Rimrock Jones

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"I want to know," began Rimrock slowly and then he broke down and smote
the desk. "You have too sold me out!" he exploded in a fury, "you
have--I don't care what you say! You stood in with Stoddard to pass
that dividend and, by grab, you can't deny it! If you'd voted with L.
W.----"

"Very well!" returned Mary in a tone that silenced him, "I see that you
don't wish to be friends. And I want to tell you, in parting, that you
expect a constancy from women that you signally lack yourself. I will
send Mr. Jepson down to be sworn at."

When Jepson, pale and anxious, sidled warily into the office he found
Rimrock sitting thoughtfully in a chair. Some time had passed, for
Jepson's wife had delayed him, but time alone could not account for the
change. Rimrock was more than quiet, he was subdued; but when he
looked up there was another change. In Abercrombie Jepson he saw,
without question, the tool and servitor of Stoddard, the man who had
engineered his downfall. And Jepson's smile as he came forward
doubtfully--but with the frank, open manner he affected--was sickly and
jaundiced with fear. It was a terrible position that he found himself
placed in and his wife was crying, upstairs.

"Ah, good morning, Mr. Jepson," said Rimrock pleasantly and put his
hand behind his back.

"Good morning," returned Jepson, drawing in a deep breath, "is there
anything I can do?"

"Yes," said Rimrock coldly. "I've been away for some time. I'd like
to know what's going on. You'll excuse me, Mr. Jepson, if I ask you a
few questions about the jumping of the Old Juan claim."

"Ah, yes, yes," spoke up Jepson briskly, "very regrettable case, I'm
sure. But you must remember, if you'll pardon my mentioning it, that I
spoke of this possibility before. The Old Juan claim, as I told you at
the time, placed our entire property in jeopardy. It should have been
re-located before all this had happened; but I have turned over the
whole affair to our attorneys, McVicker and Ord."

"And what do they think?"

"Well, as to that, I can't say. You see, I have really been
frightfully busy. Still, they are a very good firm and I think very
likely the affair can somehow be compromised. Looks very bad for the
Company, as far as the law goes, if you should ask my private opinion;
but all such litigation, while of course very expensive, generally
results, in the end, in a compromise."

"Oh, a compromise, eh? Well, sit down a minute; I want to find out a
few details. Do you think now, for instance, that Whitney H. Stoddard
is back of this man, Ike Bray? Because if he is, and their claim is a
good one, it might make some difference to me."

He said this so naturally and with such apparent resignation that
Jepson almost rose to the bait, but he had learned Rimrock's ways too
well. Such an admission as that, if made before the trial, might
seriously affect Stoddard's case. And besides, this was a matter for
lawyers.

"Well, as to that, Mr. Jones," he replied apologetically, "I really
cannot say. As superintendent of the mine, and lately as acting
manager, I am fully occupied, I am sure----"

"Yes, no doubt," observed Rimrock, suddenly changing his tone, "but
you've got more time, now--I'll take that manager job off your hands."

"What? Take charge of the mine again?" cried Jepson aghast. "Why, I
thought----"

"Very likely," returned Rimrock, "but guess again. I'm still general
manager, unless the Directors have fired me; and believe me, I'm going
to take charge. In the next few days I'm going to go through this
office with a six-shooter and a fine-tooth comb and if I find a single
dollar paid out to Ike Bray some ex-manager is liable to get shot. You
understand that, now don't you, Mr. Jepson? All right then; we can go
ahead. Now will you kindly tell me how, as general manager and mine
superintendent, and being worried so much over that claim, you came to
let the ordinary assessment work lapse on the apex claim to our mine?"

He leaned back in his chair and put one hand in his pocket and Jepson
broke into a sweat. It is no easy task for a man to serve two masters,
and Rimrock had exposed a heavy pistol.

"Well--why, really!" burst out Jepson in desperation, "I thought you
had entrusted that to Mr. Lockhart. He told me so, distinctly, when I
spoke of it in your absence, and naturally I let the matter drop."

"Yes, naturally," drawled Rimrock and as he reached for his
handkerchief Jepson started and almost ran. "You're a great man,
Jepson," he went on cuttingly, "a great little piece of mechanism. Now
come through--what does Stoddard want?"

"Mr. Jones," began Jepson in his most earnest manner, "I give you my
word of honor I don't know of what you are speaking."

