from Bill's office. More stock came in. The papers were full of the
crash, full of wild rumors of the cause, full of Bill Dale's insane
buying--or was it insane? Certainly, it was sensational. No
stockholder could possibly remain in ignorance of the facts, the worst
of the rumors concerning Bill and the mine.
"Sell! Sell!" Every one was crying it. Sell before Bill Dale goes
broke or quits buying because he has enough. They sold frantically.
After Bill had bought so much, the most credulous old woman who held
ten shares could not fail to see that she was hopelessly in the
minority; that she would never get one dime for Parowan, unless Bill
Dale willed that she should.
So it went on for a week. At the end of that time, the silence was
broken between Bill and Doris. One evening, in a cape borrowed from
her maid, Doris visited Bill at his camp.
Bill thought that it was Tommy, until Doris had closed the rough door
behind her and stood there looking around the crude little place with
its canvas walls and roof (inside, the room was still nearly all
canvas) and at Bill hunkered down before the cookstove, blowing up his
fire. She stood looking at him in silence. Perhaps she remembered that
other night when she had cried, "Bill! Bill Dale! Let me in!" Perhaps
she remembered the light in Bill's eyes then, the happy quiver of his
lips which he could not hold from smiling just because she was
there----
"Oh, hello," he greeted involuntarily when she did not speak. "I
thought it was Tommy." He stood up, looking down at her. There was no
light in his eyes now. His lips were pressed together in a straight
line, and he waited guardedly for her to speak first. She came up and
held her ringed hands over the stove, for the night was cool. Perhaps,
too, she wanted to be near him, to watch his face.
"Well, Bill, since I am to be left a widow," she said lightly, "I'm
going back to the Coast. Well, of course, I'm joking about the
widow--though I'm sure I don't know what folks are saying about you
not being home for days. I never saw such an ugly temper as you've
got. I came to say that I'm leaving for Santa Barbara to-morrow. I
want to be early so as to get a good suite before the crowd arrives.
I suppose you'll at least help me get there and get settled?"
Bill smiled darkly. "Any girl that's able to sling a pack on a horse
and get out on this desert alone, and think nothing of it," he said,
"ought to be able to take a train ride alone--with two hired women to
wait on her."
"Do you mean you won't go?"
"I mean, I won't leave here. I might convoy you to your pet hotel, if
you'll wait till I have time. But if you want to go now, you'll have
to go alone."
"Bill, sometimes I think I _hate_ you!"
"Never mind. That'll soon settle into a fixed habit--soon as I'm
broke."
"You're the most stubborn man I ever saw in my life. No one knows what
I have endured from you. Everything must be your way--nothing that I
say or do is worth your consideration. You never would listen to me--I
know now that you must have been making money on the side, that you
never told me about. If you hadn't you never could have acted the fool
and kept it up the way you have, buying in worthless stock."
"_You_ didn't find it worthless," Bill could not refrain from
reminding her. "You made a good thing out of yours, don't you think?
There's not a man in the country can call Parowan stock worthless.
What are _you_ kicking about?"
Doris looked him over scornfully. "What a fool you are!" she said.
"Beggaring yourself just so you may have the satisfaction of saying
that Parowan stock is worth par."
"Ninety cents," Bill corrected her calmly. "I dropped it a bit
to-day--shaking loose a few that have been hanging on."
"I suppose," said Doris, "you consider it a great achievement, buying
up Parowan. Cornering a worn-out mine!"
Bill reached for the coffeepot, measured out coffee and poured in
water from a dented tea-kettle. He was sick of fruitless argument with
Doris. She was as she was made, he told himself resignedly. Some
persons are unable by nature to see beyond a dollar, and Doris, he
considered, was one of them.
"Have you ever thought of me, in this performance of yours?" she
cried, stung by his silence. "I am your wife. What right had you to
throw away money the way you have done, without even asking me what I
thought about it? Throwing away----"
"You aren't worrying about your hotel bill, are you? I believe you
still have a few nickels left. You ought to make out--for awhile,
anyway. I can land a job, maybe, after this blows over."
"A job! You'll land in the insane asylum, if you keep on. I wish I'd
never seen you, Bill Dale!"
"In that case," said Bill, looking up from slicing bacon, "you'd still
be punchin' cows for your dad, most likely."
Doris gave him one furious glare and swept past him. "I hate the
ground you walk on!" she cried. "I hope I never see you again, as long
as I live!"
