“Well, I’ll be bound!” he puffed and gazed at the quit-claim ruefully.
The tables were all set when Wiley re-entered the dining-room from which he had retreated once before in such haste, and Virginia was there and waiting, though her smile was a trifle uncertain. A great deal of water had flowed down the gulch since he had advised her to keep her stock, but the assayer at Vegas was worse than negligent–he had not reported on the piece of white rock. Therefore she hardly knew, being still in the dark as to his motives in giving the advice, whether to greet Wiley as her savior or to receive him coldly, as a Judas. If the white quartz was full of gold that her father had overlooked–say fine gold, that would not show in the pan–then Wiley was indeed her friend; but if the quartz was barren and he had purposely deceived her in order to boom his own mine–she smiled with her lips and asked him rather faintly if he wanted his supper at once.
But if Virginia was still a Huff, remembering past treacheries and living in the expectancy of more, the Widow cast aside all petty heart-burnings in her joy at the humiliation of Stiff Neck George. Leaving Virginia in the kitchen, to fry Wiley’s 84steak, she rushed into the dining-room with her eyes ablaze and all but shook his hand.
“Well, well,” she exulted, “I’ll have to take it back–you certainly did boot him good. I said you were a coward but I was watching you through my spy-glass and I nearly died a-laughing. You just walked right up to him–and you were cursing him scandalous, I could tell by the look on your face–and then all at once you made a jump and gave him that awful kick. Oh, ho, ho; you know I’ve always said he looked like a man that was watching for a swift kick from behind; and now–after waiting all these years–oh, ho ho–you gave him what was coming to him!”
The Widow sat down and held her sides with laughter and Wiley’s grim features, that had remained set and watchful, slowly relaxed to a flattered grin. He had indeed stood up to Stiff Neck George and booted him down the dump, so that the score of that night when he had been hunted like a rabbit was more than evened up; for George had sneaked up on an unarmed man and rolled down boulders from above, but he had outfaced him, man to man and gun to gun, and kicked him down the dump to boot. Yes, the Widow might well laugh, for it would be many a long day before Stiff Neck George heard the last of that affair.
“And old Blount,” laughed the Widow, “he was right there and saw it–his own hired bully, and all. Say, now Wiley, tell me all about it–what did Blount have to say? Did he tell you it was 85all a mistake? Yes, that’s what he tells everybody, every time he gets into trouble; but he can’t make excuses to me. Do you know what he’s done? He’s tied up all my stock as security for eight hundred dollars! What’s eight hundred dollars–I turned it all in to get the best of my diamonds out of pawn. It made me feel so bad, seeing that diamond ring of yours; I just couldn’t help getting them out. And now I’m flat and he’s holding all my stock for a miserable little eight hundred dollars!”
She ended up strong, but Wiley sensed a touch and his expressions of sympathy were guarded.
“Now, you’re a business man,” she went on unheedingly. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do–you lend me the money to get back that stock and I’ll sell it all to your father!”
“To my father!” echoed Wiley and then his face turned grim and he laughed at some hidden joke. “Not much,” he said, “I like the Old Man too much. You’d better sell it back to Blount.”
“To Blount? Why, hasn’t your father been hounding me for months to get his hands on that stock? Well, I’d like to know then what you think you’re doing? Have you gone back on your promise, or what?”