“A fortune!” echoed Blount, and then he clasped his hands and sank down weakly in a chair. “I knew it!” he moaned, “I knew it all the time–you’ve been trying to get that mine for months. But what is it, Wiley? Have you located the lost vein? Oh, I knew it; all the time!”
“Yes, you did,” jeered Wiley, “you didn’t know 116anything, except how to grab hold of the stock. What good was it to you after you’d got the old mine–you didn’t know what to do with it! All you knew was how to rob the widow and the orphan and deprive better men of their good name. You wait till I tell my Old Man about this–and how you were selling him out, all the time. If it wasn’t for you he’d never been called Honest John by a bunch of these tin-horns and crooks. But I’ll show you who’s honest–I’m going to skin you alive for what you did to my father. You wait till I make my clean-up!”
“But what is it, Wiley?” cried Blount, despairingly. “Have you really discovered the lost vein?”
“No,” grinned Wiley, “but I’ve consulted an expert and he tells me the mine is worth millions!”
“What–millions?” burst out Blount, struggling up to his feet. “Now here, Wiley Holman; I want that option back! You secured it by fraud and misrepresentation and by concealment of the actual facts. I’ll have the law on you–I’ll break the contract–you came here with intent to defraud!”
“Don’t you think it!” returned Wiley, thrusting out his lip. “You thought you were trimming me, like taking candy from a baby. Why didn’t youget an expert? I offered to hire out to you, myself!”
“Oh–hell!” choked Blount. “Well, tell me the worst–where was it he told you to dig?”
“Why right down the shaft,” answered Wiley blandly. “He’s a new kind of mining expert and he locates the gold by electricity.”
117“By electricity!” exclaimed Blount, and as he perceived Wiley’s smile he straightened up in a rage. “I don’t believe a word of it. Who is this man, anyway? I never heard of such a thing before!”
“Oh, yes!” said Wiley, as he stepped out the door, “you know the professor well. They call him Death Valley Charley.”