She rang for Custer to hook her gown. It was a very soft gown of white

satin draped about the bust with lace and chiffon. It was cut to the

waist line in the back and almost as low in front, for her figure was

hardly more developed than a growing girl’s; and it was unrelieved by

colour. She had already put on the string of pearls her mother had

hidden when the other jewels were sold in Paris. Altogether it was a

costume she would not have dared to wear even two months ago, when a

touch of colour on the bodice or in her hair was necessary to divert

attention from her spoiled complexion.

Custer had been her mother’s maid for many years and had returned with

her to Butte. After an interval of employment elsewhere, she had come

to Ora as soon as Mark had built his house. She hooked the gown, pinned

up a stray lock with an invisible hairpin, shook out the little train,

and stood off.

“It reminds me of the way your mother used to look,” she said, “and

you’re even prettier than she was, Miss Ora--now. But I fancy you’ll be

more comfortable in this gown when you wear it in London. These ladies

dress smartly enough, but never as low as the English ladies do,

leastways out here. I fancy it’s the Western men. They don’t seem to

approve of showing too much.”

“Well, I think I’ll rather enjoy startling the natives. Quick--give me

my wrap! I hear Mr. Blake coming. No controversy here.”

XIX

The Prom was held not in the School of Mines but in The Coliseum, a

large hall over a saloon and garage, half way between The Hill and The

Flat, requisitioned by all classes when the weather forbade the use

of Columbia Gardens. The walls were covered with the School colours,

copper and green, flags, and college pennants. The ceiling was a

network of electric lights with coloured globes, copper and green,

fluttering paper and sprays of apple blossoms, brought from far! “Cozy

corners” looked like fragments of a lower altitude, and the faithful

palm was on duty everywhere. The orchestra, on a suspended balcony in

the centre of the room, was invisible within the same elaborate scheme

of decoration.

When Ora entered with her husband the Grand March had finished and the

instruments were tuning for a waltz. She saw Ida standing directly

under the orchestra surrounded by several men who patently were

clamouring for dances. Even in that great room full of women dressed

from New York and Paris, Ida looked distinctive and superb. Ora smiled

proudly, as she observed her, quite oblivious that the throng of men

and women and indignant “squabs,” who had been discussing the wife

of Gregory Compton, had transferred their attention to the dazzling

apparition in white. Ida wore her gown of coral silk, whose flimsiness

was concealed under a mist of black shadow lace. The coral beads

clasped her strong white throat and fell to her supple waist. There was

a twist of coral tulle in her black hair, which was arranged in the

rolling fashion of the moment, obeyed by every other woman in the room

save Ora Blake. And her cheeks, her lips, were as coral as the fruit of

the sea. She had powdered her face lightly to preserve its tone through

exercise and heat. All the arrogance of youth and beauty and powerful

magnetism was expressed in the high poise of her head; a faint smile of

triumph curved above her little white teeth; her body was in perfect

repose yet as alert as that of a healthy young cat. The waltz began and

she glided off in the arm of a young mining engineer from the East. She

danced precisely as the best-bred women in the room danced (early in

the evening): ease without abandon, dignity without stiffness.

“Heavens, but the American woman is adaptable!” thought Ora. “I never

realised before exactly what that time-worn platitude meant. Probably

the standards in the Ida set are not so different from ours, after all.

As for looks and carriage she might have three generations behind her.

Is it democracy or the actress instinct of woman--permitted its full

development in this country for the first time in her history?”

This was not entirely a monologue, but addressed for the most part

to Professor Becke, one of the most distinguished instructors of the

School of Mines, and one of the men she liked best in Butte. He was a

tall fair man, with a keen thin fimbriated face, and long fine hands.

Ora made a point of asking him to dine with her once or twice a month.

He led the way to two of the chairs on the side of the hall after she

had announced that she did not intend to dance.

“But this is the first party we have had for weeks,” he said. “They

won’t leave you to me for long.”

“I don’t feel in the mood for dancing. Besides,” she added with a new

daring, “I’m all in white and looking very white once more; I don’t

want to get warm and spoil the effect.”

He stared into her challenging eyes as if he saw her for the first

time. In that room, full of colour and of vivid women and young girls,

she produced an almost disconcerting effect with her statuesque beauty,

her gleaming whiteness, her frail white body so daringly displayed in

its white gown. And, oddly enough, to those staring at her, she made

the other women look not only commonplace but cold.

Ora smiled to herself; she was quite aware of the impression at

work, not only on the scientific brain, but on others more readily

responsive; she had considered the prudence of practising on Butte

before departing for wider fields.

The Professor changed colour, but replied steadily: “Fancy you two

extraordinary creatures loose in Europe! You should take a bodyguard.

I can understand Compton giving his consent, for he is the kind of man

that wouldn’t remember whether his wife were twenty or forty at the end

of his honeymoon, and there can be little between them in any case. But

Blake!”

“Oh, we’ll come home without a scandal,” said Ora lightly. “Ida is the

reverse of what she looks, and I--well, I am the proverbial ‘cold’

American woman--that the European anathematises. Ida, of course, looks

the siren, and I shall have some trouble protecting her, until she

learns how far she can go. But at least I am forewarned.”

“I fancy you will have more trouble protecting yourself!” Professor

Becke’s voice was not as even as usual. His intellect was brilliant,

and illuminating, and never more so than when in the society of this

young woman whom heretofore he had admired merely as a vivacious and

exceptional mind; but, startling as this revelation of subtle and

alluring womanhood was, he remembered that he was no longer young and

that he had an admirable wife with an eagle eye; he had no intention

of scorching his fingers in the attempt to light a flame that would

guide him to the rocks even were he invited to apply the torch. But

he was a man and he sighed a little for his vanished youth. If he had

been twenty years younger he fancied that he would have forgotten his

good lady and risked burning his heart out. He moved his eyes away

deliberately and they rested on Mark Blake, mopping his scarlet face

after a lively waltz. He was a kindly man, but all that was deathlessly

masculine in him grinned with a cynical satisfaction.

“Who is that?” asked Ora abruptly, and forgetting a faint sensation of

pique.

“Ah! Who?”

She indicated a man leaning against one of the doorways, and looking

over the crowd with unseeing eyes. “Heavens! What a jaw! Is he as

‘strong’ as he looks, or is he one of Bismarck’s wooden posts painted

to look like a man of iron?--Why, it’s----”

“That is Gregory Compton, and he is no wooden post, believe me.”

“I haven’t seen him for years. _Can_ any man be as strong as _he_

looks?”

“Probably not. He hasn’t had time to discover his master weaknesses

yet, so I don’t pretend to guess at them myself. At present he is too

absorbed in squeezing our poor brains dry----”

“Doesn’t he ever smile?”

“So rarely that the boys, who have a nickname for all their fellow

students, call him ‘Sunny Jim.’”

“What do you think of his wife?” asked Ora abruptly. She hardly knew

why she asked the question, nor why she felt a secret glow at the

expected answer.

The Professor turned his appraising eye upon the substantial vision

in coral and black that tonight had been pronounced the handsomest

woman in Butte. “There could be no finer example of the obvious. All

her goods are in the front window. There are no surprises behind that

superlative beauty; certainly no revelations.”

“I wonder! Ida is far cleverer than you think, and quite capable of

affording your sex a good deal in the way of surprises, not to say

shocks.”

“Not in the way I mean--not as you will do, worse luck for my helpless

sex. There is no soul there, and, I fancy, little heart. She is the

last woman Gregory Compton should have married.”

“Why?” Ora tried to look bored but polite.

“Oh--whatever she may have for other men she has nothing for him. She

looks the concentrated essence of female--American female--egoism.

Compton needs a woman who would give him companionship when he wanted

it, and, at the same time, be willing in service.”

Ora bristled. “Service? How like a man. Are we still expected to serve

men? I thought the world was moving on.”

Professor Becke, who, like most men married to a domestic

commander-in-chief, was strenuously opposed to giving women any powers

backed up by law, asked with cold reserve: “Are you a suffragette?”

Ora laughed. “Not yet. But I just escaped being born in the Twentieth

Century. I belong to it at all events.”

“So you do, but you never have been in love----” He broke off in

embarrassment; he had forgotten for the moment that this white virginal

creature had been married for six years. She showed no resentment, for

she barely had heard him; she was looking at Gregory Compton again, and

concluding that he might appeal strongly to the supplementary female,

but must antagonise women whose highly specialised intellects, at

home only on the heights of civilisation, had submerged their primal

inheritance.

Professor Becke went on:

“Even a clever woman’s best career is a man. If you women develop

beyond nature that powerful old tyrant will simply snuff you out.”

“Well, man will go too. That may be our final triumph.”

“Atlantis over again! And quite in order that the race should perish

through the excesses of woman. Then Nature, having wiped her slate

clean with a whoop, will begin all over again and precisely where she

did before. No doubt she will permit a few records to survive as a

warning.”

“You may be right--but, although I have an idea I shall one day want to

justify my existence by being of some use, it won’t be because my sex

instinct has got the better of my intelligence. But I refuse to think

of that until I have had a royal good time for a few years.”

“That is your right,” he said impulsively. “You are altogether

exceptional--and you have had six years of Butte! I am glad your mine

has panned out so splendidly. There is quite an excitement in the

Sampling Works----”

“What?” Ora forgot Gregory Compton. “I knew the mine was doing well----”

“Surely you know that your profits in royalties already must be

something over a hundred thousand dollars----” He stopped in confusion.

Ora’s face was radiant and she never had liked Mark as sincerely as

at that moment. “It is just like him! He wanted to wait and give me a

great surprise--my husband, I mean.”

“And I have spoilt it! I am really sorry. Please don’t tell him.”

“I won’t. And I’ll be the most surprised woman in the world when he

takes me to the bank to sign my letter of credit. You needn’t mind.

I’ll have the fun of thinking about it for five months--and rolling it

up in my imagination. Ah!”

“Compton has recognised you, I think.”

Ora had met the long narrow concentrated gaze of her husband’s friend.

She bowed slightly. Compton made a step forward, hesitated, braced

himself, and walked toward her.

“A constitutionally shy man, but a brave one,” said Professor Becke

with a grim smile, as he rose to resign his seat. “A strong magnet has

pulled up many a sinking heart. Good evening, Compton. Glad you honour

our party, even if you don’t dance.”

“I intend to ask Mrs. Blake to dance.” Gregory betrayed nothing of his

inner trepidation although he did not smile. He could always rely upon

the stern mask into which he had trained his visage not to betray him.

Ora, oblivious of her resolution not to dance, rose and placed her

hand on his shoulder, smiling an absent farewell to Professor Becke.

