played in the failure of the Myrtle Mine. All he knew was that the
mine had been attached and sold by its creditors, and his father had
come out of it without a dollar. And he knew that he was not going to
be caught that way when he had found his mine. He meant to steer clear
of those speculating crooks who managed to loot every enterprise they
got hold of and still kept out of jail.
Jim Lambert met Bill by accident--or so Bill believed. It was in the
Great Northern bar, where Bill was treating himself to a glass of beer
and a San Francisco paper in a quiet corner. Both were inexpressibly
refreshing after his long exile, but Bill was not too engrossed to
keep a quiet eye open for those who came and went, or remained to chat
desultorily before the polished bar.
He was waiting for some one to approach him. Some one did, presently,
and that one was Jim Lambert. Jim brought his schooner of beer over
and sat down opposite Bill, grinning goodfellowship while he wiped his
perspiring brow.
"Got baked out, eh? Must be pretty hot in the desert, now."
"Fair," said Bill, and folded the paper for politeness' sake. "Still,
it hasn't been so bad. The man that cusses the desert is the man that
strikes out into it and thinks he'll hurry up and get it over with.
The desert's all right--if you know how to take it."
"I guess you're right. The old-timers don't seem to have much
trouble."
"Not unless they're drunk, or have an accident," Bill agreed, and took
two slow, satisfying swallows of beer.
"Well, how's she going? Hit that contact yet you were after?" Jim
spoke over his beer mug carelessly.
"Not yet. Been doing location work on three claims. Located first and
planned to prospect more thoroughly afterwards." He set down the mug
and reached into his pocket for the specimen he had shown to the
storekeeper. It was not a good sample of his ore; it was, in fact,
the "leanest" rock he could find. But he pushed it across the table
with an air of subdued pride.
Jim picked it up, testing its weight as he did so. Bill hooked his
toes behind his chair legs and leaned forward expectantly, watching
Jim Lambert's face. He thought he read there a shade of
disappointment, and he leaned back satisfied. Luella, he told himself,
did not talk to perfect strangers except when goaded to profanity by
teasing. Jim she had seen many times.
"Good, lively-looking rock," Jim said at last, repeating the
storekeeper's comment. "Carries gold, doesn't it?"
"You bet! Here, take this glass and look right there at the point of
that iron stain. It shows color, there, under the glass. When I get
depth on that, it ought to show good values, don't you think?"
"How deep is this?" Jim turned the rock under the glass. "Looks to me
like surface rock."
"You're right. That's outcropping. If I had enough of it, I'll bet it
would pay, just as she is. Or if it was close to a railroad, even."
Jim did not reply. He was pretending to study the rock; in reality he
was studying Bill Dale. Bill's optimism was a byword, to be sure; yet
Jim fancied he saw a slight discrepancy between Bill's keen eyes and
the easy hopefulness of his words. He missed somewhere the
good-natured twinkle and the drawl.
"Well, it's pretty good for surface rock," Jim said, when the silence
became noticeable. "Nothing to get excited over, though, do you
think?"
"I should say not! It'll have to look better than that before I get
excited."
"Well, good luck to yuh, Bill. If you do get something good, let me
know. I might be able to turn a deal for you. There's money in this
town yet--if you can show something good enough. It's shy, but it's
here. I'll be glad to help you out, any way I can."
"Thanks." Bill's drawl was quite apparent now. "I'll sure remember, if
I want to turn anything, later on."
Jim looked at his watch and said he must go; a simple expedient for
breaking off a conversation that has grown barren of interest, and one
that can never be gainsaid. And Bill, having finished his beer to the
dregs, went away also, quite satisfied in his mind.
His satisfaction was not so keen as Jim's, however. Had Bill Dale
tiptoed to the door of Jim's office, half an hour later, and put his
ear to the keyhole, he might have heard himself being talked about.
"He didn't get by, with me," Jim was saying positively. "Not for one
minute. He showed me a piece of rock no better than you can pick up on
any tailing dump in Goldfield, and claimed that was his best showing.
It wasn't good enough to account for what that parrot of his let out.
Remember? I jotted it down, first thing. Parrot talk is just parrot
talk, but they don't invent nothing. They've got to hear it said
before they'll say it. And if you might say Bill Dale was teaching it
that stuff for fun, that don't sound reasonable--knowing Bill."
He fumbled for a minute and brought out a little, soiled, red book.
