CHAPTER XI.—OWNER OF THE PEACOCK MINE.
HE next morning Vance was up at an early hour for a morning walk. He followed the winding road up the hill-side toward Gray Rocks. The air was fresh and invigorating; the sun was just rising over the eastern mountains. Robins and mountain thrushes were twittering gaily their morning songs. He mentally compared the stifled life so prevalent in the great cities to the healthful and exhilarating prospect about him.
A shadow flitted across his mind. It was J. Arthur Boast’s inquiry in regard to Louise Bonifield. “But why should I be so ready to come to her rescue? What right have I to be her champion? They may be old acquaintances, but they certainly are not friends. She is too noble a character to form an alliance of friendship with such an individual as Boast. He is critical, cold, calculating, and, I believe, unprincipled.”
Walking on in an aimless way, he followed a path that led by Gray Rocks on toward the Peacock. Presently he saw a well-dressed man in middle life walking toward him. There was an unmistakable look of good living and prosperity—a general air of superiority about him. His round, fat face was smooth shaven, except a bristly dark moustache. His nose was large and obtrusive. In his shirt front glistened a diamond of great value, while its counterpart reflected the morning sun from a massive ring on one of his fat, short fingers.
“Good morning,” said he.
Vance returned the salutation, and presently the pompous stranger introduced himself as Rufus Grim, owner of the Peacock.
“Yes, I have heard of you,” replied Vance.
"You’re the young man from New York, I reckon,” said Grim.
“New York is my home.”
“Yes, I have heard about you. I rather expected you over to see me. I assure you, Mr. Gilder,” he went on, “it would afford me great pleasure to show you through the Peacock. She is a fine piece of property, I can tell you; none better. If you’ll walk down this way a little we can see the old prospect shaft where the precious metal of the Peacock was first discovered.”
Vance readily consented, and presently they came to an old, open shaft near the brow of the mountain overlooking the village of Gold Bluff and the valley below.
“Here,” said Rufus Grim, with a wave of his fat hand, “is where I commenced prospecting fifteen years ago. I was one of the pioneers in this mining camp. Sometimes I did not know where the next meal was coming from, but I worked on, day after day; first for wages, and then for an interest in what, at the time, was looked upon as a labor and money losing investment. I stuck to it; the other fellows didn’t. Finally I bought out the other fellows, and if you have heard very much about the history of Gold Bluff and the prosperity of her mines, of course you have heard about me. In fact,” he said, with vulgar braggadocio, “the history of the Peacock and my own are so interwoven that you couldn’t very well hear of one and not know all about the other.”
“Yes,” replied Vance, “I have heard a great deal of you. Mr. Grim, and am delighted to have the pleasure of knowing you personally.”
“Yes, I presume,” said Grim, as he looked away toward the valley that nestled beneath their feet, “I presume you’ve heard a great deal about Rufus Grim that is not true, and precious little to my credit. I have not a doubt but what the busy-bodies of Gold Bluff have told you that old, worn-out story about Steve Gibbons and Hank Casey, and how unjustly I treated them; but I can tell you,” he continued with warmth, “there’s not a word of truth in all that you may have heard. No, sir, I have climbed the ladder step by step and built up my own fortune, and whatever I am to-day, I have nobody to thank but myself.”
“I assure you,” said Vance, “I have heard nothing particularly to your discredit. In fact, I have heard next to nothing at all, except that you were the owner of the Peacock, and that it is a paying property.”
Rufus Grim looked at Vance at first as if he doubted him, and then expressed his surprise that no one had told him what a mean man he was. “If you get acquainted with that young scoundrel, Boast, he’ll tell you quick enough—a miserable story; how I cheated Casey and Gibbons out of their share of the mine; but I say it’s false,” he continued, as he brought his fat hands down together, “not a word of truth in any of their statements. No, sir. You see,” he went on, turning to the old prospect shaft, “I have put a wall around this so that it may be preserved. It gratifies me to come here occasionally and think over the hard times of my prospecting life and the change that has come. It came, sir, because I made it come. Yonder is my home,” said he, waving his hand toward an elegant residence located in the suburbs of the village, with beautiful grounds about it. “If there is any better in the Fish River mining district, I don’t know it.”
"You’re home,” said Vance, “is certainly a lovely looking place.”
