“What’s to prevent?” he repeated. “Well, I’ll tell you what. If Blount makes a strike he’ll close that mine down and send the company through bankruptcy. Then he’ll buy the mine back on a judgment and you’ll be left without a cent.”
“But what about you?” she suggested shrewdly. “Will you let him serve youlike that?”
“Don’t you think it!” he answered. “I know him too well–my money is somewhere else.”
“But if you should buy the mine?”
“Well─” he stirred uneasily and then shot his machine ahead–“I haven’t bought it yet.”
“No, but you offered to, and I don’t see why─”
“Do you want to sell your stock?” he asked abruptly and she flushed and shook her head. “Well!” he said and without further comment he slowed down and swung about.
“Oh, dear,” she sighed, as they started back and he turned upon her swiftly.
“Do you know why I wouldn’t have that mine,” he inquired, “if you’d hand it to me as a gift? It’s because of this everlasting fight. I own it, right 65now, if anybody does, and I’ve never been down the shaft. Now suppose I’d go over there and shoot it out with George and get possession of my mine. First Blount would come up with some other hired man-killer and I’d have a bout with him; and then your respected mother─”
“Now you hush up!” she chided and he closed down his jaw like a steel-trap. She watched him covertly, then her eyes began to blink and she turned her head away. The desert rushed by them, worlds of waxy green creosote bushes and white, gnarly clumps of salt bush; and straight ahead, frowning down on the forgotten city, rose the black cloud-shadow of Shadow Mountain.