Bill went on slicing bacon, even after he had heard the gate slam.
When he came to himself, he had sliced enough for ten hungry men.
"You won't, if I can help it," he said tardily; so tardily that Doris
was probably at home by that time.
But nothing is immutable save the Law, and Bill was up at the big
house, the next day, attending to the small details of departure. Baby
Mary was in his arms, bonneted and ready to go, a full hour before the
train left. Bill wondered dully how he was ever going to loosen his
clasp of her warm little body and let her go with Doris,--out of his
life, since the break between him and her mother was irrevocable.
He wondered if Doris would divorce him. But he would have bitten his
tongue in two before he would ask. She was keeping up the pretense,
speaking to him pleasantly when a servant was within hearing, ignoring
his presence when they chanced to be alone.
At the depot, whither he accompanied them, still carrying little Mary
in his arms, Doris chatted lightly of trivial things and smiled
frequently at Bill. The eyes of Parowan were upon them, and Doris
would give them nothing more to roll under their tongues.
"I wired for reservations at the hotel," Bill told her, as he was
helping her on the train. "I asked for our old suite back, if
possible. Thought you'd like it."
"I thought I'd get one in the other wing," Doris answered perversely.
"But that's all right, dear. Well, I'll write immediately, of course.
Good-by, dear!"
Bill hugged little Mary to him, gave her one kiss and put her in her
nurse's arms. The last he heard was the baby's voice screaming,
"Daddy, _take_!"
He went back to the office and bought Parowan stock with a fierce
eagerness that made Fuller, the attorney, look at him queerly.
Before the week was out, Parowan Consolidated was dissolved and Bill
was watching the last of the town's inhabitants leaving on the trail
down the mountain side, and by train. The boom was "busted." From the
Bill Dale mansion on the hill to the meanest shack perched on the edge
of the gulch, the houses of Parowan stood empty. Bill had not lied to
them. He had told them that there would be nothing for them in the
town. He had advised anxious-eyed storekeepers to get out while they
could, carry their stock to some other town and sell it or open
another store. They had taken his advice. The exodus, while orderly,
had been complete.
One little store, the one nearest Bill's camp, remained much as it had
been when Bill made his last purchases there. The storekeeper had a
wife and a lot of children, and he had wanted to get out on a ranch
that he owned near Reno. He was sick of business. He tried to sell,
and nobody would buy. They had enough on their hands, getting out with
their own goods, and landing business. They needed all their cash, and
more too, they said. So Bill, hearing it all while he purchased coffee
and a pound of butter and a few cans of milk, set down his packages
and bought the man out. Not that he was trying to see how much money
he could spend, but because he would need supplies and he thought that
this was the cheapest way to stock up.
One night, then, Bill sat down to his supper in the tent-shack and
told Luella and Hez that they had the place to themselves. Parowan, as
a town, was a thing of the past. That day, the train had made its last
trip into the deserted camp. Its sole freight consisted of six cases
of wine and whisky for Tommy's place--a consignment delayed somewhere
in transit.
"What are _you_ kicking about?" Luella inquired sharply.
"Nothing," said Bill stubbornly. "Nothing at all."
Tommy came in, peering through his glasses at Bill. He grinned,
setting his lantern down on the table.
"The ghosts'll be out this night, I'm thinkin', Mr. Dale," he observed
slily. "I've been all over the town, an' here's the only stovepipe
that's smokin' t'night. Not mine--I thought mebby yuh might ast me t'
eat wit' yuh, an' so I cooked nawthin' fer m'self."
Bill nodded and got another cup and plate. "I thought you went
to-day," he said.
"Me? Wit' the stock I've bought an' the stock I've helt befoor, I've a
right t' stay wit' my investment."
Bill studied him. "So it's you has been holding out on Parowan!" He
laughed shortly not quite pleased. "Well, you'd better fork over,
Tommy. I'll buy your stock. You know, don't you, that the Company's
dissolved--there _ain't_ no more Parowan Consolidated. What's left of
the mine belongs to Bill Dale. Right where it began, it finishes. How
much have you got?" Almost mechanically he reached for his fountain
pen. The thought struck him that now, at last, he might not be able to
buy Tommy out for any decent price. He might not have money enough. As
poor as when he had followed his burros into Goldfield was Bill. But
he had his mine; he had his self-respect.
