He was a large man, rather fat and with a ready smile, but with a harried look in his eye that came from handling a thousand details; and as Rimrock turned and faced him he blinked, for he felt something was coming.

"Mr. Jepson," began Rimrock in his big, blustering voice, "I want to have an understanding with you. You're a Stoddard man, but I think you're competent—you certainly have put things through. But here's the point—I've taken charge now and you get your orders from me. You can forget Mr. Stoddard. I'm president and general manager, and whatever I say goes."

He paused and looked Jepson over very carefully while Mary Fortune stared.

"Very well, sir," answered Jepson, "I think I understand you. I hope you are satisfied with my services?"

"We'll see about that later," went on Rimrock, still arrogantly. "I'll begin my tour of inspection to-day. But I'll tell you right now, so there won't be any mistake, that all I ask of you is results. You won't find me kicking about the money you spend as long as it comes back in ore. You're a competent man, so I've been given to understand, and, inside your field, you're the boss. I won't fire any of your men and I won't interfere with your work without having it done through you; but on the other hand, don't you forget for a single minute that I'm the big boss on this dump. And whatever you do, don't make the mistake of thinking you're working for Stoddard. I guess that will be all. Miss Fortune is going to be a director soon and I've asked her to go out with us to the mine."

A strange, startled look came over Jepson's face as he received this last bit of news, but he smiled and murmured his congratulations. Then he expressed the hope that he would be able to please them and withdrew with the greatest haste.

"Well!" observed Rimrock as he gazed grimly after him, "I guess that will hold Mr. Jepson."

"Very likely," returned Mary, "but as a prospective director may I enquire the reason for this outburst?"

"You may," replied Rimrock. "This man, Abercrombie Jepson, was put over on me by Stoddard. I had to concede something, after holding out on the control, and I agreed he could name the supe. Well now, after being the whole show, don't you think it more than likely that Mr. Jepson might overlook the main squeeze—me?"

He tapped himself on the breast and nodded his head significantly.

"That's it," he went on as she smiled enigmatically. "I know these great financiers. I'll bet you right now our fat friend Abercrombie is down telegraphing the news to Stoddard. He's Stoddard's man but I've got my eye on him and if he makes a crooked move, it's bingo!"

"All the same," defended Mary, "while I don't like him personally, I think Jepson is remarkably efficient. And when you consider his years of experience and the technical knowledge he has——"

"That has nothing to do with it, as far as I'm concerned—there are other men just as good for the price—but I want him to understand so he won't forget it that he's taking his orders from me. Now I happen to know that our dear friend Stoddard is out to get control of this mine and the very man that is liable to ditch us is this same efficient Mr. Jepson. Don't ever make the mistake of giving these financiers the credit of being on the level. You can't grab that much money in the short time they've been gathering without gouging every man you meet. So just watch this man Jepson. Keep your eye on his accounts, and remember—we're pardners, now."

His big, excited eyes, that blazed with primitive emotion whenever he roused from his calm, became suddenly gentle and he patted her hand as he hurried off to order up the car.

All the way across the desert, as Mary exclaimed at the signs of progress, Rimrock let it pass in silence. They left the end of the railroad and a short automobile ride put them down at the Tecolote camp. Along the edge of the canyon, where the well-borers had developed water, the framework of a gigantic mill and concentrator was rapidly being rushed to completion. On the flats below, where Old Juan's burros had browsed on the scanty mesquite, were long lines of houses for the miners and a power plant to run the great stamps. A big gang of miners were running cuts into the hillside where the first of the ore was to come out and like a stream of ants the workmen and teams swarmed about each mighty task, but still Rimrock Jones remained silent. His eyes opened wider at sight of each new miracle but to Jepson he made no comments.

They went to the assay house, where the diamond drill cores showed the ore from the heart of the hills; and there at last Rimrock found his tongue as he ran over the assayer's reports.

"Pretty good," he observed and this time it was Jepson who tightened his lips and said nothing. "Pretty good," repeated Rimrock and then he laughed silently and went out and sat down on the hill. "A mountain of copper," he said, looking upward. "The whole butte is nothing but ore. Some rich, some low-grade, but shattered—that's the idea! You can scoop it up with a steam shovel."

He whistled through his teeth, cocking his eye up at the mountain and then looking down at the townsite.

"You bet—a big camp!" And then to Jepson: "That's fine, Mr. Jepson; you're doing noble. By the way, when will that cook-house be done? Pretty soon, eh? Well, let me know; I've got a friend that's crazy to move in."

He smiled at Mary, who thought at once of Woo Chong, but Jepson looked suddenly serious.

"I hope, Mr. Jones," he said, "you're not planning to bring in that Chinaman. I've got lots of Bisbee men among my miners and they won't stand for a Chinaman in camp."

"Oh, yes, they will," answered Rimrock easily. "You wait, it'll be all right. And there's another thing, now I think about it; Mr. Hicks will be out soon to look for a good place to locate his saloon. I've given him the privilege of selling all the booze that is sold in Tecolote."

"Booze?" questioned Jepson, and then he fell silent and went to gnawing his lip.

"Yes—booze!" repeated Rimrock. "I know these Cousin Jacks. They've got to have facilities for spending their money or they'll quit you and go to town."

"Well, now really, Mr. Jones," began Jepson earnestly, "I'd much prefer to have a dry camp. Of course you are right about the average miner—but it's better not to have them drunk around camp."

"Very likely," said Rimrock, "but Old Hassayamp is coming and I guess you can worry along. It's a matter of friendship with me, Mr. Jepson—I never go back on a friend. When I was down and out Old Hassayamp Hicks was the only man that would trust me for the drinks; and Woo Chong, the Chinaman, was the only man that would trust me for a meal. You see how it is, and I hope you'll do your best to make them both perfectly at home."

Abercrombie Jepson mumbled something into his mustache which Rimrock let pass for assent, although it was plainly to be seen by the fire in his eye that the superintendent was vexed. As for Mary Fortune, she sat at one side and pretended not to hear. Perhaps Rimrock was right and these first minor clashes were but skirmishes before a great battle. Perhaps, after all, Jepson was there to oppose him and it was best to ride over him roughshod. But it seemed on the surface extremely dictatorial, and against public policy as well. Mr. Jepson was certainly right, in her opinion, in his attitude toward Hicks' saloon; yet she knew it was hopeless to try to move Rimrock, so she smiled and let them talk on.

"Now, there's another matter," broke in Jepson aggressively, "that I've been waiting to see you about. As I understand it, I'm Mr. Stoddard's representative—I represent his interests in the mine. Very good; that's no more than right. Now, Mr. Stoddard has invested a large amount of money to develop these twenty claims, but he feels, and I feel, that that Old Juan claim is a continual menace to them all."

At the mention of the Old Juan Rimrock turned his head, and Mary could see his jaw set; but he listened somberly for some little time as Jepson went on with his complaint.

"You must know, Mr. Jones, that the history of the Old Juan makes it extremely liable to be jumped. We've had a strong guard set ever since you—well, continuously—but the title to that claim must be cleared up. It ought to be re-located——"

"Don't you think it!" sneered Rimrock with a sudden insulting stare. "That claim will stay—just the way it is!"

"But the guards!" protested Jepson, "they're a continual expense——"

"You can tell 'em to come down," cut in Rimrock peremptorily. "I'll look after that claim myself."

"But why not re-locate it?" cried Jepson in a passion, "why expose us to this continual suspense? You can re-locate it yourself——"

"Mr. Jepson," began Rimrock, speaking through his teeth, "there's no one that questions my claim. But if any man does—I don't care who he is—he's welcome to try and jump it. All he'll have to do is whip me."

He was winking angrily and Jepson, after a silence, cast an appealing glance at Mary Fortune.

"You've got a wonderful property here," he observed, speaking generally, "the prospects are very bright. There's only one thing that can mar its success, and that is litigation!"