For a moment she forgot her resentful interest in this man in her

astonishment that he danced so well. She had the impression of dancing

with a light supple creature of the woods, one who could be quite

abandoned if he chose, although he held her as if he were embracing

a feather. She wondered if it were his drop of aboriginal blood and

looked up suddenly. To her surprise he was smiling, and his smile so

altered the immobility of his face that she lost her breath.

“I feel as if I were dancing with a snowflake,” was his unexpected

remark.

“You look the last man to pay compliments and murmur sweet nothings.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“Perhaps I am. I rather liked your attitude--expression, rather--of

cool superiority.”

“Why don’t you use the word prig?”

“Oh, no!--Well, perhaps that is what I did mean.”

He stopped short, regardless of the annoyance he caused several

impetuous couples. “If you did I shall leave you right here.”

“I did not. Please go on. Everybody is staring at us. You took me

completely by surprise.”

“I? Why?”

“You are the last man I should expect the usual small talk from.”

“Small talk? Heavens knows I have none of that. Girls used to talk my

head off in self-defence. I merely said what I thought. What did you

expect me to talk about?”

“Oh--mines, I suppose.” Again, to her surprise, his face lit up as if

by an inner and jealously hidden torch. But he said soberly:

“Well, there is no more interesting subject. Never has been since the

world began. Where shall we find a seat?”

The waltz was over. The chairs were filling. Young couples were

flitting toward the embowered corners.

“Let’s go outside,” he said abruptly.

“What? On the street? And nobody goes out of doors from a ballroom in

June.”

“Good reason for going. Come with me.”

He led her to the cloak-room. “Get your wrap,” he said.

Ora frowned, but she asked for her heavy white woollen wrap and put it

on; then automatically followed him down the stairs and into the street.

“Why don’t you get your coat and hat?” she asked, still dazed. “It’s

cold, you know.”

“I never was cold in my life,” he said contemptuously. He hailed a

taxi. “I must go up to the School of Mines, and ask the result of some

assaying,” he added as he almost lifted her in. “Then we can talk up

there. May I smoke?”

“I don’t care what you do.”

He smiled directly into her resentful eyes this time and tucked the

lap-robe about her.

XX

He apparently forgot her during the short drive and stared through

the open window of the cab, his thoughts, no doubt, in the assay room

of the School, where several students, as ardent as himself, were

experimenting with ore they had managed to secure from a recently

opened mine. Ora’s resentment vanished, partly because she reflected

that a new and original experience was a boon to be grateful for in

Butte, but more because she was thrilled with the sense of adventure.

Her woman’s instinct gave assurance that he had no intention of making

love to her, but it also whispered that, whether she liked or disliked

him when the adventure was over, she would have something to remember.

And it was the first time she ever had indulged in recklessness. Butte

would be by the ears on the morrow if it learned of her escapade.

When they reached the dark School of Mines he dismissed the taxi, and

said to Ora, “Wait for me here. I shan’t be a moment.”

He disappeared and Ora shrugged her shoulders and sat down on the

steps. He returned in a few moments and extended himself over several

steps below her.

“Comfortable?” he asked.

“Very!”

“It’s a night, isn’t it?” he asked abruptly.

He was not looking at her but at the low sulphurous blue sky, with its

jewelled lattice, white, yellow, green, blue. There were no tree tops

to rustle, but from the window below came the voluptuous strains of the

Merry Widow waltz, mingling incongruously with the raucous noises of

the sleepless town: the roaring street-cars, the blasts of engines, the

monstrous purr of motor-cats.

“If we could cut out that jungle,” he said with a sigh. “Are you warm

enough?” He pulled the cloak about the lower part of her body. “I

should have taken the rug from the cab----”

“I am warm enough,” she said impatiently, and what she longed to say

was, “How in heaven’s name did you marry Ida Hook?” He had transferred

his gaze to the city and she studied his face. Then she understood. In

spite of its intense reserve and detachment, its strength and power,

its thin sensitive mouth, it was the most passionate face she had

ever seen. As a matter of fact she had been at pains to ignore the

purely masculine side of men, her fastidious mind never indulging in

comparisons. She half rose with a sense of panic. Again he looked up

solicitously.

“I am sure you are not comfortable. I could find you some cushions----”

“Please don’t. So you love beauty?” She was deeply annoyed with

herself, but could think of nothing less banal. He certainly was not

easy to talk to.

“Don’t you? It would be odd if you didn’t. One reason I brought you up

up here was because I wanted to look at you in the starlight where you

belong--the cold starlight--not in that crowded gaudy room full of mere

human beings.”

“Are you a poet? I have somehow received the impression that you are a

mere walking ambition.”

“I’m no poet if you mean one of those writing fellows.” His tone

expressed unmitigated scorn.

“Well, no doubt you have read a great deal of poetry, little as one

would suspect it.”

“Never read a line of it except when I had to decline it at school--any

more than I’ve ever read a line of fiction.”

“Well, you’ve missed a great deal,” said Ora tartly. “Poetry is

an essential part of the beauty of the world, which you seem to

appreciate. And the best of fiction is the best expression of current

history. What do you think when you star-gaze?”

“You mean, can I think at all when I haven’t read what other men have

thought?”

“No.--No doubt the most original brains are those that have not read

too much, are not choked up.” Ora made this admission reluctantly, but

he had caught her fairly. “Tell me at least what the stars suggest to

you. About everything has been said of them that can be said. The poor

old stars have been worked to death.”

“The stars above Montana are watchfires protecting the treasure below.

Perhaps they are bits of her treasures, gold, silver, copper, sapphire,

that flew upward in the final cataclysm.”

“I don’t know whether that is poetical or gross materialism.”

“No mines, no poets. Nearly all conquest from the dawn of history

down to the Boer War has had the acquisition of mineral wealth as

its real object. The civilisation that follows is incidental; it

merely means that the strongest race, which, of course, knows the

most, wins. If ever we have a war with Mexico, what will be the

cause? Mines. Incidentally we will civilise her. Peru, Mexico, India,

the Americas--all have been invaded in their turn by more civilised

nations, and all after plunder. They gave as much as they took, but

little they cared about that. What opened up California? This great

Northwest? Prospectors in search of gold. Excuse this lecture. I am the

least talkative of men, but you have jarred my brain, somehow. Read the

history of mines and mining if you want romance.”

“As a matter of fact few things interest me more. I am so glad my mine

has been leased for a year only. When that is up I am going to mine

it myself. I’ll build a bungalow out there and go down every day.

Perhaps in time I could be my own manager. At all events, think of the

excitement of watching the ore as it comes up the shaft; of running

through a lean vein and coming suddenly upon a chamber of an entirely

different kind of ore from what you had been taking out. Great shoots

full of free gold! Wire gold! Or that crisp brown-gold that looks as if

it were boiling out of the ore and makes one want to bite it! Why are

you staring so at me?”

His eyes were more widely opened and brilliant than she had seen

them. “Do you mean that?” he asked. “I’ve a great notion to tell you

something that I’ve not told anyone.”

“Do tell me!”

She leaned down eagerly. She had dismissed the feeling of panic as

something to be forgotten as quickly as possible. But her brain was on

fire to penetrate his. She felt an extraordinary mental stimulation.

But he relapsed into absolute silence, although he held his head,

lowered again, at an angle that suggested he might be thinking

intently. She moved impatiently, but he sat still, staring downward,

his eyes narrow once more. She noticed irrelevantly how black his hair

was, and her white hand went out stealthily as if magnetised, but was

immediately restored to order. In the vibrating silence she had another

glimmer of understanding. He wanted to tell her something personal,

but his natural secretiveness and habit of reserve were engaged in a

struggle with the unusual impulse. She shifted the ground.

“I wish you would tell me something of your boyhood,” she said abruptly.

He looked up in astonishment. “I never talk about myself----”

“How very egoistical.”

“Ego----”

“No, I did not say egotistical.”

“Ah!” There was another pause, although he looked at her with a frown.

“I have talked to you more than I ever talk to anyone,” he said

resentfully.

“It is the stars, to say nothing of the isolation. We might be up

on one of your escaped nuggets. Remember that I have heard of you

constantly for six years--and met you before on one of those occasions

when all persons look alike. How could I escape curiosity?”

“I brought you out to look at in the proper setting. I can’t say I had

any desire to talk to you. I suppose I should not keep you out here----”

“I am much happier and more comfortable than in that hot room. But

surely you need more recreation. Why do you never go to dances?”

“Dances? I? I only went tonight----” He, too, apparently, was

determined to keep their respective spouses out of the conversation,

for he veered off quickly. “It is a sort of religion to attend the Prom

even if you only show yourself. I was about to beat a retreat when I

saw you. Of course it was my duty to shake hands. Besides, I wanted to

see if you were real.” And he smiled up into her eyes.

“Do you know that we are flirting?”

“Well, let us flirt,” he replied comfortably. “I haven’t the least idea

what it is, but I am not a bit in love with you, if that is what you

mean.”

Ora drew herself up rigidly. “Well, you are----” she began, aware

that she had a temper. Then she laughed. Why quarrel with a novel

experience? Her anger turned into a more subtle emotion. She was well

aware of the dazzling brightness of her eyes. She leaned forward and

concentrated her mind in an attempt to project her magnetism through

them, although again with a feeling of panic; it was too much like the

magnet rushing out to the iron.

He returned that powerful gaze unmoved, although an expression of

perplexity crossed his own eyes. She was disconcerted and asked lamely:

“Is it true that you used to run away and prospect in the mountains?”

His face lit up with an enthusiasm her fascinations had been unable to

inspire; and a richer note came into his voice. “I was eleven the first

time and stayed out for six months. Two years after I ran away again.

The next time I went with my father’s permission. I worked in one of

the Butte mines one summer--but otherwise--well, you see, there is a

good deal to do on a ranch. This is the first time I have been able to

do as I please.”

Ora looked at his long slim figure, his brown hands that tonight, at

least, expressed a sort of cruel deliberate repose. Whatever they may

have been in their ranch days they were smooth and well cared for now.

“Somehow, I can’t see you handling a pick,” she said doubtfully. “Is it

true that you intend to work in the mines all summer?”

“Part of it--when I am not working in a mill or a smelter. I’d be

ashamed of myself if I couldn’t do anything that another man can do.

Some of the best miners look like rats.”

He looked like a highly-bred mettlesome race-horse himself, and Ora

wondered, as she had before tonight: “Where did he get it? Who were his

ancestors?” She had seen dukes that looked like farm hands, and royal

princesses that might have been upper housemaids, but her feminine

(and American) mind clung to the fallacy that it takes generations to

produce the clean-cut shell. She determined to look up his family tree

in Holland.

“Well--Custer--my housekeeper--will look after you,” she said as

naturally as if her thoughts had not wandered for a moment. “Shall you

do any mining on your own place before we come back from Europe?”