"I'm not sellin' Parowan stock," said Tommy stiffly. "When I seen you
was buyin', I bought from them that come in the s'loon an' talkin'. If
they's no Company left, I can thank Gawd fer that. An' we'll own the
mine, the two of us. Fer I have no wish t' sell, Mr. Dale. Phwat's
good enough fer you that found it, sh'd be good enough fer me. I'm
keepin' my share. An' I'm thinkin' we'll find the ore, Mr. Dale, spite
o' the experts that says it's gone. 'Tis not gone s' far but we can
find it--you an' me worrkin' t'gether--though phwat yer plan is I
dunno----"
Bill gulped. His eyes shone wet between his lashes, though he tried to
laugh.
"You bought--because I bought. Tommy, you're the biggest damn fool in
Nevada. You ought to be shot."
"Yiss," said Tommy, and blinked at him. "But not fer quittin' a
friend, Mr. Dale. The durrty houn's that came an' fed from yer hand,
an' when yuh had no more for them, they streaked it outa town an' left
yuh holdin' the sack----"
"Aw, shut up!" Bill's tone was gruff. "This may not be O'Hara cooking,
but--fill your plate. I'll do my killing in the morning."
"Yuh will not--Bill." And Tommy pulled up a box, threw his hat into a
corner and snickered happily over his supper.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE TOWN THAT WAS
Every day after that Bill would go up to the mine, Tommy and Hez
shambling along at his heels. First of all, Bill must examine the
workings closely to see where and why the vein first showed signs of
"petering out." He knew that rich veins are tricky, that they seldom
hold up under mining. Either the values drop as the ore body increases
in volume, or the vein will pinch out, perhaps never to be
rediscovered. He had to know just what had been done, what formations
had been cut, just how the vein had dipped into the hill.
He took his time, and his work was simplified because the workings
were not really extensive. It sickened him to see how they had gutted
the rich vein and passed up tiny stringers that might lead to other
rich deposits. So far as he could determine, Rayfield had not
attempted to explore the further resources of the mine. He had taken
what was in sight, easy to mine, and had neglected the development of
other possible veins.
Well, he had probably been frightened off with Al Freeman's story and
had proceeded to rake in as much loot as possible before the crash
came. All the better for Bill, if he could pick up the vein again, or
locate further deposits. It would be slow, with only two pairs of
hands for the work. Bill could not even keep the compressor going, so
that they could use the air drills.
"It's the hand-drilling for us, Tommy," he decided, one night while
they planned. "I can't afford to run that machinery--that's flat. I'm
broke, so far as working men and machinery are concerned. I want you
to know it before I start in. I've got less than a thousand dollars in
the bank. I could borrow--I've a friend in California that would come
in here and open things wide up, and like the fun of it. He doesn't
know how rich he is; doesn't care. Never saw the bottom of his dollar
pile, anyway.
"But the truth of the matter is, I want to do this alone. If it takes
the rest of my life, I mean to stick here and find that ore. I mean to
bring Parowan to the front again. That's why I bought everything up
and spent practically my last dollar to do it. But you don't have to
stick. It isn't _your_ pride that was ground under their heels. If I
hadn't been able--well, that doesn't matter, now. But thank the Lord
my money held out! They can call me crazy, but they can't say I'm a
quitter."
"They can not. An' Tommy'll be right here when the boom comes
back--make no mistake, Bill. The furrst place of business will be
Tommy's Place--an' I'm keepin' it swep' out an' the glasses wiped,
agin that day when we strike ore. I am, that."
Bill did not answer. He was thinking of one other place that was swept
and dusted regularly every Sunday. Not because he had any hope that
Doris would live in it, nor because of any desire, even. It troubled
him now and then to think how his heart was hardening toward Doris.
Perhaps he did it for baby Mary; because he had built her a home. She
wouldn't remember--but some day, when she was a woman, she could come
back and see her little crib, up in the corner bedroom. A scuffed pair
of shoes left in a drawer. A broken, rubber doll with the whistle torn
out. And she would know that she had crept over these floors, had
slept under this roof; that this had been her home.
Never once did it occur to Bill that he could sell the furnishings of
the house for enough money to hire miners, run his machinery, expedite
his work in a dozen different ways. He would have fought the man who
suggested such a thing.