"Yes," cried Rimrock, "and that's just what you'd bring on by your crazy re-location scheme! That Old Juan claim is good—I killed a man to prove it—and I'm not going to back down on it now. It won't be re-located and the man that jumps it will have me to deal with, personally. Now if you don't like the way I'm running this proposition——"

"Oh, it isn't that!" broke in Jepson hastily, "but I'm hired, in a way, to advise. You must know, Mr. Jones, that you're jeopardizing our future by refusing to re-locate that claim."

"No, I don't!" shouted Rimrock, jumping fiercely to his feet, while Mary Fortune turned pale. "It's just the other way. That claim is good—I know it's good—and I'll fight for it every time. Your courts are nothing, you can hire a lawyer to take any side of any case, but you can't hire one to go up against this!" He patted a lump that bulged at his hip and shook a clenched fist in the air. "No, sir! No law for me! Don't you ever think that I'll stand for re-locating that claim. That would be just the chance that these law-sharps are looking for, to start a contest and tie up the mine. No, leave it to me. I'll be my own law and, believe me, I'll never be jumped. There are some people yet that remember Andrew McBain——"

He stopped, for Mary had risen from her place and stood facing him with blazing eyes.

"What's the matter?" he asked, like a man bewildered; and then he understood. Mary Fortune had worked for Andrew McBain, she had heard him threaten his life; and, since his acquittal, this was the first time his name had been mentioned. And he remembered with a start that after he came back from the killing she had refused to take his hand.

"What's the matter?" he repeated, but she set her lips and moved away down the hill. Rimrock stood and watched her, then he turned to Jepson and his voice was hoarse with hate.

"Well, I hope you're satisfied!" he said and strode savagely off down the trail.



CHAPTER XIV

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."



CHAPTER XV

A GAME FOR BIG STAKES

The next thirty days—before the stockholders' meeting—were spent by Rimrock in trying to explain. In spite of her suggestion that he was not good at that art he insisted upon making things worse. What he wanted to say was that the pooling of their stock would be a happy—though accidental—resultant of their marriage; what he actually said was that they ought to get married because then they would stand together against Stoddard. But Mary only listened with a wise, sometimes wistful, smile and assured him he was needlessly alarmed. It was that which drove him on—that wistful, patient smile. Somehow he felt, if he could only say the right words, she would lean right over and kiss him!

But those words were never spoken. Rimrock was worried and harassed and his talk became more and more practical. He was quarreling with Jepson, who stood upon his rights; and Stoddard had served notice that he would attend the meeting in person, which meant it had come to a showdown. So the month dragged by until at last they sat together in the mahogany-furnished Directors' room. Rimrock sat at the head of the polished table with Mary Fortune near by, and Stoddard and Buckbee opposite. As the friend of all parties—and the retiring Director—Buckbee had come in the interest of peace; or so he claimed, but how peace would profit him was a question hard to decide. It might seem, in fact, that war would serve better; for brokers are the sharks in the ocean of finance and feed and fatten where the battle is fiercest.

Whitney Stoddard sat silent, a tall, nervous man with a face lined deep with care, and as he waited for the conflict he tore off long strips of paper and pinched them carefully into little square bits. Elwood Buckbee smiled genially, but his roving eye rested fitfully on Mary Fortune. He was a dashing young man of the Beau Brummel type and there was an ease and grace in his sinuous movements that must have fluttered many a woman's heart. But now he, too, sat silent and his appraising glances were disguised in a general smile.

"Well, let's get down to business," began Rimrock, after the preliminaries. "The first thing is to elect a new Director. Mr. Buckbee here has been retired and I nominate Mary Fortune to fill the vacancy."

"Second the motion," rapped out Stoddard and for a moment Rimrock hesitated before he took the fatal plunge. He knew very well that, once elected to the directorship, he could never remove her by himself. Either her stock or Stoddard's would have to go into the balance to undo the vote of that day.

"All in favor say 'Ay!'"

"Ay!" said Stoddard grimly; and Rimrock paused again.

"Ay!" he added and as Mary wrote it down she felt the eyes of both of them upon her. The die had been cast and from that moment on she was the arbiter of all their disputes.

They adjourned, as stockholders, and reconvened immediately as Directors; and the first matter that came up was a proposition from Buckbee to market a hundred million shares of common stock.

"You have here," he said, "a phenomenal property—one that will stand the closest of scrutiny; and with the name of Whitney H. Stoddard behind it. More than that, you are on the eve of an enormous production at a time when copper is going up. It is selling now for over eighteen cents and within a year it will be up in the twenties. Within a very few months, unless I am mistaken, there will be a battle royal in the copper market. The Hackmeister interests have had copper tied up, but the Tecolote Company can break that combine and at the same time gain an enormous prestige. There will be a fight, of course, but this stock will cost you nothing and you can retain a controlling share. My proposition is simply that you issue the common and divide it pro rata among you, your present stock then becoming preferred. Then you can put your common on the market in such lots as you wish and take your profits at the crest. In conclusion let me say that I will handle all you offer at the customary broker's charge."

He sat down and Rimrock looked out from under his eyebrows at Stoddard and Mary Fortune.

"Very well," said Stoddard after waiting for a moment. "It's agreeable to me, I'm sure."

"I'm against it," declared Rimrock promptly. "I'm against any form of reorganization. I'm in favor of producing copper and taking our profits from that."

"But this is plain velvet," protested Buckbee, smilingly. "It's just like money picked up in the road. I don't think I know of any company of importance that hasn't done something of the kind."

"I'm against it," repeated Rimrock in his stubborn way and all eyes were turned upon Mary Fortune. She sat very quiet, but her anxious, lip-reading gaze shifted quickly from one to the other.

"Did you get that, Miss Fortune?" asked Buckbee suavely, "the proposition is to issue a hundred million shares of common and start them at, say, ten cents a share. Then by a little manipulation we can raise them to twenty and thirty, and from that on up to a dollar. At that price, of course, you can unload if you wish: I'll keep you fully informed."

"Yes, I understood it," she answered, "but I'm not in favor of it. I think all stock gambling is wrong."

"You—what?" exclaimed Buckbee, and Whitney H. Stoddard was so astounded that he was compelled to unmask. His cold, weary eyes became predatory and eager and a subtle, scornful smile twisted his lips. Even Rimrock was surprised, but he leaned back easily and gave her a swift, approving smile. She was with him, that was enough; let the stock gamblers rage. He had won in the very first bout.

"But my dear Miss Fortune," began Stoddard, still smiling, "do you realize what you have done? You have rejected a profit, at the very least, of one or two million dollars."

"That may be," she said, "but I prefer not to take it unless we give something in return."

"But we do!" broke in Buckbee, "that stock is legitimate. The people that buy in will get rich."

"But the people who buy last will lose," she said. "I know, because I did it myself."

"Oho!" began Buckbee, but at a glance from Stoddard he drew back and concealed his smirk. Then for half an hour with his most telling arguments and the hypnotic spell of his eyes Whitney Stoddard outdid himself to win her over while Rimrock sat by and smiled. He had tried that himself in days gone by and he knew Stoddard was wasting his breath. She had made up her mind and that was the end of it—there would be no Tecolote common. Even Stoddard saw at last that his case was hopeless and he turned to the next point of attack. Rimrock Jones, he knew, opposed him on general principles—but the girl as a matter of conscience. They would see if that conscience could not be utilized.

"Very well," he said, "I'll withdraw my motion. Let us take up this matter of the saloon."

"What saloon?" demanded Rimrock, suddenly alert and combative, and Stoddard regarded him censoriously.

"I refer," he said, "to the saloon at the camp, which you have put there in spite of Jepson's protests. Now outside the question of general policy—the effect on the men, the increase in accidents and the losses that are sure to result—I wish to protest, and to protest most vigorously, against having a whiskey camp. I want the Tecolote to draw the best type of men, men of family who will make it their home, and I think it's a sin under circumstances like this to poison their lives with rum. I could speak on this further, but I simply make a motion that Tecolote be kept a temperance camp."