He started and looked at her apprehensively, then scowled.

“What is the matter? You may not know it but at this moment your face

looks like an Indian battle-axe.”

To her surprise he laughed boyishly. “You startled me. I have heard of

mind readers. Well, I will tell you what I wanted to a while back. But

you must promise not to tell--anyone.”

“I promise! I swear it! And do hurry. I’m afraid you’ll shut up tight

again.”

“No, I won’t. I don’t know that I’d tell you were it not that your own

mine is just over the border; we may have to consolidate some day to

save a lawsuit--No, I will be honest; I really want to tell you. It is

this: Close to the northeast boundary line of my ranch is an almost

barren hill of limestone and granite. Shortly before I left--last

October--I discovered float on the side of the hill. There is no doubt

in my mind that we have both come upon a new mineral belt, although

whether we are in the middle or on one edge of it is another question.”

He told her the story of the storm and of the uncovering of the

float. Nor did he end his confidence with a bare statement of fact.

He told her of his sensations as he sat on the ragged ground leaning

against the roots of the slain trees, his mental struggle, and final

resolution. Then he told her of the hopes and dreams of his boyhood,

and what it had meant to him--this sudden revelation that he had a

mine under his feet--and all his own! He talked for half an hour, with

the deep satisfaction that only a shy and silent person feels when

talking into a sympathetic mind for the first time. Ora listened with

a curious sense of excitement, as if she were overboard in a warm and

pleasant but unknown sea. There were times when she felt like talking

very fast herself. But she did nothing of the sort, merely jogging him

diplomatically when he showed signs of relapsing into silence. Finally

he stopped in the middle of a sentence and said abruptly:

“That’s all.”

“Oh! And you really have made up your mind not to begin work for a

year?”

“Quite!”

“But--have you thought--it is only tonight I learned that the engineers

who leased my mine have struck a rich vein. Suppose it dips toward

yours----”

“It does----”

“Have they put on a big force?”

“Naturally. They are rushing things, as they know they will not get the

mine another year.”

“Well, suppose their vein runs under your hill--through their

side-line?”

He stirred uneasily. “I am watching them. So far the dip is very

slight. It may take a turn, or go down straight; or,” and he smiled at

her again, “it may pinch out. Nothing is so uncertain as an ore vein.”

“Do you think it will?” asked Ora anxiously.

“No, don’t worry. I was down the other day; and did some prospecting on

my own account besides. I think you’ve got a big mine.”

“But suppose the vein should take a sudden dip to the right--you don’t

want them burrowing under your hill----”

“They won’t burrow under my hill,” he said grimly. “I should persuade

them that there was an even richer vein on their left.”

“Is there?”

“I have reason to think so. They naturally would want to avoid the

expenses of a lawsuit, and of course they would waste a lot of time

sinking a shaft or driving across. Their lease would be pretty well up

by the time----”

“You _are_ cold-blooded! What of me? I should be making nothing,

either.”

“You’d make it all later on. How much do you expect to spend in Europe

anyway? You must have made a thousand dollars a day since the first

carload of ore was smelted.”

She was on the point of replying that a woman could not have enough

money in Europe, when she remembered the conspiracy to make him believe

that a thousand dollars would cover the expenses of his wife.

“Oh, it is merely that I don’t like being one of the pawns in your

game,” she said.

“You’d have all the more later on. Ore doesn’t run away.”

“How _can_ you stay away from your mine? I feel--after all that you

have told me!--that you are wild to get at it?”

“So I am! So I am! But I said I wouldn’t and that is the end of it. I

want that last year at the School.”

“What shall you do with all that money--if your hill turns out to be

full of gold? More, I hope, than the rest of our millionaires have

done for Montana--which is exactly nothing. You might give the State a

complete irrigating system.”

“Good idea! Perhaps I will. But that is in the future. I want the fun

first----”

“Fun? It is the passion of your life, your great romance. You’ll never

love a woman like that.”

“Of course not.” But he was staring at her. He had a sensation of

something swimming in the depths of his mind, striving to reach the

surface. He changed his position suddenly and sat up. “And you?” he

asked. “You have the same vision. Couldn’t you feel the same absorbing

passion----”

“For ore?” The scorn of her entire sex was in her voice. “Dead cold

metal----”

“Every molecule, every individual atom is alive and quivering----”

“I am not interested in chemistry.”

He still stared at her. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes blazing. She

sprang to her feet.

“Ida is the wife for you! She’ll never ask much of you and you never

could hurt her, not even if you tried, she is fortunate in lacking just

that which you could hurt.”

“What is it?” He spoke eagerly. He, too, had risen, his eyes still on

her face. Unconsciously he held his breath.

“Oh, you wouldn’t understand it I told you--and I haven’t the least

desire to tell you. She will make you comfortable, do you credit when

you are a rich man, spend your money royally. That is all _you_ will

ask of _her_. Now, I’ll go back.”

He was a step or two below her. Their eyes were on a level. He looked

at her sombrely for a moment, then walked past her up the steps.

“You need not call a cab. I shall go home. I should only set them all

talking if I appeared in the ballroom again. You can tell Mark that I

didn’t feel well and that you took me home.”

They walked along the high terrace until they found a point of easy

descent.

“What have I said to make you angry?” he asked.

Ora laughed with determined good humour. “It was not I. It was merely

my sex that flared up. Please forget it.”

“I want to thank you for what you have done for Ida,” he said abruptly,

and it was evident that the words cost him more than his former

revelations. “It was a great thing for you to do.”

“Oh, Ida has become my most intimate friend. I have never enjoyed Butte

so much as in these last few months.”

“Has she? And Mark is my best friend.” He jerked his head in annoyance;

manifestly the remark had been too spontaneous. They were before her

gate. She extended a limp hand, but he held it firmly. He was smiling

again although he looked depressed.

“Do give me a friendly shake,” he said. “I do like you and you will be

going in a few days.”

“I do not go for five months.”

“You can go next week. I’ll square it with Mark.”

“I don’t wish to go next week. Besides, Mark expects some important

people here in the autumn, and needs my help. He has a deal on.”

“I’ll dispossess Mark of any such notion. It’s all nonsense, this idea

of a man’s needing his wife’s help in business. It’s a poor sort of man

that can’t manage his own affairs, and Mark is not a poor sort. Now,

you are angry again!”

“That would be foolish of me,” she said icily. “You merely don’t

understand. You never could. Do you want to get rid of me?” she asked

abruptly.

“Yes, I think I do.”

Then Ora relented. She also gave him the smile that she reserved as her

most devastating weapon. “I am sorry,” she murmured, “but I don’t think

I can be ready for at least three months. Nor Ida.”

“You go next week,” he said.

And go they did.

XXI

Gregory and Mark established their wives comfortably in a drawing-room

of the limited for Chicago, asked the usual masculine questions about

tickets and trunk checks, expressed their masculine surprise that

nothing had been forgotten, told them to be careful not to lean over

the railing of the observation car, nor to make themselves ill with the

numerous boxes of candy sent to the train, admonished them not to spend

too much money in New York, to send their trunks to the steamer the day

before they sailed, and give themselves at least two hours to get to

the docks; above all not to mislay their letters of credit; then kissed

them dutifully, and, as the train moved out, stood on the platform with

solemn faces and hearts of indescribable buoyancy.

“My Lord!” exclaimed Ida, as she blew her last kiss. “If Greg was going

along I’d have to take care of him every step of the way. I wouldn’t

trust him with the tickets the length of the train. Men do make me

tired. They keep up the farce that we’re children just to keep up that

other grand farce that they run the Universe. Any old plank to cling

to.”

Ora kept her sentiments to herself.

If Mark, who was fond of his wife, and more or less dependent upon her,

wondered vaguely that he should rejoice in the prospect of six months

of bachelorhood, Gregory was almost puzzled. Ida was now no more to him

personally than a responsibility he had voluntarily assumed and was

determined to treat with complete justice; but at least she made him

more comfortable than he had ever been before, and he had trained her

to let him alone. Since her rapid improvement her speech had ceased

to irritate him; she was never untidy, never anything but a pleasant

picture to look at. He had also noted on the night of the party that

she was indisputably the handsomest woman in the room and received the

homage of men with dignity and poise. He had felt proud of her, and

comfortably certain that he could trust her. Altogether a model wife.

Nevertheless as he walked out Park Street after he left Mark at his

office (Ida not only had sent his personal possessions to the Blake

house but found time to unpack and put them away) his brain, which

had been curiously depressed during the past week, felt as if full of

effervescing wine.

“Jove!” he thought, “why do men marry? What has any woman living to

give a man half as good as his freedom.”

His freedom was to be reasonably complete. He had told Ida to expect

no letters from him and not to write herself unless she were in

trouble. With all the fervour of his masculine soul he hated to write

letters. Long since he had bought a typewriter, on which he rattled off

necessary business communications so briefly that they would have cost

him little more on the wire. He knew that he should hear constantly of

his wife’s welfare from Mark, and had no desire to be inflicted with

descriptions of scenery and shops.

He felt a spasm of envy, however, as he thought of the letters Mark

would receive from Ora. _Her_ letters, no doubt, would be worth

reading, not only because she had a mind, and already had seen too much

of Europe to comment on its obvious phases, but because they would be

redolent of her subtle exquisite personality. He had once come upon a

package of old letters among his mother’s possessions and read them.

They had been written by his great-great-grandmother to her husband

while he was a soldier in the War of the Revolution. It was merely the

simple life of the family, the farm, and the woods, that she described,

but Gregory never recalled those letters without feeling again the

subtle psychological emanation of the writer’s sweet and feminine but

determinate personality; it hovered like a wraith over the written

words, imprisoned, imperishable, until the paper should fall to dust.

So, he imagined, something of Ora’s essence would take wing on the

rustling sheets of her letters.

But the spasm of envy passed. Ora would write no such letters to Mark

Blake. Her correspondence with her husband would be perfunctory,

practical, brief. To some man she might write pages that would keep him

up at night, reading and rereading, interpreting illusive phrases,

searching for hidden and personal meanings, while two individualities

met and melted.... But this yearning passed also. To receive such

letters a man must answer them and that would be hell.

He was on his way to change his clothes for overalls and get his blue

dinner pail, well filled, from Custer. But before he reached the house

he conceived an abrupt and violent distaste for life underground, an

uncontrollable desire--or one which he made no effort to control--for

long rides over the ranch, and a glimpse of Limestone Hill. It was

seven months since he had seen his ranch save in snatches, and he

wanted it now for months on end. He was not a town-bred man, and he

suddenly hated the sight of Butte with her naked angles and feverish

energies. He realised also that his mind insistently demanded a rest.