"Oh, all right," answered Rimrock, "if that's the way you feel about
it. You stand pat then, and pull the injured innocence? But you're
not much good at it, Jepson; nothing like some people he has working
for him. That fellow Buckbee is a corker. You're too honest, Jepson;
you can't act the part, but Buckbee could do it to perfection. You
should've been there to see him trim me, when I tried that little flier
in Navajoa. Not an unkind word ever passed between us, and yet he
busted me down to a dollar. He was a great fellow--you ought to know
him--you could take a few leaves from his book.

"But here's the proposition as I look at it, Jepson," went on Rimrock
with an ingratiating smile, "you're supposed to be strictly on the
square. You're a solid, substantial, mining engineer, chiefly
interested in holding your job. But on the side, as I happen to know,
you're doing all this dirty work for Stoddard. Now--as general
manager, if I did my duty, I ought to fire you on the spot; but I'm
going to give you a chance. So I'll make you an offer and you can take
it or leave it. If you'll recognize my authority as general manager
and tell me what I'm entitled to know, I'll leave you where you are;
but if you don't I'll not only fire you, but I'll run you out of town.
Now how about it--ain't I the legal manager of this Company?"

"Why--why, yes, Mr. Jones," stammered Jepson abjectly, "as far as that
goes, I'm sure no one will object. Of course it was understood,
between Mr. Stoddard and me, when you went East a year ago----"

"Yes, all right, Mr. Jepson," interrupted Rimrock easily, "now how much
money have we got?"

"Why, as to that," began Jepson his eyes opening wider, "there is quite
a sum in the bank. Some three millions, altogether, but the most of
that is set aside for the construction of the smelter."

"Ah, yes! Exactly! But that was set aside before the Old Juan claim
was jumped. A smelter's no good now, if we're going to lose our
mine--it would be just like making a present of it to Ike Bray."

"Oh, but my dear Mr. Jones!" burst out Jepson in dismay, "you surely
wouldn't stop the smelter now?"

"Well, I don't know why not," answered Rimrock briefly. "Don't you
think so now, yourself?"

He gazed at his superintendent with an unwinking smile and Jepson bowed
his head.

"Oh, very well, sir," he said with a touch of servility, "but Mr.
Stoddard will be greatly put out."

"You're working for me!" spoke up Rimrock sharply, "and we'll spend
that money for something else."

"Spend it?"

"Yes, for lawyers! I hate the whole outfit--they're a bunch of lousy
crooks--but we'll see if money don't talk. I'm going to hire, Jepson,
every lawyer in this Territory that's competent to practice in the
courts. Now look at it fairly, as a business proposition; would it be
right to do anything else? Here's a copper property that you could
sell to-morrow for a hundred million dollars gold, and the apex claim
is jumped. The whole title to the mine is tied up right there--they
can claim every shovelful you mine, and your mill and your smelter to
boot. What kind of a business man would I be if I left this to
McVicker and Ord? No, I'm going to send to San Francisco, and Denver,
and Butte, and retain every mining attorney I can get. It's the only
thing to do; but listen, my friend, I'm not going to tell anybody but
you. So if Stoddard finds this out, or McVicker and Ord, or whatever
blackleg lawyers Ike Bray has, I'll just know where to go. And one
thing more--if I find you've split on me, I'll kill you like a
Mexican's dog."

He rose up slowly and looked Jepson in the eye with glance that held
him cold.

"Very well, sir," he said as he started to his feet. "And now, if
you'll excuse me----"

"All right," nodded Rimrock and as he watched him pass out he gave way
to a cynical smile.

"Good enough!" he said. "They can all go back on me, but there's one
man I know I can trust!"

CHAPTER XXVI

A CHAPTER OF HATE

It was a source of real regret to Mary Fortune that she could not keep
on hating Rimrock Jones. In the long, weary months that she had been
away from him she had almost dismissed him from her mind. Then she had
met him in New York and the old resentment had flashed up into the
white heat of sudden scorn. She despised him for all that she read of
his life in that encounter face to face--the drinking, the gambling,
the cheap, false amusements, and the painted woman at his side. And
when he returned, after ignoring her letters and allowing his mining
claim to lapse, and resumed his fault-finding complaints she had put
him back in his place.

But that was just it, the outburst had relieved her; she had lost her
cherished hate. In the quiet of her room she remembered how he looked,
so beaten and yet so bold. She remembered the blow that her words had
given him when he had learned that his stock was doomed; and that
greater blow when he saw even his equity placed in jeopardy by the
jumping of the Old Juan. Had it not been a little cruel, to fly at
him, after that? He was wrong, of course, but the occasion was great
and his mind was on other things. Yet he had told her, and repeated
it, that she had sold him out--and that she could never endure.