"Now here's what the parrot reeled off, and I'll gamble she got it
straight. A man out alone by himself lets go and says what he really
thinks. We all know that. Now, the parrot says, 'Boy, we've struck it
rich! Got her traced now. Richest thing in Nevada. Goldfield can't
show stuff like this. Tell you we're rich. Won't tell anybody--don't
want a boom. Git a move on!' (That's something else, run in). 'They'd
be down here like flies. Gold perch for you. Luck's turned. Luck's
patting us on the back.'"
He looked at his companions and grinned. "Don't tell me that wasn't
picked up from Bill Dale's camp talk."
"Maybe he taught the parrot that lingo just to _have_ her spill it in
town and start a rush," one tight-faced man said cautiously.
Jim shook his head. "I saw him in the Great Northern--trailed him
there. Most generally, when Bill's in town, he takes the parrot around
with him, riding on his shoulder. She's a smart bird. Bill's proud of
her and likes to show her off. Talks everything, just like a human;
everything she hears and takes a notion to, that is. Well, he didn't
have her with him to-day. He's left her somewhere. From the saloon he
went into the barber shop. He's getting a haircut. Shave too,
probably. Never saw him in a barber shop before without that green
parrot. My guess is, he's afraid she'll let out something." Jim put
the book back in his pocket with a self-satisfied air. Men who live by
their wits are usually a bit vain of their shrewdness.
"Well, if you're right, he got scared too late to do any good,"
chuckled a jovial, round little man with one eye milky from cataract.
"He was just coming into town. Leaving her in the street for five
minutes, up there at the courthouse, would look safe enough to
anybody. It's just luck we happened along."
"Well, now, how's it to help _us_?" The tight-faced man had brown eyes
that stared intently, as do the near-sighted. He leaned forward,
bringing the conference to a point.
Four heads went together, at that, and if Bill had been listening at
the keyhole he wouldn't have heard much. They were a careful
quartette, and they had worked in harmony through the complexities of
several "deals."
Bill saw Jim Lambert again the next day. Jim was in the store, looking
boredly impatient to be served. The storekeeper's signal to Bill, of
tilted head and lowered eyelid did not pass unobserved. Bill followed
him back among the piled boxes of canned goods, and Jim idled over to
a pile of overalls and inspected them carefully while he tried to
listen.
He did not hear as much as he desired, and much that he did hear was
irrelevant. There was something about two burros leaving last night.
Then, after some mumbling, he caught the storekeeper's earnest
assurance, "--all right when he's sober. Just off a big drunk, so he's
good for three months, anyway. Tommy's an old, hard-rock man; all
around good guy if he takes a notion to yuh. And I got him cheap for
yuh. Three dollars and found."
Jim Lambert could not guess what Tommy this might be, but he was glad
to know that Bill was hiring a man by the underground route, and that
Tommy liked whisky. Working through the storekeeper meant only one
thing; the need of absolute secrecy. Which provided wonderful
illumination for a man like Jim Lambert.
Jim moved carelessly back to the front of the store and was giving his
order to the clerk when Bill emerged, carrying a spiteful-tongued
parrot on one finger. Bill grinned a greeting at Jim.
"Say, 'Hello, Jim,'" he instructed Luella in his coaxing tone.
Luella's reply was just barely printable when the editor's sense of
humor is keener than his puritanism. Luella blinked and said, "You
damned hussy, git a move on!"
"She's peevish," Bill apologized. "She's getting such a darned
nuisance in town I had to shut her up. Now you listen to me, old girl.
Back you go in the box, if you don't behave. Be quiet--you know I mean
it."
Luella turned and walked up Bill's arm to his shoulder, and leaned
forward to click her beak against his neck. "Lord, what a world!" she
murmured, and began daintily to eat half a banana which Bill gave her.
Jim Lambert took his few small packages and went out, and Bill saw him
no more. Which does not mean that Jim ceased to take an interest in
Bill Dale's prosperity and personal affairs.
CHAPTER FIVE
STRANGERS IN CAMP
From beside a camp fire at the springs which Bill Dale had designated
as the rendezvous, an undersized, ape-bodied individual rose and
goggled up at Bill through thick-lensed spectacles that magnified his
eyelids grotesquely.
"Hello," said Bill, looking down at him whimsically. "Is this the
outfit the Goldfield Supply Company sent out?"
"An' if ye'll tell me what business it might be uh yoors, I c'd maybe
say yis er no to that," the undersized one retorted, raising his voice
at the end of the sentence as if it were a question.
"All right, Tommy. You'll do, I reckon. I'm Bill Dale, and if I'm not
mistaken you'll be looking to me for your pay."
