MISS FORTUNE
It was very informal, to say the least, for Mary Fortune to invite him
to stay. To be sure, she knew him--he was the man with the gun, the
man of whom McBain was afraid--but that was all the more reason, to a
reasoning woman, why she should keep silent and let him depart. But
there was a business-like brevity about him, a single-minded
directness, that struck her as really unique. Quite apart from the
fact that it might save McBain, she wanted him to stay there and talk.
At least so she explained it, the evening afterwards, to her censorious
other-self. What she did was spontaneous, on the impulse of the
moment, and without any reason whatever.
"Oh, won't you sit down a moment?" she had murmured politely; and the
savage, fascinating Westerner, after one long look, had with equal
politeness accepted.
"Yes, indeed," he answered when he had got his wits together, "you're
very kind to ask me, I'm sure."
He came back then, a huge, brown, ragged animal and sat down, very
carefully, in her spare chair. Why he did so when his business, not to
mention a just revenge, was urgently calling him thence, was a question
never raised by Rimrock Jones. Perhaps he was surprised beyond the
point of resistance; but it is still more likely that, without his
knowing it, he was hungry to hear a woman's voice. His black mood left
him, he forgot what he had come there for, and sat down to wonder and
admire.
He looked at her curiously, and his eyes for one brief moment took in
the details of the headband over her ear; then he smiled to himself in
his masterful way as if the sight of her pleased him well. There was
nothing about her to remind him of those women who stalked up and down
the street; she was tall and slim with swift, capable hands, and every
line of her spoke subtly of style. Nor was she lacking in those
qualities of beauty which we have come to associate with her craft.
She had quiet brown eyes that lit up when she smiled, a high nose and
masses of hair. But across that brown hair that a duchess might have
envied lay the metal clip of her ear-'phone, and in her dark eyes,
bright and steady as they were, was that anxious look of the deaf.
"I hope I wasn't rude," she stammered nervously as she sat down and met
his glance.
"Oh, no," he said with the same carefree directness, "it was me, I
reckon, that was rude. I certainly didn't count on meeting a lady when
I came in here looking for--well, McBain. He won't be back, I reckon.
Kind of interferes with business, don't it?"
He paused and glanced at the rear door and the typist smiled,
discreetly.
"Oh, no," she said. And then, lowering her voice: "Have you had
trouble with Mr. McBain?"
"Yes, I have," he answered. "You may have heard of me--my name is
Henry Jones."
"Oh--_Rimrock_ Jones?"
Her eyes brightened instantly as he slowly nodded his head.
"That's me," he said. "I used to run this whole town--I'm the man that
discovered the mines."
"What, the Gunsight mines? Why, I thought Mr. McBain----"
"McBain _what_?"
"Why, I thought _he_ discovered the mines."
Rimrock straightened up angrily, then he sat back in his chair and
shook his head at her cynically.
"He didn't need to," he answered. "All he had to do was to discover an
error in the way I laid out my claim. Then he went before a judge that
was as crooked as he was and the rest you can see for yourself."
He thrust his thumb scornfully through a hole in his shirt and waved a
hand in the direction of the office.
"No, he cleaned me out, using a friend of mine; and now I'm down to
nothing. What do you think of a law that will take away a man's mine
because it apexes on another man's claim? I discovered this mine and I
formed the company, keeping fifty-one per cent. of the stock. I opened
her up and she was paying big, when Andy McBain comes along. A shyster
lawyer--that's the best you can say for him--but he cleaned me, down to
a cent."
"I don't understand," she said at last as he seemed to expect some
reply. "About these apexes--what are they, anyway? I've only been
West a few months."
"Well, I've been West all my life, and I've hired some smart lawyers,
and I don't know what an apex is yet. But in a general way it's the
high point of an ore-body--the highest place where it shows above
ground. But the law works out like this: every time a man finds a mine
and opens it up till it pays these apex sharps locate the high ground
above him and contest the title to his claim. You can't do that in
Mexico, nor in Canada, nor in China--this is the only country in the
world where a mining claim don't go straight down. But under the law,
when you locate a lode, you can follow that vein, within an extension
of your end-lines, under anybody's ground. _Anybody's_!"
