place that she couldn't use, out here--but a jewel of a home.
Everything she likes that will fit in here. _I_ know! I've watched her
eyes when we struck some new place. Big, rock fireplace--Parowan rock;
beamed ceilings, broad stairway, hardwood floors--great, long
stretches of space with arches--and a big window framing the desert
like a picture. What she calls a vista. I know--you bet I know! She
thinks I'm going to build some darned box of a place, perhaps of
cement. I let her think so. It'll be all rock, and glass, and
hardwoods that will last a century and longer.
"I'll find a hillside where the town won't be right under her nose,
and I'll frame a vista for her with every window in the house! She can
have house parties, if she wants to--lots of those city folks would
be crazy to come and spend a week or two over here. In fact, they've
thrown out hints about it, some of them--only Doris wouldn't take it
that way.
"Things'll grow, here," he went on, thinking and planning more
hopefully than he had done for months. "I'll have grounds laid out,
and things planted that will make our home a garden spot. It may cost
something, but----" He grinned then, and offered Hez a bacon rind and
held his chops for a minute so that he could gaze deep into his eyes.
"Hez, you old devil, I believe you're kind of glad I came home," he
said, and lingered wistfully on the last word. "You can be bodyguard
for little Mary, when she gets to toddling around. I'll have to put a
fence around the place to keep her in, I expect. You'd take care of
the snakes and scorpions and such, wouldn't you, old boy? Never saw a
bug get away from you yet."
Tommy came, with Luella riding solemnly on his shoulder. Bill rose to
greet her, having been schooled in his deportment toward ladies.
Luella craned her neck and eyed him suspiciously while he coaxed her,
then remembered and stepped gravely upon his inviting forefinger.
"I'll be damned," she observed, looking at him with her head tilted.
"Look who's here! When did you get in?"
"You can't tell me this bird ain't human," Bill exclaimed much
impressed by the remark.
"She's heard that talk in the s'loon," Tommy discounted her
intelligence. "If she don't speak worse things I'll be contint. Your
turkle's gone, Mr. Dale. I'm thinkin' she's wandered away, an' I've a
reward out fer her--if it's a her, which I dunno--an' I'm hopin'
she'll be returned to yuh. It's a week ago she disappeared--she did
that."
"Holed up for the winter, maybe. They do, you know."
"That's a hell of a note!" cried Luella sharply.
"Well, I must be gittin' back, Mr. Dale. An' when it pleases yuh,
maybe yuh'll step into my place an' have a bit of a drink on the
house. An' I'll be proud to see yuh enter the door--I will that."
"First place I hit, Tommy, will be yours. And mind you, I want to
surprise the boys."
"It's the town itself'll be glad to see yer face, Mr. Dale," Tommy
muttered and went off, wagging his head.
Bill was trying to persuade Luella to kiss him, and did not hear.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BILL GIVES THE PUBLIC MIND A LIFT
Bill brushed past the sleek-haired office girl who attempted to bar
his way and turned the knob on the door marked PRIVATE. He did not
know which man he would find within; he was slightly relieved to find
Walter Rayfield sitting behind a great, mahogany desk, staring at him
in blank astonishment.
"Hullo, Walter." Bill crossed the room, his hand outstretched in
greeting, the old, humorous grin on his face that had lost much of its
tan.
"Well, well! The prodigal come home for the fatted calf?" Rayfield
pulled himself together and rose, his lips pursed. "Veal's bringing a
good price, Bill. Have to make it a small calf."
Bill did not know what he meant by that; nothing, probably, unless he
was aiming at a witty remark. A year had made a difference in Walter
B. Rayfield. He was fatter, and there were heavy pouches under his
eyes. The milky one was almost hidden under a drooping lid, which gave
him a facetious appearance of winking slily at whomever he chanced to
be looking. His face had lines graven deep by the responsibilities of
the past months. Altogether, Walter Rayfield looked older and less
paternal, Bill thought.
"How are things going?" Bill sat down in the chair pulled close to the
desk and reached for his tobacco and papers. "According to the
_Record_, things are still humming at Parowan."
Rayfield glanced down at a pile of correspondence on the desk. Then,
knowing that Bill would probably stay until he had smoked one
cigarette at least, he pushed the tray back resignedly and leaned
forward, his fingers lightly clasped and tapping one another
rhythmically.
"Things are humming," Rayfield confirmed guardedly. "I suppose you
read of our shutdown to replace certain machinery?"