He would walk through the room--wearing rich-man's shoes so that the
floors would not be marred--and dream of the baby, trying all the
while to shut Doris out of his mind. She had not seemed like _his_
Doris, this proud young woman who rustled her silken gowns through the
house, flashed her jewels and spoke imperiously to her servants. No,
that was not the Doris he had loved. His Doris had been tanned and
frank of eye and of speech. She had been lithe and competent, and
looked life honestly in the face. His heart was very empty, sometimes,
very hungry for that Doris whom he had loved. He even caught himself
dreaming about her, now and then,--almost forgetting the other Doris
who had kissed him good-by because others were watching and would
gossip if the parting seemed too cold. A Judas kiss, it had seemed to
Bill. He tried to forget it, lest his hatred grow against her.
Every Sunday, Tommy would sweep and dust and polish,--and dream,
perchance, some hidden little dream of his own. Bill would disappear
for hours, coming in after sunset with tired eyes and with lines
beside his mouth. And neither would speak of how the time had been
spent.
But the rest of Parowan was given over to the winds of the desert
spaces. Doors began to sag, windows rattled. When the wind blew
strong, corrugated iron roof would hammer like anvil blows. Old
papers swept through the streets to lodge ghostlike in the corners. It
was a place of desolation, watched over proudly by the big house on
the hill, with its sheeted furniture and its big, plate-glass windows
that looked and looked, and framed no face but Bill's, staring out
through them moodily upon the town and the desert beyond.
For a time there had been a certain somber activity about the camp,
daytimes. Men hauled away salvage where ownership could be proved to
Bill's satisfaction,--and Bill was hard to satisfy, these days.
Precious time was lost from their mine while he and Tommy guarded
against looting. For practically all of Parowan belonged to Bill Dale,
and he was showing himself hard, grasping, suspicious, a man who
carried a gun for the first time in years, and who would shoot, give
him provocation.
A railroad gang appeared--with flat cars and their cookhouse--and took
up the rails, leaving the ties on the roadbed. Twenty miles away,
running past the Hunter ranch with a flag station at his largest
spring, the railroad still continued to give service of a sort between
Los Angeles and Tonopah. But Parowan was wiped disdainfully off its
map. It became a speck, away out on the southern slope of the
mountain,--too far away to tempt the idly curious, especially with
Bill Dale, said to be "a little off," resenting prowlers in the town
that was; too dead to bring the meanest man there for gain. In this
fashion was Parowan set apart from other decadent mining camps.
Loot--men prowling through the buildings looking for whatever might be
carried off--Parowan was saved that indignity. The big house on the
hill must have been a temptation; but no one quite wanted to risk it.
The general opinion was that Bill lived in the house, and spent much
of his time watching the town.
This opinion was strengthened by the fact that Bill did come down from
the big house, one Sunday, and drive a looting party out of town with
the silent ferocity of a jungle tiger. They did not come back. Bill
had emptied his six-shooter after them, furrowing the dirt just behind
their heels. It was close shooting. They took the hint.
For awhile, Bill and Tommy occupied themselves with packing the best
railroad ties up to the mine, using Wise One and Angelface--and the
two other burros which Bill had bought, and which had been called
whatever came handiest--principally epithets coined for the occasion.
The ties made splendid mine timbers. They were preparing for a long
siege.
Fall chilled to winter. Sister Mitchell disappeared, and Bill began to
hunt mittens for Tommy and himself. They had all the supplies they
would need for a long, long time. The little store had catered to
miners and carried a well-balanced stock of general supplies, ranging
from needles and thread and candy and gum, to picks and overalls and
shoes. And in the shed behind was a full ton of grain. The burros
would not suffer in the work before them. For the burros, too, would
have to help.
Bill rigged a sweep arrangement which miners call a whim. It was the
duty of the burros to walk round and round in a circle, and hoist the
muck, when the two men settled down to their mining. They didn't like
it, but they did like their pint of rolled barley at the end of the
shift, so that even the burros became resigned to their labor; so
resigned that they would walk of their own accord into their places,
ready to be harnessed to the whim.
One evening, when Tommy failed to show up after supper, Bill unhooked
the saxophone case from its nail in the ridgepole and took out the
instrument, fitting it together tentatively as if he were not at all
sure that he would want to play it or do more than look it over. That
first winter on the Coast, before his dreams had died of starvation,
Bill had yielded to temptation and arranged for lessons on the
saxophone. A Sunday advertisement had given him the idea, and Bill had
worked hard, practising for two hours a day at a studio under the
tutelage of a stern but thorough teacher. That was before he awoke to
the fact that saxophones were not for the elect, and that Doris
declined to agree with him that it would be nice if they could play
things together.