He paused and met Rimrock's baleful glance with a thin-lipped fighting smile; and then the battle was on. There were hot words in plenty and mutual recrimination, but Stoddard held the high moral ground. He stuck to his point that employers had no right to profit by the downfall of their men; and when it came to the vote, without a moment's hesitation, Mary Fortune cast her vote with his.

"What's that?" yelled Rimrock, rising up black with anger and striking a great blow on the table. "Have I got to tell Hassayamp to go? This old friend of mine that helped me and staked me when nobody else would trust me? Then I resign, by grab. If I can't do a little thing like that, I'm going to quit! Right now! You can get another manager! I resign! Now vote on it! You've got to accept it or——"

"I accept it!" said Stoddard and a wild look crossed Rimrock's face as he saw where his impetuosity had led him. But Mary Fortune, with an understanding smile, shook her head and voted no.

"How do you vote?" challenged Stoddard, trying to spur him to the leap, but Rimrock had sensed the chasm.

"I vote no!" he said with answering scowl. "I'll take care of Mr. Hicks, myself. You must take me for a sucker," he added as an afterthought, but Stoddard was again wearing his mask. It was Buckbee who indulged in the laugh.

"We can't all win," he said, rising up to go. "Think of me and that Tecolote common!"

Rimrock grinned, but Stoddard had come there for a purpose and he did not choose to unbend.

"Mr. Jones," he began, as they were left alone, "I see we are not able to agree. Every point that I bring up you oppose it on general principles. Have you any suggestions for the future?"

"Why, yes," returned Rimrock, "since I'm in control I suggest that you leave me alone. I know what you'd like—you'd like to have me play dead, and let you and Jepson run the mine. But if you've got enough, if you want to get out, I might take that stock off your hands."

A questioning flash came into Stoddard's keen eyes.

"In what way?" he enquired cautiously.

"Well, just place a value on it, whatever you think it's worth, and we'll get right down to business." Rimrock hitched up his trousers, and the square set of his shoulders indicated his perfect willingness to begin. "You're not the only man," he went on importantly, "that's got money to put into mines."

"Perhaps not," admitted Stoddard, "but you take too much for granted if you think I can be bought out for a song."

"Oh, no," protested Rimrock, "I don't think anything like that. I expect you to ask a good price. Yes, a big price. But figure it out, now, what you've put into the mine and a reasonable return for your risk. Then multiply it by five, or ten, or twenty, whatever you think it's worth, and make me an offer on paper."

"Not at all! Not at all!" rapped out Stoddard hastily, "I'm in the market to buy."

"Well, then, make me an offer," said Rimrock bluffly, "or Miss Fortune here, if she'd like to sell. Here, I'll tell you what you do—you name me a figure that you'll either buy at, or sell! Now, that's fair, ain't it?"

A fretful shadow came over Stoddard's face as he found himself still on the defense and he sought to change his ground.

"I'll tell you frankly why I make this offer—it's on account of the Old Juan claim. If you had shown any tendency to be in the least reasonable I'd be the last to propose any change——"

"Never mind about that," broke in Rimrock peremptorily, "I'll take your word for all that. The question is—what's your price?"

"I don't want to sell!" snapped out Stoddard peevishly, "but I'll give you twenty million dollars for your hundred thousand shares of stock."

"You offered that before," countered Rimrock coolly, "when I was shut up in the County Jail. But I'm out again now and I guess you can see I don't figure on being stung."

"I'll give you thirty million," said Stoddard, speaking slowly, "and not a dollar more."

"Will you sell out for that?" demanded Rimrock instantly. "Will you take forty for what you hold? You won't? Then what are you offering it to me for? Haven't I got the advantage of control?"

"Well, perhaps you have," answered Stoddard doubtfully and turned and looked straight at Mary. "Miss Fortune," he said, "I don't know you intimately, but you seem to be a reasonable woman. May I ask at this time whether it is your present intention to hold your stock, or to sell?"

"I intend to hold my stock," replied Mary very quietly, "and to vote it whichever way seems best."

"Then am I to understand that you don't follow Mr. Jones blindly, and that he has no control over your stock?"

Mary nodded, but as Stoddard leaned forward with an offer she hurried on to explain.

"But at the same time," she said in her gentlest manner and with a reassuring glance at her lover, "when we think what hardships Mr. Jones had endured in order to find this mine, and all he has been through since, I think it is no more than right that he should remain in control."

"Aha! I see!" responded Stoddard cynically, "may I enquire if you young people have an understanding?"

"That is none of your business," she answered sharply, but the telltale blush was there.

"Ah, yes, excuse me," murmured Stoddard playfully, "a lady might well hesitate—with him!"

He cast a teasing glance in the direction of Rimrock and perceived he had guessed right again. "Well, well," he hurried on, "that does make a difference—it's the most uncertain element in the game. But all this aside, may I ask you young people if you have a top price for your stock. I don't suppose I can meet it, but it's no harm to mention it. Don't be modest—whatever it is!"

"A hundred million dollars!" spoke up Rimrock promptly, "that's what I value my share of the mine."

"And you?" began Stoddard with a quizzical smile, but Mary seemed not to hear. It was a way she had, when a thing was to be avoided; but Stoddard raised his voice. "And you, Miss Fortune?" he called insistently. "How much do you want for your stock?"

She glanced up, startled, then looked at Rimrock and dropped her eyes to the table.

"I don't wish to sell," she answered quietly and the two men glared at each other.

"Mr. Jones," began Stoddard in the slow, measured tones of a priest who invokes the only god he knows, "I'm a man of few words—now you can take this or leave it. I'll give you—fifty—million—dollars!"

"Nothing doing!" answered Rimrock. "I don't want to sell. Will you take fifty millions for yours?"

For a moment Stoddard hesitated, then his face became set and his voice rasped harshly in his throat.

"No!" he said. "I came here to buy. And you'll live to wish you had sold!"

"Like hell!" retorted Rimrock. "This has been my day. I'll know where I'm at, from now on."



CHAPTER XVI

THE TIGER LADY

The winter came on with its rains and soft verdure and desert shrubs bursting with bloom and, for a man who professed to know just exactly where he was at, Rimrock Jones was singularly distrait. When he cast down the glove to Whitney H. Stoddard, that glutton for punishment who had never quit yet, he had looked for something to happen. Each morning he rose up with the confident expectation of hearing that the Old Juan was jumped; but that high, domelike butte remained as lifeless as ever, without a single guard to herd the apex claim. Then he fell to watching Jepson and talking to the miners and snooping for some hidden scheme, but Jepson went ahead with his machine-like efficiency until the Tecolote began to turn out ore.

Day and night the low thunder of the powerful batteries told of the milling of hundreds of tons; and the great concentrator, sprawling down on the broad hillside, washed out the copper and separated it from the muck. Long trains of steel ore-cars received the precious concentrates and bore them off to the distant smelters, and at last there came the day when the steady outpay ceased and the money began to pile up in the bank. L. W.'s bank, of course; for since the fatal fight he had been Rimrock's banker and bosom friend. But that ended the long wait. At the sight of all that money Rimrock Jones began to spend.

For a year and more Rimrock had been careful and provident—that is, careful and provident for him. Six months of that time had been spent in the County Jail, and since then he had been watching Stoddard. But now Whitney H. Stoddard—and Jepson, too—were uniformly polite and considerate. There was no further question—whatever Rimrock ordered was done and charged up to the Company. That had been Stoddard's payment for his share of the mine, and now the money was pouring back. Rimrock watched it and wondered, then he simply watched it; and at last he began to spend.