To be sure he had intended to work in the mines for eight hours of the

day, but he had planned to study for ten. Well, he would have none

of it! Caprice was no characteristic of his, but he felt full of it

this brilliant morning. If the air was so light in Butte that his feet

seemed barely to touch the ground, so clear that the mountains seemed

walking down the valley, what must it be in the country?

He went rapidly to the house, left a message for Mark, packed a

suit-case and took the next train for Pony. There he hired a horse and

rode to his ranch.

One of the sudden June rains had come while he was in the train. It

had ceased, but a mass of low clouds brushing the higher tree tops

was almost black. Their edges were silver: they were filled with a

cold imprisoned sunlight, which transformed the distant mountains into

glass, transparent, with black shadows in their depths. Montana looked

as giving an exhibition of her astral body. But as he rode the clouds

drifted away, the sky deepened to the rich voluptuous blue of that

high altitude; even the grey soil showing through the thin grass of

the granite hills looked warmer. Where the soil was thicker the ground

was covered with a gorgeous tapestry of wildflowers; the birds sang

desperately as if they knew how short was their springtime, affected

like mortals by the thin intoxicating air. Even the waters in the creek

roared as if making the most of their brief span. The mountains lost

their glassy look; blue, ice-topped, they were as full of young and

vivid life as when they danced about, heedless that the heaving earth

purposed they should wait for centuries before settling into things

of beauty for unborn man to admire. They never will look old, those

mountains of Montana; man may take the treasure from their veins and

the jewels from their crowns, but they drink forever the elixir of the

air. The blue dawn fills their spirit with a deathless exultation, the

long blue-gold days their bodies with immortal life, the starry nights,

swinging their lamps so close to the snow fields, unroll the dramas

of other worlds. They are no mere masses of rock and dirt or even of

metal, these mountains of Montana, but man’s vision of eternal youth.

Gregory drew rein on the crest of one of his own hills. Below lay

the De Smet ranch, and he drew a long breath with that sensation of

serene pride which comes to men when they contemplate their landed

possessions, or their wives on state occasions. All the arable soil,

on flat and hillside, was green; alfalfa, with its purple flowers,

filled the bottoms; the winter wheat was rippling in the wind; the

acres covered with the tender leaves of young flax were like a densely

woven lawn. On the hills and the public range roamed his cattle. All of

this fair land, including its possible treasure, was his, absolutely.

By the terms of his father’s will he paid yearly dividends from the

sale of steers and crops to three aunts, now reduced to two. Whether by

accident or design, Mr. Compton had omitted all mention of “minerals

under the earth.” Gregory had not the least objection to making these

ladies rich, when his mines yielded their wealth, but he was jealous

of every acre of his inheritance, far more of its secrets. All the

passionate intensity of his nature he had poured out on his land and

its subterranean mysteries, and he would have hailed an invention which

would enable him to dismiss every man from his employ. But his head was

hard and he always smiled grimly at the finish of his fanciful desires.

He turned his horse toward the distant group of farm buildings, then

wheeled abruptly and rode toward Limestone Hill. He had anticipated a

long talk with the enthusiastic Oakley on the subject of crops, but he

suddenly realised that he was in no mood to talk to anyone and that his

secret reason for coming to the ranch was to visit his hill. Oakley

would cling to him for hours. One glance had assured him that the crops

would have satisfied a state experimental farm. Mining would fascinate

him in its every detail, but as far as agriculture was concerned, he

was interested only in results.

As he rode toward the hill he frowned at the signs of activity on

the other side of his boundary line. A large gasoline hoist had

been installed. The waste dump was almost as high as a hill, four

“double-sixes”--six-horse teams--stood waiting to be loaded from the

ore bins. There were a group of miners’ cabins, a long mess-house, and

a blacksmith’s shop. This was the only shadow on his future: he wanted

no lawsuits, nor did he want to enter into partnership with anyone, not

even Ora Blake.

But he dismissed the matter from his mind, tied his horse, and,

although Montanans are a slow race on foot out of deference to the

altitude, ran up the hill. A glance told him that his secret was

undiscovered. He knelt down and dug up the float, his heart hammering.

And then he deliberately let the prospector’s fever take possession of

him. The soles of his feet prickled as if responding to the magnets

below; he had a fancy that gold, molten, was running through his veins.

But his brain worked clearly. He was aware that his exultation and

excitement were not due to the lure of gold alone, but to the still

more subtle pleasure that a strong and obstinate nature feels in

breaking a vow and deliberately succumbing to temptation. He had vowed

in good faith that he would not open his mine until the third of June

of the following year. But a week before he had spent an enchanted hour

with a woman, and during the rest of that night--he had walked half way

to Silver Bow and back--he had wanted that woman more than he had ever

wanted anything on earth. He had forgotten his mine.

At first he had lashed himself with scorn, remembering his infatuation

for the woman he had married. He felt something of the indignant

astonishment of the small boy who imagines himself catching a second

attack of measles, before he discovers it is scarlet fever. But it

took him only a brief time to realise that the passion inspired by Ora

Blake was so much deeper and more various than the blind subservience

to Nature that had driven him to Ida (who had not the least idea of

being a tool of Nature herself) that it was far more dangerous than

the first inevitable attack of youthful madness could ever be. It

humiliated his pride to have been the mere victim of the race, the

rudimentary male swept into matrimony by the first woman who combined

superlative femaleness with virtue. Then he wondered if he could have

loved Ora at that time; he certainly felt ten years older today.

The word love brought him to his senses. It was formidable and

definite. While he had believed himself to be in the throes of a second

fever caught from a beautiful woman’s concordant magnetism, he had felt

merely disgusted at his weakness, not in the least disloyal to his

closest friend, whom he knew no woman could tempt him to betray. But he

realised with hideous abruptness that if he were thrown with Ora Blake

for any length of time she would become so necessary to him through

the comprehensive appeal, which he only half understood, that he no

more could pluck her out of him by the roots, as men disposed of the

superficial passion when it became inconvenient, than he could tear the

veins out of his hill with his hands.

He had felt the danger dimly when with her, although he had made up his

mind even then to get her out of Montana as quickly as possible. He

vowed anew, with the first sensation of panic he had ever experienced,

that the same sky should not cover them a week hence. He knew his

influence over Mark Blake.

Then he made a deliberate attempt to banish the subject from his mind,

ordering his thoughts to their favorite haunts underground. But one

little insidious tract, so difficult to control in all brains still

young and human, showed a disposition to create startling and vivid

pictures, to dream intensely, to cast up this woman’s face, fling it

into his consciousness, with an automatic regularity that was like a

diabolical challenge to his haughty will.

He endeavoured to think of Ora with contempt: she had married a good

fellow, but one whom she must have been compelled by the circumstances

of her life to regard as her social inferior, and who assuredly was

in no sense suited to her--merely from a parasitic dread of poverty.

Other women went to work, even if delicately nurtured. But he was

too masculine and too little influenced by certain phases of modern

thought to condemn any woman long for turning to man in her extremity.

Privately he detested women that “did things”; better for them all to

give some man the right to protect them: marriage with a good fellow

like Mark Blake, even without love, spoilt them far less than mixing

up with the world in a scramble for bread. It would have spoilt Ora,

who was now merely undeveloped; hardened, sharpened, coarsened her.

He dismissed his abortive attempt to despise her; also a dangerous

tendency to pity her.

Before he finished his tramp he had recaptured his poise. What a woman

like Ora Blake might have to give him he dared not think of, nor would

he be betrayed again into speculation. Doubtless it was all rubbish

anyway, merely another trick of the insatiable mating instinct. If

it were more--the primal instinct plus the almost equally insistent

demands of the civilised inheritances in the brain--so much the worse,

the more reason to “cut it out.” But when he returned to the cottage in

East Granite Street he threw himself on the divan in the parlour and

slept there.

XXII

Therefore was he in no mood to fight another temptation; rather to

take a sardonic pleasure in succumbing. An hour later, in overalls,

and assisted by two of his labourers, outwardly more excited than

he, for they had worked underground and vowed they smelt ore, he was

running an open cut along the line of the float. As there was no

outcropping it was mere guesswork; it might be weeks before he struck

any definite sign of an ore body, but he was prepared to level the hill

if necessary. Until he did come upon indications that would justify

the expense, however, he was resolved not to sink a shaft nor drive a

tunnel.

They used pick and shovel until at the depth of eight feet they struck

rock. Gregory had been prepared for this and sent the unwilling but

interested Oakley into Pony for drills and powder. For two days more

they drilled and blasted; then--Gregory took out his watch and noted

the hour, twenty-three minutes after four--one of the men gave a shout

and tossed a fragment into the air.

“Stringer, by jinks!” he cried. “And it’s copper carbonate or I’m a

dead ’un.”

Gregory frowned, but laid the bit of ore gently on his palm and

regarded it with awe. He wanted gold, but at least this was his,

and the first of his treasure to be torn from its sanctuary. For a

moment the merely personal longing was lost in the enthusiasm of the

geologist, for the fragment in his hand was very beautiful, a soft rich

shaded green flecked with red; the vugs, or little cells, looked as if

lined with deep green velvet.

But he turned and stared at the mining camp beyond his boundary line.

One of the bits of float he had found last year had been gold quartz.

Had it travelled, a mere chip, from the original body to this distant

point, or danced here on the shoulders of an earthquake? Float, even

under a layer of soil was often found so far from the ore body, that

it was a more fallible guide than a prospector’s guess. He walked to

the end of the hill, while his miners shrugged their shoulders and

resumed the drilling.

The great vein of the Primo mine was dipping acutely to the right.

Might it not be wise for him to abandon his present position and sink a

shaft close to the line, trusting to his practical knowledge and highly

organized faculty to strike the vein?

He stood for half an hour debating the question, listening to the

intermittent roar of the engine, the rattle of ore dumped from the

buckets. Then he walked back to the red gash in his own land. It would

be the bitterest disappointment of his life if he failed to find gold

in his hill, but the dominant voice in his brain was always practical,

and it advised him to follow the willing metal for the present instead

of incurring the expense of a shaft and possible litigation.

“’Nother stringer!” announced one of the men, as Gregory arrived at the

long deep cut. “Guess it’s time for a windlass.”

“Guess it is. Go down to the house and get some lumber.”

He descended into the cut and looked at the unmistakable evidence of

little veins. Were they really stringer, tentacles of a great ore

body climbing toward the surface, or a mere series of independent and

insignificant veins not worth exploiting? He was in a pessimistic mood,

but laughed suddenly as he realised how disappointed he would be should

further excavation demonstrate there was no chamber of copper ore below.

Four hours later the windlass was finished and four men were at work.

