THE ENIGMA
The heights and depths of life are sounded by emotions--cold reason lags
behind. As thought cannot compass, so words cannot describe the
anguished spirit's flight; and whether it soars to ecstasy or sinks to
despair it comes back wide-eyed and silent. So any action which has been
prompted by passion cannot be explained by a calculating mind, and to
seek a reason where none exists is to stray still farther from the
truth. Virginia Huff was poor and waited on the table for what she could
eat and get to wear; and when she returned stock which was worth twelve
hundred dollars without even a note of thanks it was not for any reason
of the mind. It was a reason of the feelings, the soul, the human ego,
which drives our minds and bodies to their tasks; a reason that soared
up like a flaming aurora and stabbed the darkened sky with hate and
passion. It was nothing to reason about, and yet Wiley reasoned.
He put down the stocks and lit his lamp and examined the package
carefully. Then he looked inside for some note of explanation and
paused and swore to himself. No note was there, nor any sign that the
stocks had ever passed through her hands. He rose up craftily and
stepped out the door, passing silently from house to house, and then
as he came back he threw his door open and examined the snow for
tracks. If Death Valley Charley had failed of his mission, if he had
neglected to place the shares in her stocking and then sneaked back to
get rid of them--but Wiley put all thought of Charley aside for there
in the snow was the print of a woman's shoe. Small and dainty it was
and he knew in his heart that Virginia had been there and gone. She
might have been watching him as he sat at his work, she might even be
watching him now; but again something told him that, however she had
come, she had gone away in a rage. The stab of the high heel, the
heedless step into a mud-puddle, the swinging stride down the trail;
all spoke of defiance, of a coming in the open and a return without
fear of man or devil. She had come there to see him and, finding him
away, she had thrown down the papers and gone home. And that was the
answer to his love.
Wiley sat down by the fire and tried to account for it. He imagined
himself a woman, young and beautiful, but poor; working hard, as
Virginia now worked, for her board and keep. Before her there was
nothing--her father was dead or lost, her mother a hopeless scold, her
fortune irretrievably gone--and yet she closed the only door out. As an
earnest of his love, without asking anything in return, he had restored
to her a portion of her stock; and she had promptly flung it back. Had
Charley made some break in his method of presentation? But no, she would
not mind if he had; it was something deeper, behind. He battered his
brain, recalling every little incident that might have turned her heart
against him, and it all brought him back to the trial.
When he had had her mother arrested for coming into his office and
demanding--what was it she had demanded? He remembered the six-shooter,
and the deputy and Blount, and the Widow's rage and tears; and
Virginia's return and all she had said to him--but what was it her
mother had demanded? Her stock! All her stock! The stock she had refused
to sell for ten cents a share and then had turned around and put up with
Blount as security on a quick-action note. She had demanded it all back,
without reason, without compensation, simply because she was a woman
with a gun; and because he had invoked the law to protect him in his
rights Virginia had sworn she would kill him. Wiley rose up swiftly and
pulled the curtain across the window, and then he considered the matter
again.
It was not like Virginia to resort to any violence--she had been
humiliated too often by her mother's--but she must still think he had
deprived her of her rights. By what process of reasoning could they
fix the blame on him for this stock which had been purloined by
Blount, was beyond his strictly masculine mind; but women sometimes
think by jumps. They skip a few processes, like a mathematical
prodigy, and then arrive at some mammoth result. But, even if they
exaggerated their grievance--was there anything behind it, any peg on
which to hang this senseless hate?
Well, of course he had deceived them about the mine. He had known it
contained scheelite the moment he picked up that white rock that
Virginia had placed in her collection, but naturally he had not
announced it from the house-tops. With the Widow as a partner, or even
as a stockholder, the best-natured man in the state of Nevada could not
have worked the Paymaster at a profit. For that reason alone he had been
fully justified in letting her freeze herself out; and if Virginia had
taken his advice--but then, the poor girl had been distracted. She had
been worn out and discouraged, hag-ridden by her mother and facing a
trip to the city; and she had sold out for what she could get. She was a
good girl, a brave girl, and a sweet and lovely one too; and it was
foolish to blame her for anything. The thing to do, after all, was to
find ways and means of bringing her back to her own. Just a word from
Virginia and he could change her whole life, he could get back all her
stock and her mother's as well and pour money into their laps--but first
he must win her love. He must teach her to trust him, break down her
suspicion and show her that he was her friend.
Wiley thought a long time and the next morning at dawn he was up in his
car and away. Virginia was a child. She did not reason about this and
that, but was swayed by the impulses of the moment. Her life was ruled,
not by her head but by her heart; and he had forgotten until that moment
the sacks full of cats that he had taken from her house to the ranch.
They were all her pets, and he had taken them as a trust when she was
about to start for Los Angeles; but the mine had made him forget. They
were safe at the ranch, with his sisters to look after them; but how
many times since their estrangement began must some question have risen
to her lips as to how they were, or if he would bring them back, or
whether any had died or been lost? Yet she had turned her head away and
refused to speak to him, even to demand back the pets she loved.