"Sure. That was last summer, sometime. Got it in, yet?"
Rayfield shook his head. "Those things take time," he said. "Stock has
fallen off a few points in consequence--naturally. And how is Mrs.
Dale and daughter?"
"Just fine. Doris sent regards."
"Which I return fourfold." Rayfield smiled gallantly. "When are you
going back? Of course, I take it you did not bring them with you."
"No, I didn't bring them. They're camped at the Palace for the
winter. I'm going to stick here for awhile." Bill glanced out of the
window and down into the squalid street, and wondered how Doris would
like that particular vista. He did not see the peculiar stiffening of
the muscles along Rayfield's jaw.
"Going to stay? That's great news, Bill. Come back to try and speed
things up, I suppose?"
Bill looked at him. Did Walter resent his coming, as betraying a lack
of confidence in the present management? His tone had sounded mildly
aggrieved.
"No need of that, is there? Things seem to be going all right, far as
I've heard. No, Walter, I came back to take charge--of building us a
home here. I'd like to see a plan of the town and look over any
available ground left in the residence district. I'll want a full
block, at least; high ground, where there's a view of the desert and
the hills. I expect it will take a few months to build it, but I'm
going to rush it right through. And say, by the way! Can you tell me
whether there's anybody in town that's able to lay the foundation?
I've got all the plans and specifications--copies of them--with me.
I'm going to have the builders come on from San Francisco, but they're
just finishing up a contract now, and I can save time by having the
foundation ready when they're free to come. Think I'd better take bids
on it, or just give the contract to the best man? A few dollars, one
way or the other, won't make any difference. I want a good job; one
that'll stand forever."
Rayfield's mouth had opened slightly in the beginning, and had closed
in his genial smile. The paternal look was back in his face.
"My, my! That will be great news to the town, it surely will! I've had
some little trouble, Bill, convincing people that you hadn't just made
your clean-up and quit the town cold. When it's known that you are
back and building a home, that will silence all criticism." Rayfield
nodded and drummed his fingers animatedly.
"Criticism--of me?" Bill's face clouded. "I thought you kept writing I
wasn't needed."
"Perfectly true. Unless you feel that John and I have shown that we
are incompetent, you are not needed at all. But you know people will
talk--and with you gone so long and showing no interest, it began to
look to some of the leading business men as if you had--well,
unloaded."
What Bill would have replied to that was not known. They were
interrupted by the entrance of John Emmett, who had evidently been in
a hurry, but forgot his haste to stare at Bill.
"Time I came home," said Bill, getting up to shake hands. "Everybody
looks as if I were a ghost that ought to get back under my marble
monument and stay there."
"Not at all," Emmett protested. "Your back was to the light, and I
couldn't make out who you were, at first. Well, how are you?"
"News for the town, John," Rayfield interrupted briskly. "Bill's here
to build a fine home for his family. I've promised to help him look up
a building site, and get a contractor on the job to lay the
foundation. Going to start right away--that right, Bill? I got the
impression you were in something of a hurry to begin."
Emmett looked from one to the other and laughed a little.
"Thought you'd come to fire us because we're about to pass a
dividend," he said. "I was just writing you to that effect."
Rayfield pursed his lips. "Bill is not a child," he said reprovingly.
"He knows dividends aren't paid out of extension costs. Once we're
running full blast again, we'll be paying double what we have in the
past, and Parowan Consolidated will soar again. We've done well to pay
last quarter's dividends--with the mill shut down and the men out on
strike."
"I didn't know we'd had a strike," Bill said inquiringly.
Rayfield threw back his head and laughed silently.
"Well, it was sort of hushed up in the paper, naturally. The men did
walk out--and we seized the opportunity to make the necessary changes
and repairs in the plant. John and I were rather glad, on the whole.
Saved us laying men off, which would have looked bad. Company wasn't
out a dollar on the strike, and to keep the stockholders easy in their
minds, we paid last quarter's dividends out of our sinking fund. Now,
because the alterations are taking longer than we expected, we have
thought it best to pass this dividend and explain just why. Your
appearance, with the intention of building a home in Parowan, should
counteract any ill effect on the public mind." He stopped and looked
at Bill inquiringly as a thought seemed to strike him suddenly.