“You are at liberty,” said Grim “to come and see me whenever you desire. I can’t promise you more than this, that you will be welcome.” Grim made this last remark as if he was bestowing a great favor upon a stranger within the gates of Gold Bluff; indeed, one might have imagined him Lord Mayor of some municipality granting the freedom of the city to some favored guest.
Vance thanked him for the invitation. With a stately bow to Vance, Grim turned and walked toward the works on the Peacock, and Vance returned to the hotel refreshed from his walk, and interested in the fragments of the story he had heard from the owner of the Peacock.
At the appointed hour he called for Louise, and, together, they walked briskly toward Silver Point Lake.
Louise was all animation and life, and thought nothing of the two miles’ walk which lay before them.
Indeed, she had followed these mountain paths from her early childhood, and felt less fatigue after a tramp of a half-dozen miles than many a city belle after walking a half-dozen blocks.
It might be well to explain that Louise’s mother was a lady of great culture and refinement, and belonged to one of the oldest families of Baltimore. She died when Louise was only four years old. A spinster sister of Colonel Bonifield tried to persuade her brother to give up his daughters while he was leading a life in the mountains, and let than be reared to womanhood at the old Bonifield home in Virginia, but Ben Bonifield could not do this. The loss of his wife was a severe blow, and to part with his daughters, Virginia and Louise, could not be thought of. Therefore, Aunt Sully had accepted her brother’s invitation to make her home in the mountains, and take upon herself the care and training of her brother’s children.
Aunt Sally was a lady in the olden time possessed of uncommon gifts and a finished education, not only in classical literature, but also in music and painting. Louise had proven a more apt scholar than her elder sister, Virginia. Aunt Sally had been a most painstaking instructress, and her wards had grown up with minds enriched and cultured, while their physical development was in keeping with the wild freedom of a health-sustaining mountain country.
In her later years, however, Aunt Sally had become greatly dissatisfied with her brother and his attachment for Gray Rocks, and she had developed a querulous disposition, which, at times, was very annoying to Ben Bonifield. She lost no opportunity to express her opinion that “he was fooling his time away” while working on Gray Rocks.
As Vance and Louise walked along that morning toward Silver Point Lake, he could not help glancing at the ruddy glow on the fair cheeks of his companion. He listened to her childish talk of the many excursions which she had made with her father far over some of the tallest mountains that lav before them, and of numerous “fish frys” they had enjoyed at Silver Point Lake.
While he listened to the sweet music of her voice, he mentally speculated as to what sort of a friendship, if any, could possibly exist between such a fair creature and J. Arthur Boast. Presently, looking up at Vance with her large blue eyes, she said:
“We may have company at the lake.”
“Why, how is that?” inquired Vance in some surprise.
“I received a note,” replied Louise, “from Bertha Allen, inviting me to go horseback riding to-day. In my reply I explained my previous engagement with you. Just before starting this morning I received a note from her saying that she and her cousin, Arthur Boast, would try to join our fishing party. Of course,” she said, with a sweet little laugh, “you do not know who Bertha Allen is. Bertha Allen,” she went on, “is Mr. Rufus Grim’s step-daughter. Mr. Grim married Mrs. Allen when Bertha was a girl in her early teens. Mrs. Allen is Colonel Boast’s sister, and Bertha and Arthur are, therefore, cousins.”
Vance did not fancy the prospect of meeting Boast, and felt that his happiness for the day would certainly be very incomplete if Boast was to be one of the fishing party.
“I have met Mr. Boast,” said Vance, with just a tinge of resentment in his voice.
“I hope you like him,” said Louise, as she turned her lovely face toward him with a pleading look in her eyes.
“May I ask you why you hope so?” asked Vance, in almost a defiant tone.
There was no maidenly blush on Louise’s cheeks as she replied with the simplicity of a child:
“Why, Mr. Gilder, there is hardly anybody that likes Arthur, and I sometimes feel sorry for him. Mr. Grim says very hard things about him, and no one seems to be his friend.”
“Perhaps he is unworthy,” replied Vance.
For a moment Louise was silent, and then said:
“The judgment of the world, Mr. Gilder, is often at fault. We may judge with a degree of accuracy art, music, fame, or power, but it is hardly wise to apply the same rule to a human being.”
