Rimrock Jones

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"No, Woo," he said, "Ike Bray, he came down and win all my money back."

"Aw, too bad!" breathed Woo Chong and slipped quietly away; but after a
while he came back.

"Too bad!" he repeated. "You my fliend, Misse' Jones." And he laid
five dollars by his hand.

"Ah, no, no!" protested Rimrock, rising up from his place as if he had
suffered a blow. "No money, Woo. You give me my grub and that's
enough--I haven't got down to that!"

Woo Chong went away--he knew how to make gifts easy--and Rimrock stood
looking at the gold. Then he picked it up, slowly, and as slowly
walked out, and stood leaning against a post.

There is one street in Gunsight, running grandly down to the station;
but the rest is mostly vacant lots and scattered adobe houses, creeping
out into the infinitude of the desert. At noon, when he had come to
town, the street was deserted, but now it was coming to life.
Wild-eyed Mexican boys, mounted on bare-backed ponies, came galloping
up from the corrals; freight wagons drifted past, hauling supplies to
distant mining camps; and at last, as he stood there thinking, the
women began to come out of the hotel.

All day they stayed there, idle, useless, on the shaded veranda above
the street; and then, when the sun was low, they came forth like
indolent butterflies to float up and down the street. They sauntered
by in pairs, half-hidden beneath silk parasols, and their skirts
swished softly as they passed. Rimrock eyed them sullenly, for a black
mood was on him--he was thinking of his lost mine. Their faces were
powdered to an unnatural whiteness and their hair was elaborately
coiffed; their dresses, too, were white and filmy and their high heels
clacked as they walked. But who was keeping these women, these wives
of officials, and superintendents and mining engineers? Did they
glance at the man who had discovered their mine and built up the town
where they lived? Well, probably they did, but not so as he could
notice it and take off his battered old hat.

Rimrock looked up the road and, far out across the desert, he could see
his own pack-train, coming in. There was money to be got, to buy
powder and grub, but who would trust Rimrock Jones now? Not the
Gunsight crowd, not McBain and his hirelings--they needed the money for
their women! He gazed at them scowling as they went pacing by him,
with their eyes fixed demurely on space; and all too well he knew that,
beneath their lashes, they watched him and knew him well. Yes, and
spoke to each other, when they were off up the street, of what a bum he
had become. That was women--he knew it--the idle kind; they judged a
man by his roll.

The pack-train strung by, each burro with its saw-horse saddle, and old
Juan and his boy behind.

"Al corral!" directed Rimrock as they looked at him expectantly, and
then he remembered something.

"Oyez, Juan," he beckoned, calling his man servant up to him, "here's
five dollars--go buy some beans and flour. It is nothing, Juanito,
I'll have more pretty soon--and here's four bits, you can buy you a
drink."

He smiled benevolently and Juan touched his hat and went sidling off
like a crab and then once more the black devil came back to plague him,
hissing Money, _Money_, MONEY! He looked up the street and a plan,
long formless, took sudden shape in his brain. There was yet McBain,
the horse-leech of a lawyer who had beaten him out of his claim. More
than once, in black moments, he had threatened to kill him; but now he
was glad he had not. Men even raised skunks, when the bounty on them
was high enough, and took the pay out of their hides. It was the same
with McBain. If he didn't come through--Rimrock shook up his
six-shooter and stalked resolutely off up the street.

The office of the Company was on the ground floor of the hotel--the
corner room, with a rented office beyond--and as Rimrock came towards
it he saw a small sign, jutting out from the farther door:

MARY ROGET FORTUNE
TYPEWRITING.

He glanced at it absently, for strange emotions came over him as he
peered in through that plateglass window. It had been his office, this
same expensive room; and he had been robbed of it, under cover of the
law. He shaded his eyes from the glare of the street and looked in at
the mahogany desk. It was vacant--the whole place was vacant--and
silently he tried the door. That was locked. McBain had seen him and
slipped away till he should get out of town.

"The sneaking cur!" muttered Rimrock in a fury and a passing woman drew
away and half-screamed. He ignored her, pondering darkly, and then to
his ears there came a familiar voice. He listened, intently, and
raised his head; then tiptoed along the wall. That voice, and he knew
it, belonged to Andrew McBain, the man that stole mines for a living.
He paused at the door where Mary Fortune had her sign, then suddenly
forced his way in.