At the end of the fortnight the windlass had been discarded in favor

of a gasoline hoist, and twenty-five men in three shifts were employed

upon a chamber of copper carbonate ore. The nearest of the De Smet

hills began to take on the appearance of a mining camp; a mess-house

and a number of cabins were building. Trees were falling, not only to

make room for the new “town” but to timber the mine when the time came

to sink or drift. At present those of the miners that could not be

housed by the disgusted Oakley occupied tents or rude shacks. Oakley

spent the greater part of his time escorting the great six-horse

teams from the ranch to the public road, as their drivers showed an

indifference to his precious crops only rivalled by Gregory Compton’s.

Mark took a week’s vacation after the first carload of ore had been

shipped from Pony to the sampling works in Butte and netted $65 a ton.

Gregory, who was working with his men, far too impatient and surcharged

with energy to walk about as mere manager, paid scant attention to him

during the day; but Mark was content to sit on the edge of the cut and

smoke and calculate, merely retreating in haste when the men lit the

fuses.

On the third morning, as he was approaching the mine at dawn with

his host, Gregory suddenly announced his intention of sending for a

manager; he purposed to sink a shaft on the edge of the chamber in

order to determine if the present lode was the top of a vein.

“Better take off your coat and go to work,” he added. “Do you good.

You’re getting too fat.”

“Getting? Thanks. But I don’t mind. You’ve got several hundred thousand

dollars in that chamber by the looks of things, but I suppose that

wouldn’t satisfy you?”

“Lord, no. That is merely the necessary capital to mine the entire

hill--or fight the powers that be when they get on to the fact that

I’ve got another Anaconda.”

“Do you believe it? Big pockets have been found in solitary splendor

before this.”

“This hill is mineral from end to end,” said Gregory with intense

conviction. “And I want to get to the main lode as quickly as possible.”

“By the way,” said Mark abruptly, “why don’t you locate your claim?”

“Locate? Why, the land’s mine. Patent is all right. My father even

patented several placer claims----”

“Mining laws are fearful and wonderful things. Judges, with a fat

roll in their pockets, have been known to make fearful and wonderful

interpretations before this. If you’ve struck a new copper belt--well,

the enemy has billions. Better stake off the entire hill, and apply for

patents. You may be grey before you get them, but the application is

enough----”

“It would cost a lot of money, and I don’t like the idea of paying

twice over. This is costing thousands----”

“And you’ll soon be taking out thousands a week. But if you need it all

I’ll lend you the money. It would be a good investment for Ora. You can

pay me four per cent. I’ve a mind to go ahead today and begin staking

off.”

Gregory stood still with his head inclined at the angle which indicated

that he was concentrating his mind. “Very well,” he said curtly. “Go

ahead. And I don’t need your money. Stake off every inch of the hill

and have a good map made. See that the side lines are flush with the

boundary. Of course I’d never have any trouble with you, but Mrs. Blake

might take it into her head to sell. Get out a surveyor when you’re

ready for him. Don’t bother me until the thing is done.”

Mark took a longer vacation and worked off some twenty pounds. He

wished ruefully that Ora would return suddenly, for he doubted that

his love of good living would undo the excellent work when he was once

more in Butte. He employed a U. S. deputy mineral surveyor, the map was

made, Gregory applied for his patents; the lawyers’s mind was at rest

for the present, although he kept his ears open in Butte.

Gregory sank his shaft ostensibly to determine the dip and width of the

vein leading from the chamber, but secretly with the hope of meeting

the body of ore already uncovered in the Primo Mine. He was elated with

his splendid “find” and sudden wealth, but his old dream never left him

for a moment. Indeed he would have been more than willing to miss the

pyroxenite if he could come upon a lode of quartz containing free gold.

That was what he had visualised all his life. He wanted to stand in his

own stopes and flash his lantern along glittering seams, not merely

send masses of decomposed grey-black ore to the sampling works and

await returns. If he found a vein worth the outlay he would erect his

own stamp mill and listen to its music. Such is the deathless boy that

exists in all men. Mere wealth meant far less to him than the beautiful

costly toy to play with for a while.

The shaft at the end of a month had gone down eighty feet; but

had revealed only a lean vein of copper carbonates which made him

forget his dreams in the fear that his mine was pinching out. But he

persisted, and one morning when he went to the bottom of the shaft

after the smoke of the blast had cleared away, and lit his candle,

he picked up a lump of yellow ore that glittered like quartz packed

with free gold. For a moment his head swam. He knelt down and brushed

the shattered rock from several other bits of what looked like virgin

gold; and he caressed them as gently as if they had been the cheek of

his first born. But he was a geologist. He stepped into the ascending

bucket a prey to misgivings. As soon as he examined his treasure in the

sunlight he knew it at once for chalcopyrite--the great copper ore of

the sulphide zone.

After he had assayed it he philosophically dismissed regret. It ran

$26 in copper with slight values of gold and silver. Chalcopyrite ore,

as a rule, runs about five per cent. in copper, its commercial value

lying in the immense quantities in which it may be found, although it

is necessary to concentrate at the mine. If he had struck one of the

rare veins of massive chalcopyrite, averaging $25 a ton, he would take

out, after it was sufficiently developed, several thousand dollars a

day; and, like the carbonates, it could go straight to the smelter. As

a matter of fact the vein when uncovered proved to be six feet wide

and grew slightly broader with depth. The miners were jubilant over

their “fool’s gold”, and a number of people came out and asked for the

privilege of looking at what the foreman, Joshua Mann, declared to be

the prettiest pay streak in Montana.

Gregory found his chalcopyrite during the third month after he began to

investigate the hill. The chamber already had netted him over a hundred

thousand dollars and grew richer with depth. He put an extra force at

work on the promising shoot.

In the Primo Mine the luck varied. The two engineers, Osborne and

Douglas, exhausted the first lode, struck a poor vein, averaging ten

dollars a ton, then ran into a body of the ore netting as high as four

hundred dollars. Two months later they came up suddenly against a wall

of country rock. Undaunted, they drove through the mass, and struck a

lean shoot of chalcopyrite.

XXIII

“Well, what do you know about that?”

Mark’s feet were on the table in the cabin Gregory had had built for

himself on the top of the hill. The news had just been brought to them

by one of the men who had a faithful friend in the Primo Mine.

Gregory was engaged in biting a cigar to pieces. He waited some ten

minutes before replying, during which Mark smoked philosophically.

“I think this,” he said finally, “what those fellows are after

is gold, not copper. Better suggest to them to get out an expert

geologist--Holmes is a good friend of mine--who will tell them to sink

a shaft over on the right, or run a drift from the original stope. All

we need is time.”

“I’m on. But will they do it? They’re not fools and what they’re after

mainly is cash.”

“I think they’ll listen to reason. They’re not far from the boundary

line and there’s no possible doubt that the vein apexes here. The

moment they cross the line I’ll get out an injunction. That would stop

them anyhow, hold them up until their lease had expired. And their

chance is good to recover the vein on the other side. No doubt it has

faulted. Have you noticed those aspens about a hundred yards beyond

their shaft? Where there are aspens there is water. Now as there is no

water in sight it must be below the surface, and that would indicate

faulting. There might be no ore on the other side, but the chance is

worth taking. Better have a talk with Osborne tomorrow. He’s the least

mulish of the two.”

“Good. I might offer them some inducement--give them an extra month or

two. Even so we’d win out. But they’re not the only danger ahead. How

long since you’ve been in Butte?”

“Not since I began work.”

“Well, let me tell you that Amalgamated is buzzing. They’ve got on to

the fact good and plenty that you’ve got the biggest thing in copper

that has been struck in Montana for twenty years. Of course they get

figures regularly from the sampling works. They know you’ve already

taken out half a million dollars worth of ore--net--and that the new

shoot is getting richer every minute. They’re talking loud about

spoiling the market and all the rest of it. Of course that’s rank

nonsense. What worries them is a rival in Montana. If your mine was in

Colorado or Michigan they wouldn’t care shucks. You haven’t taken out

enough yet to worry them about the market. But if they can queer your

game they’ll do it. Lucky for you the smelting works need copper just

now as badly as you need them. If it were not for that strike in the

Stemwinder and the Corkscrew you might be having trouble.”

Gregory smiled, but as he set his jaw at the same time it was not an

agreeable smile. “I’m in a mood to fight somebody--and win. I wanted

gold and didn’t get it. A row with Amalgamated would relieve my

feelings--although I’d rather use my fists.”

“They’re mad, too, because you’ve named your mine ‘Perch of the Devil.’

That’s the old name for Butte, and they look upon it as a direct

challenge.”

“So it is. And you don’t suppose I’d call my mine Limestone Hill, do

you? I shouldn’t get half the fun out of it. What the devil can they

do, anyhow?”

“That’s what I’m worrying about. You never know what Amalgamated has

up its sleeve. There was just one man who was too much for them--for

a while--and that was Heinze. And they got him in the end. I believe

you’d give them a run for their money, and I don’t rank you second to

Heinze or any other man when it comes to brains or resource. But--well,

they’ve got billions--and the best legal talent in the state.”

“You deserve a return compliment. You may consider yourself counsel for

Perch of the Devil Mine.”

“Jimminy! But I’d like a chance at them.” Mark’s cigar was burning his

fingers but he only felt the fire in his brain. “Do you mean it?”

“Who else? Watch them. Put spies on them. Fight them with their own

weapons. They’ve spies among my miners. That doesn’t worry me a bit.

I merely mention it. Let’s change the subject. I’ve got to sleep

tonight. What’s the news from Europe?”

“I’ve got Ora’s last letter here; want to hear it?”

“Good Lord, no. Tell me what they are doing. I sent Ida five thousand

dollars a few days ago, so I suppose they’re flying high. She cabled

her thanks and said they were both well.”

“Don’t you really know what they’ve been doing?”

“Not a thing.”

“Well--let’s see. They went over in June. They did France, Germany--lot

of places in regulation tourist style--incidentally met several of

Mrs. Stratton’s old friends. Then they went back to Paris, where they

appear to have indulged in an orgy of clothes preparatory to a round of

country house visits on the Continent and in England. Ora writes with

great enthusiasm of--er--Ida’s improvement. Says you’d think she’d been

on top all her life, especially since she got those Paris duds, and met

a lot of smart people; makes a hit with everybody, and will astonish

Butte when she comes back.”

“That will please her!” He felt no glow of tenderness, but some

satisfaction that he could gratify the ambitions of the woman he had

married. He was still too keen on his own youthful dreams, and thankful

at their partial fulfillment, not to sympathise with those of others.

Mark left him to accept the more commodious hospitality of Oakley, and

Gregory sat for another hour smoking, hoping for the mood of sleep. But

the news had excited him, and he preferred to sit up rather than to

toss about his narrow bed. The last part of the conversation, however,

had given a new turn to his thoughts. Suddenly, unbidden, Ora flashed

into his mind and refused to be dislodged. He walked up and down,

striving to banish her as he had done before, when, sleepless, she had

peremptorily demanded his attention. Tonight she was almost a visible

presence in the little room.