"You--er--you have sufficient funds, I take it, to carry out your
plans," he ventured. "Because, in the event that you haven't, I should
strongly advise you to postpone your building until the mine is
producing again. These repairs and changes run into money, my boy, and
the Company will not be able to advance anything, I'm afraid, for
another three or four months. I was on the point of writing you to
trim sails a bit--until we are turning the wheels again."
Bill chewed his lip thoughtfully, turning his eyes again to the
window.
"I'm safe on the building, I reckon," he said, after a pause which was
not too comfortable for the others. "I saved that out." He turned
toward them smilingly. "She's going to be a dandy, too," he said.
"Parowan will sit up and take notice when my shack is finished. Not so
very big, you know--but a gem all the way through. I've calculated to
put about seventy-five thousand dollars into the building itself.
She'll stand me a round hundred thousand when she's ready to walk
into.
His partners looked at each other. Rayfield sucked in his breath
sharply.
"My, my! And I was afraid you were short of money!" he chuckled, when
he had recovered his breath. "Bill, you're a wonder. Way you've been
living----"
"About all the money I've spent," said Bill grimly, "is on hotel
bills--and a few trinkets for Doris. Her income that you have been
sending her she spent on clothes and truck. Didn't give me a chance.
She liked to spend her own money, she said. So--I can build the house,
all right. I've got money enough."
"And what about your wife?" Rayfield spoke unguardedly. "She won't be
getting any more from this office, for awhile." He waved a deprecating
hand. "Pardon my apparent presumption, Bill. I merely want to make
sure that you can ride along for the next ninety days or so without
any money from us."
"Why, sure! That's all right, Walter. I don't gamble or drink, you
see. And I didn't play the races--which is gambling, too. So I didn't
get away with all you sent me. I can make out all right for awhile."
He rose and picked his hat off the desk.
"I'll be going, I reckon. You've got work to do--hope your salaries
will go on?" he looked at them.
"Yes--oh, yes. It's only the dividends that must be omitted this
quarter," Rayfield hastened to assure him.
"Well, that's all fine, then. I'm afraid you'll have to go on earning
your money. I've got this house to build, and I want to see that it's
built the right way. I'm going to stand guard over them. Just now, I'm
going downstairs and have an account opened for me. I've got the house
money with me, and if it's in the bank, Parowan will know I'm not
four-flushing about the home. If the public mind needs a tonic, that
ought to help."
Rayfield stood up and leaned with his knuckles on the desk.
"It will help amazingly," he said solemnly. "It will serve to instil
new life in the commercial veins of this town. I tell you frankly,
Bill, I did not like to pass this dividend just now, when the town has
passed the first fever of enthusiasm and should be stimulated to go on
with full confidence in the future. The fact that you have sufficient
confidence to invest in a fine house here will have a tremendous
effect on the morale of the town."
"All right," Bill grinned. "I'll go slide a pinchbar under the public
mind and give it a lift. And say! Who's the best man to talk
foundation to?"
"Fellow name of McGaran," Emmett told him promptly. "You'll find his
sign down the street in the next block. He did our cement work, and
he's a good man."
Bill went out and down the stairs, humming a little tune just above
his breath. Presently, the president of the Parowan Security, Trust
and Savings Bank was giving his hands a dry wash and smiling and
bowing at almost everything Bill said. Teller, cashier and assistant
cashier were bustling out of sight with slips of paper in their hands,
looking extremely important until the ground-glass partition hid them
from the front, and whispering then, heads close together, with the
bookkeeper, trying his best to edge in a question or two.
"Bill Dale--he's here--just deposited sixty-thousand dollars,
cashier's check from the Hibernian, in 'Frisco!" The teller took
hurried pity on the bookkeeper. "He's with the boss now. Come out in a
minute and consult me about a check, and take a look at him. Boy, he
looks like a regular fellow!"
The bookkeeper almost missed him, at that. Bill was having his busy
day. Before the bank employees quit buzzing, Bill was conferring with
McGaran about cement and making time the essence of the contract, as
lawyers say.
From McGaran's office Bill went to a place said to be the Town-site
Office,--just behind the bank, it was. And in fifteen minutes he was
riding a hard-driven automobile over slopes which had furnished scant
grazing for his burros not so long ago. For himself he would have
built the house beside his tent, but for Doris that wouldn't do at
all. The working class had crowded into that part of town, because it
was close to the mine. Wherefore, Bill examined vacant plots far
removed from the grime and the noise of money-getting.
