RIMROCK EXPLAINS
It had not taken long, after his triumphant homecoming, for Rimrock to
wreck his own happiness. That old rift between them, regarding the
law, had been opened the very first day; and it was not a difference
that could be explained and adjusted, for neither would concede they
were wrong. As the daughter of a judge, conservatively brought up in a
community where an outlaw was abhorred, Mary Fortune could no more
agree to his program than he could agree to hers. She respected the
law and she turned to the law, instinctively, to right every wrong; but
he from sad experience knew what a broken reed it was, compared to his
gun and his good right hand. The return to Gunsight was a gloomy
affair, but nothing was said of the Old Juan. Abercrombie Jepson
guessed, and rightly, that his company was not desired; and they who
had set out with the joy of lovers rode back absent-minded and
distrait. But the question of the Old Juan was a vital problem,
involving other interests beside theirs, and in the morning there was a
telegram from Whitney H. Stoddard requesting that the matter be cleared
up. Rimrock read it in the office where Mary sat at work and threw it
carelessly down on her desk.
"Well, it's come to a showdown," he said as she glanced at it. "The
question is--who's running this mine?"
"And the answer?" she enquired in that impersonal way she had; and
Rimrock started as he sensed the subtle challenge.
"Why--we are!" he said bluffly. "You and me, of course. You wouldn't
quit me on a proposition like this?"
"Yes, I think I would," she answered unhesitatingly. "I think Mr.
Stoddard is right. That claim should be located in such a manner as to
guarantee that it won't be jumped."
"Uh! You think so, eh? Well, what do you know about it? Can't you
take my word for anything?"
"Why, yes, I can. In most matters at the mine I think you're entitled
to have your way. But if you elect me as a Director in this coming
stockholders' meeting and this question comes before the Board, unless
you can make me see it differently I'm likely to vote against you."
Rimrock shoved his big hat to the back of his head and stood gazing at
her fixedly.
"Well, if that's the case," he suggested at last, and then stopped as
she caught his meaning.
"Very well," she said, "it isn't too late. You can get you another
dummy."
"Will you vote for him?" demanded Rimrock, after an instant's thought,
and she nodded her head in assent.
"Well, dang my heart!" muttered Rimrock impatiently, pacing up and down
the room. "Here I frame it all up for us two to get together and run
the old Company right and the first thing comes up we split right there
and pull off a quarrel to boot. I don't like this, Mary; I want to
agree with you; I want to get where we can understand. Now let me
explain to you why it is I'm holding out; and then you can have you
say-so, too. When I was in jail I sent for Juan Soto and it's true--he
was born in Mexico. But his parents, so he says, were born south of
Tucson and that makes them American citizens. Now, according to the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo if any citizen of Mexico moves to the
United States, unless he moves back or gives notice within five years
of his intention of returning to Mexico he becomes automatically an
American citizen. Do you get the idea? Even if Juan was born in
Mexico he's never considered himself a Mexican citizen. He moved back
with his folks when he was a little baby, took the oath when he came of
age and has been voting the Democratic ticket ever since. But here's
another point--even if he is a Mexican, no private citizen can jump his
claim. The Federal Government can, but I happen to know that no
ordinary citizen can take possession of a foreigner's claim. It's been
done, of course, but that lawyer I consulted told me it wasn't
according to Hoyle. And here's another point--but what are you
laughing at? Ain't I laying the law down right?"
"Why, yes, certainly," conceded Mary, "but with all this behind you
what's the excuse for defying the law? Why don't you tell Mr. Jepson,
or Mr. Stoddard, that the Old Juan is a perfectly good claim?"
"I did!" defended Rimrock. "I told Jepson so yesterday. I used those
very same words!"
"Yes, but with another implication. You let it be understood that the
reason it was good was that you were there, with your gun!"
"Stop right there!" commanded Rimrock. "That's the last, ultimate
reason that holds in a court of law! The code is nothing, the Federal
law is nothing, even treaties are nothing! The big thing that counts
is--possession. Until that claim is recorded it's the only reason.
The man that holds the ground, owns it. And that's why I say, and I
stand pat on it yet, that my gun outweighs all the law!"
"Well, I declare," gasped Mary, "you are certainly convincing! Why
didn't you tell _me_ about it yesterday?"
"Well," began Rimrock, and then he hesitated, "I knew it would bring
up--well, another matter, and I don't want to talk about that, yet."