His first big blow-out was a raid on The Mint, where Ike Bray still ran his games; and when Rimrock rose up from the faro table he owned the place, fixtures and all. It had been quite a brush, but Rimrock was lucky; and he had a check-book this time, for more luck. That turned the scales, for he outheld the bank; and, when he had won The Mint, he presented it to Old Hassayamp Hicks.

"They can talk all they please," he said in his presentation speech which, though brief, invoked tremendous applause, "but the man don't live that can say I don't remember my friends."

Yet how difficult it is to retain all our friends, though we come with gifts in both hands! Rimrock rewarded Hassayamp and L. W., and Woo Chong, and every man who had done him a kind act. If money can cement friendships he had won over the whole town, but with Mary Fortune he had failed. On that first triumphant night when, after their bout with Stoddard, they realized the true value of their mine; in the dim light of the balcony and speaking secretly into her ear, he had won, for one instant, a kiss. But it was a kiss of ecstasy, of joy at their triumph and the thought that she had saved him from defeat; and when he laid hold of her and demanded another she had fought back and leapt up and fled. And after that, repentance; the same, joyless waiting; and, at last, drink again, to forget. And then humbler repentance and forgiveness of a kind, but the sweet trustfulness was lost from her smile.

So with money and friends there came little happiness, either for Rimrock or yet for her. They looked at each other across a chasm of differences where any chance word might offend. He had alluded at one time to the fact that she was deaf and she had avoided his presence for days. And she had a way, when his breath smelled of drink, of drawing her head away. Once when he spoke to her in his loud, outdoor voice she turned away and burst into tears; but she would never explain what it was that had hurt her, more than to ask him not to do it again. So it went until his wild, ungoverned nature broke all bounds and he turned to drink.

Yet if the first phase of his devotion had been passed by Rimrock he was not lacking in attentions of a kind, and so one evening as the West-bound train was due Mary found herself waiting for him in the ladies' balcony. This oriental retreat, giving them a view of the lobby without exposing them to the rough talk of the men, was common ground for the women of the hotel, and as she looked over the railing Mary was distinctly conscious of the chic Mrs. Jepson, sitting near. Mrs. Jepson, as the wife of the Tecolote Superintendent, was in a social class by herself and, even after Mary's startling rise to a directorship in the Company, Mrs. Jepson still thought of her as a typist. Still a certain feeling of loyalty to her husband, and a natural fear for his job, had prompted Mrs. Jepson, in so far as possible, to overlook this mere accident of occupation. And behind her too-sweet smile there was another motive—her woman's curiosity was piqued. Not only did this deaf girl, this ordinary typist, hold the fate of her husband in her hand, but she could, if she wished, marry Rimrock Jones himself and become the wife of a millionaire. And yet she did not do it. This was out of the ordinary, even in Mrs. Jepson's stratum of society, and so she watched her, discreetly.

The train 'bus dashed up outside the door and the usual crowd of people came in. There was a whiff of cold air, for the winter night was keen, and then a strange woman appeared. She walked in with a presence, escorted by Jepson, who was returning from a flying trip East; and immediately every eye, including Mrs. Jepson's, was shifted and riveted upon her. She was a tall, slender woman in a black picture-hat and from the slope of her slim shoulders to the high heels of her slippers she was wrapped in a single tiger skin. Not a Bengal tiger with black and tawny stripes, but a Mexican tiger cat, all leopard spots and red, with gorgeous rosettes in five parallel rows that merged in the pure white of the breast. It was a regal robe, fit to clothe a queen, and as she came in, laughing, she displayed the swift, undulating stride of the great beast which had worn that fine skin.

They came down to the desk and the men who had preceded them gave way to let her pass. She registered her name, meanwhile making some gay answer to a jesting remark from Jepson who laid aside his dignity to laugh. The clerk joined the merriment, whereupon it was instantly assumed that the lady was quite correct. But women, so they say, are preternaturally quick to recognize an enemy of the home. As Mary gazed down she became suddenly conscious of a sharp rapping on the balcony rail and, looking up, she beheld Mrs. Jepson leaning over, glaring at her husband. Perhaps Jepson looked up—he sensed her in some way—and, remembering, glanced wildly about. And then, to the moment, in came Rimrock Jones, striding along with his big hat in his hand.

It happened as in a play, the swift entrance of the hero, a swifter glance, and the woman smiled. At sight of that tiger-skin coat Rimrock stopped dead in his tracks—and Jepson saw his chance to escape.

"Mr. Jones," he beckoned frantically, "let me introduce you to Mrs. Hardesty. Excuse me!" And he slipped away. There were explanations later, in the privacy of the Jepson apartments, but Mr. Jepson never could quite understand. Mrs. Hardesty had come out with a card from Mr. Stoddard and it was his duty, no less, to look after her. But meanwhile the drama moved swiftly, with Mary in the balcony looking on. She could not hear, but her eyes told her everything and soon she, too, slipped away. Her appointment was neglected, her existence forgotten. She had come—the other woman!

"Ah, well, well!" the woman cried as she opened her eyes at Rimrock and held out a jeweled hand, "have you forgotten me already? I used to see you so often—at the Waldorf, but you won't remember!"

"Oh! Back in New York!" exclaimed Rimrock heartily. "What'd you say the name? Oh, Hardesty! Oh, yes! You were a friend of——"

"Mr. Buckbee! Oh, I was sure you would remember me! I've come out to look at your mine!"

They shook hands at that and the crowd moved off further, though it increased as the circle expanded, and then Rimrock looked again at the tiger-skin.

"Say, by George!" he exclaimed with unctuous admiration, "ain't that the finest tiger-skin you ever saw. And that's no circus product—that's a genuine tigre, the kind they have in Old Mexico!"

"Oh, you have been in Mexico? Then that's how you knew it! I meet so many people who don't know. Yes, I have an interest in the famous Tigre Mine and this was given me by a gentleman there!"

"Well, he must have been crazy over you!" declared Rimrock frankly, "or he'd never have parted with that skin!"

"Ah, you flatter me!" she said and turned to the clerk with an inquiry regarding her room.

"Give her the best there is!" spoke up Rimrock with authority, "and charge it up to the Company. No, now never you mind! Ain't you a friend of Buckbee's? And didn't you come out to see our mine?"

"Oh, thank you very much," answered Mrs. Hardesty sweetly, "I prefer to pay, if you don't mind."

"Your privilege," conceded Rimrock, "this is a fine, large, free country. We try to give 'em all what they want."

"Yes, it is!" she exclaimed. "Isn't the coloring wonderful! And have you spent all your life on these plains? Can't we sit down here somewhere? I'm just dying to talk with you. And I have business to talk over, too."

"Oh, not here!" exclaimed Rimrock as she glanced about the lobby. "This may not be the Waldorf, but we've got some class all the same. Come up to the balcony—built especially for the ladies—say, how's friend Buckbee and the rest?"

And then with the greatest gallantry in the world he escorted her to Mary's own balcony. There was another, across the well, but he did not even think of it. He had forgotten that Mary was in the world. As they sat in the dim alcove he found himself telling long stories and listening to the gossip of New York. Every word that he said was received with soft laughter, or rapt silence or a ready jest; and when she in her turn took the conversation in hand he found her sharing with him a new and unseen world. It was a woman's world, full of odd surprises. Everything she did seemed quite sweet and reasonable and at the same time daring and bizarre. She looked at things differently, with a sort of worldly-wise tolerance and an ever-changing, provocative smile. Nothing seemed to shock her even when, to try her, he moved closer; and yet she could understand.

It was a revelation to Rimrock, the laughing way she restrained him; and yet it baffled him, too. They sat there quite late, each delving into the mystery of the other's personality and mind, and as the lower lights were switched off and the alcove grew dimmer, the talk became increasingly intimate. A vein of poetry, of unsuspected romance, developed in Rimrock's mind and, far from discouraging it or seeming to belittle it, Mrs. Hardesty responded in kind. It was a rare experience in people so different, this exchange of innermost thoughts, and as their voices grew lower and all the world seemed far away, they took no notice of a ghost.

