THE DRAGON'S TEETH
It is the curse of success that it raises up enemies as Jason's dragon
teeth brought forth armed men. When he was skating around the country,
examining mines and taking out options, Wiley could safely count every
man his friend; but now that he had made his big _coup_ on the
Paymaster they were against him, from Virginia down. If he went to her
politely with a thousand-dollar bill and asked her to take it as a gift
she would refuse to so much as look at him. And yet, as a matter of
fact, he was the same old laughing Wiley--only now he did not laugh. It
was not right, but it could not be helped.
A long and weary month, full of vexatious delays and nerve-racking
demands from his creditors, left its mark on Wiley's face; but in six
weeks the mine and mill were running. Three shifts of men broke the ore
at the face and sent it up the shaft to the grizzly and from there it
was fed down through the enormous rock-crusher and then on through the
ball-mills and rollers to the concentrating tables below. It was crushed
and sorted and crushed again and ground fine in the revolving tubes, and
then it was screened and washed and separated on vanners until nothing
but the concentrates remained. The tail sluicings were sluiced off down
the gulch, to add to the mighty dump that the Paymaster had left there
in its prime. But even at its best, when it was working in gold ore that
ran three or four thousand to the ton, even then the famous Paymaster
had not turned out treasure like this.
The banks were full of gold--they were shipping it to America in lots of
ten and twelve million at a time--but tungsten was rare, it was
necessary, almost priceless, and the demand for it increased by leaps
and bounds. How could iron-masters harden the tools that were to turn
out the mighty cannon that this gold had been sent over to buy, unless
they could get the tungsten? Molybdenum, vanadium, manganese, and all
the substitutes were commandeered to take its place; but month by month
the price of tungsten crept up until now all the West was tungsten-mad.
It had gone up from forty dollars to sixty, and now seventy, for a
twenty-pound unit of concentrates--running sixty per cent or better of
tungstic acid--and as Wiley resumed his shipments he received a frantic
offer of seventy-five dollars a unit. And then once more he smiled.
There had been a time when he had felt the cold hand of Blount closing
down on his precious mine--and the other banks had refused to take over
his notes. The property was not his, there was nothing tangible upon
which to make a loan; and then, Blount had passed the word around. Wiley
was indebted to him, and heavily indebted, and when he took the apple
there would be no core for the rest. But now in a week the whole
situation had changed and Wiley's smile brought forth answering smiles.
The general store in Vegas extended his credit, even his supply-house
had heard the good news; and Blount, who had grown arrogant, became
suddenly friendly and fawning, trying vainly to cover up his hand. He
was like a man who had clutched at a treasure and discovered himself a
little too soon. The treasure was still Wiley's but--well, Blount was
used to waiting, so he smiled and extended the notes.
At three dollars and more a pound it would not take many tons of
tungsten to put Wiley safely out of the hole, but when he ran over his
accounts he was startled by the bills that were piling up against him. A
thousand dollars was nothing to these mining machinery houses and his
payroll was over two hundred a day; and then there was powder and timber
and steel, and gasoline and oil, _and_ the freight across the
desert. That went on everything, twenty dollars a ton whether they
hauled both ways or one; and with so much at stake he had to treat
everyone generously or run the chance of being tied up by a strike. Nor
was there lacking the sinister evidence of some unfriendly if not
hostile force, and as breakdowns recurred and unexpected accidents
happened, Wiley came and went like a ghost. His gun was always on him
and he watched each man warily, seeking out his enemies from his
friends.
As for Virginia and her mother, he had long since given up hope of
stopping their venomous tongues; and Death Valley Charley, finding the
pressure too strong, had conveniently dropped out of sight. In all that
town, which he had found dead and unpeopled and had changed in a few
months to a live camp, there was not a single soul that he could
truthfully say was honestly and unquestionably his friend. It was not
that they were against him, for most of them realized that their own
success was bound up with his; but they were not actively for him, they
did not boost and help him, but joined in on the old anvil chorus. He
had cheated the Widow, he had beaten Virginia out of her stock, he had
taken advantage of Death Valley Charley! But, they added--and this was
what galled him--what else could you expect from the son of Honest John?
Wiley gritted his teeth, but he did not speak his mind for the hour of
vindication was at hand. When he had paid off his notes and his bills
for supplies the first thing he would do, even before he took over the
mine, would be to buy in Blount's Paymaster stock. And with that stock
in his hands, with every tell-tale endorsement to prove the damning
story of Blount's guilt, he would go to these old-timers and make them
eat their words when they said his father was not honest. But as far as
he was concerned, what difference did it make whether they considered
him honest or not? Would they feel any more kindly towards his honest
old father when he had proved that he had been faithful to the end? No,
they thought they were virtuous and only denouncing injustice, but when
that charge was taken out of their mouths they would clack on out of
jealousy at his success. It was envy that really poisoned their minds
and made them spit forth spleen, envy and chagrin at their own lack of
foresight.
The Paymaster dump had lain right at their doorway where all of them
could inspect its ore, but no one had noticed the heavy spar. They had
called it white quartz and dismissed it from their minds, but he had
come among them with different eyes. He had gone to a school of mines,
where he had learned to identify minerals, and he had kept up with the
mining magazines; and while these poisonous knockers had been lamenting
the results of the war he had jumped in and turned it to his advantage.