He shifted his chair a little closer and fixed her with his fighting
blue eyes.
"Now, just to show you how it works," he went on, "take me, for
instance. I was just an ordinary ranch kid, brought up so far back in
the mountains that the boys all called me Rimrock, and I found a rich
ledge of rock. I staked out a claim for myself, and the rest for my
folks and my friends, and then we organized the Gunsight Mining
Company. That's the way we all do, out here--one man don't hog it all,
he does something for his friends. Well, the mine paid big, and if I
didn't manage it just right I certainly never meant any harm. Of
course I spent lots of money--some objected to that--but I made the old
Gunsight pay.
"Then--" he raised his finger and held it up impressively as he marked
the moment of his downfall--"then this McBain came along and edged into
the Company and right from that day, I lose. He took on as attorney,
but it wasn't but a minute till he was trying to be the whole show.
You can't stop that man, short of killing him dead, and I haven't got
around to that yet. But he bucked me from the start and set everybody
against me and finally he cut out Lon Lockhart. There was a man, by
Joe, that I'd stake my life on it he'd never go back on a friend; but
he threw in with this lawyer and brought a suit against me, and just
naturally took--away--my--mine!"
Rimrock's breast was heaving with an excitement so powerful that the
girl instinctively drew away; but he went on, scarcely noticing, and
with a fixed glare in his eyes that was akin to the stare of a madman.
"Yes, took it away; and here's how they did it," he went on, suddenly
striving to be calm. "The first man I staked for, after my father and
kin folks, was L. W. Lockhart over here. He was a cowman then and he
had some money and I figured on bidding him in. So I staked him a good
claim, above mine on the mountain, and sure enough, he came into the
Company. He financed me, from the start; but he kept this claim for
himself without putting it in with the rest. Well, as luck would have
it, when we sunk on the ledge, it turned at right angles up the hill.
Up and down, she went--it was the main lode of quartz and we'd been
following in on a stringer--and _rich_? Oh, my, it was rotten!"
He paused and smiled wanly, then his eyes became fixed again, and he
hurried on with his tale.
"I was standing out in front of my office one day when Tuck Edwards,
the boy I had in charge of the mine, came riding up and says:
"'Rim, they've jumped you!'
"'Who jumped me?' I says.
"'Andrew McBain and L. W.!' he says and I thought at first he was crazy.
"'Jumped our mine?' I says. 'How can they jump it when it's part their
own already?'
"'They've jumped it all,' he says. 'They had a mining expert out there
for a week and he's made a report that the lode apexes on L. W.'s
claim.'
"I couldn't believe it. L. W.? I'd made him. He used to be nothing
but a cowman; and here he was in town, a banker. No, I couldn't
believe it; and when I did it was too late. They'd taken possession of
the property and had a court order restraining me from going onto the
grounds. Not only did they claim the mine, but every dollar it had
produced, the mill, the hotel, everything! And the judge backed them
up in it--what kind of a law is that?"
He leaned forward and looked her in the eyes and Mary Fortune realized
that she was being addressed not as a woman, impersonally, but as a
human being.
"What kind of a law is that?" he demanded sternly and took the answer
for granted.
"That cured me," he said. "After this, here's the only law I know."
He tapped his pistol and leaned back in his chair, smiling grimly as
she gazed at him, aghast.
"Yes, I know," he went on, "it don't sound very good, but it's that or
lay down to McBain. The judges are no better--they're just promoted
lawyers----"
He checked himself for she had risen from her chair and her eyes were
no longer scared.
"Excuse me," she said, "my father was a judge." And Rimrock reached
for his hat.
"Whereabouts?" he asked, groping for a chance to square himself.
"Oh--back East," she said evasively, and Rimrock heaved a sigh of
relief.
"Aw, that's different," he answered. "I was just talking about the
Territory. Well, say, I'll be moving along."
He rose quickly, but as he started for the door a rifle-cartridge fell
from his torn pocket. It rolled in a circle and as he stooped swiftly
to catch it the bullet came out like a cork and let spill a thin yellow
line.