"An' from the look of ye I'll be earnin' that same," Tommy suggested
drily.
Bill lifted Luella and Sister Mitchell off Wise One, and began to
unlash the heavy pack, Tommy helping him. The two studied each other
with covert interest; Tommy seeking to discover whether Bill Dale
would make a good boss, one easy to work for, which, next to the
security of his pay, is a laborer's chief consideration. Bill measured
Tommy shrewdly as a man who would work--and gossip. A man who could be
loyal to the last gasp, but a man who might easily choose to be
disloyal. He was a garrulous little Irishman, was Tommy; a man of
indeterminate age and of problematic usefulness. But Bill was not
inclined to carp. He was content to give Tommy a trial, which was as
much as the best man could justly expect.
If Tommy had received any hint of the probable value of Bill's claims,
he gave no sign of knowing. Until he slept he sat cross-legged by the
fire and stared into the flames through his thick-lensed glasses, and
regaled Bill with choice anecdotes culled from his past,--that
endless, obvious odyssey of the common laborer whose world is bounded
by his "job." His voice was a soft, complaining monotone saturated
with the eternal vague question. Never did his inflection fall to a
period. At a distance which would blur the words of his speech, his
voice would inevitably give one the impression that Tommy was asking
one reproachful question after another, with never a statement to
relieve the endless inquiry.
Bill was amused, but he was also convinced that Tommy would presently
become a bore. He was interested to note that Luella preserved a
dignified silence all through the evening. One yellow eye on the
latest recruit, she sat humped upon the crotch of a packsaddle with
her green feathers ruffled moodily, still sulking over her
incarceration with Sister Mitchell.
At Parowan, whither they arrived one sultry afternoon with a smell of
rain in the air, Tommy went to work like an old hand on the desert.
Bill watched him unobtrusively and decided that the storekeeper had
shown pretty good judgment. While they were unpacking the burros,
Tommy cocked an eye at the sullen clouds that tore themselves on
Parowan Peak only to mend immediately and crowd lower down the slope,
and began gathering heavy rocks which he piled in a row on the lower
edge of Bill's tent, and to test the guy ropes and drive the pegs
deeper.
"She's a cloud-burst comin', er I never seen wan," he observed
complainingly, when he was again lugging the supplies into the tent.
"Them taties c'd stay outside, but watter will cause the bacon t'
mold, Mr. Dale. An' beans is never the same, wancet they've been
wrinkled wit' rain watter an' dried agin. I dunno, but that's been my
experience wit' grub. I'd git it all under cover, if it was mine, Mr.
Dale."
"Does look bad, for a fact," Bill admitted. "I was going up to the
workings; but I reckon we'd better make camp snug. Now, Hez, what'll
happen if you bust a lung? What's on your fool mind?"
Hez appeared to have a good deal on his mind. Presently his excitement
was explained by four loaded burros laboring up the draw, followed by
three men who hurried the animals up the uneven slope. Bill frowned
when he saw them, wondering if they had followed him.
But the men were strangers to him. If they came from Goldfield, he
thought, they must have hurried,--because Bill himself had made the
trip in record time. He nodded as they came up, and sent the impolite
Hezekiah into the tent with his hindquarters drooping guiltily. Two of
the men had the look of mining engineers (for your desert dwellers
learn to judge a man's profession by the way he dresses and carries
himself on the desert). The third, who evidently had charge of the
burros, had "desert rat" written all over him.
"Spring up here still workin', mister?" the burro driver asked in a
flat voice raised shrilly by way of attaining some volume. "Used to be
a spring up here."
"The spring is still there," Bill replied neutrally.
A pleasant, short man came forward, smiling and holding out his hand,
never doubting his welcome.
"Glad to see you, sir. My name is Rayfield; Walter B. Rayfield. My
partner, here, is John S. Emmett, a mining expert of whom you may have
heard, if you're the mining man you look to be. Working for the
government, making a report of the gold, silver and copper
possibilities of Nevada. I examine the country for gold and silver,
and Emmett, here, takes care of the copper report. We've been allotted
what is called the Furnace Creek quadrangle. We're working the
northern part first, so as to have cooler weather for the Death Valley
neighborhood."
"Glad to meet you." Bill's handshake was cordial, with a certain
reticence behind it. Happy-go-lucky as he seemed, Bill Dale was slow
in choosing his friends, while acquaintances never got below the
surface of his mind. "My name is Dale; Bill for short, Hopeful Bill
for sarcasm. You're just ahead of a big storm, by the looks, Mr.
