chuckled. "Pot is very likely calling the kettle black. And I don't
know of anything worth stealing in our camp. Just thought I'd give you
a hint for what it may be worth, in case you don't know your man. And
we'll keep an eye on Al."
"Aw, there's nothing they can do--but earn their wages," Bill
dismissed the subject indifferently. "Time Tommy wrangles the burros
and does the dirty work and slings a muck stick eight hours a day,
crime won't look half so good to him as his blankets. Same with Al
Freeman, if you handle him right."
Nevertheless, Bill stopped at the corner of the tent and unobtrusively
watched Mr. Rayfield when he joined his companions.
So far as he could determine, Mr. Rayfield was concerning himself at
present with the preparations for a day's fieldwork. Emmett was
already waiting with his sample bag over his shoulder, his canteen at
his feet ready to pick up at the last minute. Al, apparently, would be
left in camp. Bill turned suddenly and beckoned to Tommy, who was
glumly examining a dull pick.
"You say you can sharpen steel, Tommy. I'll just let you do a little
blacksmithing, this fore-noon, while I show Miss Hunter a claim I
located for her," he said, when Tommy had come close. Then he lowered
his voice. "You can keep an eye on camp, too. I saw Al Freeman looking
hungry at that sample of gold ore, Tommy. You'll know what to do if he
makes a break. Only--don't kill him. I don't want to take in boarders,
and those experts can't cook."
"I'll watch 'im, Mr. Dale. I will that!"
Bill grinned, took a last pull at his cigarette, and went in to wipe
the dishes for Doris and watch the dimple in her left cheek.
And Destiny, that invisible, inscrutable companion whom men sometimes
fear, sometimes curse and obey inevitably, smiled and waited to see
how these souls would work out the problems she had set for them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"MONTE CRISTO WOULD ENJOY THIS!"
"The way this gulch is washed, I don't know whether I can show you
anything or not," Bill explained worriedly, preparing for a flat
failure of his little plan. "That was next thing to a cloud-burst last
night, Doris--and I'll own now that I was uneasy last night when you
said you had left your horses down the gulch. But then, I knew you
wouldn't tie them in the bottom where they might get drowned out."
"Well, I hope not," Doris retorted with some asperity. No desert-bred
girl likes to be thought ignorant of desert hazards. "You'll have to
make this short, you know. They'll expect me home early to-day. I
don't see why you can't go. Now you've staked yourself to the luxury
of a mucker, you can leave him in charge, I should think. Do you
really think you've struck anything, Bill?"
"You wait. If my location cut isn't filled in, I can show you in ten
minutes. And--if it's good, you're in on it. I located a claim on the
same ledge in your name."
"You did?" Doris looked up at him quickly, but she could see only
Bill's left cheek as he swung his face away from her. "Why, why for
me, particularly? I couldn't develop it--dad wouldn't let me. You
ought to keep your claims for yourself, Bill. You--you'd give away
your head, if you could get it off!"
"I might throw in the rest of me," Bill hinted meaningly, his heart
pounding like a single-jack in a miners' contest. He stole a glance at
her from the corner of his eye and was scared and a bit happy, too, at
the flush on her cheek.
"Well, fortunately for you----" Doris bit her lip and left the
sentence unfinished. She liked Bill Dale, but--there would always be
unfinished sentences concerning her regard for him. A prospector is,
paradoxically, not a good prospect for a girl. Doris had seen the
poor, withered wives of miners who were forever just on the eve of
striking something rich.
Walking beside Bill, she thought of the wistful eyes and the draggled,
cheap clothes of certain women she had met. Some of them even wore
overalls and helped dig. Bill had been prospecting ever since she
first met him at a dance in Goldfield. He had talked optimistically of
his prospects then. He would always talk in the same vein. Always
just going to strike rich ore,--never actually getting more than a
bare living; if one could call grub and a tent a living.
"Fortunately for me--what?" Bill was in the mood to bring about a
crisis of some kind between them. He considered that he had gone too
far now to retreat.
"Fortunately for you, your friends have more regard for you than you
have for yourself," Doris amended glibly. "Is it much farther, Bill?
Because I really must----"
"It's just up around this first turn." Bill's face sobered a bit.
After all, Doris didn't seem to care much, one way or the other. She
didn't seem very enthusiastic over her claim; didn't she know he would
take care of the development work for her--at least the assessment
work?
