The pack-train strung by, each burro with its saw-horse saddle, and old Juan and his boy behind.
"Al corral!" directed Rimrock as they looked at him expectantly, and then he remembered something.
"Oyez, Juan," he beckoned, calling his man servant up to him, "here"s five dollars--go buy some beans and flour. It is nothing, Juanito, I"ll have more pretty soon--and here"s four bits, you can buy you a drink."
He smiled benevolently and Juan touched his hat and went sidling off like a crab and then once more the black devil came back to plague him, hissing Money, _Money_, MONEY! He looked up the street and a plan, long formless, took sudden shape in his brain. There was yet McBain, the horse-leech of a lawyer who had beaten him out of his claim. More than once, in black moments, he had threatened to kill him; but now he was glad he had not. Men even raised skunks, when the bounty on them was high enough, and took the pay out of their hides. It was the same with McBain. If he didn"t come through--Rimrock shook up his six-shooter and stalked resolutely off up the street.
The office of the Company was on the ground floor of the hotel--the corner room, with a rented office beyond--and as Rimrock came towards it he saw a small sign, jutting out from the farther door:
MARY ROGET FORTUNE TYPEWRITING.
He glanced at it absently, for strange emotions came over him as he peered in through that plategla.s.s window. It had been his office, this same expensive room; and he had been robbed of it, under cover of the law. He shaded his eyes from the glare of the street and looked in at the mahogany desk. It was vacant--the whole place was vacant--and silently he tried the door. That was locked. McBain had seen him and slipped away till he should get out of town.
"The sneaking cur!" muttered Rimrock in a fury and a pa.s.sing woman drew away and half-screamed. He ignored her, pondering darkly, and then to his ears there came a familiar voice. He listened, intently, and raised his head; then tiptoed along the wall. That voice, and he knew it, belonged to Andrew McBain, the man that stole mines for a living.
He paused at the door where Mary Fortune had her sign, then suddenly forced his way in.
Without thinking, impulsively, he had moved towards that voice as a man follows some irresistible call. He opened the door and stood blinking in the doorway, his hand on the pistol at his side. Then he blinked again, for in the gloom of the back office there was nothing but a desk and a girl. She wore a harness over her head, like a telephone operator, and rose up to meet him tremulously.
"Is there anything you wish?" she asked him quietly and Rimrock fumbled and took off his hat.
"Yes--I was looking for a man," he said at last. "I thought I heard him--just now."
He came down towards her, still looking about him, and there was a stir from behind the desk.
"No, I think you"re mistaken," she answered bravely, but he could see the telltale fear in her eyes.
"You know who I mean!" he broke out roughly, "and I guess you know why I"ve come!"
"No, I don"t," she answered, "but--but this is my office and I hope you won"t make any trouble."
The words came with a rush, once she found her courage, but the appeal was lost upon Rimrock.
"He"s here, then!" he said. "Well, you tell him to come out. I"d like to talk with him on business--alone!"
He took a step forward and then suddenly from behind the desk a shadow rose up and fled. It was Andrew McBain, and as he dashed for the rear door the girl valiantly covered his retreat. There was a quick slap of the latch, a scuffle behind her, and the door came shut with a bang.
"Oho!" said Rimrock as she faced him panting, "he must be a friend of yourn."
"No, he isn"t," she answered instantly, and then a smile crept into her eyes. "But he"s--well, he"s my princ.i.p.al customer."
"Oh," said Rimrock grimly, "well, I"ll let him live then. Good-bye."
He turned away, still intent on his purpose, but at the door she called him back.
"What"s that?" he asked as if awakened from a dream. "Why, yes, if you don"t mind, I will."
CHAPTER III
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 a.s.sociate with her craft.
She had quiet brown eyes that lit up when she smiled, a high nose and ma.s.ses of hair. But across that brown hair that a d.u.c.h.ess 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."