Before noon he had acquired personal title to a knoll not too far from
the business section, nor so close that any part of the magnificent
sweep of desert and distant mountains could ever be hidden from the
windows and wide porches of his Mary's home. Laying aside his
sentiment for his old camp ground, and trying to see all this with the
eyes of Doris and, later, of his little Mary, Bill looked long and
said to himself that he had done well.
By then, all Parowan knew that Bill Dale had returned and meant to
start immediately upon the building of a mansion. A new light shone in
the eyes of certain men who had been looking anxiously for some sign
in the heavens to tell them whether the prosperity of Parowan would
break or hold.
For this there was a reason. Other prospects had been exploited far
beyond their deserts. Their little bubbles had glowed iridescent for a
time, and were going the way of all bubbles. Parowan Consolidated was
the only real mine behind the town, the one big industry that could
hold prosperity upon the mountain side. Other small camps had appeared
in near-by canyons, desert mushrooms more or less poisonous to the
unwary.
At first it had been believed that the gold Bill Dale had found would
be uncovered elsewhere in the district. The promoters of Parowan had
carefully fostered that belief, and even yet the men on the outside
were unaware of the fact that certain other opulently named companies
were riding precariously up the tail of Bill Dale's kite. They
advertised their properties as being "adjoining the Parowan
Consolidated properties," and sold stock on the strength of that
statement rather than because of any particular value in their own
claims. And the _Parowan Record_ was doing all that any boom-town
newspaper could do to discourage discouragement and foster faith in
the district.
There was meaning in Rayfield's declaration that the passing of a
dividend by Parowan Consolidated was unfortunate at that particular
time, and that the coming of Bill was likely to prove a godsend to the
town.
The business men watched Bill covertly for a time, still anxious.
Then, when material for the big house began to arrive, and expert
builders from the city; when trucks and men were busy on the knoll,
certain of the watchers breathed freer and relinquished certain secret
plans they had been making to leave Parowan as quietly as possible
while they could pull out with a profit.
Bill himself was enough to put heart into the most timorous. He was so
happy to be back and to be building his home that his voice lifted the
spirits and set men to smiling at nothing in particular. The twinkle
was back in his eyes; his laugh was a tonic. With Hez slouching along
at his heels and Luella riding his shoulder, he walked the streets and
had a word for every man who met his eye with friendly glance; bossed
the job of the building. When he made brief visits to Doris and the
baby, Parowan was uneasy until he returned.
The passing of the dividend created scarcely a ripple of comment,
since Bill Dale was there, spending money on a home, and since Bill
said that Parowan Consolidated was merely getting ready to shovel out
the gold in chunks.
"Can't pay dividends, boys, when we're spending money on new
machinery," he said easily, believing it all in the bottom of his
heart.
Those who had begun to sell a little of their Parowan stock wished
they had kept it. And those who could, bought more. Four times par
they paid for it, and called it a good investment. Bill told them that
it was beyond question a deep, rich, permanent mine, and that as long
as he had anything to do with it, Parowan was not going to turn a
dishonest dollar.
That winter the town continued to grow and to prosper. And on the
fourteenth day of February Parowan Consolidated asked for extra guards
for the express car, and made a valentine shipment of gold. Almost
immediately, stockholders were notified that the regular dividend
would be made.
So Parowan had passed its critical period of uncertainty and was
accepted as a permanent town that might even rival Goldfield and
Tonopah in wealth, give it a little time.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE YARN AL FREEMAN TOLD
Al Freeman, slouched forward on a box, dangled a cold cigarette from
his loose lips and gave Bill the slinking, slant-eyed regard of a
trapped coyote. Behind him, Tommy stood grim, with his underjaw lifted
and thrust forward in a comical attempt to look as deadly as he felt.
Thrust within the waistband of his sagging gray trousers was an
ivory-handled revolver which had lately done its share toward
intimidating the man before him. Bill held his underlip between his
teeth, lest he smile and so spoil a dramatic situation evidently quite
precious to the little Irishman, whom Nature had never meant for a
swashbuckling hero.
"Spake up, now!" Thus Tommy cracked the whip of authority over Al.
"Tell t' Mr. Dale phwat I heard yuh tellin' t' Jack Bole in my
s'loon--an' tell it the same er I'll let the daylight t'rough yuh! I
will, that." He rolled the words out with unction, with an eye canted
up through his glasses to observe the effect of his harshness upon
Bill. A small boy patting a tame bear could never have felt himself
more dare-devilishly courageous.