"If a slide hasn't covered it up," he said heavily. "I wanted to show
you what I--what I've got. Then----"
"Well, you know I'm no expert, Bill," Doris reminded him lightly. "I
can tell silver--when it's in spoons. And gold is jewelry----"
Bill caught her arm, stopping her perforce. His grip left marks in her
soft flesh. She looked at him, startled, and paled before the fixed
stare in his eyes. He lifted a shaking finger and pointed.
Bill's cut in the side of the gulch had not been filled by any slide
of the soft gravel higher up the slope. Instead it stood there naked,
deep, clean as a dog's tooth. Even from where they stood the metal
gleamed yellow in the ten-inch vein of quartz laid bare to the
sunlight.
Slowly, almost reverently, Bill went forward, still holding the girl's
arm in his strong, unconsciously painful grip. He led her into the
cut, stooped and broke off a point of the vein with his fingers where
his last shot had seamed the quartz. He laid the gold-flecked piece in
her hand. He looked at her standing there so close with the symbol of
a great fortune in her hand,--the symbol too of his worshipful love.
"Monte Cristo would enjoy this," he said and laughed unsteadily.
"It's--I found it--it's yours--if you'll take me along with it. I
couldn't--I had to strike something before I could dare----"
"Is--is it--_gold_?" Doris whispered it awesomely. Looking up
wide-eyed into his face. "Oh--Bill!"
Bill took her in his arms, felt her yield, saw her head tilt back
against his shoulder. He drew a deep breath that was like a sob, and
bent and kissed her hair.
Doris was looking from the gold-specked quartz in her hand to the
gold-specked ridge lying naked to the sky. Her eyes were big and deep,
like the blue of the sky.
"Do you love me, Doris?" Bill dared to lean and speak his one
absorbing hunger, his lips close to her ear.
"Yes--Oh, Bill, it doesn't seem possible! I--I can't realize it. Can
you? Doris was staring still at the gold.
"It's like a dream come true--a thousand times better than I'd ever
dare to dream it." Bill was looking at the way the sunlight turned her
brown hair to burnished copper, strand by strand. His voice broke. He
laid his cheek against the copper shine. "You love me! God, I was
always scared to dream you ever would!"
Doris stirred in his arms. She was lifting the piece of ore, turning
it this way and that, watching it shine in the sun and in the shade
alike. That was the test--pyrites wouldn't shine in the shade. It was
gold, absolutely it _must_ be gold!
"Oh, Bill, aren't you--excited?" She had turned so that she could look
into his face. "It's an awfully rich strike, isn't it?"
"Why--yes, I suppose it is." Bill looked briefly at the vein. "Yes,
it's the richest stuff I ever saw in the ground. But it doesn't mean
anything to me, Doris, alongside your--love." He whispered the last
word shyly against her cheek. "You'll marry me right away, won't you,
Doris? I've--wanted you so long; ever since that first time I met you.
I've thought and dreamed about you--but it didn't seem possible you
could ever care. Only, I thought if I made a real stake, and you did
like me well enough, I could give you everything in the world you
wanted. It's as you say: I can't realize it yet. I--wish you'd say it
again; just once more. _Do_ you--care?"
For answer Doris smiled up at him brilliantly. "You great, big silly,"
she said softly.
Bill kissed her lips and wondered if a man could bear greater joy than
was his. Not to have just weary, wishful dreams of her; to have Doris
herself, her love, her willingness to trust herself to him. He felt
humbled, ashamed of every little human, masculine fault. In one
sweeping, swift repentance as he stood there, he resolved to attain
perfection for her sake--or as near to perfection as a man may
approach.
"You know, daddy and mother will have to be asked before I
can--promise absolutely," she reminded him prudently. "So let's not
talk about it any more just now, Bill."
"Why, I--I _couldn't_ talk about it," Bill said slowly. "Some things
go too deep. You just can't find any words; or I can't. I'll just
have to prove as I go along--what it means to me."
"Just think, Bill! We could go to California, couldn't we?" Doris
suggested inconsistently. "Talk about dreams--I've dreamed of the
ocean, and orange groves, and beautiful things, until sometimes I've
nearly gone crazy. Bill, I almost hate the desert. It's beautiful, and
of course I know it by heart and would probably miss it if I never saw
it again; but all my life I've been hungry for California."