She remained resolutely away until late in the afternoon and then she
returned to the office. It was her office, anyway, as much as his; and
besides, she had left her ear-'phone. Not that she needed it, of
course, but she must keep up appearances, although it seemed impossible
to persuade people that she was no longer deaf. Even Rimrock had
shouted in that old, maddening way the instant she did not reply. It
was natural, of course, but with him at least she would like it the
other way. She would like him to speak as he had spoken at first when
he had come to her office alone. But those days were gone, along with
eaves-dropping Andrew McBain, their first happiness and the golden
dreams. All was gone--all but the accursed gold.

She found Rimrock alone in the silent office, running through filing
cases in blundering haste.

"What are you looking for?" she asked demurely and as he noticed her
amusement he smiled.

"Examining the books," he answered grimly. "Say, how much money have
we got?"

"Oh, don't look there!" she said, pushing the filing drawer back into
its case. "Here, I'll give you our last monthly statement, brought
down to January first."

She ran through the files and with a practised hand drew out the paper
he wanted.

"Much obliged," he mumbled and as he glanced at the total he blinked
and his eyes opened up. "All right!" he said, "that will last me a
while. I might as well spend it, don't you think? I'm General
Manager, as long as I last, and it will take money to beat this man
Bray."

"What, have you taken charge of the legal part of it? I thought that
was left to McVicker and Ord?"

"McVicker and Ord! They're a couple of mutton-heads. Why, Bray has
got Cummins and Ford. I know they're good, because they beat me out of
the Gunsight; but they're nothing to the men I've retained. I've
telegraphed money to ten attorneys already--the best in the United
States, so Ben Birchett, my Geronimo lawyer, says--and they'll be here
within a few days. It'll be a galaxy of the finest legal talent that
ever took a case in Arizona. Ben told me frankly when I called him up
Long Distance that we've got a very weak case; but you wait, they'll
frame something up. We're fighting Stoddard, there isn't a doubt about
it; but we're spending his money, too."

He met her gaze with a disarming grin and the reproaches died on her
lips. After all, it was his right, after what he had suffered, to have
this one, final fling. He was nothing but a child, a great overgrown
boy, and it was fitting he should have his jest. And between him and
Stoddard, the ice-cold lightning-calculator who kept count of every
cent, there was really little to choose. Only Rimrock, of course, was
human. He was a drunken and faithless gambler; a reckless, fighting
animal; a crude, thoughtless barbarian; but his failings were those of
a man. He didn't take advantage of everybody--it was only his enemies
that he raided.

"Yes, you're spending his money," she conceded pleasantly, "but part of
it is yours and--mine."

"Well, all right, then," he said after a moment's thought, "I'll show
you where it's gone."

"No, I didn't mean that," she said, "my point is, don't throw it away.
If we lose this suit, and I think we will, you'll need something to
make a fresh start."

"Nope, it's dead loss to me, whichever way you figure it--if I don't
spend it, it goes to Stoddard. He won't have any mercy on me, even if
we win this case. My stock is gone when the ninety days are up. The
most I can hope is to beat him on this suit. That will make my
Tecolote stock more valuable and maybe I can borrow the money to pay
off the debt at the bank. But I'm busted, right now; I can see my
finish. It's just a question of the epitaph the boys will put over my
grave, and I want that to be: 'He did his damnedest!' Then I'll get
out of town with whatever I have left and begin all over again, down in
Mexico."

"Oh, won't that be fine!" she cried enthusiastically, but Rimrock
looked at her dubiously.

"What, to lose all my money?"

"No, to begin all over again. To get away from this trickery and
dishonesty and the jealousy that spoils all your friends; and start all
over again, get back to real work and build up another success!"

"You sure make it sound attractive," he answered glumly, "but there are
some people who hate to lose. That's me--but cheer up, I haven't lost
yet. You wait till I hire a few expert geologists and I'll prove that
the Old Juan doesn't apex anything. No, absolutely nothing; not even
the ore that's under it. I've got a couple of them coming, now."

She looked at him frowning.

"I don't like you that way," she said impatiently. "It sounds low and
cheap, and I don't like it. And I hope when it's over and you've lost
your case that you'll see that this lawlessness doesn't pay. Of course
it's too late now, because I know you're going to do it, but I do want
you to know how I feel. I liked you best when you were a poor,
hard-handed prospector without a dollar to your name; but what
happiness has it brought you--or me, either, for that matter--all this
money we've got from the mine?"