Without thinking, impulsively, he had moved towards that voice as a man
follows some irresistible call. He opened the door and stood blinking
in the doorway, his hand on the pistol at his side. Then he blinked
again, for in the gloom of the back office there was nothing but a desk
and a girl. She wore a harness over her head, like a telephone
operator, and rose up to meet him tremulously.

"Is there anything you wish?" she asked him quietly and Rimrock fumbled
and took off his hat.

"Yes--I was looking for a man," he said at last. "I thought I heard
him--just now."

He came down towards her, still looking about him, and there was a stir
from behind the desk.

"No, I think you're mistaken," she answered bravely, but he could see
the telltale fear in her eyes.

"You know who I mean!" he broke out roughly, "and I guess you know why
I've come!"

"No, I don't," she answered, "but--but this is my office and I hope you
won't make any trouble."

The words came with a rush, once she found her courage, but the appeal
was lost upon Rimrock.

"He's here, then!" he said. "Well, you tell him to come out. I'd like
to talk with him on business--alone!"

He took a step forward and then suddenly from behind the desk a shadow
rose up and fled. It was Andrew McBain, and as he dashed for the rear
door the girl valiantly covered his retreat. There was a quick slap of
the latch, a scuffle behind her, and the door came shut with a bang.

"Oho!" said Rimrock as she faced him panting, "he must be a friend of
yourn."

"No, he isn't," she answered instantly, and then a smile crept into her
eyes. "But he's--well, he's my principal customer."

"Oh," said Rimrock grimly, "well, I'll let him live then. Good-bye."

He turned away, still intent on his purpose, but at the door she called
him back.

"What's that?" he asked as if awakened from a dream. "Why, yes, if you
don't mind, I will."

CHAPTER III

MISS FORTUNE

It was very informal, to say the least, for Mary Fortune to invite him
to stay. To be sure, she knew him--he was the man with the gun, the
man of whom McBain was afraid--but that was all the more reason, to a
reasoning woman, why she should keep silent and let him depart. But
there was a business-like brevity about him, a single-minded
directness, that struck her as really unique. Quite apart from the
fact that it might save McBain, she wanted him to stay there and talk.
At least so she explained it, the evening afterwards, to her censorious
other-self. What she did was spontaneous, on the impulse of the
moment, and without any reason whatever.

"Oh, won't you sit down a moment?" she had murmured politely; and the
savage, fascinating Westerner, after one long look, had with equal
politeness accepted.

"Yes, indeed," he answered when he had got his wits together, "you're
very kind to ask me, I'm sure."

He came back then, a huge, brown, ragged animal and sat down, very
carefully, in her spare chair. Why he did so when his business, not to
mention a just revenge, was urgently calling him thence, was a question
never raised by Rimrock Jones. Perhaps he was surprised beyond the
point of resistance; but it is still more likely that, without his
knowing it, he was hungry to hear a woman's voice. His black mood left
him, he forgot what he had come there for, and sat down to wonder and
admire.

He looked at her curiously, and his eyes for one brief moment took in
the details of the headband over her ear; then he smiled to himself in
his masterful way as if the sight of her pleased him well. There was
nothing about her to remind him of those women who stalked up and down
the street; she was tall and slim with swift, capable hands, and every
line of her spoke subtly of style. Nor was she lacking in those
qualities of beauty which we have come to associate with her craft.
She had quiet brown eyes that lit up when she smiled, a high nose and
masses of hair. But across that brown hair that a duchess might have
envied lay the metal clip of her ear-'phone, and in her dark eyes,
bright and steady as they were, was that anxious look of the deaf.

"I hope I wasn't rude," she stammered nervously as she sat down and met
his glance.

"Oh, no," he said with the same carefree directness, "it was me, I
reckon, that was rude. I certainly didn't count on meeting a lady when
I came in here looking for--well, McBain. He won't be back, I reckon.
Kind of interferes with business, don't it?"

He paused and glanced at the rear door and the typist smiled,
discreetly.

"Oh, no," she said. And then, lowering her voice: "Have you had
trouble with Mr. McBain?"

"Yes, I have," he answered. "You may have heard of me--my name is
Henry Jones."

"Oh--_Rimrock_ Jones?"

Her eyes brightened instantly as he slowly nodded his head.

"That's me," he said. "I used to run this whole town--I'm the man that
discovered the mines."

"What, the Gunsight mines? Why, I thought Mr. McBain----"

"McBain _what_?"

"Why, I thought _he_ discovered the mines."

Rimrock straightened up angrily, then he sat back in his chair and
shook his head at her cynically.