Rayfield."
"Yes, it does look like rain." Mr. Rayfield glanced at the heavy
clouds that were now hiding the peak. "We expect to camp here for a
while, if the spring is all right. Glad to have a neighbor. Most of
the time we have to put up with our own company. Well, Al, suppose
you find a place for camp. You'll have to hustle, my man, if we're to
get our tents up before it rains."
"You've a nice little camp here," the man introduced as Emmett
observed, his hard brown eyes taking in the surroundings appraisingly.
It's certainly a great view you have here. We saw your tent from miles
away, down there."
"You came from Vegas way, then," Bill stated calmly. From that
direction only could they see his camp from any distance; the
Goldfield trail twisted around the mountain.
"We started from Las Vegas. We've been out some time, though. Came
down Forty Mile Canyon to the main road and followed that as far as we
could." He pulled a pipe from his pocket and began filling it in
leisurely fashion from a leather pouch while his gaze traveled
sophisticatedly over the surrounding hills.
"Prospecting, I suppose?" His eyes came back to Bill's face. His tone
had the casual note of one who wishes to be civil.
"Yes, a little," Bill replied guardedly. Even to research men he did
not feel like telling all he knew. "She's a hard country to prospect
in, though. Too much overburden. But I like the formation here. Seems
to me there's a chance here to run on to something, if a fellow keeps
right after it."
"I see already why they call you Hopeful Bill," Mr. Emmett grinned
over his pipe. "I don't think it's sarcasm, though." He gave another
professional glance at the rough outcroppings near them. "Looks pretty
fair, but my specialty is copper. Doesn't seem very promising for
that--but one never can tell. You're looking for gold, I take it.
That's more in Rayfield's line."
"I'm looking for anything I can find," Bill corrected lazily.
"Anything from gold to diamonds; just so there's money in it."
The fitful breeze died suddenly to an ominous, stifling calm. The
copper expert glanced up at the slatey mass moving up from the west
and went to help the others set up the tent before the storm broke.
"Want any help?" Bill called after him. But Mr. Emmett shook his head,
waved a hand and went on.
Tommy, who had retreated into the tent as the party drew near, pushed
his head through the opening and goggled at the group fifty yards
away. They were spreading a wall tent, preparing to make camp in the
lee of a rocky ledge. Tommy wiped the tobacco stain from his lips
with the back of his hand and glanced sidelong up at Bill.
"That's Al Freeman they got wit' 'em," he drawled in his complaining,
questioning way. "An' how he c'd git wit' 'em I dunno, fer I left him
in Goldfield--I did--and him owin' me tin dollars and denying all
knowledge of that same. He's a liar an' a t'ief, Mr. Dale, an' them
that trusts him is like t' find their t'roats cut some marrnin' an'
their pockets turned out.
"How he got to Las Vegas t' join up with these fellers I dunno--fer he
was in Goldfield whin I left, and there can't be two of 'im--an' the
devil wit' his hands full a'ready just wit' wan of 'im. I'd tip off
them gov-ment men, Mr. Dale, I sure would. He's worse ner a rattler in
camp, an' he's the kind that'll lie wit' 'is ears open an' then run
an' make bad use o' what he hears, Mr. Dale. He's a durrty
claim-robber fer wan t'ing, an' if yuh've got annything here wort'
robbin', Mr. Dale, yuh'd best set yer tent over it whilst Al Freeman's
on the mountain. It's the Gawd's trut' I tellin' yuh--an' yuh better
slip them experts the word--though how he got wit' 'em I dunno, fer I
left him in Goldfield; I did that!"
"That's mighty queer," Bill assented dubiously. "If you're sure of
that, we'll step lightly till we know the bunch better. Keep your eye
on him, Tommy, until I find out more about it. They won't get that
tent up in time to save a wetting; I can see that right now."
The man Tommy said was Al had unpacked one burro, but it was certain
they would not have time to make themselves even passably comfortable.
Even now the tent they were erecting was bellying like a balloon in a
sudden blast of wind, and while they struggled with it pegs and guy
ropes snapped loose. The short man, whose name was Rayfield, evidently
made a suggestion. All three looked toward Bill's camp. Then, as the
earth quivered under a deafening crash of thunder, Al hurriedly tied
the burros to a couple of stunted junipers, wadded the tent hastily
into an ungainly bundle and thrust it between two rocks.