"Well," began Rimrock; and then he stopped and pondered. "Say, it
hasn't brought us much, after all, now has it? I've helped out a few
friends, but seems like they've all gone back on me. But what makes
you think I'll lose?"

He was watching her furtively, but she sensed his purpose and as
quickly was on her guard.

"Because you're wrong," she said. "You haven't a case. You know you
let your title lapse and now you're trying to evade the law. You're
wrong, in the first place; and in the second place you're trying to be
dishonest. I hope you do lose it."

"Uhrr! Thanks!" he jeered. "The same to you! If I lose, I guess you
lose, too."

"I don't care," she persisted, "I want you to lose--and after it's all
over, I'll tell you something."

She smiled in a mysterious and tantalizing way, but Rimrock's face
never changed.

"You'd better tell me now, while you've got the chance," he suggested
sitting down by her desk. "And by the way, how come you're hearing so
well?"

"Oh, that reminds me!" she cried laughing gayly and picked up her
ear-'phone. "What was that you said?" she asked with mock anxiety,
slipping the headband over her head, and Rimrock looked at her in
surprise.

"By grab!" he exclaimed, "I believe you can hear! What do you carry
that thing around for?"

She twitched it off and gazed at him again with a triumphant but
baffling smile.

"Yes, I _can_ hear," she admitted quietly, "but I'll have to ask you
not to tell. Why, Mr. Jepson and some of these people fairly shout
when they speak to me now."

She smiled again in such a cryptic manner that Rimrock became suddenly
aroused.

"Say, what's going on?" he cried, all excitement, "have you been
listening in on their schemes?"

"Why, Mr. Jones!" she exclaimed reproachfully but still with a twinkle
in her eye; and Rimrock leaned forward eagerly.

"Yes, that's my name," he answered, "go ahead and tell me what you
know."

"No, you wouldn't put it to the best of purposes--but hold this over
your ear." She held up the attachment to his ear and, as she ran up
the dial, she whispered:

"Do you think you could hear through a wall?"

"You bet!" replied Rimrock and as she took it away he gave her a
searching glance. "I wonder," he said, "if you're as innocent as you
look." And Mary broke down and laughed.

"I wonder," she observed, but when he questioned her further she only
shook her head.

"No, indeed," she said, "I won't tell you anything--but after you lose,
come around."

"No, but look!" he urged. "If I lose, you lose. Come through and tell
me now."

"You called me a crook," she answered spitefully, "you said I had sold
you out! Do you think I will tell you, after that? No, you're so
smart, go ahead--Spend your money! Hire a lot of lawyers and experts!
You think I sold you out to Stoddard? Well, go ahead--_you_ try to buy
me! No, I'm going to show you, Mr. Rimrock Jones, that I have never
sold out to anybody--that I can't be bought, nor sold. You need that
lesson more than you need the money that you are wasting in vice and
fraud."

She ended, panting with the anger that swept over her, and Rimrock
thrust out his chin.

"Huh! Vice and fraud!" he repeated scornfully, "you certainly don't
hunt for words. Is it vice and fraud to hire lawyers and experts and
try to win back my own mine? What do you want me to do--go and kow-tow
to Stoddard and ask him to please step on my neck?"

"No, I want you to do what you're going to do--spend the Company's
money, and lose. That money is part mine, but I'll be glad to part
with it if it will cure you of being such a fool."

They faced each other, each heated and angry, and then he showed his
teeth in a smile.

"I know what's the matter," he said at last, "you're jealous of Mrs.
Hardesty!"

She checked the denial that leapt to her lips to search for a more
fitting retort.

"You flatter yourself," she said, smiling thinly, "but you do not
flatter me."

"Yeah, 'vice and crime.' That shows where you good people fall down.
I suppose you think that she was an _awful_ disreputable woman! Well,
she wasn't; she was just another of Stoddard's stool-pigeons that he
uses to work suckers like me. She got me back there and helped him
bleed me and then she kissed me good-bye--so!"

He made the motion of slamming a door and his eyes turned dark with
fury.

"She had a good line of talk herself," he sneered, "and her heart was
as black as that book!"

He pointed to a book that was black indeed but Mary said never a word.
This was news to her, and perhaps it was balm that would in time cure a
wound in her heart, but now it rankled deep.