"Yes, I understand," said Mary very hastily, "but--why didn't you tell
Jepson this? I may do you an injustice but it seemed to me you were
seeking a quarrel. But if you had explained the case----"
"What? To Stoddard's man? Why, you must think I'm crazy. Jepson has
hired a lawyer and looked up that claim to the last infinitesimal
hickey; he knows more about the Old Juan than I do. And speaking about
quarrels, don't you know that fellow deliberately framed the whole
thing? He wanted to know just where I stood on the Old Juan--and he
wanted to get me in bad with you."
"With me?"
"Yes, with you! Why, can't you see his game? If he can get you to
throw your vote against me he can knock me out of my control. Add your
stock to Stoddard's and it makes us fifty-fifty--a deadlock, with
Jepson in charge. And if he thought for a minute that I couldn't fire
him he'd thumb his nose in my face."
Mary smiled at this picture of primitive defiance in a battle of
grown-up men and yet she saw dimly that Rimrock was right in his
estimate of Jepson's motives. Jepson did have a way that was subtly
provocative and his little eyes were shifty, like a boxer's. As the
two men faced each other she could feel the antagonism in every word
that they said; and, looking at it as he did, it seemed increasingly
reasonable that Rimrock's way was the best. It was better just to
fight back without showing his hand and let Jepson guess what he could.
"But if we'd stand together--" she began at last and Rimrock's face lit
up.
"That's it!" he said, leaping forward with his hand out, "will you
shake on it? You know I'm all right!"
"But not _always_ right," she answered smiling, and put her hand in
his. "But you're honest, anyway; and I like you for that. It's
agreed, then; we stand together!"
"No-ow, that's the talk!" grinned Rimrock approvingly, "and besides, I
need you, little Mary."
He held on to her hand but she wrested it away and turned blushing to
her work.
"Don't be foolish!" she said, but her feelings were not hurt for she
was smiling again in a minute. "Don't you know," she confided, "I feel
utterly helpless when it comes to this matter of the mine. Everything
about it seems so absolutely preposterous that I'm glad I'm not going
to be a Director."
"But you are!" came back Rimrock, "now don't tell me different; because
you're bull-headed, once you've put yourself on record. There ain't
another living soul that I can trust to take that directorship. Even
Old Hassayamp down here--and I'd trust him anywhere--might get drunk
and vote the wrong way. But you----"
"You don't know me yet," she replied with decision. "I won't get
drunk, but I've got to be convinced. And if you can't convince me that
your way is right--and reasonable and just, as well--I give you notice
that I'll vote against you. Now! What are you going to say?"
"All right!" he answered promptly, "that's all I ask of you. If you
think I'm wrong you're welcome to vote against me; but believe me, this
is no Sunday-school job. There's a big fight coming on, I can feel it
in my bones, and the best two-handed scrapper wins. Old W. H.
Stoddard, when he had me in jail and was hoping I was going to be sent
up, he tried to buy me out of this mine. He started at nothing and
went up to twenty million, so you can guess how much it's worth."
"Twenty million!" she echoed.
"Yes; twenty million--and that ain't a tenth of what he might be
willing to pay. Can you think that big? Two hundred million dollars?
Well then, imagine that much money thrown down on the desert for him
and me to fight over. Do you think it's possible to be pleasant and
polite, and always reasonable and just, when you're fighting a man
that's never quit yet, for a whole danged mountain of copper?" He rose
up and shook himself and swelled out his chest and then looked at her
and smiled. "Just remember that, in the days that are coming, and give
me the benefit of the doubt."
"But I don't believe it!" she exclaimed incredulously. "What ground
have you for that valuation of the mine?"
"Well, his offer, for one thing," answered Rimrock soberly. "He never
pays what a thing is worth. But did you see Mr. Jepson when I went
into the assay house and began looking at those diamond-drill cores?
He was sore, believe me, and the longer I stayed there the more fidgety
Jepson got. That ore assay's big, but the thing that I noticed is that
all of it carries some values. You can begin at the foot of it and
work that whole mountain and every cubic foot would pay. And that
peacock ore, that copper glance! That runs up to forty per cent. Now,
here's a job for you as secretary of the Company, a little whirl into
the higher mathematics. Just find the cubic contents of Tecolote
mountain and multiply it by three per cent. That's three per cent.
copper, and according to those assays the whole ground averages that.
Take twenty claims, each fifteen hundred feet long, five hundred feet
across and say a thousand feet deep; pile the mountain on top of them,
take copper at eighteen cents a pound and give me the answer in dollars
and cents. Then figure it out another way--figure out the human
cussedness that that much copper will produce."
"Why--really!" cried Mary as she sat staring at him, "you make me
almost afraid."
"And you can mighty well be so," he answered grimly. "It gets me going
sometimes. Sometimes I get a hunch that I'll take all my friends and
go and camp right there on the Old Juan. Just go out there with guns
and hold her down, but that ain't the way it should be done. The
minute you show these wolves you're afraid they'll fly at your throat
in a pack. The thing to do is to look 'em in the eye and keep your gun
kind of handy, so."