The road was bad out across the desert, and on through Vegas to the
ranch, but he came thundering back the next night. He had left the mine
to run itself, for his thoughts were of Virginia, but as he slowed down
at the sand-wash and listened for the pumps he noticed that the engine
had stopped. Well, he had an engineer and that was his business--to keep
the sump-hole pumped out; perhaps he had shut down for repairs. But the
big thing, after all, was to restore Virginia her pets and win his way
to a place in her heart. He drove boldly up the street and stopped
before the house, but nobody came to the door. He waited a while, then
leapt out uncertainly and released the mother of Virginia's pet kittens.
She ran under the house and, as no one came out, Wiley let the rest of
them go and turned disconsolately back towards the mine. If he had ever
thought, when he had the Widow arrested, that Virginia was going to take
it so hard--but then, of course, it had been absolutely necessary--and
just wait till she found her kittens!
There was trouble in the engine-house. He knew that the minute he saw
the dancing torches in the dark, and he went up the trail on the run;
but when he saw the wreckage, and the gear-wheel dismounted, he burst
into a wailing curse. The mine had been all right, pumps operating,
hoist running, when he had left the day before; but the minute he
turned his back---- "What's the matter?" he demanded and then,
pushing the engineer aside, he flashed a torch on the wreck. Wedged in
the gearing of the shattered gear-wheel was a pair of engineer's
overalls. They had jammed tight in the teeth and the resistless
driving of the engine had cracked the great gear-wheel like an
eggshell. Held solid by its base in the bolted concrete there had not
been a half-inch's play and, since something must give, and the
opposing wheel had stood, the enormous casting had smashed. The
engineer and his helpers were pottering about, trying guiltily to
remove the cause of the accident, but one look was enough to tell
Wiley Holman that his mine was closed down for a week. No welding
could ever repair that broken gear-wheel--he would have to wire for
another.
"Whose overalls are those?" he asked at last as the men sought to evade
his eye and the engineer himself confessed ownership.
"They're an old pair of mine," he explained, "that got caught when I was
wiping up the grease."
"What? Wiping up grease when the machinery was in motion? Why didn't you
wait until it stopped?"
"Well--I didn't; that's all. There was a big puddle of grease gathering
dirt underneath there--and I thought I'd wipe it up."
"I see," observed Wiley and his eyes narrowed down as he caught the
aroma of whiskey. "Well, clear up this mess," he said at last and
hurried to his office to telephone. A single line of wire stretched
out across the plain, connecting Keno with Vegas and the world, and
within half an hour he had dictated a rush order to be wired to his
supply-house in Los Angeles. If money would buy it he would grab a new
gear-wheel and have it shipped out by express; but if there was none
in stock he would have to wait for it; and the machine-shops were
months behind. Yet his whole mine was shut down on account of this
accident and, if he only had the money, he could almost afford to buy
a new engine and be done with it. He stopped and thought if there was
one in the country that he could get hold of, second-hand, and then he
thrust the matter aside. The problem of getting an engine on the
ground was one that could be worked out later, but in the meanwhile
the water was rising in the sump and the pumps would soon be
submerged. There were two shifts of miners who would have to be
discharged and--yes, the engine crew, too. It was against all the
rules for an engineer to be wiping up his engine while it was running,
and it was only by a miracle that the engineer himself had escaped
unhurt from the smash?
But was it a miracle? A swift stab of suspicion made Wiley's heart stand
still. Was this the first treacherous move in Blount's battle to win
back the mine? Had Blount, or some agent, suggested to the engineer that
an accident would be followed by a reward; and then had not the
engineer, when no one was looking, fed his overalls into the gearings?
He was a surly young brute and he met Wiley's eyes with a stare that
bordered on defiance, yet there was nothing to be gained by accusing
him. If Blount had bribed his men it was best to get rid of them without
the faintest suggestion of suspicion; and then take on a new crew,
shipped in from San Francisco or some equally distant place.
Wiley went underground with his men, opening up the air-cocks in the
pumps, and bringing out the powder and steel; and then the next morning,
just before the stage went out, he gave them all their time. They had a
certain constraint, a sullen silence in his presence, that argued them
against him at heart and, since the mine was closed down for some time
to come, he made a clean sweep of them all. Yet it pained him somehow,
being new at the game, to see all these miners against him and as they
piled their rolls on the stage he lingered to see them off. He had paid
them union wages and treated them right but now, with their time-checks
in their pockets, they looked past him in stony silence. It puzzled him
somehow, leaving him vaguely uneasy; but just as the stage pulled out he
found the answer to his enigma. On the gallery of the Huff house as the
automobile sped past there was a sudden flash of white and as Virginia
appeared the young engineer rose up drunkenly and wafted her a kiss.
After that the answer was plain.