It was a woman's form, drifting past in the dark corridor where the carpet was so thick and soft. It paused and passed on and there was a glint of metal, as of a band of steel over the head. Except for that it might have been any woman, or any uneasy ghost. For night is the time the dead past comes back and the soul mourns over what is lost—but at dawn the spirits vanish and the work of the world goes on.

Mary Fortune appeared late at the Company office, for she had very little to do; and even when there she sat tense and silent. Why not? There was nothing to do. Jepson ran the mine and everything about it, and Rimrock attended to the rest. All she had to do was to keep track of the records and act as secretary to the Board of Directors. They never met now, except perfunctorily, to give Rimrock more money to spend. He came in as she sat there, dashing past her for some papers, and was dashing out when she spoke his name.

"Oh, Mr. Jones," she said and, dimly noting its formality, he paused and questioned her greeting.

"Oh, it's Mister again, is it?" he observed stopping reluctantly. "Well, what's the matter now?"

"Yes, it's Mister," she said, managing to smile quite naturally. "You know you told me your name was 'Mister'—since you made your pile and all that—but, Mister, I'm going away."

"Going away!" exclaimed Rimrock, suddenly turning to look at her; and then he came hurriedly back.

"Say, what's the matter?" he asked uneasily, "have I done something else that is wrong?"

"Why, no," she laughed, "what a conscience you have! I'm going East for an operation—I should have gone long ago. Oh, yes, I've been thinking about it for quite a while; but now I'm going to go. You don't know how I dread it. It's very painful, and if it doesn't make me any better it's likely to make me—."

"Oh," said Rimrock thoughtfully, rubbing his chin, "well, say, when do you want to go? I'm going East myself and there ought to be one of us——"

"So soon?" enquired Mary and as Rimrock looked at her he caught a twinkle in her eyes. Not of merriment exactly, but of swift understanding and a hidden, cynical scorn.

"What d'ye mean?" he blustered. "Ain't I got a right——"

"Why, certainly," she returned, still with that subtle resentment, "I have no objections at all. Only it might make a difference to Mr. Stoddard if he found us both away."

"Aw, that's all bosh!" broke out Rimrock impatiently, "he's got his hands more than full in New York. I happen to know he's framing up a copper deal that will lay the Hackmeisters wide open. That's why I want to go back. Mrs. Hardesty says——"

"Mrs. Hardesty?"

Rimrock stopped and looked down. Then he picked up his hat and made another false start for the door.

"Yes, Mrs. Hardesty—she came in last night. That lady that wore the tiger skin."

"Oh!" said Mary and something in her voice seemed to stab him in the back as he fled.

"Say, what do you mean?" he demanded, coming angrily back, "you speak like something was wrong. Can't a man look twice at some other woman without your saying: 'Oh!' I want you to understand that this Mrs. Hardesty is just as good as you are. And what's more, by grab, she's got stock in our Company and we ought to be treating her nice. Yes, she bought it from Stoddard; and if I could just pull her over——

"How much stock?" asked Mary, reaching suddenly for a book, and Rimrock fidgeted and turned red.

"Two thousand shares!" he said defiantly. "She's got as much as you have."

"Oh!" murmured Mary as she ran through the book, and Rimrock flew into a fury.

"Now for the love of Mike!" he cried, striding towards her, "don't always be pulling that book! I know you know where every share is, and just who transferred it to who, but this Mrs. Hardesty has told me she's got it and that ought to be enough!"

"Why, certainly!" agreed Mary, instantly closing the book. "I just didn't recall the name. Is she waiting for you now? Then don't let me detain you. I'll be starting East to-night."

Rimrock rocked on his feet in impotent anger as he groped for a fitting retort.

"Well, go then!" he said. "What do I give a damn?" And he rushed savagely out of the room.



CHAPTER XVII

AN AFTERTHOUGHT

It was part of the violent nature of Rimrock that his wrath fell upon both the just and the unjust. Mary Fortune had worsted him in their passage at arms and left him bruised from head to heels. She had simply let him come on and at every bludgeon stroke she had replied with a rapier thrust. Without saying a word against the character of Mrs. Hardesty she had conveyed the thought that she was an adventuress; or, if not exactly that, then something less than a lady. And the sure way in which she had reached for that book was proof positive that the stock was not recorded. But the thing that maddened him most, and against which there was no known defense, was her subtle implication that Mrs. Hardesty was at the bottom of his plan to go East. And so, with the fury still hot in his brain, he made poor company on the road to the Tecolote.

Since Mrs. Hardesty had come, as a stockholder of course, to look over the Company's properties, it was necessary that she should visit the mine, though she was far from keen for the trip. She came down at last, heavily veiled from the sunshine, and Rimrock helped her into his machine; but, being for the moment in a critical mood and at war in his heart against all women, he looked at her with different eyes. For the best complexion that was ever laid on will not stand the test of the desert and in the glare of white light she seemed suddenly older and pitifully made up and painted. Even the flash of pearly teeth and the dangerous play of her eyes could not hide the dark shadows beneath; and her conversation, on the morning after, seemed slightly artificial and forced.

Perhaps, in that first flight of their unleashed souls when they sat close in the balcony alone, they had reached a height that could never be attained when the sun was strong in their eyes. They crouched behind the windshield, for Rimrock drove recklessly, and went roaring out across the desert and between the rush of the wind and the sharp kick of the chuck-holes conversation was out of the question. Then they came to the camp, with its long rows of deal houses and the rough bulk of the concentrator and mill; and even this, to Mrs. Hardesty's wind-blown eyes, must have seemed exceedingly Western and raw.

A mine, at the best, is but a hole in the ground; and that which appears on top—the shaft-houses and stacks and trestles and dumps—is singularly barren of interest. The Tecolote was better than most, for there were open cuts with steam shovels scooping up the ore, and miners driving holes into the shattered formation and powder-men loading shots. Rimrock showed it all faithfully, and they watched some blasts and took a ride in the gliding cars, but it was hardly a trip that the average lady would travel from New York to take. So they both breathed a sigh when the ordeal was over and the car had taken them home.

At the door of the hotel Mrs. Hardesty disappeared, which gave Rimrock a chance for a drink, but as he went past the desk the clerk called him back and added to the burden of his day.

"What's these?" demanded Rimrock as the clerk handed over some keys, but he knew them all too well.

"The keys to the office, sir. Miss Fortune left quite suddenly and requested me to deliver them to you."

"Where'd she go?" he asked, and, not getting an answer, he burst into a fit of cursing. He could see it all now. She had not gone for an operation, she had gone because she was mad. She was jealous, and that was her way of showing it—she had gone off and left him in a hole. He ought to have known from that look in her eye and the polite, smiling way she talked. Now he was tied to the mast and if he went to New York he would have to turn over the mine to Jepson! And that would give Jepson just the chance he wanted to jump the Old Juan claim.

For a man who was worth fifty million dollars and could claim a whole town for his friends Rimrock put in a most miserable night as he dwelt on this blow to his hopes. He was like a man checkmated at chess—every way he turned he was sure to lose if he moved. For the chance of winning a hypothetical two thousand shares, which Stoddard was supposed to have sold to Mrs. Hardesty, he had thrown away and lost forever his control over Mary Fortune's stock. Now, if he followed after her and tried to make his peace, he might lose his chance with Mrs. Hardesty as well; and if he stayed with her Mary was fully capable of throwing her vote with Stoddard's. It was more than her stock, it was her director's vote that he needed above everything else!

Rimrock paced up and down in his untidy room and struggled to find a way out. With Mary gone he could not even vote a dividend unless he came to an agreement with Stoddard. He could not get the money to carry out his plans, not even when it lay in bank. He could not appoint a new secretary, to carry on the work while he made his trip to New York. He couldn't do anything but stay right there and wait until he heard from her!