The valves were stiff, to begin with. Bill oiled them carefully and
tried out his fingering. Swinging a single-jack, he discovered, did
not tend to increase the flexibility of the fingers, but not all his
patient work in the studio was lost. He wiped the mouthpiece absently,
adjusted the reed to his liking and began to play, while Luella
screamed at him hysterically.
"Fer Gawd sake, Bill!" she implored, just as Tommy came panting into
the yard, having run all the way from his saloon.
"Don't _you_ start in," Bill warned, looking up under his eyebrows at
Tommy while he went down to low C and lingered there heartrendingly,
finishing "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" to his own satisfaction,
at least.
"Fer Gaw-wd _sake_!" Tommy breathed in an awed half-whisper.
"There'll be no pinochle this night, Bill Dale. Yuh'll be playin'
music--an' it hits the spot--it does that!" He did not mention what
spot, and Bill did not ask.
To Bill, the saxophone marked a milestone in his troubles. He could
play it and enjoy himself without thinking too bitterly of Doris. But
he never explained to himself why it was that he stuck to the things
he had learned in San Francisco; why it was that he never played
"Love's Old Sweet Song."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HOPELESS BILL DALE
Christmas came, by the big calendar that hung on the wall of Tommy's
Place. It did not come in the heart of Bill Dale. Don Hunter, riding
thoughtfully to dead Parowan, begged Bill to come and spend the
holiday at the ranch. Mother Hunter, he said, had made fresh mincemeat
and was fattening a turkey, and she'd feel hurt if Bill didn't show up
to help celebrate.
Bill was standing by the whim, watching Tommy unhitch the burros from
the sweeps. Bill's face was grimed, his shoulders drooped a bit. He
had put in five long holes since noon, and the rock was hard. His eyes
went down to the empty roofs of Parowan that was; wandered farther, to
where the big house stood staunchly upon its knoll, solid,
beautiful,--but with no smoke curling up into the nipping air.
"Tell her I'm sorry, Don. I can't--keep Christmas." He swung away and
went down the trail, biting his lip, fighting the hot surge of
rebellious thoughts. Christmas! Good God, did they think he was made
of stone? Did they think, because he wouldn't whine like a beaten
dog--did they think it meant so little to him--all this desolation?
"Dead--inside and out," he muttered fiercely. "And they think I can
eat turkey and mince pie and call it--Christmas!"
Behind him, hazing the burros, Tommy was talking plaintively to Don.
"I wouldn't urrge 'im, Mr. Hunter. He worrks like tin men, he does.
An' he eats hearty, an' he plays pinochle wit' me of an evenin'. He's
havin' 'is joke wit' me an' the burrd an' the dorg--but I've eyes in
me head, Mr. Hunter. The heart of 'im's weepin' tears of blood whilst
the lips of 'em's laughin' belike. It shows in the eyes of 'im. It
does that, Mr. Hunter."
There was no Christmas in Parowan, then. On that day Bill worked
harder than ever, and mortared and panned some pieces of quartz that
seemed "likely looking rock." He got colors in the pan and professed
to be very much encouraged, he talked about formations and ore
deposits and bedding planes, on Christmas night, until Tommy fell
asleep in his chair and dropped his pipe, breaking the mouthpiece.
"I'll make you a bargain, Tommy," Bill said then, his eyes brighter
than they should be, "We'll go over to my store, and you can pick out
the best pipe there. And then, if you're human, you'll invite me into
your 'Place' and set 'em up. I'd like to get drunk--stony, blind
drunk. But I don't think I shall, because I want to put in a
thundering big day to-morrow."
Tommy blinked and couldn't find his hat, which was on his head. And
Bill laughed at him all the way to the store. He laughed, too, when he
pushed Tommy behind the bar to serve the drinks; made him put on a
white apron, polish the bar with a towel before and afterwards,--do
the thing in style. But neither of them mentioned Christmas.
After that, Bill went away, still laughing at something funny. He said
that he was going to bed. But the next morning, when Tommy went over
to Bill's camp for breakfast, there were Bill's tracks in the
fresh-fallen snow,--tracks coming up from across the gulch and turning
in at the gate. Seeing them there, Tommy blinked again. He knew that
it had not snowed until dawn was breaking.