"He didn't need to," he answered. "All he had to do was to discover an
error in the way I laid out my claim. Then he went before a judge that
was as crooked as he was and the rest you can see for yourself."

He thrust his thumb scornfully through a hole in his shirt and waved a
hand in the direction of the office.

"No, he cleaned me out, using a friend of mine; and now I'm down to
nothing. What do you think of a law that will take away a man's mine
because it apexes on another man's claim? I discovered this mine and I
formed the company, keeping fifty-one per cent. of the stock. I opened
her up and she was paying big, when Andy McBain comes along. A shyster
lawyer--that's the best you can say for him--but he cleaned me, down to
a cent."

"I don't understand," she said at last as he seemed to expect some
reply. "About these apexes--what are they, anyway? I've only been
West a few months."

"Well, I've been West all my life, and I've hired some smart lawyers,
and I don't know what an apex is yet. But in a general way it's the
high point of an ore-body--the highest place where it shows above
ground. But the law works out like this: every time a man finds a mine
and opens it up till it pays these apex sharps locate the high ground
above him and contest the title to his claim. You can't do that in
Mexico, nor in Canada, nor in China--this is the only country in the
world where a mining claim don't go straight down. But under the law,
when you locate a lode, you can follow that vein, within an extension
of your end-lines, under anybody's ground. _Anybody's_!"

He shifted his chair a little closer and fixed her with his fighting
blue eyes.

"Now, just to show you how it works," he went on, "take me, for
instance. I was just an ordinary ranch kid, brought up so far back in
the mountains that the boys all called me Rimrock, and I found a rich
ledge of rock. I staked out a claim for myself, and the rest for my
folks and my friends, and then we organized the Gunsight Mining
Company. That's the way we all do, out here--one man don't hog it all,
he does something for his friends. Well, the mine paid big, and if I
didn't manage it just right I certainly never meant any harm. Of
course I spent lots of money--some objected to that--but I made the old
Gunsight pay.

"Then--" he raised his finger and held it up impressively as he marked
the moment of his downfall--"then this McBain came along and edged into
the Company and right from that day, I lose. He took on as attorney,
but it wasn't but a minute till he was trying to be the whole show.
You can't stop that man, short of killing him dead, and I haven't got
around to that yet. But he bucked me from the start and set everybody
against me and finally he cut out Lon Lockhart. There was a man, by
Joe, that I'd stake my life on it he'd never go back on a friend; but
he threw in with this lawyer and brought a suit against me, and just
naturally took--away--my--mine!"

Rimrock's breast was heaving with an excitement so powerful that the
girl instinctively drew away; but he went on, scarcely noticing, and
with a fixed glare in his eyes that was akin to the stare of a madman.

"Yes, took it away; and here's how they did it," he went on, suddenly
striving to be calm. "The first man I staked for, after my father and
kin folks, was L. W. Lockhart over here. He was a cowman then and he
had some money and I figured on bidding him in. So I staked him a good
claim, above mine on the mountain, and sure enough, he came into the
Company. He financed me, from the start; but he kept this claim for
himself without putting it in with the rest. Well, as luck would have
it, when we sunk on the ledge, it turned at right angles up the hill.
Up and down, she went--it was the main lode of quartz and we'd been
following in on a stringer--and _rich_? Oh, my, it was rotten!"

He paused and smiled wanly, then his eyes became fixed again, and he
hurried on with his tale.

"I was standing out in front of my office one day when Tuck Edwards,
the boy I had in charge of the mine, came riding up and says:

"'Rim, they've jumped you!'

"'Who jumped me?' I says.

"'Andrew McBain and L. W.!' he says and I thought at first he was crazy.

"'Jumped our mine?' I says. 'How can they jump it when it's part their
own already?'

"'They've jumped it all,' he says. 'They had a mining expert out there
for a week and he's made a report that the lode apexes on L. W.'s
claim.'

"I couldn't believe it. L. W.? I'd made him. He used to be nothing
but a cowman; and here he was in town, a banker. No, I couldn't
believe it; and when I did it was too late. They'd taken possession of
the property and had a court order restraining me from going onto the
grounds. Not only did they claim the mine, but every dollar it had
produced, the mill, the hotel, everything! And the judge backed them
up in it--what kind of a law is that?"

He leaned forward and looked her in the eyes and Mary Fortune realized
that she was being addressed not as a woman, impersonally, but as a
human being.