He sat down again and grimly permitted his mind to dwell upon his long

communion with her on the steps of the School of Mines. He tried to

analyse his impulse to take her there. Unconventional as he was it had

never occurred to him to do such a thing before, and there were twenty

women in the room whom he would have expected to exercise a more potent

fascination had he been in the humour for a flirtation. He had been

quite honest in telling Ora that he had taken her out merely to look at

her under the stars, and in intimating that to make love to her was the

last thing in his mind. She had hardly seemed a woman at all there in

the ballroom or when he first sat at her feet; his mind was relaxed and

the “queer” romantic or poetical streak that he often deprecated had

taken possession of it; if he had had a suspicion of anything more he

would have fled from her at once, for she was the wife of his friend.

As it was he merely had dismissed Mark from his mind and tried the

experiment of setting a bit of exquisite white poetry to the music of

the stars....

As often as her memory had assailed him he had longed to rehearse that

scene; the conversation, desultory and personal; her white profile

against the flaming blue sky; the intensity and brilliancy of her eyes,

so unlooked for in her young almost colorless face; her pink mouth

that changed its expression so often; her curious magnetism, so unlike

that of the full-blooded woman--all of that and something more; the

strange community of mind--or soul?--that had drawn him on to pour

out his secret self into another self of whose contact he was almost

literally sensible,--in a sudden desire for comprehension that had been

like the birth of a new star in his mental constellation. He had felt

the thrill of her sympathy, her understanding, then another thrill of

perplexity, fear; then the little quarrel, when he had thought her more

adorable than ever, and no longer bearing the least resemblance to a

star-wraith, but wholly feminine. When he left her it was with the

confused sense that he had sojourned for a bit with the quintessence of

womanhood whom Nature had cast in a new and perilous mould.

He went over the hour again and again, hoping to bore himself, to

arrive at the conclusion that it had been a mere commonplace flirtation

with a coquette who was as cold as she looked. But he found the

recaptured scene very sweet. The power of concentration he possessed

enabled him to shut out the little room and sit at the feet of the

woman whose magic personality had penetrated the barriers he so

jealously had built about his soul and given him the first sense of

companionship he had ever known.

He was filled with a longing that shook him and hurt him, to feel that

sense of sympathetic companionship, of spiritual contact, again. And

far more. He knew that she had loved no man, that all the glory and

the riches within her were waiting--and if she had waited, and he had

waited, and they had met unfettered that night----

He sprang to his feet. His face in the smoky light looked black.

“God!” he muttered. “God! Have I fallen as low as that? If ever I think

of her again I’ll cut my heart out. I hope to God the Amalgamated puts

up the hell of a fight. What I want is a man’s work in the world, not a

play actor’s.”

XXIV

A week later, Gregory, who was down in the bottom of the shaft,

received a message by way of a descending miner that a gentleman from

Butte, one Mr. John Robinson, requested the favour of an interview, and

awaited him in the cabin on the top of the hill. At least such is the

polite translation of the message as delivered: “Say, Boss, there’s a

guy upstairs in your shack what says he’s from Butte, and’s come out to

have a chin with you--some important. Says his name is John Robinson.”

Gregory swore under his breath and for a minute his face looked ugly

and formidable. But as he stepped into the bucket and gave the signal

he permitted his expression to change to one of grim amusement.

Mr. Robinson was one of the brilliant galaxy that guided the legal

footsteps of “Amalgamated”; that powerful company, financed by Standard

Oil, which owned thirty-one of the mines of Butte openly, and exerted a

power in Montana far exceeding that of state or nation.

Gregory wore corduroy trousers and coat, and these as well as his face

and hands were white with “muck”, a mixture of rock-dust and water

which spattered everyone in the vicinity of the ore drills; but he

wasted no time to clean up before climbing to his cabin to meet the

ambassador from Amalgamated.

Mr. Robinson, a portly gentleman, still young, but manifestly the

victim of easy fortune, rose from his chair before the stove and

greeted his host with beaming smile and extended hand.

“My dear Mr. Compton!” he exclaimed. “It is a great pleasure to meet

you again. Of course you have forgotten me for I was two grades above

you in the High, when you were a little chap----”

“What have you come here for? Out with it! I’ve no time to waste. Sit

down if you like.”

Mr. Robinson colored angrily. He knew little of the man with whom he

had come to deal, but had always relied upon his urbanity and Western

heartiness to “make a hit.” He knew Mark Blake and, although he had

heard, like others, of Gregory Compton’s record at the School of Mines,

he had assumed that he was a mere student, and in other respects more

or less the same sort of man as his chum. This man looked unlike any he

had ever met. He concealed his chagrin, however, and resumed his seat.

“Really, Mr. Compton, you are somewhat abrupt----”

“Get down to business. What does Amalgamated want?”

Mr. Robinson wisely took the cue.

“To buy you out.”

“How much will they pay?”

“How much do you want?”

“What do they offer?”

“Well, between you and me. I fancy they might go as high as a hundred

thousand.”

“Tell them to go to hell.”

“How much do you want?”

“A hundred millions.”

“Good God, man, are you mad!”

“If you had permitted me to finish. I should have added--in other

words, nothing. There isn’t money enough inside of Montana, let alone

on top, to buy one acre of this ranch.”

“But--you know what most mines are--pockety--yours may peter out any

minute.”

“All right. I take the chances.”

“The history of Butte Hill is unique. There will never be another----”

“How do you know?”

“It stands to reason----”

“Why?”

“Oh, Lord, man, if you are indulging in wild dreams----!”

“My dreams concern no one but myself. I’m satisfied with my hill and

that’s all there is to it.”

“I’m afraid not. Look here, you are a fine young fellow with a

big future--people talk a lot about you--I don’t want to see you

crushed----”

“You won’t.”

“I’m not here to make threats, but you are not so--ah--unsophisticated

as to imagine that if Amalgamated sets out to get rid of you, you can

stand up against them?”

“They can’t do a damned thing and you know it. They might have a few

years ago, when a roll could be passed on the street to a judge who was

to deny or grant an injunction within a few hours, and at a time when

there was no prospect of the referendum and recall; when the people of

Montana took the buying and selling of men in the legislature as part

of the game, all in the day’s work. But Montana has caught the reform

spirit that has been sweeping over the rest of the country, and she

is also getting pretty sick of corporation power. Now, sir, not only

have I a clear title to this ranch, but I’ve staked off the entire hill

and applied for patents. If Amalgamated freezes me out of Anaconda and

Great Falls, I’ll promote a company and put up a plant of my own. With

nearly a million dollars in sight besides what I’ve taken out, you can

figure, yourself, how much trouble I’d have in New York getting all the

money I wanted. Amalgamated knows that, and my ore will continue to be

smelted in Anaconda. Of course if I were within a mile or so of Butte I

might be in some danger. They’d bore through and then claim that my ore

vein apexed in one of their properties. But I’m too far away for that.”

Gregory saw the other man’s eyes flash wide open before they were

hastily lowered. Mr. Robinson regarded the point of his cigar.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “That’s all very true. Luck is with you in a

measure, but--well, take my advice and don’t fight Amalgamated. They

have in their employ some of the most resourceful brains in the

country--that are always on the job. Heinze taught them a lesson

they’ll never forget.”

“Let’s drop the subject.” Gregory rose and opened a cupboard. “Have

something?”

He poured whiskey into two glasses. The men smiled as they drank,

Gregory sardonically, Mr. Robinson ruefully but with thoughtful eyes.

He had what Ida called the quick-rich face, large and round and fat,

and it was an admirable mask.

“Like to see the mine?” asked Gregory.

“Why, yes--do you mean it?”

“Why not? If it had any secrets your spies would have turned them over

before this. Glad to show it to you.”

They went to the shafthead and descended in one of the buckets.

“How far down have you gone?” asked Mr. Robinson, with an air of polite

interest.

“We found chalcopyrite at one hundred and ten feet, after a narrow vein

leading from the chamber near the surface, and are stoping.”

As they left the bucket they were greeted by the cheerful rhythmical

sound of hammers on the drills, and by the light of the miners’ candles

they saw the men working at different points of the dark chamber, two

on a scaffolding above.

“Great waste of labor,” said Gregory. “I shall install a compressor

before long as well as electric lighting. Of course it is only the

beginning of a mine.”

He saw the ambassador from Amalgamated smile, and turned on his heel.

“They’ll be loading the holes in a minute,” he said. “And I’d like to

show you the upper chamber.”

When they reached the surface Mr. Robinson declined to go down into the

excavation, but stood on the edge watching the busy hive below. “Great

sight,” he said admiringly. “How deep have you gone?”

“About seventy-eight feet.”

“And the end not in sight!”

“Not yet, but of course it’s only a chamber.”

“You’ve taken out close on half a million here alone.”

“Pretty near. What the devil made you suppose I’d take a paltry hundred

thousand for the hill?”

“Oh, just to avoid trouble. You have the reputation of being a very

clever man.”

“Thanks. It’s cold standing round. Wouldn’t you like to take a walk?

How’d you like to see the Primo Mine?”

As Gregory, who was watching him intently, anticipated, the man’s face

lit up. “I should like it!” he said definitely. “I hear that they too

have struck chalcopyrite. Lost their gold vein.”

“They’re nosing after it in another direction. When the lease is up I

shall consolidate with the Blakes.”

“Quite natural. Of course it’s the same vein?--the chalcopyrite, I

mean.”

“Unquestionably. And it apexes in my property.”

“Are you so sure of that?”

“Not a doubt in the world. I struck the top of the vein twelve feet

below the surface. But it will never go to the courts.”

“Of course not.”

Gregory, who looked remote, almost blank, lost not an intonation of the

other man’s voice, nor a flickering gleam in his cunning eyes. His own

head was a little on one side, which, had Mr. Robinson had the good

fortune to know him better, would have warned him that the young man

for whom he had conceived a certain respect was thinking hard and to

some purpose.

Douglas, who had a personal liking for his neighbor, unaware that he

had been the chief instrument in the upsetting of skillful plans for

untold wealth, readily gave permission to visit the mine as soon as

the smoke from a recent blast would permit. Gregory and Mr. Robinson

walked about to keep warm, the former pointing out the probability of a

faulted ore vein under the aspens, and enlarging upon the great fortune

bound to be Mrs. Blake’s in any case. Then as the man merely remarked,

“Yes, charming woman, Mrs. Blake; thought the night of the Prom she

was one of the prettiest women I ever saw. No dead easy game there”;

Gregory refrained from kicking him and said innocently.

“Good thing the law compels creditors to present their claims within

a limited time, or Amalgamated might grab this mine and bore through

to my hill. I understand Judge Stratton was heavily in debt to the

Anaconda Company when he died.”