"I think," she said at last, "the most pitiable spectacle in the world
is you, Mr. Rimrock Jones. You try to buy friends, as if they were
commodities, and you try to buy them wholesale. You set up the drinks
and try to buy the whole town, but what is the result of it all? Why,
you simply attract a lot of leeches and bloodsuckers whose sole purpose
is to get your money. And then, when you finally become disillusioned,
you class them all together. You don't deserve any friends!"

"Well, maybe not!" he answered truculently, "but who's got the most,
right now? You or me? Look at Old Hassayamp Hicks, and Woo Chong--and
L. W.!"

A swift, almost instantaneous, change swept over her sensitive face and
then she closed down her lips; yet Rimrock was quick enough to see it.

"What's the matter?" he challenged. "What's the matter with L. W.?
Ain't he stood by me like a rock? He's in the hospital right now with
a busted arm, and I won't hear a word against him. No, my troubles
have been with women."

A swifter spasm, almost ugly in its rage, came over Mary Fortune's
lips; and then she shut them down again.

"Yes," she said with a sarcastic smile, "I've heard women say the same
about men."

"Oh, you've always got some come-back," he went on blusteringly, "but I
notice you don't say nothing against L. W. Now there was a man who had
done me dirt--he sold me out, on the Gunsight--but when I trusted him
and treated him white L. W. became my best friend. He stood right up
with me against Andy McBain and that bunch of hired gun-fighters he
had; and he'd lay down his life for me, to-morrow. And yet he just
worships money! He thinks more of a dollar than I do of a million, but
could Stoddard buy him out? Not on your life--he voted for the
dividend! But where was my lady friend at?"

He glared at her insultingly and, torn by that great passion that comes
from devotion misprized and sacrifice rewarded with scorn, she leapt up
to hurl back the truth. But a vision rose before her, the picture of
L. W. sobbing and bleeding, his arm flapping beside him, striving
vainly to retrieve his treachery; and the words did not pass her lips.

"_I'm_ not your friend, if that's what you mean," she answered with
withering scorn. "I'm against you, from this moment, on."

"Well, let it ride, then," he responded carelessly, and as she swept
from the room, he smiled.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SHOW-DOWN

For the few brief weeks before the great trial the office was swarming
with men. There were high-priced lawyers and geologists of renown and
experts on every phase of the suit, and in the midst of them sat
Rimrock Jones. He wore his big black hat that had cost him a hundred
dollars--including the hat-check tips at the Waldorf--and his pistol
was always at his hip. Every step of their case was carefully framed
up in the long councils that took place, but at the end Rimrock lost
his nerve. For the first time in his life, and with all eyes upon him,
he weakened and lowered his proud head. He had a hunch he would lose.

For all those weeks he had been haunted by a presence that always
flitted out of his way; but now she was there, in the crowded
court-room, and she greeted him with a slow, mirthless smile. It was
Mary Fortune and he remembered all too well that time when she had told
him he would lose. She had said he would lose because he had no case,
and because he used money instead; but he knew from that smile she had
other reasons for pronouncing his doom in advance. He had lawyers
hired who told him, to the contrary, that he had a very good case--and
Stoddard had spent money, too. Not openly, of course, but through his
attorneys; but that was customary, it was always done. No, behind all
her professions of respect for the judiciary and of worship for the
law, she must know that the right sometimes failed. But behind that
smile there was the absolute certainty that in some way he was certain
to lose.

He met her glance as he came into the court-room surrounded by a troop
of his friends, surrounded by lawyers and mining experts and geologists
who professed to see through the earth, and before her gaze he halted
and blenched. There was another person there who regarded him coldly
with a glance like a rapier thrust; but it was not of Stoddard he was
afraid. It was of Mary Fortune, who had come out against him and who
could hear through walls with her 'phone. What she knew might have
helped him, but she was against him now--and she had told him in
advance that he would lose.

As Rimrock sat thinking, his eyes cast down and his mind far back in
the past, a great blow was struck by the bailiff's mallet and the crowd
rose up to its feet. A stern-faced judge, robed in the black cloak of
his office, stepped out through the curtains behind the bench and as
Rimrock stared the bailiff beckoned him sharply and he scrambled to his
feet with the rest.

"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" cried the bailiff in the words that echoed of the
past. "The United States District Court is now in session!"

He struck again as the judge took his seat and Rimrock sank down into
his chair. But he had stood in respect to the majesty of the law and
it was then that his hunch came back. For this was no appeal to an
elected judge or the easily swayed emotions of a jury; it was an appeal
to the cold, passionless mind of a man who considered nothing but the
law.

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