"What kind of a law is that?" he demanded sternly and took the answer
for granted.

"That cured me," he said. "After this, here's the only law I know."

He tapped his pistol and leaned back in his chair, smiling grimly as
she gazed at him, aghast.

"Yes, I know," he went on, "it don't sound very good, but it's that or
lay down to McBain. The judges are no better--they're just promoted
lawyers----"

He checked himself for she had risen from her chair and her eyes were
no longer scared.

"Excuse me," she said, "my father was a judge." And Rimrock reached
for his hat.

"Whereabouts?" he asked, groping for a chance to square himself.

"Oh--back East," she said evasively, and Rimrock heaved a sigh of
relief.

"Aw, that's different," he answered. "I was just talking about the
Territory. Well, say, I'll be moving along."

He rose quickly, but as he started for the door a rifle-cartridge fell
from his torn pocket. It rolled in a circle and as he stooped swiftly
to catch it the bullet came out like a cork and let spill a thin yellow
line.

"What's that?" she asked as he dropped to his knees; and he answered
briefly:

"Gold!"

"What--real gold?" she cried rapturously, "gold from a mine? Oh, I'd
like----"

She stopped short and Rimrock chuckled as he scooped up the elusive
dust.

"All right," he said as he rose to his feet, "I'll make you a present
of it, then," and held out the cartridge of gold.

"Oh, I couldn't!" she thrilled, but he only smiled encouragingly and
poured out the gold in her hand.

"It's nothing," he said, "just the clean-up from a pocket. I run
across a little once in a while."

A panic came over her as she felt the telltale weight of it, and she
hastily poured it back.

"I can't take it, of course," she said with dignity, "but it was awful
good of you to offer it, I'm sure."

"Aw, what do we care?" he protested lightly, but she handed the corked
cartridge back. Then she stood off and looked at him and the huge man
in overalls became suddenly a Croesus in her eyes.

"Is that from your mine?" she asked at last and of a sudden his bronzed
face lighted up.

"You bet it is--but look at this!" and he fetched a polished rock from
his pocket. "That's azurite," he said, "nearly forty per cent. copper!
I'm not telling everybody, but I find big chunks of that, and I've got
a whole mountain of low-grade. What's a gold mine compared to that?"

He gave her the rich rock with its peacock-blue coloring and plunged
forthwith into a description of his find. Now at last he was himself
and to his natural enthusiasm was added the stimulus of her spellbound,
wondering eyes. He talked on and on, giving all the details, and she
listened like one entranced. He told of his long trips across the
desert, his discovery of the neglected mountain of low-grade copper
ore; and then of his enthusiasm when in making a cut he encountered a
pocket of the precious peacock-blue azurite. And then of his scheming
and hiring American-born Mexicans to locate the whole body of ore,
after which he engaged them to do the discovery work and later transfer
the claims to him. And now, half-finished, with no money to pay them,
and not even food to keep them content, the Mexicans had quit work and
unless he brought back provisions all his claims would go by default.

"I've got a chance," he went on fiercely, "to make millions, if I can
only get title to those claims! And now, by grab, after all I've done
for 'em, these pikers won't advance me a cent!"

"How much would it cost?" she asked him quickly, "to finish the work
and pay off the men?"

"Two thousand dollars," he answered wearily. "But it might as well be
a million."

"Would--would four hundred dollars help you?"

She asked it eagerly, impulsively, almost in his ear, and he turned as
if he had been struck.

"Don't speak so loud," she implored him nervously. "These women in the
hotel--they're listening to everything you say. I can hear all right
if you only whisper--would four hundred dollars help you out?"

"Not of your money!" answered Rimrock hoarsely. "No, by God, I'll
never come to that!"

He started away, but she caught him by the arm and held him back till
he stopped.

"But I want to do it!" she persisted. "It's a good thing--I believe in
it--and I've got the money!"

He stopped and looked at her, almost tempted by her offer; then he
shook his great head like a bull.

"No!" he said, talking half to himself. "I won't do it--I've sunk low
enough. But a woman? Nope, I won't do it."

"Oh, quit your foolishness!" she burst out impatiently, "I guess I know
my own mind. I came out to this country to try and recoup myself and I
want to get in on this mine. No sentiment, understand me, I'm talking
straight business; and I've got the money--right here!"

"Well, what do you want for it?" he demanded roughly. "If that's the
deal, what's your cut? I never saw you before, nor you me. How much
do you want--if we win?"

