“You knew nothing of the kind!” she came back sharply, the angry tears starting in her eyes. “And I don’t believe he ever made it.”
“Well, ask him,” suggested Wiley, and went back into the house, whereupon Death Valley closed the door.
“Yes,” whispered Charley, “it’s in the air–there’s electricity everywhere. But what about that option?”
Wiley sat at the table, his eyes big with anger, his jaw set hard against the pain, and then he reached for his pen.
“All right, Charley,” he said, “but don’t you let ’em kid you–you’ve got the best business head in town.”
98CHAPTER XI
A Touch
The wrath of a man who is slow to anger cannot lightly be turned aside and, though Virginia drooped her lashes, the son of Honest John brushed past her without a word. She had followed him gratuitously to Death Valley’s cabin and seriously questioned his good faith; and then, to fan the flames of his just resentment, she had suggested that he was telling an untruth. He had told her–and it seemed impossible–that Blount had offered him half the Paymaster, on shares; but the following morning, without a word of warning, the Paymaster Mine shut down. The pumps stopped abruptly, all the tools were removed, and as the foreman and miners who had been their boarders rolled up their beds and prepared to depart, the high-headed Virginia buried her face in her hands and retired to her bedroom to weep. And then to cap it all that miserable assayer sent in his belated report.
“Gold–a trace. Silver–blank. Copper–blank. Lead–blank. Zinc–blank.”
The heavy white quartz which Wiley had made so much of was as barren as the dirt in the street. It had absolutely no value and–oh, wretched 99thought–he had offered to buy her stock out of charity! Out of the bigness of his heart–and then she had insulted him and accused him of robbing Death Valley Charley! In the light of this new day Death Valley was a magnate, with his check for two hundred dollars, and Virginia and her mother must either starve on in silence or accept the bounty of the Holmans. It was maddening, unbelievable–and to think what he had suffered from her, before he had finally gone off in a rage. But how sarcastic he had been when she had accused him of robbing Charley, and of standing in with Blount! He had said things then which no woman could forgive; no, not even if she were in the wrong. He had led her on to make unconsidered statements, smiling provokingly all the time; and then, when she had doubted that Blount had offered him the mine, he had said, “Well, ask him!” and shut the door in her face! And now, without asking, the question had been answered, for Blount had closed down the mine in despair and gone back to his bank in Vegas.