all the money that Blount had
loaned him he had given his mere note of hand. It was his promise to
pay, unsecured by any collateral, and yet it was perfectly good. The
money came and went--he could pay Blount at any time--but it was better
to rehabilitate the mine.
Wiley had a race before him, a race for big stakes, and he kept his eyes
on the goal. To earn fifty thousand dollars in six months' time, earn it
clean above all expense, required foresight and careful management, and
a big daily output, for every day must count. The ore on the dump was in
the nature of a grub-stake, a bonus for undertaking the game; and when
it was all shipped the profits would drop to nothing unless he could
bring up more ore. So he took his first checks, and what he could
borrow, and timbered and cleaned out the mine; and, to save shipping out
more ore, he had ordered expensive machinery to put the old mill into
shape. It was the part of good judgment to spend quickly at first and
build up the efficiency of his plant; and then the last few months, when
Blount would begin to gloat, make a run that would put him in the clear.
Clear not only of the bond and lease, but on Blount's stock as well, for
it would pay for itself with the first dividend; and, to save paying any
more royalties, Wiley was curtailing his wasteful shipments while he
prepared to concentrate the ore in his mill.
There were envious people in town who prophesied his failure and claimed
that success had gone to his head, but he was confident he could show
them that a man can take chances and yet play his cards to win. He had
taken chances with Blount when he had accepted his money, for there were
other banks that would lend on his mine; but in what more harmless way
could he engage his attention and keep him from actual sabotage?
It was that which he dreaded, the resort to open warfare, the fire and
vandalism, and dynamite; and day and night he kept his eye on the works,
and hired a night-watchman, to boot. But as long as Blount was convinced
he could win back the mine peaceably he would not resort to violence
and, though Stiff Neck George still hung about the camp, he kept
scrupulously away from the Paymaster.
As Christmas day wore on and the sun came out gleaming, Wiley swung off
down the trail and through the town. He was a big man now, the man who
had saved Keno after ten years of stagnation and lingering death; and
yet there were those who disliked him. They recited old stories of his
shrewd dealings with Mrs. Huff, and with Virginia and Death Valley
Charley; and if any were forgotten the Widow undoubtedly recalled them.
She was a shrewish woman, full of gossip and backbiting, and she let no
opportunity pass; so that even old Charley cherished a certain
resentment, though he disguised it as solicitude for the Huffs. And so
on Christmas day, as Wiley walked down the street, many greetings lacked
a holiday heartiness.
The front room of the Huff house was full of children and, as Wiley
walked back and forth, he caught a glimpse of Virginia; but she did
not come out and, after lingering around for a while, he climbed up
the trail to the mine. He had caught but a glimpse, but it was
clean-cut as a cameo--a classic head, eagerly poised; dark hair,
brushed smoothly back; and a smile, for some neighbor's child. That
was Virginia, high-headed and patrician, but kind to lame dogs and
lost cats. She had invited in the children but he, Wiley Holman, who
had loved her since she was a child, had been permitted to pass
unnoticed. He wandered about uneasily, then went back to his office
and began to run over his accounts.
Over a hundred thousand dollars had passed through his hands in less
than a calendar month and yet the long haul across the desert from Vegas
had put him in the hole. Besides the initial cost of cables and
timbers--and of a rock breaker and the concentrating plant--there was a
charge of approximately twenty dollars a ton for every pound of supplies
he hauled out. And, because of the war, all supplies were high and the
machinery houses were behind with their orders; yet so eager were the
buyers to get hold of his tungsten that they almost took it out of the
bins. He was storing up the ore, preparatory to milling it and shipping
only the concentrates; but if they could have their way they would wrest
it from his hands and rush it to the railroad post haste. One mysterious
buyer had even offered him a contract at seventy dollars a unit--three
dollars and a half a pound!
Wiley opened up his notebook and made a careful estimate of what the ore
on the dump would bring and his eyes grew big as he figured. At seventy
dollars a unit it would come to more than he owed; and pay for the mine,
to boot. It was a stupendous sum to come so quickly, before the mine was
hardly opened up; but when the mill was running and the mine was sending
up ore--he smiled dizzily and shook his head. A profit like that, if it
ever became known, would make his position dangerous. It was too much of
a temptation for Blount and his jumpers, and blackleg lawyers with fake
claims. They could get out injunctions and tie up the work until he lost
the mine by default!
But would they dare do it? And how long would it take to raise fifty
thousand dollars elsewhere? Wiley studied it all over in the silence of
his office, for the mine was closed down for Christmas; and then once
more he turned to his notebook and figured the ore underground. Then he
figured the outside cost for installing his machinery, for freight and
supplies and the payroll; and, adding twenty per cent for wear and tear
and accidents, he figured the grand total for six months. That was
astounding too but, when he put against it his ore and the price per
ton, not even the chances that stood out against him could keep down
that dizzy smile. He was made, he was rich, if he could just hold things
level and do a day's work every day.
The sun set at last as he sat planning details and, rising up stiffly,
he pushed his papers aside and went out into the night. The snow had
melted fast on the roofs and bare ridges and, as the last rays of sunset
touched the peak with ruddy fingers, he noticed that the shadow had come
back. The barren lava cap had thrown aside its Christmas mantle, melting
the snow before it could pack; and now, grim and black, it stood out
like a death-head above the white valley below. Lights flashed out from
miners' windows, the scampering children ceased their clamor, and he
wandered through the darkness alone.
There was something he had forgotten, something big and significant, but
his tired brain refused to respond. It was part of the scheme to beat
Blount out of his stock, and the royalty from the shipments of ore;
and--yes, it had to do with Virginia. It was going to make her rich, and
both of them happy; but he could not recall it, at the moment. He was
worn out, weary with the seething thoughts which had rioted through his
mind all day, and he turned back dumbly to his office. It was dark and
cold and as he groped for his matchbox his hand encountered a strange
package. And yet it was not so strange--he seemed to remember it,
somehow. He struck a hasty match and looked. It was the package of stock
that he had sent to Virginia, but----The match burnt his fingers and he
dropped it with a curse. She had refused his offer of peace.