"You're kind of glad I found the big strike, aren't you?" Bill smiled
down at her, his eyes worshipful. "I guess we can go to California,
all right. We could go to the South Pole, if we wanted to badly
enough. Anywhere in the world you say, Doris. You and I together have
four claims along this contact--as near as I could judge from surface
indications. That ought to bring your dreams to life, don't you
think?" Then he sobered. "But it's going to take a little time, at
that. We've got to dig it out, you know. Unless," he added dubiously,
"I sold out for just what I could get. That would be quick money, but
it wouldn't be enough to let us play the rest of our lives. I'd have
to take some of it and get into some business or other. And that would
tie us down to one spot more or less."
Doris shook her head at that. "No, we mustn't sell out. You remember
what Mr. Rayfield said at the breakfast table, don't you? He certainly
does know what he's talking about, and I know he'd be glad to
advise--us." The last word she spoke with an adorable hesitation which
registered an extra beat in Bill's pulse. "He's a government man, so
of course you can trust him. I think we ought to show this vein to
him, and let him tell us just what to do. His talk about corporations
was awfully sensible, Bill."
"I don't know, Doris." Bill's eyes became shadowed with an unhappy
memory. "I'm kind of scared of corporations. One of them broke my dad.
He found a mine--not so good as this by a long way, but still pretty
good--and some crooks incorporated it for him. When they got through
with him, he had a bunch of stock and no mine. No money, either. It
got him. He lived about two years after that, and he spent all his
time cursing corporations. I don't know, Doris, but it kind of left me
with a chill whenever I hear the word."
"Well, you say yourself that they were crooks. Mr. Rayfield and Mr.
Emmett may have landed those very men in the penitentiary. "You've got
nerves, Bill. I never would have suspected it."
"Maybe there's a good deal about me you've never suspected," Bill
hinted warily,--and almost told her about the saxophone. But he
didn't. His courage was too new and timid, the mine was too wonderful,
and the love of Doris too unbelievable.
"One thing I'd better do," he said, dragging his mind back to the
practical, "and that is to cover up this vein before some one goes to
'high-grading' on us. Tommy says Al Freeman's a thief around mines."
He pulled shovel and pick from under a ridge of washed gravel and
began artfully filling the cut so that it looked as if the dirt had
caved in on the side where the vein had been exposed. There was
nothing crude in Bill's work. When he had finished, a stranger would
have sworn that the earth, gravel and rocks had rattled down from
above. Doris kept watch for him, and mourned openly because all that
beautiful ore must be buried out of sight. It seemed to her almost a
sacrilege.
"That's all right," Bill comforted her, standing with his arm around
her shoulders while he contemplated his camouflage. "It can't run away
or spoil, you know. That vein would be enough to tempt any man whose
honesty didn't reach to the middle of his bones. Now you go on up the
gulch while I brush out our tracks around this cut. There's a little
vein up in the next location hole that's just a stringer--but it's
fairly rich, and will do to show. We'll go up there, and I'll do a
little digging and get some samples. And then, if you want me to put
it up to the government men, Doris, I'll do it. But I'll do it on the
strength of what shows up in Parowan Number Two--and we'll just keep
this Number One vein a secret between us. Shall we?"
"Yes-s, if you let me tell daddy and mother," Doris assented. "I don't
believe I could keep it a secret from them, Bill."
"We'll tell them, sure. I'll leave Tommy in charge of camp and go over
with you to the ranch. I'd like to ask your dad what he thinks of it
before I talk to the government men."
"Well, I think that's a good plan. They'll all believe, of course,
that you're going over to see about that water tunnel. You can't
afford to dig tunnels for dad, _now_----" she gave his arm an ecstatic
squeeze "----but they won't know that. Oh, I think it's just dandy to
have to be secret about it!"
"Anyway, it's a darn sight safer," Bill told her laconically, and led
the way to Number Two.
CHAPTER NINE
A "HINT" FROM DORIS
A short cut from Number Two claim led them straight over a low ridge
to camp. Not only did this trail shorten the distance considerably; it
also avoided altogether the gulch and Parowan Number One--with its
secret.
Al Freeman was seen pottering around the camp by the junipers.
Evidently the truce still held, for Tommy had finished his
blacksmithing and was setting the camp to rights, mumbling
unintelligibly over his work.
Bill's plans had taken definite form, which means that he had
half-unconsciously conceded every point brought forth by Doris, who
was accustomed to having her say about things on the ranch. In one
particular only had Bill stood firm. He would not take the experts
into his confidence until he had talked with Don Hunter. To this Doris
readily assented, feeling fairly certain that her dad would advise
whatever Doris herself wanted. Bill reluctantly left the girl's side
and joined Tommy over by the forge.