He tapped the old pistol that he still wore under his coat and leaned
forward across her desk.
"Now tell me this," he said. "Knowing what you know now, does it seem
so plain criminal--what I did to that robber, McBain?"
Mary met his eyes and in spite of her the tears came as she read the
desperate longing in his glance. He was asking for justification after
those long months of silence, but his deed was abhorrent to her still.
She had shuddered when he had touched that heavy pistol whose shot had
snuffed out a man's life; and she shuddered when she thought of it,
when she saw his great hand and the keen eyes that had looked death at
McBain. And yet, now he asked it, it no longer seemed criminal, only
brutal and murderous--and violent. It was that which she feared in
him, much as she was won by his other qualities, his instinctive resort
to violence. But when he asked if she considered it plain criminal she
was forced to answer him:
"No!"
"Well, then, what is the reason you always keep away from me and look
like you didn't approve? Ain't a man got a right, if he's crowded too
far, to stand up and fight for his own? Would you think any better of
me if I'd quit in the pinch and let McBain get away with my mine?
Wasn't he just a plain robber, only without the nerve, hiring
gun-fighters to do the rough work? Why, Mary, I feel proud, every time
I think about it, that I went there and did what I did. I feel like a
man that has done a great duty and I can't stand it to have you
disapprove. When I killed McBain I served notice on everybody that no
man can steal from me, not even if he hides behind the law. And now,
with all this coming up, I want you to tell me I did right!"
He thrust out his big head and fixed her eyes fiercely, but she slowly
shook her head.
"No," she said, "I can never say that. I think there was another way."
"But I tried that before, when he robbed me of the Gunsight. My God,
you wouldn't have me go to law!"
"You didn't need to go to law," she answered, suddenly flaring up in
anger. "I warned you in plenty of time. All you had to do was to go
to your property and be there to warn him away."
"Aw, you don't understand!" he cried in an agony. "Didn't I warn him
to keep away? Didn't I come to his office when you were right there
and tell him to keep off my claims? What more could I do? But he went
out there anyhow, and after that there was nothing to do but fight!"
"Well, I'm glad you're satisfied," she said after a silence. "Let's
talk about something else."
"No, let's fight this out!" he answered insistently. "I want you to
understand."
"I do," she replied. "I know just how you feel. But unfortunately I
see it differently."
"Well, how do you see it? Just tell me, how you feel and see if I
can't prove I'm right."
"No, it can't be proved. It goes beyond that. It goes back to the way
we've been brought up. My father was a judge and he worshiped the
law--you men out West are different."
"Yes, you bet we are. We don't worship any law unless, by grab, it's
right. Why, there used to be a law, a hundred years ago, to hang a man
if he stole. They used to hang them by the dozen, right over there in
England, and put their heads on a spike. Could you worship that law?
Why, no; you know better. But there's a hundred more laws on our
statute books to-day that date clear back to that time, and lots of
them are just as unreasonable. I believe in justice, and every man for
his own rights, and some day I believe you'll agree with me."
"That isn't necessary," she said, smiling slightly, "we can proceed
very nicely without."
"Aw, now, that's what I mean," he went on appealingly. "We can
proceed, but I want more than that. I want you to like me--and approve
of what I do--and love and marry me, too."
He poured it out hurriedly and reached blindly to catch her, but she
rose up and slipped way.
"No, Rimrock," she said as she gazed back at him from a distance, "you
want too much--all at once. To love and to marry are serious things,
they make or mar a woman's whole life. I didn't come out here with the
intention of marrying and I have no such intention yet. And to win a
woman's love--may I tell you something? It can never be done by
violence. You may take that big pistol and win a mountain of copper
that is worth two hundred million dollars, but love doesn't come that
way. You say you want me now, but to-morrow may be different. And you
must remember, you are likely to be rich."
"Yes, and that's why I want you!" burst out Rimrock impulsively. "You
can keep me from blowing my money."
"Absolutely convincing--from the man's point of view. But what about
the woman's? And if that's all you want you don't have to have me.
You'll find lots of other girls just as capable."
"No, but look! I mean it! I've got to have you--we can throw in our
stock together!"
There was a startled pause, in which each stared at the other as if
wondering what had happened, and then Mary Fortune smiled. It was a
very nice smile, with nothing of laughter in it, but it served to
recall Rimrock to his senses.
"I think I know what you mean," she said at last, "but don't you think
you've said enough? I like you just as much; but really, Rimrock,
you're not very good at explaining."