Mr. Robinson’s face turned a deep brick-red, and he shot a piercing

glance into the narrow noncommittal eyes opposite.

“Of course--it’s too late for that, but--Oh, well----” He broke off

abruptly and walked toward the shaft as Osborne beckoned. Gregory stood

a moment, his head bent forward. He had experienced the sensation

of coming into contact with an electrical wave. But he was smiling

pleasantly as he joined his guest at the shaft house.

After the visit to the mine, during which he amiably pointed out the

dip of the vein toward his own property, and Mr. Robinson succumbed to

the charm which never missed fire when Gregory chose to exert it, they

walked back to the ranch, where a team awaited the ambassador at the

foot of the hill.

“I’ve had quite a delightful visit,” began Mr. Robinson, when Gregory

interrupted:

“I’ve no intention of letting you go. You must have supper at the farm

and meet Oakley. I’ll send off the rig and drive you in myself----”

“Oh, I couldn’t think of troubling you----” Robinson, red again, stood

in almost agitated embarrassment.

“No train to Butte till nine-thirty. You don’t want to spend four hours

in Pony?”

“The fact is----” But whatever he had on his mind died on his lips.

He looked sharply into the bland smiling eyes opposite, and concluded

abruptly, “All right. Many thanks. Glad of the chance to know you

better.”

He paid off the driver of the team and they walked toward the ranch

house, Gregory commenting on Oakley’s genius for dry farming, and

expatiating upon the excellence of the crops. Mining was not mentioned

again during the evening and the lawyer enjoyed an excellent supper.

Gregory drove him to Pony, and clung to him so closely that he had no

opportunity to visit the telegraph office or a telephone booth. They

shook hands cordially as the train moved off. When it was out of sight

Gregory sent a telegram to Mark telling him to take the first train

next morning for Virginia City and meet him in the Court House. He

took his car to a garage and spent the night in Pony. On the following

morning at nine o’clock he walked into the Tax Collector’s office at

the County Seat.

XXV

The County Treasurer, who had just come in, looked blank for a moment,

then greeted his visitor with effusive cordiality.

“Always glad to see you, Mr. Compton. It does a poor clerk’s heart good

just to look at a man who’s such a favourite of fortune. Sit down, sir.”

“I will. I’ve a good deal to say.”

“Staked off the rest of your ranch? It’ll be some little time yet

before you get those patents through you’ve applied for already----”

“What do the taxes foot up on the Oro Fino Primo Mine?”

“Ah--What?” The man’s face turned scarlet, then white. He was a young

man, clerically able, but otherwise insignificant. “Why----” Then he

became voluble.

“The Primo mine, over there near your place? It’s a new claim, isn’t

it? Never heard of it before those fellows from New York sank a

shaft and struck it rich. Why should there be any taxes before the

regular----”

“You know as well as I do that Judge Stratton patented that mine and

did the necessary amount of development work, then found it salted and

abandoned it. That was twenty-eight years ago. He forgot it, and so,

apparently, did this office. It was regarded as an abandoned prospect

hole, if anyone thought about it at all. I haven’t discussed the matter

with Mr. Blake, but assume that he’s merely been waiting for his bill.

Now, for reasons of my own, I’ve telegraphed him to meet me here this

morning, but in case he can’t come I’m prepared to pay the amount

myself. How much?” and he took out his checque book.

The treasurer looked as if the cane seat of his chair had turned to hot

coals. “Really--that is a large order, Mr. Compton. Twenty-eight years.

It will take time to go over the records.”

“I’m prepared to wait all day if necessary.”

“But why this haste?”

“I have my reasons. They don’t concern you in the least. Do they?”

“Why--no--but I am very busy----”

“Then put someone else on the job. I assume that the county is not

averse to raking in a tidy little sum in a hurry.”

“Really----”

Gregory leaned back in his chair and smiled pleasantly.

“You had a telephone from Mr. John Robinson this morning.”

This time the man started visibly, but he made an effort to control

himself. “I have just come in----”

“He telephoned to you last night, did he not? What did he offer you to

permit him to pay those taxes today?”

“I will not be insulted, sir.” The man’s voice was almost a scream.

He heartily wished he had been in training a few years longer, a

graduate of the famous Heinze-Amalgamated orgy of corruption, or of the

Clark-Daly epoch, when nearly every man in office had been bribed or

hoped to be. “I never heard of Mr. Robinson!”

“Of course he reminded you that as the taxes are long delinquent the

county has the right to put the property up at public auction, and that

in any case Mrs. Blake would hardly be given the usual year in which to

redeem it. But why auction when the money is ready to be paid over at

once? How much did he offer you?”

“I repeat----”

“I think I can guess. It was five thousand dollars. I’ll make it ten.

Get to work.”

The man, in whom excitement had destroyed his appetite for breakfast,

and who had started out in life with the usual negative ideals of

honesty, burst into tears. “My God!” he sobbed. “I’ve heard of the

third degree. Your eyes bore a hole through one. They hurt, I say. To

think that you should come in here and accuse me of taking bribes.”

“Oh, hell, cut it out. Montana may be a great state, but she has her

rotten spot like any other. She’s been so debauched the last twenty

years by open bribery that I doubt if you could lay your hand on a

hundred men in her that haven’t had a roll anywhere from five hundred

to twenty thousand dollars passed to them, and pocketed it. Estimable

citizens, too, but a man never knows his weak spot until he has a wad

of easy money thrust under his nose--or flung over his transom. You are

no worse than the rest. Do you take my offer?”

The County Treasurer recovered himself with amazing alacrity. Ten

thousand dollars in a lump never had haunted his wildest dreams.

“All right, sir. It’s a bargain. But I want bills. No checks for me.”

“I congratulate you on your foresight! But there have been times in

this state when checque books were not opened for months. You shall

have it in bills. Where are the records?”

“In the vault there.”

“I’ll sit here. If you attempt to leave the room to go to a telephone

I’ll drag you out on the Court House steps and tell the story to the

town. Now get to work.”

“I’ll keep my word, sir, and I know you’ll keep yours.” He went into

the vault and appeared later trundling out a pile of records, then sat

down at a table and concentrated his mind as earnestly as if corruption

had never blighted it. Gregory watched him until Mark entered. Then the

two men went out into the corridor, standing where they could see the

table. Gregory recounted his interview with Mr. John Robinson, and the

present sequel.

Mark listened with his mouth open, an expression of profound chagrin

loosening the muscles of his cheerful healthy shrewd face.

“By George!” he cried. “And to think that was the one thing I never

thought of. Of course I knew about the delinquent taxes, and intended

to pay them when I was good and ready; but what’s the use of forking

over till you have to? But not to have thought of this! And I pride

myself upon sleeping with one eye open--never was caught napping yet!”

And for five minutes he exploited his vocabulary of profanity, heaping

each epithet upon his own humiliated head.

Gregory laughed. “Merely another proof that two heads are better than

one. Do you stand for the ten thousand? If not I’ll pay half.”

“I’d pay fifty----”

“I’ll pay half,” said Gregory definitely. “It means as much to me as to

you.”

“All right. Jimminy, but they’re clever!” He was calmer and his astute

legal brain was moved to admiration. “But you are cleverer. I’ve always

sworn by you. They’ll get a jolt all right. How did you catch on,

anyhow?”

“I fancy I got a wireless. The other man was thinking hard and so was

I--had practically nothing else in our minds. Those things will be

better explained some day. Perhaps it was merely a good guess.”

“You hit the nail on the head all right. I’ll have a letter to write to

Ora next Sunday! She’s had a narrow squeak, and she shall know whom to

thank for it.”

“Oh, cut that out.”

Gregory went to the bank and drew the ten thousand dollars, while

Mark kept watch. When the bill was finally made out, Mark examined it

critically, and then gave his personal checque. Three months later the

County Treasurer resigned his office on the ground of ill health and

bought an orange grove in Southern California. There he and his growing

family enjoy a respected, prosperous, bucolic life.

XXVI

Gregory had scored against the most powerful combination of capital in

the world. He knew that they knew he had scored, for he had met Mr.

John Robinson as he descended the Court House steps with the husband

of the delinquent taxpayer, and he felt reasonably elated. But the

keenest and canniest brains are not infallible, and he underestimated

the resources of his mighty and now open enemy. Three mornings later,

while he was still asleep, Joshua Mann, the miner in his confidence and

devoted to his interests, burst into the cabin and shook him.

“There’s the devil to pay, sir,” he cried. “Amalgamated has staked off

a claim between our boundary line and Primo.”

Gregory sat up in bed. He never awakened dazed, but with every faculty

alert. “What are you talking about? The Primo claim almost overlaps the

ranch.”

“So anyone would think. But it doesn’t. That’s the point. Of course

the old stakes of the Primo rotted long ago. They must have got hold

of the original map. But there it is: a bit of unclaimed land between

Primo and the ranch. There isn’t much more than room to sink a shaft,

but there is, all right. Guess they’ve got us on the hip.” And having

delivered his news he relieved his mind with profanity, of which he too

had a choice assortment.

Gregory flung on his clothes and accompanied by Mann walked hastily to

the edge of the hill. There, sure enough, were the four posts and the

flaunting notice of a located claim.

“Must have done it between shifts last night,” commented the miner.

“Didn’t take long and the moon helped. By jing!--if I’d been round with

a shotgun! Well, there’ll be fun underground sames on top. The moment

they break through we’ll be ready for ’em. They may get there but they

won’t stay long. The boys will like the fun; and we’d put our last

cent on you--know a winner when we see one.”

“Put on an extra force and make them work like hell. _We must get here

first._ When I’m not below you’re boss.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll keep ’em on the job, all right.”

“Promise them extra pay. Come up to me at eight o’clock tonight and

we’ll talk it over.”

He went back to the cabin and telephoned to Mark to come out at

once. The lawyer arrived in the course of the morning. The first ten

minutes of the interview may be passed over. Then Mark recovered his

equilibrium. He lit a cigar, demanded a drink, and elevated his feet to

the table.

“We’ll just thresh this question out, turn the spot-light on every side

of it, present and future. We ought to have done it before, but that

first victory was a little too heady. Nothing like a defeat to clear

the brain. What’s the first thing they’ll do? They won’t waste time

sinking a shaft if they can help it. That’s the hardest kind of country

rock. They’ll try to buy up the lease from Douglas and Osborne. I

haven’t the lease with me, but most leases carry a clause which permits

the original lessees to sub-let. I fancy I could get out an injunction

and delay them, however, until the lease expired. But what they can

do, all right, is to bribe those two men to give them the use of their

cross-cut--the one that has already struck your vein--while they were

sinking the shaft. Do you think they’ll fall for it?”