"I'll have to make a trip over to the Hunter ranch," he announced. "I
guess our mining will have to wait until I get back--unless our
neighbors should happen to move on. But I've about decided that we're
going to need a dugout to store our grub in. Right here in this bank
is a good place to dig. While I'm gone you can be making the dugout,
Tommy--and you can keep an eye on the camp while you're doing it.
Right now, while Miss Hunter is in camp, I'll take you up and show you
the claims. I've got a pretty rich vein and I don't want any one
monkeying around there while I'm gone. I'll leave it to you and Hez."
They went off together over the ridge, and Al Freeman stopped his work
and openly watched their departure. When they were quite out of sight,
he came shambling over to Bill's tent and pulled open the flap.
"Well?" Doris looked up from spreading jam between cold biscuits for
their lunch on the trail. She might have been speaking to one of her
father's ranch hands, for all the emotion she showed.
Al grinned slyly and placatingly.
"Excuse me," he said in his flat voice that grated unpleasantly on the
ear. "I left my terbaccer in here somewhere this morning. If it ain't
botherin' ye none, I just thought I'd come over an' git it."
"It took you a long time to miss it," Doris observed coldly. "Why
didn't you ask Bill for it?"
"I didn't think of it then," Al grinned, edging into the tent.
"Well, I can't let you go pawing around in here while he's gone."
Doris continued to spread other split biscuits with jam. "Go on out,
and wait till Mr. Dale comes."
"He ain't likely to be back very soon," Al argued insinuatingly. "I
just about got to have a smoke, Miss Hunter--no two ways about it.
Won't take me but a minute to look where I laid my terbaccer."
Doris straightened and stood eyeing him attentively, a butcher knife
in her left hand.
"Whereabouts did you lay it, then?" she demanded.
"Right on a sack in this corner. I was gittin' up to go to breakfast,
an' I laid my terbaccer down on a sack in this corner. I mind now that
Mr. Emmett kinda joggled things 'round, pullin' out a box to set on. I
never thought no more about it till I went to make a smoke." He turned
to the corner and stooped, laying hold upon a half-filled sack of
something. "It musta fell over behind," he mumbled.
"You get out of that corner and out of this tent," Doris commanded
sternly, laying down the knife.
Al lifted his lip in a smile that was half a snarl. "Aw, you wouldn't
make a man go without his terbaccer," he whined, lifting the sack and
finding it unexpectedly heavy. "Must be gold bricks in this sack," he
tittered. "I guess that sample he showed at breakfast ain't all he's
got!"
"_Will_ you get out of here?" Doris took a step forward, her eyes, her
whole face, hardening with anger.
"Now, now, no use gittin' excited," Al protested, leering at her. "I
can't go off without my terbaccer--mebby it fell into this sack. I'll
just take a look."
His hand was fumbling inside the sack when Doris fired. Hunkered down
on his heels, Al gave a grotesque leap straight into the air, as the
bullet spatted into the earthen floor and kicked dirt over his toes.
He came down sidewise, sprawled awkwardly and clawing to get up.
"That's just a hint," Doris announced dispassionately through the
drifting little smoke cloud. "In about one minute----"
Al went out on hands and knees and picked himself up and ran. Doris
followed him out, saw him duck into his own tent and laughed a little.
Al, too, was laughing silently, showing his broken, tobacco-stained
teeth. He was staring gloatingly down at the piece of ore he had
dragged from the sack, hidden in the palm of his big hand.
Doris returned to the tent and stood looking reflectively down at the
tilted sack. She stooped, reached inside it and brought out a lump of
ore. She frowned over it, her under lip between her teeth.
"Bill certainly needs a guardian," she said to herself. "Leaving half
a sack of this stuff right where the first sneak thief could help
himself! That fellow must have suspected it was here, too. I'll bet he
never lost any tobacco in here--but it's easy enough to find out."
She made a thorough search of the corner and convinced herself that Al
had been lying to her and that his sole purpose was to get his hands
on that ore. She tilted the sack again, spilling the contents out on
the ground. She had no fear that Al would return. With her lifelong
knowledge of the desert had come the understanding of desert types of
men, and she needed no explanation of Al Freeman. She knew him for
what he was: a coward at heart, mean and treacherous and capable of
crime that might be hidden. She did not know that he had carried off
a piece of the ore, but she knew that he suspected its richness. Only
a tenderfoot will cumber his tent with valueless samples of
mineral,--and Bill Dale was no tenderfoot.