"I want a share in the mine," she answered instantly. "I don't
care--whatever you say!"

"Well, I'll go you," he said. "Now give me the money and I'll try to
make both of us rich!"

His voice was trembling and he followed every movement as she stepped
back behind her desk.

"Just look out the window," she said as he waited; and Rimrock turned
his head. There was a rustle of skirts and a moment later she laid a
roll of bills in his hand.

"Just give me a share," she said again and suddenly he met her eyes.

"How about fifty-fifty--an undivided half?" he asked with a dizzy smile.

"Too much," she said. "I'm talking business."

"All right," he said. "But so am I."

CHAPTER IV

AS A LOAN

Rimrock Jones left town with four burro-loads of powder, some
provisions and a cargo of tools. He paid cash for his purchases and
answered no question beyond saying that he knew his own business. No
one knew or could guess where he had got his money--except Miss
Fortune, and she would not tell. From the very first she had told
herself that the loan was nothing to hide, and yet she was too much of
a woman not to have read aright the beacon in Rimrock's eyes. He had
spoken impulsively, and so had she; and they had parted, as it turned
out, for months.

[Illustration: Rimrock Jones left town with four burro-loads of powder,
some provisions and a cargo of tools]

The dove that had crooned so long in the umbrella tree built a nest
there and cooed on to his mate. The clear, rainless winter gave place
to spring and the giant cactus burst into flower. It rained, short and
hard, and the desert floor took on suddenly a fine mat of green; and
still he did not come. He was like the rain, this wild man of the
desert; swift and fierce, then gone and forgotten. Once she saw his
Mexican, the old, bearded Juan, with his string of shaggy burros at the
store; but he brought her no word and went off the next day with more
powder and provisions in his packs.

It was all new to Mary Fortune, this stern and barren country; and its
people were new to her, too. The women, for some reason, had regarded
her with suspicion and her answer was a patrician aloofness and
reserve. When the day's work was done she took off her headband and
sat reading in the lobby, alone. As for the men of the hotel, the
susceptible young mining men who passed to and fro from Gunsight, they
found her pleasant, but not quite what they had expected--not quite
what Dame Rumor had painted her. They watched her from the distance,
for she was undeniably goodlooking--and so did the women upstairs.
They watched, and they listened, which was not the least of the reasons
why Mary Fortune laid her ear-'phone aside. No person can enjoy the
intimacies of life when they are shouted, ill-advisedly, to the world.

But if when she first came to town, worn and tired from her journey,
she had seemed more deaf than she was, Mary Fortune had learned, as her
hearing improved, to artfully conceal the fact. There was a certain
advantage, in that unfriendly atmosphere, in being able to overhear
chance remarks. But no permanent happiness can come from small talk,
and listening to petty asides; and, for better or worse, Mary took off
her harness and retired to the world of good books. She read and she
dreamed and, quite unsuspected, she looked out the window for him.

The man! There is always a man, some man, for every woman who dreams.
Rimrock Jones had come once and gone as quickly, but his absence was
rainbowed with romance. He was out on the desert, far away to the
south, sinking shafts on his claims--their claims. He had discovered a
fortune, but, strong as he was, he had had to accept help from her. He
would succeed, this fierce, ungovernable desert-man; he would win the
world's confidence as he had won her faith by his strength and the bold
look in his eyes. He would finish his discovery work and record all
his claims and then--well, then he would come back.

So she watched for him, furtively, glancing quickly out the window
whenever a horseman passed by; and one day, behold, as she looked up
from her typing, he was there, riding by on his horse! And as he
passed he looked in, under the shadow of his hat, and touched a bag
that was tied behind his saddle. He was more ragged than ever, and one
hand had a bandage around it; but he was back, and he would come. She
abandoned her typewriting--one of those interminable legal papers that
McBain was always leaving on her desk--and stepped out to look down the
street.

The air, warm and soft, was spiced with green odors and the resinous
tang of the greasewood; the ground dove in his tree seemed swooning
with passion as he crooned his throaty, Kwoo, kwoo-o. It was the
breath of spring, but tropical, sense-stealing; it lulled the brain and
bade the heart leap and thrill. This vagabond, this rough horseman
with his pistol and torn clothing and the round sack of ore lashed
behind; who would ever dream that an adventurer like him could make her
forget who she was? But he came from the mine she had helped him to
save and the sack might be heavy with gold. So she watched,
half-concealed, until he stopped at the bank and went striding in with
the bag.

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