ON DEMAND
If there was anything left of his mill but the frame, Wiley's ears had
played him false; and yet he stood and looked after Virginia. This
grinding crash, this pandemonium of destruction which had left him sick
with fear, had put joy into her dancing feet. Yes, she had danced--like
a child that hears good news or runs to meet its father--and he had
thought her worthy of his love! He had battered his brain for weeks to
devise some plan whereby he could make his peace; he had taken her blows
like a dog; and she had answered with this. Whether it was Stiff Neck
George or some other man, she had known both his presence and his
purpose; and now she rejoiced in the catastrophe. A hundred dollars
would buy him a squaw more worthy of confidence and love.
There was darkness in the mill, but when they brought the flares,
Wiley saw that the ruin was complete. From the rock breaker to the
concentrators there was nothing but splintered wood, twisted iron and
upturned tanks; and the demon of destruction which had raged down
through its length was nothing but the fly-wheel of the rock crusher.
What power had uprooted it he was at a loss to conjecture but, a full
ton in weight, it had jumped from its frame and plowed its way down
through the mill. The ore-bins were intact, for the fly-wheel had
overleapt them, but tables and tanks and concentrating jigs were
utterly smashed and ruined. Even the wall of the mill had given way
before it and the cold light of dawn crept in through a jagged
aperture that marked its resistless course. The fly-wheel was gone and
the damage was done; but there was still, of course, the post mortem.
What had caused that massive shafting, with its ponderous speeding
wheels, to leap from its bearings and go crashing down the descent,
laying everything before it in ruins? Wiley summoned his engineer and,
in the shattered jaws of the rock-breaker, they found the
innocent-looking instrument of destruction. It was not a stick of
dynamite, but a heavy steel sledge-hammer that had been cast into the
jaws of the crusher. They had closed down upon it, the hammer had
resisted, and then all the momentum of that whirling double fly-wheel
had been brought to bear against it. Yet the hammer could not be
crushed and, as the wheel had applied its weight, the resistance to
its force had caused it to leap from its bearings and go hurtling down
the incline.
It was a very complete job, even better than dynamiting, and yet Wiley
did not blame it on Stiff Neck George. Some miner, some millman, who had
seen it done before, had repeated the performance for his benefit. Or
was it, perhaps, for Virginia's? He remembered the engineer who had fed
his greasy overalls into the gearings of the hoist. He had boarded with
Virginia and had waved her a parting kiss--but this time it would be
some trammer. Wiley gave them all their time on general principles, but
he did not go down to witness the farewell. Whether the trammer kissed
her good-by or simply kissed her hand was immaterial to him now--and, in
case it might have been a millman or some miner underground, he laid off
the whole night shift. The night-watchman went too, and the stage the
following evening brought out a cook to start up the boarding-house.
Wiley did not guess it--he knew it--Virginia Huff was the witch who had
mixed the hell-broth that had raised up all this treachery against him.
She had poisoned his men's minds and incited them to vandalism, but it
would not happen again. He had been a fool to endure it so long; but she
could starve now, for all that he cared. If she thought she could twist
him like a ring around her finger while she egged on these men to wreck
his mill, she had one more guess coming and then she would be right, for
he had come to his senses at last. This was not the Virginia that he had
known and loved--the Virginia he had played with in his youth--but a
warped and embittered Virginia, a waspish, heartless vixen who had never
been anything but cold. She had worked him deliberately, resorting to
woman's wiles to gain what was not her due, and now when his mill was
smashed into kindling wood, she danced and laughed for joy.
What kind of a mind could a woman have, to do such a senseless thing and
then laugh at the man who had helped her? She was kind to her cats, the
neighbors all liked her, to everyone else she seemed human; but when it
came to him she was a devil of hate, a fiend of ruthless cunning. She
would tell him to his face--at three in the morning, when he had caught
her running away from the mill--that she hoped his old mill would be
ruined. And now, when the trammer or some other soft-head had sent one
of his sledges through the crusher, she was laughing up her sleeve. But
there was a hereafter coming for Virginia and her mother and they would
get no more favors from him. If they crept to his feet and said they
were starving he would tell them to get out and hustle. Meanwhile they
had sent him broke.
There would be no more ore concentrated in the Paymaster mill during
the life of his bond and lease; and unless he could raise some money,
and raise it quick, he was due to lose his mine. Whether he had
abetted it or not, Blount would not fail to take advantage of this
last, staggering blow to his fortunes; and there were notes and paper
due which would easily serve as a pretext for a writ of attachment on
his mine. Bad news travels fast, but Wiley set out to beat it by
snatching at his one remaining chance. His mill was ruined, his output
was stopped, but he still had the ore underground--and the buyers were
crazy to get it. He sent out identical messages to ten big consumers
and then sat down to await the results. They came with a rush, ten
scrambling frantic bids for his total output for one year--and one of
them was for eighty-four dollars! It was from the biggest buyer of
them all, a man who was reputed to be the representative of a foreign
government, a man who had paid cash on the nail. Wiley pondered a
while, looked up his obligations to Blount, and accepted immediately
by wire. But there was one proviso--he demanded an advance payment,
which the buyer promptly wired to his bank. Then Wiley twisted up his
lip and waited.