"'Tis a foine tale I heard him tellin', Mr. Dale, an' one that
concerns you an' yoors. I'll have it outa him, never fear."
"Shall I heat the poker Tommy?" Bill's tone was innocent, if his eyes
were not. "Or have you put the fear of the Lord in him already?"
"Aw, he ain't able t' scare a rabbit," Al protested with an
ingratiating smile that managed to make itself mighty unpleasant, in
spite of him. "What I tolt Jack Bole I'm willin' t' tell you, Mr.
Dale--only I wisht to say that I never meant yuh no harm, an' fur as I
kin see I ain't done yuh no harm neither. You made yer pile, an' I was
only tryin' t' make a livin' best way I could. An' seein' yo're rich
an' I'm broke, I cain't see as I done ye no harm. Which I wouldn't of
wanted t' do yuh nohow."
"Clear as the Colorado River in flood time," Bill made cheerful
comment. "Let's have the story, and never mind the footnotes. Go
ahead. I'll keep Tommy off your back--if I can. He's a hard man to
stop, once he gets started, but I'll protect you if possible."
Whereat Tommy scowled and clamped his jaws together anew, not
perceiving the joke. And his captive, actuated by motives of his own,
proceeded to tell his story, which startled Bill more than he would
like to own.
Since Al's illiterate speech is not particularly attractive and his
manner of telling the tale wearisome with a frequent sez-e and sez-I,
here is the gist of the matter which Tommy had thought fit for Bill's
ears and best attention:
In coming to Parowan as packer for the government research men, Al had
come with instructions to do exactly what he had done. He declared
that the sole object of Rayfield and Emmett had been to discover what
value there was in Bill's claims. They had been first attracted by the
parrot, talking unguardedly in Goldfield--Al here repeated almost
verbatim what the parrot had said, since Jim Lambert had jotted down
the sentences and had seen fit to study them seriously--and had laid
their plans carefully before ever they left the town.
Al said that he was taken up to Jim Lambert's office, and there he
first heard of the scheme, agreed to play his part in it and was
promised an interest in all that was gained. The three had followed
Bill, keeping well out of sight. They had done this because they did
not know just where he was going,--Parowan being a large mountain with
wide shoulders and many gulches and canyons. They had timed their
arrival so as to take advantage of the storm and share Bill's shelter,
whatever it was. This, Al said, was intended to induce intimacy and
the exchange of confidences.
They were to secure samples, and what details they could, whereupon Al
was to carry off the camp equipment and leave Rayfield and Emmett
stranded there, so that Bill must take them in. This, he said, was to
induce further intimacy and to make it more permanent.
There Al's duty ended. After he had reported to Jim Lambert, he was to
have the burro and the outfit, and could go where he pleased, so long
as he kept his mouth shut and remained away from Goldfield. He was to
be paid top packer's wages and a share in whatever was made out of
Bill's claims.
"Then what are you breaking your word with them for?" was Bill's first
surprising question. "Why aren't you keeping your mouth shut?"
"Wal, they hain't played square with me, Mr. Dale. They hain't give me
the share they agreed to." Al lifted his dingy hat to scratch a head
that looked as if it needed scratching.
"Haven't you got a written agreement?"
"No, I hain't. They wouldn't have any writin' on it. They said it
wouldn't be best."
"Well, that's good sense. It wouldn't." Bill got up and put more wood
in the stove, for a raw wind was blowing up from the desert. "Well,
what do you expect me to do about it?" He turned on Al so abruptly
that Al dodged, expecting a blow perhaps.
"Wal, I dunno--onless it might mebby be worth somethin' to yuh, t'
know about the frame-up." Cupidity flared for a moment in Al's eyes.
"Yo're a rich man, Mr. Dale," he whined. "I ain't got a dime to my
name."
Bill replaced the lid on the stove, scraped pieces of bark from the
surface with the poker and sat down again, eyeing Al contemptuously.
"Yes, I'm a rich man--according to your standard. Did you ever hear of
crooks making a man rich, Al? Doesn't that strike you as kind of
funny--a crook doing that?"
"Wal, I dunno's it does, Mr. Dale--not if they was gittin' five
dollars, say, whilst you was gittin' one."
Bill laughed contemptuously.
"If they were all that generous, they'd be pretty apt to pay you
enough to keep your mouth shut, anyway. Or give some one a few dollars
to bump you off. There are thin spots in your yarn, Al. I'm afraid it
isn't worth much."