It was a humiliating position for a man to find himself in, and especially after his talk with Mrs. Hardesty. Perhaps he had not considered the ways and means very carefully, but he had promised her to go back to New York. A man like him, with his genius for finance and his masterful control of men, a man who could rise in a single year from a prospector to a copper king; such a man was wasted in provincial Arizona—his place was in Wall Street, New York. So she had said that night when they sat close together and their souls sought the high empyrean of dreams—and now he was balked by a woman. Master of men he was, and king of finance he might be, but woman was still his bane.

He looked at it again by the cold light of day and that night he appealed to Mrs. Hardesty. She was a woman herself, and wise in the ways of jealousy, intrigue and love. A single word from her and this impenetrable mystery might be cleared up like mist before the sun. And she ought to help him because it was through her, indirectly, that all this trouble had occurred. Until her arrival there had never been a moment when he had seriously worried over Mary. She had scolded, of course, about his gambling and drinking and they had had their bad half hours, off and on; but never for an instant had there been the suggestion of a break in their business affairs. About that, at least, she had always been reasonable; but now she was capable of anything. It would not surprise him to get a telegram from Stoddard that he was coming out to take over the control; nor to discover later, across the directors' table, Mary Fortune sitting grimly by. He knew her too well! If she once got started! But he passed—it was up to Mrs. Hardesty.

They met at dinner, the lady being indisposed during the day as a result of their strenuous trip, but she came down now, floating gracefully in soft draperies and Rimrock knew why he had built those broad stairs. He had thought, in jail, that he was building them for Mary, but they were for Mrs. Hardesty after all. She was a queen no less in her filmy gown than in the tiger-skin cloak that she wore, and Rimrock dared to use the same compliment on her that he had coined for Mary Fortune. They dined together in a secluded corner on the best that the chef could produce—and for a Chinaman, he accomplished miracles—but Rimrock said nothing of his troubles. The talk was wholly of gay, distant New York, and of the conflict that was forming there.

For a woman of society, compelled by her widowhood to manage her own affairs, it was wonderful to Rimrock how much she knew of the intricacies of the stock market and of the Exchange. There was not a financier or a broker of note that she did not know by name, and the complex ways by which they achieved their ends were an open book to her. Even Whitney H. Stoddard was known to her personally—the shrewdest intriguer of them all—and yet he, so she said, had a human side to him and let her in on occasional deals. He had been a close friend of her husband, in their boyhood, and that probably accounted for the fact; otherwise he would never have sold her that Tecolote.

"But he's got a string on it," suggested Rimrock shrewdly; but she only drooped her eyelashes and smiled.

"I never carry gossip between rivals," she said. "They might fly at each other's throats. You don't like Mr. Stoddard. Very well, he doesn't like you. He thinks you're flighty and extravagant. But is that any reason why we shouldn't be friends—or why my stock isn't perfectly good?"

"Don't you think it!" answered Rimrock. "Any time you want to sell it——"

"A-ah! At it again!" she chided laughingly. "How like fighting animals men are. If I'd toss that stock, like a bit of raw meat, in the midst of you copper-mad men! But I won't, never fear. In the fight that would follow I might lose some highly valued friend."

From the droop of her lashes Rimrock was left to guess who that friend might be and, not being quick at woman logic, he smiled and thought of Stoddard. They sat late at their table and, to keep him at ease, Mrs. Hardesty joined him in a cigarette. It was a habit she had learned when Mr. Hardesty was living; although now, of course, every one smoked. Then, back at last in the shadowy alcove—which was suddenly vacated by the Jepsons—they settled down on the Turkish divan and invited their souls with smoke. It rose up lazily as the talk drifted on and then Rimrock jumped abruptly to his problem.

"Mrs. Hardesty," he said, "I'm in a terrible fix and I want you to help me out. I never saw the man yet that I couldn't get away with—give me time, and room according to my strength—but I've had a girl working for me, she's the secretary of our company, and she fools me every time."

Mrs. Hardesty laughed—it was soft, woman's laughter as if she enjoyed this joke on mere man—and even when Rimrock explained the dangerous side of his predicament she refused to take it seriously.

"Ah, you're all alike," she said sighing comfortably, "I've never known it to fail. It's always the woman who trusts through everything, and the man who disbelieves. I saw her, just a moment, as she passed down the hall and I don't think you have anything to fear. She's a quiet little thing——"

"Don't you think it!" burst out Rimrock. "You don't know her the way I do. She's an Injun, once she makes up her mind."

"Well, even so," went on Mrs. Hardesty placidly, "what reason have you to think she means trouble? Did you have any words with her before she went away? What reason did she give when she left?"

"Well," began Rimrock, "the reason she gave was some operation to be performed on her ears. But I know just as sure as I'm sitting here to-night she did it out of jealousy, over you."

"Over me!" repeated Mrs. Hardesty sitting up abruptly; and then she sank back and shook with laughter. "Why, you foolish boy," she cried, straightening up reproachfully, "why didn't you tell me you were in love? And we sat here for hours! Did she see us, do you suppose? She must have! Was she waiting to speak to you, do you think?"

"My—God!" exclaimed Rimrock, rising slowly to his feet. "I had an appointment with her—that night!" He paused and Mrs. Hardesty sat silent, the laughter dead on her lips. "Yes, sir," he went on, "I was going to meet her—here! By grab, I forgot all about it!" He struck his leg a resounding whack and sank back upon the divan. "Well, now isn't—that fierce!" he muttered and Mrs. Hardesty tittered nervously.

"Ah, well," she said, "it's soon discovered, the reason why she left you so abruptly. But didn't she say a word about it? That doesn't seem very lover-like, to me. What makes you think the child was jealous? Did she mention my name at all?"

"Nope," mumbled Rimrock, "she never mentioned it. That girl is an Injun, all through! And she'll knife me, after this! I can feel it coming. But, by George, I plumb forgot!"

"Oh, come now!" consoled Mrs. Hardesty, giving him a gentle pat, "this isn't so bad, after all. If I can only see her, I'll explain it myself. Have you any idea where she's gone?"

"Bought a ticket for New York—where Old Stoddard hangs out. I can see my finish—right now!"

"No, but listen, Mr. Jones—or may I call you Rimrock? That's such a fine, Western name! Did it ever occur to you that the trains are still running? You could follow, and let me explain!"

"Aw, explain to a tiger cat! Explain to an Apache! I tell you that girl is an Injun. She'll go with you so far, and stand for quite a little; but when she strikes fire, look out!"

"Oh, very well," murmured Mrs. Hardesty and reached for a cigarette which she puffed delicately while Rimrock gloomed. It was painfully clear now—the cause of Mary's going and the embittered vindictiveness of her smile. Not only had he sat up to talk with Mrs. Hardesty, but he had brought her to where Mary had been waiting. He had actually talked love, without really meaning it, with this fascinating woman of the world; and, having an appointment to meet him right there, how could Mary help but know? He pictured her for a moment, lingering silently in the background, looking on where she could not hear. Was it less than human that she should resent it and make an excuse to go? And yet she had done it so quietly—that was the lady in her—without a word of tragedy or reproach! He remembered suddenly that she had laughed quite naturally and made some joke about his name being Mister.

"What's that you say about the trains still running?" he demanded as he roused up from his thoughts. "Well, excuse me, right now! I'm on my way! I'm going back to hunt that girl up!"

He leaped to his feet and left her still smoking as he rushed off to enquire about the trains.

"Well, well," she murmured as she gazed thoughtfully after him, "he's as impulsive as any child. Just a great, big boy—I rather like him—but he won't last long, in New York."



CHAPTER XVIII

NEW YORK

Rimrock Jones' return to New York was as dramatic and spectacular as his first visit had been pretentious and prodigal. With two thousand dollars and a big black hat he had passed for a Western millionaire; now, still wearing the hat but loaded down with real money, he returned and was hailed as a Croesus. There are always some people in public life whose least act is heralded to the world; whereas others, much more distinguished but less given to publicity, accomplish miracles and are hardly known. And then there are still others who, fed up with flattery and featured in a hundred ways, are all unwittingly the victims of a publicity bureau whose aim is their ultimate undoing.