He had done something practical, to the improvement of industry,
something that might change in a certain measure, the very destiny of
the world; but the moment he succeeded they had accused him of robbing
half-wits and of oppressing the widow and the orphan. Wiley shut down
his jaws and smiled dourly.
There was small hope now of changing the widow and her "orphan" but if
he could not convert them he could show them. As sure as he knew
anything he was convinced that Colonel Huff had simply fled from his
wife's nagging tongue and, when he got the time, Wiley intended to hire
a pack-train and set out across Death Valley to find him. Virginia came
and went, but always she avoided him scrupulously. Not once since she
had returned from Vegas had she met his questioning eyes; and to all his
advances she turned a deaf ear, if the statements of Charley could be
trusted. The carefully thought out scheme of getting back the Huff stock
and then forming an alliance against Blount had died before it was born;
or it remained at best in suspended animation, pending Death Valley
Charley's return. He had gone off with his burros but the longer Wiley
waited on him the more he saw that Charley was a broken reed. No, the
trimming of Blount, if it was done at all, would have to be done by
him--and all he needed was time.
Two months and a little more lay between him and the day of
reckoning--the twentieth day of May. In that short time he must meet
heavy obligations, pay off his notes, buy Blount's stock and purchase
the mine; and if anything should happen--if the hoist should break
down, the mill blow up, the market for tungsten fail--well, he could
kiss the Paymaster good-by. The market and other influences were on
the knees of the gods, but Wiley decided that there should be no more
accidents. That was something preventable and no more love-sick
engineers were going to use his gearings for a clothes mangle. He
engaged two watchmen who were mechanics as well and then he kept watch
over his watchmen. Neither by day nor by night did he go down the hill
for more than a few minutes at a time and on dark, stormy nights he
wandered about like a specter watching the shadows for Stiff Neck
George. He was out there somewhere, Wiley knew it as instinctively as
he knew that Virginia hated him, and yet he never appeared. He never
made threats nor showed himself in the open but, somewhere, he was out
there in the darkness; and sooner or later he would strike.
The days dragged on slowly, with cold, March winds and sandstorms
boiling in over Shadow Mountain; and then driving rain followed by
bright, sunny weather and struggling flowers in the swales. It was
spring, in a way, but not the spring of yester-year, with its songs and
laughter and high hopes. Wiley felt the old call to be up and away, but
his racer remained in its shed. He paced about restlessly, waiting for
something to happen, observing the slightest signs--and then he found
her tracks in the dust. Virginia had come up the trail in the night and
had gone down past the mill. He knew her tracks well and, among the
broad brogans of the miners, they stood out like the footprints of a
fairy. Wiley's heart leapt up in his breast--and then it stood still.
Had she come as an enemy or a friend?
He followed her trail to where it had been trampled out by the
watchman in making his regular rounds; and then, below the mill, he
picked it up again as it went on down the path. Not once had she
hesitated or turned from the beaten trail, but she had gone down after
the graveyard shift. That went on at eleven and her tracks were
superimposed on the hob-nailed boot-marks of the miners. When they had
come off shift they had trampled them out again, except for a print
here and there; and by the color of the dust Wiley shrewdly judged
that she had visited him between twelve and one. Between the
wind-blown footprints of the night-shift and the fresh red of the day
shift as they had mounted the trail at seven, her high-arched steps
had been made about midnight, for the dust had been whitened by the
air. Wiley followed them silently, trampling them out as he went, and
that night as the graveyard shift came on he slipped out and hid by
the trail. What kind of a watchman was this, who let a woman come and
go and never even saw her tracks in the dust? He could watch for
Virginia; and meanwhile, incidentally, he could keep tab on this
sleepy-headed guard.
The _chuh_, _chuh_ of the engine echoed loud in the canyon as
the hoist brought up the first cars, and then the rumble of the trams as
they were pushed down the track and the clatter of the ore down the
grizzly. A sharp _blap_, _blap_, from the compressor showed
that the machine-men had set up their drills; and beneath all the rest
there was the hushed rumble of the mill and the thunderous _rhump_,
_rhump_, of the rock-breaker. It was a ponderous affair of the old
jaw-type, surmounted by a fly-wheel of a full ton's weight that drove it
rhythmically on; and as Wiley listened it made a music for his ears as
sweet as any bass viol. In this mine of his there was an orchestration
of busy sounds, from the clang of the bell to start or stop the engine,
to this deep, rumbling undertone of the crusher; and every clang and
crunch brought him that much nearer to the day when he would be free.
He took shelter within the black mouth of a short tunnel by the trail
and looked out at his little world--the huge mill, dimly lighted, the
gaunt gallows-frame against the sky, and the sleeping town below. He had
made them his own and now he must fight for them; and watch over them,
day and night. Above him the stars shone out clean and cold, a million
of them in the dry, desert air; and in the east the half moon rose up
slowly above Gold Hill, where the wealth of ages lay hid. It had given
up its gold but his hand had struck the blow that would open up its
treasure vaults of tungsten. All it needed now was watchfulness and
patience. The moon rose up higher and he dozed within the shadow and
then a sound brought him to with a start. It was the crunch of gravel on
the trail before him and as he looked out he saw Virginia.