"He thought he could fool me," she analyzed the incident
contemptuously. "Or maybe he thought I'd be scared to say anything to
him." She sorted the pieces of ore, choosing those that showed the
largest specks and splotches of gold. She fondled them, turned them to
the light, feasted her eyes upon them.
"Rich! Bill's rich, this minute. A millionaire, for all we know," she
mused. "And maybe it's like this on my claim, too. Dear old Bill--he
surely deserves a fortune. How he's worked to find it--and he's loved
me all the time and wanted to strike it so we--I'm going to make him
leave the working of the mine to some one else. He can afford to take
life easy now--we'll live in Los Angeles, or maybe we'll travel----"
She was sitting cross-legged, with her lap full of rich pieces of
quartz, when Bill looked in upon her. She scrambled up, her two hands
clutching the prettiest specimens. Bill was laughing at her, his eyes
adoring. Doris pulled her fine eyebrows together and shook her head at
him.
"Good thing you've got some one to look after you, old boy," she
scolded, half in earnest. "You'd have been robbed of all this, and
maybe cleaned out of everything else, if I hadn't scared him off. He
had his hand in the sack, mind you, when I shot at his feet. That put
him on the run. Bill, you'd better tell Tommy to pack a gun while
you're gone. That fellow, Al, needs a whole lot of watching. What in
the world made you keep all this stuff here in the tent? He must have
known it was here, or at least he suspected it----"
"I'll mighty quick settle with _him_," Bill said grimly, and turned
away.
Doris stopped him. "Better let it pass, Bill. You see, I couldn't
_prove_ he wasn't after his tobacco, just as he claimed. He may have
lost it here. I don't believe it, but he had his excuse for coming.
And he didn't steal anything. I scared him off before he had a chance.
Perhaps I should have waited and got the goods on him.
"No, just gather up everything but that sample you had out in sight
this morning, and we'll carry it over and show it to daddy. And have
Tommy watch out. There really isn't anything Al can do, is there?"
"Not unless he bats Tommy on the head; and from all accounts, Tommy's
good at that game. So you took a shot at him, did you?"
"And scared the life out of him, almost. We'll have to hurry, Bill. If
you can pack my outfit on one of the burros, you could ride old
Rambler. I wish you would. And can't we take Luella along?"
Bill said that they could, but he would not ride Rambler. On the
desert a horse seldom travels faster than a walk on a long journey,
especially with a pack animal along. Bill was accustomed to depending
on his own legs, and a twenty-mile hike was his regular day's travel
when on the trail. He therefore packed an emergency camp outfit on
Wise One and set out quite happily, walking beside Doris, sometimes
touching her hand caressingly, his soul still hushed and trembling
lest all this would prove itself a dream.
In violet shadows they approached the house in its square of
cottonwoods and saw a tall, rangy figure step leisurely down from the
porch and come to meet them, holding a big-bowled, briar pipe from
which lazy incense floated upward.
Leaning both arms upon the top board of the yard fence, Don Hunter
waited placidly until they came up, Rambler shuffling into a trot as
he remembered his stall. Occasionally Don placed the pipestem between
his teeth and took comfort from the slow inhalation of smoke. Content
emanated from his personality as perfume of a flower gives a soothing
quality to the air about it. He was a strong man, meant to dominate
those lesser souls with whom he came in contact, and some with souls
as great as his, but humble in their greatness. He was not an
aggressive man, but most men feared to incur his ill will or his
contempt, and his opinion was rated above that of his neighbors; and
although he was slow to give advice, scarcely a day passed but he was
asked for it. Bill did not know a man whom he liked better or
respected more, and his attitude was not greatly influenced by the
fact that Don was the father of Doris. Indeed, he had known Don Hunter
long before he first met the girl. And if his prospecting were frowned
upon by the older man, Bill knew that Don would be the first to throw
up his hat over Bill's success, and never think of his own possible
benefit from the strike.
"Hello, Bill," Don called as the two came up, Bill walking briskly
behind his burro. Doris had professed a reluctance to let daddy and
mother know that night about the tentative engagement, and they had
traveled apart for the last mile across the flat.
"Howdy, Don. Well, we're here, all right."
Don reached out a long arm and swung open the gate. Then he and Bill
shook hands, looking into each other's eyes with frank pleasure in
the meeting.
"Glad to see yuh, Bill. Just slip the bridles off--there's hay in the
corral--and come on in. Supper's been waiting on yuh."