A real Western cowboy with a pistol under his coat, a prospector turned multi-millionaire in a year, such a man—especially if he wears a sombrero and gives five-dollar tips to the bell-hops—is sure to break into the prints. But it was a strange coincidence, when Rimrock jumped out of his taxicab and headed for the Waldorf entrance, to find a battery of camera men all lined up to snap him and a squad of reporters inside. No sooner had Rimrock been shot through the storm door into the gorgeous splendors of Peacock Alley than they assailed him en masse—much as the bell-boys had just done to gain his grip and the five-dollar tip.

That went down first—the five-dollar tip—and his Western remarks on the climate. Then his naive hospitality in inviting them all to the bar where they could talk the matter over at their ease, and his equally cordial agreement to make it tea when he was reminded that some reporters were women—it all went down and came out the same evening, at which Rimrock Jones was dazed. If he had telegraphed ahead, or let anyone know that he planned to return to New York, it would not have been surprising to find the reporters waiting, for he was, of course, a great man; but this was a quick trip, made on the spur of the moment, and he hadn't told a soul. Yet in circumstances like these, with a roomful of newspapers and your name played up big on the front page, it is hardly human nature to enquire too closely or wonder what is going on. Still, there was something up, for even coincidence can explain things only so far. Leaving out the fact that Mrs. Hardesty might have sent on the telegram herself, and that Whitney H. Stoddard might have motives of his own in inviting his newspapers to act; it did not stand to reason that the first man Rimrock ran into should have had such a sweet inside tip. Yet that was what the gay Buckbee told him—and circumstances proved he was right. The money that Rimrock put up that night, after talking it over in the cafe, that money was doubled within the next three days, and the stock still continued to advance. It was invested on a margin in Navajoa Copper, a minor holding of the great Hackmeister combine that Stoddard had set out to break.

Stoddard was selling short, so Buckbee explained, throwing great blocks of stock on a market that refused to break; and when the rush came and Navajoa started up Rimrock was there with the rest of his roll. It was a game that he took to—any form of gambling—and besides, he was bucking Stoddard! And then, there was Buckbee. He knew more in a minute than some brokers know in a lifetime; and he had promised to keep him advised. Of course it was a gamble, a man might lose, but it beat any game Rimrock had played. And copper was going up. Copper, the metal that stood behind it all, and that men could not do without.

There was a movement on such as Rimrock had never dreamed of, to control the copper product of the world. It had been tried before and had ended disastrously, but that did not prove it impossible. There were in the United States six or eight companies that produced the bulk of the ore. Two or three, like the Tecolote, were closed corporations, where the stock was held by a few; but the rest were on the market, the football of The Street, their stock owned by anybody and everybody. It was for these loose stocks that the combine and Stoddard were fighting, with thousands of the public buying in, and as the price of some stock was jigged up and down it was the public that cast the die.

If the people were convinced that a certain stock was good and refused to be shaken down, the price of that stock went up. But if the people, through what they had read, decided that the stock was bad; then there was a panic that nothing could stop and the big interests snapped up the spoils. So much Rimrock learned from Buckbee, and Mrs. Hardesty told him the rest. It was her judgment, really, that he came to rely upon; though Buckbee was right, in the main. He told the facts, but she went behind them and showed who was pulling the strings.

It was from her that he had learned of the mighty press agencies—which at the moment were making much of his coup—and how shrewd financiers like the Hackmeisters or Stoddard used them constantly to influence the market. If it became known, for instance, that Rimrock Jones was plunging on Navajoa and that within three days he had doubled his money and was still holding out for a rise; that was big news for Hackmeister and his papers made the most of it. But if Navajoa went down and some broker's clerk lost his holdings and committed embezzlement, or if a mining engineer made an adverse report, or the company passed a dividend, then Stoddard's press agents would make the most of each item—if he wished the stock to go down. Otherwise it would not be mentioned. It was by following out such subtleties and closely studying the tape, that brokers like Buckbee guessed out each move in advance and were able to earn their commissions.

But all this information did not come to Rimrock for nothing—there was a price which had to be paid. For reasons of her own the dashing Mrs. Hardesty appeared frequently in the Waldorf lobby, and when Rimrock came in with any of his friends he was expected to introduce them. And Rimrock's friends in that swarming hotel were as numerous as they were in Gunsight. He expected no less, wherever he went, than the friendship of every man; and if any held back, for any reason, he marked him as quickly for an enemy. He was as open-hearted and free in those marble corridors and in the velvet-hung club and cafe as the old Rimrock had been on the streets of Gunsight when he spoke to every Mexican.

It was his day of triumph, this return to the Waldorf where before he had been but a pretender, and it did his heart good to share his victory with the one woman who could understand. She knew all his ways now, his swift impulsive hatreds and his equally impulsive affections; and she knew, as a woman, just when to oppose him and when to lead him on. She knew him, one might say, almost too well for her success; for Rimrock was swayed more by his heart than his head, and at times she seemed a little cold. There was a hard, worldly look that came over her at times, a sly, calculating look that chilled him when he might have told everything he knew. Yet it may easily be that he told her enough, and more than she needed to know.

In some curious way that Rimrock could never fathom, Mrs. Hardesty was interested in stocks. She never explained it, but her visits to the Waldorf had something to do with trades. Whether she bought or sold, gathered tips or purveyed them or simply guarded her own investments was a mystery that he never solved; but she knew many people and, in some way not specified, she profited by their acquaintance. She was an elusive woman, like another that he knew; but at times she startled him, too. Those times were mostly on the rare occasions when she invited him to supper at her rooms. These were at the St. Cyngia, not far from the Waldorf, a full suite with two servants to attend.

On his first formal call Rimrock had been taken aback by the wealth and luxury displayed. There were rare French tapestries and soft Persian rugs that seemed to merge into the furniture of the rooms and at his very first dinner she had poured out the wine until even his strong head began to swim. It was a new world to him and a new kind of woman—with the intellect and, yes, the moral standards of a man. She was dainty and feminine, and with a dark type of beauty that went to his head worse than wine, but with it all she had a stockbroker's information and smoked and drank like a man. But then, as she said, all the women smoked now; and as far as he could judge, it was so. The women they saw in the gay all-night restaurants or after the theater in cabarets, all beautifully gowned and apparently with their husbands, drank and smoked the same as the men.

But the thing that startled Rimrock and made him uneasy was the way she had when they were alone. After the dinner was over, in her luxurious apartments, when the servant had left them alone, as they sat together across the table and smoked the scented cigarettes that she loved, he could feel a spell, a sort of enchantment, in every soft sweep of her eyes. At other times her long, slender arms seemed thin, in a way, and unrounded; but then her whole form took on the slim grace of a dancer and that strange light came into her eyes. It too was a light such as comes to dancers' eyes, as they take on some languid pose; but it had this difference—it was addressed to him, and her words belied her eyes. The eyes spoke of love, but, leaning across the table, the tiger lady talked of stocks.

It was on the occasion of his first winning on copper, when he had sold out his Navajoa at a big profit; and, after the celebration that he had provided, she had invited him to supper. The cigarettes were smoked and, with champagne still singing in his ears, Rimrock followed her to the dimly lighted reception-room. They sat by the fire, her slim arms gleaming and dark shadows falling beneath her hair; and as Rimrock watched her, his heart in his throat, she glanced up from her musing to smile.

"What a child you are, after all!" she observed and Rimrock raised his head.

"Yes, sure," he said, "I'm a regular baby. It's a wonder someone hasn't noticed and took me in off the street."