Heads down against the wind, holding their hats on with both hands,
they came running. Bill opened the tent flaps and held it against the
wind until the strangers and Tommy were inside. Then he double-tied
the flaps and turned, grinning hospitably. His twelve-by-fourteen tent
was more than comfortably full now, what with the piles of supplies,
Bill's stove and table and bed, and the five men. But it was a
shelter, set shrewdly against just such an emergency as this storm.
It faced away from the wind, and a ledge protected it from the full
force of the gale.
Thunder, lightning, wind--then an abrupt silence, a holding of the
breath. Tommy, crouched down in his corner, his shoulder held
carefully away from the canvas wall, stared owl-like through his thick
glasses.
"She's comin'," he mumbled dolefully.
She came. All the water in the clouds seemed to have been dumped
unceremoniously upon the tent. A fine mist beat through the roof and
sides until warp and woof became saturated, and shrunk to a waterproof
texture that sent the water running off in streams.
"She's a cloud-burst--I said she'd be a cloud-burst!" Tommy muttered
again in melancholy triumph.
"You didn't get here any too soon," Bill observed cheerfully. "It
would be pretty tough, climbing through this. You're lucky."
"We certainly are!" Mr. Rayfield's voice was raised almost to a shout,
to carry above the storm. "Wouldn't want to be caught out in this!"
They sat and listened to it,--the boom and crash of the thunder, the
vivid flashes that lightened blindingly the gloom of the tent, the
roar of the falling water.
"She's a tough one, all right!" Bill rose and pried open the flaps
with his fingers, and put an eye to the crack. "Now I know how old
Noah felt when he shut the door of the ark. Nothing in sight but
water--good Lord!"
Something sagged against the tent, beat upon the taut canvas. A voice
was raised shrilly, frantically.
"Bill! Oh, Bill! Let me in!"
Bill's face had whitened at the first sound. His fingers clawed at the
stiff, canvas knots that held the flaps shut. His hands, reaching out
to loosen the outside fastenings, touched other fingers that tore
nervously at the soaked knots. Bill was hampered by those other
fingers, as a swimmer is hampered by the frenzied clutchings of a
drowning man. But he managed the two lower fastenings and was
beginning on the upper when the person outside stooped and ducked in
past Bill's knees.
"Doris---- Miss Hunter! What----"
"Oh, it's perfectly _awful_! I thought I'd never make it, Bill. I
couldn't make the horses face it, so I tied them down the gulch and
came on afoot. I could see your tent when it lightened--I'm just
_soaked_! It's the worst storm this year."
She was talking in gasping little rushes of words, talking because she
must have some emotional outlet. Her hat had gone in the wind, and
she wiped the water from her face with quick, impatient brushes of her
palms outward from her nose. Her hair was wet as a drowned woman's,
and as lank about her face and shoulders. She wore a khaki riding
skirt and a striped cotton blouse that clung to her shoulders and arms
like wet paper. Her high-laced boots squelched soppily when she moved.
Had she been pulled from a river she could not have been wetter.
"Tommy, start a fire in the stove; you're the closest," Bill
commanded. "Miss Hunter, let me introduce some other storm birds--only
they were luckier than you were. They beat it in. This is Mr.
Rayfield, and Mr. Emmett--both government experts making an
examination of the country for mineral. That's Al Freeman over there;
working for them" (Mr. Rayfield looked surprised) "and Tommy, over
there by the stove, is going to work for me. Get over there in the
corner and dry out. It'll be hot in a minute. You must be chilled."
The men moved back to leave clear passage to the stove, and she
hurried toward it, nodding to them shyly as she went. Mr. Rayfield
smiled upon her benignantly and drew a box from under the table for
her to sit on.
"Take off those wet boots, Miss Hunter, and put your feet in the
oven," he commanded, in the same tone which he might have used to his
own daughter. "A cup of coffee will take the chill out of your bones.
My, my! I've heard that it could rain pitchforks in this country, but
nobody mentioned raining angels!" His own hearty laugh robbed the
remark of any offensive familiarity, as he picked a blanket off the
bunk--disturbing Mr. Emmett and Al Freeman to do so--and laid it
matter-of-factly upon her shoulders.
"Here, let me unlace your boots. Tommy, get the coffee pot working."
Bill knelt and reverently lifted her small, booted foot to his knee.
"Mr. Emmett, if you'll pass that war-bag over here, I'll dig up some
dry socks. And if you'll remember to hold out your arms, Miss Hunter,
so you won't fall in outa sight, I'll lend you a pair of my boots. Or
maybe we could tie a loop under your arms and hitch you somehow.
Anyway, we'll fix you up comfortably as we can.