"What's that?" she asked as he dropped to his knees; and he answered
briefly:
"Gold!"
"What--real gold?" she cried rapturously, "gold from a mine? Oh, I'd
like----"
She stopped short and Rimrock chuckled as he scooped up the elusive
dust.
"All right," he said as he rose to his feet, "I'll make you a present
of it, then," and held out the cartridge of gold.
"Oh, I couldn't!" she thrilled, but he only smiled encouragingly and
poured out the gold in her hand.
"It's nothing," he said, "just the clean-up from a pocket. I run
across a little once in a while."
A panic came over her as she felt the telltale weight of it, and she
hastily poured it back.
"I can't take it, of course," she said with dignity, "but it was awful
good of you to offer it, I'm sure."
"Aw, what do we care?" he protested lightly, but she handed the corked
cartridge back. Then she stood off and looked at him and the huge man
in overalls became suddenly a Croesus in her eyes.
"Is that from your mine?" she asked at last and of a sudden his bronzed
face lighted up.
"You bet it is--but look at this!" and he fetched a polished rock from
his pocket. "That's azurite," he said, "nearly forty per cent. copper!
I'm not telling everybody, but I find big chunks of that, and I've got
a whole mountain of low-grade. What's a gold mine compared to that?"
He gave her the rich rock with its peacock-blue coloring and plunged
forthwith into a description of his find. Now at last he was himself
and to his natural enthusiasm was added the stimulus of her spellbound,
wondering eyes. He talked on and on, giving all the details, and she
listened like one entranced. He told of his long trips across the
desert, his discovery of the neglected mountain of low-grade copper
ore; and then of his enthusiasm when in making a cut he encountered a
pocket of the precious peacock-blue azurite. And then of his scheming
and hiring American-born Mexicans to locate the whole body of ore,
after which he engaged them to do the discovery work and later transfer
the claims to him. And now, half-finished, with no money to pay them,
and not even food to keep them content, the Mexicans had quit work and
unless he brought back provisions all his claims would go by default.
"I've got a chance," he went on fiercely, "to make millions, if I can
only get title to those claims! And now, by grab, after all I've done
for 'em, these pikers won't advance me a cent!"
"How much would it cost?" she asked him quickly, "to finish the work
and pay off the men?"
"Two thousand dollars," he answered wearily. "But it might as well be
a million."
"Would--would four hundred dollars help you?"
She asked it eagerly, impulsively, almost in his ear, and he turned as
if he had been struck.
"Don't speak so loud," she implored him nervously. "These women in the
hotel--they're listening to everything you say. I can hear all right
if you only whisper--would four hundred dollars help you out?"
"Not of your money!" answered Rimrock hoarsely. "No, by God, I'll
never come to that!"
He started away, but she caught him by the arm and held him back till
he stopped.
"But I want to do it!" she persisted. "It's a good thing--I believe in
it--and I've got the money!"
He stopped and looked at her, almost tempted by her offer; then he
shook his great head like a bull.
"No!" he said, talking half to himself. "I won't do it--I've sunk low
enough. But a woman? Nope, I won't do it."
"Oh, quit your foolishness!" she burst out impatiently, "I guess I know
my own mind. I came out to this country to try and recoup myself and I
want to get in on this mine. No sentiment, understand me, I'm talking
straight business; and I've got the money--right here!"
"Well, what do you want for it?" he demanded roughly. "If that's the
deal, what's your cut? I never saw you before, nor you me. How much
do you want--if we win?"
"I want a share in the mine," she answered instantly. "I don't
care--whatever you say!"
"Well, I'll go you," he said. "Now give me the money and I'll try to
make both of us rich!"
His voice was trembling and he followed every movement as she stepped
back behind her desk.
"Just look out the window," she said as he waited; and Rimrock turned
his head. There was a rustle of skirts and a moment later she laid a
roll of bills in his hand.
"Just give me a share," she said again and suddenly he met her eyes.
"How about fifty-fifty--an undivided half?" he asked with a dizzy smile.
"Too much," she said. "I'm talking business."
"All right," he said. "But so am I."