“My experience is that most men can be bribed if the roll is big

enough. Osborne and Douglas are pretty discouraged, although they’ve

begun to drift across the fault. I’ll talk to them, but they’re not

square men. Amalgamated could pretend to be sinking a shaft against

time itself, and be drifting for all they were worth on the Primo vein.

I understand that Amalgamated’s head geologist has been nosing round

for some time and has concluded there’s a parallel fissure in their

claim and that they can ‘prove’ apex rights.”

“How deep do you figure they’d have to sink to strike the vein at that

point?”

“About two hundred feet, owing to that surface bump.”

“And it apexes here. There’s no getting round that--with a square deal.

But they figure on proving that they’ve the main vein, and yours is

an offshoot? The case would go to Helena--to the Federal Courts--as

Amalgamated was incorporated out of the state. That’s bad. If the case

could be tried in Virginia City, and there was a good healthy suspicion

that the Judge was expecting to retire in comfort, you could apply for

a change of venue--result of that odorous chapter in our history when

every judge was on the pay roll of either Heinze or Amalgamated. Well,

at least there’s public opinion to be considered; the state is waking

up. Here is one thing we can do. If it comes to a knock-out fight and

the case goes to Helena, we can get out an expert geologist of national

reputation, whose record shows him to be above bribes, and who will

be bound to testify that the vein apexes in your claim. Becke of the

School of Mines, will find the man we want. Now, what’s your first

move?”

“To stope the vein as far as the boundary line, which of course is

my side-line, and as far down as possible. If they won in the courts

I’d have to fork over eventually, but they’d have to wait for it, and

they’ll get a good jolt underground.”

“You’re much too calm. What have you got up your sleeve?”

“I’ll tell you that when the time comes. It has nothing to do with

the present case. The best thing you can do now is to make the whole

thing public and get public opinion behind us. They don’t own all the

newspapers in the state, and they don’t own all the newspapers in the

rest of the country, either. Are you on?”

“You bet. Aren’t you afraid there’ll be a sudden strike among your

miners? After all, Amalgamated is popular among the mining class. They

pay good wages and treat the men pretty squarely all round. I’ll say

that much for them.”

“I’m not worrying about that. I’ll raise the wages of my miners, and

they like me. I call every one of them by his first name, and they’re

men--not a Bohunk among them--and like the idea, too, of a fight under

a good captain. If I’d put an Eastern manager in who’d put on dog, it

might be different, but I’ve worked shoulder to shoulder with them, and

not one of them has stuck harder to his job. Besides, Mann is devoted

to me, and has great influence over them.”

“Well, Amalgamated can’t queer you in the East, for you get your roll

from the Smelting Works. If that went back on you----”

“I’m not worrying about that, either. Torrence is a friend of mine.

He’s also a Mason. If things get hot he’ll give headquarters a hint

that my men, their blood being up, are as likely as not to make a

bonfire somewhere. Get back to town and give the story to the new

evening paper. Its lay is to fight Amalgamated for the sake of

notoriety. See that their brightest man writes a story for one of the

biggest New York and Chicago newspapers. Now, clear out. I’ve got to go

below.”

XXVII

The next day Gregory visited a mine in Lewis and Clark County which

recently had shut down, and bought a compressor at second hand. His

miners with the air drills were soon working at five times the rate

of speed that had been possible with the hand drills. The contractor

in charge of the development work on what was impudently known as the

Apex Mine, had installed a gasoline hoist, every new device, and as

large a force as it was possible at that early stage to employ with

profit. Gregory interviewed Osborne and Douglas, and obtained profuse

assurances, but Mann soon discovered that there was an increased force

on the Primo copper vein. Their original lease was nearly up but they

had accepted Mark’s offer of two months’ grace; an offer he deeply

regretted now, but the papers were signed and sealed. They made a feint

of pushing the drift across the fault, but as they employed a small

force at that point there was little room for doubt that they had been

amply compensated for a doubtful undertaking.

Meanwhile work on the great surface chamber of Perch of the Devil

Mine was drawing to a close. It had proved to be a hundred feet long,

thirty feet wide, and seventy feet deep, and had netted half a million

dollars. Some time since one of the larger houses on the West Side in

Butte, built by a millionaire while still faithful to Montana, but

whose family now spent twelve months of the year in Europe, New York,

or California, had been thrown on the market for less than a third of

its cost; new millionaires are not as plentiful in Amalgamated Butte

as of old, and that unique camp is still a perch, even for those that

make moderate fortunes; if no longer for the devil. It never will be

a favourite roost for the gamecock’s hens and chicks. The hotels and

“blocks” are always overcrowded, and even bungalows are in demand by

the energetic but impermanent young engineers and managers of the

various companies; but “palatial residences,” built by enthusiastic

citizens who either died promptly or retired in favour of their

families, are a drug on that great market they helped to build. When

the Murphy house, therefore, was advertised for sale Gregory bought it

for Ida and cabled her the news together with five thousand dollars

Mark had recently made for him on the stock-market.

Above these and other expenditures, he now had half a million dollars

to his credit, but he wanted a million more. The new vein was very rich

for chalcopyrite, but its depth was problematical, and it might drop in

values at any moment. If his belief in his hill was justified and there

were huge primary deposits below, there would be no end to his riches;

but it would take a year or more to determine that point; and meanwhile

he wanted at least a million and a half, not only to meet the possible

expenses of litigation, but to mine at depth and to open up his other

claims in case Amalgamated, when it reached the chalcopyrite vein,

claimed that it apexed in their property, got out an injunction, and

forced him to cease work on it.

But he had another and to him a still more vital reason for wishing

to make a great sum of money. Half a million dollars, particularly

when spectacularly acquired, alters a man’s position in his community

at once, and the readjustment of his own mental attitude toward life

follows as a matter of course; particularly in a country where money

not only talks but rules. He was now treated, when business took him

to any of the towns, as a permanent capitalist of the great state of

Montana; moreover, his romantic attitude toward his hill having been

inevitably dampened by its yield of mere copper, his appreciation of

its heavy contribution to his bank account was wholly practical. He not

only began to forecast himself as one of the small group of front-rank

millionaires which Montana has donated to the American Brotherhood of

Millionaires, but to be sensible of the sudden and active growth of

those business instincts he had always known were dormant in his brain.

It had needed but the rousing of his fighting instinct, the success of

its first move, and the swift countermove of the enemy, to awaken the

permanent desire, not alone to pit his brains against Amalgamated, but

to show the world what he could do. In short he was on his mettle, and

conscious for the first time of his powers and ultimate ambitions.

He had found his mine by an accident. Nature had flung it into his

lap. He was now determined to prove that he could make money with the

resources of his brain as rapidly as the more famous of the Montanans

had made it in the past, when opportunities were supposed to be more

numerous. There never was a time when opportunity did not coincide

with the man, and of this Gregory was contemptuously aware when he

dismissed the usual Wall Street resource as commonplace, beneath the

consideration of a man living in a state whose resources had barely

been tapped.

When live brains of peculiar gifts think hard and uninterruptedly on

a given subject they become magnets. Gregory paid frequent visits

to Butte and Helena, talking casually with many men. In less than a

fortnight he found his cue, and, accompanied by a civil engineer,

disappeared for a week.

XXVIII

Twenty years ago it was the ambition of every Californian, no matter

how blatant his state pride, to move to New York. Today he hopes to

live and die in California, the main reason being that the women of

his family find themselves members of a comparatively old and settled

community, enjoying many advantages and no little importance; given

frequent trips abroad they are content to remain at home in houses

of modern architecture, and to command a social position that New

York has granted to only two or three of California’s heiresses and

millionaires. Montanans, at present, those that are rich or merely

independent, are in the migratory phase of the earlier Californian; but

as New York has extended to them an even more grudging welcome than

it did to aspirants from the more picturesque state, they visit it,

after successive social disappointments, merely for its dressmakers and

those exterior advantages that may be exchanged for gold; the majority

migrate to “The Coast,” more particularly to Southern California. There

they not only find relief on the sea-level from an altitude that plays

havoc with the nerves, but, in the mushroom Southern cities, social

position may be had for the asking, and every advantage for growing

children.

Gregory had heard of a man named Griffiths, owner of the Circle-G

Ranch, a tract of land covering seventy-five thousand acres, who was

anxious to sell and move to Los Angeles. As the ranch was practically

waterless and thirty miles from a railroad, his only chance of

disposing of it was by means of an alluring bargain. He was willing

to sell the ranch, his large herds of horses and cattle, and bands of

sheep for half a million dollars.

Gregory returned to Butte without the engineer, went directly to

Blake’s office, and laid his programme before his astounded friend and

legal adviser.

He had found Griffiths a man unaccustomed to business but with his

mind set upon retiring with a capital of half a million dollars. His

efforts in money-making hitherto, had been confined to acquiring rather

than disposing of property, and his trading consisted of converting

live stock into such cash as was necessary for the purchase of

necessities not raised on his property. But he was nearly sixty, his

wife and four daughters had besought him for years to sell out and take

them to California, and he was now persuaded that he was as tired of

life in the wilds of Montana as they were. He was, however, possessed

of one fixed idea, to leave each of his “women folks” a hundred

thousand dollars when he died. Therefore would he not take a cent less

than five times that amount for his fine property; but although he

inserted the advertisement that had caught Gregory’s eye, so far he had

been unsuccessful. One man found the ranch too far from a railroad,

another no good for farming, save intensive, as it was without a water

supply; still another was willing to pay only a third of the amount

down, with easy terms for the remainder.

“It’s five hundred thousand cold cash,” said Mr. Griffiths to Gregory;

although in a burst of confidence later he had said: “What the dickens

I’m goin’ to do with that great wad of money when I get it beats me! It

turns me cold to think of it.”

Gregory had remained on the ranch two days, inventorying its stock,

buildings, and natural resources. He estimated that seventy-five per

cent. of the property was plow-land, the rest “rough, wooded, and

rolling.” There were several sets of buildings on it, and the cattle

and sheep sheds were in good condition. The cattle, sheep, and horses

could be sold on a rising market for $200,000, thus reducing the cost

of the land to four dollars an acre. After asking and receiving an

option for thirty days, Gregory intimated that he would like to extend

his trip into the mountains in search of float, and hired two riding

horses and a pack horse from his host, besides buying of him the

necessary food supply. Incidentally, in the course of conversation he

learned that there was a river “somewheres in the mountains between

thirty and forty miles northeast.”

He received more minute directions from a prospector regarding this

body of water, which was the object of his trip, and six miles from

Circle-G entered a ravine some twenty-five miles long. After climbing

one of the mountain sides that bounded the ravine, descending and

crossing another gulch, and climbing again, he and his companion saw,

far below, between the narrow walls of a cañon, an abundant mountain

stream.