"Yes, it is," she said with a twist of the lips, "the Street's no place for you. Some of those big bears will get you, sure. But here's what I was thinking. You came back to New York to watch Whitney Stoddard and be where you could do him the most harm. That's childish in itself because there's no reason in the world why both of you shouldn't be friends. But never mind that—men will fight, I suppose—it's only a question of weapons."

"Well, what do we care?" answered Rimrock with a ready smile, "I thought maybe you might adopt me."

"No, indeed," she replied, "you'd run away. I've seen boys like you before. But to think that you'd come back here to get the lifeblood of Stoddard and then go to buying Navajoa! Why not? Why, you might as well be a mosquito for all the harm you will do. A grown man like you—Rimrock Jones, the copper king—fighting Stoddard through Navajoa!"

"Well, why not?" defended Rimrock. "Didn't I put a crimp in him? Didn't I double my money on the deal?"

"Yes, but why Navajoa? Why not Tecolote? If you must fight, why not use a real club?"

Rimrock thought a while, for the spell was passing and his mind had switched from her charms.

"How'm I going to use Tecolote?" he blurted out at last. "It's tied up, until I can find that girl!"

"Not necessarily," she replied. "We who live by the Street learn to use our enemies as well as our friends. You will never whip Stoddard as long as you stand off and refuse to sit in on the game. Isn't his vote as good as your friend, the typist's? Then use it to put Tecolote on the market. You know what I mean—to vote Tecolote commons and get the stakes on the board. Then while this scramble is on and he's fighting the Hackmeisters, buy Tecolote and get your control."

"Fine and dandy!" mocked Rimrock. "You're right, I'm a sucker; and it's a shame to take my money. But I don't want any Tecolote Commons."

"Why not?" she challenged, laughing gayly at his vehemence. "Are you afraid to play the game?"

"Not so you'd notice it," answered Rimrock grimly, "but I never play the other fellow's game. The Tecolote game is going to be played in Arizona, where my friends can see fair play. But look at Navajoa, how balled up that company is with its stocks all scattered around. Until it comes in for transfer nobody knows who's got it. They may be sold clear out and never know it. No, I may look easy, but I've been dog-bit once and I've got the leg to show for it. To issue that stock we'd have to call in the lawyers and go through some reorganization scheme; and by the time we got through, with Miss Fortune gone, I'd find myself badly left. There'll be no lawyers for me, and no common stock. I know another way to win."

He paused and as she failed to ask what it was, he grunted and lit another cigarette.

"I wonder," she began after a thoughtful pause, "if Stoddard doesn't know where she is."

She had guessed it as surely as if he had stated his plan—he still hoped to find Mary Fortune. And then? Well, his plan was a little nebulous right there; but Mary held the necessary stock. If he could get control, in any way whatsoever, of that one per cent. of the stock he could laugh at Stoddard and take his dividends to carry on his fight in coppers. He had neglected her before, but this time it would be different; she could have anything she asked. And his detectives were hunting for her everywhere.

"Don't know," he answered after a dogged silence. "Why? what makes you think he does?"

She laughed.

"You don't know Mr. Stoddard as well as I do. He's a very successful man. Very thorough. If he set out to find Mary Fortune he'd be almost sure to do it."

"Hm," said Rimrock. "I'd better watch him, then. I'll call up about that to-morrow. Just have a man there to watch the door—she might be going in or out."

"What a sleuth you are!" she answered gravely, and then she broke down and laughed. "Well, well," she said, "'tis a battle of wits, but love may find a way. Do you believe in love?" she went on abruptly as Rimrock showed signs of pique. "I just wanted to know. You great, big Western men seem more fitted, somehow, for the part of copper kings. But tell me honestly, I feel so trifling to-night, do you believe in the great love for one woman? Or do you hold with these drawing-room philosophers that man is by nature polygamous? Never mind my feelings—just tell me."

She coiled up lazily in her soft plush great-chair and regarded him with languid eyes, and Rimrock never suspected that the words he had spoken would go straight to Stoddard that night. He forgot his rejection of a get-together plan and his final refusal of common stocks; all he saw was this woman with her half-veiled glances and the firelight as it played on her arms. He had confessed his hope of still finding Mary and of winning her back to his side; but as he gazed at the tiger lady, sprawling so negligently before him, his fickle thoughts wandered to her. He denounced the theory of these latter-day philosophers that man is essentially a brute and, still watching her furtively, he expressed the conviction that he could love the One Woman forever.



CHAPTER XIX

WHERE ALL MEN MEET

When Rimrock had caught the first train for New York he had thought it was to seek out Mary Fortune—to kneel at her feet and tell her humbly that he knew he had done her a wrong—but as the months went by and his detectives reported no progress he forgot his early resolve. The rush and excitement of that great gambling game that goes on in the Stock Exchange, the plunges on copper and the rushes for cover, all the give-and-take of the great chase; it picked him up as a great flowing stream floats a leaf and hurries it along, and Gunsight and Tecolote and the girl he had known there seemed far away, like a dream.

He was learning the game from the gamblers about him, all the ins and outs of The Street; the names and methods of all the great leaders and how they had won their success; and also, bold gambler that he was, he was starting on a career of his own. In days gone by, at roulette or faro, or in frontier poker games, he had learned to play with big chances against him and, compared to them, Wall Street was safe. The money that he staked was less than six months' earnings of his share of the Tecolote Mine; and from the brief notes of L. W., who was acting as his agent, there was more of it piling up. So he played it carelessly, like the plunger he was, and fortune—and Mrs. Hardesty—smiled.

He won, on the Street; and, though the stakes were not specified, he seemed to be winning with her. It was a question with him whether a woman of her kind ever thought of such a thing as marriage. She had money of her own, and all that money could buy; and her freedom, whatever that was. In this new world about him all the terms of life seemed changed and transposed and vague, and he never quite knew what she meant. Every word that she said when they discussed life and love seemed capable of a double intent, and whether by freedom she meant to yield or to escape something he had never made out. All he knew was that at times she seemed to beckon him on and at others to fend him away. She was fickle as fortune which, as he plunged and covered, sometimes smiled and again wore a frown.

But it was sparkling and stimulating as the champagne he now drank, this new life with its win and lose, and he played his stakes with the stoical repose of a savage, the delighted abandon of a boy. His broker was always Buckbee, that gay, laughing Beau Brummel who had given him his first start in the world. It was Buckbee who had met him when he first came to the Waldorf with his assays and his samples of ore and, after much telephoning and importuning and haggling, had arranged for his interview with Stoddard. That interview had resulted in Rimrock's first clash with Stoddard, and he had hated him ever since; for a man who would demand a controlling interest in a mine for simply lending his name was certainly one who was fully capable of grabbing the rest if he could. So Rimrock had fought him; but for Buckbee, the broker, he had nothing but the best of good will.

To be sure Buckbee worked for Stoddard—that was plainly made evident at the time they had made the first deal—but he was open-hearted and honest and generous with his tips, and Rimrock found they were good. Buckbee even went further, he arranged credit for Rimrock at one of the biggest banks and when in his plunges he was caught short of funds the bank made him loans on his note. They took no chances, for he was rated at millions as half owner of the Tecolote Mine, but it helped out mightily as he extended his operations and found his margins threatened. But all this buying and selling of stocks, the establishment of his credit and the trying out of his strength, it was all preliminary to that great contest to come when he would come out into the open against Stoddard.

Whitney Stoddard was a man rated high up in the millions, but he was fallible like the rest. His wealth, compared to Rimrock's was as a hundred dollars to one, but it was spread out a hundred times as far; and with his next dividend, which was due in December, Rimrock would have nearly a million in cash. To Stoddard, at the same time, there would come nearly the same amount of money, but it would be gone within a few days. There were obligations to be met, as Rimrock well knew, that would absorb his great profits and more. The Tecolote Mine, before it began to pay, had cost several million dollars in dead work. That money had been borrowed, and while Rimrock took in velvet, Stoddard was obligated to pay his debts.