Blount appeared the next day, dropping in casually as was his wont; but
there was a cold, killing look in his eye and he had a deputy sheriff as
a witness. They looked through the mill and Blount asked several leading
questions before he ventured to come to the point, but at last he
cleared his throat and spoke up.
"Well, Wiley," he said, drawing some papers from his pocket, "I'm sorry,
but I'll have to call your notes. If it were my money it would be
different; but I'm a banker, you understand, and your paper is long
overdue. I've extended it before because I admired your courage and
thought you might possibly pull through, but this accident to your mill
has impaired the property and I can't let it run any longer."
"Oh, that's all right," said Wiley, "but you don't need to apologize,
because there won't be any attachments and judgments. Just tell me how
much it comes to and I'll write you out a check." He took the notes from
Blount's palsied hand and spread them on the desk before him, but as he
was jotting down the totals Blount grabbed them wildly away.
"Not much!" he exclaimed, "I don't surrender those notes until the money
is put in my hands! Your check isn't worth a pen stroke!"
"Well, I don't know," returned Wiley. "There may be two opinions about
that. I had a hunch, Mr. Blount, that you might spring something like
this and so I made arrangements to accommodate you."
"But you're strapped! You owe everybody!" cried Blount in a passion. "I
don't believe you've got a cent!"
"Just a minute," said Wiley, and took down his telephone. "Hello," he
called, "get me the First National Bank." He waited then, twiddling
his pencil placidly, while Blount's great neck swelled out with venom.
"I figure," went on Wiley, as he waited for the connection, "that I
owe you twenty-two thousand dollars, with interest amounting to
two-eighty-three, sixty-one. Here's your check, all filled out, and
when I get the bank you can ask the cashier if it's good."
"But, Wiley--," began Blount.
"Hello! Hello! Is this the First National? This is Holman, out at the
Paymaster. Mr. Blount is here and, as I'm closing my account with
him----"
"No! No!" cried Blount in a panic, but Wiley went on with his talk.
"Yes," he said, "the check is for twenty-two thousand, two eighty-three,
sixty-one. Will you please set that amount aside to meet the payment on
this check? All right, Mr. Blount, here's the bank."
He held out the instrument and Blount seized it roughly, for he had
heard of fake telephone messages before, but when he listened he
recognized the voice.
"Oh, Agnew?" he hailed, smiling genially at the 'phone. "Well, sorry
to have troubled you, I'm sure. Oh, yes, yes; I know Wiley is all
right; he's good with us for twenty thousand more. No, never mind the
certification; we may let the matter drop. Yes, thank you very
much--good-by!"
He hung up the receiver and turned to Wiley; but the cold, killing look
was gone.
"Wiley," he chuckled, slapping him heartily on the back, "you certainly
have put one over. It isn't every day that I find a man waiting with the
check all made out to a cent; and somehow--well, I hate to take the
money."
"Yes, I know how you suffer," replied Wiley, grimly, "but let's get the
agony over." He held out the check and Blount accepted it reluctantly,
passing over the notes with a sigh.
But for the trifling detail that "demand" had not been waived Blount
could have gone into court without even asking for his money and secured
an attachment against the property. But Wiley's firm insistence that all
cut-throat clauses should be omitted had compelled Blount to demand
payment on the notes; and then, by some process which still remained a
mystery, he had raised the full amount to meet the payment. And so once
more, after going to all the trouble of bringing a deputy sheriff along,
Blount found himself balked and his dreams of judgment and lien
permanently banished to the limbo of lost hopes.
Wiley's over-prompt payment had confused Blount for the moment and
thrown him into a panic. He had counted confidently upon crushing him
at a blow and cutting short his inimical activities, but now of a
sudden he found himself threatened with the loss of all his interests.
If Wiley had made profits beyond his calculations--but no, he could
not, for under the terms of their bond and lease one-tenth of the net
profit on all his shipments was sent direct to Blount. And if what
Wiley had received was only ten times the Company's royalty, he was
still in debt to someone. Blount had followed him closely and he knew
that his expenses had absorbed all his profits, up to date. But
perhaps--and Blount paused--perhaps the other bank, or some outside
parties, were backing him in his enterprise. He would have to look
that matter up--first. But if not--if he was still running his mine as
he had from the first, on his nerve and his diamond ring--then there
were ways and means which should be speedily invoked to prevent him
from meeting his payments.
Scarcely a month remained before the bond and lease lapsed--and Wiley's
option on Blount's personal stock--but any day he might raise the money
and, by taking over Blount's stock, place him out of the running for
good. These tungsten buyers who were so avid for its product might
purchase an interest in the mine; they might advance the fifty thousand
and take it over under the bond and lease, and bring all his plans to
naught. As Blount paced about the office he suddenly saw himself
defrauded of that which he had worked for for years. He saw his stock
bought up first, to deprive him of the royalties, and then the mine
snatched from his hands; and all he would have left would be the
forfeited Huff stock and the small payment it would earn from the sale.
Something would have to be done, and done every minute, to prevent him
from carrying out his purpose.
Blount paused in his nervous pacing and held out a flabby hand to Wiley,
who was writing away at his desk.
"Well, Wiley," he said, "I guess I must be going. But any time you need
money----" He stopped and smiled amiably, in the soft, easy way he had
when he wished to appear harmless as a dove, and Wiley glanced up
briefly from his work.
"Yes, thank you, Mr. Blount," he said. But he did not take his hand.